It Was a Very Good Year

It wasn't. Well, it was fine, but it's the song, not the sentiment I want to write about. Frank Sinatra's song, "It Was a Very Good Year," as my mom pointed out years ago, is really quite sad. Frank sings about periods of his life that have passed, decade by decade, that make him reminisce and pine for the memories gone by, while taking some solace in the fact that he still remembers them.

Overdramatically, this is where I am tonight, and much recount food memories of nights past to carry me into the future. My sage city newspaper tells me on its online headline: "Snowfall Continues, May Turn to Ice Overnight." I've been well aware of this fact since I went running this morning and chunks of my hair froze. We've had snow, freezing rain, and unstocked stores all day. I sought to come home early today (I didn't) to graut Mexican tile on my pressed wood Target TV stand, butFedex didn't deliver my tiles anyway and Target didn't have the requisite graut. So, my evening consisted of defeatedly driving home in spitting mini-hails and buying snacks at Target, because I felt compelled to buy something or the 40 minutes of my life I spent going there would be wasted. So I purchased the below:

This is what budding crazy cat ladies buy at Target.

Anyway, getting to it, I want to write retrospectively about two recent dinners, because memories are all I have to console myself with on this dreary night. So, I hearken back to a fine meal I had a few weeks ago with my friend Tammy and her lovely new husband, Bob. New because they are newlyweds, not because she marries as often as I blog. This dinner was one of the best I've had in a while. She proposed the three of us go to Geranio or A La Lucia, and after I mentioned the blog (and that I had already visited and written about Geranio), she kindly said we could go to A La Lucia, though she in fact prefers Geranio. Tammy is a true culinary kindred spirit.

A La Lucia is just up the road but since it was bitterly cold, Tammy and Bob picked me up in the their taxi and we rode 3 minutes until we reached the urbanly isolated restaurant. We had lovely glasses of wine at the bar and I recounted my couch saga (it's been weeks of this), chatted with Tammy about all nature of lovely girl things, and learned a bit of history about the Marines from Bob.

Then, the feast began. Tammy is an extremely able orderer (which is rare), so I was completely at ease and didn't fret as I normally do, considering every item on the menu.

We started with an appetizer: salami with goat cheese and olives. It was beautiful, simple, colorful and tasted fantastic. Plus the bread was good, the olive oil was green, the wine was rich and tasted like Mediterraea, and my dinner companions were both charming and amusing.

Then our dinners came. I have such lovely friends: they all indulge me in my little writing project and this night, let me even take pictures of their food. Here's Bob's penne alla puttanesca, with tomatoes, anchovies, black olives and capers:


Here's Bob eating it:

Tammy ordered seafood ravioli and before either she or I had taken a bite, I had one of her raviolis on my plate, and it was just delicious. Flavorful but not too fishy, and with the chewy but not sticky consistency of freshly-made pasta.


I ordered a fascinating dinner: butternut squash ravioli with amaretti cookies sprinkled on top. It was one of the most inventive Italian dinners I've ever had (who knows, it could be the EasyMac of the pasta world, but I was very impressed).

I know it's not much to look at, but look how happy I was to have it before me. So happy, in fact, my eyes disappeared and the guy behind me tried to raise the roof in empathetic glee.

It was a treat. Then we had dessert. Tammy adeptly ordered well again, getting the cheese plate, with a sweet sundried tomato chutney (?) and toasted bread.

It was delicious and a lovely evening with a charming couple. Much better than my dates with my Blackberry, like last night.

I went to Raw Silk, a North Indian restaurant half a block from my house and that opened two weeks ago. The service was horrible. I ordered a glass of Malbec (I don't really know what it is myself, but I wanted it). The waitress squinted at my menu and said, "red? ok." I asked what kind of lamb dish I should get. She encouraged one because it came with rice; I then noticed they all came with rice. I changed my tack: lamb vindaloo or lamb paneer? She said lamb paneer came with those green things. "Spinach?" I asked, having the luxury of reading that as well on the menu. "Yes," she said. But surprisingly, it didn't matter. The glass of wine was huge, Malbec or not, and my seat was at the front, but tucked away in a corner so I could look out the window and not be bothered.


I ordered lamb vindaloo in the end; it was delicious, really, and the naan was fresh and soft. After I finished dinner, the owner came and talked to me She and her husband both work full-time jobs and run the restaurant, but her in-laws are currently working there during the day. There is no sophistication in the decor or service; I appreciate the charm of run-down hole in the wall ethnic places (my favorite place in college was a 5 dollar Indian buffet run by a woman and her daughter, who wore LA Lights shoes), but it doesn't quite work when you don't know whether you're offering ethnic comfort food or a loungey-type atmosphere for young professionals (which had more an air of a hastily thrown together festiveness, like an After Prom). I'd go back; the food was delicious and the service, though spotty (I had to get up to ask for the check, which is the peak of bad service), was friendly and curious about my perception of the food.

