The Restaurant Refugee

Dear Woman from the Other Night,

When you said that I sound “delightful” and I replied that “it’s just the booze that makes you think so,” I wasn’t trying to be rude, or imply that you were loaded. It’s just that I have never been good at taking compliments and my natural inclination is to deflect them. If anyone knows Theresa from Dupont, please pass along my apologies.

Sincerely,

The Man Who Blew It with the Really Cute Girl (not the first time that’s happened)

**

Dear Bus Driver Who Saw the Guy Running to Catch your Bus but Kept Driving,

I could have dismissed your unmitigated meanness as inattention… but I saw the woman at the bus stop point to the trailing guy and ask you to wait. You, are in fact, underscoring the largely false stereotype about DC writ large and Metro in specific. That you did so on New Year’s Eve when people ought to be filled with good will for all makes your dickishness even more egregious.

However, I do wish to thank you, because it gave me an opportunity to show kindness to a stranger. Even though I was running late, and had very little room in the car because of all the kitchen equipment, I stopped to offer the gentleman you left behind a ride. I stopped, moved things around to make room in the front seat, and offered a ride to a complete stranger. I stopped and was willing to delay my day to take that man wherever he needed to go. I stopped because you were an arse, and by stopping I found a way to demonstrate generosity of spirit. So thank you for you for your asshattery; it tested the veracity of my convictions… and unlike, you, I did not appear wanting.

Sincerely,

A Man Who Tracked Down Your Bus Number and Reported this Incident to WMATA

**

Dear Guest at my NYE Dinner,

Your marriage is not my business… but in case you were wondering why I looked so familiar, no, it was not from the picture on my website… but it very well may be that you remember looking at my profile on the that online dating site. I remember looking at yours, and I don’t recall it saying anything about you being married (open or otherwise.) As Rick Perry might say, oops.

Sincerely,

A Man Who Has no Problem with Polyamory but isn’t too Fond of Cheating Spouses

**

Dear Guy Next to me at the Bar the Other Night,

I know that there are lots of things about me that beg the food question… like the miniature copper sauté pan that hangs from my bag. I am humbled by the fact that I have a job/life that I love and understand when people want to talk food with me. However, asking me fifty questions that all began with “So what’s your favorite ____” is not really a conversation. That you did so while I was using what little energy I had to will my Steelers to victory while also trying to get the feckless Bengals to help out by beating the hated Ravens did not help matters.

Sincerely,

The Guy Who Finally Found a Food Conversaaation He Didn’t Want to Have

I have been trying to write this post for a while. Since November 5^th actually as that was the day that one of my heroes was knocked of his perch and the resulting scandal landed too close to me.

I have viewed the seedy world of college football as an avid fan, a recruit and a player. I always placed Joe Paterno in the too short column of good guys. We now know that there is an irremovable tarnish on his once sterling reputation. Any adult who knowingly abdicates our collective and inherent moral obligation to protect children deserves a reserved corner in hell.

While it is easy to conjure ex post facto outrage, the three big reasons that prevent child sexual abuse from being the light our hair on fire issue that it should be are: the abusers almost always have friendly faces, the abused almost never have faces, and the abused often allow silence to be the second abuser.

He wasn’t a beloved football coach with a child-focused charity, he was a priest with a youth group in his charge. It wasn’t in a field house shower, it was the church rectory. It followed the same too worn path: find vulnerable child, groom with attention, then affection, make incremental moves across a line until a confused child forgets where it is. Just writing these words ties knots in my stomach.

I do not write this post seeking your sympathies. I write because I am no longer willing to let my silence continue to victimize me. I write because I am willing to stand with survivors everywhere. I write to be another face for the faceless. I write because more than 25 years, and a life well lived later, this still makes cry in a fucking coffee-shop as I type. I write this post because I feared I might never be able to write anything else if I didn’t write this.

I usually reject generalizations as a hallmark of a lazy intellect. I usually dismiss the demonization of people as unproductive in reasonable discourse. However to all of the preachers and false prophets who are warning of the coming wrath of God because of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you are all a bunch of hateful intellectual bantamweights who traffic and profiteer in ignorance. All of you can go pound sand.

Just in case, I was wrong and you were right, I looked outside for locusts, or other signs of a falling sky. I found a sun struggling to peak from the cloudy and occasionally rainy skies… but it’s late summer in DC so that’s not unusual.  What freakish occurrences have marked the hours since the end of DADT?

