“So, what’s in the bag?”

It’s time for that favorite magazine feature, the single-page photo splash and sidebar: the bag of the moment. So-and-so (traveling features editor, or top-ten tennis player, or spelunking archeologist) has a bag which goes with them everywhere, filled with the essentials of the trade-on-the-go. Well, I’ve got a bag too, and in response to the incredible media pressure surrounding the mystery of its contents, I am providing this guided tour. Hold onto your hats!

Clockwise from the top: The Bag Itself, joyfully spilling its contents for the world to see; laminated recipe sheets of top-secret, in-house recipes for things like…vinaigrette (sensitive material!); various transport containers for coffee beans (that’s Armeno Coffee Roasters espresso blend, in case you were wondering, the only coffee we have ever served at Osteria Pane e Salute since Day 1); a list of our product history from one of our vendors (so that I can pretend I’ve actually memorized their products numbers and recite them back when placing an order, so impressive!); sage that I forgot I had picked, getting slowly crushed in the bag (in case a pig roast pops up and they’re short on seasoning) ; a plastic tray on its way back to work; a lid doing likewise (not very useful, those two together though!); an old-school edition of the original pane e salute t-shirt, just to have a fresh shirt around (hey, I bet you sometimes need a fresh shirt yourself, so visit our new t-shirt design at zazzle.com (enter “pane e salute” in the search window)); my shoe with my foot in it, and not really part of this exercise; an Italian table knife for impromptu roadside harvests, or slicing things at a sudden picnic (picnics are practically a hazard in these parts); gum for the drive home (at the end of a long night, I need gum); a small tube of pain-reliever which actually contains hair-goo for those impromptu TV appearances (you know it’s all about preparedness!) (by the way: where the hell is the pain reliever?); graphite oil for lubing up stiff parts (like door catches, OK?); another tote bag for trips to the grocery for last-minute-crisis items (“we’re out of Dagoba chocolate again? Run, man, run!”); a small ziplock bag of Chinese roots and hot-peppers for infusing chicken stock (during a week when we weren’t feeling so hot; thanks Glenn!); stainless steel screws for securing things that might get wet (in a kitchen, everything gets wet sometime. Can also be said of everything in Vermont); plastic shopping bags (for transporting garden harvests to the restaurant, or in case I spy something edible on the side of the road, or in case it rains and Deirdre needs an emergency hat).

There! The secrets are revealed! Now Everyman can see that I am just like him (“Hey, look, he’s got graphite oil too! Just like me!”) Let’s hope this will relieve the media pressure, and give those hyper-active paparazzi a chance to focus on other, more light-hearted fare, or perhaps, even a legit story…

(Missing from photo: the 20 grand I keep on hand, just to have some funny money around when the white-truffle mules show up…You know how it is!)