Five Meals — A Meditation

For some reason, I got it into my head that I should write up some of my favorite restaurant experiences, ones that were memorable not just for great food, necessarily, but for those slightly intangible aspects that cause an occasion to lodge in the memory banks. For example, I have memories of terrific experiences with food back and forth across the British Isles, but having a humble kipper breakfast overlooking Portree harbor in Skye might be the indelible one.

And so, a rattle bag of treasures revisited.

Meal 1: Le Bec Fin, Philadelphia (2007)

Here’s what I wrote closer to the time: 

“Several years ago, I was in Philly on a business trip. I scheduled the 9:00 seating [at Le Bec Fin], then took the train and met an old friend at the station. (My train had caught fire in Vermont, delaying the journey just enough to make getting there a nail-biter.) He negotiated the city streets like a pro and we made the seating with but a moment to spare -- Le Bec-Fin was not known for flexible seating times. The service was as slow as the snails I ordered, so my friend helped me pass the time by pointing out a party of local politicos out to dinner with very heavily made-up women -- clearly not their wives. Meanwhile, we did what came natural while waiting: we drank heavily and adjourned several times to the patio (aka sidewalk) for cigarettes. By the time dessert came -- thanks to the combination of the liquor, six courses, and a long train ride -- I was barely able to stand. The experience was everything I expected, but it served as a reminder of why I am at heart a gourmand, rather than a gourmet: The food was delicious and beautifully presented, but awfully precious, and the service bordered on obsequious.  Every time we came back from a smoke, my napkin had been perfectly origamied on my chair, and a server was behind me to slide the chair under my buttocks. It's too much.”

Let's look back with the clarity, and honesty, that more time has offered:

Obamacare was still several years in the future, George W. Bush had put Medicare Part D in place, and I was working in pharmacy benefits management – a moment that might someday be seen in retrospect like the dot-com boom, as money sloshed through the business, buoyed by blockbuster lifestyle drugs like Viagra and a veritable laundry list of statins. It was the moment to indulge in an extravagance I had long wished for. As it turned out, the timing was right in other ways. Just two years later, the venerable Mobil Guide would dock a star from Philly’s only five-star restaurant, and two years more saw the old French warhorse close its doors for good. 

After dinner ended, at about 11:30, My friend took me to an abomination of a “Scotch ‘n Cigar” bar, where gratuitous smoking and further drinking caused me to leave roughly $350 of outstanding French food in their men’s room, deftly keeping my tie from dangling in the toilet as I threw up. (I cannot for the life of me recall where I spent the night.) Rich food, peaty whisky, and heavy cigar smoke are a rough combination. It was, per person, the most expensive meal I’d had at that point in my life, though I can’t honestly say what I ate; above, I imply escargots, and that would not surprise me, as I adore the damn things. Duck? Lamb? Steak? I have no idea. It was the atmosphere and service that jelled in my brain.

Meal 2, a Counterpoint: The Tewksbury Inn, Oldwick, NJ (2007)

It was a few days after Le Bec Fin, and I was still recovering from my desperate night in Philly. Passing through NJ on the way home, I met another friend in Central Jersey horse country for a meal at the Tewksbury Inn, what passes for rustic-themed hospitality in a place where incomes run to the millions pretty frequently. The parts of New Jersey within shouting distance of New York City sprout these restaurants that aim to capture some sort of colonial charm blended with traditional American cuisine in an atmosphere with a hint of equestrianism – but aimed at people who didn’t see a horse except on TV for their first 30 years, and definitely have never cleaned their own tack.

Nonetheless, the Tewks is a charming restaurant in a building dating to 1788, it is said, and with the bare minimum of the requisite class markers. It was also a fraction of Le Bec Fin’s price, and thus an appropriate comparison point, coming so soon after and offering an outstanding contrast. It was also the last time I can recall enjoying a steak at a restaurant, an onglet that was the best I’ve ever had: perfectly cooked and dished up with a gracious dollop of bearnaise and a mound of crisped new potato quarters. There was nothing obsequious about the service. In fact, I can barely recall the service at all, which is really the mark of an excellent waiter: be there the moment you are needed, then be gone.

