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How do you get people’s mouths watering? How do you get them salivating? Flipping the stations recently, I realized that PBS's Lidia Bastianich always does it for me. There's something about her auntly appearance and her genuine Italian-ness that I trust. I can see visiting her, gorging myself at her country table and then waddling to her living room to nod off in her La-Z Boy, completely content. (I don’t know why exactly she would decorate her house with a recliner a la Frasier Crane’s dad, but she’s all about comfort so it seems fitting.) Lidia, oh Lidia... 

And this reminds me of a night on vacation in Mexico a few months ago. My wife and I were out to dinner at a new restaurant and we struck up a conversation with the maitre d’. It being new and all, we were curious. And being just before the rush of reservations, the room wasn’t too busy for him to chat with the friendly Americanos.

 We asked what he was doing to get the word out. I mean, we had just had a scrumptious, lovely meal––people should know about this place. 

 He said he was relying a lot on word of mouth. To spark some buzz, he was doing various things, like collecting email addresses and inviting hotel managers in with the hopes that they would recommend it to guests. He qualified, however, that he didn't feel comfortable with advertising. An ad agency would presumably want to photograph the food, and the chef would never allow that. The chef wanted his guests to be “surprised” by how good the food tasted and that photography would set up “false expectations.” The chef was firm about this.

 And that reminds me of something I recently read in “I Wonder,” a truly wonderful book by Marian Bantjes. Apparently, in Islam, Muslims have an aversion to the depiction of heavenly or earthly creatures, so as not to challenge God. There’s a desire not to stunt the imagination with the depiction of things; but rather to create amazingly intricate and beautiful ornamentation. The thinking is that the greatest sense of awe and respect comes from the release of the imagination, unrestricted by literal thinking.

 There’s something to that. Done right, it demands the highest level of creativity, which will seem to most people a lot riskier than a nice product shot.

 And the restaurant? As this was an inspiring meal, I am compelled to say that if you ever vacation in Cabo San Lucas, give Casianos in San Jose Del Cabo a try. Call for a reservation at +52 624 142 59 28. I’m hoping it will be very busy.