Virgos, so they say, dislike being the center of attention.
But that kind of minor detail goes out the window when a favorite Virgo is celebrating her 80th turn around the planet and she has a posse itching to celebrate with a seven-hour party in her honor.
The fetivities kicked off on the screened porch of Pru's manse - complete with a string of pink flamingo lights - where the birthday queen made her entrance in a gorgeous white dress with a green coral-looking design and wearing a necklace and earrings she'd crafted the day before to match the dress' colors.
I can only hope that someday I'm cool enough to have a necklace to match a particular dress.
We raised our flutes filled with Simmonet-Febvre Cremant de Bourgogne Blanc and the birthday girl was quickest at the verbal draw, announcing, "To me!" before any of us could do it for her.
You know how dependable Virgos can be.
But they're also known to be self indulgent and if you're going to splurge on your birthday, Shagbark is as good a place as any to do it, assuming you don't mind eating in a strip mall. The patio was new to us but plenty of people seemed to be enjoying themselves there, no doubt due to the glorious weather.
The first matter was setting up our table to accommodate three left-handed people, no easy task, and followed by tales from growing up left-handed (beatings with rulers, adamant grandmothers, forced switching) that sounded positively Byzantine.
You don't think about right hand privilege until you hear about left hand reality.
In what turned out to be foreshadowing, we decided on Domaine du Dragon Rose despite none of us having heard of it. Our server explained that they'd brought in the Provence Rose because of a "Game of Thrones" watching party.
He also apparently took stock of our group and decided to warn us that there were only three more bottles of it in house.
Forewarned is forearmed and all that.
And while Virgos may be sensible, the rest of us ordered with abandon. The star of a dish called up south fried green tomatoes with shrimp and bleu cheese was the summery succotash, of which I could have eaten an entire bowlful. Black mission figs with prosciutto were to die for. An heirloom tomato salad reminded us that fall is a week away.
It was all fish, all the time when it came to entrees - tilefish, swordfish, two trouts and a seafood stew - with bites being traded via bread plates and boarding school reaches.
When our server came over, he wanted to know if we needed anything else. My standard answer to that since November 8th has been, "A new president?" and as I said the words, his face lit up in relief and pleasure.
Leaning down so he could speak honestly and quietly, he said, "Oh my god, I love you! I have to bite my tongue when I hear tables talking about how great Trump is and it happens a lot." Looking around at the clientele, it seemed likely we were in the minority when it came to politics and tax brackets.
Too bad, my date commented, since his guess was that Democrats tip better than Republicans.
Pru had brought one of her presents to be opened at dinner and the birthday girl was nothing short of gob-smacked to open a card and see that she'd been given a week at the beach. Her jaw dropped even further when she was told she'd better start packing because she leaves Sunday. Fortunately, Virgos are also flexible.
"I need to get busy washing my underwear!" she exclaimed. Or use my method and just wear your bathing suits the entire week. Whatever works for you.
The good news is, there are no underwear police at the beach.
In what was surely a first for this group, we eschewed dessert off the menu, but only because we knew that the porch awaited with birthday carrot cake, more gift-opening and libations galore.
The two non-alpha males discussed their need for only one pair of pants between them and brought science into the conversation every chance they got, while the womenfolk kept things lively with our thoughts on everything else that mattered.
Like why you marry someone. The birthday girl had given up on her boyfriend of 8 years not proposing, so when she met another guy and he proposed after 3 weeks, she married him. Of course, then the boyfriend wanted to marry her but she turned him down despite their history.
Her rationale was that the new guy was taken enough with her to propose after 3 weeks while her former boyfriend hadn't been motivated during 8 years and only asked when he heard she was getting married.
Pru thought that was crazy talk, but I could see where the Virgo was coming from.
Where things got a bit hazy for me was when everyone else went down the "Game of Thrones" rabbit hole and I was left buffing my nails and looking at the ceiling. I'm sure it was impressive to see a tribe of half naked men with one foot in the stirrup and the other on their steeds' back as they shot arrows at the enemy, but...yawn.