• I overcooked my roasted red pepper risotto.
• I went to sleep without having a bourbon and cigar first.
• The Red Sox continue to fold like a house of cards in hurricane… (oh, wait, that’s not that unusual but let’s blame the Gays anyway.)
• Right to Life organizations decided to protest the extremely questionable execution of a man in Georgia… (oh, wait, that didn’t happen but wouldn’t that be a sign of the Apocalypse… or intellectual & moral consistency?)

Hours after a conversation with friends that featured a bit more candor than planned, I had a Carrie Bradshaw moment. I found myself sitting on my patio with a cigar, a bourbon, and this computer to contemplate the following:

How do you know if you made exceptions because you felt something exceptional, or if the exceptions were made for dubious reasons? Does it even matter after the relationship is over and all that’s left is the getting over it?

I didn’t answer any of those questions. I just took another hit of bourbon, watched blue gray smoke curl into the sky, and thought about how small the world must really be for me to have a Carrie Bradshaw moment.

~~~~~

New Rule: Baseball players who wear old-school stirrups instead of long pants are automatically 3.62 times cooler than their slack legged counterparts.

Addendum to the New Rule: The aforementioned does not now and never shall be applicable to Alex Rodrieguez.

~~~~~

The incomparable Aaron Sorkin has twice written that the only reason a man gets really good at anything is to impress a woman*. Ignoring the heterosculsivity** of the concept, truer words may never have been penned.

~~~~~

All of the excitement about Restaurant Week reminds me of people getting all a flutter about New Year’s Eve – the anticipation and hype almost never matches the reality. That so few restaurants get this promotion right is an annual disappointment to me.

~~~~~

* References made in both West Wing and Sports Night, there happens to be a great website that tracks the overlap between the two shows.

* Heterosculsivity and its related adjective Heterosculsive have already been sent to Urban Dictionary

As a man who finds serenity in food, I almost always enjoy “making groceries” as those from certain parts of the south might say. On Friday, I spent some time at a local market getting provisions for a very busy food weekend. While jawjacking with my fishmonger, an attractive 30something with an unmistakable Boston accent came to the counter.

Since we were just talking about food geek stuff, I offered to let her order ahead of me. Just before turning attention to the woman in the I-Must-Be-An-Attorney pant-suit, the fishmonger said to me “Oh, I didn’t forget about your head-on shrimp, Refugee; I’ll have em’ for you next week.”

The Suspected Attorney (who had the most perfect and perfectly appointed lips) ordered a couple pounds of crab legs before pausing for a moment to ask me “why would you want head-on shrimp, isn’t that just more work?”

“Yes, it’s most certainly more work” I began. “But two things – one, I like slow food and the process of making it, so when I’m making shrimp bisque I like to make the shrimp stock myself instead of getting it from the shelf; and nothing makes shrimp stock like the heads.”

“And two” she volleyed back.

“Well, two was going to be me making a lame joke about how you would really need to taste my food to understand… but I thought better of it.”

“You thought better of the lame joke as invitation or thought better of the invitation itself” she said with a smile that elicited a butterfly feeling I haven’t known for quite some time.

“Let’s go with the former” I said with an admittedly sheepish chuckle.

We talked some more about food, some of my menu for the weekend, and her plans too. It had all of the hallmarks of one of those surely apocryphal stories about two city dwellers meeting in a grocery store. Even the fishmonger winked at me as we walked away our carts headed in the same direction.

Whether it was me actively trying not to jinx things, be too assertive, or my flirting skills were just a bit rusty, I suggested that we meet in the check-out line to continue the conversation.

After doing a couple of unnecessary laps around the frozen food aisle, I found The Suspected Attorney in the bakery section and we went towards the cashiers. I wasn’t certain that coffee or drinks would be in the immediate offing (I did get some ice from the fishmonger just in case) but I was fairly confident that we would exchange at least one mechanism for communication.

We stood several people back in the slightly longer than usual lines and after a couple of minutes of random chatter, I asked “I know that you have some perishables in your bag so a quick drink right now might be a risky offer, but one I extend nonetheless… and if you can’t or won’t accept now, I do hope you’ll take a raincheck.”