Plus, I felt like it was a neighborhood place in my neighborhood: I saw bristly mustached Irishman walk by (he parallel parked right in front of Raw Silk) and the questionably tranvestite woman from whom I bought Sonia's picture frame for her birthday, who works at a card store chain on King Street. Just another day on my block, or... on the block of my mind's culinary memory?

Weekend Smörgåsbord

Sometimes a weekend is so thoroughly remarkable in its banality, it deserves to be written about, but only with Swedish punctuation (ah, admirable Swedish dots and circles). Unfortunately, Friday was marred by a late evening at work. Dinner was reheated leftovers (pre-frozen in bulk by me) and I think I watched Super Nanny.

Saturday, in its banality, was all business (thanks for making it to the second paragraph after my admission of watching Super Nanny). Serious run in the morning. Pick up photo at Walgreens that they hadn't developed. And argue with Restoration Hardware staff on why it would behoove them to sell me the couch I wanted, while applying the discount the 35 coupons I had bought off of three different vendors on Ebay would give. They didn't.

In addition to Restoration Hardware's employment of customer servants with large deficits of customer service skills, Restoration Hardware's jpegs also have an excessive amount of surrounding white space.

They didn't, so I curse them by hoping they never derive any pleasure from reading anyone's food blog, ever. I was mentally discouraged, so mustered enough courage to enter a restaurant with communal dining, my local fish and chips place, Eamonn's. (PS, I have actually wanted to eat here forever, but vowed never to go alone because eating fried fish alone is the culinary equivalent of entering a brothel, but I ran in the morning, so felt some sort of entitlement.) The helpful order-receiver was a friendly Irishman with a bristly mustache who put me at ease. I ordered a small order of cod and a small order of chips. Thankfully he asked if I wanted chips, because I wasn't sure if ordering chips when I call them fries was the preferred method of ordering (I would have likely stood there for a minute deciding whether to call them chips or fries, so thankfully he made it a yes or no question). I snagged a seat at a mirrored bar and watched myself eat and tried to read the menu on the chalkboard behind me backwards in the mirror.

My lunch was delicious--the chips/fries/salted, thin potato sticks were perfectly crisp. And the fish was so wonderful. When something is remarkably tasty, all I can think to myself is that it tastes like candy. The batter was thick and chewy, but still a bit crispy, and the fish was fresh and juicy and flavorful. I ate it plain some bites, sprinkled a bit of malt vinegar on other bites, and on some bites, dipped it in my curry sauce (see below).

I got a beer because the 35 unused Restoration Hardware coupons in my pocket made me do it. Also, the slightly disgusted voice of the Irishman who told all nature of yuppie Alexandrians and tourists that they were in a "fish and chips place, we sell fish and chips" started to get on my nerves, after I stopped laughing.

Then I went to Tyson's Corner and bought my couch and relieved myself of the albatross-like coupons in my pocket (metaphorical neck; plus, I got my discount).

Sunday was notable food-wise for a few different reasons. First my mom sent me photos of dinner rolls she made. Sundays are days for dinner rolls, even if you only look at digitized versions of them.

My friend Sue and I met up for brunch. However, we pre-brunched at her new apartment and ate a homemade breakfast roll each. She was kind enough to give me some, which I took home and photographed. Poor exploited rolls.

Afterwards, we went to OHOP (Original House of Pancakes), left because it was too busy, and legitimately brunched (or second breakfasted) at Starbucks, each having oatmeal and coffee. It was lovely: we discussed all manner of lovely girl things in big green velour chairs.

Then I had Sunday dinner, because lunch was an unsatisfying mix of a Special K bar/nuts that been uneaten for 2 months/veggie crisps, because I needed sustenance while at work. I photographed, more to chronicle the irony of my dinner than to delight in it:


My dinner included feta cheese, tomato sauce, fresh basil and Kalamata olives, all served with pasta. With a side of bread and butter pickles. The two defrosting containers are my meals for the beginning of the week, the righthand container being spaghetti squash with Mediterranean accoutrements, the lefthand container being some obscene pasta mix from two weeks ago that was frozen and forgotten. My weekend was productive, staid, and mostly adult (I did spend last night putting together pressed wood furniture while watching Miss America), but I can delight in the fact that I got everything done before the second installment of PBS's Wuthering Heights broadcast. And if that doesn't challenge one's banality, I don't know what will.

