Kismet is an old word. I first encountered it through the musical of the same name starring Howard Keel, with whom I had already fallen a little bit in love after seeing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
It means luck, but not the ordinary kind. Not finding a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk or guessing the right lottery numbers. Kismet has a little more mystery attached to it. A little more destiny. A little more romance. More magic.
The word itself comes from Arabic, where it originally meant something closer to a person’s portion in life—one’s share.
I’ve always liked that idea – not because I think life is mapped out in advance. Many days seem to arrive without respect to any plan whatsoever. But every now and then life produces a combination of people and circumstances that feels improbably right. Better than chance. Better than luck.
A little like a good recipe.
It’s not that any one ingredient is remarkable on its own, but because together they create something none of them could have become separately.
Maybe that’s what I mean when I think of kismet.
And let me tell you, it was a good week for that word to leap to mind.
It had been one of those days. We were already short-staffed when illness swept through the team, and I watched my hours stretching longer and longer while the list of things that needed doing stubbornly refused to get any shorter. By the time I returned from picking up bread at the bakery, I was tired, overwhelmed, and more than a little discouraged.
Then I walked into the kitchen and saw Ian Branson making sandwiches.
Now, that may not sound like much of a plot twist, but Ian hasn’t worked at Tomato Head since 2019, when he left to become a full-time ICU nurse at UT Hospital.
Yet there he was.
Making sandwiches.
As it turns out, Ashley Parks had sent him a text message letting him know we were having a rough day. Ashley has been part of the Tomato Head family for almost 20 years. She and Ian met here years ago, back when they were both working in the kitchen. One thing led to another, as it often does, and these days they share a life together.
So he came in to help.
Simple enough.
But standing there watching him work, and with graduation season still very much on my mind, I found myself thinking about all the unlikely chains of events that had brought that moment into existence. The thousands of shifts. The conversations. The friendships. The shared meals. The ordinary accumulation of years. It’s easy to think those moments disappear when people move on to new schools, new jobs, and new chapters. But every now and then you’re reminded that they don’t disappear at all.
Restaurants are funny that way.
Most people think restaurants make food. And of course they do. But after doing this for a very long time, I know that food is only part of the product.
The rest is harder to define.
Somewhere along the way, people meet. Friendships form. Relationships take root. Lives become tangled together. Years pass. People move on to new jobs, new careers, and new chapters.
And then, every once in a while, one of those stories circles back around and walks through the kitchen door wearing an apron.
Maybe that’s kismet.
Or maybe it’s simply what happens when people spend years building something together.
Either way, seeing Ian that day changed more than our staffing situation.
It reinforced in me how special The Tomato Head is. And reminded me that the things we create here don’t end when someone clocks out for the last time.
And for a few minutes, in the middle of a very difficult day, it became clear that some of the best things we make here never appear on the menu.
Kismet.