“I can’t do drinks right now” The Suspected Attorney said in sail-deflating tone. “I’ve got people coming over to my place, but… maybe you can give me a call this weekend and we can set something up” she said while handing me her business card.

Sails restored to full extension.

I gave her my card too while we changed the subject back to our respective plans for the weekend.

Apropos of nothing in particular, The (Now Confirmed) Attorney let out a sigh of frustration at the slowness of our line and said “Ugghh, you know don’t take this the wrong way – I’m glad I met you – but I should have known better than to shop on the 1^st of the month.”

“Yeah, I imagine that the holiday weekend is making this place more crowded.”

“Sure, the holiday weekend, but you know what happens on the first of the month right?” she asked in tone that indicated I really should have known the answer.

“Sorry, I don’t quite follow… well, lots of people get paid on the first so that could be contributing to it.”

“Not just that” she stated with more animation than I had previously seen, “The government gives out welfare today, welfare and food stamps, and unemployment too! I try to avoid shopping around now, but I always seem to forget and then get stuck in line behind Latifah, the Welfare Queen.”

I suspect that The (Now Confirmed) Attorney read my expression and wanted to clarify her statement – I didn’t give her the opportunity.

“I’m thinking we should probably stop talking now” I stated in as flat and unaffected tone as possible.

“Listen I give to charities, and do community service projects with my sorority, but I just think…”

“You just think that people who need help are a drain on the public coffers. Seriously, we should just stop talking” I said as she began to move her groceries to the belt… and I tried to say it as harmlessly as possible.

The conversation ended there and my disappointment and annoyance were milder than I would have expected. And then I got to the exit.

The (Now Confirmed) Attorney was waiting for me just outside the doors.

“What the Fuck, Refugee? I’m not some crazy-stalker-broad but I thought that we had some kind of connection and I’d love to know why you are willing to trash that – before we even find out if we really like each other – because of some political bullshit.” [ed. note: I really wish there was a Boston Accent font]

“(Now Confirmed) Attorney, I understand the desire to know things… and since we have clearly taken a flame-thrower to our bridge, I am comfortable telling you: it’s not enough to be nice to me, when you’re mean to the weakest of our people… well I don’t reference the bible very often, but to paraphrase ‘whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me.’ Being nice to your friends doesn’t make one a good person when you’re mean to people for whom there’s no consequence to being mean. And blaming the poor and unemployed for being broke and jobless is just mean… and not for nothing, that Welfare Queen Latifah line was what shifted things from disagreements to be discussed to I don’t need people like you in my life.”

Would you rather…

Run into your Ex while s/he looks fabulous and you look more raggedy than the Redskins offensive line?

See an Ex that you’re not even close to being over get all kinds of shmoopy-shmoopy with the new partner?

Run into (and be situationally forced to have conversation with) the Ex’s friend, you know the one that never liked you, never thought you were good enough?

Would you rather…

Open your last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine and have it be corked?

Look for your last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine only to see that it is missing or you somehow miscounted it?

Get your very last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine to your patio, and have a stray black cat run across your feet leading to a cartoonish but ultimately failed effort to save the precious nectar from crashing to the ground?

Would you rather…

Ruin a favorite pair of shoes (cognac colored monk straps) through a rather unfortunate and completely avoidable wine spill?

Find a favorite fountain pen… in the breast pocket of a favorite sports coat… and a popped capped leaked enough ink for it to soak through the jacket?

 Yeah, it’s been that kinda week.

Memorial Day Weekend is officially the time to honor the men and women who have given that last full measure of devotion to our country. It also marks the unofficial start to summer. Between a memorial service, a few barbeques, some work, and some boozing time with good friends, I found some time to sit on a coffeeshop patio to smoke a cigar.  While watching the city melt in the year’s first heatwave, I began contemplating the things I wanted to do in this shortest of seasons. From that point, the thoughts morphed into…