Add in frog’s legs that dissolved on the tongue, a splendid Paso Robles zinfandel, and great conversation with my oldest friend in the world (plus no vomiting in the restroom later, though there was a horrendous drive back to Manhattan in a surprise downpour later that night) and one is left with a near-perfect night out.

Meal 3: Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY (1996)

It was the day after my wedding. We left in the late morning, a chilly December drive from Annapolis to Lake Placid for a winter honeymoon, planning to arrive at our four-star, meals-included hotel in time for dinner. Sadly, sometime around the spookily early dusk that comes that time of year, that far north, a blinding snow gale kicked up in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and we positively crawled the last hundred miles to our destination, arriving at nearly 10:00 pm.

In this sleepy town, before the Christmas holidays have kicked off, finding an open restaurant at that hour is roughly as likely as seeing a live brontosaurus munching on the shrubbery outside your hotel room window. In fact, so destitute of options were we that we went to the gas station kwik-e-mart for provisions that included:

1. A bag of Doritos
2. A vacuum sealed bag of washed cheese curds (an unknown treat below about 44 degrees North latitude)
3. A package of L’il Smokies mini hot dogs
4. A six-pack of Samuel Adams Stock Ale

We nibbled and sipped our hard-won bounty back in the hotel room, but sleep won out over hunger. The half empty chip bag sat rolled on the dresser for three days, and the remaining franks and curds were a loss due to lack of fridge. And thus passed our first dinner as a married couple. Twenty years of subsequent marital strife might have been saved had we embraced the symbolism that meal offered and called for an immediate annulment, like a couple of airheaded movie stars from the 1930s, marrying on a weekend spree and splitting up as soon as the champagne wears off.

To be fair to the delightful Mirror Lake Inn, the remainder of our stay saw quite a number of fabulous tastes on offer, including a delicious duck dinner in the nearly empty dining room (the only time a restaurant has ever offered “seconds'' on my entree) and the discovery, at their cafe by the lake, that hot chocolate with a shot of Bailey’s takes the chill off nicely when coming in from a hike in 25 degree weather. But that first meal remains indelible in my memory.

Meal 4, and a Tangential Memory: Valentinos, Morristown, NJ (1994) & the Chestnut Hill Tavern, Philadelphia (1995)

My first real job after college was managing properties for a sweatshop real estate racket making a mint on newly formed condo associations in and around early-90s New York City. The 300-unit condo building where I live now, by way of comparison, has a full-time manager, assistant manager, handyman, and desk staff. But at the time, I managed a similar-sized building – and 17 other smaller properties – with the help of one assistant and two handymen that I shared with three other managers with similar portfolios. We hustled, to put it mildly, and I wore a pager most nights to cover emergencies. 

My parents were living in London at the time, and I was managing their house as a rental on the side; my father had flown back for business and wanted to go over some details of the property. He suggested that we discuss over dinner at his favorite Italian restaurant in the area, Valentino’s. This was the era of New Italian on the east coast. Old-school Mama Leone had been kicked to the curb in favor of neon scrawl and shrunken portions. In this milieu, Valentino’s stood out. It was not a spaghetti warehouse, nor was it nouvelle. It was classic Northern Italian with a strong focus on beef and veal, outstanding cheeses, and a terrific cellar. 

Now, my father is a frugal and careful man, someone who later engineered a comfortable retirement at 55 – and not because he was making millions. He minded his nickels, caught a nice break in the market, and went off to write historical novels. Diamond Jim he was not. But he had done business in Italy for years, and the culinary culture there had swept him off his feet; so when he springs for a nice Italian dinner, half measures are not an option. Let’s say I jumped at the chance.

