I took the rainbow for a good sign.
Granted, Pru is always chiding me for finding the "[expletive deleted] silver lining in everything," but this was an honest-to-goodness half rainbow situated between two construction cranes as I headed east on the Leigh Street bridge to meet her and Beau at Alewife. Since it had been breezy and nice when I'd left J-Ward, I was immediately suspicious about the cause of the rainbow.
Virtual projection, perhaps?
That question was answered the moment I got to Church Hill, where it felt positively jungle-like and the streets were wet. Clearly rain had recently visited the 'hood on the hill, leaving behind sticky, humid air you practically had to swim through.
I walked into Alewife to find every seat taken except for two at the bar and my friends not yet arrived, so I installed myself in one of the free bar stools and scored a glass of Domaine Rolet Cremant de Jura Brut to justify my presence. Pru and Beau soon showed up, a tad dewy from having strolled over from the manse, but otherwise ready for an evening of fish and conversation.
Once the former occupants of our table had cleared out, we took it over, its only disadvantage being it was right in the front window and the 7:00 sun was beating down on it mercilessly. After putting up with it long enough to get a bottle of wine from the Loire, we politely asked our server if he could lower the shade below the skyline, a minor adjustment that immediately lowered the temperature at our table.
As much as the three of us enjoy Alewife's mid-Atlantic fish focus and the seafood shack vibe with its white beadboard walls, between the three of us, we couldn't think of a single reason why the place doesn't have ceiling fans. No self-respecting seafood joint would open its doors without fans to move the hot air, fish smells and cooking heat from the open kitchen around, especially when no amount of air conditioning can offset it.
Because while I'm the last person to complain about heat - plus I'd worn the thinnest, lightest dress I own - Pru and Beau are the first and they were definitely wilting. She resorted to fanning herself with a menu to deal with it.
Heat aside, the second most challenging part of the evening was deciding what to order from a dream menu listing five starter and five entree offerings from the sea. Those are my kind of odds.
Naturally, I went directly to what I didn't know, beginning with an Okonomiyaki-style waffle (main ingredient: cabbage) spread with creamy smoked fish, paper-thin slices of black garlic and kimchi. Beau was quick to question the proportion of kimchi, insisting that more would have been better to offset the richness of the smoked fish and he wasn't wrong.
In any case, this dish, which resembled pizza, was so appealing looking (and we were scarfing it down so enthusiastically) that the newly arrived eight-top next to us leaned over and asked what it was so they could order their own.
Few things could be as summery as chilled peach soup with ginger, Caramont goat cheese and peanuts, although with my stone fruit allergy, I had to limit myself to only a few delicious bites. But the Cremant had made me weak and so I had a few more and in no time, my tongue was swelling and the inside of my mouth was itchy.
During peach season, it sucks to be me.
The best description of cured cobia with strawberry, buttermilk and pickled blueberries was Beau's: "It's like I'm drinking the beach!" a nod to the Cobia's saltiness which matched that of a mouthful of ocean. Serious yum.
Pru and I both chose Snook, a highly desirable southern Florida fish that's extremely regulated, so infrequently found on menus. With its savory crisped skin, medium firm white flesh and farro salad with grilled squash and carrots underneath, it was everything you'd hope for in ordering an unknown fish at a beachside fish shack.
Beau tried unsuccessfully to insist that his mackeral was better, but that's only because he was drooling over the Surry sausage, charred cabbage and mustard vin that completed it.
Complaints about the heat subsided while so much stellar food was being enjoyed, but the pause in conversation (beyond moans of delight for what was in our mouths) only accentuated how noisy it was in there and that it was impossible to hear the music. Let's just say ambiance is not Alewife's forte.
With nothing but soft serve custard on the dessert menu, we decide to cover as many bases as possible. My vanilla and chocolate swirl had hot fudge (though not nearly enough), cocoa nibs and graham cracker crumbs, while Beau's poundcake was smothered in peach, raspberry and soft serve. Pru kept it simple with affogato: coffee-drenched soft serve, though she acknowledged she still prefers Dinamo's version.
I stay out of all coffee-related discussions given my lack of knowledge and interest on that front.
Given the heat and absence of music, the Church Hillians were only too eager to clear out and head to the manse's screened porch which somehow, despite being essentially outdoors, managed to be cooler and drier feeling than Alewife.
Thankfully, some people know the value of ceiling fans.
With blades whirring, we began the evening on the porch with the soundtrack from "Heavy Metal," a 1981 film with which they were both familiar and which meant nothing to me. Am I going to judge if a soundtrack starts with Sammy Hagar? Yes, yes I am. And who knew that Blue Oyster Cult ever did anything beyond "Don't Fear the Reaper?"
That said, both Pru and Beau were singing and chair dancing once Devo's "Working in a Coal Mine" cranked up. Such are the memories of those who came of age in the '80s.
Speaking of the old days, Pru regaled us with stories of reporting to boarding school wearing a yellow Gant button-down shirt, jeans and loafers, a pack of Marlboro Reds in her shirt pocket and enough attitude to dare anyone to challenge her on any of it.
When I brought up the end of an era - MAD magazine deciding to no longer publish new material, instead resorting to old editorial - a discussion ensued about how topical MAD's humor had been. Would Millennials even get, much less appreciate, some of those brilliant satires from before they were born? Doubtful, we agreed.
"I have to find a safe space and cry," deadpanned Pru about the generation that holds the reins to our future.
Meanwhile, a debate on the merits of the word "classy" (which I abhor and, we agreed, no classy person would think of using) and "swanky," which at least has a retro, humorous connotation, ensued. Yes, we are those people who can debate word usage and consider it Friday night fun.
Once we'd listened to as much of "Heavy Metal" as we could stand, we struggled to find something else to please our ears. When Beau told Alexa to play Huey Lewis and the News, Pru's response was swift and clear. "No, it's not that time yet!"
For some of us, it's never the time for Huey Lewis and the News.
Instead, with fireworks exploding in the background, we sipped and chatted through a lot of '70s AM radio music like America, Bread, Seals and Croft (Pru: "Sure, I know the song, but I had no idea it was called "Diamond Girl!"), eventually landing on ABBA for the long haul. With this crowd, Dancing Queens beat Veterans of Psychic Wars every time.
Never more so than when you've seen a rainbow, drank the beach and talked into the next day. I call that my kind of silver lining.
Showing posts with label screened porch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label screened porch. Show all posts
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Music and Its Hapless Victims
"You don't seem like the kind of person who'd care, but it's a whole fish including the head and tail."
So what kind of person do I seem like?
It was our server at Stables on Belmont who'd offered the information when I'd ordered the grilled rainbow trout with mustard greens, blistered tomatoes and lemon poppy basmati rice. I assured her I'd have no problem with the entire fish and I didn't. In fact, when she returned later, there wasn't much left besides the head and the tail.
One hand outstretched for the plate, she paused. "Unless you're going to eat the cheeks," she observed, mentioning her fondness for fish cheeks and collar, an affinity I share. Let's just say that she held off on clearing the plate until there was nothing left in the fish's head except eyeballs.
And I have before, but I didn't tonight.
And that was after my theater posse- Pru, Beau and Queen B - started the meal with country pate and its sidekicks: pickled red onion, grainy mustard, oiled bread and cornichons, accompanied by a lovely Sancerre.
Although we'd gotten there early so we could make a play, it wasn't long before other groups started coming in, too, including a young couple that could have been poster children for the West End, or, better yet, UR. I can make derogatory generalizations about UR to Pru because that's where she graduated from and always considered herself an outlier.
She caught what I was kicking, brilliantly noting, "The white entitlement is blinding," and shielding her eyes while I cracked up.
A couple Pru and I knew also came in and stopped by the table to chat. They've been married something like 24 years, so when he dropped one of his stock jokes, his wife rolled her eyes, saying she'd heard that old chestnut dozens of times (Bumper sticker: "I don't mind if you're straight as long as you act gay in public").
"It's Joke #23," he said defensively.
While I opted for bourbon chocolate mousse and a glass of Penfolds Grandfather 20-Year Tawny Port (an especially civil ending to a meal, I thought) and Queen B had butter cookies with lemon curd (so veddy British), the happy couple ordered coffee and a cheese plate. We'd nearly finished our desserts and Pru and Beau were sipping their coffees and still there was no sign of their fromage.
When our server stopped by, Beau was succinct. "Cheese?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow. Leaning down to answer him, she announced, "I think he's cutting it now." Everyone cracked up like we were in middle school and, voila, it soon showed up.
Talking about what had been going on in our lives lately, the subject of several of Beau' recent nincompoop moments came up, apparently after a good long while with none. "Nincompoopery builds up," Pru explained of the recent spate.
"It's like bile," Beau posited, ever the savant, setting Pru and I off again.
One of the restaurant's staffers had commented on several of our ensembles, prompting Pru to tell him that she'd had a hand in them all: choosing Beau's shirt, gifting me with the orange Italian shrug and giving Queen B the fantastical necklace she was wearing. I shared that we were en route to Richmond Triangle Players for "Grey Gardens," causing his face to light up. "You all look perfect than!" he crowed. "Take me with you!"
We didn't, of course - who's got an extra ticket to "Grey Gardens," after all - but the compliments were nice.
The play laid out the weird lives of Edie Bouvier Beale (both mother and daughter have the same name, necessitating "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" monikers) through song and occasional dance, detailing how they went from rich to ruins living with dozens of cats and raccoons, lots of poop and no running water in the Hamptons (referred to as a "mean, nasty Republican town").
I mean, Little Edie was engaged to Joseph Kennedy, Jr., at least until her crazy mother Big Edie told him stories about her nudity and promiscuity that scared him off ("It was my sobriquet, Beautiful Body Beale!"). After all, had he not been killed in WW II, he was the Kennedy who was supposed to end up President, remember?
All the songs allowed Big and Little Edie to show off their singing chops (and goodness knows, Susan Sanford and Grey Garret have them), but Pru and I agreed there was something deeply disturbing (as I'm sure was intended by the playwrights) about hearing Big Edie sing a racist ode like "Hominy Grits."
Next to watermelon
There ain't no tellin'
Dem's da bestest vittles
Us colored folks gits!
When the scene ended with the keys cover being slammed on the pianist's fingers to stop it, some guy in the audience called out, "Dah-licious!" for the scene's high camp. At least that's what I'm hoping he meant.
There was also an awful lot of humor like, "He lost both legs at Iwo Jima. Romance was inevitable," not to mention a gospel choir singing and testifying all over the stage. A Norman Vincent Peale character singing "Choose To Be Happy." And, of course, the tragedy of Little Edie being called back from NYC once she does finally escape, only to resign herself to spending the rest of her life doing her demanding mother's bidding.
Because real life often doesn't end neatly or happily.
Afterward in the ladies' room, one woman announced that she now needed to see the cinema verite documentary to better understand these weird characters. Pru, Beau and Queen B had watched it again just last week in preparation, Beau for the first time.
Her friend shot back, "I saw it when I was eight. My mother showed it to me on VHS or something." I looked at her askance. Why on earth would your mother have shown you something so disturbing at such a young age, I had to ask.
"To mess me up?" she guessed, not exactly smiling at having to dig that deep.
Hominy grits aside, that's the Grey Gardens legacy for you.
So what kind of person do I seem like?
It was our server at Stables on Belmont who'd offered the information when I'd ordered the grilled rainbow trout with mustard greens, blistered tomatoes and lemon poppy basmati rice. I assured her I'd have no problem with the entire fish and I didn't. In fact, when she returned later, there wasn't much left besides the head and the tail.
One hand outstretched for the plate, she paused. "Unless you're going to eat the cheeks," she observed, mentioning her fondness for fish cheeks and collar, an affinity I share. Let's just say that she held off on clearing the plate until there was nothing left in the fish's head except eyeballs.
And I have before, but I didn't tonight.