Beau noticed my glassy eyes and suggested ways to entertain me, but there was too much GoT passion on the porch to fight it, so I just had to wait it out. It's a huge favorite of the birthday girl who loved the spectacle of it and, because she's an analytical Virgo, the layers of sub plots and story twists best followed when binge-watching. Or so I was told.
One subject where we could all agree was that age is nothing but a number and more a matter of how you feel than what your driver's license says. Even so, I made it clear that I refuse to think of anyone as old if my number is higher than theirs and that was everybody on the porch except the birthday girl.
And although she wouldn't divulge her wish when she blew out her candles, Virgos are naturally curious, so I wouldn't be surprised if it involved a half naked man on a steed.
But they're also down to earth, so I'm pretty sure she'll get that underwear washed first.
I bow down to a magnificent Virgo woman who has her priorities straight.
Showing posts with label shagbark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shagbark. Show all posts
Friday, September 15, 2017
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Separating the Wheat from the Chaff
Cut to the chase: Four diamonds led to onstage vomiting and ended with a fairy and jazz.
Long version: It's probably a good thing that we already had reservations at Shagbark for Saturday night given the four diamond rating AAA bestowed on them last week.
Even with a ridiculously early reservation, our table was back in one of the private dining rooms rather than the main one, no skin off my nose since it also meant we got the locally hand-crafted dinnerware and fewer soul-less West End types at the tables surrounding us.
Being first in the dining room meant that the soundtrack was easy to hear and while some people might enjoy - even sing along to - the Little River Band's "Lonesome Loser," I'm not one of them, although they could have continued playing the Spinners and Earth, Wind and Fire all night as far as I was concerned.
"Good tune-age," my friend commented, albeit after a Billy Joel song. To each, his own.
To try to help us forget that we were at a restaurant in an empty shopping center on a boring stretch of county road, we looked at wine options beginning with the Loire before moving on to Chilean and Australian possibilities.
Asked her opinion of the southern hemisphere grapes, my friend inquired, "Why did we ever leave the Loire?" and in no time, a bottle of Domaine de la Chezatte Sancerre Blanc appeared, seducing us with its pear nose while its minerality decided my first course: bivalves.
It didn't hurt that on the menu were White Stone oysters (baked with butter, Pecorino, herbes fine and breadcrumbs) from an up and coming new oyster company I'd just read about earlier today in the Post, although I'm still not entirely convinced that producing oysters of the exact same size is desirable - come on, that doesn't happen in nature - but perhaps that's just me.
Over a wide-ranging dinner conversation - septuagenarians starting an artists' co-op, men's Star Trek boxer briefs with catch phrases (Go boldly! Engage!) on the waist band, conversational veneer - we dug deep into the four diamond menu, including a roasted winter vegetable ragout, which sounds vaguely healthful until you learn that it's crowned with a poached egg, Surry sausage, fresh Ricotta and lion's mane mushrooms made obscene with a celery root cream sauce.
No, really, the veggies were there somewhere.
High marks went to a salad of poached pears, duck confit, Goats 'R Us Camembert, walnuts and maple vinaigrette, but mainly as a way of absolving guilt for what was to come.
Good as my brandy peppercorn-crusted ahi tuna with scallions, Sea Island peas, roasted peppers and truffle vinaigrette was, nothing could touch my friend's red wine-braised ruby veal (a heritage breed, not to mention a one pound serving) with toothsome saffron heirloom creamer peas, arugula and citrus salad, shaved sweet onion and forest mushroom emulsion, a dish that was summed up with the pronouncement, "My expectations have been met and that never happens."
Truer words were never spoken, whether applicable to food, entertainment or people. Call me easy, but I'm not that hard to please.
To satisfy our collective sweet tooths (teeth?), we ordered two dark chocolate souffle cakes with creme fraiche, dulce de leche, Port, blackberries and vanilla gelato before rolling out of a restaurant that had been uninhabited when we'd arrived and was now at capacity.
Diamonds are a restaurant's best friend, it would seem, even one in a lonesome location.
The reason for our ridiculously early meal was an equally ridiculously early curtain for Quill Theatre's "The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr: Abridged" at an even more remote location than dinner: the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.
The three man play promised us intellectual salvation and managed to cover all of Shakespeare's plays with a nod to the sonnets and spit us out at a reasonable hour, with non-stop hilarity along the way.
