CA Cemetery

I'm waiting for my big chance to man the emergency exit, but as many times as I've read the pamphlets and eyed the overhead roof where the oxygen mask pops down, I'm glad it won't be today. In my head I picture myself with a whistle, commanding women to cast off their heels (who wears heels to the airport anyway?) and reprimanding anyone trying to salvage overhead luggage. My inflatable vest's blinking light beams hope for the needy and underaged flyers, though our feet are secured on dry land, probably somewhere in Oregon's Willamette Valley. I'm sure the dream is better than reality. I'm sure my own oncoming emergencies aren't nearly as planned-for or well-executed. 

The plane touches down and I gear up, ready to fight my way through LAX to meet the Queen B curbside. Fighting, it turns out, isn't required. So I wait my place in line politely, containing myself until I'm safe inside the Queen B's hive of a car. Hugs, then driving, and finally, when reality sinks in and we can't contain our excitement, screaming and an impromptu stop at a Cuban restaurant for mojitos. Back at her place, B and I quickly fall into our old routine: horror movies, frozen yogurt, reading side by side with noses buried in books, talking excitedly over drinks, and more horror movies. 

Letting the hours drip slowly into languid days, we bask on the beach, getting sand between the pages of our paperback books. The late afternoon wind chills our arms and whips our hair, so we keep our bathing suits on and head back to her apartment for a soak in the jacuzzi. This is vacation. After 5 days, we drive south to Orange County.

Entering Irvine, I lose myself in the wasteland. I know these roads and stout 1-story businesses are some one's neighborhood spots, some one's salary, but it's someone else, and I can't see any beauty in this washed out, hazy concrete town. This is the real return, and always bittersweet. Years ago I used to fly in to John Wayne airport with my backpack, looking for my dad in the crowd, back when he was allowed past security. Mildly depressed, missing Seattle, but relieved to be away from school, I approached these trips tentatively. Yet here I am again, backpack in tow. 

"It's someone else's cemetery now," I think, driving down Beach Blvd. The said cemetery sits across the street from a Wienerschnitzel and a Walmart, and I remember wandering through its white stones and manicured grass when I was 16. I would actually prefer walking through it to driving past it, but the Queen B and I zoom toward PCH on a hunt for In-N-Out. Animal-style really is what a hamburger's all about, but that's not my cemetery either. 

In Seattle I can at least limit myself to eating Dicks only a few times a year, but I doubt I would have the same willpower if I lived walking distance from an In-N-Out. Wait, what am I talking about? Nothing in Southern California appears to be walking distance from anything else. Except the cemetery, from which the dead can cross the street to purchase 99¢ corn dogs and rolls of toilet paper. 

Saying good-bye to B is hard. 

I spend the next 3 nights on my brother's couch, the faux suede surprisingly comfortable. The birthday card I sent him hangs on his refrigerator, the door's single decoration held in place by its single magnet. I read my inscription several times before opening the fridge to look for salvageable food. Joy of Cooking sits open on his kitchen counter. He brags about owning an older edition, one with descriptions and drawings on how to skin and cook a squirrel. Don't ask me what a lawyer needs with a recipe for squirrel. His car is broken and we walk to the grocery store, over overpasses, under underpasses. I admire that he's the only person in Orange County who walks. But I'm still confused. 

"Why do you still live here?" 

"I doubt I'd find another place that has all the elements I'm looking for." It sounds too thought out, like something our father would say. 

"What elements?" I wonder, noting the lack of earth, wind, fire or water on the freeway. 

I don't get a response. 

I'm lost in Super Irvine, the over crowded but amazingly stocked Persian grocery store. Todd waits at the meat counter, a number in his hand and his eye on today's low low price of beef tongue. The lamb shanks and shoulders look good, I say. I have a great lamb recipe, I say. It may take four hours, but we can wait, eat late, pass the time. Todd nods, doesn't hear, orders the beef tongue. I've had beef tongue twice, both times at Quinn's, and had since sworn it off. The dry, frail, falling-apart meat required heaps of mustard, and I relished my side of cornichon pickles more than the main dish itself. 

Back home we unburden our backpacks of their low-cost bounty. Todd boils the tongue with halved lemons and onions, allowing the meat to tenderize and soak up some flavor and acidity. After an hour and a half he removes the skin (remind me to buy that boy a good paring knife) and chops it into manageable chunks.

Meanwhile, I caramelize two onions in a large skillet and we set up a board for a game of Stratego. Todd has a tendency to cry out "You've sunk my battleship!" whenever I successfully kill one of his army. Don't be fooled, but the box boldly states that Stratego is not a war game. The bombs, marshals, lieutenants and spies suggest otherwise. 

