Femme Fatales and Pork Chops

I don't care what you expect or what they think. Tonight I'm gonna dance and dance.

And with that and a couple of bonnets, Scarlett O'Hara was represented in the "Hollywood Costume" show at VMFA.

I met a fellow movie-lover to take in the new exhibit, not sure how much would resonate with me since I don't go to blockbuster movies for the most part.

Although I'd never seen the 1934 version of "Cleopatra" with Claudette Colbert, I recognized her elaborate green satin dress right away.

That's because when I was at Amuse last Friday, the two female bartenders were discussing the exhibit and raving about that dress.

One said if she could have any dress from the show, it would be that one.

"But where would you wear it?" the other asked practically.

"Doesn't matter, I'd find a place," she'd said, leading me to wonder about the marvels of said dress.

Even my male companion commented on what a magnificent dress it was, if that tells you anything.

Impressive in a different kind of way was the dress from "Samson and Delilah," which had a coat and train of real peacock feathers.

Somehow, I feel certain that that's not environmentally correct anymore.

I found the wedding dress from "Camelot" to be very much of its time, 1967, with its finely crocheted, almost spider web-like, over-dress with tiny shells sewed on.

Any hippie chick of the era would have given her right arm to have worn such a thing while it seemed highly unlikely for the 6th century.

Just goes to show, costumes are as much about the period in which they're made as the period they represent.

Scarlett O'Hara's black mourning bonnet was there, the one she was wearing when Rhett Butler bid to dance with her and she agreed, scandalizing the refined women of Atlanta.

Tonight I wouldn't mind dancing with Abe Lincoln himself!

I saw Marilyn Monroe's dress from "The Seven Year Itch," and listened as a woman and her friend scrutinized the accompanying shoes.

"Those would be hard shoes to walk in," one said. Honey, I wanted to say, all she had to do was stand over a subway grate, so walking was not really an issue.

There was a whole section on femme fatales (a nickname my friend Holmes has used on me for years), those sultry and seductive women of questionable morals who seduce men and inevitably come to a bad end.

That's where I saw costumes like that of Annette Benning in "Bugsy," where she wore a dress with nine pounds of beads sewn on it.

Nine pounds!

I have one cocktail dress with beads sewn on and it's the heaviest dress to wear, so I can only imagine what a full-length beaded dress must feel like on.

It was fascinating to read that Austin Powers' suits were modeled on George Harrison's because he was considered quite a dandy at the time.

Didn't recall that.

Despite it being a Tuesday, there were plenty of other people seeing the show and by the time we finished, there was only an hour before closing time.

Quick like Rocky (his red, white and blue boxing trunks were in the show) running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum, we hurried up to Amuse for a drink and to discuss what we'd seen.

As soon as the bartender saw me, she asked if I wanted an absinthe and scurried to the kitchen to retrieve the drip so I could enjoy some Trinity, my new favorite absinthe.

We spent the next hour talking about the exhibit, mainly how we'd have liked to have seen more technical information about what we saw.

Like how much did those dresses from "Shakespeare in Love" and "Dangerous Liaisons" or that "Batman" costume weigh, because they looked like they were heavy as armor.

Eventually we had to table our discussion because the lovely green fairy of Trinity was gone and the museum was closing down.

After a change of clothes to evening attire, not green satin of course, I headed to Acacia to meet a friend for dinner.

It seemed quite civilized when we arrived but soon became a madhouse with one gigantic party and a host of smaller tables arriving to claim their reservations.

Stay calm and order wine, that's my rule.

Friend is a non-drinker, but I can't say the same so I ordered a half bottle of Karine Lauverjat Sancerre 2012, with a honeysuckle nose (oh, for the halcyon summer days of honeysuckle) and a beautiful, long finish.

Wine Guy came by to see how I liked it, noting, "That's a favorite of the Mrs," a supreme compliment considering she's a wine rep.

Friend and I debated over the menu as the room began to fill up, trying to decide whether or not to go with the prix fixe menu.

Once we confirmed that, it was just a matter of choosing our courses, no easy feat given the options.

I eventually went with roasted beet salad with creamy goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette followed by a pan-roasted Berkshire pork chop with country mustard sauce, macaroni and Gruyere cheese and garlic-braised broccolini.

Make no mistake, this was a superb pork chop, thickly cut, flavorful because it came from a Berkshire and worthy of picking up the bone and gnawing off every last scrap of meat.

My friend teased me as I sucked the remaining meat off the bone, but there was also envy in his voice.

But it wasn't the pork chop of Fred and Wilma, the pigs who'd supplied the toe-curling pork chops I'd had last month and which set the standard for all pork in my life going forward.

No, those chops had come from a small farm in Culpeper and had come from a Berkshire named Fred and a Tamworth named Wilma and, good god, the result was pig like you've never put in your mouth.

Reality check. Tonight's chop was excellent and even caused my friend to admit, "You out-ordered me tonight," which was saying something since he got the lump crab cake, or, more accurately, crab ball, a round of lump crab meat held together with a whistle, a prayer and some lemon juice and absent any filler.

Neither of us had much to complain about, although he did point out what a noisy room it always is, so I guess he did.

I always notice it most when I go to the bathroom which is the only place where you can reliably hear the music over the din of diners.

We watched fascinated as our bartender shook a cocktail shaker as if in slow motion, something neither of us had ever seen. Usually cocktail shaking is so vigorous.

Nope, he explained, not when making a vodka martini which requires a minimum of combining so as not to make the vodka cloudy.

And here we thought he was just showing off slo-mo style.

For dessert, I chose the milk chocolate cremeux with, be still my heart, salted caramel ice cream and chocolate streusel scattered about while Friend had a local apple streusel with brown sugar ice cream.

The individually-arranged slices of apples spiraling around inside his crust were a thing of beauty, but he couldn't convince me that my chocolate and salted caramel wasn't the superior dessert, at least for me.

Stuffed to the gills, we sat there talking while I finished my wine.

He's just started Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt," and we talked about the appeal of a glimpse inside a long-term relationship.

I laid out the reasons why he, a long-time music-lover, needs to see the documentary, "Muscle Shoals," leading to a discussion of old-school R & B and why we like it.

We geeked out talking about research, something the two of us enjoy and feel we excel at, despite the boring connotation to it.

That's okay. Even a boring researcher can put on a beaded dress and dance and dance when asked.

Especially if someone were to bid on me.