On the Plate

What fortuitous timing. Yesterday, during a culture meeting for the company I work for, I was asked to make our new office "pretty." The enthusiasm for my selection stemmed from the knowledge that I whipped Pierce Avenue into shape in under a month. (The key to getting anything done is setting a deadline, and in the case of my new home, I set the date for a party.)

The company's new location will be at the corner of Van Buren and S. 9th, just across the street from St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The highlight of the place is not its "decaying elegance," though there is certainly something to be said of it, but its porch. I find it fitting that a company, which has positioned itself as helping businesses with their identity, would work out of a place reminiscent of a home. Homes are incubators of our identities.

Lagniappe:

(Signing with Helen DeFrance on November 28 at Square Books.)

Bess Currence Reed, formerly of Regal Literary out of NYC (and now all things BBB with her husband and chef, John Currence) just asked me to write about Helen DeFrance's forthcoming cookbook At Home Cafe: Gatherings for Family and Friends. I'll be interviewing Helen for an article that will tie-in with her event in Oxford on November 28.