From the initial introduction which included a tutorial in how to use an oxygen mask should something drastic happen at the Cultural Arts Center mid-performance to the backwards ending, we laughed off a lot of our dinner, or at least that's what we told ourselves.
During the mocking of "Romeo and Juliet," for instance, when an actor walked onstage, another said, "It's the Prince," only to be corrected to, "The artist formerly known as Prince," after which all three kissed their first two fingers and raised them to heaven along with their eyes.
Where, in a scene of timeless romance
He'll try to get into Juliet's pants
Or when Romeo starts being overly familiar with fair Juliet and she reminds him in a singsong voice, "Second base is for second dates!"
"Titus Andronicus" was re-imagined as a cooking show ("Welcome, Gore-mays!") geared to those who don't feel like cooking after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, while Othello became a rap despite the very white actors. How white? They met at a They Might Be Giants show.
All sixteen comedies were condensed into a montage dubbed "The Loveboat Goes to Verona," with assorted lovers and cousins washed ashore by "massive waves, like the rising tide of nationalism in the world."
So, yea, there was much referencing of current events throughout. Shakespeare takes on fresh nuances in Trump's America.
Because they said that Shakespeare's comedies aren't as funny as his tragedies, they performed "Macbeth" in ridiculously thick Scottish accents, with Macduff saying, "I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped. I didn't like it but I support a woman's right to choose."
It was during "Julius Cesar" that actor CJ Bergin was reminded by his fellow actors Dixon Cashwell and Joseph Bromfield that, "Not all Shakespeare's heroines wear bad wigs and vomit onstage," which you'd never have known given how many bad wigs and the abundance of stage vomiting we'd already seen.
Diving into the geo-political plays, we saw "Two Noble Kinsman" ridiculed as "Chernobyl Kinsman" before witnessing an interpretive dance version of "Troilus and Cressida" ("I love interpretive dance. It's so pretentious!").
"Richard II" and "Richard III" became a football game with a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance. By the time we got to intermission, all three actors were a hot, sweaty mess.
The second act began, not by reading any of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, but by passing from audience member to member a card that contained the first line of them all while Joseph played a song flute onstage.
The card never made it to us, that's all I'm saying. Thankfully, I have my own copy of the sonnets and not just the first lines, either.
Naturally, "Hamlet" got the lion's share of performance time with Dixon scootching and somersaulting to reach the spotlight when it was time for his "To be or not to be" soliloquy and the audience members being recruited to play the ego, super ego and id of Ophelia.
There was a lot of screaming involved, but mercifully, no heaving.
After the final scene, they trio redid "Hamlet" except even more quickly this time and then, just to show off, did it backwards ("Listen for the Satanic messages!") and it was over. Two hours and every worthwhile Shakespearean endeavor had been alluded to, mocked and, in a few cases, even quoted accurately, albeit with a lot of bad wigs and onstage vomiting.
Rather than call it a night, I suggested the Gypsy Room for jazz because Brunswick was playing and, coincidentally, they have an absinthe fountain and it's been an absinthe sort of a weekend.
Scoring stools at the center of the bar facing the fountain, we fashioned our own drips - fact: no two people like the same ratio of sugar cube and ice water to wormwood - while the band got set up and familiar faces began drifting in - the former neighbor, the DJ, the photographer, the musician, the restaurateur.
The Gypsy Room has such great sound and the 13-piece Brunswick took full advantage, regaling the ever-growing crowd with a horn-filled vibe alternately chill and rousing, so just what a Saturday night needed.
Even for those beaten by the queen of hearts every time.
Long version: It's probably a good thing that we already had reservations at Shagbark for Saturday night given the four diamond rating AAA bestowed on them last week.
Even with a ridiculously early reservation, our table was back in one of the private dining rooms rather than the main one, no skin off my nose since it also meant we got the locally hand-crafted dinnerware and fewer soul-less West End types at the tables surrounding us.
Being first in the dining room meant that the soundtrack was easy to hear and while some people might enjoy - even sing along to - the Little River Band's "Lonesome Loser," I'm not one of them, although they could have continued playing the Spinners and Earth, Wind and Fire all night as far as I was concerned.
