Last week I had the enormous privilege of officiating the wedding of two dear friends.
Standing there with them, looking out at all the people who had traveled to be part of this one very special day, I kept thinking about the strange weight we give to moments like these. We gather everyone we love, choose the flowers and the music and the food, write vows, make speeches, take hundreds of photographs, and for a few hours pay very close attention to something we usually move through much more casually: a life being built with another person.
The idea at the center of what I said to them that day was that most of life is Tuesdays.
The wedding day is extraordinary, but the marriage happens afterward. It happens at the farmers’ market and over dinner, in the errands and the inside jokes, when both people are tired at the same time, and when there is absolutely nothing interesting to report about the day. The big moments matter, of course, but a good life can’t depend entirely on them. It has to be pretty good on a Tuesday, too.
I think writing that speech gave me words for something I’ve believed for a long time, and something that has shaped the way I’ve tried to live my life and run allmine. I want the birthdays to feel special, the anniversaries to be remembered, the big table celebrating something important to feel cared for from the minute they walk in.
But I care just as much about making an ordinary Tuesday feel like it mattered. Maybe even more, because there are so many more Tuesdays.
That’s the restaurant I’ve always wanted allmine to be. The one you choose for the celebration, but also the one you wander into for lunch in the middle of the week when you have an hour to spare and could use some handmade pasta; where you meet the friend who works nearby, come in hungry after the beach, or order a sandwich and a glass of wine and decide the rest of the afternoon can wait a little longe, or hurry back to your to do list. When we're a stop on your way to pick-up the kids and suprise them with the best bread eveeeer.
It’s probably no accident, then, that Tuesday's Board Hour became an all-day affair. $5 natural wine and local beer, cheese or meat boards, house focaccia and pickles, from the time we open until we close. It’s our small contribution to making Tuesday a little more special.
And lunch, especially, has become part of this for me. I love having a deliciously unnecessary proper lunch on an otherwise ordinary day. Sitting down instead of eating at your desk, meeting someone you’ve been missing, ordering the good thing because it’s Tuesday and Tuesday is actually quite a large percentage of your life.
So consider this a reminder that we’re open for lunch, we’re open on Labor Day, and we’re open seven days a week.
Bring us the birthdays and the anniversaries and all the reasons to celebrate. But please bring us your Tuesdays, too.
Roxana and your allmine family
