Vegetable Platter Saga part II

So I had what I thought was a wonderful plan to change the vegetarian platter into something real. I would wait in ambush for when a veg platter got ordered, and then after the complaints that Chef would inevitably express, I would shake my head and say "I agree! Why don't we just have a normal dish for the veg platter that could be so much easier to do?". In my head the conversation turned into her agreeing with me and saying that since my hands were often sitting around the kitchen doing nothing, I could instead make a new veg dish next week and we would discuss what it should be as we plated the stupid platter, and at the end we would all go walking off holding hands, singing kumbaya, and rainbows would emerge from behind every cloud.

Well I did lay in wait for a veg platter to be ordered. Of course, unless you're a hungry vegetarian you don't order it, as a full meal can be made from a soup and a pasta, of which we have all sorts of options. And during the week people usually don't go for a huge, five-course meal. There aren't that many Italian vegetarians anyway. So it took about three or four days of lying in ambush for one to pop out of our ticket printer. But when it did, I was ready. I had rehearsed my lines and I delivered them with such grace that chef couldn't take any offense at what was, at the end of the day, a criticism of her menu. 

She smiled, and agreed. It would be easier to have a vegetarian main course. I said "so why don't you change it?" and she laughed. She then talked about how she has a friend who opened up a vegetarian place and did this awesome eggplant dish with cheese and indian spices and how she thought it was fabulous. And I suggested we do our own version of that. And she smiled at the memory of that dish. And then we plated. And nothing else was said about the vegetarian issue. Yeah, anticlimactic, without a hint of a rainbow peeking out from a cloud or fridge.

Well I don't give up easily, and that wasn't a no, so I lay in ambush for another opportunity, which arrived on Saturday night with us getting in four veg platter orders almost all at once. As the two of us were scrambling to get them together, I complained a little, and said that it would be so much easier if we just had a real vegetarian dish. I again got the smile, laugh, and "I agree." But it seems that despite all this nothing is going to happen. I've noticed first-hand how stubborn and adverse to change the Italians are, and I guess that this is just my witnessing it first-hand.

I have a feeling that my goal will not be achieved, as I'm not quite sure what else to do beyond asking straight up if I can make a different dish, and I think that would be interpreted as rude and is probably just a bad idea. Which means I'm at a standstill for at least a little while. If anyone has any ideas on what I can do to keep moving on this quest, let me know!