Astute readers may have read the previous post and wondered, “I don’t get it; how is Edith’s attending a Red Sox game proof of Notarius’s love for her? It seems like the Red Sox game was about her showing love for him.” Astute readers, you are correct. But I haven’t gotten to the next bit, which is about things more Miss Edith’s style.
Some ten-ish years ago, when we were young and flighty, Notarius and I had a very pleasant and romantic evening at the Franklin Café. In its infancy at the time, this place was a tiny restaurant in the middle of a mostly-residential street. It was very dark and narrow and loud. One side of the place was a bar with maybe ten or fifteen stools; the other side of the room had maybe ten booths. We ate meatloaf, I remember, sitting side by side in one of the booths, and thought we were in heaven.
We haven’t been back to the Franklin Café in, as I say, a very long time. We stopped spending time in Boston. But we thought about the place a lot, and when we were planning this mini-vacation in Boston, the two things Notarius wanted to do were see the Red Sox and go to Franklin Café.
So after the game ended Thursday night, even though the weather felt angrily cold, surprising for May, we went back to Franklin Café. It was maybe fifteen minutes’ walk from our hotel, which would be nothing in fine weather, but this night I thought, “If the place is crowded and we can’t be seated immediately, I’m going to kill Notarius and then order a pizza to be delivered to the hotel room.” Franklin Café serves dinner until something crazy like two in the morning, which is great, but means that you can show up late – at eleven o’clock, like we did – and worry that you might not be seated for quite some time…
However, Epicurean gods smiled upon us; we walked in the door and were immediately seated. Soon we were gorging ourselves on one of the best meals we’ve had in a long time – and Notarius and I eat, on the whole, really quite well.
We each had a drink: Notarius had a beer of some kind, and I had a Pimm’s Ginger Beer, which was extraordinarily good; we ate the bread given to us, served with a little crock of really garlicky hummus. And we were served our starters. Notarius had ordered matchstick zucchini, which was served under these delicate wedges of Pecorino and sprinkled with almonds – very nice and light; he said he could have eaten a troughful of the stuff. I had roasted mussels, which were fat beauties with this really unusual sort of smokiness from the roasting. Through some miracle, they weren’t even the tiniest bit rubbery or the tiniest bit raw. The chef manages to scoop them off the heat with perfect timing. I did eventually hit one mussel that’d been cooked too much, and had shrived down to the point where it looked like a very small pecan, but it tasted wonderful. And one ouf of all those mussels – it must have been forty mussels in that appetizer – is nothing to be ashamed of.
Our entrees matched: we’d both ordered the steak frites, which was out of this world. We seldom cook red meat, but we eat it happily when we’re out in a restaurant – we trust strangers more than ourselves at being able to cook it right. Oh, does Franklin Café do right by red meat. It was just wonderful. A large fat coin of Roquefort butter was melting over the beef and some of the potatoes as the plates were set down before us, and it reminded me that I always mean to make compound butters and freeze them for future use; I never do this, but plan to get involved in this kind of thing this week.
We ate and ate and ate, and declared ourselves full, still with food on our plates. Had we been returning to a room with a refrigerator afterwards, we’d’ve taken the leftovers home, but that wasn’t an option, and we are greedy; so we ate some more.
Franklin Café does not do desserts, so we didn’t have to feel bad that we weren’t leaving room for some chocolate mousse or something. In a way, that’s a real saving grace of the place, but I have to admit that part of me always wishes, wishes, wishes that they did do desserts. Think of what these people could do with a chocolate mousse, or a crème brulee, or even just a chocolate cake. (As you can tell by my fantasies, my perfect desserts seldom involve things like fruit tarts. Though I will make an exception for coconut cake, which can be the best thing ever, in the right hands.) If I were getting married to Notarius again, I think we would have to serious consider having the reception at Franklin Café. It’d be a noisy reception, and none of the pictures would come out well because it’s so dark in there. But with food like that – and toasts drunk with Pimms and ginger beer – I don’t think I’d really give a shit. It’d be worth it.
Franklin Café. Please go.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The Divine is in the Details: Fashionista!
In this day and age, you may wonder how someone like Miss Edith gets any work done. How, you wonder, does a girl such as I have time to maintain perfectly manicured nails, prepare such fine meals for her adored one, and sit at her adorable little computer tap-tap-tapping these bon mots all the time without going mad? Absolutely barking mad, I mean?
