Pop Goes the Appetite

I had to reach back to the '80s for reference, but my hostess was orgasmic, so the results were worth it.

During the course of the weekend, my friend had come across a recipe she'd scored from BLT Steak, a restaurant with little appeal for me and loads for her. It was a recipe for Gruyere popovers, the kind BLT serves gratis to customers and she'd decided they were the most perfect food she'd ever put in her mouth.

So naturally, she'd gone right out and bought a popover pan and let is sit, unused, in her basement through at least three moves from house to house. Only finding that recipe today - mind you, printed on a tiny card about 4 inches across with microscopic print - motivated her to crave popovers suddenly.

And since she'd never made them and baking isn't her forte, I volunteered. Back in the '80s popovers (along with quiche and crepes) had had a moment and I'd bought my own popover pan and made them every now and then.

And sure, they were tasty, but basically because they were a vehicle for butter. I'm more of a crusty bread kind of a person honestly.

But I made the popovers, warming the milk and frothing the eggs, pouring the warm batter (it can't be cool or they won't "pop") in the preheated pans and topping them with grated Gruyere as stipulated. Then there's the 20 minutes of baking before you have to rotate the pan and bake them another 35 minutes.

So yea, popovers are work. What the hell is BLT thinking?

But my hostess had her Proust moment, flashing back to BLT and certain that they were as wondrous as those had been while my host slathered his with strawberry jam and then went back to binge-watching something.

Life continued with everyone happier and my popover-making skills refreshed.

The only catch is that popovers are filling and when we got to Preserve, a restaurant with a focus on pickling and fermentation, for dinner, none of us were particularly hungry. The place was charming enough with shelves of pickled fruits and vegetables on the wall. A series of four framed prints formed the sentence, "Lettuce Turnip the Beet." The servers were bearded and wearing skinny jeans, although not a one had any tattoos, so they seemed sort of alien to a Richmonder.

But since we'd braved the cold and rain and an Uber driver with a poor sense of direction, we decided to go ahead and eat what we could.

For starters, that meant no Restaurant Week menu because three courses sounded like too much food. If it's any indication, she and I didn't even finish the bottle of Reginato, a sparkling Rose of Malbec from Mendoza, although my host's glass of small batch Maryland bourbon was seemingly dispatched with ease.

Meanwhile, I did polish off a plate of smoked salmon over quark with onion mustard relish on thick fingers of pumpernickel toast and some fried Brussels sprouts, although I was beyond stuffed afterward.

My friend's Pennsylvania Dutrch chicken pot pie - which apparently means full of big, square egg noodles - also boasted chicken, saffron and potato and turned out to be the ideal dish on a cold, rainy night. New to him, roasted porgy with shrimp and grits in a bacon-piquillo sauce suited my host's attempt at a Cajun entree with a different kind of warmth.

Although no one was hungry for dessert, my love of butterscotch meant that there was no way I was passing up butterscotch mousse with a white chocolate cookie crust, even if the piece was big enough for all three of us. And still, we didn't finish it.

And not to sound unappreciative, but the mousse's flavor was a tad too subtle for me or maybe I just prefer a more robust butterscotch like Secco's butterscotch pudding, as perfect a butterscotch fix as I've ever had. The only tragedy is that it's no longer on the menu.

On the way home, our Uber driver regaled us with tales from the seedier parts of Annapolis, running on about places where he'd picked up passengers carrying guns, nearby convenience stores that had been held up at gunpoint and why you never want to collect riders from President Street.

If it hadn't been for the popover coma we were all in, I'm sure we'd have been way more interested.

Some things, like Richard Marx and popovers, may be best left to misty, water-colored memories.

Rules of the Head

Sure, I know about white privilege, but I'd never considered Christian privilege.

At least, not until I went out for restaurant week in Annapolis tonight with my host and hostess. All we did was walk a few blocks, make a few turns and wind up at an old house that's now a venerable seafood restaurant near the river (one of them, anyway, though I'm not sure which one given how many bodies of water converge around here).

It was easy enough to get there and a world away once conversation got going.

At O'Leary's Seafood Restaurant. we watched as the two couples ahead of us who'd walked in without reservations were told in no uncertain terms that there was no room at the inn. That they looked surprised at the news surprised us, but then we had a reservation and were immediately led to a table in the completely full restaurant.

