Posted by Loulou on Jul 21, 2015 | 2 comments

Pretty, but it had better taste good, too…

Oh, boy, mama and papa have made a pact, and you know what that means. Well, it means that they have decided between them about something that maybe they did over a period of time but will NEVER DO AGAIN. (Like take me on a boat, haha–in your dreams!)

In this case, it’s fancy restaurants. They went to one last night and everyone was really nice and attentive and the view was great and the price was on the moon and the food was frou-frou and complicated and had NO taste at all and needed salt and the gazpacho was thin and watery and the amuses geules (to make your muzzle titillated) were unidentifiable even after the waiter described them at length as if he were reciting the Gettysburg Address. Don’t get this wrong, the waiter was very nice and knowledgeable but food that is taken that seriously had better be memorable and exceptional, especially for the price.  And mama loves those little “firsts”–sometimes they are the best thing on the menu.

They could have built me a cat gymnasium for what they paid, haha. Just kidding! It wasn’t all that bad, and in this heat I can’t even walk much less use a gym, whatever that is.

Still, one is disappointed, especially one who cooks and loves very good food, when a romantic, lovely place known for its food turns out to have feet of clay.  But they still have their Michelin star.  Hmm….

Mama had a cookie on the plate with her fish that tasted like Miss Grace Lemon Cake, a famous dessert in LA years ago. But lemon cake with fish, oh, boy. A crisp salty cookie, perhaps, but not an overly sweet slice of something with a hard pound cake consistency.

Okay, enough of this. They know better. Here’s what mama says she likes: “I love simple, I love friends’ food/ I love our food/ I love tapas/ I love trattorie where the mama is in the kitchen (or papa) and knows what she/he is doing/ I love homemade picnics at the Hollywood Bowl/ I love eating out of the garden/I love little funny bistros in France where steak/pommes frites are all you get except for mussels in Pernod and both of them are pretty good, almost always/I love commercial sandwiches on the freeway in France–roast chicken with Dijon mustard, smoked salmon and crème fraiche, tuna with crudites’, jambon and beurre (one of the greats—ham and butter), I love other peoples’ cooking just for the surprise of it, I love a tomato, some cheese, some good bread, some olive oil, some basil, and good vino. BASTA with the fancy restaurants almost everywhere, except for a couple or three in Italy that are still pretty amazing and one around here that is truly outstanding, but they are few and far between.  And mama has admiration for the French reverence for skilfully prepared food, but it is sometimes just too complicated and masks the real flavour of the ingredients.

The Rome ristoranti are all “creative” except for a few that are left and “creative” means, “My mamma knew how to do it but now that they have turned it over to me, I have no idea!” So we stick to Il Buco and La Pigna and dal Filettaro and are happy.

But enough with this Ferran Adria mousse of calf’s liver or blue eggs because NO ONE can mousse like Ferran!!! I like my liver cut thin, barely grilled, pink inside, or the way my mama did it: small 1-inch cubes of liver tossed in flour, paprika, salt and pepper and sautéed fast in olive oil, then splashed with red wine to make a syrupy sauce. Chopped parsley sprinkled over all.”

Mama says it’s the best liver recipe in the world, but she always talks in hyperbole, whatever that is!

Wow, enough ranting and raving. Give me a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and Thou (actually, the two of you) beside me singing in the wilderness, O, wilderness were Paradise enow! (Whatever that means). I think it means that only that is enough for me.

Or better yet, some catnip and a little of that sautéed liver…

Just don’t give me a lemon cookie with my kibble.

HEY, kitties don’t eat SALAD!!! Whadda ya, NUTS?