Would You Like Whipped Cream With That?

It's been a wild week.  I'm resting up some sore body parts.

And I'm bored.

At least I had the foresight to visit the library and bring home an armful of  books.

When I'm not too whacked-out on drugs for the sore body parts, I actually read them.

Having finished How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill has me wanting to work for the one-on-every-corner coffee giant.  (Don't worry.  I'll get over this wish, as soon as I open the next book.  I can just imagine me messing up everybody's coffee order.  I can, however, mix you a stiff chocolate milk.) 

Gill was a WASP-y boy, born on the Upper East Side of New York and schooled at Yale.  These privileged beginnings ushered him directly into a top advertising agency.  His career thrived.  His family life suffered.  Eventually, all his professional wisdom and experience meant nothing in a world where youth and vigor reigned.  He made a few other mistakes along the way and boom, he was out of the agency and out of his comfy Connecticut home.

"I had been placed on an upward escalator reserved for those few affluent, properly educated, well spoken and well dressed peers who would never stop ascending.  I had not voluntarily gotten of that easy escalator . . . I had been pushed and then stumbled farther down.  . . . and no one seemed to have been able to help me or even really notice my great distress and basic needs."

But one day, he sat at a Starbucks table, drinking a latte, and a young manager offered him a job.  And he was just desperate enough to take it.

Did he like it?  Could he handle the pressure of serving the public, of remembering the differences between an Iced Venti Americano (light on the ice) and a Decaf Grande Skim Two Pump No Whip Mocha?  And how did it feel when friends from his former life came in to the store at 93rd and Broadway and found him behind the counter, wearing an apron instead of a business suit?

I think you will like finding all that out for yourself.

Meanwhile, thaw out the chicken breasts, fire up the grill and whip up the heavenly sauce for:

Grilled Basil Chicken and Tomatoes