Anachronistic Cowgirl

My new Blackberry smells like cigarette smoke, because I smoked three cigarettes tonight. I fear I am too sleepy (but admirably dedicated to updating my four loyal readers, right?) to be too coy with my subject line tonight, so I'll cut straight to the chase. My dinner tonight--with good friend and avid reader Andy--at the Cowboy Cafe in Arlington made me realize that dining out can force one to confront both space and time: namely, is it ok to consider myself a modern diner while still enjoying a passe cigarette (or three), and more broadly, is innovation/renovation necessarily improvement? In between puffs of cigarettes over the course of our dinner, my Blackberry would silently clamor for my attention, blinking red anytime I received a phone call, email, text message, or obscure update to my Facebook profile. Electronic distraction simply is not relaxing while smoking a cigarette, the most non-essential food event I really could partake in, and which ultimately is to facilitate relaxation. However, I pine for this new technology at the same time I want to indulge in the dying and maligned practice of smoking.

I value highly the Cowboy Cafe's insistence on still allowing smoking--a dive bar isn't a dive bar without poor ventilation and smoke clouds--but I also have to admit that while it's indulging old-school bar patrons by permitting smoking throughout the restaurant, it's trying to abandon its anachronism, by updating and shedding its historic charm for modernity. The Cowboy Cafe is one of the few bars I've visited in the DC area where an aging frat boy, lonely retiree, deer hunter, aspiring musician, or quirky young professional would all feel at home. However, as Andy and I noted while dining in the renovated "annex" of the Cowboy Cafe, small "improvements"--including new wood floors, brighter lighting, a fake fireplace, and menu items like homemade kielbasa sausage--burnish the repuation of a bar/restaurant that is appealing because its NOT sophisticated and hasn't adapted to the times.

But before I write into the next millennium, what did we eat already? First, I ordered an Abita Restoration Ale. Abita beer, brewed just outside of New Orleans, is the beer that made me like beer. One day, while in New Orleans to watch my proud football team lose another national championship (still bitter), I tried Abita beer and magically liked beer. I remember it fondly, as one nostalgically recalls a first kiss or first car. The Cowboy Cafe has two kinds of Abita beer on tap, and for that, I wish them a fruitful future.

So I had three of those. For dinner, Andy got the Beef Brisket Reuben, which was delicious. Apparently his pickle was also quite tasty, but time passed too fast before I was able to steal a bite.


My dinner was fantastic too. I will even add that this may the first time during my stay in DC I have actively sought out BBQ, and not out of desperation. I ordered BBQ brisket, collard greens, baked beans, and Texas Toast. The brisket was well-flavored (although there wasn't enough BBQ sauce, the meat was fatty, and it was sliced too thick), the beans were tasty (although a bit watery and not nearly sugary enough, but that's my own KC bias), and the Texas Toast could have been called overly-buttered-but-damn-good-toasted-foccacia, because that toast would get laughed out of even Plano. But the collard greens melted in my mouth.

The I ordered dessert, and Andy was kind enought to indulge in helping me. We got Butterfinger bread pudding, and it was pretty amazing. The consistency was most delightful: it had a consistency slightly more solid than marshmellow fluff, and was bready and Butterfingery. Plus, it had the most poofy whipped cream, a succulent strawberry, and drizzled chocolate and caramel sauces: a perfect combination in any century.

Andy, one second after he raised an eyebrow about how surprisingly good the dessert was.

After dessert, we retreated to the main bar, full of smoke clouds, poor lighting, girls with big lower-back tattoos, and tables of men who can smoke cigarettes more consistently than I. We enjoyed really stellar conversation about relationships, the working world, running, smoking (ironic paired together), and creative ventures. Despite the endless effects the ebb and flow of time brings, it's nice to know that good conversation can be constant, regardless of the day's circumstances.

Waving Wheat

In Oklahoma, even the wheat is friendly. It waves and it smells sweet, just like Mr. Hammerstein said it did. So, what better way to commemorate the nexus between food and love (of power? of change? of radically re-nomenclatured policy?) on this 20 January weekend than at the Oklahoma State Society Inaugural Ball.


On Sunday night, my OSU friend and I gussied ourselves up and enjoyed one of the finest (and freest) balls I've ever attended, at the National Museum of the American Indian, a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall. It's a beautiful museum... fountains and sculpture surround the rugged, white clay-colored building on the outside, and the inside opens up to a cavernous atrium. We skipped the exhibits, though, because the food was too good.