The onions salted and sweated, I remove the cover and up the heat, browning them with a little sugar. We add the beef, browning the tender meat before adding bell pepper and squash. In retrospect, I would have cooked the bell pepper with the onions, caramelizing them from the beginning. We worried that there wouldn't have been enough room in the pan to properly brown the meat, but we should have just removed the veggies when sweet and slightly burnt and then incorporated them again at the end. Ah well, the roughly chopped tomatoes hit the pan last and we use their acidic juices to scrape up the frond on the bottom of the pan. We scoop the hash into Todd's familiar, glazed ceramic bowls and eat while blowing up each other's scouts, detonating each other's bombs and capturing each other's flags. Actually, Todd captures my flag. Five times. 

The beef tongue exceeds all my expectations. The meat is tender and tastes of lemony-oniony brightness, the vegetables are soft and sweet, but the blackened bits, my favorite part, crackle with flavor. We settle into the couch, the generous guest bed, and watch TV with our feet on the coffee table, chatting through commercials and sometimes during shows. Our distant and recent pasts hang in the empty space between us, ominous, waiting to be spoken about in fits and starts. We begin in small, carefully spaced intervals. This is why I'm here, in my hometown. Otherwise the distance between our voices, far-reaching tentacles they may be, is never fully traveled. 

The Harvest Vine

I know it's been around for a while, but people have been begging me to go to the Harvest Vine recently. Not with them. They go without me and then rave about it, begging me to follow in their stomach's footsteps. I admit it's a romantic destination and there are few in my life who would romance me. Few meaning one. So on Friday night, specifically chosen as "special date night" since I was to flee the following morning for a week-long vacation to California, Bugs and I walked out of the apartment holding hands and wearing dress shirts to catch a cab to our 8:30 reservation. 

"I'm so glad putting a nice shirt on over jeans means dressing up in Seattle," Bugs said as the cab pulled up. 

"I'm so glad we live in a neighborhood where we can walk to the corner and catch a cab in a minute."

As cool a couple we may be, I stumbled a bit in my heels when exiting the taxi, and I swear the (older, richer, more fashionable) patrons sitting on the porch watched my stumble and then cast their eyes to the floor when we entered. Inside Harvest Vine, however, exists a different world of comfort. 

Yes, forget about interrogating eyes and heeled hipsters with your fashionable food (such is the world when one leaves Captitol Hill!). Our server whisked us down a stone stairway, through a labyrinth of small rooms that made the good-sized restaurant feel hidden and intimate. Sitting just an iron-worked bar away from the booze-filled one (why do I always envy the bar patrons at nice restaurants, who I envision as both spendy and spontaneous?), Bugs claimed the wine list first while I ogled the food menu, revisiting friends' and family's recommendations in my head. At times I do wish someone would bring two wine menus for our table (and yes, sometimes I do get so impatient I ask for my own). Bugs has to pore through it, cover to cover, like his Neal Stephenson novels. He commented on the abundance of Lopez Heridia wines, a tasty Rioja producer, and of sherry. Most of the wines were a double mark-up, pretty standard, though some topped out at triple retail. 

Our friendly and handsomely bearded server brought us a palate cleanser of apple and fennel sorbet with fennel and parsley oil. Green and sweet like good wheatgrass, the sorbet was somehow creamy and crave-worthy as well. I arouse from my last green spoonful, wondering if food might be the fast lane to heaven. 

I assented to Bugs' wish to order the 2005 Muga Reserva Rioja, though he grumbled a bit that the 2004 was unavailable. A delicious decision at $55, and not a bad markup from $25 retail, we loved analyzing it while waiting for food to arrive and then observing the changes with time and food pairings. 

"Who will taste?" The wonderfully bearded and helpful man asked innocently. Bugs simply frowned his mustache a bit, fully prepared for the seriousness of the ordeal, and raised a pointed finger like a student affirming his presence in class. 

"Yes, him," I said, deferring to the expert at the table, though I do enjoy the first taste when I select the wine, or better yet, when a taste is offered to both of us like at our neighborhood favorite Table 219. 

From his askance glance as the waiter uncorked the bottle to his screwed up face as he tasted and discerned the quality, I loved him, like I only love my Bugs. One of the truly special things about date night is admiring your lover in public. 

The nose on the Muga smelled of cherries, blueberries and eucalyptus, the latter fulfilling a broader sense of the herbal, medicinal and alcoholic. 

"A little coconut," Bugs whispered, his nose buried deep in the glass, lifting his thick-rimmed glasses. And then I smelled it, too. Was it a subtle note, only obvious once pointed out, or powers of persuasion? Almost impossible to know in the wine world because in such a land citizens are often engaged in some stage of drunkenness.

