Punderings

“Far removed as this recipe [Oysters a la Foch, involving 6 oysters but 5 different sauces] may seem from the ordinary kitchen’s possibilities, it still has not that fabulous quality of the rule quoted by everyone from Richelieu’s chef to Crosby Gaige, in which you put one thing inside another until you have somthing more or less the size of an elephant, then roast the whole, and finally throw away all but the innermost thing. For instance, you start with an oyster. You put it inside a large olive, then you put the olive inside an ortolan (a wee bird called “the garden bunting,” in case you are among the underprivileged), and the ortolan inside a lark, and so on and so on. In the end, you have a roasted oyster. Or perhaps a social revolution.”

– “The Well-Dressed Oyster”, by M.F.K. Fisher

Ah, food writing. MFK is my favorite, at least among the writers. Julia is my favorite among the cooks: my hero of food, actually. Who are the people that really made something more of the world for you? Julia ranks up there, and I regret never having realized it early enough to have tried to get lucky and see her on the streets of Cambridge or shopping at Savenor’s or the like.

But at least I’ve seen her kitchen. One trip to D.C., one half day, only time for one museum. Which one did I choose? American History – because they had the Julia Child’s Kitchen exhibit that month! They took her entire kitchen – her home one, not the other TV one – and recreated it. And I mean the entire kitchen – including her telephone books, and the bit of handwritten masking tape on the back of the phone reminding her of something. It was wonderful.

You know. That place we always used to hang out in – in the good old days. The one that closed, or moved, or just wasn’t ever the same after the management changed, and we never went to anymore. It sat lonely and neglected, empty with the “for lease” sign cockeyed in the window, and you didn’t really think about it much anymore.

Someone noticed a new place had opened up in the same spot, but we’d all moved on and never had time time. A couple of new rebirths and owners and makeovers later, one day you’re driving by, and say hey, let’s see what happened – or even better, new friends tell you to come meet them at “X”, and when you get there, you realize it’s in the same spot.

Randomly showing up once or twice doesn’t count. But how long does it have to be before it can turn into a new good old time again? A good time when you’re there, and not just when you’re talking about it having beers some late night with friends.

I’m not really sure. Actually, now I’m trying to figure out how many good old places there are around here with circles of friends, and what’s become of some of them.