"Good tune-age," my friend commented, albeit after a Billy Joel song. To each, his own.
To try to help us forget that we were at a restaurant in an empty shopping center on a boring stretch of county road, we looked at wine options beginning with the Loire before moving on to Chilean and Australian possibilities.
Asked her opinion of the southern hemisphere grapes, my friend inquired, "Why did we ever leave the Loire?" and in no time, a bottle of Domaine de la Chezatte Sancerre Blanc appeared, seducing us with its pear nose while its minerality decided my first course: bivalves.
It didn't hurt that on the menu were White Stone oysters (baked with butter, Pecorino, herbes fine and breadcrumbs) from an up and coming new oyster company I'd just read about earlier today in the Post, although I'm still not entirely convinced that producing oysters of the exact same size is desirable - come on, that doesn't happen in nature - but perhaps that's just me.
Over a wide-ranging dinner conversation - septuagenarians starting an artists' co-op, men's Star Trek boxer briefs with catch phrases (Go boldly! Engage!) on the waist band, conversational veneer - we dug deep into the four diamond menu, including a roasted winter vegetable ragout, which sounds vaguely healthful until you learn that it's crowned with a poached egg, Surry sausage, fresh Ricotta and lion's mane mushrooms made obscene with a celery root cream sauce.
No, really, the veggies were there somewhere.
High marks went to a salad of poached pears, duck confit, Goats 'R Us Camembert, walnuts and maple vinaigrette, but mainly as a way of absolving guilt for what was to come.
Good as my brandy peppercorn-crusted ahi tuna with scallions, Sea Island peas, roasted peppers and truffle vinaigrette was, nothing could touch my friend's red wine-braised ruby veal (a heritage breed, not to mention a one pound serving) with toothsome saffron heirloom creamer peas, arugula and citrus salad, shaved sweet onion and forest mushroom emulsion, a dish that was summed up with the pronouncement, "My expectations have been met and that never happens."
Truer words were never spoken, whether applicable to food, entertainment or people. Call me easy, but I'm not that hard to please.
To satisfy our collective sweet tooths (teeth?), we ordered two dark chocolate souffle cakes with creme fraiche, dulce de leche, Port, blackberries and vanilla gelato before rolling out of a restaurant that had been uninhabited when we'd arrived and was now at capacity.
Diamonds are a restaurant's best friend, it would seem, even one in a lonesome location.
The reason for our ridiculously early meal was an equally ridiculously early curtain for Quill Theatre's "The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr: Abridged" at an even more remote location than dinner: the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.
The three man play promised us intellectual salvation and managed to cover all of Shakespeare's plays with a nod to the sonnets and spit us out at a reasonable hour, with non-stop hilarity along the way.
From the initial introduction which included a tutorial in how to use an oxygen mask should something drastic happen at the Cultural Arts Center mid-performance to the backwards ending, we laughed off a lot of our dinner, or at least that's what we told ourselves.
During the mocking of "Romeo and Juliet," for instance, when an actor walked onstage, another said, "It's the Prince," only to be corrected to, "The artist formerly known as Prince," after which all three kissed their first two fingers and raised them to heaven along with their eyes.
Where, in a scene of timeless romance
He'll try to get into Juliet's pants
Or when Romeo starts being overly familiar with fair Juliet and she reminds him in a singsong voice, "Second base is for second dates!"
"Titus Andronicus" was re-imagined as a cooking show ("Welcome, Gore-mays!") geared to those who don't feel like cooking after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, while Othello became a rap despite the very white actors. How white? They met at a They Might Be Giants show.
All sixteen comedies were condensed into a montage dubbed "The Loveboat Goes to Verona," with assorted lovers and cousins washed ashore by "massive waves, like the rising tide of nationalism in the world."
So, yea, there was much referencing of current events throughout. Shakespeare takes on fresh nuances in Trump's America.
Because they said that Shakespeare's comedies aren't as funny as his tragedies, they performed "Macbeth" in ridiculously thick Scottish accents, with Macduff saying, "I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped. I didn't like it but I support a woman's right to choose."