I'm a big fan of keeping to one's culinary roots, and the museum didn't disappoint: sweet grits with whole corn kernels; a cold salad with crunchy green beans, sweet potato, and sunflower seeds; barbecued pork; roast beef with mashed potatoes; a shot of a wintery, squashy soup; crab dip; cornbread with jalapeno peppers; and black eyed pea salad were all expertly presented on two buffet tables. My grin should attest to my delight with the spread (and free champagne):


We thought about mingling, but what was the point? I didn't have some high-profile aide position I could brag about (while taking delight in the fact that all I did was give ill-informed Capitol tours to petulant constituents) and I was too interested in the buffet offerings to risk approaching some intriguing be-suited man when I'd probably be intercepted on my path over by some aide who gives ill-informed Capitol tours. So we broke away from the dinner buffet table and hovered around the dessert table:

Sorry for my vanity (with more photos of me than food), but my friend was good enough to bring her camera, so the photos were more traditional than fetish food close-ups. However, for a distant food shot, see below. The plants were our lighthouses, providing us direction and shelter from our hunger. And that's a jazz band.


A plateful of overly sugarly trifle and cheesecake-on-a-stick later, we posed for photos with Oklahoma Governor Brady Henry, who told us to stop by sometime. We said ok. After seeing the governor, there wasn't much else to look forward to, so we rode the elevators. I think I was so excited to have a Cape Cod with clear cranberry juice, I couldn't help but pretend I was a Broadway star. No one can ever say I won't publicly humiliate myself here to recount a food detail.


9:15 struck, the music stopped, and the food was swept to the kitchen before I could figure out how to get something to-go (it's not the size of one's purse, but the intensity of one's desire to risk public approbation to score leftovers that counts). We spent half the walk back to the metro complaining about how horrible our shoes were until we saw this irresistible photo opportunity, fodder for giggle all the way back to L'Enfant Plaza.

Woodchuck and Moby Dick's

My favorite scene in the surprisingly delightful movie, "The Wedding Planner" (yes yes, the one with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McC....et cetera), shows her sitting alone on her couch eating a simple dinner on a TV tray, meticulously arranging her napkin and fork at 90 degree angles, and watching PBS, when just before one of her clients sighed at how enviable her life must be.

I wanted to record tonight that food memories can be created from the simplest of pleasures, and that I haven't taken up eating foods that should be italicized every night. However, my day could have shaped up to be quite glamorous. If I hadn't taken so long to shower today and if my gas tank hadn't been nearly empty, I might have instead stopped at Starbucks to get a $4 cup of soy milk foam and sugar. If I hadn't had to stay late at work, I could have gone on a possibly intriguing date with a complete stranger at a fancy restaurant (but one that also got panned on this blog). Also, if I hadn't been so busy during work, I might have been able to eat the warmed remnants of my petite filet, creamed spinach and mashed potatoes from last night's dinner at the fine restaurant Ray's the Steaks, at a table with other people.

However, I ate cold leftovers alone at my desk, at 3 pmmsupplemented my lunch with two oatmeal packets, missed my date after work, am currently drinking Woodchuck Draft Cider in bed, and have dirty dishes in the sink. Tonight, I am not writing about the intersection of love and food in the traditional sense. However, I received the loveliest letter tonight from my Yiayia, which included her recipes for Beef Pot Roast, Banana Cream Pie, and Meringue, that my handful of readers may recall as items from an especially delicious meal she cooked for me at her house over Christmas. With my upcoming self-exile this Inauguration weekend, I might even try to replicate that fine dinner for myself. While receiving her letter was a wonderful cap to a mildly uninspiring food day, dinner proved to be predominately pathetic but still delightfully indulgent event. A project kept me at work past dinnertime, so I ran out to Moby Dick's for takeout for myself and colleagues. I ordered Combo III (see left), rice with both lamb and kubideh (Persian kafta, which is ground sirloin with onions and spices). I drowned it in yogurt sauce (essentially tzatsiki), stole my friends grilled tomatoes after eating mine, ate chilly dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves) and enjoyed delicious, freshly-baked bread. We were all waiting for someone else to finish something before we each left, so we were able to take the moment to enjoy a lovely restaurant-style dinner on a table that usually is host to an opened bag of sunflower seeds that's been there for two weeks (that functions as a detachable feed bag for one of my colleagues) and serious work discussions.

