My childhood may explain the caviar.
Mom! What’s for dinner?! I yelled, slamming the door behind me. My ten-year-old self was always hungry. Growing up in the 70s, with parents who lived through the Great Depression and WWII, food was fuel. Portioned, practical, and never wasted. Still, hope sprang eternal as I flew through the back door, wishing for a smorgasbord.
Mom smiled and said, “It’s rib night!”
YES!” I yelled! “Rib night!” One of Mom’s few specialties. Beef ribs!
Dinner was announced, and my brothers and I raced to the table. The vinyl tablecloth, its loud orange floral pattern, was an impenetrable shield for the colonial maple dinner table.
And there it was. The rib. One. Thin. Beef rib. Next to it, a baked potato and string beans. We ate like prisoners. Heads down, eyes alert. Watchful, suspicious. God forbid you needed to go pee. Leaving your plate unattended was an open invitation to pilfer.
We were a middle-class family, but based on our meals, you’d think we fell out of a Dickens novel. Mom’s childhood scarcity never really left her. The meals were basic. A protein, a green, a starch, paired with a glass of whole milk. Simple, nutritious, but never quite enough.
We weren’t poor, and we certainly didn’t go hungry. Mom made breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. There was always enough. But rarely more than enough.
For ten years, my school lunch never changed. I felt like a hobo with the brown paper grocery bag, reused and four times the size of the small crisp lunch bags my friends carried. Inside, peanut butter and jelly on whole-wheat bread and an apple that, after four hours, had bored its way through the sandwich.
Apparently, I’ve spent the last forty years making sure nobody aboard Riviera gets only one rib. My stewards sometimes look astonished as they gawk at the day’s charter provisions. “Geez, Paul,” they’ll say. “This is enough food for a high school football team!”
What can I say? I love abundance. Not in the “Hometown Buffet” kind of way. I don’t want our guests to have to dig for one tasty morsel buried in a pile of mediocrity. I want beautiful food, good food, and plenty of it. Artisan, seasonal, and fresh. I never want a guest to look at the last snow crab and wonder whether it would be rude to take it.
Too often, people settle for “average” simply because they’re accustomed to hearing no. Like the sign hanging in a late-night diner: NO SUBSTITUTIONS.
On Riviera, I’d rather you ask.
Tell me what you want. Something special, something ridiculous, or something simple. Tell me what you crave. If it’s possible, we’ll make it happen. If not, I’ll let you know.
It goes all the way back to that orange vinyl tablecloth and hungry boys keeping an eye on each other’s plates. I spent my childhood living with just enough. These days, I take great pleasure in making sure there’s more than enough.
And nobody gets just one rib.
Fair Winds and Following Seas
Paul & Victoria