eG Foodblog: balmagowry - Back to the future....

[balmagowry]

(For the uninitiated: Kreplach are not quite the same as Blinchiki: for one thing, they are kosher. They are dumplings made of chopped meat wrapped in a flour/water dough - and they are boiled and served in soup.

I have seen kreplach served deep fried -- that's how my mom makes them.

Oooh, YUM! I stand corrected, then - here I thought boiling was the most traditional treatment. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio....

Deep-fried... must... try... that...!

And hey, it's only a hop/skip/jump from potstickers. How I love these convergences!

Well, as you will see when the next instalment arrives, Blinchiki are re-fried - not deep, but in plenty of (sorry!) butter.

[balmagowry]

am i the only one who gets a kinky thrill from eating things with the word "baby" in their names? baby-carrots, baby-corn, baby-artichokes, baby-humans...oops! what a giveaway!

I've said it a million times,and now I'll say it again:

If the Juju had meant us not to eat people,

He wouldn't have made us of meat!

(Maybe I should just start using that as my sig line.)

Sick puppies of the world, unite! Not for nothing am I the co-author of a recipe entitled Boiled/Drowned Baby!

And then there's one of my favorite Sunday brunch treats: Dutch Baby.

[Pan]

Lisa, in my family, the term "a krepel" stands for anything that anyone is phobic about, and I tell my students basically the same story you posted. That story wasn't made up for the cartoon, was it? I think of it as an old East European Jewish story. If it isn't, I should change my attribution...

Say, the story about the seaman with the onions who was shipwrecked on an island with a fierce king - is that a story from the "Old Country," or was that made up for a comic strip? You know the story?

[balmagowry]

Lisa, in my family, the term "a krepel" stands for anything that anyone is phobic about, and I tell my students basically the same story you posted. That story wasn't made up for the cartoon, was it? I think of it as an old East European Jewish story. If it isn't, I should change my attribution...

Nope, you're quite right, AFAIK - it's an old Jewish story, at any rate, and its exact provenance, who knows? And... Cartoon? What cartoon? You didn't think I got it from Milt Gross, did you? No, no, sorry if I gave that impression - I was just borrowing his style as a framing device, same as I did yesterday for the story of Water to Cover. I know the story because my parents told it and their friends told it and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts told it, and we've all known it so long that no one has any idea who got there first or who heard it from whom.

IOW, oral history.

In my family "Oy, kreplach!" is on a par, as an expletive, with "Oy, gevalt!" or "Oy, a klogg is mir!"

Say, the story about the seaman with the onions who was shipwrecked on an island with a fierce king - is that a story from the "Old Country," or was that made up for a comic strip? You know the story?

Hmmm... might not be the one I'm thinking of, which I've always heard told in an exaggerated Brooklyn-Italian accent as an exchange between a grocer and an insistent customer.

Funny how sometimes folk and/or immigrant humor can become completely ethnically-interchangeable (Italian/Jewish, Polish/Belgian etc.) - just as many viola jokes (NOT, however, my very favorite one of all) can be "transposed" for tuba or saxophone or accordion....

[Lady T]

Sick puppies of the world, unite! Not for nothing am I the co-author of a recipe entitled Boiled/Drowned Baby!

And then there's one of my favorite Sunday brunch treats: Dutch Baby.

Ah yes: all hot and soft and puffy, with all that melty butter and sugar-cinnamon glaze! Superb with cafe au lait. Superb with juice. Just plain superb.

[Pan]

Say, the story about the seaman with the onions who was shipwrecked on an island with a fierce king - is that a story from the "Old Country," or was that made up for a comic strip? You know the story?

Hmmm... might not be the one I'm thinking of, which I've always heard told in an exaggerated Brooklyn-Italian accent as an exchange between a grocer and an insistent customer.

Funny how sometimes folk and/or immigrant humor can become completely ethnically-interchangeable (Italian/Jewish, Polish/Belgian etc.) - just as many viola jokes (NOT, however, my very favorite one of all) can be "transposed" for tuba or saxophone or accordion....

Yeah, and Polish jokes are told about Portuguese in parts of Massachusetts, and about "Newfies" in Canada, etc. And in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I can't imagine this tale told as an exchange between a grocer and a customer, though. The tale is a little long, though, and might be best told over drinks some day...

[mags]

in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert.

[Lady T]

in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert.

Ah yes -- this takes me back in time. Much too far back for my taste actually. A sample:

Q: How do you tell a viola from a bass?

