The dad and the Dom
On Christmas Eve, I woke up extra early (8 a.m.! I know, pity me), loaded up my trusty car Ricky, and began to drive in a southerly direction. My first stop was San Francisco, where I met my friends Rachael and Rodrigo for breakfast. They offered me a large, bulbous chocolate truffle from their fridge, a gift from overly friendly neighbors that had the (probably) unintended effect of plunging Rachael into a blind holiday panic that has yet to let up. I accepted and stuffed it into my purse for later, because that’s the kind of classy gal I am. To my mind I was doing them a favor; I think the mere sight of the poor little truffle was making Rachael feel guilty at her inability to reciprocate this unexpected gift in a timely manner.
We walked over to Haight Street and Rodrigo suggested that we dine at Squat and Gobble Café 2. Despite the fact that I had previously made a silent vow to myself never to patronize a restaurant with such an appalling name, I went along with the decision, because hey, try everything once. I tried to suppress the mental image of all my fellow customers squatting as they gobbled, but it was hard. The food was fine, although they advertised my crepe as containing fresh strawberries and it didn’t, a fact which they tried to obscure under a thick blanket of Whippy-Shit (my family’s term for canned whipped cream). Shame on you, Squat and Gobble Café 2!
Soon after, I hit the road. I was heading to Santa Barbara to spend Christmas with my dad and half-sister Lori. The drive took about six and a half hours. By the time I neared my exit I was starving, so Rachael’s guilt-inducing truffle came in handy and had no deleterious effects on my own holiday psyche, thank you very much.
The first thing I noticed upon arriving at my dad’s house was the tree. His girlfriend Sabina had decorated it with tiny logs of cheese, little tubes of summer sausage and one particularly weird pastel green rectangle that claimed to be a “Crème de Menthe Torte”. Shudder. The tree was hilarious and quite fitting, given that the next few days would only serve as more evidence of my California family’s dedication to gross excess when it comes to holiday cooking and eating.
Dad had made dinner reservations for us at one of his favorite restaurants, Quantum. I haven’t engaged in much fine dining lately (outside of the Ramekins kitchen, at least), what with living alone and earning $8 an hour and all, so this was quite exciting for me. Apparently, on a previous night my dad and his friend had mistakenly given Ed the Quantum Waiter a hefty double-sized tip, so on the return trip we received some serious rock star treatment.
We decided to both get the five-course small plate dinner and a bottle of Kunin Paso Robles Zinfandel (can’t remember the year), and had taken only a few sips of the wine when Ed the Waiter presented us with two brimming glasses of Dom Perignon (again, don’t know the year or anything else about it). I’m not sure that I have ever had Dom Perignon before; maybe once at Charlie Trotter’s. The glasses were full almost to the point of overflowing, which impaired my ability to taste the champagne but did convey a sense of luxurious excess that was definitely enjoyable.
I might as well just list out the menu as best I can remember it; after the Dom started flowing, my memories of the food grow hazier and hazier. Food Critic’s Lesson Number One: Lay off the sauce when reviewing a restaurant.
1) Ahi tuna tartare with shaved coconut, sesame oil and dried currants
2) Eight perfect oysters with a mignonette that involved fresh parsley
3) Seared foie gras served alongside grilled guavas topped with butternut squash and chile pepper sorbet, and accompanied by a tiny round of bread that had been toasted in the pan next to the foie gras, and as such was divinely rich and crispy. This was my favorite dish of the entire night. I don’t think I had had just a plain hunk of foie gras before this. Oh my god. I’m a convert. I know it’s un-P.C. and abusive, but it tastes sooooo good. And the squash/chile sorbet tasted sweet and spicy just like a mango/chile paleta. Sublime.
4) Petrale sole with port wine reduction and duxelle (?) of rutabaga and celery (I’m really, really foggy on this one)
5) Seared ahi tuna with roasted garlic sauce
6) Quail stuffed with andouille sausage atop a bed of dirty rice
7) Miniature root beer floats made with homemade vanilla ice cream
8) Miniature chocolate-filled beignets accompanied by a darling tiny pitcher of warm chocolate sauce. Some of the chocolate dribbled seductively down the spout of the pitcher and I remember proclaiming that it looked “pornographically good”. Again, that was the Dom and the Kunin talking. I think I just like saying Dom.
Dom.