And that was after my theater posse- Pru, Beau and Queen B - started the meal with country pate and its sidekicks: pickled red onion, grainy mustard, oiled bread and cornichons, accompanied by a lovely Sancerre.
Although we'd gotten there early so we could make a play, it wasn't long before other groups started coming in, too, including a young couple that could have been poster children for the West End, or, better yet, UR. I can make derogatory generalizations about UR to Pru because that's where she graduated from and always considered herself an outlier.
She caught what I was kicking, brilliantly noting, "The white entitlement is blinding," and shielding her eyes while I cracked up.
A couple Pru and I knew also came in and stopped by the table to chat. They've been married something like 24 years, so when he dropped one of his stock jokes, his wife rolled her eyes, saying she'd heard that old chestnut dozens of times (Bumper sticker: "I don't mind if you're straight as long as you act gay in public").
"It's Joke #23," he said defensively.
While I opted for bourbon chocolate mousse and a glass of Penfolds Grandfather 20-Year Tawny Port (an especially civil ending to a meal, I thought) and Queen B had butter cookies with lemon curd (so veddy British), the happy couple ordered coffee and a cheese plate. We'd nearly finished our desserts and Pru and Beau were sipping their coffees and still there was no sign of their fromage.
When our server stopped by, Beau was succinct. "Cheese?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow. Leaning down to answer him, she announced, "I think he's cutting it now." Everyone cracked up like we were in middle school and, voila, it soon showed up.
Talking about what had been going on in our lives lately, the subject of several of Beau' recent nincompoop moments came up, apparently after a good long while with none. "Nincompoopery builds up," Pru explained of the recent spate.
"It's like bile," Beau posited, ever the savant, setting Pru and I off again.
One of the restaurant's staffers had commented on several of our ensembles, prompting Pru to tell him that she'd had a hand in them all: choosing Beau's shirt, gifting me with the orange Italian shrug and giving Queen B the fantastical necklace she was wearing. I shared that we were en route to Richmond Triangle Players for "Grey Gardens," causing his face to light up. "You all look perfect than!" he crowed. "Take me with you!"
We didn't, of course - who's got an extra ticket to "Grey Gardens," after all - but the compliments were nice.
The play laid out the weird lives of Edie Bouvier Beale (both mother and daughter have the same name, necessitating "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" monikers) through song and occasional dance, detailing how they went from rich to ruins living with dozens of cats and raccoons, lots of poop and no running water in the Hamptons (referred to as a "mean, nasty Republican town").
I mean, Little Edie was engaged to Joseph Kennedy, Jr., at least until her crazy mother Big Edie told him stories about her nudity and promiscuity that scared him off ("It was my sobriquet, Beautiful Body Beale!"). After all, had he not been killed in WW II, he was the Kennedy who was supposed to end up President, remember?
All the songs allowed Big and Little Edie to show off their singing chops (and goodness knows, Susan Sanford and Grey Garret have them), but Pru and I agreed there was something deeply disturbing (as I'm sure was intended by the playwrights) about hearing Big Edie sing a racist ode like "Hominy Grits."
Next to watermelon
There ain't no tellin'
Dem's da bestest vittles
Us colored folks gits!
When the scene ended with the keys cover being slammed on the pianist's fingers to stop it, some guy in the audience called out, "Dah-licious!" for the scene's high camp. At least that's what I'm hoping he meant.
There was also an awful lot of humor like, "He lost both legs at Iwo Jima. Romance was inevitable," not to mention a gospel choir singing and testifying all over the stage. A Norman Vincent Peale character singing "Choose To Be Happy." And, of course, the tragedy of Little Edie being called back from NYC once she does finally escape, only to resign herself to spending the rest of her life doing her demanding mother's bidding.
Because real life often doesn't end neatly or happily.
Afterward in the ladies' room, one woman announced that she now needed to see the cinema verite documentary to better understand these weird characters. Pru, Beau and Queen B had watched it again just last week in preparation, Beau for the first time.
Her friend shot back, "I saw it when I was eight. My mother showed it to me on VHS or something." I looked at her askance. Why on earth would your mother have shown you something so disturbing at such a young age, I had to ask.
"To mess me up?" she guessed, not exactly smiling at having to dig that deep.
Hominy grits aside, that's the Grey Gardens legacy for you.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Porch After Dark
Today's glorious warmth translated to the first screened porch report of 2019.
Pru's birthday is Tuesday, but Beau is away on business all week. But since birthdays are a serious gift-giving occasion at the manse, Beau had organized an impromptu gift opening session followed by a simple supper prepared by the birthday girl-to-be.
I'd spent the warm afternoon at a Theater Alliance Panel meeting in the east end, discussing the first half of the theatrical season with my cohorts, a meandering discussion that addressed many things, including the anachronisms of a play set in 1940. A character in the play had been a repeat sneezer who had sneezed into her elbow every time.
As several of the critics had pointed out, no one in 1940 sneezed that way.
The funny part was that, until our discussion, the younger members of the panel had no idea that there'd ever been another way to deal with a sneeze other than projecting it into your elbow.
The times they have a-changed.
I'd barely gotten back from the meeting when I was summoned to the manse for the festivities. And while it was a low key affair in anticipation of the upcoming birthday and the blowout birthday dinner scheduled, any event that leads off with Roderer Brut is a celebration to me.
Even Beau, who's not usually a bubbly fan, had to admit that he liked it and that rarely happens.
I'm not the gift-giving pro that Pru and Beau are, but I'd brought a present nonetheless. Mr. Wright had taken a wonderful photo of the happy couple at Bar Solita - with him laughing heartily and her glancing at him with a knowing smile - which had been blown up and suitably framed to fit the manse's decor.
But it was one of Beau's gifts that got Pru most excited: a new iPad. Like a kid with a new toy on Christmas morning, she oohed and aahed before peeling off the protective film and trying to figure out how to turn it on. When it turned out that all she had to do to transfer everything on her phone to her tablet was put them in proximity, everyone was dazzled by technology.
My first thought was, I guess setting up an iPad for me would be a bit more labor intensive given my lack of a cell phone.
As her phone told her what to do, we had a front row seat for the process. Eventually, she picked up the iPad and began preening - or at least that's what it looked like from where I sat - looking at herself in the tablet's screen, turning her head left and right and smiling. Then she did it again.
Silly me, the iPad was actually scanning her face from every angle, the better to recognize her. After all, no one wants their technology to be a stranger.
After a lovely supper of beef cubes in au jus, an array of roasted vegetables so good everyone raved repeatedly and a bowl of butter beans procured last summer on the Outer Banks (I love a hostess who plans ahead), we adjourned to the screened porch for the 2019 initiation of the recently redesigned space.
Another of my gifts, two metal candle stands resembling trailing ivy plants, had found a home out there since I'd given them to her at Christmas. Furniture had been rearranged for better conversation acoustics and everything looked fresh and ready for another season of porch parties.
Let the Roderer flow.
Pru regaled us with a story about being sent away to camp, where she was appalled to learn that she was expected to kayak and swim. Instead, she used the camp phone to notify a friend who promptly had her mother drive out to rescue Pru from lanyard-making and group hikes.
Some people are born with nerve, others have to acquire it.
Another of her anecdotes involved the teen-aged Pru zipping around the island on her Peugeot motorbike while on vacation at the family home in Bermuda. Seems she'd had her first bowl of chilled soup - cantaloupe, she recalled - upstairs at Trimingham's, a department store with a cafe on the second floor.
It was about then that Beau deadpanned, "When I was that age, I was going to Indian Acres." Without having any idea what Indian Acres was, I laughed out loud. When he clarified that it was a campground in Stafford County, I laughed harder.
Not all of us have the cosmopolitan teenage life experience Pru did. I know I never spent entire days with my uncle and his best friend Hot Dog sipping alcohol or smoking pot. Ah, youth in Bermuda.
Meanwhile, Beau polled the group about things worth seeing near Jonesboro, Arkansas, which is where he's headed all week. Since Memphis is only an hour away and I've been there, I could at least speak to some good spots there - Gus' Fried Chicken, the Beauty Shop Restaurant, the Absinthe Room - beyond the obvious: Sun Studio, the Rock and Soul Museum and if you're into it, Graceland.
Granted, I was that rare Memphis visitor with no need to see Elvis' digs, but to each his own.
Although Beau had requested that the porch heater be put on, it was a surprisingly comfortable evening to be outside until 11:00 or so. When I finally got up to leave, it was only because Beau had a morning flight out and I felt sure Pru wanted to climb into bed and play with her new toy.
Besides, the Roderer was all gone and no civilized porch party is dry. This isn't Indian Acres, after all.
Pru's birthday is Tuesday, but Beau is away on business all week. But since birthdays are a serious gift-giving occasion at the manse, Beau had organized an impromptu gift opening session followed by a simple supper prepared by the birthday girl-to-be.
I'd spent the warm afternoon at a Theater Alliance Panel meeting in the east end, discussing the first half of the theatrical season with my cohorts, a meandering discussion that addressed many things, including the anachronisms of a play set in 1940. A character in the play had been a repeat sneezer who had sneezed into her elbow every time.
As several of the critics had pointed out, no one in 1940 sneezed that way.
The funny part was that, until our discussion, the younger members of the panel had no idea that there'd ever been another way to deal with a sneeze other than projecting it into your elbow.
The times they have a-changed.
I'd barely gotten back from the meeting when I was summoned to the manse for the festivities. And while it was a low key affair in anticipation of the upcoming birthday and the blowout birthday dinner scheduled, any event that leads off with Roderer Brut is a celebration to me.
Even Beau, who's not usually a bubbly fan, had to admit that he liked it and that rarely happens.
I'm not the gift-giving pro that Pru and Beau are, but I'd brought a present nonetheless. Mr. Wright had taken a wonderful photo of the happy couple at Bar Solita - with him laughing heartily and her glancing at him with a knowing smile - which had been blown up and suitably framed to fit the manse's decor.
But it was one of Beau's gifts that got Pru most excited: a new iPad. Like a kid with a new toy on Christmas morning, she oohed and aahed before peeling off the protective film and trying to figure out how to turn it on. When it turned out that all she had to do to transfer everything on her phone to her tablet was put them in proximity, everyone was dazzled by technology.
My first thought was, I guess setting up an iPad for me would be a bit more labor intensive given my lack of a cell phone.
As her phone told her what to do, we had a front row seat for the process. Eventually, she picked up the iPad and began preening - or at least that's what it looked like from where I sat - looking at herself in the tablet's screen, turning her head left and right and smiling. Then she did it again.
Silly me, the iPad was actually scanning her face from every angle, the better to recognize her. After all, no one wants their technology to be a stranger.
After a lovely supper of beef cubes in au jus, an array of roasted vegetables so good everyone raved repeatedly and a bowl of butter beans procured last summer on the Outer Banks (I love a hostess who plans ahead), we adjourned to the screened porch for the 2019 initiation of the recently redesigned space.
Another of my gifts, two metal candle stands resembling trailing ivy plants, had found a home out there since I'd given them to her at Christmas. Furniture had been rearranged for better conversation acoustics and everything looked fresh and ready for another season of porch parties.
Let the Roderer flow.
Pru regaled us with a story about being sent away to camp, where she was appalled to learn that she was expected to kayak and swim. Instead, she used the camp phone to notify a friend who promptly had her mother drive out to rescue Pru from lanyard-making and group hikes.
Some people are born with nerve, others have to acquire it.
Another of her anecdotes involved the teen-aged Pru zipping around the island on her Peugeot motorbike while on vacation at the family home in Bermuda. Seems she'd had her first bowl of chilled soup - cantaloupe, she recalled - upstairs at Trimingham's, a department store with a cafe on the second floor.
It was about then that Beau deadpanned, "When I was that age, I was going to Indian Acres." Without having any idea what Indian Acres was, I laughed out loud. When he clarified that it was a campground in Stafford County, I laughed harder.