Geranio

I'm back with a mini-vengeance to recount my dining experiences, and I must admit, it's very satisfying. Sort of like the majority of my meal this evening. The weather is miserable: rainy and hazy and it fogs up my windows and turns my fingertips white. After work, sitting saturated in my car, I realized I have a unique opportunity few people have: I can do whatever I want, every night. I can eat candy bars for dinner or go bowling or see a movie or buy galoshes or drive to West Virginia. I decided to take myself to a nice dinner at Geranio on King Street, which my friend Tammy recommended for their risotto and because I am renewing my project to dine at every restaurant in my neighborhood. I parked 1.5 blocks from my apartment, but right in front of the restaurant. This seemed like an obviously good idea, because of the rain and my reticence to pull out my umbrella. I entered, despite the candlelight, and realized this is only the second restaurant I've dined at alone with only votives for illumination; the first time was fine (ok, sort of depressing because I had just moved to town and didn't understand how it was possible that a 24 year old could have nothing to do on a Friday night and just stumbled in). This time, the candlelight was also a negligible factor in my enjoyment of the restaurant.

I ordered wine and was served delicious crusty bread with perfect little butter balls and green olive oil (what Yiayia says is best). The waiter was fine (I didn't understand what "lovster" risotto was until he left) and I ordered my salad: three warmed mozzarella balls wrapped in prosciutto, with a sauce of braised tomatoes in the middle, entirely drizzled in balsamic vinegar and basil oil. It was magical. Hearty but not too rich, delicate but not fragile, and very sophisticated until I realized the taste it reminded me of was Applebee's mozzarella sticks. I'm regressing.

During the consumption of I think my second cheese ball, some idiot woman backed into my car while she was parallel parking. This is the problem of watching people park around your car while eating. I went out, cheeks flushed, checked the damage and there was none. I lost a bit of my appetite out of anger that a thoughtless woman picking up some obscenely large gift basket can't use her mirrors. Then, my waiter didn't ask me for a new glass of while. I guess I'm a petulant customer, but I don't feel like I should have to ask for either more bread or more wine at a Mediterranean place, because I certainly don't have to ask for oxygen--another necessity--there either.

I ordered mushroom risotto, and despite my disappointment that $17 worth of rice didn't buy me a complete lunch for the next day, I enjoyed the flavors immensely. It had two kinds of delicious mushrooms, English peas, pancetta, shaved Parmesan, and white truffle oil. The truffle oil was disconcerting because it elicited bad memories of an even worse date, where my companion was discussing the merits of a $30 bottle of truffle oil and I wanted to douse him in it and accidentally strike a match. Ok, that's mean. He's probably only worth a coating of vegetable oil anyway. But, it was delicious... very sophisticated but homey, without being too cheesy or creamy. While perusing the dessert menu, I noticed the table next to me oooh'd at a car parallel parking that hit the car behind it--a silver one. My silver one (I saw no damage in the dark, but took his plates too).

I tried concentrating on the dessert menu (eventually deciding upon an almond/pear tart with a hazelnut anglaise). However, the building fury at the criminal treatment of my poor car and the molasses-speed movements of my waiter made me lose my sweet tooth (that rarely happens), haughtily give my credit card to the waiter before seeing the bill, and return home to find my tax forms waiting for my in my mailbox. I'm just too fragile for fine dining I suppose.

Twelve Meals

Ends of years (and because I'm lazy, beginnings of years too) are times of reflection, cataloging past events, and cherry picking preferred memories to indulge in. Because I like cliches and I have much catching-up to do, I present below (only in recollect-able order rather than by importance) my 12 meals of Christmas, all of which occurred sometime after my last post (September) and now (the 12th day of Christmas). My only germane resolution for 2009 is to experience more.

1. Lunch of dolmathes, pot roast, and burnt buttered spaghetti at my Yiayia's house

This could have been the best meal of the year. My mother and I dropped in at my Yiayia's (grandmother's) house after a day of mall-shopping, and didn't realize how invigorating the solace of Greek and American food could be. Dolmathes are stuffed grape leaves (Yiayia defrosted her homemade ones) and with a squeeze of lemon on top, they taste like sunshine, Mediterranean blue, and my Yiayia. The pot roast was already on the stove, and came out impeccably, fork-cutable tender. Burnt buttered spaghetti (in Greek, makaronia me bouturo) is my favorite meal, ever. This is the meal I used to draw pictures of in grade school when we had to illustrate favorite foods. It consists of makaronia pasta (imported, comes in different widths), with mezitra cheese (pungent, delicately grainy, and grated, see picture) and sizzling brown butter (slowly heated on the stove until just before it burns) drizzled on top. It sounds elementary, but it's an art ensuring everything is to proportion and the butter doesn't become a black, smoking mess that satisfies the fire alarm more than your palate. I've included photos of the simple, easily-obtainable ingredients (mezitra and grape leaves) as a consolation to myself that in an ideal world, my favorite food is hypothetically replicable.