We started with carpaccio Parmagiana, I remember, with a lovely Brunello di Montalcino, and I was awaiting a veal chop when my pager began to rattle at my hip. Water was pouring into an elevator shaft at a fantastically problematic luxury building in Hoboken. I needed to contact the association president; needed to contact my elevator man; needed to contact my 24-hour plumber; and, as I was 40 minutes away, minimum, needed to call a colleague who lived near the building, to see if he could babysit the event so that I might not have to surrender this fabulous dinner.

It can be hard to remember what living without a mobile phone was truly like, and I can understand why Gen Z might wonder how we got anything done. It seems so awfully primitive, slow, and annoying. Imagine being without your smartphone for a day, and tote up how drastically your productivity would collapse. But we knew no better, so we soldiered on.

I hadn’t seen a pay phone in the lobby, so I caught the maitre d’ as he passed by to ask where the nearest one was. “One moment, sir,” he said. And, indeed, a moment later he was back – with a good old cradle telephone (touch-tone, thankfully!) on a service tray, wire dragging across the restaurant floor, with little red ribbons tied on it at two-foot spacings to warn away bustling waitstaff. Perhaps he had seen the pager, or maybe it was because I was wearing the one nice suit I owned; whatever the reason, this young punk got the Edward G. Robinson, house-phone-at-the-table royal treatment.

I made my calls and bought myself enough time to finish the meal and the bottle of Brunello.

Apropos of pre-cellphone moments: When I was living in Annapolis, I would often drive to Philadelphia to meet my long-distance girlfriend for the weekend. We were both quite poor and would often eat together on Friday by grazing on free happy hour grub in the bars up and down Germantown Avenue. A decent meal could be gleaned for the price of a couple of drinks in the days before $17 Old Fashioneds. Hard to believe that, back then, a couple of domestic drafts was a ticket to a buffet of wings, miniature egg rolls, fried mozzarella, and a pile of domestic cheese cubes. 

The girlfriend was late leaving work on one particular Friday evening, so I found a place around the corner from her house to have a beer and pass the time until we could meet up for our “dinner.” This was a flavor of small, gritty, cash-only dive bar that doesn’t really exist anymore. It featured three different types of domestic beer, in cans, that the bartender fished out of the kind of slide-top fridge that is more typically used to store ice cream sandwiches by the checkout counter of a 7-11. There were also small bags of beer nuts for sale. And that was the entire board of fare. I ordered Miller High Life, and the bartender cracked the tab on the can and passed it over the counter. One didn’t bother asking for a glass; even if one existed, the can still would have been cleaner.

I suppose I was about halfway through my second beer when the bar telephone rang. The bartender answered, listened for a moment, and then held the receiver to his ample belly and shouted out into the tiny bar, “Dennis? Dennis? Is there a Dennis here?” Stunned for a moment, I finally volunteered that such was my own name. He shrugged a little, as if this were a fairly common occurrence, and slid the phone over the bar to me. It was my girlfriend, calling to tell me when and where to meet.

“How the hell did you know where to find me?” I asked. We had never visited this bar together, and it was the only night I ever set foot inside.

“Wasn’t hard,” she laughed. “It’s the closest place to my house.” She had made a single call and found me. 

Back home on Sunday night, I recounted with some pride to a friend how I got an old-school phone call in a bar.

“I hate you,” he said.

Meal 5: Circle Diner, Flemington, NJ (1980)

We did not eat out often, as a family, when I was growing up. Pizza was made at home, on a cookie sheet, using mom’s bread dough for crust and canned tomato paste for sauce. Chinese, likewise, was constructed at home. I remember attempting fortune cookies once to add an air of authenticity; they were rubbery. Eating out was, rather, something one did quickly, cheaply while traveling to see the grandparents each summer. McDonald’s, Denny’s, perhaps a Stuckey’s or a Big Boy if we had a bit of time. I went to Pizza Hut with the team after a little league game once. It felt weird and alien. A friend’s birthday at Chuck E. Cheese once set my easily overstimulated brain ringing like Big Ben, and I imagine I entered a fugue state shortly after stepping inside. One of the adults had to slap me at one point to get my attention.