Not all of us have the cosmopolitan teenage life experience Pru did. I know I never spent entire days with my uncle and his best friend Hot Dog sipping alcohol or smoking pot. Ah, youth in Bermuda.
Meanwhile, Beau polled the group about things worth seeing near Jonesboro, Arkansas, which is where he's headed all week. Since Memphis is only an hour away and I've been there, I could at least speak to some good spots there - Gus' Fried Chicken, the Beauty Shop Restaurant, the Absinthe Room - beyond the obvious: Sun Studio, the Rock and Soul Museum and if you're into it, Graceland.
Granted, I was that rare Memphis visitor with no need to see Elvis' digs, but to each his own.
Although Beau had requested that the porch heater be put on, it was a surprisingly comfortable evening to be outside until 11:00 or so. When I finally got up to leave, it was only because Beau had a morning flight out and I felt sure Pru wanted to climb into bed and play with her new toy.
Besides, the Roderer was all gone and no civilized porch party is dry. This isn't Indian Acres, after all.
Friday, September 14, 2018
For the Good Times
When you get back to J-Ward at 1:35 a.m. during a hurricane watch, you can be sure the 'hood will be lively. And not a parking space in sight.
The strange part was, when I'd left home nine hours before, it had been like a ghost town around here. I figured with VCU out until Monday, some students had skipped town. And it wasn't just the kids, either, because walking through downtown in the morning had revealed an unusually low number of worker bees and traffic.
Oh, Richmond, you handle bad weather predictions so poorly.
Never one to sit at home and wait for bad weather to arrive, I was on my way to Church Hill by 4:45 for a girls' night out with Pru and Queen B. Usually when it's the three of us, we head directly to Merroir, but given Flo's looming presence on the coast, we decided on Alewife, with its focus on the bounty of the sea, instead.
As a bonus, we only had to drive six blocks instead of an hour.
No one wants to be the first group taking a table when a restaurant opens, but we had a 7:00 play to make, so we were those rubes sliding into our seats in the nearly empty dining room just after 5:00. That said, within 45 minutes, people began to come through the door at a steady pace and the noise level rose exponentially.
The menu had changed almost completely since I'd been in the week before, so there were plenty of new temptations. After staking our wine claims in Languedoc (my Rose) and the Loire (Pru's Chenin Blanc), we dove into the menu, stopping only when we hit food coma stage.
Crab claws with roe mayo arrived unexpectedly fried when I'd presumed they'd just be steamed, but that was the only wrinkle. Spaghetti squash jazzed up with oil and Szechuan spices was a new take on an old favorite. Even more unique, a fluffy olive oil pancake was the pillow on which rested translucent wisps of tuna, everything dip and bonito, a surprisingly rich starter. Pattypan squash from local Bowtide Farms got the glam treatment by being topped with tomato gravy and Caramont cheese.
When the subject turned to my blog, Pru asked why I'd been blogging less lately. Short answer: too happy and no time. Her complaint was that my blogging had stopped when I was low, too. That's because my readers don't want to hear about my giddy highs or last winter's lows.
"Not true, your readers love to ride the roller coaster with you," she insisted. Do they?
Meanwhile, back at the feast, Queen B couldn't resist Wagyu flank steak with fingerling potatoes, shitake mushrooms, shishitos and steak sauce, even if her preference for well-done meat had to be compromised. But the undisputed crowd favorite was a special of orecchiette with clams Fra Diavalo, the spicy tomato garlic sauce resting in the divot of each "ear" of orecchiette. So satisfying we all ate likefield hands it was our first meal of the day (it wasn't) and obliterated any dessert lust I'd been harboring.
Midway through the meal, Chef Lee came over to welcome us to his new place in the former Blue Wheeler Market & Deli, which is a fancy name for what was a bodega. That they left one window still painted with a Coca Cola advertisement to acknowledge the building's history was a nice touch. Raving about everything we'd tasted so far, I looked up at him and asked, "You know how long I've been eating your food?"
Smiling, he acknowledged, "A looong time." I'm thinking I fell for his cooking somewhere back in the dark ages of 2006 or 2007, even driving out to Charlottesville once he was cooking there. In restaurant years, that's devotion.
The other familiar face was the former New Yorker who stopped by the table to say hello and acknowledge she'd seen me from afar when I was in last week. "You're hard to miss, sitting at the end of the bar like you were," she said of my favorite bar position.
When the discussion turned to the newest restaurants in Church Hill, she was quick to acknowledge that Jackson Ward is where it's at. East End residents, she and her husband (who has a business in J-Ward) are music lovers like me, but unlike me, they can't walk to Strange Matter or Gallery 5. I appreciate the praise for my 'hood, but no one has to remind me how centrally located I am.
By the time we left Alewife, it was seriously hopping and we had a play to make at CATheatre. And not just any play, but a French farce translated into English and on record as the most performed French play throughout the world.
Personally, the attraction for me was that "Boeing, Boeing" was set in the 1960s and involved an architect and the three flight attendants - "My international harem" - he was "engaged" to. As for why he had three, his claim was that less than three was too monotonous and more than three was too much work.
Then the play went on to demonstrate that even three was dangerous if all three were in town at the same time.
And make no mistake, I know perfectly well we weren't calling them flight attendants back then. As someone who went through the tedious process to become one in the '70s (a process that included a weigh-in), let me assure you they were called stewardesses. And no, I didn't take the job.
I also know that when one of the women in the play holds up a molded bra and pair of pantyhose to ask who they belonged to, neither were accurate to the 1960s. That actress should have been holding one of those cotton Playtex bras and a pair of stockings, assuming there's a continuity god in the theater.
At least the reference to the Kinsey Report rang true.
The architect Bernard's long-time friend Robert from Wisconsin comes to visit and gets to meet the three stewardesses: Gloria from the U.S., Gabriella from Italy and Gretchen from Germany. Conveniently for the story, Gloria has found an American millionaire devoted to his work and Gretchen falls for Robert, leaving Bernard to finally commit to Gabriella and marriage.
Robert (after Gloria unwraps her bath towel to them): I've never seen a woman freshly bathed. It's really quite something!
Because what good '60s romantic farce could possibly end with anything other than a walk down the aisle? For reference, see every Doris Day movie ever made.
The three of us laughed throughout at the antics of the two men trying to keep the three women from finding out about each other so Bernard's duplicity in having three fiancées wouldn't be discovered. Tres French, non?
We closed out the evening on Pru's screened porch listening to Al Greene, sipping Cotes des Roses Rose and awaiting Flo's arrival. Oh, sure, there was the occasional capricious wind and periodic bouts of light rain, but nothing vaguely worthy of even a category 2 storm. The air was damp and beach-like, appropriate since we're all on pins and needles about whether the Outer Banks will be reopened for our getaway.
So far, lots of list-making but no packing and all the good vibes we can muster.
Posh, my future is so bright, I have to wear sunglasses. If you haven't seen my freshly renewed optimism, it's really quite something.
The strange part was, when I'd left home nine hours before, it had been like a ghost town around here. I figured with VCU out until Monday, some students had skipped town. And it wasn't just the kids, either, because walking through downtown in the morning had revealed an unusually low number of worker bees and traffic.
Oh, Richmond, you handle bad weather predictions so poorly.
Never one to sit at home and wait for bad weather to arrive, I was on my way to Church Hill by 4:45 for a girls' night out with Pru and Queen B. Usually when it's the three of us, we head directly to Merroir, but given Flo's looming presence on the coast, we decided on Alewife, with its focus on the bounty of the sea, instead.
As a bonus, we only had to drive six blocks instead of an hour.
No one wants to be the first group taking a table when a restaurant opens, but we had a 7:00 play to make, so we were those rubes sliding into our seats in the nearly empty dining room just after 5:00. That said, within 45 minutes, people began to come through the door at a steady pace and the noise level rose exponentially.
The menu had changed almost completely since I'd been in the week before, so there were plenty of new temptations. After staking our wine claims in Languedoc (my Rose) and the Loire (Pru's Chenin Blanc), we dove into the menu, stopping only when we hit food coma stage.
Crab claws with roe mayo arrived unexpectedly fried when I'd presumed they'd just be steamed, but that was the only wrinkle. Spaghetti squash jazzed up with oil and Szechuan spices was a new take on an old favorite. Even more unique, a fluffy olive oil pancake was the pillow on which rested translucent wisps of tuna, everything dip and bonito, a surprisingly rich starter. Pattypan squash from local Bowtide Farms got the glam treatment by being topped with tomato gravy and Caramont cheese.
When the subject turned to my blog, Pru asked why I'd been blogging less lately. Short answer: too happy and no time. Her complaint was that my blogging had stopped when I was low, too. That's because my readers don't want to hear about my giddy highs or last winter's lows.
"Not true, your readers love to ride the roller coaster with you," she insisted. Do they?
Meanwhile, back at the feast, Queen B couldn't resist Wagyu flank steak with fingerling potatoes, shitake mushrooms, shishitos and steak sauce, even if her preference for well-done meat had to be compromised. But the undisputed crowd favorite was a special of orecchiette with clams Fra Diavalo, the spicy tomato garlic sauce resting in the divot of each "ear" of orecchiette. So satisfying we all ate like
Midway through the meal, Chef Lee came over to welcome us to his new place in the former Blue Wheeler Market & Deli, which is a fancy name for what was a bodega. That they left one window still painted with a Coca Cola advertisement to acknowledge the building's history was a nice touch. Raving about everything we'd tasted so far, I looked up at him and asked, "You know how long I've been eating your food?"
Smiling, he acknowledged, "A looong time." I'm thinking I fell for his cooking somewhere back in the dark ages of 2006 or 2007, even driving out to Charlottesville once he was cooking there. In restaurant years, that's devotion.
The other familiar face was the former New Yorker who stopped by the table to say hello and acknowledge she'd seen me from afar when I was in last week. "You're hard to miss, sitting at the end of the bar like you were," she said of my favorite bar position.
When the discussion turned to the newest restaurants in Church Hill, she was quick to acknowledge that Jackson Ward is where it's at. East End residents, she and her husband (who has a business in J-Ward) are music lovers like me, but unlike me, they can't walk to Strange Matter or Gallery 5. I appreciate the praise for my 'hood, but no one has to remind me how centrally located I am.
By the time we left Alewife, it was seriously hopping and we had a play to make at CATheatre. And not just any play, but a French farce translated into English and on record as the most performed French play throughout the world.
Personally, the attraction for me was that "Boeing, Boeing" was set in the 1960s and involved an architect and the three flight attendants - "My international harem" - he was "engaged" to. As for why he had three, his claim was that less than three was too monotonous and more than three was too much work.
Then the play went on to demonstrate that even three was dangerous if all three were in town at the same time.
And make no mistake, I know perfectly well we weren't calling them flight attendants back then. As someone who went through the tedious process to become one in the '70s (a process that included a weigh-in), let me assure you they were called stewardesses. And no, I didn't take the job.
I also know that when one of the women in the play holds up a molded bra and pair of pantyhose to ask who they belonged to, neither were accurate to the 1960s. That actress should have been holding one of those cotton Playtex bras and a pair of stockings, assuming there's a continuity god in the theater.
At least the reference to the Kinsey Report rang true.
The architect Bernard's long-time friend Robert from Wisconsin comes to visit and gets to meet the three stewardesses: Gloria from the U.S., Gabriella from Italy and Gretchen from Germany. Conveniently for the story, Gloria has found an American millionaire devoted to his work and Gretchen falls for Robert, leaving Bernard to finally commit to Gabriella and marriage.
Robert (after Gloria unwraps her bath towel to them): I've never seen a woman freshly bathed. It's really quite something!
Because what good '60s romantic farce could possibly end with anything other than a walk down the aisle? For reference, see every Doris Day movie ever made.
The three of us laughed throughout at the antics of the two men trying to keep the three women from finding out about each other so Bernard's duplicity in having three fiancées wouldn't be discovered. Tres French, non?
