Monday, April 11, 2005

Culture of Consumption

This was a heavy weekend, and I mean that from a purely food-oriented standpoint.  I know I gained at least five pounds; I fear that there will be some sort of whiplash effect to bloat me up even more by the time tomorrow rolls around.  Delayed-action gorging?  Yes, this time the impossible may come to be - because this food was just that good and there was just that much of it.

Friday night I can’t describe very well because it was too complicated and pretty for me to begin to do it justice.  We went to a new favorite place up in Sausalito, Avatar’s.  The bleached blue sailcloth awning at the unassuming stripmall on Bridgeway gives no indication of the creativity and flavor going on inside.  I had a mixed curry plate, which sounds dull but was absolutely not; kel had a punjabi tostada (lamb, I think), that was gorgeous on the plate and mindblowing in my mouth.  The food was so tasty and the servings, so perfectly proportioned, that we didn’t even want dessert.  Also, we knew what the rest of the weekend would bring.

Saturday we cleaned and did some shopping, and then Sha and Helena came to visit for supper.  We dined on a fresh green salad with sweet cherry tomatoes and strange tiny avocados, accompanying a plate of carnitas (cooking in our stove from 8:30 that morning till 7:30 that night), seasoned chunks of fried yuca, and sauteed leeks stewed with fava beans.  I was served a mountain of food and had no willpower to turn away from it until it was finished.  This prepared me well for an enormous individual flan - Sha had brought four ramekins of custardy delight, each one hiding a reservoir of rich amber caramel syrup, and like hell I wasn’t going to finish mine and anybody else’s that was left over.  Sha reassured us that it was a fat free, cholesterol free food… then broke into hysterical giggles, it’s like a thrombosis soufflee in there.  Regardless, it was delicious and had a wonderful texture, capping off the spices of the seared, smoked meat and the crisp crunch of the yuca perfectly.  Afterwards: a hand of Fluxx, half an hour of cartoons, and an evening’s worth of rambling conversation, and we called it a night - but a gut-stuffing, thoroughly delightful one. 

The next morning I awoke to Kel in poor health, coughing deeply and worn out tired.  She had to stay home and rest, and maybe even catch up on some reading for her coursework.  I, however, felt hale enough to get down to the Tenderloin by 10:45 a.m. for a bit of a feed at Bodega Bistro.  There I met up with Jeannette, Darryl, Sue and Randy, and the five of us started in with some lovely angelhair green papaya salad with roasted peanuts and beef jerky garnish.  Then we were served seared chicken, pork and meatballs in spicy sauce with rice noodles, julienned carrots and broadleaf lettuce - wrap up all the items in the lettuce and dip it in the sauce, it’s a taste explosion that’s almost as much fun to make as it is to eat.  The lettuce-wrap dish came with several quartered roast quail (I think), rich brown skin crackling with sweet salty marinade.

We whipped through a few quail and then were served a platter of two large crabs roasted in salt and herbs, juicy and buttery-succulent, irresistable and perfectly matched with a plate of garlic noodles that came along with it… soon, bowls of rich crab broth with oxtail and about four million unnameable vegetables also appeared by our elbows ("eat it quick before it cools! don’t forget to stir in these mounds of lettuce and chiles!").  The conversation had come to a standstill; all one could hear was slurping, the crunch of crabcrackers on the fragrant shells, and groans of oral gratification.  Then a few fingerbowls were brought to the table, immediately preceding a tray of pan-seared red snapper, seasoned lightly and assertively firm between the teeth, along with a platter of cubes of perfectly seared filet mignon, marinated in a rich brown sauce and served with stir-fried vegetables.  We chewed our way through as much of it as we could, and then, blissfully narcotized, parted company for our respective forms of recuperation.  This restaurant was amazingly prolific in the variety of dishes they served us, and I think I’ve barely scratched the surface.  I’ll be going there again.

I got home, did some reading and then took a nap, which was so successful that I had only a few hours of “productive time” to waste before I got to load the dog into the car for a final feast.  Kel had stayed in bed all day with the dreaded homework and the hated cough medicine, and felt well enough to want to get out of the house for the evening.  We drove out to the east bay and visited Dave and Kim and their kids in their new house, which is looking great.  It’s especially nice that we could bring the dog and just let him lay out on the porch; the kids played with him very nicely and he was glad for the new scenery.  Kel was glad to be able to rest and recuperate in the comfort of someone else’s living room for a little while, and I was glad for the two phenomenal pizzas Dave got from Zacharys.  I ate one slice of stuffed chicken and one slice of plain cheese, matched well with a powerful Bonnie Doon syrah, and then, feeling about as stuffed as my pizza had been, went on and ate about seven million chocolate covered raisins for dessert, washed down with a tasty bit of oatmeal stout.  When we got home I was ready for more sleep, and now here I am again, Monday morning, five pounds heavier, and every one of them precious.  I wouldn’t trade them for all the gardenburgers in San Francsico.  I mean, unless you wanted to garnish them with crabs, carnitas and cheese....