An ex-seminary student who stumbled his way into a waiter's apron, this thirty something schlub finds he has a knack for gratuity-based servitude. Soon he's waiting tables at a posh Manhattan eatery, hustling customers, mastering the staff and ruminating all the way. When he starts an anonymous blog the damn thing takes off and he begins to document the tableside atrocities and simple graces he bears witness to every single slam-packed shift. From high-end diners who see him as peasant to new age foodies who fondle his menus, Steve Dublanica - aka The Waiter - delivers a rogue's gallery of upscale customers, plus all the drifters, saints and deviants behind the scenes of your favorite above-average bistro. Despite the requisite ringer (he'd never spit in your food just because you're rude, but he might ask that three pack a day smoker back in the kitchen if he will), Dublanica nonetheless does a great service to a job he finds both compelling and fecund. Along with all the dining room debauchery, he adroitly examines his lack of career path and mines it for even more material. His anguish is as delicious as it is oddly familiar and I'm a new regular at his popular website. Hopefully I can get a good table...(As for my book, it's still an amorphous mess. Much love to those who've tried to help me and to those still determined to do so. I'm confident it will happen but have learned to not let it make me crazy. I only hope that when I do, it will rank among my own list of favorite occupational memoirs, like Rivethead , Eyeing the Flash , Kitchen Confidential, Riding Rockets and Blue Blood. Someday...)
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