A: The bass takes longer to burn.

Q: How do you tell a violist from a percussionist?

A: The violist wears jewelry louder than anything the percussionist plays.

And so forth. Oy.

[balmagowry]

Yeah, and Polish jokes are told about Portuguese in parts of Massachusetts, and about "Newfies" in Canada, etc. And in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I can't imagine this tale told as an exchange between a grocer and a customer, though. The tale is a little long, though, and might be best told over drinks some day...

Ok, so I guess it isn't the one about taking the fuck out of onions....

[balmagowry]

in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert.

Or like two dancers having lunch with a writer. Even the dumbest jokes I told them would elicit either a murmur of "just nod and smile... nod and smile..." or a more defiantly deadpan "Was that JEW-ISH HU-MOR?"

Guess I'd better not tell the world's longest viola joke, then, huh.

[balmagowry]

in the jazz world, many "viola" jokes are told about bassists.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert.

Ah yes -- this takes me back in time. Much too far back for my taste actually. A sample:

Q: How do you tell a viola from a bass?

A: The bass takes longer to burn.

Q: How do you tell a violist from a percussionist?

A: The violist wears jewelry louder than anything the percussionist plays.

And so forth. Oy.

Oh, no. I'm really sorry, Mags, and I'll understand perfectly if you want to go hang out at the other end of the table with somebody who's nicer than I am... but now I'm going to have to tell it - secure in the awful knowledge that only about three of the 12,000-odd people here will get it and the rest will go down to your end of the table where the sane people are and mutter, "I guess you had to be there...."

OK, everybody braced, and 99.999% of you covering your eyes and ears?

Right, you two or three co-music-geeks, say it with me and let's get it over with:

Q: What's the longest viola joke in the world?

A: Harold in Italy.

OK, it's over. It's safe to come out now.

[balmagowry]

And now we come at last to Those Magnificent Foods in Their Frying Machines..

To begin with, let's fry up the Blinchiki.

In butter, of course. And this time...

...on both sides!

Ordinarily, as discussed in earlier post, you'd serve these accompanied by bouillon,

in which you would dunk them. (I do, ahem, have bouillon cups to match the plates we're using, but I didn't think to photograph one; and in real time they are in Gilgo and I am not. Maybe I'll fix this dreadful barbarism tomorrow... and maybe not.)

As it is,

we're making do, for tonight, with a little sour cream.

After eating the Blinchiki, and after studiously avoiding each other's eyes while furtively licking the plates, we take a brief hiatus to assemble the rest of the dinner.

(Something simple to set off all this fried stuff -

noodles, cooked in chicken broth.)

The Kotletkii are fried (I like to use a mix of butter and oil, roughly half-&-half) over a fairly high fire,

until they're quite brown,

on both sides (they plump up rather enticingly after you turn them - and this is how you know that that little nugget of fat in the middle is doing its job: when you cut into one of them with a fork it will, er, ahem, spurt juice at you)....

Ordinarily I'd be doing these on a cast-iron griddle, but tonight we're being naughty and having the traditional Sauce Smitane with them, so I decided to use a deeper pan for the sake of simplicity.

Anyway, as each batch is done,

I set them aside in a Pyrex dish while I fry the next batch. If I'm making a lot I'll put the dish in the oven to be kept warm by the pilot light. Tonight I don't bother.

Now for the veg and the sauce.

Here's some of that broccoli rabe I admired at the Fruitery yesterday.

I'm not going to do anything complicated with it. I've trimmed the tips of the stems and that's about it.

A clove or so of garlic, pressed, sauteed lightly in oil

in one of those non-stick demi-wok-ish pans my mother loved so much. (BTW, the oil I'm using for this and the Kotletkii is whatever neutral stuff they keep in-house - canola, probably.)

I've also cleaned

a couple of Portobello mushrooms (ordinarily I'd use plain little white ones, but as you may recall I stopped too late at the Fruitery and there weren't any - under the circumstances there's a touch of irony, I suppose, in the thought that beggars can't be choosers! ) -

and I've cut them up

into smallish bits.

Toss the broc rabe in with the garlic,

stir and let it cook down a little;

then add

a little mushroom soy,

and it will be done

around the same time as the sauce - and make a nice foil for its richness (Papa, who doesn't care for rabe, will get his foil effect from frozen baby peas, lightly killed).

Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms

in the fat left from the Kotletkii frying;

Then lower heat and add

a goodly dollop of sour cream :wub: (I used it ALL UP!!! :gloat:);

swirl it in gently,

and then stir

until smoothly combined.

And now, at long last,

it's dinner-time.

Edited May 1, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[tejon]

Droooooool.

[Pan]

I can't imagine this tale told as an exchange between a grocer and a customer, though. The tale is a little long, though, and might be best told over drinks some day...

Ok, so I guess it isn't the one about taking the fuck out of onions....

No, nothing obscene or off-color in the story. Hmmm....I'm wondering if I ever posted it before, a couple of years ago or something....But what thread would it be in? Some thread about stories or jokes about food...

[Pan]

Right, you two or three co-music-geeks, say it with me and let's get it over with:

Q: What's the longest viola joke in the world?

A: Harold in Italy.

But I like Harold in Italy...

[Pan]

Alright, I did a search of any food humor, jokes, or stories on the General board, then tried Chowhound and quickly gave up searching for any of my old posts there.

So here goes:

A story from the "Old Country" about two merchants and a fierce king

There once was an island where a very fierce king ruled. He demanded that all outsiders who arrived in his realm give him a gift, but since he was never satisfied with their gifts, he had each visitor put to death. Therefore, the island was completely isolated and merchants did all they could to avoid it.

But one day, a merchant ship carrying a cargo of onions was blown off course (these being the clipper ship days) and dashed against the island's coast and wrecked. The merchant survived the crash and was met by an emissary from the king. "What great gift have you brought our great king," he asked. "Well, Sir, I do indeed have a great gift for your king," the merchant replied. "But I would humbly ask you to agree to two conditions: I would like to have six months to teach the royal chefs how to use this gift, and during that time, I request that my ship be repaired for my journey home." These conditions being agreed to, the merchant set about teaching the royal chefs how to make all sorts of dishes with onions. This island was so isolated that it had never seen onions before, and the new dishes were met with much curiosity. At the end of the six months, the ship had been repaired to better-than-new condition, and the king told the merchant: "You have truly given me and my kingdom a wonderful gift, one which has given and will give me and my subjects boundless joy. Therefore, I am giving you a gift of equal value in exchange. This box will be delivered by my messenger onto your ship. You shall open it upon your safe arrival in your native land and remember the king who has dealt justly with you." The merchant swore to open the box only upon his return home. Fortunately, the return voyage was uneventful. Upon arrival, the merchant opened the box. To his amazement, it contained the crown jewels of the island kingdom: Sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, all of the finest quality. The merchant retired, had a mansion built in his native village, and lived out the rest of his years in luxury.

Upon hearing this news of the merchant who had made his fortune from onions, another merchant scoffed, saying "Why, those islanders have no garlic either! Garlic is a much greater foodstuff than onions! Can you imagine what they'll give me in exchange for garlic? Why, the Tsar will envy me!" This merchant resolved to set out the next day for the island, and did, with a ship packed to the gills with the finest garlic. Having arrived safely, merchant #2 was welcomed at the royal palace and commanded to spend the next six months instructing the royal chefs on the use of his exotic foodstuff. Well, after the six months were over, the king and all of his retinue were overjoyed! Therefore, the king told the merchant: "We are truly blessed that you chose to come to our kingdom and bestow upon us this most wondrous of foodstuffs, which magically makes all our savory foods tastier. For what you've done for us, we love you and you are welcome here any time. Now, please take this box that has been prepared for you by my servants. It contains the only thing in this kingdom that is equal in value to the foodstuff you have given us. Take it home, and when you have arrived safely, open it and remember the king who has dealt justly with you." The merchant swore not to open the box before he had reached his native shores, but almost couldn't contain his curiosity. Nevertheless, he did manage to wait until he had dropped anchor in his home port. Then, he opened the box and found that it contained - the very finest onions.

[balmagowry]

But I like Harold in Italy...

I love Harold in Italy. But I also like the joke. Who says you can't have it both ways?

[balmagowry]

Ok, so I guess it isn't the one about taking the fuck out of onions....

No, nothing obscene or off-color in the story.

Actually, there's nothing off-color about this one either. Maybe I'll tell it later. It's kind of cute.

[balmagowry]

So here goes:

A story from the "Old Country" about two merchants and a fierce king

Aw... that's cute. And yes, it's very hard to imagine as an exchange between a grocer and a customer. I don't know if that one can be told in writing, but I'll give it a shot. It's only mildly offensive....

