Slippery Little Suckers
So we went to L’Absinthe last week. And they actually do serve Absinthe—it’s nice to know that I could charge people $11 to $14 dollars per glass for the stuff I already have in my fridge. We didn’t get to have any absinthe (although I got to see some of the absinthe fountains I have been coveting) but we did try the escargots.
Now, I’m a pretty adventurous eater and I enjoy fancy food (and really unfancy food) but the French confuse me a lot. Like if someone said I’m going to serve you the most expensive fancy dinner and you showed up and it was snails and frog legs and duck liver—you’d think they kept all the money they were going to use and raided a swamp instead.
In any case, just about everyone ordered the snails to start. And fortunately for me (and unfortunately for you) they didn’t serve them in the shells so there was no chance I’d be tossing them around the room when trying to eat them. They came in this really hot little iron plate and had some green butter stuff on top of them. They were a mushroomy color and when you ate them…
They tasted just like mushrooms and the texture…just like mushrooms. In fact, they were even sitting on top of some other little mushrooms. So basically, if you dig mushrooms, garlic and butter, you should have no issue with escargots.
It’s funny how just like with the oysters I expected some weird terrible texture issue, but really it was all pretty anti-climactic—I guess Roosevelt was right with all that “nothing to fear, but fear itself” mumbo-jumbo. It seems things are always a lot less worse than you imagine.
This bit of wisdom has made me reconsider my game plan and perhaps try to step things up a bit. Maybe I should be a bit more Emeril-esque and “bump it up a notch”. Now, now I’m not going to reveal what I have planned, because that would ruin the surprise. But I have a few ideas slated for July that may prove exciting—at least moreso than bunny cakes and snails.
In the meantime, I’m starting June and one thing already guaranteed for the agenda is my trip up to Boston for Beantown Camp. I’m going on my own and staying for a week. I’ve only been to Boston once, never been to a “camp” of any kind (even though long, long ago I was in marching band), never been on a vacation alone and haven’t been on one as long as week since my trip to India for my best friend’s wedding. (And I still classify that as an “adventure” and not a vacation, because if I need more shots than I can count, malaria pills and have to worry about what kind of toilet I’m using it just doesn’t feel like a vakay, if you catch my drift.)
So I’m off to work on my packing list, and lists of my packing lists and lists of the stuff I need to buy so I can add them to the packing lists. Don’t Judge Me! I like lists okay, its not like I’m smoking crack. Okay maybe it’s a little more pathetic than that, but it free, somewhat useful and doesn’t fuck up my teeth.
jessica said,
August 27, 2010 at 9:45 pm
I LOVE escargot. It amazes me when people say they don’t–I assume they’ve never tried them. Who doesn’t like buttery little sponges that are sometimes covered in cheese? I can’t stand absinthe–I can smell it from across the bar and it makes me nauseous (this happens most frequently in NOLA). Which is too bad because I really like drinks with “rituals”.