After dinner, Dad did not allow me to return home and beach myself on the couch as I so longed to do. Instead, he insisted that I accompany him on a “Santa Mission” in which he would attempt to deliver bags of gifts in the dark to the houses of five friends whose addresses he did not know. It was about as fun as it sounds, especially when we drove around a housing development in which every building looked the same and I was instructed to “find the one with the slate stoop”. In the pitch black. At midnight. After an overflowing glass of Dom.
Somehow, he eventually managed to get everything delivered and I was finally allowed to crawl into bed.
On Christmas morning we picked a bunch of tangelos from my dad’s tree and made juice, but it was pretty puckery. A large dose of sugar helped, but I was worried about provoking a massive acid-induced stomachache when there was so much more eating to be done in the near future. We headed over to my sister’s house and watched as the living room grew increasingly buried under an explosion of wrapping paper, ribbon and assorted Christmas detritus. I received about 15 books relating to food and food writing, a crème brulee torch, and a Williams-Sonoma gift certificate. My sister also gave me my very own cookie scoop, and a note: “You’re one of us now!” Scary, but true.
We returned back to my dad’s house to begin cooking for the enormous feast that was planned for later on in the afternoon. Dad got to work preparing three prime ribs with his housemate, Nick, while I pretended to assist them for about five minutes, and then stumbled back into bed for a long nap. I still blame the Dom.
When I awoke, I was informed that my presence was required at the stable of my niece’s horse, Flash, but not until I had cracked thirty eggs for eggnog. My dad insisted on using the recipe from our family cookbook, which was originally devised by one in a long line of drunken relatives. We know this because my mom and stepdad once unwittingly prepared this concoction for a church social and wound up severely inebriating many innocent and upstanding Congregationalists.
After my egg duties were over and I was pretty repulsed at the idea of imbibing anything containing such a large quantity of them, I joined my brother-in-law Jim and his daughter Brittany for a jaunt out to the horse farm. Or whatever you call it. I don’t really care for horses, but it was cute to see Brittany wrapping Flash’s legs in little horse leg warmers and then letting him out of his stable to gallop gleefully around the corral. And I learned something of culinary interest: horses like to drink Mountain Dew and other kinds of soda straight from the can, and love chomping on a good Starlight Mint. Case in point:
Flash with his favorite food.
Isn’t that picture rad?
A few hours later, dinner was served. Sixteen people were present, but there was easily enough food for fifty. The menu included:
Three smoked prime ribs
1 huge honeybaked ham
1 vat of wilted spinach with garlic
1 vat of green beans with bacon (really good; I will get the recipe and post it)
1 huge container of spinach salad with bacon and hardboiled eggs
1 vat of mashed potatoes
1 vat of cubed potatoes and sweet potatoes with garlic and rosemary
Rolls
Gravy
Deviled eggs
Chocolate bread
Cranberry nut bread
Guacamole (don’t ask me where this fits in, but it was good)
Four pumpkin pies
Two apple pies
Vanilla ice cream
A huge quantity of eggnog
Wine
As I list this, I am reminded of a medieval dinner commemorating a king’s birthday or a courtly marriage. Where are the twelve lamb shoulders, the eighty songbirds, and the hundreds of jugs of mead? On the way home, I noticed that my stomach hurt from all the stretching it had to do to accommodate such quantities of food. I don’t just mean that I felt nauseous from overeating; my stomach actually ached, like a leg muscle aches after jogging.
The next morning, I awoke to a light breakfast of English muffins, almond cake, sausage, coffee and orange juice. I got most of it down, but my eating endurance was starting to deteriorate. I took a shower, and then it was apparently time to eat again.
We all packed into two cars and headed over to Bellyboards, a burger joint. At Bellyboards you can throw your peanut shells on the floor at the same time that you’re popping the cork on a bottle of …you guessed it, Dom Perignon, for $129.99. I can only interpret this menu option as a kind of California cutesiness that I don’t entirely understand. Most of us ordered a plate of four tiny hamburgers that resemble White Castle Sliders, but are instead called by another “S” name that I have already forgotten. Slackers? Sneakers? Whatever. They were pretty good, but at this point my stomach was in full-scale revolt and I could only finish two.
It was time for me to head back to San Francisco. I said my goodbyes, eased my gluttonous self into my car, and got back on 101 North. For the duration of the drive, I shifted uncomfortably around in the seat as the Slithers or whatever they were lurched seismically within my abdomen. My now-manatee-shaped midsection demanded accommodation, and I was forced to unbutton my jeans and loosen the seatbelt. Perhaps now that I am home, the good people of Fairfax can direct me to some kind of power cleansing diet.
