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Aug. 20th, 2013 10:26 am
Food assholishness
Farewell, Augtober, you will be missed! I don't think I can remember having better weather for my birthday in my entire life. Probably the closest I've come is the year we celebrated it at a resort near Detroit Lakes, MI, but that wasn't my real birthday, which fell on the day we returned to sweltering hellhole of Missouri in mid-August. And it wasn't just one day of unseasonable coolness, it was a whole gorgeous week. That is climate change that I can get behind!
I did a pretty good job of not freaking out about my birthday this year. It was only a couple days before, when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu every so gently nudged me on picking a restaurant that I got a bit weird. In the end, I threw my lot in with Scruffy who, true to his bargain-hunting small-town Ohio ways chose a middling Italian spot (Calo) because "ribs are $12.95 on Thursdays". Perhaps next year I can coordinate with my Beardy Famous Author Friend and actually go someplace high end or at least halfway interesting.
To take the curse off of it, I convinced the Old Man to take me to Ombra beforehand. (To be honest, he didn't need that much convincing.) But I jinxed myself by dreaming all day of their pesce in saor only to be told "they're seasonal" and having to content myself with fried smelt instead. It was our first experience sitting outside at the bar, which can be a slightly odd arrangement. At least the man who was seated on the other side of the window talking on his cell when we came felt awkward enough that when he got up to leave he said, "Sorry I won't be dining with you." But the intimacy became an advantage when, not long afterwards, he was replaced by Graysong's longhaired friend. Having been an early investor, he's a frequent visitor to the place as the owners keep whittling away at their debt to him. I spilled out my woes and we had an earnest discussion of food and eating as entertainment rather than simply as sustenance.
The dinner itself wasn't bad. They had an alcoholic root beer which I had to try simply for its novelty value. (The Old Man did an admirable job of containing his revulsion.) I was full enough on fried fish and sufficiently conscious of the need to leave room for dessert (another reason for Scruffy's pick: free tiramisù on your birthday!) that I only had a plate of mussels, which weren't half bad. The real pleasure of the evening, however, was bringing everyone back to our place for cocktails and conversation. Scruffy insisted that I'd made him something before with Vana Tallinn and absinthe and I kept looking at him like he was slightly deranged.
I would've presented him with a bottle of Estonia's finest if I could've, but as we discovered the next day at Binny's, there's no distributor for it in Chicago any more. The manager gave me the names of a couple online outlets, but I haven't followed up on that yet. It reminded me that I need to see about getting another bottle of Mechitarine now that I know they have an importer (in LA, natch). Hmm...this could prove to be as dangerous as the first time I discovered Amazon was dealing in used books!
I did a pretty good job of not freaking out about my birthday this year. It was only a couple days before, when
monshu every so gently nudged me on picking a restaurant that I got a bit weird. In the end, I threw my lot in with Scruffy who, true to his bargain-hunting small-town Ohio ways chose a middling Italian spot (Calo) because "ribs are $12.95 on Thursdays". Perhaps next year I can coordinate with my Beardy Famous Author Friend and actually go someplace high end or at least halfway interesting.To take the curse off of it, I convinced the Old Man to take me to Ombra beforehand. (To be honest, he didn't need that much convincing.) But I jinxed myself by dreaming all day of their pesce in saor only to be told "they're seasonal" and having to content myself with fried smelt instead. It was our first experience sitting outside at the bar, which can be a slightly odd arrangement. At least the man who was seated on the other side of the window talking on his cell when we came felt awkward enough that when he got up to leave he said, "Sorry I won't be dining with you." But the intimacy became an advantage when, not long afterwards, he was replaced by Graysong's longhaired friend. Having been an early investor, he's a frequent visitor to the place as the owners keep whittling away at their debt to him. I spilled out my woes and we had an earnest discussion of food and eating as entertainment rather than simply as sustenance.
The dinner itself wasn't bad. They had an alcoholic root beer which I had to try simply for its novelty value. (The Old Man did an admirable job of containing his revulsion.) I was full enough on fried fish and sufficiently conscious of the need to leave room for dessert (another reason for Scruffy's pick: free tiramisù on your birthday!) that I only had a plate of mussels, which weren't half bad. The real pleasure of the evening, however, was bringing everyone back to our place for cocktails and conversation. Scruffy insisted that I'd made him something before with Vana Tallinn and absinthe and I kept looking at him like he was slightly deranged.
I would've presented him with a bottle of Estonia's finest if I could've, but as we discovered the next day at Binny's, there's no distributor for it in Chicago any more. The manager gave me the names of a couple online outlets, but I haven't followed up on that yet. It reminded me that I need to see about getting another bottle of Mechitarine now that I know they have an importer (in LA, natch). Hmm...this could prove to be as dangerous as the first time I discovered Amazon was dealing in used books!