We closed out the evening on Pru's screened porch listening to Al Greene, sipping Cotes des Roses Rose and awaiting Flo's arrival. Oh, sure, there was the occasional capricious wind and periodic bouts of light rain, but nothing vaguely worthy of even a category 2 storm. The air was damp and beach-like, appropriate since we're all on pins and needles about whether the Outer Banks will be reopened for our getaway.
So far, lots of list-making but no packing and all the good vibes we can muster.
Posh, my future is so bright, I have to wear sunglasses. If you haven't seen my freshly renewed optimism, it's really quite something.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
And You Can Dance
High-brow, meet low-brow and let's call it a night.
The farting sounds were straight out of "Blazing Saddles," while the whinny came directly from "Young Frankenstein." Mel Brooks provided God's voice at the end.
Naturally, I'm talking about Firehouse Theatre's production of Moliere's 1673 comedy, "The Imaginary Invalid," shortened to "Invalid" for modern-day audiences.
It wasn't tough to get the manse gang on board for M & Ms: a meal at Metzger followed by a play combining Moliere and Mel Brooks. What fan of high and low could pass on that combo?
We started at the crack of evening, so Metzger was empty, with all the shades down against the heat of the western sky. But seated at the front table nearest the window, it was still a tad warm, a condition we battled with Seehof Rose and a discussion of how - gasp! - Pru is sometimes willing to leave the Loire Valley when it's for a Rose of Pinot Noir.
With vintage, obscure soul music playing, the three of us played pass-the-plate with a succession of scrumptious ddishes. Giving new life to late summer zucchini, the kitchen had charred it and added quark, chopped almonds, preserved lemon, chili and mint so everyone wanted a piece of it. Thick slices of golden beets under radicchio, roasted grapes and hazelnuts became sublime thanks to dollops of Gorgonzola's triple cream cousin, Cambozola.
With a nod to one of Pru's favorite drinks, cured steelhead trout was gussied up with gin, cucumber, wax beans, roe and the German version of salsa verde, gruene sosse. Beau's black bass was out of this world fresh tasting and I ate as much as I could without risking him giving me the stinkeye for bogarting his fish.
A dark chocolate torte with blueberry, cardamom and milk crumble accompanied Beau's No Regrets cocktail - cognac, dark and blackstrap rum, Falernum, pineapple - which Pru dubbed a dead ringer for Bermuda's national drink, the Rum Swizzle. She should know, having slurped through multiple pitchers of them during her extensive time in Bermuda over the years.
All I know is, I'd happily drink Rum Swizzles here or there. In a chair or in a lair. Anywhere, preferably from a pitcher so I'd be assured of more than just one. Now I have to question how I managed to vacation in Bermuda without discovering the Swizzle's seductive power.
Pleasantly replete, we returned to the manse to pick up Queen B, who'd skipped dinner to await the arrival of Sweetie Pie, a street dog she rescued in Mexico and who has since become her devoted canine companion, from the vet.
With our party complete, we settled in at Firehouse for "Invalid," which began with comedian Slash Coleman, dressed all in white, leading us through a series of laugh exercises to prepare us for what was to come: neuroses, nuptials and number two.
Let's just say I can assure you of more passing of gas than you've ever seen in a play before.
The rebooted version of Moliere - satisfyingly still spoken in couplets - featured much hilarious dialog about enemas (the invalid's preferred treatment method), an improvised opera and a pair of lusty young lovers, along with a serious helping of mispronounced names ("It's Cleante!") and a man playing the role of the invalid's wife for maximum comedic affect.
Adding to the play's charm was the set with a door set into a wall that leaned forward at a precipitous angle, sort of an Alice-in-Wonderland effect heightened when people came in and out of it. Tres cool.
Queen B, Pru and I laughed unabashedly throughout while Beau found less to tickle his fancy. Given that we'd just learned that he's never read or seen Ibsen's "A Doll's House," perhaps he's just not the literary fan the womenfolk are. Because I know he's the type to enjoy a good fart joke.
We closed out the night on Pru's screened porch, but only after admiring her latest DIY project, an eye-catching gold compass she'd hand painted after painting the bathroom floor black. The question had been whether or not to paint the compass so the markers were correct, but she'd opted for aligning the directionals with the walls in the petite bathroom, a choice that made perfect sense once I sat down on the toilet.
No one wants the north arrow pointing at her left thigh, after all. Better it points at the sink.
As we sat on the screened porch with the sounds of Church Hill at night all around us - train whistles, voices, cars creeping down the alley - the conversation inevitably turned to the upcoming beach week and the interesting crew who will populate Pru's beach house this year. Besides Beckham and the Beauty, one of the guests, Hotdog, is coming all the way from Arizona to amuse us with his droll and dire observations, so it looks to be a party.
"Hotdog loves to dance!" Pru reminded us again. And Beckham has offered to dazzle us with his masterful cooking skills. Personally, I'm going for Pru's surfside champagne happy hours as part of my beach farewell for the year.
And if there'll be pitchers of Rum Swizzles (insert sound of horse whinnying) to accompany that dance party, all the better.
The farting sounds were straight out of "Blazing Saddles," while the whinny came directly from "Young Frankenstein." Mel Brooks provided God's voice at the end.
Naturally, I'm talking about Firehouse Theatre's production of Moliere's 1673 comedy, "The Imaginary Invalid," shortened to "Invalid" for modern-day audiences.
It wasn't tough to get the manse gang on board for M & Ms: a meal at Metzger followed by a play combining Moliere and Mel Brooks. What fan of high and low could pass on that combo?
We started at the crack of evening, so Metzger was empty, with all the shades down against the heat of the western sky. But seated at the front table nearest the window, it was still a tad warm, a condition we battled with Seehof Rose and a discussion of how - gasp! - Pru is sometimes willing to leave the Loire Valley when it's for a Rose of Pinot Noir.
With vintage, obscure soul music playing, the three of us played pass-the-plate with a succession of scrumptious ddishes. Giving new life to late summer zucchini, the kitchen had charred it and added quark, chopped almonds, preserved lemon, chili and mint so everyone wanted a piece of it. Thick slices of golden beets under radicchio, roasted grapes and hazelnuts became sublime thanks to dollops of Gorgonzola's triple cream cousin, Cambozola.
With a nod to one of Pru's favorite drinks, cured steelhead trout was gussied up with gin, cucumber, wax beans, roe and the German version of salsa verde, gruene sosse. Beau's black bass was out of this world fresh tasting and I ate as much as I could without risking him giving me the stinkeye for bogarting his fish.
A dark chocolate torte with blueberry, cardamom and milk crumble accompanied Beau's No Regrets cocktail - cognac, dark and blackstrap rum, Falernum, pineapple - which Pru dubbed a dead ringer for Bermuda's national drink, the Rum Swizzle. She should know, having slurped through multiple pitchers of them during her extensive time in Bermuda over the years.
All I know is, I'd happily drink Rum Swizzles here or there. In a chair or in a lair. Anywhere, preferably from a pitcher so I'd be assured of more than just one. Now I have to question how I managed to vacation in Bermuda without discovering the Swizzle's seductive power.
Pleasantly replete, we returned to the manse to pick up Queen B, who'd skipped dinner to await the arrival of Sweetie Pie, a street dog she rescued in Mexico and who has since become her devoted canine companion, from the vet.
With our party complete, we settled in at Firehouse for "Invalid," which began with comedian Slash Coleman, dressed all in white, leading us through a series of laugh exercises to prepare us for what was to come: neuroses, nuptials and number two.
Let's just say I can assure you of more passing of gas than you've ever seen in a play before.
The rebooted version of Moliere - satisfyingly still spoken in couplets - featured much hilarious dialog about enemas (the invalid's preferred treatment method), an improvised opera and a pair of lusty young lovers, along with a serious helping of mispronounced names ("It's Cleante!") and a man playing the role of the invalid's wife for maximum comedic affect.
Adding to the play's charm was the set with a door set into a wall that leaned forward at a precipitous angle, sort of an Alice-in-Wonderland effect heightened when people came in and out of it. Tres cool.
Queen B, Pru and I laughed unabashedly throughout while Beau found less to tickle his fancy. Given that we'd just learned that he's never read or seen Ibsen's "A Doll's House," perhaps he's just not the literary fan the womenfolk are. Because I know he's the type to enjoy a good fart joke.
We closed out the night on Pru's screened porch, but only after admiring her latest DIY project, an eye-catching gold compass she'd hand painted after painting the bathroom floor black. The question had been whether or not to paint the compass so the markers were correct, but she'd opted for aligning the directionals with the walls in the petite bathroom, a choice that made perfect sense once I sat down on the toilet.
No one wants the north arrow pointing at her left thigh, after all. Better it points at the sink.
As we sat on the screened porch with the sounds of Church Hill at night all around us - train whistles, voices, cars creeping down the alley - the conversation inevitably turned to the upcoming beach week and the interesting crew who will populate Pru's beach house this year. Besides Beckham and the Beauty, one of the guests, Hotdog, is coming all the way from Arizona to amuse us with his droll and dire observations, so it looks to be a party.
"Hotdog loves to dance!" Pru reminded us again. And Beckham has offered to dazzle us with his masterful cooking skills. Personally, I'm going for Pru's surfside champagne happy hours as part of my beach farewell for the year.
And if there'll be pitchers of Rum Swizzles (insert sound of horse whinnying) to accompany that dance party, all the better.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Freedom of Pleasure
Perhaps a night that began with a discussion of a sculpture urinating, moved through smut and ended with memories of being called the naked family, wasn't the night to go stag.
I suppose you could call it an evening wasted with Tom Lehrer, but only because he called one of his live albums that. There was nothing wasted about it.
It began when I met the posse in Church Hill, where we promptly worried Queen B by taking the ridiculously steep 23rd Street hill to get down to Nota Bene. You know, the one that feels like your car is going to roll hood over trunk because it's so vertical?
For thrill seekers like Beau and I, it's a personal favorite as far as hills go. The ladies, not so much.
But dangerous descents were forgotten once the owner found out about my travel plans and began offering recommendations involving food and sculpture, followed by the arrival of a bottle of fruity and berry fresh Tete au Bois Dormant sparkling Rose. It was brought to the table by our lanky server who called us y'all because, as he put it, "You guys doesn't sound right."
Three women and one non-alpha male? Correct, not a guy in the bunch.
A menu of 5 different gin and tonics seduced Beau who ordered one called "Oh, you fancy, huh?" supposedly because it included black pepper, but I'm inclined to think he just wanted to say that to our server, who grinned when he did.
From there we had a food lovers' feast, starting with the creamiest of burrata over sweet little heirloom tomatoes with pine nuts and grilled cucumber vinaigrette that screamed summer. My favorite part of a charcuterie board was the duck and pork country pate, not to mention a superb rhubarb jam that resembled nothing so much as apple butter.
Staying true to Nota Bene's roots, we had two pizzas, a red and a white - sausage, kale and red onion plus potato and fontina with leek cream and olive tapenade - while marveling over the chew and flavor of the crust. So. Incredibly. Good.
Bucatini white bolognese seems to get ordered every single time we go to Nota Bene (not a complaint), but this was my first time ordering their branzino with pepperonata. The combination of the wood-fired fish and long-cooked, deeply flavored peppers, onions and garlic was nothing short of sublime, to the point that moaning after taking a bite became the norm.
People stared, we didn't care.
You don't put away that much savory food and call it quits, though, meaning we capped the meal with with tiramisu (full disclosure: we got two of them) and a bay leaf panna cotta with amaretti cookie crumble and blueberries, one of those desserts that pretends to be light but is only fooling the wishful thinkers.
Start to finish, the meal was memorable, every bite a masterful marriage of flavors, colors and textures, the better to complement the wide-ranging conversations that accompanied the sipping and supping. We left in a blissful food coma, all of us.