Focusing again, I felt the smooth dry mouth feel, running my tongue through the broad tannic background. It finished black, with hints of soil, dark cherries and cocoa chalkiness. As the alcohol and medical smell faded, the acidity of the fruit broke free. I felt citrus on the back of my throat and a pleasing astringency on my tongue. The rich tannins, sharper acids and alcoholic sweetness all balanced on a hair. 

The Guisantes y bee gedarte, fresh peas with Marcona almonds, burnt lemon vinaigrette and ash-rubbed cheese arrived at our table. Though the flavors I forked up eagerly were bright and delicious, I would have preferred the peas just a little more plump and crisp, less cooked, but the nuts almost made up for it with their crunchy texture. Indeed, the dish hinged just as much on texture as it did on taste. Bugs, not usually a nut fan, commented on the spectacular almonds.

"That's because they're texturally important," I responded, savoring both their snap and sweetness. The ash on the cheese brought an essential bitterness, balancing the peas, baptized in their oil and lemon bath. I mopped up the last of the grassy olive oil, staining the bread and table cloth green. And so our waiter presented us with clean plates and forks! Such a surprise after Corson Building, where I paid twice as much to eat four times as many courses on the same dirty plate.

Next we ordered the clams with bacon, onion confit, chorizo and cream sauce ($10). The smoky pork slid around and over the juicy clams, the tenderly-textured dish rendered spicy by the onion and chorizo compote. Though it didn't pair the best with our Muga, the pork and seafood plate evoked a spiciness in the wine that we otherwise would not have noticed.

"I like how the waiter isn't pouring our wine," Bugs confessed, leaning over the table. I'd noticed it subconciously and greatly appreciated the lack the service, too. Of course, just then a gentleman (not our server! not on my watch!) must have overheard us, thinking we were sarcastic, and promptly filled our glasses. We really weren't being sarcastic! We just like to swirl our wine, really. Please let us fill our glasses at our own speed. At least the lights dimmed. Mood lighting is always better with bacon. Or is that the other way around?

I was then served and immediately devoured the blood sausage, which I later recounted in great detail to my very German and very blood-sausage-loving Oma. The crisp black exterior gave way to a rich but delicate interior, entirely reminiscent of bread pudding or a soft bread stuffing delicately flavored with fennel and nutmeg. 

For dessert we ravaged an Espellette pepper chocolate flan, the spiciness just warming the creaminess and sweetness, further flavoring our 1989 Colheita by Porto Kopke. 

As one of the last tables lingering in the stone-walled wine cellar of Harvest Vine, we said goodbye to the romantic lighting, rich food and surprisingly cheery air, leaving the stones to grow cold with the night. When the 11 didn't come, we hailed a cab (it took a little longer than on the hill) and made our way back home to say our goodbyes to each other and do anything but let the bed grow cold like stones.   

Poppy Blooms

Despite the saying, Poppy charmed me the fourth time. My friends and I had long-awaited Poppy's opening, from the first false rumors that it would take over Jade Pagoda's spot on Broadway. A good friend works at Kerf, the Ballard store that designed and installed Poppy's controversial cabinetry, tables and chairs. My furniture designing friend came into work on a Saturday to make herself a chair. Jerry Traunfeld, who came in for a consultation that Tuesday, saw and fell in love with her chair, commissioning 100 on the spot. The weeks preceding Poppy's opening were busy times for Kerf. A few months later, I remember giddily texted her news that her chair played a starring role on the cover of Metropolitan Magazine. 

I first walked through Poppy's tall door and sat in those delightful chairs shortly after the September opening. Bugs, his parents and I snacked on the eggplant fries and each ordered the nightly thali. The fries were tasty and coated with sweet honey, but they lacked the crunch and rigidity the name "fry" implies. Biting into them was a soggy experience the first time around, but don't fret; Poppy solved this problem a few months in. Kitchen staff now coat the cut eggplant in a chickpea concoction before cooking. One used to order a thali by selecting two of four main tasting items. Two were vegetarian and two meaty, with one of the meaty options almost invariably seafood. The remaining 8 tastes were the chef's choice, but all vegetarian. Other than a few a la carte items, the only other choice was a "smalli," consisting of one main tasting portion of your choice, and five or six smaller ones.

On a large circular tray, we were each presented with tastes of 10 items in 10 differently sized and shaped earthenware pots. Some were hot, some cold, some hits, some misses. I remember particularly loving a vegetarian fritter of sorts and a melon-mint gaspacho that acted as a palate cleanser. The restaurant was fun in its novelty, but the full thali was overkill. Stuffed to the seams, I told myself I'd get a smalli next time. 

