AAUP at TUC, and Red Feather Kitchen

Wednesday 10 September

This was one of those odd days when Barbara went one way (to her AAUP Associates Council meeting) and Holt went another (to a talk, and then out to dinner with the speaker).

Barbara's meeting was at Tangeman, UC's student center; it was catered by their staff, and chosen by nice Anne at the AAUP office.  There was a huge layout: Mexican chicken soup (the tortillas were like matzo balls), green salad, fresh fruit salad, marinated vegetables, fettuccine with pesto sauce for the vegetarians, baked halibut with lemon pepper sauce for the piscivores, grilled chicken with tomato, bacon, and caper cream sauce for the meatatarians, rosemary roasted potatoes, roasted mixed eggplant, squash, onion and red pepper; and for dessert, some cookies and brownies with your choice of coffee/tea/decaf/iced tea.  

It was abundant, and the Associates dove in, chowing down throughout the meeting.  Since Barbara had asked Anne to supply them with tupperware, most of the food was either eaten or taken home; Barbara took hers home, and nuked and ate it there.

Holt, on the other hand, was taken out to a new place in Oakley, the Red Feather Kitchen.  They bill themselves as a "scratch kitchen," but that is hardly a standout; we usually don't go anyplace where the food might be frozen and nuked (like T.G.I. Friday's or the Montgomery Inn - and we have our doubts about TUC, but that's not a choice we can make).

The Red Feather supplied Holt with a trio of Wellfleet oysters, and then a nicely-grilled hangar steak with roasted vegetables and chimichurri sauce.  

It would have been a fine experience, but as the evening drew on, the waiters plainly thought that the party was lingering past their bedtime.  They not only cleared the plates of all the party except Holt (quite the faux pas), but took the bread basket away - at which point Holt rebelled, asked for more bread, and then took his good sweet time mopping his plate.  

The food seems good, but the Red Feather waitstaff need to be sent to the re-education camp before we dine there again.