We walked over to Haight Street and Rodrigo suggested that we dine at Squat and Gobble Café 2. Despite the fact that I had previously made a silent vow to myself never to patronize a restaurant with such an appalling name, I went along with the decision, because hey, try everything once. I tried to suppress the mental image of all my fellow customers squatting as they gobbled, but it was hard. The food was fine, although they advertised my crepe as containing fresh strawberries and it didn’t, a fact which they tried to obscure under a thick blanket of Whippy-Shit (my family’s term for canned whipped cream). Shame on you, Squat and Gobble Café 2!
Soon after, I hit the road. I was heading to Santa Barbara to spend Christmas with my dad and half-sister Lori. The drive took about six and a half hours. By the time I neared my exit I was starving, so Rachael’s guilt-inducing truffle came in handy and had no deleterious effects on my own holiday psyche, thank you very much.
The first thing I noticed upon arriving at my dad’s house was the tree. His girlfriend Sabina had decorated it with tiny logs of cheese, little tubes of summer sausage and one particularly weird pastel green rectangle that claimed to be a “Crème de Menthe Torte”. Shudder. The tree was hilarious and quite fitting, given that the next few days would only serve as more evidence of my California family’s dedication to gross excess when it comes to holiday cooking and eating.
Dad had made dinner reservations for us at one of his favorite restaurants, Quantum. I haven’t engaged in much fine dining lately (outside of the Ramekins kitchen, at least), what with living alone and earning $8 an hour and all, so this was quite exciting for me. Apparently, on a previous night my dad and his friend had mistakenly given Ed the Quantum Waiter a hefty double-sized tip, so on the return trip we received some serious rock star treatment.
We decided to both get the five-course small plate dinner and a bottle of Kunin Paso Robles Zinfandel (can’t remember the year), and had taken only a few sips of the wine when Ed the Waiter presented us with two brimming glasses of Dom Perignon (again, don’t know the year or anything else about it). I’m not sure that I have ever had Dom Perignon before; maybe once at Charlie Trotter’s. The glasses were full almost to the point of overflowing, which impaired my ability to taste the champagne but did convey a sense of luxurious excess that was definitely enjoyable.
I might as well just list out the menu as best I can remember it; after the Dom started flowing, my memories of the food grow hazier and hazier. Food Critic’s Lesson Number One: Lay off the sauce when reviewing a restaurant.
1) Ahi tuna tartare with shaved coconut, sesame oil and dried currants
2) Eight perfect oysters with a mignonette that involved fresh parsley
3) Seared foie gras served alongside grilled guavas topped with butternut squash and chile pepper sorbet, and accompanied by a tiny round of bread that had been toasted in the pan next to the foie gras, and as such was divinely rich and crispy. This was my favorite dish of the entire night. I don’t think I had had just a plain hunk of foie gras before this. Oh my god. I’m a convert. I know it’s un-P.C. and abusive, but it tastes sooooo good. And the squash/chile sorbet tasted sweet and spicy just like a mango/chile paleta. Sublime.
4) Petrale sole with port wine reduction and duxelle (?) of rutabaga and celery (I’m really, really foggy on this one)
5) Seared ahi tuna with roasted garlic sauce
6) Quail stuffed with andouille sausage atop a bed of dirty rice
7) Miniature root beer floats made with homemade vanilla ice cream
8) Miniature chocolate-filled beignets accompanied by a darling tiny pitcher of warm chocolate sauce. Some of the chocolate dribbled seductively down the spout of the pitcher and I remember proclaiming that it looked “pornographically good”. Again, that was the Dom and the Kunin talking. I think I just like saying Dom.
Dom.
After dinner, Dad did not allow me to return home and beach myself on the couch as I so longed to do. Instead, he insisted that I accompany him on a “Santa Mission” in which he would attempt to deliver bags of gifts in the dark to the houses of five friends whose addresses he did not know. It was about as fun as it sounds, especially when we drove around a housing development in which every building looked the same and I was instructed to “find the one with the slate stoop”. In the pitch black. At midnight. After an overflowing glass of Dom.
Somehow, he eventually managed to get everything delivered and I was finally allowed to crawl into bed.