Restaurant Refugee’s Summer Rules

• take wine less seriously
• take life less seriously
• sundresses are always superior to jeans
• the aforementioned goes double for jeans of the skinny variety
• food cooked outside tastes better
• check your watch; no matter what the hands say, I assure you it is ProseccO’clock
• a farmers market stroll makes for an outstanding date
• speaking of dates… summer is a great time to renew that lapsed commitment to Date Night
• host your own Screen on the Green Party, may I recommend Bull Durham for your first screening.
• speaking of minor league baseball… in their stadiums, the seats are better, the beer is cheaper, and you’ll probably get more satisfaction cheering for the guys who haven’t quite made it yet.
• Choose a cocktail for the season… in case you’re curious, the 12o’Clocktail is mine (recipe at the bottom.)
• Stop wasting cash at the coffee shop and learn to make your own iced coffee.
• If you have a friend with a boat, scotch that’s old enough to vote is good start when it comes to bribes or thank you’s.
• If you’re a gentleman who is follicaly challenged, summer is an excellent time to try the clean shaven look.
• Very few women actually look good in “skorts.”
• Linen starts to go on sale circa the 4^th of July; stock up then for future summers.
• When cooking food outside, please do not skip the brine for your meats.
• Almost always true restaurant axiom #63: the quality of the food will have an inverse relationship to the quality of the view. Cantler’s is a notably delicious exception.
• On the days when the sky is Carolina Blue*, the temperature is just so, and you see people driving convertibles with the top up, feel free to wish them hostile thoughts.
• If you find yourself wondering “am I too old to wear this,” the answer is almost certainly yes… but fuck it, it’s summer, wear it anyway.
• Mosquitoes are the price of freedom, buy your repellant in bulk.
• I know that I am about to incur the wrath of the 20something fashion icons, but not a single woman looks good in any style of flat gladiator sandle. Stop arguing with me, I’m right.
• It may be convenient to cloak a bad decision in the dress of “summer fling.” Resist that temptation, but don’t resist the fling – choices will still matter come autumn.

* yes, my Tarheel friends, that was really difficult to write

The 12 o’Clocktail

Initially created in a search for the perfect brunch cocktail (with the help of a couple of other restaurant pros and over the course of several boozy Sunday mornings) and named for one of my favorite lines from the iconic song Lush Life.

1.5 ounces lemon vodka
0.5 ounces Orange Liqueur
1 ounce of Pear Nectar (if you have a pro-grade juicer, fresh will always be better, otherwise Goya makes a very good version but be sure it is nectar not juice)
2 wedges of lime
Splash of Ginger Syrup (optional but really great if you have it and super easy to make)

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with 800lbs** of ice, squeeze the juice of the limes and add them too, shake until condensation crystals form on the outside of the shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lime.

Use with great care as these go down far too easily. 

** Toots Shoor, the legendary barman of the early 20th century, incorporated the 800lbs of ice concept into his training program and subsequent drink books as a reminder that there is no such thing as too much ice. 

RR: Good day

Blog: Seriously? You ignore me for weeks (not the first time, mind you) and you just ring me up and start with “good day?” I mean, fuck you, I should have changed the passwords on you.

RR: You should have changed your stupid locks, you should have made me leave my key…

Blog: Yeah, and I knew for more than a second you would be back to bother me… you think your so damn clever, don’t you?

RR: Well on the getting-shorter-by-the-minute list of my charms, word-play is still there… in the interest of avoiding awkward silence, will you allow me to apologize and offer some explanation?

Blog: I haven’t hung up yet.

RR: and I appreciate that. I am going to give you the unvarnished truth – the same answer that my therapist finally got out of me.

Blog: Your finally talking to someone? That’s a good start.

RR: I have long said that I started with you because blogging was cheaper than therapy, but the emotional cost of not going to therapy got a little too high.

RR: This is how I have managed problems and relationships for too long. When someone or a group of someones gets too close, I push her/him/them away. It’s easier than being so vulnerable with anyone who has seen completely behind my curtains. As honest and vulnerable as I have been with you – more than any relationship I’ve ever had – I had exhausted all of the topics I was willing to share. So I ran away. And not for nothing, but I do know how cowardly that action was, and that runs directly contrary to the man I told you that I was. But that is the paradox of relationships with me: the better they go, the longer they last, the deeper they get, the more likely I am to do a gradual fade to arms length (at best) or pull an inelegant and ungraceful vanishing act (at worst.)

Blog: Are you really blaming the success of our relationship for the terrible way you’ve treated me during it?

RR: I understand why you say that I’ve been terrible to you, and…

Blog: Do you understand? Refugee, do you really know why I am so angry?

RR: Let me try to articulate it then.