Mrs. Smith goes to the corner grocery just before closing time, and she says "Please, please, Tony, before you close the doors - please, I just need to buy some onions."

Tony says, "I'm-a sorry, Meessees-a Smeet, but I ain't gotta no onions."

"Oh, Tony, come on - please? I really only need one onion!"

"But Meessees-a Smeet, I ain't gotta no onions."

"Please, Tony, please, I'm begging you... half an onion?"

"Look, Meessees-a Smeet.... you know how you take-a da 'tom' outta tomato?"

"Yes... but..."

"An' you know how you take-a da 'pot' outta potato?"

"Yes...."

"An' da 'car' outta carrot?"

"Yes...."

"An' da 'fuck' outta onions?"

"But... Tony... there's no 'fuck' in onions."

"Dassa what I'm-a tryinna tell you! Dere ain't no fuckin' onions!"

[balmagowry]

Ah, Saturday. My final day in the bloggy, bloggy dew. Looking back on it, I can't say it's been a stellar exemplar of time management... Ah well. I went a little crazy and I had some fun doing it. Today being unexpectedly chilly, I am making an executive decision: The clam plan is insane; better I should devote myself to finishing what I've actually started, so I shall try before the day is out to show you the out-and-about-Babylon series, Monday's dinner at the Cinema Cafe, and Tuesday's (or was it Wednesday's?) Kitchen Sink Fried Rice, which... if that ain't a fitting finale, I don't know what is!

And then, perhaps, if the fates allow, this summer when things are really in season I'll do the promised spread on the joys of beach living. Clams, mussels, crabs, berries, etc.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the coffee to be ready, and Saturday is also the perfect time for the promised rant about the sale flyers.

See, used to be, the sales changed every Sunday, and the supermarket sale flyers were delivered as part of the Sunday newspaper: preparing for the week's coups was a Sunday ritual. After the funnies and the puzzle and the entertainment news, after the first cup of coffee, you'd be ready to plan the campaign: Aha, Waldbaum's has coffee on sale; Pathmark has a good deal on butter but it's limit-2-per-customer so we'll have to stagger our trips... etc. Sounds stingy; is. And comes at least partly from the days of being poor relations and really needing to pinch every penny. Later when our pennies began breathing a little more freely, though, we continued the practice. Partly because it's kind of a game, staying on the qui-vive and keeping the reflexes sharp. (Not to mention that smug, if ill-founded, sense of beating the system....) And partly because of the siege mentality of living in Gilgo. As I mentioned earlier, Gilgo is 20 minutes' drive from the nearest anything, so there's no such thing as a quick run to the corner store for an onion or a quart of milk. You have to plan; you have to prepare; you have to stock up.

This isn't purely a matter of convenience. There are times when it really isn't feasible to make that run to the mainland, no matter how badly you need that dozen eggs. (I know that somewhere in these parts I've already told the story about the blizzard and the pregnant woman and the helicopters.) You can get snowed in; you can get flooded in. And on a sunny weekend day in the summer, it's as much as your life is worth to get caught in beach traffic. In order to get on-shore and back we must choose between the Scylla of Jones Beach to the West and the Charybdis of Robert Moses State Park to the East. It's kind of the opposite of a roach motel: we can get out, but we can't get back in.

Oh - and again, old habits dying hard, there's also the instinctive memory of an old cheese-paring reason: during our first 20 years or so in Gilgo, before they reorganized the parking fees, we used to have to pay a toll every time we drove through the booths on the parkway! (Remember Sonny Corleone?)

So planning the week's marketing campaign can be pretty important.

Now... what happens? First the stores start changing their schedules: some - but not all - start their sale-week cycle on Saturday. This is irritating, but it's bearable, because now all the flyers are delivered on Saturday. OK, so we have to remember that Waldbaum's and the Fruitery are Sat-Fri instead of Sun-Sat... we'll live. But then - somebody always has to be different - suddenly Pathmark decides to make its sale week Fri-Thurs! The sheer unmitigated gall of it! The chutzpah! So now, Pathmark's flyer arrives with the Friday paper. Foodtown's flyer comes in the mail - around Thursday I think. The other flyers arrive in Saturday's paper but you still have to remember that two of them take effect that day and the rest not until the next day. I don't even know what Foodtown does. Then you have to remember which ones are 24-hour - Pathmark is the only one I'm sure of. I know from bitter experience that every time I desperately need to stock up on coffee and Waldbaum's has it on sale, I have to make damn sure that I get there well before 10:00 PM on Friday... or I'm screwed.