I will grant you, it’s a problem.
Fortunately, come the occasional weekend when I need to let off steam, I have an outlet a few blocks from my home, and Notarius never minds a whit when I bounce out of the house on a Saturday morning to go to the Fashionista tag sale. Located in a secret location a mere five blocks from our little haus, with sales held sporadically, the Fashionista tag sale is one of my great joys of life here in New Haven. New Haven has never been a glamour capital, of course; but odd bits of starlight and exuberant frippery can be found in pockets of this city, and the ladies who run Fashionista reign over one such (fur-lined) pocket.
If any readers happen to find themselves walking around town one day and overhear locals talking about Fashionista, ask about it. Find out. Do some digging. Because if you are in Southern Connecticut and you feel you need more leopard print clothing in your life; you find you lack a sufficient supply of vintage sequined pasties to keep things interesting; you need a fur coat but don’t want to buy something new because you don’t like how they’re working the skins these days; you are attending a cocktail party and would like to wear a hat that boasts virtues having nothing whatsoever to do with warmth or protection from rain; then you need the Fashionista Tag Sale.
If you are lucky enough to figure out how to get there, tell them Miss Edith sent you. They will look at you quizzically at first, then greet you with open arms, offer you champagne, and drape you in the attire you desire. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes…
I will grant you, it’s a problem.
Fortunately, come the occasional weekend when I need to let off steam, I have an outlet a few blocks from my home, and Notarius never minds a whit when I bounce out of the house on a Saturday morning to go to the Fashionista tag sale. Located in a secret location a mere five blocks from our little haus, with sales held sporadically, the Fashionista tag sale is one of my great joys of life here in New Haven. New Haven has never been a glamour capital, of course; but odd bits of starlight and exuberant frippery can be found in pockets of this city, and the ladies who run Fashionista reign over one such (fur-lined) pocket.
If any readers happen to find themselves walking around town one day and overhear locals talking about Fashionista, ask about it. Find out. Do some digging. Because if you are in Southern Connecticut and you feel you need more leopard print clothing in your life; you find you lack a sufficient supply of vintage sequined pasties to keep things interesting; you need a fur coat but don’t want to buy something new because you don’t like how they’re working the skins these days; you are attending a cocktail party and would like to wear a hat that boasts virtues having nothing whatsoever to do with warmth or protection from rain; then you need the Fashionista Tag Sale.
If you are lucky enough to figure out how to get there, tell them Miss Edith sent you. They will look at you quizzically at first, then greet you with open arms, offer you champagne, and drape you in the attire you desire. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes…
Miss Edith Goes to Fenway Park
Miss Edith is not always an exemplary mate; I can be cranky and petulant and I have a tendency toward a certain baroque sloppiness in home décor. But The Most Ethical Man in the World, Notarius, loves me anyway, and proof of this is the trip we recently made to Boston, Massachusetts. Notarius had acquired two tickets to a Red Sox game – these are, I’m told, rather hard to come by – and so I found us a room in downtown Boston and we hopped into our motor vehicle (which we use so little it’s always sort of novel to be in it) and went north.
The Red Sox were playing the Detroit Tigers. I had prepared for attending the match – sorry, game – by packing carefully: I had an extra sweater in addition to my sweatshirt, and I’d selected what I felt was a near-perfect book to read while everyone around me swilled overpriced beer and screamed into each others’ ears: Peter Farrelly’s only novel, Outside Providence. It isn’t about Boston or baseball, no; but it was written by Mr. Farrelly some 20 years ago, before he became noted for making phenomenally stupid movies, and before he made his little valentine to the Red Sox, the Drew Barrymore-Jimmy Fallon movie Fever Pitch. It’s a slim paperback, Outside Providence, and I’d been meaning to read it for some time, and I thought, “This is perfect. It’s geographically appropriate, and if it gets trashed because someone spills a beer on it, I won’t mind so much.”
Miss Edith has not attended so many baseball games, almost certainly less than ten in her life, but she has brought a book to each and every one of them. Baseball is, shall we say, not among my passions. However, Notarius is an ardent follower of the game, and we’ve come to enjoy our method of enjoying the summertime sprees: he yells at the game and mutters when something goes wrong, and I pretty much ignore it all but occasionally pipe up, “Goddamnit, I thought these guys were ballplayers!” just to make it sound like I’m participating. As they say, every couple has a way of making things work.
