Heart On My Sleeve

It's an aspirational thing. I do it for Julia Child.

After all, a woman who proclaims, "People who love to eat are always the best people" is essentially setting the bar for self-improvement. Of course I want to be the best possible person, so I love to eat. And if that requires lunch with one friend and dinner with others, I'll be the one to fall on that sword.

My lunch invitation came from a friend I hadn't seen (except in passing) in nearly two years. Even given how stupidly busy my life's been during that time, I knew we were overdue.

His suggestion was Saltbox at Willow Lawn and once I discovered they had eight oyster varieties on the menu, I was all in. The challenge was in choosing, but we eventually settled on Katama Bays (described as salt bombs, sweet-as-candy finish) from Martha's Vineyard after our server assured me they tasted like "a mouth full of ocean." Coming in second were Bayford Virginia's Shooting Stars, which were touted as salty, sweet, clean finish.

My only comment about oyster service concerns accouterments. Some of us believe that raw oysters should always be served with lemon wedges, even if I do mostly eat mine naked. The abundance of  offerings that rode shotgun were, to a one, the sort to mask the tantalizing taste of oysters, meaning they left me cold.

Sorry, if you're putting cocktail sauce,  basil-thyme mignonette, chimichurri or vinegar-heavy horseradish on your bivalves, you're dousing the flavor of the water that birthed them.

And this from a place with a sign humble-bragging, "We've served 26,000 oysters in our first 90 days!" And not a one with a lemon wedge?

Our table was set against a wall of windows that included a garage door that could be rolled up in good weather, although why anyone would want a view of the Willow Lawn parking lot is beyond me. I told my friend that a wise owner would add large pots of greenery to screen the car parade and bring the outdoors in a bit.

But, alas, we can't solve all the restaurants' problems, so we moved on to more important topics like local gossip and how crazy the restaurant scene here has gotten since we first met. Point in fact: if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be eating oysters at Willow Lawn, I'd have spit Muscadet in your face.

And then apologized, of course.

My choice for lunch was an avocado and shrimp salad starring jalapeno-ginger shrimp over watercress, avocados and radishes in a balsamic-mint vinaigrette, while Friend went safe with a crabcake sandwich and the requisite (at least to me) cole slaw. Favorite things about the lunch menu: how heavily pescatarian it was (only 4 of 14 items weren't from the water) and that their burger uses Monrovia Farms beef (as in, the same cows that made Lucy's a beef destination).

Unexpected dessert points went to an eclair cake that friend insisted we needed to share. Not really a cake, but layers of vanilla bean pudding, graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream were alternated with dark chocolate ganache and vanilla bean sea salt, a surprisingly winning combination given that it's a riff on a classic dessert that could have gone horribly wrong.

Although we did remarkably well at catching each other up on our lives since 2017, we both needed to get back to work, so we couldn't linger once the cake was history. I know I needed to get back to earning my keep for a few hours before heading out for dinner with friends.

After a busy afternoon that was supposed to be about writing but also included accepting nine new assignments, it was time to saddle up and go meet Holmes and Beloved for dinner at Amuse. It had been my suggestion since I couldn't recall the last time I'd eaten at the restaurant with the best art in town.

We arrived via the sculpture garden, strolling past the Chihuly red reeds and into the atrium where things were lively. A band was playing in Best Cafe and the African-American Read-in was going on, so people were milling about everywhere. Holmes and Beloved made a beeline for the elevator while I ascended the stairs, netting a compliment about my tights from a stranger on the way up.

Pays to get the exercise, kids.

I was just greeting the hostess, a native Californian and long-time acquaintance, when the elevator crew arrived. Recognizing Holmes, she quipped, "Oh, no, you're not with Karen's party, are you?" Holmes' reputation is legendary.

She led us to a table near the bar, a table so large that it was hard to hear each other, so we moved our chairs closer, leaving half the table unoccupied. That position afforded Beloved and I the reflection in the glass of the lighted back bar, putting both of us in mind of Manet's "Bar at Folies Bergere," minus the wasp-waisted bartender.

The Dynamic Duo starts every meal at Amuse with curry fried oysters with pickled vegetables and cucumber mint raita - our server said they'd changed up the recipe once and the regulars balked -  and who am I to buck tradition, but this one also began with one of tonight's specials: three glasses of Sublime Rose Grand Cru to set the mood pre-dinner.

An aptly-named wine, that's all I'm saying.

A bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rose accompanied my mussels and house bacon in a sauce described as white wine and butter (but which skewed heavily to the latter), Holmes' crabcakes over dirty rice and collards and Beloved's special of falling-off-the-bone short ribs.

The big news is that her broken elbow has healed enough that she can finally get a fork to her mouth with her right hand, but only if it's a long fork. Still, it's progress.

Holmes got off on a basketball tangent because his UR Spiders aren't doing well and he'd seen a  billboard that read, "Fire Coach Mooney!" Ignorant of such things, I asked if he agreed with that sentiment. "He needs to go," Holmes affirmed. "He has no magic to work."

I don't know that I've ever heard a finer explanation for getting rid of a man. No magic = gone.

I've long been a big fan of the vibe at Amuse because of the diversity of museum patrons who decide to spend time there. From the clutch of millennials in the low-slung green chairs to the dressed-up older couples who looked like donors to our unlikely posse, everyone seemed to belong, like figures passing through in a Seraut painting.

Once the dining room began clearing out, we moseyed back through the sculpture garden to Holmes' man-cave for dessert of radio bars, a delicacy I'd never heard of until moving to Richmond. After polishing that off, we spent the night listening to Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music albums while I ogled his handsome face and stylish clothes on the album covers.

The man was as stylish and timeless as Bowie.