There were so many people packed into every available chair that it was actually hot because of all the body heat. My freezing hands warmed up in not time as I admired the abstract art on the walls and ogled the very un-Richmond-looking crowd.

I don't think I saw a single beard or tattoo.

Because it was restaurant week and because our reservation was at 8:15, we wasted no time in telling our server all the things we wanted: a bottle of Chandon Brut Rose, a half bottle of Merlin-Cherrier Sancerre and for me, spicy vegetable crab soup, crab cakes with mustard lime sauce, haricots verts and fingerlings with bacon, onion and scallion vinaigrette followed by chocolate mousse in a chocolate almond tuille.

C'est tout. And if it sounds like I chose a meal straight out of the Clinton years, well, so be it. When in Rome and all.

Although our affable server had explained that the restaurant had only two footed wine chillers and they were both at the bar, he managed to scam one for us, which made it handy to have our bottles within arm's reach and pleased my hostess no end.

The food was well-executed if not breaking any new ground. Best thing about the crab soup was the wilted kale giving it body and color besides red. Favorite part of the crabcakes were the enormous hunks of backfin practically falling out of every bite. High point of the mousse was its container, the fluted, dark chocolate-lined almond tuille which ate like a Milano cookie of the highest order.

Even the bathroom brought a smile to my face with a sign next to the loo stating, "Please do not put anything in the head that you haven't eaten first." Honestly, there's no simpler way to put that message.

Over dinner, I heard about their recent sailing trip through the Caribbean, a trip that included an excursion to St. Bart's where a besotted turtle followed my host around all afternoon. To prove it, he produced photos of the turtle looking at him with longing eyes and glancing over its shoulder to make sure he was following him.

By all appearances, this turtle clearly had a thing for him.

Meanwhile, my friend had found a comfy place to sit and sip alone while her man went "hiking," which is what he called his afternoon seducing a tortoise.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe the rich meal, but the subject of growing up Jewish arose and my host shared memories from his youth in Kentucky, where he was one of five Jewish people in town.

Having grown up in a white, Christian neighborhood, I didn't meet my first Jewish person until college, a fact that still boggles my mind. But for him, a Jew in a Christian town in Kentucky, there were frequent reminders that he was different.

And mind you, this was the '70s, not the dark ages, although maybe they're more synonymous than we'd like to recall.

Every new school year meant hearing fresh taunts of "Jew boy" and trying to figure out how not to fight kids who name-called. Dating non-Jewish girls meant going to their church to appease her parents, who, of course, were hoping he'd convert.

This was still a thing?

When he played sandlot ball games and the kids went to someone's house to get a drink to cool off, he wasn't allowed inside the houses. I was embarrassed to admit that I'd had no clue this kind of thing was still happening in the '70s.

"It's still happening now probably," he said ruefully.

He talked about how his grandfather made a living by taking orders from people along the way while riding the train to Norfolk where he would buy the things they couldn't get in their mining towns and return to deliver the goods and collect his money. Only when he met the woman of his dreams and her father insisted he get a real job did he open a business that didn't involved riding the rails.

But what really shocked me was that once his grandfather became successful and had the only car in town, he was at the beck and call of the mayor and police chief, who would expect him to drive them to their KKK meetings and wait outside for them to finish.

Holy inequality, how the hell do we call ourselves a democracy?

Needless to say, his recollections made for a fascinating glimpse into a world I never knew, much less imagined still existed in my lifetime. But then, that's Christian privilege for you, the irony being that I'm a heathen of the highest order.

Lest I make it sound like my host only shared traumatic memories, rest assured he's a fascinating guy with a passion for music (Nouvelle Vogue covering Modern English, yes, please) and a droll sense of humor. Thanks to random conversations today, he taught me about Jew-Bus (Jews who practice Buddhism, like Goldie Hawn and Allen Ginsburg), introduced me to the Foremen (a satirical folk band with liberal leanings with songs like "My Conservative Girlfriend") and impressed me by sharing that he'd gone to the first Women's March in 2017 (because he's a feminist and was stoked to hear Ashley Judd, who's also a Kentucky graduate).

Of all the things I thought I'd do while in Eastport this weekend, having my consciousness raised may be the most unexpected. Although hearing Cassandra Wilson cover "The Weight" was pretty mind-blowing, too.

It's all about what others can teach me.