And as you must realize by now, keeping track of time, date, and day of week is not exactly my strong point!

Oh, I tell you, my friends, it's hard. I miss the simplicity of the Good Old Days.

Christ, what a life.

Now if you'll excuse me - my coffee and the week's sale flyers (most of them, anyway) await.

Back shortly.

Edited May 1, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

Guess I jinxed myself. Pathmark does have a deal on butter (limit 2 per customer), but Waldbaum's doesn't have coffee on sale. The penalty is paying full retail price - I may as well brace myself and do it.

OK, this bugs me.

There's always a recipe with the flyers, and very often it's something of interest, something to be saved in the so-many-ideas-so-little-time stack. This week it's by Betty Rosbottom, and I like the look of it and will probably do something like it: portobello mushrooms stuffed with spinach and mozzarella. Nothing unexpected about it; it's all Usual Suspects, and I'd be surprised if I couldn't make it without even reading the recipe. You know it's going to include EVOO and parmesan and garlic and probably some nutmeg, you know it's going to need a last-minute stint in a hot overn or maybe under a broiler.... Yup. I'm batting 1000!

So anyway, just out of curiosity, I do read the recipe. Almost exactly what I expected from title and picture. And then I see this: "...remove and discard stems. Scoop out and discard the tough inside centers where stems were attached." Discard? Discard? What's with this Discard? Wha... why? Doesn't she know there are children starving in... yes, well, anyway. I just don't get it. Discard - hmph. Well, I never. Sheesh. Trim off the ends, cut 'em up into leetle dice, saute 'em and add 'em (pureed, maybe, if you insist) to the stuffing. Or use them in something else that cries out for a little mushroomy touch. Don't tell me you don't have a use for portobello stems. I just don't want to hear it.

It just bugs me. I don't think it's even stinginess, this time - I think it's more the part of me that cries out in indignant frustration when people don't appreciate the best bits of things, when they throw away chicken skin and offal and pope's noses and fat and all those wonderful dark bits of pan drippings and - oh, you know. The Boy, alas, is like that, but at least he's well-trained now and knows that instead of throwing that stuff away he should give it to me. But I don't think he'll ever learn to buy meat. That pork I used in the fried rice, for instance. Leftover roast loin, somewhat overcooked and perfectly lean. (Sorry, Mr. Boy, if you're reading this, but you know it's true!) Lean lean lean lean lean. Not a trace of fat on it; and not a trace of flavor. Dry. :sigh:

They Just Don't Get It, do they....

EDIT to add: If I ever get around to making this - it just cries out for little bits of pancetta. Or even just ordinary bacon. As long as there's something cured and porky and salty and yummy. And maybe a little shallot or some of those Walking Onions from the garden - something like that. Yup, this has potential.

Edited May 1, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[ms. victoria]

I am stuffed with omelette and strawberries but reading your version of the stuffed portobellos made me hungry all over again.

[ruthcooks]

Pan, I loved your story about the merchants and the king--reminded me of my favorite noir fairy tale "Great Claus and Little Claus" from HC Andersen. Too long to tell here, but one of the best lines is "Who'll buy my dead grandmother for a bushel of gold?" You definitely have to read it to know how funny this is.

Harold, huh? Lisa, you have a lot of 'splaining to do, or are you going to let us non-music types swing in the breeze?

I've made Pojarski with chicken, served with a paprika sauce. So many wonderful Russian recipes like Kurnik, Kulebyaka (Coulibiac), Cabbage Pirogue, Salad Olivier (chicken and potato salad). Maybe some day the food of Russia and Slavic countries will come back into fashion: I'll take sour cream and dill over raw fish and chilies any day.

[balmagowry]

Pan, I loved your story about the merchants and the king--reminded me of my favorite noir fairy tale "Great Claus and Little Claus" from HC Andersen.  Too long to tell here, but one of the best lines is "Who'll buy my dead grandmother for a bushel of gold?"  You definitely have to read it to know how funny this is.

Yes! I love that story!

Harold, huh?  Lisa, you have a lot of 'splaining to do, or are you going to let us non-music types swing in the breeze?

Sorry, that was naughty of me. "Harold in Italy" is a truly marvelous tone poem by Berlioz, based on Byron's "Childe Harold." Representing the Harold character himself, it features a solo viola so prominently (even more so than Rimsky's "Scheherazade" does its solo violin) that it really ought to be called a viola concerto... but it isn't, it's a tone poem. Which is why it works as a viola joke (if you're into that sort of thing, which I confess I am) but not in "transposition" to any other instrument. Trust me... this gets a good laugh among musicians. (And then she found out that he played... the French HORN!)

