The Boca Sola: Palena

Sometimes, when I'm old-fashioned-thinking, I feel a little guilty for my self-congratulating tone when I write about my terrific meals and my wanton financial ways in ordering whatever I flittingly want. I know it's for a greater good--marking restaurants off a probably arbitrarily crafted top 100 list, which hopefully has some societal value...to someone--but sometimes I get a bit existential wondering what-does-the-incessant-desire-to-photograph-and-write-about-food really mean? Then, on Sunday afternoons, I find myself for 43 minutes sucked into and perusing the sordid world of Twitter and its role in memorializing the dissolution of marriages and I realize that mine hopefully classifies as quite a minor online self-indulgence. Before those 43 minutes, what 2.5 hours of brunch glory I luxuriated in, self-congratulation be damned!

Christine and I, this morning and afternoon, went to Palena, a cozy but proper establishment on Connecticut. Christine kindly called a while ago to set up a week-of reservation; after they more or less scoffed at her for presuming to get in reasonably soon, we walked in straightaway this morning and got a quiet seat near the kitchen. As anyone who's hosted a party knows, near the kitchen is where the talk is good.

In the minutes before Christine arrived, I had a delicious, roasted, and rich coffee and wrote postcards (what else would I do?). When Christine arrived, we delved into phase one of brunch: more coffee and breads. The impressively tender and porous options included sourdough, wheat, and semolina.

After we covered the first phase of catching-up (and sufficiently sampled each of the breads), we transitioned toward the glory of Palena cocktails. Christine's had an exquisite ginger foam and was spiced with cardamom or cinnamon (a fall day spice) and featured the famous memory-evoker, Calvados...

Mine, the Alexandra, had pear vodka and soaked raisins (which I unabashedly retrieved with my soup spoon); a drink this exciting only exacerbated my wrist flourishes.

A good hour and a half in, we tucked into brunch. Our waitress, to our delight, timed our entire afternoon to our conversation and preference. Observervant, she neither rushed nor slowed us down unneccessarily. For her meal, Christine commemorated another fine one we shared together, eating buckwheat crepes (galettes) in Paris.

Since it's fall and I'd frankly rather be in Paris, I'll impose on the linearity of the previous paragraph and promote the legitimate Breton galettes at Breizh Café we had there. Located in the Marais, Breizh Cafe crafts somber but soulful buckwheat crêpes, with things like raw cheese and yolky eggs in them. All this is paired with cidre in pottery cups.

And if Demi Moore can post creepy photos of herself with her eyes closed on Twitter, I can post a year-old photo of another hand-crafted meal Christine and I shared in Paris, with the salted butter (to accompany the bread, radishes, and even chocolate a few verres in) as the centerpiece. Self-indulgent indeed, on all accounts.

Ok, back to today. To suit my Classics-friendly sensibility, I got a Roman-inspired stew. Vaccinara con Polenta featured oxtail, pine nuts, and raisins with a coddled hen egg, wilted spinach and cardoons, beautiful and celery-esque and also called artichoke thistles. I was so eagerly enamored with it, I consumed it entirely with a fork.

Making it a two-day donut weekend for me, we ordered the frosted lemon donut, what Christine called the best of her life. It was crisp on the outside, porous but dense on the inside (reminiscent simultaneously of the textures of sourdough and pound cake), and subtly lemony.