bad metaphor

I am glad the budget issue got resolved and we will get our paychecks this Friday, because last night was a bit of a splurge! E had taken me to Pachamama’s for Lincoln’s day, so I had to think of something good for my turn on President’s day. I immediately thought back to my surprise birthday, when E had taken me to Cafe Beautiful – it was the best birthday present ever! He had mentioned in passing that Cafe Beautiful is one of the only two places in Lawrence where you need to make a reservation. The other place is Krause Dining. Robert Krause is a renowned chef who eventually settled in Lawrence, KS, and won a battle with the city to operate out of his own home. Here’s an interview with the Krauses at Lawrence.com. E had always been curious about trying it, but had been dissuaded by the price tag.

Now E is probably the most adventurous picky eater I have ever met. Most picky eaters I have encountered are people who refuse to eat anything but pizza, mac ‘n cheese from a box, and maybe plain spaghetti with a little bit of sauce (but nothing too spicy). And, according to non-scientific observation, these tend to be boys who have been spoiled terribly by their mothers. E, though one could argue that he is maybe just a teensy bit spoiled by his mom, is a bit different. It’s easy to categorize “vegetarians” as those who don’t eat meat, say, or people who can’t eat gluten. E’s rules are a little less predictable.

“They are totally easy,” says E. “I don’t eat: tomatoes, olives, beef or marzipan.” Or pork, because a psychic on ecstasy once told him to abstain. Or most seafood, or things that taste kind of fishy. Or crunchy things in soft things and vice versa.

Right. Before I made the reservation at Krause’s, I had just read Michael Ruhlman’s rant about picky eaters and the NYT blog that inspired his rant. In solidarity with chefs exasperated by picky eaters, I thought “right on!” and decided not to mention any of his weird food quibbles at first. I reserved via email, and got a response: “Do you have any dietary preferences, i.e. vegetarian?”

Now, I was totally torn. Should I blow tons of money on an elaborate meal that E wouldn’t be able to eat? Or should I temper my pride and just make sure we would both be able to have an enjoyable dinner? I wavered over this, because it’s not as though E is the way he is for ethical or allergy reasons. He’s just damn finicky, and maybe I could just push his culinary boundaries, just a wee bit. I got him to be okay with sundried tomatoes, to the point where he won’t go out of his way to eat around them. However, I have seen him meticulously excise normal tomatoes out of his meal, no matter how finely diced. I decided to compromise, and asked him what he absolutely, definitely would not compromise on when it came to food. The answer was “tomatoes and olives. Oh, and no brains or waste organs or other weird…” I cut him off at tomatoes and olives, and that’s what went in when I set in the reservation. Immediately afterwards I regretted not mentioning E’s beef dispreference. My friend mentioned that she thought Krause probably would pick a more exotic (well, exotic for Kansas) protein, like duck or quail or something. I did not know what the menu would be until the day before, when I got an email that mentioned diver scallops and Kobe beef. Oops.

Krause Dining, as mentioned at the top, operates out of the Krauses’ home, a slick modern architectural construct amidst some shabbier houses, which is the way of East Lawrence. When we walked in, we were shown through the house – through the kitchen, where chef and sous chef were busy preparing the food – into the dimly lit lounge, where we sat and felt awkward. I think this was meant to be homey and comforting, maybe, but it was kind of like visits to “that one stern auntie’s house” when you were little and she had nice furniture, and you didn’t want to break anything or look stupid. We were offered cocktails while we waited, and the waiter mentioned that there was also an open bar, and left the room. In the corner of the room, there was a table loaded with liquor bottles. E whispered: “does ‘open bar’ mean we can just go over there and pour ourselves a glass?” and I had no idea, so we just sat there. I mean, you don’t just go into someone’s house and drink their liquor…unless it’s a restaurant also…ahh, so confusing. Eventually some other people showed up and we were shown to our tables.