Fortunately, nothing more was expected of us than a drive to Swift Creek Mill Theater to see "Tomfoolery," a musical revue devoted to the satirical (and protest) songs of the brilliant and hilarious Tom Lehrer.
I mean, how can you not love a lyricist who writes a song about "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park?"
Or, in the grand tradition of woman singing songs about the man they love - no matter how antisocial, alcoholic, physically repulsive or just plain unsanitary, as he put it - Lehrer writes one from the man's point of view and it's a whole lot funnier.
Sharks gotta swim, bats gotta fly
I gotta love one woman till I die
To Ed or Dick or Bob
She may be just a slob
But to me, well, she's my girl
Just as funny was "When You Are Old and Gray, a song he dedicated to anyone still in love in the audience.
So say you love me here and now
I'll make the most of that
Say you love and trust me
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat
Listening to "The Masochism Tango," I couldn't help but think what an appropriate song it was for that most unromantic of womankind: Pru. Sure enough, the moment it ended, she looked at me and observed, "You know that's my song, right?"
I did indeed.
Your heart is hard as stone or mahogany
That's why I'm in such exquisite agony
My soul is on fire, it's aflame with desire
Which is why I prespire when we tango
"Smut" had the four talented actors holding Playboy and Playgirl magazines while singing about the pleasures of dirty books.
All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
The mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed, everything is lewd
I left the theater wondering how I ever thought I'd lived a full life when I'd only ever heard one Tom Lehrer song before tonight. I was an innocent, little fool, that's for sure.
The remainder of my waking hours were spent on Pru's glorious screened porch, where she regaled us with stories about her parents' penchant for clothing-optional living and the friend from childhood who'd said she always thought of Pru's clan as "the naked family." The child can hardly be blamed for that, after all, how many of us have Dads who went streaking during thunderstorms? Or naked Moms who took phone calls in full view of the garbage men?
Around midnight, I got up to leave, only to be told to sit back down, so I did. This is not a group who wants the conversation stopped until everyone agrees it's over. At least I made it home before daybreak.
But I also went to bed a new fan of Tom Lehrer. Anyone who can write, "If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it," is my kind of guy.
Y'all know what I mean, I'm sure.
I suppose you could call it an evening wasted with Tom Lehrer, but only because he called one of his live albums that. There was nothing wasted about it.
It began when I met the posse in Church Hill, where we promptly worried Queen B by taking the ridiculously steep 23rd Street hill to get down to Nota Bene. You know, the one that feels like your car is going to roll hood over trunk because it's so vertical?
For thrill seekers like Beau and I, it's a personal favorite as far as hills go. The ladies, not so much.
But dangerous descents were forgotten once the owner found out about my travel plans and began offering recommendations involving food and sculpture, followed by the arrival of a bottle of fruity and berry fresh Tete au Bois Dormant sparkling Rose. It was brought to the table by our lanky server who called us y'all because, as he put it, "You guys doesn't sound right."
Three women and one non-alpha male? Correct, not a guy in the bunch.
A menu of 5 different gin and tonics seduced Beau who ordered one called "Oh, you fancy, huh?" supposedly because it included black pepper, but I'm inclined to think he just wanted to say that to our server, who grinned when he did.
From there we had a food lovers' feast, starting with the creamiest of burrata over sweet little heirloom tomatoes with pine nuts and grilled cucumber vinaigrette that screamed summer. My favorite part of a charcuterie board was the duck and pork country pate, not to mention a superb rhubarb jam that resembled nothing so much as apple butter.
Staying true to Nota Bene's roots, we had two pizzas, a red and a white - sausage, kale and red onion plus potato and fontina with leek cream and olive tapenade - while marveling over the chew and flavor of the crust. So. Incredibly. Good.
Bucatini white bolognese seems to get ordered every single time we go to Nota Bene (not a complaint), but this was my first time ordering their branzino with pepperonata. The combination of the wood-fired fish and long-cooked, deeply flavored peppers, onions and garlic was nothing short of sublime, to the point that moaning after taking a bite became the norm.
People stared, we didn't care.
You don't put away that much savory food and call it quits, though, meaning we capped the meal with with tiramisu (full disclosure: we got two of them) and a bay leaf panna cotta with amaretti cookie crumble and blueberries, one of those desserts that pretends to be light but is only fooling the wishful thinkers.
Start to finish, the meal was memorable, every bite a masterful marriage of flavors, colors and textures, the better to complement the wide-ranging conversations that accompanied the sipping and supping. We left in a blissful food coma, all of us.
Fortunately, nothing more was expected of us than a drive to Swift Creek Mill Theater to see "Tomfoolery," a musical revue devoted to the satirical (and protest) songs of the brilliant and hilarious Tom Lehrer.
I mean, how can you not love a lyricist who writes a song about "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park?"
Or, in the grand tradition of woman singing songs about the man they love - no matter how antisocial, alcoholic, physically repulsive or just plain unsanitary, as he put it - Lehrer writes one from the man's point of view and it's a whole lot funnier.
Sharks gotta swim, bats gotta fly
I gotta love one woman till I die
To Ed or Dick or Bob
She may be just a slob
But to me, well, she's my girl
Just as funny was "When You Are Old and Gray, a song he dedicated to anyone still in love in the audience.
So say you love me here and now
I'll make the most of that
Say you love and trust me
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat
Listening to "The Masochism Tango," I couldn't help but think what an appropriate song it was for that most unromantic of womankind: Pru. Sure enough, the moment it ended, she looked at me and observed, "You know that's my song, right?"
I did indeed.
Your heart is hard as stone or mahogany
That's why I'm in such exquisite agony
My soul is on fire, it's aflame with desire
Which is why I prespire when we tango
"Smut" had the four talented actors holding Playboy and Playgirl magazines while singing about the pleasures of dirty books.
All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
The mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed, everything is lewd
I left the theater wondering how I ever thought I'd lived a full life when I'd only ever heard one Tom Lehrer song before tonight. I was an innocent, little fool, that's for sure.
The remainder of my waking hours were spent on Pru's glorious screened porch, where she regaled us with stories about her parents' penchant for clothing-optional living and the friend from childhood who'd said she always thought of Pru's clan as "the naked family." The child can hardly be blamed for that, after all, how many of us have Dads who went streaking during thunderstorms? Or naked Moms who took phone calls in full view of the garbage men?
Around midnight, I got up to leave, only to be told to sit back down, so I did. This is not a group who wants the conversation stopped until everyone agrees it's over. At least I made it home before daybreak.
But I also went to bed a new fan of Tom Lehrer. Anyone who can write, "If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it," is my kind of guy.
Y'all know what I mean, I'm sure.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Don't Tell Me Not to Fly, I've Simply Got To
I'm just checking in. I see you're enjoying Chicago full on. Let me know when you're back, would love to hear more about your adventures in person. Do we need to make a porch date? ~ Pru
Um, yes.
Far be it for me to turn down an invitation to spend time blathering on the porch of Pru's manse. After a day spent trying to get back in the Richmond groove - laundry, setting up interviews, doing a rewrite, mopping floors - I was more than happy to brave the rain for an evening with friends.
Ever the hostess with the mostess, Pru soon had Beau pouring us glasses of J. Mourat Rose to accompany a dinner scored at the new Church Hill location of 8 1/2: arugula salad, white pizza and red pizza with sausage and mushrooms, savored on the porch while a light rain fell all around us.
Group consensus: 8 1/2's pizza tops Dinamo's, not that any of us would turn down Dinamo's pie.
And sure, we began the evening with a discussion of what I'd seen, done and eaten in Chicago, including my fondness for the Carbide & Carbon Building because its design resembles that of a champagne bottle, complete with dark green terra cotta tower and gold leaf accents to mimic the foil around the cork, but eventually moved on.
When Pru put me in charge of music, I asked if she had any restrictions on my choice. None, she claimed, at least until I told Alexa to play the Carpenters (a favorite of both Beau and I) and she groaned loudly. Looking for something completely different, I asked Alexa for Bon Jovi and she looked at me like I'd lost my mind. That's when Queen B stepped in and suggested Barbra Streisand and everyone finally seemed okay with the music.
Don't tell me not to live
Just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade
Once the music was settled, the three womenfolk united to do an intervention on Beau who has an unfortunate habit of looking at his cell phone while lively conversation is taking place around him. And lively conversation with a guest present, at that.
While he swears he can multi-task, after the second time he started asking questions that had been covered in a conversation only moments earlier, we saw no option but to insist he step away from the phone. He couldn't, of course, but settled for cradling it in his lap and periodically making longing glances in its direction. Once an addict, always an addict.
Relationships turned out to be a hot topic, little surprise given how fascinated everyone is with the turn of my love life, but for a change, the focus was on Pru and Beau. That two people could meet in college, go their separate ways in terms of marriage and children, and somehow find their way back to each other 30 years later is nothing short of extraordinary.
That when they first began dating, Pru - in her usual straight forward manner - had told Beau that he was good raw material and just needed some guidance is proof positive that you can say anything if it's to the right person.
Beau, who decided last night to name his as yet unwritten autobiography "From Under the Swoop," a tribute to his magnificent mane of hair and its come-hither swoop in the front, admitted that he'd never stopped thinking about Pru in the intervening three decades. Now that's romance.
It was going on 11 p.m. and I'd been there for over four hours when I began my exit strategy. Not so fast, Pru insisted, you were invited over to share some juice, so sit back down and start spilling.
Hadn't I raved about our meals at the Purple Pig and Marisol? Did she want me to tell her about my other favorite buildings?
"You're not gushing as much as last time," Pru worried. "What's up?"
I'm just trying to contain my over-the-top happiness and not subject everyone I see to it, I explained. You want me to gush, I'll sit back down and gush. Happily.
Speaking of, just after Beau had observed that the Rose was having far more of an effect on me than it was on him, he'd had an epiphany. "Oh, wait," he insisted. "You've got Rose on top of euphoria, don't you?"
Sure do. And I'm hoping to live out the rest of my life that way. My parade is too fabulous to be affected by rain...or anything else.
Sorry, I just can't help myself.
Um, yes.
Far be it for me to turn down an invitation to spend time blathering on the porch of Pru's manse. After a day spent trying to get back in the Richmond groove - laundry, setting up interviews, doing a rewrite, mopping floors - I was more than happy to brave the rain for an evening with friends.
Ever the hostess with the mostess, Pru soon had Beau pouring us glasses of J. Mourat Rose to accompany a dinner scored at the new Church Hill location of 8 1/2: arugula salad, white pizza and red pizza with sausage and mushrooms, savored on the porch while a light rain fell all around us.
Group consensus: 8 1/2's pizza tops Dinamo's, not that any of us would turn down Dinamo's pie.
And sure, we began the evening with a discussion of what I'd seen, done and eaten in Chicago, including my fondness for the Carbide & Carbon Building because its design resembles that of a champagne bottle, complete with dark green terra cotta tower and gold leaf accents to mimic the foil around the cork, but eventually moved on.
When Pru put me in charge of music, I asked if she had any restrictions on my choice. None, she claimed, at least until I told Alexa to play the Carpenters (a favorite of both Beau and I) and she groaned loudly. Looking for something completely different, I asked Alexa for Bon Jovi and she looked at me like I'd lost my mind. That's when Queen B stepped in and suggested Barbra Streisand and everyone finally seemed okay with the music.
Don't tell me not to live
Just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade
Once the music was settled, the three womenfolk united to do an intervention on Beau who has an unfortunate habit of looking at his cell phone while lively conversation is taking place around him. And lively conversation with a guest present, at that.
While he swears he can multi-task, after the second time he started asking questions that had been covered in a conversation only moments earlier, we saw no option but to insist he step away from the phone. He couldn't, of course, but settled for cradling it in his lap and periodically making longing glances in its direction. Once an addict, always an addict.