It was during "Julius Cesar" that actor CJ Bergin was reminded by his fellow actors Dixon Cashwell and Joseph Bromfield that, "Not all Shakespeare's heroines wear bad wigs and vomit onstage," which you'd never have known given how many bad wigs and the abundance of stage vomiting we'd already seen.
Diving into the geo-political plays, we saw "Two Noble Kinsman" ridiculed as "Chernobyl Kinsman" before witnessing an interpretive dance version of "Troilus and Cressida" ("I love interpretive dance. It's so pretentious!").
"Richard II" and "Richard III" became a football game with a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance. By the time we got to intermission, all three actors were a hot, sweaty mess.
The second act began, not by reading any of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, but by passing from audience member to member a card that contained the first line of them all while Joseph played a song flute onstage.
The card never made it to us, that's all I'm saying. Thankfully, I have my own copy of the sonnets and not just the first lines, either.
Naturally, "Hamlet" got the lion's share of performance time with Dixon scootching and somersaulting to reach the spotlight when it was time for his "To be or not to be" soliloquy and the audience members being recruited to play the ego, super ego and id of Ophelia.
There was a lot of screaming involved, but mercifully, no heaving.
After the final scene, they trio redid "Hamlet" except even more quickly this time and then, just to show off, did it backwards ("Listen for the Satanic messages!") and it was over. Two hours and every worthwhile Shakespearean endeavor had been alluded to, mocked and, in a few cases, even quoted accurately, albeit with a lot of bad wigs and onstage vomiting.
Rather than call it a night, I suggested the Gypsy Room for jazz because Brunswick was playing and, coincidentally, they have an absinthe fountain and it's been an absinthe sort of a weekend.
Scoring stools at the center of the bar facing the fountain, we fashioned our own drips - fact: no two people like the same ratio of sugar cube and ice water to wormwood - while the band got set up and familiar faces began drifting in - the former neighbor, the DJ, the photographer, the musician, the restaurateur.
The Gypsy Room has such great sound and the 13-piece Brunswick took full advantage, regaling the ever-growing crowd with a horn-filled vibe alternately chill and rousing, so just what a Saturday night needed.
Even for those beaten by the queen of hearts every time.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Digging My Scene
What do the simple folk do on a Saturday night?
They plan to eat and partake of some death-related culture, but they also leave the ending open...just in case.
Pru and Beau picked me up not long after the sun set and our long-established banter began the moment I slammed the car door shut to escape the blustery wind that had replaced afternoon sun and warmth.
As our trio drove the short distance to the fake "town center" at Libbie Mill, we assumed our usual roles mocking and teasing each other in greeting.
"This is a dysfunctional relationship," Beau observed to neither of us in particular. "And yet we all stay," I reminded him.
Our obscenely early dinner reservation at Shagbark was required given that we had an 8:00 curtain, but it also ensured that we'd sit down in a lightly populated dining room that morphed to completely full by the time we walked out two plus hours later.
My first challenge was convincing my couple date that we wanted to drink Gavi, but doing so took both informational and anecdotal evidence.
Our server made a fine case for Gavi's strengths, but I think I finally won Beau over on the "persistent finish" (he seems to like his women the same way) and Pru when I shared that a favorite Brazilian chef drinks only red wine or Gavi (she's prone to taking a red wine drinker's opinion about a white) and a bottle soon appeared.
I got a kick seeing Morattico Creek oysters on the menu (my parents have lived in Morattico for three decades), so I told our server I had to represent with a plate of them, Tangiers and Seaside Salts to start. The Seasides were so large I almost couldn't fit one in my mouth, while the Tangiers had such a deep cup it was like they arrived in bowls.
Brown-butter basted jumbo sea scallops followed while Beau lapped up duck breast he dubbed the best duck he'd ever eaten and Pru swooned over grilled Outer Banks swordfish (set on a plate that resembled nothing so much as "The Flying Nun's" hat), mentioning to our server that it reminded her of fish she ate during summers at her family house in Rodanthe.
"We like when a table represents our food," our server joked approvingly of our waterside connections. Carrot cake of sorts (their moniker, not mine) delivered spice cake, carrot curd, rum raisins, salted caramel, cheesecake puree and praline for one of my rare non-chocolate finishes.
