Proper French Kissing

I don't do the new year's resolution thing. It's not that I couldn't stand to improve myself, but I kind of feel like I'm always working on that anyway.

Like when I broke up with my boyfriend in 2002 and decided for the first time in my life to start doing exercises to reshape my arms. What's the correlation, you wonder?

None, but I had some extra time being single and it seemed about time I got stronger arms. So I resolved in late February to get them and I still work at it every day. So that's my idea of a resolution.

But I can tell that plenty of people like the arbitrary designation of January first as the starting point for making change. And I saw proof positive of that tonight when I drove down Franklin Street past the YMCA around 8:00 and saw the gym teeming with active bodies. It was like a workout party in there.

I got further proof when I arrived at Bistro Bobbette (the new name for Bouchon) to a dining room with a mere two tables occupied. Mondays usually hop at BB, but, as owner Wendy pointed out, "They're all on diets or at the gym." Gee, I wonder how long that will last?

So I planted myself at the bar, the better to look at the bar menu ($6 and $14) and enjoy some Muscadet. Dinner was the ham, onion and asparagus quiche and the onion and olive tart, both of which came with small well-dressed salads of mixed greens. A perfect little bistro supper.

My only barmate was a girl enjoying a large bowl of the creamy mushroom soup and salad combo ("I can't believe how much food this is for $6," she marveled). Somehow the topic of marriage came up and she insisted that she would never marry.

Wendy corrected her. "Never say never. I swore I'd never get married and then I met the right man and that was it. And I was 47!" The girl looked unconvinced, but allowed that the same thing could happen to her, unlikely as it seemed. I kept my mouth shut.

It turned out that she, too, had worked the census last spring, so we compared notes on the highs and lows of that job. I told her about the highlight of my census experience, here, and she was awestruck, agreeing that I was very fortunate to have made such a difference with my simple blunder.

The real fun started when Chef Francis came out to join us. Greeting me, I kissed his cheek, but only one. He turned his face to offer the other cheek and reminded me, "Deux!" a lesson he had imparted at our very first meeting. It is essential to kiss the French properly.

He joined Wendy, my fellow barmate and I at the bar for (what else?) restaurant talk as he ate his veal kidneys and crusty bread for supper. Francis and Wendy are just back from an eating weekend in DC and wanted to share.

It's fun for me to get updates about my hometown's restaurant scene, especially from a chef who used to work there. Naturally DC restaurant talk segued into Richmond restaurant talk and we had a lively discussion of which places have held up well and which seem to be coasting on former glory.

We all had opinions about how some people negatively judge a restaurant by its white tablecloths, presuming a snobbishness or higher price tag than is necessarily warranted (this happens to my neighborhood joint all the time).

Two restaurant sore points were overly dim lighting and serious din. Personally, I don't care about the lighting but I always want to be able to hear at least a bit of music no matter how loud the conversation gets. It just makes the food taste better, at least in my world.

That would be the world with no cell phones, no TV, no jewelry, no chain restaurants and year-round resolutions.

I know, I know. The world only I live in.