Relationships turned out to be a hot topic, little surprise given how fascinated everyone is with the turn of my love life, but for a change, the focus was on Pru and Beau. That two people could meet in college, go their separate ways in terms of marriage and children, and somehow find their way back to each other 30 years later is nothing short of extraordinary.
That when they first began dating, Pru - in her usual straight forward manner - had told Beau that he was good raw material and just needed some guidance is proof positive that you can say anything if it's to the right person.
Beau, who decided last night to name his as yet unwritten autobiography "From Under the Swoop," a tribute to his magnificent mane of hair and its come-hither swoop in the front, admitted that he'd never stopped thinking about Pru in the intervening three decades. Now that's romance.
It was going on 11 p.m. and I'd been there for over four hours when I began my exit strategy. Not so fast, Pru insisted, you were invited over to share some juice, so sit back down and start spilling.
Hadn't I raved about our meals at the Purple Pig and Marisol? Did she want me to tell her about my other favorite buildings?
"You're not gushing as much as last time," Pru worried. "What's up?"
I'm just trying to contain my over-the-top happiness and not subject everyone I see to it, I explained. You want me to gush, I'll sit back down and gush. Happily.
Speaking of, just after Beau had observed that the Rose was having far more of an effect on me than it was on him, he'd had an epiphany. "Oh, wait," he insisted. "You've got Rose on top of euphoria, don't you?"
Sure do. And I'm hoping to live out the rest of my life that way. My parade is too fabulous to be affected by rain...or anything else.
Sorry, I just can't help myself.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Snazzy, Brassy and Razamatazzy
We started with three dames, one guy and finished up with four dames, one guy. Estrogen flowed.
From a table all the way in the back of Metzger, we sipped Hugl Rose while destroying the Restaurant Week menu course by course. That it was done to a killer soundtrack by Mr. Fine Wine only guaranteed that there was no place I'd rather have been, despite the RW hordes.
Crab croquettes rested on a wave of honeyed skyr (the Icelandic dairy product that's not sure if it's a cheese or yogurt) that had me wanting to lick the plate while Pru announced about her pierogi with peas, quark and mint, "I could eat an entire bowl of these."
My roast chicken alone was out of this world, but the rye berries and pops of pickled celery elevated it to fancy chicken, while Beau's ramp tagliatelle starred black trumpet mushrooms, black garlic, breadcrumbs and a cured egg yolk and could not have been any fresher tasting. Queen B swooned over her enormous wiener schnitzel, while Pru was bested by a massive pork chop with spaetzle and pork jus.
Metzger is not for the faint of appetite, even with so-called RW portions.
Much of the dinner conversation was given over to the impending visit of Burger, a family friend of Pru and Queen B's whom I've already met several times, enough times to eat multiple meals, take him on one of my death walks and go dancing with him (the others having opted out). With his return this time, we discussed ways to amuse him without leaving him so worn out he requires a nap after every activity (aka middle aged man syndrome).
Desserts of mint panna cotta and dark chocolate tortes took us into the dining room's busy hour as the place filled up around us with intentional Restaurant Week patrons. We, on the other hand, had been unaware walking, rolled the dice won handily.
For me, the musical high point of the evening was hearing through the grapevine from one of the owners that as long as Metzger is open, Mr. Fine Wine will be playing. Period. As if I wasn't already a devoted fan of the kitchen, no restaurant in town has a soundtrack that can compare.
It was only once the dessert plates had been cleared that we looked at the time and realized we had more than enough to order another bottle of Rose and linger to the vintage soul music playing. Our server looked askance, as if she'd never heard of people ordering wine after dinner, but brought it anyway.
It's certainly not the first time I've walked out of a restaurant with a corked bottle in my bag and I feel quite certain it won't be the last.
Our evening's preliminary entertainment was "Dames at Sea," a 70s spoof of glitzy Busby Berkley-style musicals like "42nd Street" that Swift Creek Mill Theatre had last staged 26 years ago.
Hmm, let's see, 1992, I was living a wholly different life than today but I'd also never seen "Dames at Sea" and I love a good dancing-focused musical. This one had the all the usual tropes: fading star, wide-eyed kid fresh off the bus from Nowheresville, a couple of peppy sailors and a chorus girl with a heart of gold.
I can't help but appreciate a musical that begins with an overture and the 8-piece orchestra added much to the musical numbers such as "That Mister Man of Mine," with the Pru-appropriate lyric, "He wants me back but he can't afford me." Few can, my dear, very few.
"When it comes to naval affairs, I've been compared to John Paul Jones," says Mona, the aging diva, who only liked men of experience and rank to steer her rudder. Pru and I concurred on the value of such a stipulation.
The second act was even more fun than the first, set, as it was, on the USS Courageous with a sign near where we were seated that read, "Poop Deck" with an arrow pointing off stage away from actors in lederhosen and dirndl skirts tapping their hearts out.
Let's just say that a good time was had by all.
Naturally, we closed out the evening on Pru's screened porch at the manse, a given because of the temperate weather and how long it had been since we had a good catch-up session. Joining tonight's rap session was a newcomer and former Church Hill resident who's recently moved out past Varina.
It was fascinating watching her take in our whirlwind of a conversation with its constantly changing focus (if you can't keep up, just excuse yourself and go to bed) and emphasis on experiences and opinions.
Next thing I knew, Beau was pulling out an old photo of himself - easily 40 pounds heavier and without the magnificent swoop to his hair that he now dazzles strangers and friends alike with - and talking about how he ended up a svelte, stylish man about town. Spoiler alert: Pru had a hand in it, having somewhat tactfully suggested that he could dress more to his advantage with a few changes.
We stayed far later than probably any of us intended on a school night, so the thunderstorms were just starting to roll in as I left Church Hill and drove home through deserted streets that will soon be even quieter as the students in my neighborhood clear out.
Even better, my conversational affairs are soon to go from idling back to 100 mph with May kicking in. Can. Not. Wait.
From a table all the way in the back of Metzger, we sipped Hugl Rose while destroying the Restaurant Week menu course by course. That it was done to a killer soundtrack by Mr. Fine Wine only guaranteed that there was no place I'd rather have been, despite the RW hordes.
Crab croquettes rested on a wave of honeyed skyr (the Icelandic dairy product that's not sure if it's a cheese or yogurt) that had me wanting to lick the plate while Pru announced about her pierogi with peas, quark and mint, "I could eat an entire bowl of these."
My roast chicken alone was out of this world, but the rye berries and pops of pickled celery elevated it to fancy chicken, while Beau's ramp tagliatelle starred black trumpet mushrooms, black garlic, breadcrumbs and a cured egg yolk and could not have been any fresher tasting. Queen B swooned over her enormous wiener schnitzel, while Pru was bested by a massive pork chop with spaetzle and pork jus.
Metzger is not for the faint of appetite, even with so-called RW portions.
Much of the dinner conversation was given over to the impending visit of Burger, a family friend of Pru and Queen B's whom I've already met several times, enough times to eat multiple meals, take him on one of my death walks and go dancing with him (the others having opted out). With his return this time, we discussed ways to amuse him without leaving him so worn out he requires a nap after every activity (aka middle aged man syndrome).
Desserts of mint panna cotta and dark chocolate tortes took us into the dining room's busy hour as the place filled up around us with intentional Restaurant Week patrons. We, on the other hand, had been unaware walking, rolled the dice won handily.
For me, the musical high point of the evening was hearing through the grapevine from one of the owners that as long as Metzger is open, Mr. Fine Wine will be playing. Period. As if I wasn't already a devoted fan of the kitchen, no restaurant in town has a soundtrack that can compare.
It was only once the dessert plates had been cleared that we looked at the time and realized we had more than enough to order another bottle of Rose and linger to the vintage soul music playing. Our server looked askance, as if she'd never heard of people ordering wine after dinner, but brought it anyway.
It's certainly not the first time I've walked out of a restaurant with a corked bottle in my bag and I feel quite certain it won't be the last.
Our evening's preliminary entertainment was "Dames at Sea," a 70s spoof of glitzy Busby Berkley-style musicals like "42nd Street" that Swift Creek Mill Theatre had last staged 26 years ago.
Hmm, let's see, 1992, I was living a wholly different life than today but I'd also never seen "Dames at Sea" and I love a good dancing-focused musical. This one had the all the usual tropes: fading star, wide-eyed kid fresh off the bus from Nowheresville, a couple of peppy sailors and a chorus girl with a heart of gold.
I can't help but appreciate a musical that begins with an overture and the 8-piece orchestra added much to the musical numbers such as "That Mister Man of Mine," with the Pru-appropriate lyric, "He wants me back but he can't afford me." Few can, my dear, very few.
"When it comes to naval affairs, I've been compared to John Paul Jones," says Mona, the aging diva, who only liked men of experience and rank to steer her rudder. Pru and I concurred on the value of such a stipulation.
The second act was even more fun than the first, set, as it was, on the USS Courageous with a sign near where we were seated that read, "Poop Deck" with an arrow pointing off stage away from actors in lederhosen and dirndl skirts tapping their hearts out.
Let's just say that a good time was had by all.
Naturally, we closed out the evening on Pru's screened porch at the manse, a given because of the temperate weather and how long it had been since we had a good catch-up session. Joining tonight's rap session was a newcomer and former Church Hill resident who's recently moved out past Varina.
It was fascinating watching her take in our whirlwind of a conversation with its constantly changing focus (if you can't keep up, just excuse yourself and go to bed) and emphasis on experiences and opinions.
Next thing I knew, Beau was pulling out an old photo of himself - easily 40 pounds heavier and without the magnificent swoop to his hair that he now dazzles strangers and friends alike with - and talking about how he ended up a svelte, stylish man about town. Spoiler alert: Pru had a hand in it, having somewhat tactfully suggested that he could dress more to his advantage with a few changes.
We stayed far later than probably any of us intended on a school night, so the thunderstorms were just starting to roll in as I left Church Hill and drove home through deserted streets that will soon be even quieter as the students in my neighborhood clear out.
Even better, my conversational affairs are soon to go from idling back to 100 mph with May kicking in. Can. Not. Wait.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Don't Dance All Night with Me
Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry. All across Church Hill.
When the evening starts at 5 and doesn't end until after 2 a.m., there's plenty of time to range from baby octopus stew to an amplified discussion of male archetypes and take a detour through a ghost story.
Things kicked off at Pru's manse on the hill, where she, the woman who bore her and her swain Beau welcomed me into the fold. It's so frequent that I'm their fourth that people are going to start taking us for some sort of polyamorous, multi-generational swingers.
I think I'm okay with that at this point.
We landed at Nota Bene shortly before the dinner rush began but only after Beau managed to take the longest possible route to reach a place barely a mile from the manse. I blame all those years living in Ladysmith for his lack of city savvy (witness his horror at once seeing a rat the size of a cat in the Fan).
As if Nota Bene doesn't have enough to offer, they've added one of my very favorite bartenders to their staff, a fact that immediately derailed our wines plans, rerouting them to cocktails. My choice was a Sherry Daisy, a delightful sipper of Amontillado sherry, peach shrub and Rothman and Winter peach liqueur with an orange twist.
Arriving in a long-stemmed coupe glass - as did Beau's gin-based Fall Cocktail - Pru immediately invoked "The Thin Man" as we sipped with all the sophistication of Nick and Nora Charles.
Scanning the specials board for options, the owner sidled up and, without saying, "Psst!" whispered, as if offering black market goods, "Pro tip: get the baby octopus stew."
Since it was already under consideration, along with the radishes with bottarga and two orders of sugar toads with bagna cauda, we took her advice, throwing in an order of braised fennel and housemade bread for sopping for good measure.
And that was just to start.
The baby octopus stew - a long-simmered melange, spicy, tomato-based and chock full of chickpeas and octopus - only got forked up by Beau and I, with Pru explaining that she objected to eating such intelligent creatures.
Far more disturbing, in my opinion, was a reference from one of their favorite Italian TV shows, in which a man had been instructed what to do with a live one: beat it with a stick until it's dead and then cook it all day long. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to have to beat my dinner into submission.