In celebration of reaching 10 years of age, however, I was invited to select a restaurant for a family dinner in my honor. At the time, we had the misfortune of living in a small, gritty, Pennsylvania-adjacent Jersey town, too rural to be interesting, too far from New York to be horsey country, and too far from the water for Springsteen to sing about – but his kind of dead-end town, all the same. The local metropolis was Flemington, a dingy roundabout bedecked with commercial sprawl at the junction of two state highways, with more sprawl and minor malls of 60s vintage in either direction. But that roundabout also featured the only non-fast food restaurant I knew of within 20 miles, and only because we often drove past it on our way to and from civilization — the fabulous Circle Diner, a gleaming, Art Deco confection of stainless steel and neon, an eatery from a vision of the future that was already 25 years out of date, the very perfect restaurant for a sheltered, introverted, and troubled semi-rural Jersey boy.

However attractive it looked from the outside, the inside was a wonder: jukeboxes at the booths (though, disappointingly, we five required a freestanding table); a revolving, multi-tiered dessert display case near the entrance; a menu that seemed as big and as thick as a good commemorative Star Wars comic book. Forty-something years later, I cannot remember what I ate for dinner, but a really good guess would be a breaded veal cutlet with French fries, or possibly a three-decker BLT. I imagine I was allowed the rare indulgence of a soft drink – 7up or birch beer seems likely. 

I do remember, though, with a metaphysical certainty that could be the envy of the most devoutly religious, that for dessert I selected, from that revolving tower of sweets, a serving of strawberry shortcake – a confection as artificially constructed as the diner building itself, but deliciously decorated with whipped cream and slices of strawberry, and without a doubt what I wanted most of all at that moment. 

A year later, the family decamped to Texas, where “diner” was a noun that meant no more than someone who sat at a table to be waited upon. I would rediscover the diner years later in high school, though, back in New Jersey – in fact would spend most nights of my junior and senior years in one of a handful that boasted names like The Lackawanna, The Nautilus, The Golden Touch, The Tick Tock, The Parthenon. I even worked in a greasy spoon for a few years as a dishwasher, then counter server, then prep cook, then grill man. But all that was far in the future. For that night, at age 10, I fell in love with the diner as a concept, as an institution, as a cultural touchstone of postwar American culture.

The Circle Diner burned to the ground 15 years later (and yes, it was an arson-for-insurance scam — this is Jersey we’re talking about) and its former site now boasts a TGI Friday, the very kind of fast-casual chain that made the traditional diner an unprofitable white elephant among restaurants. The fact is, if you see a diner today, chances are pretty good that it is run by a corporation, and not by a local Greek family named Papavasiliou. And those one-offs that still struggle and survive against the mighty chains – well, we should reward them with our business, be it for eggs and bacon in the morning or spaghetti and meatballs after the late show. Have a piece of the strawberry shortcake for me. 

The Tyranny of Beef

The Tyranny of Beef
When I was young, a night out for real meant a steak. I would go with friends to Arthur's, a North Jersey landmark with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, pickled peppers, roasted potatoes, and flags in the steak to indicate how rare it was. This was sophistication, we told ourselves. We had, after all, simply grown up in an era prior to Nouvelle or Fusion, when a steak dinner was simply what you ordered. No self-respecting man was going to go out and order chicken. As for fish, wasn't that a first course?

As the years went by, I had Chateaubriand at Maisonette, Wellington at Four Seasons, steak pie at Brittingham's, prime rib at Morton's, and onglet at Tewksbury Inn -- always believing that I was happy, that this was dining. (All except Morton's, perhaps, where the the whole vibe was a little too Henry VIII-meets-Disney for my tastes.

Then I had duck at Court Street. It probably wasn't the best duck anyone has ever had, but it was a revelation to me. There was another option -- not boring like chicken, and not silly and inconsequential like pasta. Then there was the salmon at the Sole Proprietor. Fish as a main course? Who knew!