EDIT to add: and I keep forgetting to tell you, I love your sig. Talk about food porn - his description of Brandy Broth would almost qualify, if it weren't so clean and innocent... but it's still orgasmic to read.

Edited May 1, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

Now I'm starting to work up some momentum... now that it's almost too late.

Here, then, is Monday.

Lunch should be hauntingly familiar:

Sunday night's leftovers. If I'd been The Boy I would have warmed these up - but I'm not The Boy. I can never decide whether I like them better warmed or cold... and greed and impatience tend to be the deciding factor!

BTW, a cold or lukewarm Kotletki makes a marvelous sandwich. Plain. On good rye bread.

Also BTW... back in the days when I was occasionally practical and efficient... I would sometimes make up a BI-I-I-I-IG batch of Kotletkii, but only cook 4-8 of them. I would put the tray in the freezer, then take it out when the raw Kotletkii were nicely flash-frozen, and decant them into a ziploc bag. They keep in the freezer for ages and ages and defrost really well; take out two, put 'em in the microwave for maybe half a minute, and they're ready to fry. Convenience food!

Not very long after lunch, into town I go for the Toscanini event. There's a reception afterward, but by the time we're done with schmoozing and catching up (only one member of the orchestra is actually there, but there are also several of the singers and several generations of descendants and a lot of relatives and associates) and negotiating the narrow aisles of the tiny hall - well, I never really even find out what there is to eat and drink, though I do snag the last of some particularly wonderful Muscatel grapes. Oh, I've told you that already, haven't I. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, a few of us soon duck out into the rain and make our way up to the Cinema Cafe, where I must say I think we end up doing rather well.

We are so caught up in conversation and stories stories stories stories that it takes a while before we can really focus on the menu - meanwhile there are chunks of a rather nice flattish bread,

a ciabatta sort of thing, with little dishes of (I think) a mild baba ghanouj-ish dip. I make an absent-minded pig of myself over these....

At last we get our acts together to order. We aren't interested in a complicated meal, but after all our recent discussion of blue-claw crabs I am much attracted by the description of an appetizer of blue-claw crab cakes with remoulade. I ask the adorable Adriana (no, she hasn't volunteered this information, but the place is quiet and she so charming that in the course of the evening we spend a little time drawing her out) about portion sizes and it becomes clear that the appetizer as such won't be sufficient to make a full meal; I am just about to enter into negotiations about expanding the appetizer to a double order or some such, when Adriana directs my attention to an item on the menu that I somehow hadn't noticed: the crab "burger" - clearly a larger version of the same sort of treatment.

Sold!

So here's the rundown:

Byron has the Penne with Chicken and Roasted Garlic Broth;

Maria has the Angel Hair Primavera;

Herb has the Pizza Margherita;

Sylvia and Giuliana split the Pizza con Funghi and a garden salad. I'm afraid I don't remember all the varieties of funghi this pizza actually sported - crimini, shiitake and at least four others. (Truth to tell, I think it's a bit of a waste - the individual flavors of the mushrooms kind of get lost in the shuffle; still, the idea is rather attractive and the pizza is very good, though not the explosion of flavors one might hope from the menu description....) Can you see how incredibly paper-thin those pizza crusts are?

Here is my lovely crab burger,

accompanied by fries which I have to admit put even those of the Delphi Diner to shame. (Unpeeled, but only at the tips.) It is not, as advertised, on a brioche. Just as well - I don't think a brioche would have suited it at all. The bun is rather ordinary... but I don't care. It's very very good, and exactly what I'm in the mood for. I'm happy.

The evening wears on amid story after story after story, and by the time it's reasonable for Adriana to offer us coffee (which we don't want) it is too late to order dessert, the kitchen having closed. Byron looks her in the eye and says "... not even sorbet?" Adriana quickly reconnoiters, and comes back with an offer of mango sorbet. Those of us who were not interested in dessert are suddenly intrigued. Four of us order the sorbet:

I gather the presentation is all Adriana's doing. Skilful as well as adorable. (I do, er, hope we gave her a fat tip. Damn, wish I'd taken a picture of her. Maybe I'll just have to go back there some time.... )

And the sorbet itself is delicious.

Edited May 2, 2004 by balmagowry (log)