Tonight's play was Quill's "Assassins," a Stephen Sondheim musical I'd never even heard of, but which the director found eerily relevant when a certain major party candidate suggested to his deplorable audience that they take matters in their own hands should the other candidate win.
Some of the evening's funniest moments came courtesy of Matt Shofner's portrayal of Charles Guiteau (James' Garfield's assassin) with wild eyes, an over-the-top French accent and a dapper yellow-piped suit jacket as he spewed his character's unbridled enthusiasm.
Another laugh out loud moment arrived during intermission when a guy in the lobby caught the eye of Kenneth Putnam (playing Samuel Byck - the nut case who tried to run a plane into the Nixon White House - in a Santa Claus suit with a protest sign) and gave him the peace sign and shook his jowls side to side.
Just as hilarious a moment came when the two guys sitting next to me tried to return to their seats during intermission. I stood leaning against my raised seat to let them come through, but between my velvet pants and the velveteen covering on the seat itself, I slipped down into the seat completely unintentionally with a thud.
Pru and Beau, busy standing themselves and looking away from me, saw nothing.
But as the duo came by me, one grinned and whispered, "Real graceful!" about my unceremonious sit down. I immediately looked at him with new respect. In no time, he brought up similar problems with satin sheets (apparently the sliding factor is high) and shiny pajamas.
I don't start these oddball conversations, I just jump headfirst when invited.
When the disjointed play ended, the three of us headed east with no clue where we wanted to go to discuss what we'd just seen. The happy couple wanted caffeine, so we paused at Saison Market long enough for them to score coffee and then headed to my house to listen to music.
Knowing my audience, we started with the "Camelot" soundtrack, but not the lame movie version, but the Broadway dream cast with the dreamy 35-year old Richard Burton (how did I ever think he was an old king?), 25-year old Julie Andrews and an impossibly young-looking (27) and devastatingly handsome Robert Goulet.
I don't want to say I know my audience, but there was something for everyone: I adore the young man bravado of Lancelot's "C'est Moi," while Pru excels at the kind of female manipulation Guenevere sings of in "Take Me to the Fair" and I have no doubt that Beau subscribes to Arthur's advice on "How to Handle a Woman" sung in Burton's gravely voice of experience.
A couple of hours in - after we'd listened to the Blow Monkeys but before Art of Noise resulted in Beau's pithy comments about their distinctive sound - Beau went all serious on us, bringing up the possibility that we're watching a Facist come to power and questioning what one individual might be able to do about it.
Our mellows were harshed, but not inappropriately given the strange times we're living in, and we were back to cracking each other up before long.
When they finally stood up to leave, it hit us. In three hours of listening to music while discussing relationships, middle age and past life gaffes (how is it neither Pru nor I have ever dated a Jewish man?), we'd yet to touch on the play we'd seen, ostensibly the reason for our post-theater get-together.
It was 1:30 and we were a solid nine hours into our date, but everyone sat back down, I put on some soothing Jackson Browne and we re-opened the conversation to dissect the play in depth. That we got off on a tangent about tufted walls and put Beau through a complementary colors learning session was gravy.
And that's what simple folk do. So I'm told.
They plan to eat and partake of some death-related culture, but they also leave the ending open...just in case.
Pru and Beau picked me up not long after the sun set and our long-established banter began the moment I slammed the car door shut to escape the blustery wind that had replaced afternoon sun and warmth.
As our trio drove the short distance to the fake "town center" at Libbie Mill, we assumed our usual roles mocking and teasing each other in greeting.
"This is a dysfunctional relationship," Beau observed to neither of us in particular. "And yet we all stay," I reminded him.
Our obscenely early dinner reservation at Shagbark was required given that we had an 8:00 curtain, but it also ensured that we'd sit down in a lightly populated dining room that morphed to completely full by the time we walked out two plus hours later.
My first challenge was convincing my couple date that we wanted to drink Gavi, but doing so took both informational and anecdotal evidence.
Our server made a fine case for Gavi's strengths, but I think I finally won Beau over on the "persistent finish" (he seems to like his women the same way) and Pru when I shared that a favorite Brazilian chef drinks only red wine or Gavi (she's prone to taking a red wine drinker's opinion about a white) and a bottle soon appeared.
