1 hour ago
* * *
“exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”
—The MICHELIN® Guide
When the first of three entrees came with subtitles, you spoke
in Italian, even though this place was French. I’ve never felt hotter
in dress socks. The best part of Maine was a somber, inscrutable lobster
puree, of which I was graced with three drops: a shimmer of celery
oil, a rude pantoum on espelette Harry the Samurai wrote on his
cigarette break. The vague memory of a sunchoke. Why they call him
that, nobody knows. Marco, his teeth gleaming alginate white, standing
root-straight like he owed someone money, produced with a flourish
a foaming amuse of risotto. I couldn’t hold back —
“Marco,” I said, “this seems to be rice with one
mushroom.”
At this, the lad brightened.
“It’s arborio, sir!”
“Arborio,” I said, “this is rice with one mushroom.”
In the kitchen, I told myself
somebody laughed.
At least Marco was trying! Rumpled, disconsolate, I shuffled off
to the Fortress of Solitude, found a towel pure as church and I rolled
in reverberant sound, loops of white terry, a cotton-weave breath. Upon return
Marco had folded my napkin to look like a heartbroken swan. You were a hand
model for Morris Chestnut, and I was a sweetbread you’d carelessly dropped.
In other words, dinner was faithless disaster, despite being hopelessly full
of Christ’s spirit, or your left foot making its bronzed leather exodus, angling
for my flied crotch. The check never came. You told me I looked like dessert.
You do your best,
your pinched mother would say,
when life serves you lemons—
of course these were Meyers, less common,
much sweeter, each little sac bursting with praise.
“exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”
—The MICHELIN® Guide
When the first of three entrees came with subtitles, you spoke
in Italian, even though this place was French. I’ve never felt hotter
in dress socks. The best part of Maine was a somber, inscrutable lobster
puree, of which I was graced with three drops: a shimmer of celery
oil, a rude pantoum on espelette Harry the Samurai wrote on his
cigarette break. The vague memory of a sunchoke. Why they call him
that, nobody knows. Marco, his teeth gleaming alginate white, standing
root-straight like he owed someone money, produced with a flourish
a foaming amuse of risotto. I couldn’t hold back —
“Marco,” I said, “this seems to be rice with one
mushroom.”
At this, the lad brightened.
“It’s arborio, sir!”
“Arborio,” I said, “this is rice with one mushroom.”
In the kitchen, I told myself
somebody laughed.
At least Marco was trying! Rumpled, disconsolate, I shuffled off
to the Fortress of Solitude, found a towel pure as church and I rolled
in reverberant sound, loops of white terry, a cotton-weave breath. Upon return
Marco had folded my napkin to look like a heartbroken swan. You were a hand
model for Morris Chestnut, and I was a sweetbread you’d carelessly dropped.
In other words, dinner was faithless disaster, despite being hopelessly full
of Christ’s spirit, or your left foot making its bronzed leather exodus, angling
for my flied crotch. The check never came. You told me I looked like dessert.
You do your best,
your pinched mother would say,
when life serves you lemons—
of course these were Meyers, less common,
much sweeter, each little sac bursting with praise.