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Archive for the ‘Under The Table’ Category
Happy Birthday to Us.
February 16, 2012Bacon Under Fire.
January 17, 2012My first cultural food shock came in the form of fish sauce. Cambodian cuisine and I were already on shaky grounds (based on the dubious absence of cheese) when I passed a fish sauce factory. My olfactory senses singed for hours; one simple, clear and well-reasoned thought resonated: There is no possible way that anyone in their right mind would eat the stuff.
It didn’t take long for me to adapt to the cuisine and its beloved fish sauce (which tastes infinitely better than it smells). By the end of the trip, I’d almost forgotten about dairy products. Almost.
While it’s acceptable to (temporarily) question other cuisines, my own American-bred eating habits have never come under fire. Until my recent trip to England, when my choice of ordering bacon, of all things, proved to be somewhat of a cultural snafu.
It’s not like I was in Israel or something. I was in Patisserie Valerie in Leeds. They had bacon on the menu. It turns out that it wasn’t the ordering of a side of bacon that gave my server pause. It was that I ordered it to accompany a scone. Sweet and savory. “Are you sure?” she asked in amazement. In my years of eating (and ordering way too much), I’ve never actually caused the waitstaff to openly question my choices. Both the server and I were equally confused. “Yes, I want the bacon and the scone.” She shrugged and processed my weirdo order.
It’s Them, Not Me.
January 9, 2012You can’t go home. That sounds so final, so bitter. Sometimes, you can’t go home. Or, to be more on point, sometimes home changes to a point where you don’t even recognize it. In this case, home isn’t even home. It is, instead, the place I spent most of my time in my temporary home of London, during the summer of 2000: Mezzo. A restaurant. I’ve written about it before. I’ve waxed poetically about the place to anyone who will listen, and if Facebook could somehow chronicle a Timeline for my mind (a terrifying concept), many Life Events would be connected to the place.
I knew that in the eleven years since I’d worked at the Soho restaurant, things had changed. For one, Mezzo had become Meza, and the place had changed ownership. Despite this knowledge, I couldn’t not visit it in my recent trip to London. On the first night in the city, I showed up on the doorstep of the restaurant, sans reservations and sans club attire. My super-duper fancy dining establishment had turned from the place that introduced me to mis en place and fruits de mer to what was essentially a club, a place that as a civilian, I would never enter. Instead, I was a woman on a mission: to touch base, at least emotionally, with twenty-one year-old me.
Once we walked in and looked at the menu, I had to have a stern conversation with myself: absolutely nothing would be the same and I could either enjoy my dining experience or lament the changes. The former would be way more interesting for my dining companions, so I tried to keep my commentary to a minimum. (This, of course, did not stop me from informing my first-day-on-the-job server that I once was in her shoes, but that on my first day, the building was on fire.) (True story.) (I’m sure that she didn’t care.) (I’ve turned into one of those people, the ones who show you pictures of their pets or grandchildren or announce that in this very building, eleven years ago, I ate a bowl of crème bruûlée in a stall in the server’s restroom so that the security guards wouldn’t see me stealing from the company.)
I seem to be doing it again. Right here.
Starting Fresh.
January 4, 2012I can’t say I’m sad to see the back of 2011. It was a year of upheaval and major life change—for the most part, the events of the past twelve months are not ones I hope to have repeated anytime soon. There were positives, too, of course, but my personal drama (and, to be honest, my tendency to wallow in the negative) obscured much of that: The bust-up of a nine-year relationship isn’t easy, no matter how you cut it. It was tough to think straight through the fallout, let alone write through it. Jill picked up the slack admirably, but our little blog here still suffered for my lack of focus.
But a new year, a new start, and all that nonsense.
The Road To Peas.
December 7, 2011I’m cursed. Every time I’ve traveled outside of Ohio in the past few years, I break my camera lens. The first time it happened, I was in the Philippines. Maya and I had to take a side trip to a mall in Manila for me to “barter” for a new lens. I dropped said lens in Asheville, North Carolina a year and a half later when trying to carry too much Indian food. For this most recent trip, I prepared myself. No longer would I schlep my camera around in a knapsack; if I want nice things, I have to take care of them. A blog post from Columbus photographer and design house, Genre Creative inspired me to look into carrying my beloved camera in a protective bag. Robin even lent me hers to try out for the trip.
I honestly don’t know what happened. Perhaps I opened the bag at a table to grab my journal to write something down, and failed to close it properly. Perhaps, after a little too many large glasses of wine (alcohol is legally required to be measured in England; as a result – large and small glasses of wine) I stood a little too close to a fellow bus rider who helped themselves to the contents on my back. Either way, my heart stopped when, while walking back to our friend’s place in Shoreditch, I heard my camera crash to the concrete, lens breaking away from the body. Again.
What the Kale.
November 28, 2011I think that it’s entirely possible to train your body to love vegetables, but it takes discipline to love only vegetables. When I cook (sadly, this is a rare occurrence these days) I do my best to fill my kitchen with bright, healthy leafy greens. As a rule, produce is where my meals start. I look for inspiration in the seasonal and local selections and, when I’m in a zen state of mind, an entire meal is born.
Other times, when I lack that holistic mindset, I end up with a few side dishes, but nothing to tie them together. This happens more frequently than not, leaving me to crave animal fats not long after I’ve completed dinner. Sometimes, even daydreaming about a trip to Taco Bell while eating dinner.
On Imperfection.
November 24, 2011I had noble intentions for my pie-making endeavors this year. I’d make the dough ahead of time, bake the night before, transport my perfect pastries in newly purchased bamboo steamers, and arrive, pulled together and on time—for once—for turkey dinner. Of course, in reality, I did none of these things.
I did wake up at 5:30 this morning, make the dough (poorly), put the pie in the oven only to realize, ten minutes later, that I’d forgotten to add lemon juice to the filling, and put the still-hot pie in a too-flimsy bag to transport it to Penn Station.
Housewarming.
November 22, 2011I moved into my new apartment at the beginning of October. Except for the all-too-brief summer between my junior and senior years of college and, pre-New York, a few months spent in Bucharest, this is the first time I’ve lived on my own.
I kind of love it.
Retro Meal.
November 18, 2011This picture of a picture, friends, is Roast Suckling Pig with Oven Stuffing from the 1967 November Gourmet. (After Donald Draper, before Winnie Cooper.)
Maybe in some freak world where Mad Men and the Wonder Years collide, Betty Draper (no spoilers here at IF!) will serve Kevin Arnold this for Thanksgiving. I’m guessing someone served it to someone in 1967. I can’t say I’d mind if someone served it to me.
Here’s the recipe. I’m a great dinner guest; I’ll bring lots of wine.
Booze Rules.
November 14, 2011It was a day that we’d scheduled to be a walking tour of one of the most gorgeous places in England. It was a day that made me extremely regret leaving my wellies in London. (Yes, I lugged rubber boots all the way across the Atlantic to leave them in Shoreditch the one time I’d need them.)
On the only cool and rainy day of our trip, York practically demanded that we spend as much time as possible inside, warming up with as many cask ales as we could handle—an early-in-the-day bar hop to contend with the weather.