By the time I was 30 years old, I had stopped ordering beef entirely at restaurants. I think I've had one steak in a restaurant in the past five years, and I didn't love it. I'm sure I was nearly the last one to figure this out. There are always hipper people than me. But most of the time they were eating pasta, and where's the fun in that? But I had discovered pork and lamb and organ meat and shellfish, and I wasn't going back.

I was late to the party on variety -- I didn't have Chinese food until my teens. I had sushi, but only because I was in Japan. Pizza was made at home, on cookie sheets, and had tomato paste from a can beneath the rubbery mozzarella. But then I grew up under the Tyranny of Beef. Oh, sure, people ate pork chops. At home. On Wednesday. Turkey was for Thanksgiving, ham for Easter, macaroni and cheese on Friday and during Lent. But beef ruled the world. That was a Saturday night dinner, dinner for company, dinner out. Like having a martini before dinner -- who would have thought we'd trade that for glasses of Chardonnay? (Wine came in a jug, with a handle, right?)

What's the point here? Not much really, other than to observe the culinary changes that came about under my watch, the way that a steak became no-longer-a-steak in a very short time. Three-pieced businessmen started to talk about the joys of ceviche with a minerally Gruner, and Don Draper stepped aside to let in Tony Bourdain.

It was thrilling, in many ways, to find it happening. Had I been older, I might have been the type who sniffed about such tastes being unmanly -- we don't call someone with outdated tastes a "meat-and-potatoes man" by accident. Had I been younger, I may have grown up never knowing the Tyranny of Beef -- like a kid born in the era of Facebook and smartphones can't imagine that people once lived -- for lifetimes on end -- without such things.

Nudel, Lenox

Nudel is right in the heart of Lenox, on picturesque Church Street, which had recently received a coating of snow, making for a lovely scene as we crunched up to the restaurant.  We had tried this once before: Nudel takes no reservations, and back in October, as we had eyed the handful of tables and small counter, we were told the wait was over an hour.  We were hungry and moved on, vowing to return.

Nudel's reputation is for foodie appeal, especially for creative use of local ingredients.  I've mentioned before that I'm not much for holding strictly to this philosophy, but it can be done well, and on our return last week Nudel did so.

We showed up early, to ensure a seating this time, and chose to sit at the counter to see the kitchen floor show, which consisted of a chef, a sous, and a dishwasher with well-rehearsed, if occasionally improvised, choreography.  The chef was happy to talk when he wasn't flat out at the stove, and the waitresses were happy to answer all kinds of questions as they dashed in and out of the kitchen to calls of "Order up!" that wouldn't have been out of place at the diner where I cut my teeth.

Staying close to their "local" ethos, there was barely a green to found: no salads on the menu and few vegetable options that didn't rely on roots and tubers: parsnips, potatoes, turnips, and dried peas.  This was real cold-weather food, not hothouse stuff trucked in to make the year-round mixed greens or the middle-of-December guacamole.  I started with turkey wing tacos, boneless wing meat crisped on the outside and topped with cabbage.  The filling was outstanding, though the taco "shells" (simply small, cold flour tortillas) didn't stand up to the creativity of flavor or presentation in the dish.  A crispy, homemade masa shell would have been delightful.

My wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) chose a delicious and tender boneless mutton -- the menu did not specify the cut, but it looked to be a sliced loin -- served on a risotto and topped with sauteed onions.

This is a place to visit not just to eat it, but to see it done.  It's like going to a great food truck, and then eating inside. Nothing is out of sight, from the ingredients to the pile of well-used cast iron pans that the chef went through posthaste. In the end, you have to decide if you really want this enforced intimacy with your meal. Don't come here to pop the question. Do come armed with questions, because every one of the staff has the answers, has tasted the whole menu, and can pair off the surprisingly extensive wine list without blinking.