2. Sonic Drive-in, every other day in Oklahoma...

Picking Sonic as an element of a compendium of favorite meals (again, using "meal" loosely, because fried cheesecake squares and french toast sticks are always admired, but never indulged in at America's Drive-In) is so unoriginal and obvious, it reminds me of a scene in "High Fidelity." John Cusack's character says he'd put Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a top ten list, to which Jack Black responds, "Oh, that's not obvious enough Rob. How about the Beatles? Or f*ing... f*ing Beethoven? Side one, Track one of the Fifth Symphony... How can someone with no interest in music own a record store?" A person in Oklahoma blogging about food probably couldn't get away with it, but as any displaced Oklahoman will attest, absence from Sonic makes one's heart grow fonder for one of their ten million possible combinations of fountain drinks. So, I particularly gleefully drank Sonic's iced teas, strawberry limeades, and lemon-berry slushes at every possible opportunity. Please see the cousin of my favorite drink, Sonic's medium cherry limeade, coyly peeking out from behind a Texas toast-buttressed sandwich. An afternoon can't possibly progress into a satisfying evening without a little push from a Sonic drink...

3. New Year's Eve Dinner, The Metro Wine Bar and Bistro, Oklahoma City

Now we get to it: food with French descriptions, like vinaigrette, fricassee, and amuse-bouche. I admit that I learned a few important things because of this dinner: osso bucco is braised veal shank, medical items on desserts are sometimes off-putting, and wine is always a good choice on New Year's Eve. This dinner was fantastic. First, we had our amuse-bouche, a small cube of tuna, covered in puffed rice and sesame seeds, served in a large Asian plastic soup spoon. Next, we had a salad with candied pecans, cherry tomatoes, and cranberries with a honey dijon white peppercorn vinaigrette, with a more notable (and complementary) chevre/phyllo... sachet? My mom was good enough to insist I photograph our fine meal for posterity and the blog, for which I am grateful.


My entree was a mahi mahi fricasse (I think the nomenclature may have more for kicks than accuracy), which was full of vegetables, shrimp, and an appropriate-for-winter broth.


Wait, was that osso bucco in the background? Let's take a closer look...


Accompanying each course was my trusty culinary sidekick, Dinner Roll, which looked very much like the small loaves I used to read about in fairy tales about hot crossed buns and bakers' men. Dessert was this delicious chocolate pave, with sticky caramel and toasted almonds scattered around. And, dessert part two was strawberry gelee (horray for unnecessary French names!), a small square of a Turkish-delight-ish strawberry flavored, sugar-coated gelataneousness, next to a raspberry with a (frankly) intimidating plastic eyedropper filled with "framboise." Eyedroppers around food send the same half-chill up my spine that hearing words like "orifice," "infection," and "coagulant" does. However, the food was inventive and delicious, without being pretentious or uneccessarily spiced. It was just what the doctor ordered? It cured what ailed me? It was the antitdote to sometimes uninventive restaurant outings?.....

4. Christmas Dinner in Oklahoma

Christmas was delightful: a wonderful day full of interesting gift-giving, family time, beautiful sunlight, and a simple, delicious dinner. It of course was an easily-satisfying dinner because I requested most of what was put on the table, but it was such a nice homecoming, despite my brother's spending it in Italy, and it tasted like home and Christmases past. My mom bought a honey-baked ham and made green beans with ham, cornbread stuffing with bacon, cornbread with homemade honey butter, cranberries with orange zest, and a salad. For dessert, we had pumpkin pie (with homemade crust and some solidly squirted ReddiWhip) and my Yiayia's homemade chocolate pudding with meringue. I realized (unfortunately, as I can't make this pudding myself) that my non-fat pudding from a box (mixed with rice milk, again from a box) is pretty awful in comparison. Too bad homemade makes such a difference. Unfortunately, making pudding from boxes, even at home, doesn't make it homemade.

I'm thankful our hams don't come adorned with unidentifiable nuts/berries.

