Don’t Talk About the Restaurants

It is a cardinal sin to talk about your restaurants in the greenroom. The idea being, of course, that all restaurant discussion and reactions there of should remain fresh and relatively spontaneous.

It was hardest for me to abide by this rule last week because Suppenküche is seriously one of my favoritest restaurants in the city and it was nearly impossible for me to keep quiet. I kept shoving cheese, bread, and fruit (greenroom catering courtesy of Whole Foods) in my mouth to keep from yelling, "Did you have the Cheese Späztle with onion butter? It's TOTALLY German mac and cheese!" or "How about the green salad that has a garlicky dressing that's to die for?" or "My husband craves the pickled herring, which, yes, does seem like a creepy thing to crave but did any of you order it?" or "Two words: Jäger. Schntizel."

So, when you can't talk about the giant elephant steak in the room, you tend to talk about everything else.

With Jeffrey, I talked about cats, beer, and the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle.

In the first case, he told me this heartbreakingly bittersweet story about how his cat died that I can't bear to repeat because I will just start bawling and I don't think tears and snot are especially good for my keyboard.

Yeah, so, after that, we quickly segued to a beer discussion where we bonded over our mutual love for Belgian beers, particularly Chimay. We also agreed that the order of preference is Chimay White, Chimay Blue, Chimay Red. They are all good but they are not created equal.

Jeffrey and I also had a very in-depth discussion about the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle which spawned from the fact that Jeffrey was wearing a pentagram around his neck. Or maybe it was a pentacle. Shoot, now I can't remember.

Jeremy and I bonded over our mutual coffee obsessions and love for Blue Bottle. I described how my husband researched and bought me an awesome coffee grinder -- one which Jeremy gave me the thumbs-up on -- and he told me I needed to check out Ritual Roasters on Valencia.

I'm looking through my notes and I see: "Annabelle: pnk wl skt LOVE." Which, of course translates to me coveting Annabelle's pink wool skirt that had this awesomely vintage 30s cut to it.

It was really sweet, actually, because Annabelle brought her husband along and he got to watch the entire taping. First he hung out in the control room and then, about halfway through the show, he got to watch on set.

Halfway through the taping, Jeffrey plucked some (very real) grapes off the centerpiece and ate them. Margaret, one of the floor managers, teased him that we were going to have to reshoot because he screwed up the continuity. Jeffrey quipped, "You know, if they notice that, they just aren't drinking enough," which got a big laugh from the control room.