Subcontinental Comfort Food

There was a time when my wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) and I seemed to get sick much more often, and more severely, than we do now.  We caught colds that turned into coughs and then hung around for weeks and weeks.  Looking back on it now, it seems very odd since, while we do still get colds, we never suffer anything that terrible.

That was about the time we discovered kichadi, an Indian stew of rice and dried, split mung beans.  Owing to its transliterated name, there are as many ways to spell this dish as there are to cook it.  (Depending on the source, you may see kichadi, kichari, kichri, kitchdi, or any of the above with a kh- at the front or an -ee at the end.  The British rice and fish breakfast dish kedgeree also derives from kichadi.)  The esseentials are typically the same:  rice, beans, and spices are cooked in water until they develop a porridge-like texture.  Essentially, it's one part dal, two parts rice, six parts water, cook till soft.

One particular variety is said to contain a bundle of ayurvedic goodness for curing what ails your lungs, and I made it this week for the first time in several years.  We weren't sick; we just missed the taste.  You add a couple of diced sweet potatoes to the beans and rice and spice it with ginger, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, salt and pepper -- and an unusual seed called ajwain, which tastes a bit like caraway.  I used whole spices sauteed with the onion, garlic, and ginger, then threw it all in a food processor to make a spice paste.

It's amazingly satisfying, nearly vegan (a little clarified butter), and the kind of thing I know I should be eating instead of yet another dose of Five Guys.

(Odd health side note: Traditionally, a touch of asafetida is added to the mixture -- said to reduce the gassy properties of beans, also recently shown to kill swine flu.)

Bottega Cucina, West Springfield

On the prowl for spaghetti and meatballs, my wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) came across some Yelp reviews for Bottega Cucina that praised its cuisine -- if not its ambiance -- fairly highly, even suggesting that a significant wait on a weekend night was not unusual.

The restaurant also got a hat tip from the "local hero" crowd for its use of Pioneer Valley produce.  While I don't fetishize the use of local ingredients (I'm not sure how one usefully can, in New England), I do use it as a fairly reliable indicator that the chef is giving some thought to his or her ingredients.

Our first impression was of a clean, comfortable space making the best of its location -- a small storefront next to a mini-mart just off Route 5.  Parking is limited, but turnover is quick, since much of the traffic is for the mini-mart.

Bottega Cucina (meaning, roughly, "artisan kitchen") succeeds and falls short in roughly equal measures, which leads to a somewhat frustrating dining experience.  There were three red wines available by the glass -- too few, I think, to properly meet the demands of a fairly extensive menu.  (We chose the house cab, which was certainly tasty.)  The salads were fresh if unimaginative versions of menu staples -- a Caesar for her featuring a nicely eggy dressing, heavy on the croutons, and spinach/red onion/gorgonzola/walnut for me, marred only by some leaves of rather tired looking spinach in the mix.

The bread, on the other hand, was useless.  For me, the bread tells the tale of an Italian restaurant.  Without great bread, I can't truly love any restaurant.  Even the chains (Olive Garden, Bertucci) have made efforts recently to improve their bread.  Here, we received a measly five pieces of roughly baguette-shaped bread.  The crumb was reminiscent of bread-machine loaves -- uniform, crumbly, and without the tooth of a decent rustic loaf.

Main dishes seemed more promising.  Portions were generous and simply presented.  The pasta in my spaghetti alla puttanesca was nicely cooked, and the sauce balanced olive and anchovy flavors well, along with some garlic and chili heat that is too often missing in this style.  Mrs. E's spaghetti and meatballs looked delightful on the plate; alas, the meatballs, while well flavored, were too heavy on the bread crumbs and ended up with a slightly gummy texture.  (I still haven't had a killer meatball since I left New Jersey.)

