Sparks on My Heels

The best friends give the best advice.

I started my evening at Bistro 27 after a friend e-mailed requesting that we meet there for a drink.

Over a glass of Vinho Verde with "Love is Blue" playing in the background, he tells me about his love life and looks askance when I update him on mine.

Keep up, darling, or you'll miss something.

I inhale just enough calamari to tide me over until my dinner date, while eavesdropping on a conversation between two gallerists.

UVA's art gallery has a socialist slant, I hear, but it's now being countered by a new professor espousing a more populist view.

How did I get so lucky to hear art geek talk while sipping wine?

All at once I look up and find two good friends out front waving to me, no doubt on their way home from Tarrant's to their flat.

It's a scene we've replayed many times, but I never tire of seeing them slightly buzzed and always happy to spot me a few doors down as they head home.

After discussing my friend's love life (and the romantic card he found in his bag after his beloved left on a business trip to Ireland), he inquires about mine, necessitating an update and resulting in a raised eyebrow.

When I leave 27, it's to make my way to Rappahannock to meet a favorite couple.

Holmes has forgotten his wallet and must return home, but his girlfriend joins me inside where we order a bottle of Villa Wolf Rose, a lovely pink wine made from Pinot Noir while we await his re-arrival.

Nearby, a solo bar-sitter engages us and next thing we know, he's laughing at our jokes and hinting that he wants to know more about me.

Okay, not even hinting, just flat-out complimenting me and trying to glean information about me.

Soon Holmes returns and unexpectedly accommodates him to a surprising degree.

My admirer is a banking lawyer who lives in Windsor Farms, so he seems an unlikely interest for me except he is also a writer and passionate about reading and the arts.

When he goes to the loo, Holmes takes a moment to give me some love life advice and advises more discretion on the blog.

I couldn't be more surprised at his suggestion for how to share my life.

Still, we've been friends for almost a decade and I know he cares about me, so maybe he knows what he's talking about.

Because Holmes and the little lady are new to Rappahannock, I show them the map and explain where the various oysters come from, trying not to influence their choices based on my own preferences.

Nevertheless, they get half a dozen Old Saltes and half a dozen buttery Rappahannocks, in other words, both ends of the spectrum.

I am more inclusive, choosing not only Rappahannocks and Olde Saltes but also Witch Ducks  to deliver all my salinity needs.

The shucker, a mere 16-year old named Grayson, tells me that his Mom works at Merroir.

When I tell him that that is my preferred RRO venue, he makes me promise I will ask for her next time I'm out there.

With Lou Reed playing, Holmes and my newest fan decide we need to switch from Rose to tequila, never a stretch for me.

Herradura silver arrives and I sense a new respect from our bartender.

I follow my bi-valve course with Heritage Oaks Grange pork terrine over a slice of brioche and served with house pickles, walnut oil vinaigrette, greens and a soft quail egg.

It is rich, earthy and the pickled green beans a real treat, so I finish it all before trying Holmes' Hanover tomato gazpacho.

The beauty of the soup is the addition of watermelon (the color alone is to die for) and Virginia deep sea red crab, making for a sipper that is not only flavorful but exquisitely colored.

And the Zombies play on.

My admirer is bemoaning the fact that he loves our company but worries that he may not run into us again and Holmes mollifies him with another round of agave.

I don't complain.

By the time we reach the dessert course, the bar is beginning to clear out, Holmes is telling stories of a long-ago Janis Joplin concert and the lawyer is laughing at everything.

The female contingent orders a chocolate ganache buckwheat crepe cake, a twelve-layer wonder that pairs savory buckwheat with the richest ganache and real whipped cream.

It is my undoing because when my admirer comes around to my stool and asks how he can contact me, I eventually supply an e-mail address.

To keep myself in check going forward, I ask Holmes to reiterate his proposed dating strategy.

I can do this.

By now it is pouring rain so my gallant friend goes ahead to retrieve the car for his main squeeze while we womenfolk wait at the door.

As usual, I've had a stellar time with these friends and, as a bonus, met a new man who has already made his interest clear.

Moving on is turning out to be far easier and more pleasurable than I anticipated.

Especially with a good friend offering insightful advice on it all.

Perhaps those who know me best know what's best for me.

An Experimental Life

So here's my experimental memoir for the evening.

It's not easy finding an appropriate way to celebrate Burns' Night, at least in Richmond.

There is no haggis, so there can be no reading of "Address to a Haggis."

But there must be a way to have a poetic January 25, I felt certain.