5. Library Bar and Grill/Thunderbird (Wild Wild West) Casino, Norman, Oklahoma

The Library is the best bar, ever. Like Sonic, the Library has a legion of fans who will loyally declare the same thing. They have good beer (six local, lots on top, even more bottled), good bar food (nachos with real cheese, pizza with crusty crusts, even sushi that's good) and is, I've decided, the site of most of the important events of my collegiate and immediately post-collegiate life. I had earth-shattering, emotionally moving, wildly empathetic, buddingly romantic, and satisfyingly mundane conversations in this place. So, my friend Jarod and I went here and had an expected evening of good beer (Boyd Street Wheat), good food (jalapeno nachos), and good conversation. It was nice, then got better. We drove about 10 minutes east of Norman, Oklahoma to someplace east of Norman, where the oasis of Thunderbird casino rose out of the plains. Thunderbird Casino is administered by the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, and houses Redneck's Cafe, Chuck Wagon Snack Bar, and The Jockey Club. We couldn't figure out how a jockey fits into a cowboy-themed casino, but that clearly was a futile inquiry. And we didn't care, because beer was only $1.50 and the menthol cigarettes were so deliciously cool! I'm not a good enough writer to explain why my attention was so throroughly and constantly diverted here. There was the woman who was knitting (in the casino), the wild-in-the-eyes, overly intense, lawyer-looking man with a wad of hundreds, the hardcore Oklahoma State fans, and the invigorating hum of mechanical slot machines with potentially lucrative lines of cherries, Star Wars characters, and African animals. I even won ten dollars, which counts as profit as I was given ten extra un-spendable-only-gambleable dollars because of my gender. So, since menthol cigarettes come from mint (a plant, at some point), it counts as a culinary event.

6. IHOP, Edmond, Oklahoma

For equally remarkable culinary nomenclature, let me recount IHOP. IHOP does it up internationally for real, now. They have crepes with Nutella, Mediterranean Chicken, and a bilingual menu. But it's details like our friendly waitress, Crystal, the four types of syrup on each table, menu items called "Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity," and the proferred choice of condiments like Tabasco and Cholula that make IHOP the breakfast of champions breakfast location, all day long. I had a great breakfast part two at 1 pm (in Oklahoma, that's never called brunch): Crystal brough me two scrambled eggs, two buttermilk pancakes, and two pieces of ham. I'm not really sure what else I need to say beyond that to explain its inclusion in the top twelve. Also, the coffee came in an IHOP mug. Unruly babies, questionably suburban gangster 12-year-olds, and another waitress who recounted the glories of dipping French fries in McDonald's ice cream did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of this remarkable meal.

7. Waffle House, Columbus, Georgia

For a variation on the same theme, let's enter my mind's stomach to Waffle House, which is not to be mistaken as some sort of less-worthy imitation of IHOP. Both companies seem to have reached an understanding with each other that neither can make both good waffles and good pancakes, so have each labored to perfect their individual breakfast speciality. So, IHOP limits their waffle-making to the Belgian sort (it really can't be taken seriously when sitting opposite menu items like four-meat omelettes or a T-Bone steak and eggs) and I'm not sure surly Waffle House waitresses would admit to knowing what a pancake--gentle and fluffly as they are--was. IHOP's Crystal was friendly: young, bright-eyed, admirably interested in what tomato products I liked on my eggs. Most Waffle House waitresses look like you took their last cigarette and gave it to their ungrateful ex-husbands. They are always friendly (although a bit prickly) and mostly competent (although both waitresses and cooks alike engage in a fascinating exchage of who is less competent themselves), but it really doesn't matter when grits, eggs, toast, coffee, and orange juice are slammed down on your table for under about six dollars. And I think there is something to be said for the waitresses' anachonistic but symbolic brown and yellow costumes, which can only remind me of pancakes and butter. Plus, the brown and yellow must have triggered some my own subconscious affinity for them, as they resemble the black and yellow colors that we've since been sporting on sweatshirts since my brother graduated from Ranger school, which is what took us to Columbus, Georgia in the first place. Again organic. Beautiful. I'm proud of this photo.

8. Mom's Cafe, Guthrie, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City is quaint, but it's not small-town America (maybe buddling metropolis America?). We have Main Streets, but usually they connect to other main (little m) streets. We have people who dress up in costumes (varieties such as WalMart vests, jerseys for our new basketball team, or underage suburban gangsters, see #6), but no period costume-wearers in Land Run garb. So, because Guthrie has these things (as a legacy of its being the first capital of Oklahoma), it makes for a charming little city, replete with antique shops, tea houses, chocolate bon bon boutiques, and of course, Mom's Cafe. My dad and I both ordered one of the best turkey dishes I think either of us had ever had: a scoop of turkey salad (with dried cranberries, mayonaise, pecans, and celery) on a little bed of lettuce, and a side fruit salad with fancy fruits (pineapple, etc... like getting Butterfinger on Halloween), rather than grapes and albino, slimy melon (equivalently, getting Tootsie Rolls). Look how charming this little corner cafe is:


We went back for dessert, because eating lunch was what we did while we decided what we were having for dessert. My dad had a lovely piece of pecan pie, my mom had a cream cheese brownie, and I ate poor Santa's face, nibble by nibble.


