Bocas Plural

It's been a while. I'm not sure I still have it. I subsist on various iterations of pasta, enjoye flavorless oatmeal in the morning, and participate in team breakfasts (I used to eschew breakfasts with the common colleague). I even bake brownies from mixes now and don't feel guilty. I've capitulated in some regards, sometimes enjoying (the horror) the company at restaurants more than the food, keeping more preoccupied with the beer than the dinner, and other times, just refraining from pulling out my camera while eating (although I have very little shame in portraiting food anymore). Tonight, however, was a departure. An intervention, of sorts, with two women who had no idea they were to be involved in such a significant event in the life of an amateur food critic (but really, I now view eating popovers as a life-changing event; I haven't written about that yet, but I will).

Tonight was the inaugural event of the Alexandria Ladies Dining Club. I call it that when really I think the informal title was the eating club (no caps). Two married ladies and a single girl met up tonight at what has become one of my new favorite local eateries (mostly because of aesthetics), Columbia Firehouse. The nice thing about a dining club with married ladies (ladies because of their charm, not age) is that we can discuss things unrelated to my self-deprecating love life. I love myself some self-indulgent commiserating (this isn't to malign the single girl exploits I listen to from my friends, because they are much more interesting than my own). But at a dining club meeting, the focus was food. Foreign food, Alexandria food, dive bar food, hangover food, romantic dinner food (my mouth was closed during that one), cheap food, pricey food, tourist food, patio food. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that I attended a real food club meeting because the conversation so naturally centered on all things gastronomical.

However, I realized that being an amateur food critic, I need to start holding my own. No one really buys my "amateur" self-designation (to their detriment) and questions have more recently been posed in my direction implying that I am some authority on food. This is becoming dangerous. Two questions I could not answer tonight: what is Indonesian food like and what is a financier (on the dessert menu, not one eying me from the bar). To redress my educational shortcomings, when I feel so inclined to overachieve, I will do more than talk about men and eating food here. So, for one sentence of non-drivel: a financier is a light sponge cake that usually contains an almond derivative (almond flour, flavoring, or crushed almonds).

I didn't get a financier, though, and opted for a longer polysyllabic foreign word at the outset, an Ommegang Witte from New York (this is a beer). It tasted like lemon juice sieved though a thrice-used cheese cloth. The bar was rife with old people (I'm not ageist, but these were the types that negotiate divorce settlements, not the ones who make financiers for their enfants). So while the oldies were leering, I was able to secure a seat at a stool at a bar counter that backed the true bar and watch the customers come in. It was very single-girl friendly and a good way to wait for the arrival of club members.

Fellow club members joined and we sat in a lovely atrium-style dining room. I've eaten at this restaurant before when it was Bookbinders, but as the new place, it's less stuffy and buoyant with the natural light. We started with blue crab hushpuppies with sweet pepper mustard. And they were great. There was something refreshingly disorderly about hush puppies not shaped like large gumballs: think free range antithesis-of-Captain D's hushpuppies. You could taste the crab and corn (and see traces of both!) and they weren't too greasy. The bread (with chive butter) was also fresh, crusty on the outside, and meanderingly holey on the inside.

For dinner, Laura and I both had the meatloaf sandwich. My mom knows this, so I'm not spilling some family jewel secret, but I never really liked meatloaf (it was an age thing, and a preternatural fear of gristle). I just couldn't put enough ketchup on top to hide the taste of the meat and would reward my toil by eating the little pieces of bacon my mom put on top for last. For some reason, tonight a meatloaf sandwich sounded better than steak or scallops (guess I'm subconsciously preparing for my Texas trip). But, I might be able to find elementary schools that do it better. It wasn't really that bad, but there was nothing remarkable about the meat's preparation: it had carrots inside and was set atop sundried tomatoes.. it was also situated on a focaccia-consistency roll, with undulating little bread peaks. But, it was out of proportion, with way too much bread to meat (a quick-developing food pet peeve if the proportions are going the wrong way). But the sandwich was accessorized with mache (I think, and if not, it at least elicited nostalgic memories of greens-eating in France) and French fries (good, but not remarkable, but with sea salt). I tried club member and new friend Nikki's hanger steak, which was delicious and had a beautiful presentation.

Dinner was good, not amazing, but had potential. But the prices were good, the atmosphere was stellar, and there were more windows (both curvey transparent ones and sophisticated stained glass ones) than divorce lawyers there, which is a proportion going the right way. And to be part of a club, an order, even..perhaps even a society of food lovers equally invested in exploring the visscitudes of gastronomy and unwittingly and undemocratically having me as their secretary...that's reason enough to start writing again for.