Although a wiser quartet might have stopped there, sated and happy, we pushed on, ordering torchio pork ragu, a sausage and broccolini pizza, a special of rare hanger steak and another of head-on shrimp. As Beau so succinctly put it, "I've never had anything that isn't stellar here," a fact that contributes to Nota Bene being on my birthday progressive dinner route every year since it opened.
It was an obscene amount of food laid out on our table with enough leftovers to take back to the manse for an entire meal.
But not before we dropped down the dessert rabbit hole with a savory local goat cheese custard for Beau, biscotti and sweetened, whipped ricotta cheese for Pru and a piece of chocolate almond cake dusted in confectioner's sugar and big enough for 3 for yours truly. Only the queen abstained from a sweet course, no doubt because she's wiser than we are.
By the time we stopped eating, it was time to high tail it to Colonial Heights for a play, assuming we didn't nod off based on the feast we'd just had. The valet, an older man, took off running to fetch Beau's car and when he returned, I complimented him on how spry he was. Huffing and puffing, he smiled and said, "I...(wheeze)...am.. (gasp)...spry!"
Beau tipped him nicely for his effort.
Walking into Swift Creek Mill to see "The Woman in Black," the usher looked at Pru and I and observed, "You two look fabulous!" Taking our seats, I heard a man's voice behind me saying, "Miss Karen, we have to stop meeting like this. People will think we're in love!" and turned to see the manager of the Byrd, Todd and his lovely wife. Since this same crew and I had just seen Todd Wednesday night for "To Catch a Thief," I could see his point.
Besides, if people are going to think I'm in love, I'd prefer it wasn't with a married man. A minor point, but an important one.
Meanwhile, a flirtatious woman from Dinwiddie sitting next to Beau struck up a conversation, curious about the Byrd Theater and how difficult it was to park there and clearly eager to make Beau's acquaintance. Granted, it was probably tough to guess his status given that he'd arrived with three women, but, as Pru pointed out, he was also the youngest man in the room by at least a decade.
It pays not to be old, bald or gray sometimes, assuming you want to be hit on by women from Dinwiddie.
During the play's introduction, we learned that the building has long been haunted. A little girl's ghost has apparently been seen running through the theater and, back when it was a gristmill, a miller boy hung himself in the basement and his ghost hangs about, too.
At intermission, the bartender told Beau that she'd once had a glass thrown at her and no one else was in the room. The Swift Creek crew thinks most of the ghosts are former Central State Hospital patients, no doubt because it makes for a good story.
The play, London's second-longest running, had at some point been turned into a film which all three of my companions had seen, so I was the only one in the dark. Hell, Pru and her Mom had also seen the play performed in Bermuda years ago.
But that's my role in this little group: to always be the last to know.
The three-person play was a play within a play, with the shifting roles of the two main actors being the most compelling aspect of it for me.
As we headed back up 95 behind a guy not only swerving but with no lights on, we discussed the paranormal aspects of the play and Pru brought up the woman from Dinwiddie, asking Beau if she'd said she worked at Central State.
"I didn't actually commit any of what she said to memory," he said, proving what women have long said about men's listening skills.
We landed on Pru's tricked-out screened porch, albeit with a new outdoor heater as a concession to the season, for a post-play porch party from which the Queen excused herself, pleading age and a need for sleep, even as flutes of Simonnet Cremant de Bourgogne Brut Blanc were being poured for the three of us.
Pru's seven hour porch playlist began with "Moon River," moved through the Brass Ring and caused Beau to bring up the subject of sequencing. Both he and I could see the potential pleasure in rearranging the song order to achieve best possible flow, while Pru saw such a task as tedious and time-consuming. I pointed out that some would say that the online Scrabble games she devotedly plays would be far more tedious, leading us to agree to disagree.
We all waste time in our distinctive ways.
Because Beau had forgotten the Nota Bene leftovers in the car, he was sent to fetch them and when he returned, he shared that he could hear every word of our conversation even at a great distance. Seems that in the still of the night, at least in Church Hill, voices carry and some topics should be kept to a lower decibel level.
Conversation was all over the map, with Pru describing a woman as, "Good hair, bad skin, great big tits and low self esteem," a summary that had Beau admitting he'd never noticed her rack. The subject of staving off - "Staving, it's a good word" - arose, as we got into semantics, like we do.
Time after time, we realized how raucous and raunchy our conversation was getting and tried to reel it back in so as not to over-share with the neighborhood. We failed repeatedly.
After Pru posed her main concern ("How are we going to find you a man?" and went on to suggest I use a clipboard and take a fake survey from every man of a certain age I saw in an attempt to identify a possibility), we moved on to an issue near and dear to her heart: why don't I like "bad boys" and how could I stand "good boys"?
The resulting conversation was wide ranging and I soon realized that our definitions of good and bad boys were at the heart of our disagreement on the subject. The way I see it, there's a line in the sand and that line is thoughtfulness. If a man can cross that line, he's not thoughtful, so he's a bad boy. Her definition had more to do with the recklessness of bad boys and the blandness of good boys.
Potato, potahto, we weren't seeing the same distinction. She thought a bad boy could be thoughtless and still appealing. I didn't see it. The funniest part was when Beau tried to convince her he was a bad boy, an effort so earnest I commented on how adorable he was.
"Adorability is not a bad boy quality," Pru announced, effectively shutting down his hopes of being anything other than a good boy with great hair.
So maybe the first question on my fake survey needs to address that. Has anyone ever told you that you're adorable?
No? Next!
When the evening starts at 5 and doesn't end until after 2 a.m., there's plenty of time to range from baby octopus stew to an amplified discussion of male archetypes and take a detour through a ghost story.
Things kicked off at Pru's manse on the hill, where she, the woman who bore her and her swain Beau welcomed me into the fold. It's so frequent that I'm their fourth that people are going to start taking us for some sort of polyamorous, multi-generational swingers.
I think I'm okay with that at this point.
We landed at Nota Bene shortly before the dinner rush began but only after Beau managed to take the longest possible route to reach a place barely a mile from the manse. I blame all those years living in Ladysmith for his lack of city savvy (witness his horror at once seeing a rat the size of a cat in the Fan).
As if Nota Bene doesn't have enough to offer, they've added one of my very favorite bartenders to their staff, a fact that immediately derailed our wines plans, rerouting them to cocktails. My choice was a Sherry Daisy, a delightful sipper of Amontillado sherry, peach shrub and Rothman and Winter peach liqueur with an orange twist.
Arriving in a long-stemmed coupe glass - as did Beau's gin-based Fall Cocktail - Pru immediately invoked "The Thin Man" as we sipped with all the sophistication of Nick and Nora Charles.
Scanning the specials board for options, the owner sidled up and, without saying, "Psst!" whispered, as if offering black market goods, "Pro tip: get the baby octopus stew."
Since it was already under consideration, along with the radishes with bottarga and two orders of sugar toads with bagna cauda, we took her advice, throwing in an order of braised fennel and housemade bread for sopping for good measure.
And that was just to start.
The baby octopus stew - a long-simmered melange, spicy, tomato-based and chock full of chickpeas and octopus - only got forked up by Beau and I, with Pru explaining that she objected to eating such intelligent creatures.
Far more disturbing, in my opinion, was a reference from one of their favorite Italian TV shows, in which a man had been instructed what to do with a live one: beat it with a stick until it's dead and then cook it all day long. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to have to beat my dinner into submission.
Although a wiser quartet might have stopped there, sated and happy, we pushed on, ordering torchio pork ragu, a sausage and broccolini pizza, a special of rare hanger steak and another of head-on shrimp. As Beau so succinctly put it, "I've never had anything that isn't stellar here," a fact that contributes to Nota Bene being on my birthday progressive dinner route every year since it opened.
It was an obscene amount of food laid out on our table with enough leftovers to take back to the manse for an entire meal.
But not before we dropped down the dessert rabbit hole with a savory local goat cheese custard for Beau, biscotti and sweetened, whipped ricotta cheese for Pru and a piece of chocolate almond cake dusted in confectioner's sugar and big enough for 3 for yours truly. Only the queen abstained from a sweet course, no doubt because she's wiser than we are.
By the time we stopped eating, it was time to high tail it to Colonial Heights for a play, assuming we didn't nod off based on the feast we'd just had. The valet, an older man, took off running to fetch Beau's car and when he returned, I complimented him on how spry he was. Huffing and puffing, he smiled and said, "I...(wheeze)...am.. (gasp)...spry!"
Beau tipped him nicely for his effort.
Walking into Swift Creek Mill to see "The Woman in Black," the usher looked at Pru and I and observed, "You two look fabulous!" Taking our seats, I heard a man's voice behind me saying, "Miss Karen, we have to stop meeting like this. People will think we're in love!" and turned to see the manager of the Byrd, Todd and his lovely wife. Since this same crew and I had just seen Todd Wednesday night for "To Catch a Thief," I could see his point.
Besides, if people are going to think I'm in love, I'd prefer it wasn't with a married man. A minor point, but an important one.
Meanwhile, a flirtatious woman from Dinwiddie sitting next to Beau struck up a conversation, curious about the Byrd Theater and how difficult it was to park there and clearly eager to make Beau's acquaintance. Granted, it was probably tough to guess his status given that he'd arrived with three women, but, as Pru pointed out, he was also the youngest man in the room by at least a decade.
It pays not to be old, bald or gray sometimes, assuming you want to be hit on by women from Dinwiddie.
During the play's introduction, we learned that the building has long been haunted. A little girl's ghost has apparently been seen running through the theater and, back when it was a gristmill, a miller boy hung himself in the basement and his ghost hangs about, too.
At intermission, the bartender told Beau that she'd once had a glass thrown at her and no one else was in the room. The Swift Creek crew thinks most of the ghosts are former Central State Hospital patients, no doubt because it makes for a good story.
The play, London's second-longest running, had at some point been turned into a film which all three of my companions had seen, so I was the only one in the dark. Hell, Pru and her Mom had also seen the play performed in Bermuda years ago.
But that's my role in this little group: to always be the last to know.
The three-person play was a play within a play, with the shifting roles of the two main actors being the most compelling aspect of it for me.
As we headed back up 95 behind a guy not only swerving but with no lights on, we discussed the paranormal aspects of the play and Pru brought up the woman from Dinwiddie, asking Beau if she'd said she worked at Central State.
"I didn't actually commit any of what she said to memory," he said, proving what women have long said about men's listening skills.
We landed on Pru's tricked-out screened porch, albeit with a new outdoor heater as a concession to the season, for a post-play porch party from which the Queen excused herself, pleading age and a need for sleep, even as flutes of Simonnet Cremant de Bourgogne Brut Blanc were being poured for the three of us.
Pru's seven hour porch playlist began with "Moon River," moved through the Brass Ring and caused Beau to bring up the subject of sequencing. Both he and I could see the potential pleasure in rearranging the song order to achieve best possible flow, while Pru saw such a task as tedious and time-consuming. I pointed out that some would say that the online Scrabble games she devotedly plays would be far more tedious, leading us to agree to disagree.
We all waste time in our distinctive ways.
Because Beau had forgotten the Nota Bene leftovers in the car, he was sent to fetch them and when he returned, he shared that he could hear every word of our conversation even at a great distance. Seems that in the still of the night, at least in Church Hill, voices carry and some topics should be kept to a lower decibel level.
Conversation was all over the map, with Pru describing a woman as, "Good hair, bad skin, great big tits and low self esteem," a summary that had Beau admitting he'd never noticed her rack. The subject of staving off - "Staving, it's a good word" - arose, as we got into semantics, like we do.
Time after time, we realized how raucous and raunchy our conversation was getting and tried to reel it back in so as not to over-share with the neighborhood. We failed repeatedly.