I got a kick seeing Morattico Creek oysters on the menu (my parents have lived in Morattico for three decades), so I told our server I had to represent with a plate of them, Tangiers and Seaside Salts to start. The Seasides were so large I almost couldn't fit one in my mouth, while the Tangiers had such a deep cup it was like they arrived in bowls.
Brown-butter basted jumbo sea scallops followed while Beau lapped up duck breast he dubbed the best duck he'd ever eaten and Pru swooned over grilled Outer Banks swordfish (set on a plate that resembled nothing so much as "The Flying Nun's" hat), mentioning to our server that it reminded her of fish she ate during summers at her family house in Rodanthe.
"We like when a table represents our food," our server joked approvingly of our waterside connections. Carrot cake of sorts (their moniker, not mine) delivered spice cake, carrot curd, rum raisins, salted caramel, cheesecake puree and praline for one of my rare non-chocolate finishes.
Tonight's play was Quill's "Assassins," a Stephen Sondheim musical I'd never even heard of, but which the director found eerily relevant when a certain major party candidate suggested to his deplorable audience that they take matters in their own hands should the other candidate win.
Some of the evening's funniest moments came courtesy of Matt Shofner's portrayal of Charles Guiteau (James' Garfield's assassin) with wild eyes, an over-the-top French accent and a dapper yellow-piped suit jacket as he spewed his character's unbridled enthusiasm.
Another laugh out loud moment arrived during intermission when a guy in the lobby caught the eye of Kenneth Putnam (playing Samuel Byck - the nut case who tried to run a plane into the Nixon White House - in a Santa Claus suit with a protest sign) and gave him the peace sign and shook his jowls side to side.
Just as hilarious a moment came when the two guys sitting next to me tried to return to their seats during intermission. I stood leaning against my raised seat to let them come through, but between my velvet pants and the velveteen covering on the seat itself, I slipped down into the seat completely unintentionally with a thud.
Pru and Beau, busy standing themselves and looking away from me, saw nothing.
But as the duo came by me, one grinned and whispered, "Real graceful!" about my unceremonious sit down. I immediately looked at him with new respect. In no time, he brought up similar problems with satin sheets (apparently the sliding factor is high) and shiny pajamas.
I don't start these oddball conversations, I just jump headfirst when invited.
When the disjointed play ended, the three of us headed east with no clue where we wanted to go to discuss what we'd just seen. The happy couple wanted caffeine, so we paused at Saison Market long enough for them to score coffee and then headed to my house to listen to music.
Knowing my audience, we started with the "Camelot" soundtrack, but not the lame movie version, but the Broadway dream cast with the dreamy 35-year old Richard Burton (how did I ever think he was an old king?), 25-year old Julie Andrews and an impossibly young-looking (27) and devastatingly handsome Robert Goulet.
I don't want to say I know my audience, but there was something for everyone: I adore the young man bravado of Lancelot's "C'est Moi," while Pru excels at the kind of female manipulation Guenevere sings of in "Take Me to the Fair" and I have no doubt that Beau subscribes to Arthur's advice on "How to Handle a Woman" sung in Burton's gravely voice of experience.
A couple of hours in - after we'd listened to the Blow Monkeys but before Art of Noise resulted in Beau's pithy comments about their distinctive sound - Beau went all serious on us, bringing up the possibility that we're watching a Facist come to power and questioning what one individual might be able to do about it.
Our mellows were harshed, but not inappropriately given the strange times we're living in, and we were back to cracking each other up before long.
When they finally stood up to leave, it hit us. In three hours of listening to music while discussing relationships, middle age and past life gaffes (how is it neither Pru nor I have ever dated a Jewish man?), we'd yet to touch on the play we'd seen, ostensibly the reason for our post-theater get-together.
It was 1:30 and we were a solid nine hours into our date, but everyone sat back down, I put on some soothing Jackson Browne and we re-opened the conversation to dissect the play in depth. That we got off on a tangent about tufted walls and put Beau through a complementary colors learning session was gravy.
And that's what simple folk do. So I'm told.
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