Fittingly, we started with 1982's iconic "Avalon" and worked our way back to 1976's "Let's Stick Together," which included a stellar cover of Lennon and McCartney's "It's Only Love" done in that mellow cabaret style that he does so well. And don't get me started on the seductively poetic "To Turn You On."

Because unlike some men I could mention, Bryan Ferry will always have magic to work.

Look in the Mirror, We're Foxes

I officially rang in birthday season tonight.

Because I will not see my Paris-bound friend before my birthday next week, we met tonight to kick off the festivities.

Rowland offered sun streaming through the front windows and happy hour deals of the liquid and edible varieties.

Sitting directly behind us was an eight-top, a family birthday celebration complete with multiple generations and be-ribboned gifts.

Despite the pretense of ours being a birthday celebration, it was really a class A catch-up session.

She began with a jaw-dropping story of a girl crying wolf and the unexpected and potentially awful ramifications of her bad call.

Food-wise we had to order their signature butter bean cake along with another special, essentially a panko-crusted pork schnitzel with an oozing farm egg on top, a tomato Hollandaise and an arugula salad.

Pig with egg? Come on, that's as good as breakfast. Yum.

I heard about the dream screened-in porch she intends to have built and as an ardent fan of outdoor rooms, I envy her the future pleasures of it.

It's with fond memories I recall the one I had for thirteen years when I lived on Floyd Avenue;  sadly, it's the one thing I don't have in Jackson Ward.

And hers is going to have a sleeping couch on it, the ultimate porch indulgence.

With nothing to top that, I told her about some of my recent escapades and she told me about an hilarious trip to a Charleston wedding.

And a dry wedding at that, necessitating her bringing a flask.

I loved the part where a guest asked her if she was a model and, true to her quick wit (and the truth), she quipped, "Only nude," a nod to her college days modeling for a drawing class.

That shut 'em up.

We finished with a chocolate cupcake that was more of a molten cake with a dollop of caramel to push it over the edge.

By then she had to leave to get home to hearth and husband and probably weeding in her splendid gardens.

My next stop was a cocktail/listening/birthday party at Balliceaux for a dear friend.

Playing on the screen behind the stage was a 1929 German silent film, "Pandora's Box."

And really, German is so guttural a language, it's really a prime contender for silent film.

He's a musician with a wide range and I'm always eager to hear what his latest direction is.

But we also talk about life with a capital "L" so shortly after our greeting, he put his hands on my shoulder, looked in my eyes and said, "I met a girl."

This was very good news indeed because he's such a terrific, interesting guy and his last girlfriend was a cereal-stealing alcoholic.

And, as I told him, no one should have to lock up their cereal.

But then he was off to play host and mingle until it was time for the debut of his new song.

I knew a few people at the party, said my hellos and then sat down at a table in the center.

A friend and former soul mate came over to chat, looking exceptionally dapper in a seersucker jacket and bow tie.

Bragging that he'd not only tied it himself but had an extra in his jacket pocket ("Gentlemen always carry an extra just in case"), I challenged him to teach me to tie it using my leg.

Despite several attempts, my lower thigh was never adorned with a bow, nor was my neck, the second location he tried.

You have to appreciate a party where someone tries to tie a bow tie on your leg.

Out of the blue, a girl standing near me said to me, "I work in a gun shop."

It was such a surprising way to start a conversation that I couldn't help but be sucked in.

What did I glean?

She makes $9 an hour, she'd never shot a gun before they hired her, they made her take a gun class and it's the largest shooting range in the country.

Oh, yes, and she's learned to keep her mouth shut when surrounded by Second Amendment-spouting customers.

There was a face painter there and my bow-tied friend came back with a disturbing clown face painted on.

After complimenting what a good job the painter had done, I said he needed to see himself in a mirror.

But the bar's bathroom doesn't have a real mirror, causing him to joke, "They don't need mirrors here because if you're at Balliceaux, you must look good."

Someone else postulated that it wasn't only good-looking people who came to Balliceaux, but that once you crossed its threshold, you were in another dimension that made you attractive.

I wasn't buying either theory but his clown face looked damn good.

Finally the birthday boy got up to announce his new song, "We Are Foxes," but it took the crowd a while to stop mingling and listen.

Someone called out for him to talk louder over the hubbub, to which he responded, "I'm trying to talk loud but I have small lungs."

And, no that wasn't a metaphor.

Unfortunately, he told the crowd that it wasn't like the Listening Room so they could talk over his song, and they took him up on that.

I liked what I heard and I'm looking forward to hearing it when people aren't chattering.

Man-about-town Prabir was there with sampler CDs of the new album he's working on.

While it wasn't the whole album, it did come with a sheet inside the CD case with a listing of how to say "breakfast" in every language.

I may have pointed out that he has too much time on his hands.

We got off on a tangent about how proudly weird Richmond is (he put caricature-drawing on a  Wednesday night at a bar in that category), an element that seems to have become part of our citywide identification.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Lauren, the caricature artist, was doing impressively good drawings of anyone willing to sit for a few minutes.

I saw one of my music buddy Andrew on the wall, looking exactly like him, only with a much bigger head.

Nearby talking to a girl was a guy whose hair was pure Rick Astley, causing the funny guy near me eating meringues with fresh cream and fruit to jest, "He's never gonna give you up, honey."

Maybe you had to be there (circa 1987) but I found that hilarious.

But the final treat was a song from Capital Opera Richmond singer Sarah.

We'd been promised ponies, too, but I was more than happy with a new song, a bunch of friends and a classic bit of opera.

Or, as the invitation stated, "All this and the possibility that you'll get some if you kiss good."

I hate to sound like the voice of experience here, but there's always the possibility that you'll get some if you kiss good.

True story, kids.