After Pru posed her main concern ("How are we going to find you a man?" and went on to suggest I use a clipboard and take a fake survey from every man of a certain age I saw in an attempt to identify a possibility), we moved on to an issue near and dear to her heart: why don't I like "bad boys" and how could I stand "good boys"?
The resulting conversation was wide ranging and I soon realized that our definitions of good and bad boys were at the heart of our disagreement on the subject. The way I see it, there's a line in the sand and that line is thoughtfulness. If a man can cross that line, he's not thoughtful, so he's a bad boy. Her definition had more to do with the recklessness of bad boys and the blandness of good boys.
Potato, potahto, we weren't seeing the same distinction. She thought a bad boy could be thoughtless and still appealing. I didn't see it. The funniest part was when Beau tried to convince her he was a bad boy, an effort so earnest I commented on how adorable he was.
"Adorability is not a bad boy quality," Pru announced, effectively shutting down his hopes of being anything other than a good boy with great hair.
So maybe the first question on my fake survey needs to address that. Has anyone ever told you that you're adorable?
No? Next!
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Folly of Word Nerds
Because being on a screened porch strung with fairy lights while a July rain falls just outside is a practically transcendent way to wile away an evening.
That the gentle night also involved mocking, condescension and outright compliments only attests to our unlikely activity: my first foray into the oh-so popular game that's swept the nation.
You read right, last night I was introduced to Cards Against Humanity.
That's right, I killed new age music. How, you ask?
...An ice pick lobotomy.
It wasn't the plan. That had been determined months ago and consisted of dinner and "The Merchant of Venice" at Agecroft. Given the play's talking points about Jewish-ness, I'd chosen Dinamo for its fusion of Jewish and Italian food.
He Who Shall Not Be named (aka Mr. Google Scheduler) had us there before the propeller even began spinning. Naturally, we were the first eager beavers in the place other than staff. Ouch.
Not that I cared once I was sharing octopus salami that looked like paper-thin slices of a jeweled window and tasted like a seaside meal or polishing off my own cold plate of marinated seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and octopus. Keeping it simple, I finished with a Nutella cookie and we left for Agecroft.
We were a well-oiled machine, seated, with new Shakespeare fans in hand when the entire audience was directed inside due to "pool rules." Thunder and lightening were fast approaching and they didn't want any of us good patrons to be electrified, as house manager Noah so quaintly put it.
A brief wait, a decision to go back outside and begin and then the cold, hard facts. The show was called.
So, you see, it wasn't like we didn't try to get some culture before descending into the gutter of sexually offensive and politically incorrect conversation.
It was my first time on the porch since it had been fully tricked out, meaning I couldn't help but admire all the little touches - Wellies by the door, cushioned chairs of various styles, tables with candles and lamps, flowering plants and antique window frames.
The sole male commented that the ledge covered in necessaries - various bug sprays for body and room, aloe if you did get a bite, sunscreens of myriad strengths - was the only jarring note in an otherwise lovely space, but I disagreed. Vehemently.
A screened porch is an outdoor room, but also a utilitarian one. Such a ledge was completely appropriate, in my opinion, because all the assorted sundries you could possibly require while enjoying the porch were readily available. You never had to leave the porch to stay comfortable.
Decorating roundtable finished, we got down to the serious business of cracking each other up.
As a CAH virgin, I immediately was curious about the fact that there were black and white cards. You mean like the races? Setting the tone for the evening, my hostess arched an eyebrow and announced without so much as a chortle, "All cards matter."
Not going to lie, we had all kinds of fun trying to figure out what combination would win the favor of the round's card czar (or, more accurately, czarina, since men were outnumbered 3 to 1), taking into account who leaned toward corny and who always opted for sick or intellectual humor.
A girl's best friend?
...David Bowie flying in on a tiger made of lightening
Brilliant, right? Okay, but so is this one:
A girl's best friend?
...Licking things to claim them as her own
Turns out this game's underlying purpose is encouraging players to inadvertently remember things or share personal history. Now I know I have a friend who's not ashamed to say she's a territorial licker.
Sorry, teacher, I couldn't finish my homework because of...sniffing glue.
"Oh, yea, I remember that," one of the participants says. I wouldn't have pegged her for the glue-sniffing type, but who am I to judge? That said, no one would admit to being "balls deep in a squealin' hog" when that came up as an answer, but the night was still young then.
I soon learned that some black cards came with two blanks, necessitating each of us to choose not one, but two phrases that best completed the sentence.
The Academy award for...flightless birds
Goes to...battlefield amputation
To have two such disparate cards in your hand, much less to combine them so cleverly, well, kudos to me.
Although we'd begun playing around 9:30, it was probably sometime around midnight (post-Pimm's pops, Pimm's cups and Miraval) when we got our first card with three blanks.
"Having to come up with three cards is gonna take forever," our hostess warned, specifically looking at a certain slow player. "We're slow with two! We're good with one, one card, that's it."
What's George Bush thinking about right now?
...Not reciprocating oral sex
...Fiery poops
...Third base
Plausible, all of them, right?
As the night wore on, we especially enjoyed questions that referred back to the person asking. So when I read, "What's my anti-drug?" the friend in the colorful dress exclaimed, "Yours?" and stares at me as if she can discern it from my countenance.
Ultimately, it led to a big discussion of what exactly constitutes an anti-drug. That's one we didn't fully resolve.
After a while, I knew my competitors well enough to tickle their fancies with my answer, as when the formerly soggy one delighted at my response to his card.
I got 99 problems but...Count Chocula...ain't one.
Oh, he laughed. Man, if you only knew how long I held onto the Count Chocula card before finding the ideal place to drop it. A far better player, though, was the Bermudian, who caused us to about lose it when she proffered this:
Daddy, why is Mommy crying?
...The patriarchy
When I read the card, "What is my secret power?" a friend looked askance. "That's the question? I was about to answer!" No, please, tell me my superpower. I'm curious.
Looking at the answers submitted, the Czar mused, "It's between inappropriate yodeling and Toni Morrison's vagina," a sentence I would stake my life on has never having been uttered before in the history of humankind.
One minute we were playing, laughing almost constantly and next thing we knew it was after 1 a.m., and this is not a crowd that stays up late. With that in mind, I got up to leave, a different person than when I'd arrived.
Of course I didn't win, but I didn't do too badly, either. There's already talk of procuring other versions since we practically went through an entire box of black and white cards in one marathon session. Cards Against Humanity may be five years old to the rest of the first world, but it was brand new fun for me tonight.
Let's put it this way: I understood the game well enough to find my seatmate's two-part answer absolutely hilarious.
Step one...folly of man
Step two...Cards Against Humanity
That the gentle night also involved mocking, condescension and outright compliments only attests to our unlikely activity: my first foray into the oh-so popular game that's swept the nation.
You read right, last night I was introduced to Cards Against Humanity.
That's right, I killed new age music. How, you ask?
...An ice pick lobotomy.
It wasn't the plan. That had been determined months ago and consisted of dinner and "The Merchant of Venice" at Agecroft. Given the play's talking points about Jewish-ness, I'd chosen Dinamo for its fusion of Jewish and Italian food.
He Who Shall Not Be named (aka Mr. Google Scheduler) had us there before the propeller even began spinning. Naturally, we were the first eager beavers in the place other than staff. Ouch.
Not that I cared once I was sharing octopus salami that looked like paper-thin slices of a jeweled window and tasted like a seaside meal or polishing off my own cold plate of marinated seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and octopus. Keeping it simple, I finished with a Nutella cookie and we left for Agecroft.
We were a well-oiled machine, seated, with new Shakespeare fans in hand when the entire audience was directed inside due to "pool rules." Thunder and lightening were fast approaching and they didn't want any of us good patrons to be electrified, as house manager Noah so quaintly put it.
A brief wait, a decision to go back outside and begin and then the cold, hard facts. The show was called.
So, you see, it wasn't like we didn't try to get some culture before descending into the gutter of sexually offensive and politically incorrect conversation.
It was my first time on the porch since it had been fully tricked out, meaning I couldn't help but admire all the little touches - Wellies by the door, cushioned chairs of various styles, tables with candles and lamps, flowering plants and antique window frames.
The sole male commented that the ledge covered in necessaries - various bug sprays for body and room, aloe if you did get a bite, sunscreens of myriad strengths - was the only jarring note in an otherwise lovely space, but I disagreed. Vehemently.
A screened porch is an outdoor room, but also a utilitarian one. Such a ledge was completely appropriate, in my opinion, because all the assorted sundries you could possibly require while enjoying the porch were readily available. You never had to leave the porch to stay comfortable.
Decorating roundtable finished, we got down to the serious business of cracking each other up.
As a CAH virgin, I immediately was curious about the fact that there were black and white cards. You mean like the races? Setting the tone for the evening, my hostess arched an eyebrow and announced without so much as a chortle, "All cards matter."
Not going to lie, we had all kinds of fun trying to figure out what combination would win the favor of the round's card czar (or, more accurately, czarina, since men were outnumbered 3 to 1), taking into account who leaned toward corny and who always opted for sick or intellectual humor.
A girl's best friend?
...David Bowie flying in on a tiger made of lightening
Brilliant, right? Okay, but so is this one:
A girl's best friend?
...Licking things to claim them as her own
Turns out this game's underlying purpose is encouraging players to inadvertently remember things or share personal history. Now I know I have a friend who's not ashamed to say she's a territorial licker.
Sorry, teacher, I couldn't finish my homework because of...sniffing glue.
"Oh, yea, I remember that," one of the participants says. I wouldn't have pegged her for the glue-sniffing type, but who am I to judge? That said, no one would admit to being "balls deep in a squealin' hog" when that came up as an answer, but the night was still young then.
I soon learned that some black cards came with two blanks, necessitating each of us to choose not one, but two phrases that best completed the sentence.
The Academy award for...flightless birds
Goes to...battlefield amputation
To have two such disparate cards in your hand, much less to combine them so cleverly, well, kudos to me.
Although we'd begun playing around 9:30, it was probably sometime around midnight (post-Pimm's pops, Pimm's cups and Miraval) when we got our first card with three blanks.
"Having to come up with three cards is gonna take forever," our hostess warned, specifically looking at a certain slow player. "We're slow with two! We're good with one, one card, that's it."
What's George Bush thinking about right now?
...Not reciprocating oral sex
...Fiery poops
...Third base
Plausible, all of them, right?
As the night wore on, we especially enjoyed questions that referred back to the person asking. So when I read, "What's my anti-drug?" the friend in the colorful dress exclaimed, "Yours?" and stares at me as if she can discern it from my countenance.
Ultimately, it led to a big discussion of what exactly constitutes an anti-drug. That's one we didn't fully resolve.
After a while, I knew my competitors well enough to tickle their fancies with my answer, as when the formerly soggy one delighted at my response to his card.
I got 99 problems but...Count Chocula...ain't one.
Oh, he laughed. Man, if you only knew how long I held onto the Count Chocula card before finding the ideal place to drop it. A far better player, though, was the Bermudian, who caused us to about lose it when she proffered this:
Daddy, why is Mommy crying?
...The patriarchy
When I read the card, "What is my secret power?" a friend looked askance. "That's the question? I was about to answer!" No, please, tell me my superpower. I'm curious.
Looking at the answers submitted, the Czar mused, "It's between inappropriate yodeling and Toni Morrison's vagina," a sentence I would stake my life on has never having been uttered before in the history of humankind.
One minute we were playing, laughing almost constantly and next thing we knew it was after 1 a.m., and this is not a crowd that stays up late. With that in mind, I got up to leave, a different person than when I'd arrived.
Of course I didn't win, but I didn't do too badly, either. There's already talk of procuring other versions since we practically went through an entire box of black and white cards in one marathon session. Cards Against Humanity may be five years old to the rest of the first world, but it was brand new fun for me tonight.
Let's put it this way: I understood the game well enough to find my seatmate's two-part answer absolutely hilarious.
Step one...folly of man
Step two...Cards Against Humanity
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