So when a friend from Washington lets me know he'll be in town today, he stipulates, "If you know a spot that's open and does a great lunch - one of the best in RVA- I'm all ears."

I suggested several personal favorites and then threw out Rappahannock, telling him I'd had dinner there but never lunch.

It was there that we met, just as the snow began to fall, and with its two sides of windows, the restaurant turned out to be prime snow-watching vantage point.

Instead of offal and oatmeal in a sheep's stomach, though, we stayed strictly nautical.

Oysters with pearls (caviar) came highly recommended by our server who said he didn't usually like caviar.

I tried not to judge.

They were followed by a generous serving of fluke ceviche with toasted bread.

Our order of Barcat oyster chowder had thoughtfully been split into two bowls and one taste told me that a full bowl would have put most people in a food coma.

Cream plus flour = zzzzz.

And speaking of, our last order was rockfish brandade, an ideal winter dish of potatoes and fish spread on bread, but we barely put a dent in the large crock of it.

As far as honoring Robert Burns went, our meal from the sea was a far cry from what the bard himself would have expected.

But the company was good in that way that only someone who grew up where you did can relate so comfortably.

After he learned I wasn't a  coffee drinker, he joked, "So you're just naturally high," which he then translated to, "You've got great energy," a compliment, I felt certain.

It was still snowing when we walked outside, making Grace Street look as picaresque as a citified Currier and Ives print in the gray, late afternoon light.

I wasn't sure how the weather would affect the evening's activities, but enough places seemed to be promising to stay open to risk going out.

A slow but crunchy drive to Chop Suey for a poetry reading seemed as Burns-like as I was likely to get tonight.

Reading was Kate Greenstreet from her new book, an experimental memoir called, "Young Tambling."

Not many people had braved the weather for the sake of poetry (I have to assume they'd forgotten it was Burns' night), but Kate immediately honed in on three of us, thanking us for coming out in the bad weather.

Looking at me, she questioned, "Why did you come? I know these other people, but what brought you out?"

Nothing like having the teacher call on you the minute class begins.

I told her that I came to lots of poetry readings. That it was Robert Burns' birthday. That I thought snow was perfect for reading poetry.

"That's a good answer," she said, smiling.

She said she usually uses a mic, but for the half dozen of us, she eschewed amplification and just read.

He voice was tiny but her reading expressive and the overall effect was of someone very curious (or wise) and observant asking questions and drawing her own conclusions while we listened in.

We heard that she'd had a Catholic upbringing and for a while had considered whether she had a "calling" to God and she also compared addiction to having a calling.

An interesting woman.

Sometimes she would begin reciting a poem before she'd even located it in the book.

This was a poet who made the reading seem effortless, although I got the impression she was an introvert, so even small performances are likely anything but for her.

Someone asked her about the pictures in her book and she said they were from her own photographs and paintings.

Now that's impressive, having talent with words and images.

After she finished reading,  Kate said that it felt like we were in church and now was the time for refreshments.

I almost hated to leave such a welcoming little group on this cold night.

But my fellow poetry lover (and Catholic school attendee who didn't have the "calling") and I left, me feeling pretty good at this point.

Then it was on to the VMFA for no particular reason other than they'd insisted that they'd be open despite the snow.

Walking up to the members desk, I told the woman that I was a regular at the museum but wanted to know if there was anything new to see.

Her face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. "Have you seen the new Rembrandts?" she inquired enthusiastically.

Bingo. Upstairs we went to find the Baroque gallery and see some early Dutch masters.

But you can't just jump into something like that feet first, either, so we did a spin around the French and Italian Baroque gallery first.

Then it was on to the two new small works, "The Stone Operation" and "The Three Musicians."

In one, a man is having a stone removed from his head to cure his craziness. It looks pretty painful.

In the other, three musicians, young, middle-aged and old, try to sing together but judging by their looks, the result probably wasn't terribly harmonious.

Compositionally, they were similar with three figures arranged in a triangle, but with more vivid colors than the master used in his well-known later works.

I saw that these two were early, early Rembrandts done when he was only eighteen and hadn't yet been taught by his best teacher.

Even so, the basics of a Rembrandt were there.

Striking contrasts between light and dark. Exaggerated facial features. Thick layers of paint.

Shoot, that's Rembrandt 101 stuff. And here was proof of just how early he'd come to that major talent of his.

Surely Burns, who had been only fifteen when he was inspired by a girl to write his first poem, would see the poetry in taking in Rembrandts on his night.