9. Ray's Hell Burger (Arlington, VA)/Restaurant Eve (Alexandria, VA) with my brother

I have a great brother, with sophisticated tastes. And, since I took him to Ben's Chili Bowl on his first visit to DC, I had to show him a gourmet beef product in VA. After him deriding me for parking three blocks away (little whiner doesn't understand DC metro parking) and wondering whether it was still there (thankfully I recalled something about "no sign out front"...), we were the first customers at 3 or 4 pm. It's almost too hip for it's own good, but with minimal decor, paper towel napkins, and cramped tables, it keeps a convincing aura of being a legit burger joint. My brother and I, emerging culinary soulmates, ordered the same burger, the B.I.G. Poppa, which comes with an au poivre burger, aged Danish bleu cheese, cognac and sherry sauteed mushrooms, and grilled red onions. We didn't talk much, but each silently strategized on how to consume our burger. And we got some fancy macaroni and cheese. It had some obscene amount of cheese in it and my brother (who apparently hates some cheeses, more out of principle than preference) ate it, so it was a small victory for me.

Then, I took my brother to Restaurant Eve. I don't remember what I got; I was talking to my brother too much (which is the point of a good meal anyway), but I remember he got Gravlax (again, awesome!). My excitement makes sense when you see a perhaps less-than-flattering picture of my brother:

That's chew (not Gravlax) in my brother's mouth...

If you want to read my culinary hero's take on Ray's Hell Burger, click here.

10. My brother's Italian gastronomical experience

Since this is my blog, I can make the rules so will deliver more appropriate praise about my brother. So, I choose to list one of my top meals as one I've been having for a few weeks now by proxy. My brother, since his arrival in Italy, has done exactly what I would do: eat interesting things. My brother is very adventurous and has always been an admirer of good food, but it had to meet certain conditions, namely being red and meat. However, I noticed that in a recent conversation, upon asking him his preferred meals in Italy, they were (shock!) both vegetarian: pasta caprese and a sort of tortellini with cheese. I hope it doesn't seem like I am publicly deriding his taste; rather, I'm publicly admiring my devotion to the developing tastes of my brother and writing here because I am so damn jealous. As an impressively loving brother, he has been cataloguing some of these items in his head to recount for me, including recounting meals like calamari, caprese salad, proscuitto, pizza, espresso, and horse. And he can say them with their original Italian names! I'm so proud of my brother. Just FYI, to illustrate obliquely that my blog is a natural outgrowth of my upbringing, please see what my family decided to photograph on vacation in Georgia and to immortalize on film. This is why I think it's a good idea to write paragraphs about 12 meals I've eaten.


11. Sonia's Brownies/Macaroons

My friend Sonia makes lovely brownies that should launch her into entrepreneurer-dom. They are heart-shaped, have chocolate ganache in them somewhere, and are covered in some sort of chocolate sauce that drips down off the heart's upper surface onto the sides. I clearly have no idea how they are made, but they consoled my soul the first time I tried them (Valentine's Day, 2007) and it's been a love affair ever since (she pulled one out of her freezer for me recently). She makes damn good macaroons too (her gift to me a few weeks ago), the legit French kind with the stiff outside and chewy inside. How lucky am I to have a friend who calls me just to gush about the meal she just ate (never lording, always effusing) and with whom I can have a 30 minute conversation about possible combinations of crepe fililng ingredients? SO lucky that I get gifts of cookies for reasons not tied to national holidays!


This picture has nothing to do with brownies or cookies, but is some proof of Sonia and my culinary mania: us being photographed trying to photograph our own food in Greece.

12. OKC Thunder Basketball Suite

My dear father knew I was coming to town, so took advantage of the opportunity to get tickets to his employer's suite at the Oklahoma City Thunder Basketball Team's game. I saw Shaq! And Grant Hill! And some really good but wildly shorter basketball players for OKC! It was fun... we had beer, fresh fruit accompanied by a yogurt/fruit sauce in a hollowed out coconut, crunchy veggies, cheddar-stuffed jalapenos, chips and salsa, mini beef taquitos, chocolate-covered strawberries, and brownies with nuts. These items sound quotidien, but eating them while watching tall guys slam dunk, Russian people do gymnastics at halftime, and Shaq effortlessly dominate the court is pretty much the sweetest combination of food and amusement I can think of (except for Dubuque hot dogs at KC Royals games and hot chocolate at football games, but I've already described about 23 meals here already).

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Bon Appetit!