Favorite Foods

Señor C's favorite foods speak of a childhood spent in restaurants; crab cakes, Cesár salad (spelled correctly. I promise), margarita pizza, fettucini Alfredo, and then the holy dessert trifecta; lemon tart, cheesecake, and tiramisu. I learned to make all of these things- but I think it was a mistake. I would have been better off learning to make seared lamb tenderloin and delightful rice. Those dishes seem to be the quiet refuges on a menu- so when a eight-year-old is eating out, a crab cake or a Cesár salad make it possible to face Maple-Soy-Glazed Mackerel Fillets and Bass in Artichoke and Tomato Broth and a slice of cheesecake makes it possible to consume them. (I copied those out of an old Gourmet) My favorite foods are luxury produce: avocados, raspberries, artichokes, asparagus, mangos, morels, pomegranates. I didn't consider what this implied until today.

I can remember two dining experiences before I was five- once my parents had a brunch, I had the flu, and it was thought that I should not be left with the communal babysitter and other children in my weakened and germ-ridden state. We went to Bellissimo's. (This place closed when I was six, I ate there twice, and I still used it to give directions. Tom's office, I say, is above Bellissimo's) My dad talked it up, but I ended up with a plate of distinctly substandard strawberries and brown bananas. My parents were attentive, but their friends were not. I think I may have puked in the bathroom.

The other one was Michael's on my third birthday. My father bought me a chocolate mousse. For complicated reasons, this is one of my most unpleasant memories- none of them having o do with my birthday, my father, the restaurant, or chocolate mousse.

Señor C's family is on the other extreme. Every time I visit, we eat out. It costs ten thousand dollars. You think they would have noticed that I eat like a lumberjack.

Damn. I've presented the points in the opposite order from how I thought of them, and now I have no transition. What I want to say is- I remember those meals because they were rare.

While we were dining with Señor C's whole famn damily, the waiter stopped in front of his three-year-old ahijada sobrina. She cast a discriminating glance over the menu (I'm pretty sure she can't read yet) and said,
"Las machas- ¿Estan ricas?" (machas are pink razor clams)
"Si, señorita."
"Pues- las machas a la parmesana, por favor. Y un Coke, sin hielo. ¿Deberia tener helado por fin?" Her mother cut in, noting we would be there for some time. "Helado de chocolate. Y unos lapizes y papel." Then she sat quietly for a three hour meal, politely eating seafood and drawing pretty dresses. I still don't have restaurant manners this good. Señor C ended up ordering my meal for me, and I got bored quickly. (Why didn't I keep up on Spanish? What possessed me to think "My boyfriend speaks Spanish, I don't need to know how anymore."?)

So yeah... If I am blessed with children, I'm not taking them out to dinner so often that all their favorite foods are menu staples. I'm gonna pull the trick my parents did, and convince them that their favorite foods are pinto beans and baked potatoes. Sneaky. Unlike my parents, I will not be surprised when they develop a fanatical devotion to produce. Or I will be, because no one else I know has produce as a hobby.*

*They say "gardening", they say "cooking", they say "I like to go the the farmer's market now and then." What I mean is reading ag journals to find new peach varieties: Oh, yes, the 'Susannah'- with the higher sugar content of the "Marie", but an increased resistance to oomycetes and rusts. Possibility of polyphenolic compound formation in hot weather though. Pity.

I don't know why everyone is working so hard to reduce anthocyanin pit staining.