On Christmas morning we picked a bunch of tangelos from my dad’s tree and made juice, but it was pretty puckery. A large dose of sugar helped, but I was worried about provoking a massive acid-induced stomachache when there was so much more eating to be done in the near future. We headed over to my sister’s house and watched as the living room grew increasingly buried under an explosion of wrapping paper, ribbon and assorted Christmas detritus. I received about 15 books relating to food and food writing, a crème brulee torch, and a Williams-Sonoma gift certificate. My sister also gave me my very own cookie scoop, and a note: “You’re one of us now!” Scary, but true.
We returned back to my dad’s house to begin cooking for the enormous feast that was planned for later on in the afternoon. Dad got to work preparing three prime ribs with his housemate, Nick, while I pretended to assist them for about five minutes, and then stumbled back into bed for a long nap. I still blame the Dom.
When I awoke, I was informed that my presence was required at the stable of my niece’s horse, Flash, but not until I had cracked thirty eggs for eggnog. My dad insisted on using the recipe from our family cookbook, which was originally devised by one in a long line of drunken relatives. We know this because my mom and stepdad once unwittingly prepared this concoction for a church social and wound up severely inebriating many innocent and upstanding Congregationalists.
After my egg duties were over and I was pretty repulsed at the idea of imbibing anything containing such a large quantity of them, I joined my brother-in-law Jim and his daughter Brittany for a jaunt out to the horse farm. Or whatever you call it. I don’t really care for horses, but it was cute to see Brittany wrapping Flash’s legs in little horse leg warmers and then letting him out of his stable to gallop gleefully around the corral. And I learned something of culinary interest: horses like to drink Mountain Dew and other kinds of soda straight from the can, and love chomping on a good Starlight Mint. Case in point:
Flash with his favorite food.
Isn’t that picture rad?
A few hours later, dinner was served. Sixteen people were present, but there was easily enough food for fifty. The menu included:
Three smoked prime ribs
1 huge honeybaked ham
1 vat of wilted spinach with garlic
1 vat of green beans with bacon (really good; I will get the recipe and post it)
1 huge container of spinach salad with bacon and hardboiled eggs
1 vat of mashed potatoes
1 vat of cubed potatoes and sweet potatoes with garlic and rosemary
Rolls
Gravy
Deviled eggs
Chocolate bread
Cranberry nut bread
Guacamole (don’t ask me where this fits in, but it was good)
Four pumpkin pies
Two apple pies
Vanilla ice cream
A huge quantity of eggnog
Wine
As I list this, I am reminded of a medieval dinner commemorating a king’s birthday or a courtly marriage. Where are the twelve lamb shoulders, the eighty songbirds, and the hundreds of jugs of mead? On the way home, I noticed that my stomach hurt from all the stretching it had to do to accommodate such quantities of food. I don’t just mean that I felt nauseous from overeating; my stomach actually ached, like a leg muscle aches after jogging.
The next morning, I awoke to a light breakfast of English muffins, almond cake, sausage, coffee and orange juice. I got most of it down, but my eating endurance was starting to deteriorate. I took a shower, and then it was apparently time to eat again.
We all packed into two cars and headed over to Bellyboards, a burger joint. At Bellyboards you can throw your peanut shells on the floor at the same time that you’re popping the cork on a bottle of …you guessed it, Dom Perignon, for $129.99. I can only interpret this menu option as a kind of California cutesiness that I don’t entirely understand. Most of us ordered a plate of four tiny hamburgers that resemble White Castle Sliders, but are instead called by another “S” name that I have already forgotten. Slackers? Sneakers? Whatever. They were pretty good, but at this point my stomach was in full-scale revolt and I could only finish two.
It was time for me to head back to San Francisco. I said my goodbyes, eased my gluttonous self into my car, and got back on 101 North. For the duration of the drive, I shifted uncomfortably around in the seat as the Slithers or whatever they were lurched seismically within my abdomen. My now-manatee-shaped midsection demanded accommodation, and I was forced to unbutton my jeans and loosen the seatbelt. Perhaps now that I am home, the good people of Fairfax can direct me to some kind of power cleansing diet.
posted by cindym at 11:02 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting blog. You may want to check out my blog "Framptonia" at nathanframpton.blogspot.com . I have a few contributors and there are some great discussions.
You may also want to try blog explosion to get more readers on your blog. I have a blog explosion link on my blog if you are interested.
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