Surely Burns would understand wanting to hear a quiet poet read on that snowy night.

Surely Burns would concede that haggis is hard to come by in Virginia and sometimes seafood shared with the kind of friend you can discuss politics and quality of life with serves a similar purpose.

You weren't forgotten here, old man.

If I start on my "Rebuke to a Fluke" now, I could have it ready by next January 25.

I'm afraid my experimental life memoir will take a good while longer.

I Aim to Beat/Eat

It might have been the ideal night to try a new restaurant.

After all, what kind of people go out the night before the big night?

(raises hand)

Besides, Rappahannock was practically begging for it on Facebook.

"Beat the crowd and come in tonight!"

I always wanted to beat the crowd.

There were plenty of seats open at the bar, so I chose one right in front of the service bartender in case emergency conversation was needed.

He turned out to be a fun conversationalist while endlessly making drinks.

For me, all he had to do was go to the tap and let out some Montelusa Prosecco and I was set.

On walking in the music playing was CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain," which forced me to inquire about the source of the music.

Multiple approved playlists were available for the bar staff to choose from, but there was a pecking order.

Old style country during the day. Classic rock and blues during dinner. A little punk once it got later.

He assured me it would get better and I politely asked, "Soon?"

Call me new school, but I just don't need to hear Creedence Clearwater Revival if I can avoid it.

My bi-valve-loving companion and I began with a dozen oysters, Rappahannocks, Witchducks and Olde Salts.

I slurped mine down, drinking the last bits of juice from the shell like my father had taught me to.

And while you'd think that a half dozen oysters would be plenty, I couldn't help eyeing every platter of oysters that went by, wishing more were coming my way.

Cost aside, it would have been so easy to do nothing but slurp.

But, no, I soldiered on to taste something else instead of becoming fixated.

Tuna crudo with preserved lemon, castelvetrano olives, radish slices and Calabrian chilies arrived looking pink and pretty.

One bite revealed a buttery texture and the most delicate flavor of the fish.

Wow, they were knocking it out of the park with the raw bar.

Time to try the kitchen.

I ordered rockfish and Barcat oyster bourride, a stew thickened with eggs, and garlic, fennel, and potatoes with a big old poached egg sitting atop a chunk of grilled bread.

Honestly, they had me at poached egg because I almost never order rockfish.

Not because I don't like it but because I was raised Catholic and we had rockfish or blue fish every Friday of my childhood.

The bourride was stellar, garlicky and with a big chunk of fish soaking in that broth.

The egg just added a decadence to the whole thing.

When I got down to nothing but broth, I told our bartender to advise the chef that the problem with the dish was that it needed more bread.

"You mean you want more bread?" he stated as fact.

I mean, if you're going to give people all this broth, shouldn't they have a sopping vehicle?

As the crowd continued to grow during our stay, the music retreated into the rafters, almost unintelligible.

At one point, one of the managers walked by, looked up and said to me, "All we have is bass."

It was true;  the only audible part of the music now was the bass line.

"Yea, it's one big blues song. The words are interchangeable since all blues songs have the same bass line," our bartender said, proving it by singing.

It makes me want to come back when punk is playing and hope I have a better chance of hearing the music.

We decided to finish with the cheese plate and Malbec.

It was supposed to come with three cheeses, but they were out of the  Rogue Creamery smokey bleu, so we got a double serving of 5 Spoke Tumbleweed, a long-aged cheddar-like cheese, and  Firefly Farms Merry Goat Round, a clever name but not as good as the South African Goats Do Rome wines.

Both cheeses were good but not anything close to mind-blowing, but the acoutrements were dynamite.

Brandied apricots were indulgent-tasting and the marcona almonds made a fan of me on the first one.

How have I never heard of these Spanish gems, everything the dry California almonds are not?

The bartender provided good stories, like the one about the customer who came in wanting Jack Daniels, a spirit they don't carry.

When he politely explained that to the customer (who wore a U.S.M.C. hat), the man replied, "What are you, a Communist?"

Now that's funny.

So besides great seafood, an affable server and keg bubbles, I got major laughs.

The only real miss was the music and that's a work in progress.

But I'll be honest; I already knew that Rappahnnock wasn't going to replace Merroir in my heart.

But I'm smart enough to realize that a restaurant by the same people 3/4 of a mile from my house is nothing to sneeze at.

And an uncrowded New Year's Eve eve was the perfect time to try the closer one out.

Gesundheit.