I'm not sure who may have gotten on board after reading my brief blog post about my friend's family being missing. What is important is that shortly after I put up that post, his family was found.  Obviously, the scope of the disaster is not going to leave anybody unscathed. I don't think it's my place to enumerate the extent of his happiness or loss.

I will say one thing.  Thank goodness because now nobody in his family is lingering with the horror of not knowing.  Now they can concentrate on solving problems.  My heart goes out to anybody who has been touched by this tragedy.

I know that there are a bunch of you that visit this blog to see what may be happening in the restaurant.  Right now, all I can think about is my friend and his children in Haiti. His father's name is Homer Telusma he lives at 25-27 St. Alexandre.  This is right outside the presidential palace. If you read this please Tweet my friends family name or repost anywhere you think help can be found.  He has five family members, three kids, I am not able to find any information. They work at the Stadium. You guys put me on the map. Please help me help my friend find his family. I will be searching myself.  Thank you for your help.

What can I say?  We started the year with an amazing review from the David Corcoran of the NY Times that completely blew up the restaurant.  I remember trying to get my act together from New Year's Eve knowing that I was going to have the phone interview for the review sometime New Year's Day. I let my wife relax.  She just wanted to take it easy and wasn't hungry, so Luke and I went for dinner.  I let him order for the both of us.  Grilled Cheese and "toilet paper" french fries.  That's what he calls curly fries. I always love the look on the server's face when he orders.  Anyway, I get the call but directly before I answered I realized that my phone was about to die at any moment.  To this day, I still don't understand why my phone didn't kick out.  I checked the duration on that call and made a mental note.  I think it was close to an hour.  Since that day, I've never gotten that duration on an almost dead battery.

The review dropped the following weekend, which I was expecting.  What I didn't expect was that it was going to hit the web edition and the NJ subscribers on Saturday at some point.  Fortunately, we had already a full house 90% being return guests the other 10% were the friends they were bringing in for the first time.  All of a sudden, the phone does not stop ringing.  Tonian, our former server, was so busy she had no time to tell me what had been developing in the front of the house.  It wasn't until one of our regular customers came back to congratulate me on the review that I found out that the review was already released.  I took a moment to walk out to the dining room where everybody congratulated me.  But the amazing part was there were at least 30 people outside looking in to see what was what and, I was informed, that was in addition to the other 40 people we had no choice but to turn away.  Within two days we were booked solid through March and the weekends were booked through May.  Unbelievable...To be mentioned at the end of the year as one of the highlights for 2009 is more than I could have imagined.

And now on to the future.  We had started Tasting Nights @ Luke's Kitchen at the end of 2009.  They have been such a success and such a blast to do that we are continuing them throughout the year.  The first for 2010 will be on Tuesday, February 2 starting at 7:00.  They are seven courses at the same price as our regular Pre Fixe price.  On these nights I release the culinary hounds and cook as if no one is watching.  This is where I came up with Lobster Zeppoles and other off the reservation ideas. A lot of the things I create for these events are things I can only execute because of the way the night is organized.  And some of them actullay make it on to the menu proper. And the guests are very vocal about what "needs" to be on the menu.

We will be continuing our Emerging Artist Series as well.  The next artist's work will be up by the evening of the Tasting Night.  So, everyone at the dinner on the 2nd will get the first look. 

Anyway, I think that's enough for now.  Thanks to everyone who has supported us and continues to support us.  I got to go.  I just got an idea that I need to work out.  See you on the 2nd.