January 17: Birth of a Foodie

I adore crafting a meal, but my theory is that cooking dinner at home on Fridays should be illegal. I mean, I’m not going to come into your home and arrest you if you are cooking. But I may crash at your place and nosh your food, depending what’s on the menu.

 

Anyone else wiped out after the work week? My kitchen is for decoration only today. I hope it doesn’t get lonely.

 

Before the (so not high art) pizza is delivered tonight, I thought I’d wax poetic about my first foodie experience. We have established I was raised in a small town. We did not have a restaurant in town. We did have Kelly’s Café in Jolley (a few miles away) that had Friday night fish fries during Lent. We weren't Catholic but we sure ate their fish. It was an immense treat for our family to go anywhere to eat, because it involved both travel and money of which both were precious and rare concepts in my childhood.

 

I have always loved food, but more than eating, I love the art of food. Presentation. Various cuisines from other cultures. Fusing flavors to give taste buds a workout. Dinner by candle light casting the world in glamorous hues.  All of this love was in theory until Cornell. You see, at college, I met a boy. We spent years together before parting ways. He was from Gaza and worldly beyond my incredibly limited experiences. He also had an appetite for living that was contagious. He was an introduction to hedonism – I studied well.

 

My freshman year, I got a handful of fancy (to me) dresses, and wore them to the high end restaurants of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, the largest cities around Mount Vernon. Go ahead – ooooohhhhh and aaaaahhhhh at that imagery. It’s an interesting reflection to realize that my wardrobe evolution was in sync with my food journey. I loved donning a knock-out dress and pair of heels and test driving being a woman. (OK – in hind sight my heavens I was a little girl of 18 / 19, but at the time, watch out world!).

 

Our favorite restaurant was Hemmingway’s, which was the in-house restaurant at the Collins Plaza at the time. Lots of dark wood paneling, candles, jazz music and dimmed lights. You know how pearls can illuminate a woman’s neck and décolletage? Hemmingway’s lighting illuminated me. I cannot explain it in any other way. I glowed there, as though lit from within.

 

I can still get giddy recalling the presentation of the meal. Every course I ordered was prepared tableside. The Caesar salad dressing was made to order. I was not couth or explorative enough to handle adding any anchovies but the mere act of them asking how much garlic and then tossing that salad just for me was epic. I always chose the Steak Diane for my main course as that also was prepared tableside. And with wine, people. Wine. In. The. Sauce. Dessert was bananas foster, served - you guessed it – tableside. When they would light it up, my heart spired through the ceiling. It wowed me. I have always been enamored with firelight – candles, fireplaces, those little burners they place under buffet trays. Hemmingway’s was a visual feast. The food was equally divine.

 

Wonderful, wonderful memories in that restaurant that is no more. Feeling romanced for the first time. Sophisticated. Desired. Wooed. Oh, the humanity. It was heady stuff. I felt it as only a girl can.

 

I’m now off to nosh my pizza. Thanks for sharing tonight’s memory with me. Hemmingway’s was a class act, right down to the music. The soundtrack? None other than Mr. Tony Bennett.

Tony Bennett - The Way You Look Tonight