Char No. 4 doesn't have a menu in the window but Mary's girlfriend said it was good and it's between the store and Lauren's place (where I'm subletting). Alone for dinner, this dark & hip looking joint looked like the wrong place to eat with a book as my only companion. But the bar opposite the "real" bar proved perfect. All the ambient noise (Weezer & 30-something chatter) set a sondtrack to my reading of "Julie & Julia," the story of a 30 year-old woman setting off on a culinary journey (set in New York, natch).
I looked over the menu (fancified barbecue) and was hooked by the sound of the sage sausage w/ braised cabbage & roasted apples. As I sat & read for a bit, I kept looking over my shoulder for the server. I also kept having odd fantasies of some woman sending me a drink. Guess everything I know about bars I learned from movies and Mad Men? And why am I the woman in this scenario? Finally, I got up and ordered from the bartender. Maybe I've gotten used to the rush-rush service of the hinterlands.
I continue reading, retracing a few chapters I'd already read on February's cruise (where I discovered the book in the ship's meager library). I'm finding the protagonist's tone a bit flippant and self-absorbed but the book does move and its frequent descriptions of cooking have me riveted.
My dinner comes out as an emasculatingly large sausage cut in two on a rather meager pile of cabbage. The roasted apples, while maybe a good idea on the page, offered a unwelcome sweetness. I neither tasted nor missed the sage in the sausage but hankered for a little spice or heat. The cabbage slop was tasty, with little bits of bacon hidden throughout like breakfast cereal prizes.
The millers around get their tables and soon I've got the length of the bar to myself. The server comes to retrieve my plate & inquires about dessert and I answer as I always do when it's up to me, "What do you have?" "Homemade butter pecan ice cream topped with a little bourbon. Sold. But give me a moment to digest. He gives me a smile and fades away, like a guy who just wants to make sure I get fed, not a waiter who's struggling to remember his lines and "will be taking care of you tonight." God, how I loathe service in Lexington.
Suddenly, I can't focus on reading and am seized with the need to write. Wishing for a laptop & WiFi, I dig out the pocket journal I got for Susannah but requisitioned for myself. And here we are.
Two phone calls later, I'm reminded of life in NYC and trying to make social plans with busy, non-parent friends (which is to say, all of them). I'm a little bummed at the possibility of another dinner alone but decide to get over it. At least I will try a new restaurant every night. Or try to.
The butter pecan is a perfect consistency (better than Chinatown Ice Cream Factory? Better not make that proclamation lest then can hear me think all the way from Manhattan). The bourbon overwhelms at first but by the time I'm halfway through, I start to forget what butter pecan tastes like without bourbon.
It's been drizzling all day and I watch it come down outside and wonder if this is what my life would be like if I were single, 35 and living in Brooklyn I think about reeling in the ladies with my promises of lobster bisque & raspberries Romanoff. I think about quietly browsing comic book stores. I think about missing Sofia and Susannah and I stop thinking.
Julie's chapter ends with a dinner party and it gets me thinking about Susannah's idea for a supper club. I think about the new geometric plates we want and how everyone's kids would play together upstairs while the adults talked and drank and I would sip my Lambic and check on the roast one last time.