[Excuse the side note, but I can't let dessert pass without it:  Even when the featured cuisine doesn't support it, most restaurants will have some kind of "Mississippi Mudslide" horror, it seems.  Why, in heaven's name does the American diner feel that no meal is over without defibrillation doses of chocolate?  Nearly every dessert list I see concentrates on chocolate nearly to the exclusion of all else.  If there is a cake on the menu, it's going to be chocolate, and probably flourless.  Pie?  Chocolate turtle.  A mousse or pudding?  Chocolate.  The variety of desserts in American and European cuisine is so astounding; it's a crime that restaurants limit their selections to a few gooey chocolate fiascoes.]

Desserts here were no exception:  almost all featured chocolate, save only the crème brulée, which was fine.  The cannoli (in this case the plural is accurate: two small ones on a plate) shells had lost their crunch from sitting in the refrigerator, and the filling was so blandly sweet that you would guess the mascarpone had been left out.  Chocolate chips (naturally) studded the filling.

So don't go for the wine, or the dessert, and don't expect radically new ideas.  But for simple, traditional Italian dishes, this is a good pick.

Adieu, Le Bec-Fin

First they famously dropped a star, now they are disappearing for good.  After 40 years dishing out the best French cuisine on the East Coast (if not the nation), the Philadelphia institution makes plans to unplug the bain-marie next year.

Several years ago, I was in Philly on a business trip.  I scheduled the 9:00 seating, then took the train and met an old friend at the station.  (My train had caught fire in Vermont, delaying the journey just enough to make getting there a nail-biter.)  He negotiated the city streets like a pro and we made the seating with but a moment to spare -- Le Bec-Fin was not known for flexible seating times.  The service was as slow as the snails I ordered, so my friend helped me pass the time by pointing out a party of local politicos out to dinner with very beautiful women -- clearly not their wives.  After that, we did what came natural while waiting: we drank heavily and adjourned several times to the patio (aka sidewalk) for cigarettes.  By the time dessert came -- thanks to the combination of the liquor, six courses, and a long train ride -- I was barely able to stand.

The experience was everything I expected, but it served as a reminder of why I am at heart a gourmand, rather than a gourmet:  The food was delicious and beautifully presented, but awfully precious, and the service bordered on obsequious.  Every time came back from a smoke, my napkin had been perfectly origamied on my chair, and a server was behind me to slide the chair under my buttocks.  It's too much.

A few weeks later, I met another friend at the solid, unpretentious Tewksbury Inn in the hunt club expanses of central New Jersey.  The atmosphere was pleasant, but not refined -- it is a country inn, after all.  But the frog legs dissolved on the tongue, the wine (a Paso Robles zin) was excellent, the onglet was the best I've had, and the bill was a fraction of what it had been at Le Bec-Fin.  In all, simply a better experience.  C'est la guerre.

Food and Freedom

A lot of my writing in the past has been slanted toward the political, and I'm a big fan of freedom.  So when a story comes along that combines food and freedom, I get sucked in.

Living in an area where there is still a semi-thriving dairy tradition, I've been intrigued by the surging popularity of raw milk and raw-milk cheeses.  There is information out there on the laws that govern raw-milk sales, but as this video makes clear, a multitude of federal, state, and local agencies are just starting to get their noses in the barn door.

When it comes to food, I simply don't see a government role in the decision-making process.  For example, the San Francisco decision to ban fast food kids' meals with toys in them represents all the worst of governmental in loco parentis -- note that the ban is binding even when the parents are present and ordering the meal for their kids.

Worse, the policing of your plate seems to grow each year: from salt to trans fat to foie gras to the latest danger du jour, caffeine and alcohol in energy drinks.  The lesson in all is the same:  Each time we give the government some sort of authority over what we do with our bodies, we commit two mistakes.  First, we allow someone else to make decisions for us, which is usually a pretty bad idea.  (Think back to the '70s, when we were all told that margarine was the way to go.)  Second, once the state gains the power to regulate what goes on your plate in one way, it rarely remains satisfied for long.  There are hosts of other hidden killers out there, from BPA to HFCS, that only your government can save you from.

If my body is a temple, I'll opt for strict separation of church and state.