Foodie Saturday

[browngirl]

Due to the generosity of several people who love me, I spent a beautiful Saturday out of the house being a foodie (and drinkie, I guess).

xiphias and cheshyre took me, temima, and their friend J to Eastern Standard, a restaraunt I hadn't dared dream of affording --- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we got to temima's residence, a famous and gorgeous shared home in Dorchester, the lady whose house it is (I recognized her but she didn't recognize me, since I'd only ever been in her house for big parties before) took us on a tour. It was really nice to see the square-boned, warm and lovely house without 150 people in the way, the bookshelves made the place look like an annex of the Library of Dreams, and the stand mixer is mighty enough to have his own name (Hob, for Hobart) and gorgeous enough to make me coo and xiphias tear up. And everyone talked up my baking to our hostess, which made me blush very much. *beam* She gave all of us us an invitation to return for tea and reading, and I really hope I get a chance to take her up on that.

It's that kind of house. I want to write about that house one day.

So then we drove up to Eastern Standard, where Jackson Cannon presides over the bar (I could write a post about Mr. Cannon, but xiphias has probably written a better one. He's in the vanguard of the movement to rediscover the beauty and art of the proper cocktail, and a founding member of the Jack Rose Society). We met J (a friend of xiphias and cheshyre via xiphias's mom rebmommy, who is the kind of incredibly wonderful person who would find and befriend in college someone so nifty she could then be friends with her friend's son and treat him and his friends as equals. J is awesome of herself, but I was also really impressed by her open friendliness to people so much younger than she is; trust me, my parents' friends still remember that they met me as a puling infant, and treated me accordingly last time I saw any of them.) I tried not to trip over my own feet as I gazed around in wonder; even more beautiful and sophisticated than the room were the waitstaff, and even more gorgeous than they was the food. Oh, my God, that food. The perfectly cooked stuffed artichoke. The fresh and briny oysters. The mussels in their fennel cream sauce! J, who also had mussels, asked for spoons for us, mostly so we wouldn't lick the sauce out of our plates.

And then there were the cocktails. cheshyre, as befits her Knowledge-Spreading Powers, brought a stack of books about cocktails, and we looked them up, discussed their ingredients, and generally spent some time in that lovely state sometimes achieved by mixing friendship, learning, and alcohol. I tried to take notes on my cocktails, but ended up rather forgetting under their influence. But what I managed to remember: I started with a nonalcoholic "Stormy Monday", Lime juice, bitters & ginger beer -- that was delicious and stomach-settling. Then I had a Pom 75, a sparkling flute of pomegranite juice and champagne sharpened with gin, and a Pink Lady, full of froth and yum. And also our waitress brought us a complimentary cocktail, the Last Word (?), which tasted like a flower garden, the yellow chartreuse giving it a flavor that was complex rather than complicated. We tasted each other's cocktails, too: xiphias ordered a Jack Rose, which tasted like... if I were going to name a cocktail after Cap'n Jack Harkness and Miss Rose Tyler, after meeting them in some smoky little club somewhere, it would indeed taste like this. He also got a Budveiser, the real one from the Czech republic, and cheshyre got something in a martini glass that was golden and strong and tasted like a broad-shouldered apple.

By dessert I was happily heavily tipsy, and there was rum in the tres leches cake, and it's a good thing I hadn't had any more drinks or I'd've licked that plate too. Replete with culinary joy, we wandered out into the sunshine and into Commonwealth Books (the bookstore in Kenmore Square that is not B&N), where I pretty much sat in a chair, watched everyone look through books and talk to the clerk (who was young, scruffy, liberal, and politically active), and looked at the books temima brought me and talked to her, which last I should make time to do much more often. *grin and wave to temima* I think I started falling asleep, and cheshyre very kindly drove me home, where I pretty much fell over under the weight of pleasure. *waves and blows kisses to cheshyre & xiphias*

When I woke up a little I checked my email and found a dinner invitation from bikergeek, to go out with him and WG. So of course I accepted. We went to the S&S, I think because... how do I put this? If someone could eat at Eastern Standard every day I think I would be impressed, awed, maybe a little scared. The food is just so impressive, it's a treat, it would be too much every day. (Disregarding calories.) Whereas the S&S's food is uncomplicated and soothing, and while I wouldn't (being not rich and interested in cooking) I could see how someone could eat there every day. Thinking about that difference, and talking to WG, who's been sick, poor man, I ordered the broiled salmon, which was beautifully cooked and richly delicious.

And so, full of good food, I pretty much rolled from bikergeek's car into the house and went to bed. *blows him a kiss*

(Next --- to read the 1880's articles cheshyre & xiphias gave me about cocktails and the general wacky tenor of life then. And read about cocktails in general. And write that story about Jack, Rose, and the Jack Rose cocktail. And eat salad all week. )