Blog: Go ahead.

RR: I am pretty sure that it is disappointment that exacerbates the anger. 1-when we were good, we were really good and not only did that attention create an expectation, I explicitly promised that expectation. Thus, 2-when I would behave poorly by ignoring you or simply going through the motions of paying attention to you, it was more than anger because I was not true to the promise of word or deed.

Blog: You do know that understanding the problem doesn’t rectify it any more than your pretty words can fix it, right? This whole thing reminds me of a scene from the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. Little Grey is talking to McSteamy and she implores him to truly back off because if he doesn’t then she’ll go back. Sure, she loves him and will go back because of that, but he doesn’t make her happy.

RR: Yeah, and she smartly chooses stable happiness over sparkly and dangerous love. I know the scene… but, ummm, you do realize that you’re an electronic artifice that I created and that kinda makes this conversation academic, right?

Blog: Well, then you should stop using this as some sort of proxy for another conversation.

RR: Fair point, but I can have this one and mostly control it.

Blog: fine, so I have two questions for you. One – what’s behind those curtains that is so ugly, and two – since you do have control here, what are you going to do to regain my trust?

RR: The things behind the curtain are… well, they’re still back there, but at least I am acknowledging them. Baby steps are still steps. In terms of rebuilding trust, promises will not be made. I’ve made them in the past – NaBloPoMo, International Crush Day, etc. The only thing I can do now is to keep showing up when I can, and keep trying to get back to the good places we’ve been.

Blog: And when your inevitable freak-out occurs?

RR: Now, who’s using this as a proxy?

Blog: Well, this is the only chance you’re gonna get.

RR: True. When the freak-out occurs, I will try to turn towards you and not away… but mostly, I’m gonna keep showing up.

Big Bear Cafe is kinda like a movie about something truly novel and meaningful – it doesn’t have to be that good because it’s Important. The Eckington area coffeehouse, that is part bistro and part bar, is important because the neighborhood has been vastly under-served and ignored by restaurants for the better part of four decades. It is an important amenity for her neighbors, and an important signal to the larger community that the revitalization of this neighborhood has really taken root.

But praise the lord and pass the Tanzanian Peaberry coffee, they’re not just important, they’re good. Coffee and Tea are given great attention and care here – rotating offerings of several artisinal blends that are brewed in styles that best show the bean or leaf. The limited menu doesn’t offer anything you would not expect at a small coffeehouse (pastries and panninis, soups and salads.) But they deliver culinary virtue by staying within their small kitchen lane. The food here is satisfying and comforting like Coltrane on a rainy Sunday.

To the other charms, we should add that the space itself is gorgeously understated and somehow evokes both an urban and rustic feel. This place is easily worth the walk/short drive for people in the area; it’s also worth a crosstown drive for anyone who really likes coffee, or believes that independent places really matter or are still important.

****

Restaurants like Circa* give credence to the oft repeated notion that the only things that matter for a restaurant are location, location, location. Leaving aside the fact that that mantra is offensive to people who dedicate careers to this industry, Circa makes me wonder if it has any substantively meritorious characteristics besides sitting on one of the most trafficked corners in DC.

The layout makes the place feel very crowded even if you’re the first person in the door. I’ve never been in when the lighting wasn’t sunglasses bright, or reading light dark. And they seem not to know the a difference between serving comfort food and having your guests eat like it’s 1999… and yet they’re crowded open to close. Apparently, Lauriol Plaza has some competition.

* link deliberately omitted due to obnoxious music on their website and a host of other sins of suckitude.

****

Two Quick Closing Thoughts:

Restaurant 3 has the best Adult Happy Hour in North Arlington. It runs until the commuter friendly time of 8pm, their very good selection of draft beers are $3, and signature cocktails are $5. The bar bites are tasty and just heavy handed enough to soak up the booze. I really like this place for a drink or three.

On my first visit to the Carlyle Club a couple of years ago, I was really excited about the old-school supper club with big bands and dancing. By the time my friend and I left, the choice was between talking to a manager about the awful food I really didn’t want to pay for, or paying the check as quickly as possible to make it Restaurant Eve before their kitchen closed. We made it to Eve. I recently gave Carlyle another try; the only things that changed in the intervening period: my ballroom dancing has gotten a little bit rustier, and we bolted for Eve faster.