In December of 2008, Lacy and Betty, a vegetarian friend visiting from New York, and I made reservations for a Saturday night with the intent to fill ourselves on Jerry Traunfeld's Indian-inspired food and then hit up a few bars in Ballard. We each ordered a cocktail and dove right into the thalis. Everything on the menu looked so good, but of course it was too much food. Again. I spooned up a delicious pea soup, biting into moist chunks of ham. The same ham floated in Betty's vegetarian thali. Gasp! I stopped our server and asked him if all the side dishes were vegetarian. "Yes, of course," he said brusquely and hurried off before we could point out the obvious presence of meat in the soup. A young man came by to fill up our water, and we pointed out the pork to him as well. He was gracious enough to explain that there was a meaty version and a vegetarian version, apologize for the mix-up, and replace Betty's soup. The water boy saved the day, but Poppy dropped the ball on both vegetarian-friendly cuisine and plain old friendly service.

Though unimpressed with dinner, Lacy desperately wanted to return for a sampling of Dana Cree's desserts. After a girls night at Anchovies and Olives (mediocre with the exception of amazing oysters and geoduck ceviche), we hit up Poppy, snuggling into two seats at the bar. We had both fallen head over heels for St. Germain elderflower liqueur over the holidays and ordered The Elite, a tartly fruity and floral concoction perfect for warming up two thirsty girls on a cold March night. Chowing down on the eggplant fries, we rejoiced in their vastly improved texture. I eagerly ordered the gulab jamun, a staple Indian dessert similar to a round doughnut, something I frequently indulged in during my study-abroad trip to India. Poppy's version sadly disappointed me with its overly dense, cloyingly sweet dough. Sigh. I tasted Lacy's hot dake cake, a vastly better dessert, but nothing I craved in the cold nights to follow. So Leah and I stumbled back to my apartment after a few rounds of overpriced cocktails to snuggle into my couch, put on a movie, and revive our long tradition of sleep-overs, and Poppy and I fell out of touch.

"I need a break," I thought, not sure I'd ever return. I didn't even look her way when Bugs and I walked to his parents' place. I had been there, done that, eaten it and enjoyed it for what it was. I couldn't change her or make her something she wasn't.

Then in the summer, rumors of an expanded menu piqued my interest. It's like I lifted up my eyes to look around me, and there she was, arms open, ready to take me back. Just last week, I dragged Bugs back to Poppy for the most fun Wednesday night I've had in a while. Really, all I had to do was resist my own temptations to order the full thali and secretly compare Traunfeld's dishes to Indian ones. I'd heard from a couple sources that Poppy had expanded their smalli menu, but the website didn't reveal anything of the sort. I finally decided to see for myself, and made a same-day reservation for two. 

The menu now consists of two full thali options: one meaty and one vegetarian. No more of that confusing "pick one of these and pick one of those." Even better, I had the choice of five smallies. I chose one featuring goat cheese stuffed squash blossoms. Bugs commented that their wine list had improved, and I ordered the nightly wine flight to check it out. 

The service was friendly and attentive, but it took us 30 minutes to receive food from the time we sat down, a little long in my book. In the meantime, I slowly sipped on my Paul Ginglinger Wahlenbourg Gewurztraminer, a 2005 Alsatian number, careful to save at least half my glass to pair with food. Since it was actually served at the right temperature (!), the fragrant floral nose bloomed in my glass. I loved the thick syrupy mouth feel and the oxidative nuttiness made me think of a good sherry. Next in the flight, Les Pallieres, a 2008 pinot noir rosé from the Rhone Valey, was served perfectly chilled, had a tart gooseberry nose, a watermelon Jolly Rancher palate, and a deliciously juicy finish. The 2006 Domaines Barons de Rothschild Aussieres Rouge finished out the flight. 

Our smallies arrived just as my stomach started to grumble, and my whole body feasted on the sight of the seven beautiful bites before me. The squash blossoms were amply stuffed, and paired deliciously with the gewurz, but I wished the squash flavor could have shone through a little more. I slurped up a seductively textured carrot lemon-thyme soup, occasionally dipping my potato coriander naan, and devoured a great green rice and ricotta fritter. Poppy definitely knows what to do with fritters. Span peas seasoned with peppermint and sesame were bight and crisp, acting as a palate cleanser between dishes. Though a fancier restaurant would have provided this dish at a specific point between two courses, Poppy lets you choose your pace, nibbling and comparing as you please. It's like breaking an ice pick into the formality of multi-course meals. Though Bugs ate them up early, I saved the pickled cherries with sage and lavender for last, pairing them with the rosé and loving the combined fruit acidity. I sat satisfied and happy in those proud chairs, admiring the airy yellow curtains, exposed brick walls, the way the door cast a shadow of the Poppy logo on the wood entrance. 

And for the meat-lovers out there, Bugs' grilled Wagyu denver steak, the feature of his smalli, was perfect. With all the new options, I'm convinced Poppy has something for everyone.