So I was genuinely surprised when we reached the ninth inning of this Red Sox/Tigers game and I realized that I’d not even taken my book from my (red patent leather, thank you very much) purse. I’d been sitting there in miserably cold, damp Boston air, surrounded by people who may be nice in the real world but who, in the confines of the ballpark, came off as moronic assholes (save the nice British woman to my right, who was really quite charming and surprisingly enthusiastic about the game); one might have thought that Miss Edith would have been content to burrow into a book for a few hours. But it never came to pass. No: I stood when everyone else stood, to see what had happened when it looked like an outfielder had smashed his face into tiny bits trying to catch a ball; I clapped my hands when everyone else did, to show support of the team; I did everything one is supposed to do at a baseball game, for the most part. There were a few things I refrained from: I did not drink beer (damned if I’m going to pay those inflated prices for mediocre beverages and comestibles), I did not sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and I did not do The Wave.
You can sue Miss Edith any time you wish, but there’s no gains to be had, I can advise you.
So I’d intended to be able to tell you something about Peter Farrelly’s Outside Providence by now, but I cannot; I still have not even opened it. I can tell you, however, that if you’re going to Fenway Park in late May, a wool sweater is advisable. Even with the extra gear I’d carried up to Boston, it was still unbelievably cold. I pity the people who attended last night’s game, when it was cold and raining, and I understand the Red Sox lost by something like 11 to nothing.
The Red Sox were playing the Detroit Tigers. I had prepared for attending the match – sorry, game – by packing carefully: I had an extra sweater in addition to my sweatshirt, and I’d selected what I felt was a near-perfect book to read while everyone around me swilled overpriced beer and screamed into each others’ ears: Peter Farrelly’s only novel, Outside Providence. It isn’t about Boston or baseball, no; but it was written by Mr. Farrelly some 20 years ago, before he became noted for making phenomenally stupid movies, and before he made his little valentine to the Red Sox, the Drew Barrymore-Jimmy Fallon movie Fever Pitch. It’s a slim paperback, Outside Providence, and I’d been meaning to read it for some time, and I thought, “This is perfect. It’s geographically appropriate, and if it gets trashed because someone spills a beer on it, I won’t mind so much.”
Miss Edith has not attended so many baseball games, almost certainly less than ten in her life, but she has brought a book to each and every one of them. Baseball is, shall we say, not among my passions. However, Notarius is an ardent follower of the game, and we’ve come to enjoy our method of enjoying the summertime sprees: he yells at the game and mutters when something goes wrong, and I pretty much ignore it all but occasionally pipe up, “Goddamnit, I thought these guys were ballplayers!” just to make it sound like I’m participating. As they say, every couple has a way of making things work.
So I was genuinely surprised when we reached the ninth inning of this Red Sox/Tigers game and I realized that I’d not even taken my book from my (red patent leather, thank you very much) purse. I’d been sitting there in miserably cold, damp Boston air, surrounded by people who may be nice in the real world but who, in the confines of the ballpark, came off as moronic assholes (save the nice British woman to my right, who was really quite charming and surprisingly enthusiastic about the game); one might have thought that Miss Edith would have been content to burrow into a book for a few hours. But it never came to pass. No: I stood when everyone else stood, to see what had happened when it looked like an outfielder had smashed his face into tiny bits trying to catch a ball; I clapped my hands when everyone else did, to show support of the team; I did everything one is supposed to do at a baseball game, for the most part. There were a few things I refrained from: I did not drink beer (damned if I’m going to pay those inflated prices for mediocre beverages and comestibles), I did not sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and I did not do The Wave.
You can sue Miss Edith any time you wish, but there’s no gains to be had, I can advise you.
So I’d intended to be able to tell you something about Peter Farrelly’s Outside Providence by now, but I cannot; I still have not even opened it. I can tell you, however, that if you’re going to Fenway Park in late May, a wool sweater is advisable. Even with the extra gear I’d carried up to Boston, it was still unbelievably cold. I pity the people who attended last night’s game, when it was cold and raining, and I understand the Red Sox lost by something like 11 to nothing.
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