Before we sat down, we were again asked about dietary preferences. “Just no tomatoes and olives,” I said, a little embarrassed, and when she left E said “maybe I should have said no red meat too!” I shrugged and told him tough luck, he would have to try everything. But he was a great sport, and when I assured him there wouldn’t be anything crazy on the menu like goat heads or beef tripe (I did not know this for certain), he said he would at least try everything that was put before him.

The first course came out, and the waitress sat a plate before me that consisted of foie gras on a toasted bruschetta, with a blueberry compote on the side and some berry reduction, couldn’t catch what. Before E, she set down a fried cauliflower with a curry sauce. We looked at each other. “Well, that worked out really nicely for our individual tastes,” I said, and since I was so preoccupied with downing the foie gras I forgot to photograph it, which is the problem with food photography. Can’t let the food get cold!

Another problem with food photography is that it is difficult to take photos of food in extremely yellow, low-lit circumstances without the food looking like shit. Photographer readers: how do you do this?! I have tried tweaking levels and color balances in photoshop, but it still looks awful.

The next few courses we were served the same dish: a diver scallop with bacon on top of an Asian pear risotto (E, despite the psychic’s admonition, was super excited about the bacon. Hey, bacon is just too tasty to omit from one’s life), a poached egg fried and battered with panko served on a salad with pancetta. With the poached egg dish I had this absolutely dreamy wine that smelled like a field full of herbs, maybe. I wished I could put some in a vial and wear it around my neck so I could quaff it every now and then, it smelled so wonderful.

Then came the dreaded / anticipated Kobe beef dish. The waitress introduced it as “American Kobe beef,” which made us laugh because how can you have American Kobe beef? That’s kind of like drinking a “California Bourdeaux.” We were so distracted by that at first, and my eagerness to devour everything that was set in front of me – that I didn’t look over at E’s plate, until he said, “they must have microphones or something in the tables.”

“Why’s that?”

“Look at my plate.” E’s plate looked just like mine, except it did NOT have the beef. In its place was a bouquet of roasted onions.

“Oh my god,” I said, suddenly a little weirded out. “How did they know?” I immediately felt bad for making fun of the American kobe beef, because they could clearly hear me! Or read our minds, or something. I tried to remember if maybe the waiters overheard E’s thing about red meat. But I don’t think they were in the room when he whispered that?

The most regrettable example of food photography. Sigh.

Since he was game for trying everything, I gave him a little portion of the beef, and he said that was the only time he’d ever tried steak and liked it, and I suggested saying something to the waiters. “No no,” he said, greedily digging into the onions. “I love these onions, they are the best onions I’ve ever had, I would not change a thing.” Well, okay then! I was really happy with my dish, and thought the flavors blended together really nicely: a truffle mashed potato with a bit of acid for great effect, and this absolutely dynamic mushroom (I forget what the waitress said it was). It was super delicious.

Afterwards we had a kind of Asian dessert that I liked, and E didn’t, further demonstrating his theory that desserts based in tropical countries are terrible. “It does look nice!” Well, I liked it anyway:

Then the final dessert damn near about killed us, or me at any rate. I was already very full when this came out, a chocolate souffle with sweetened whipped cream that was rich rich rich:

Souffle of death!

This dessert was more to E’s liking, but I would have enjoyed it much more if there were less of it. Especially with these small plates, I feel compelled to eat everything – but I just couldn’t do it with this. I was about ready to collapse. Then out came a refreshment, a sweet ice with a very thin star shaped cookie on top. I did not photograph this because I was in a very poor state of consciousness at this point, from being uncomfortably full and tipsy from all the wine!

I’m not sure if we were supposed to wait for the chef to come out after the meal – now that I look back on it I think we probably should have, but another table left and so we did too. I did write down a thank you note on the back of the receipt, and hope that was enough to not be terribly rude. If I kept sitting there, though, they would have had to scrape me out of that chair with a chainsaw so I probably did them a favor.

My assessment of Krause dining: wonderful food, slightly confusing environment to culinary rubes like us, and also the chefs READ MINDS.

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