Thursday, August 26, 2010

No-Martini Lunch :-(


My BFF treated me to (early) birthday lunch at downtown Cincinnati's trendy Mexican resto, Nada. This is one of the city's most hopping bar scenes, patio crammed on a gorgeous late summer day, filled with young movers and shakers scarfing down tacos, guacamole and baskets of tortilla chips.
We settled in and ordered our margaritas. Then we looked around. Not ONE alcoholic beverage in sight at nearby tables.
I must be overly influenced by the glamorous, fictional world of "Mad Men," nostalgic for the boozy lunches of yore. That's not modern work-ethic America, you might say. But what's the matter with these thirty-somethings, can't they handle their cocktails?
I heard Jerry Della Famina, the ad exec whose agency reportedly was the model for "Mad Men," telling an NPR interviewer that if anything, in the 1950s and '60s they partyed even heartier than the AMC-TV series depicts -- and did a lot of creative, award-winning work after enjoying their three-martini lunches.
For better or worse, times certainly have changed.

The margaritas were delicious, and our shared vegetarian tacos (very tasty filling) and "goat cheese quesadilla salad" were good if not great. Disclaimer: I just returned from the southwest including Santa Fe NM, and have higher than usual standards for Mexican fare.

3 comments:

  1. Maybe people had to go back to work after lunch. ~Kris

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  2. My point is, in the "good old days" people went back to work after their boozy lunches, and did good work!

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  3. We still drink on our lunch breaks over here :-) and do a decent job afterwards, but it is not Martini's we are swilling, just a glass of wine or a pint and occasionally a hot-toddy when it gets to be hot-toddy weather!

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