By Paul Levine
Cornelia’s ruminations about food last week made me hungry and also raised this question. What’s your favorite summer meal? I just had mine last Saturday night.
Cold poached wild Pacific salmon with a tomato fennel salad at Boneyard Bistro in Sherman Oaks. Aaron Robins, (center, above), the inventive chef-owner, serves the dish with a fingerling potato salad seasoned with mustard and spiced with chopped cornichons. For starters, keeping cool, an unusual gazpacho with sliced shitakes and a sweet soy. I also speared forkfulls of Renée’s appetizer, a fire-roasted artichoke filled with cerviche. Mmmm.
Renée (“She Who Must Be Fed...But Not Too Much”) opted for the seared ahi tower as an entree, even though it’s listed as an appetizer. Why do women do that...order two appetizers for dinner? (There’s Renée, pictured with lethal Lee Child and me in Phoenix at Thrillerfest. That night, we enjoyed rib eye steaks with Carol Fitzgerald and Michele Martinez at Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale).
But back to last Saturday. It hit 92 degrees in the San Fernando Valley. Did I mention the banana split in a martini glass for desert? The bananas are caramelized.
The Boneyard Bistro is an unusual restaurant, with hip, nouvelle entrees (ancho-chocolate pork tenderloin) on one side of the menu and traditional barbecue on the other. We’re talking St. Louis spare ribs, back backs, pulled pork, brisket, collard greens, and of course, fried macaroni and cheese.
Anybody getting hungry?
MINI MONDAY NIGHT MUSINGS:
Regardless of your political views, doesn’t Ann Coulter debase public discourse with her hateful diatribes?
Is there a more irritating television commercial than “The Video Professor?”
The Big Lebowski gets my vote for funniest movie ever made. Sample dialogue: The Dude (Jeff Bridges), on being forced into a limo while holding his usual White Russian: “Hey, careful man. There’s a beverage here!” Related question: Is Bridges the most underrated actor of our time? Consider his body of work from “The Last Picture Show” to “The Door in the Floor” with “The Fabulous Baker Boys” and nearly 60 other movies thrown in. Then get back to me.
WRITER’S QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“My father [John Kenneth Galbraith] always said that in the fifth draft he introduced that note of spontaneity for which his writing was well known.” – Peter W. Galbraith, in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
Paul
That's my favorite Lebowski line, too. Runners-up, both from the Dude:
ReplyDelete"My only hope is that the Big Lebowski can kill me before the Germans cut my dick off."
"I could just be sitting at home with pee stains on my rug ... that rug really pulled the room together."
Paul, perhaps you should attend Lebowski Fest
http://www.lebowskifest.com/
I don't know why women order two appetizers and call it dinner, since I usually order the bacon cheeseburger deluxe and call it an appetizer. Ah, sweet mysteries of life...
ReplyDeleteAnd now I have to go rent the Big Lebowski. AND I want to go to the restaurants you guys go to!
Love Jeff Bridges!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite summer supper is eating a mac and cheese TV dinner over the sink.
Well, the polysyllabic perspective, probably. Also the "I am a wife who gets called Bunny" perspective, which might make me biased......
ReplyDeleteOmigod, Cornelia. Are you forcing us to reveal our pet names?
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thanks, David Thayer.
ReplyDeleteOkay, call me sappy. My fave Jeff Bridges movie is Starman.
Worst Jeff Bridges film: The Jagged Edge. But that wasn't Jeff's fault. It was the horrendous script.
I actually have my characters discussing The Jagged Edge in one of my books. Shit, I can't remember which one. My brain is tapped out from too much blog activity [I write my Murderati blog on Tuesdays, then read Paul's blog]. I guess it's time to shut down my computer and watch The Mirror Has Two Faces...
Patty, I would NEVER force anyone to reveal their pet names. But I gave away mine in my book already.
ReplyDeleteBUNNY, though... WTF? Still have to wonder over that one. I think it's an irony thing?
Cornelia, isn't Bunny sort of an East Coast WASPy nickname? I actually know a couple of East Coasters who are called Bunny by friends and spouses alike. It's just one of those great EC nicknames like Bitsy and Nookie and...ah, the list goes on.
ReplyDeletefrom Jacqueline
ReplyDeleteI have always thought Jeff Bridges was great, so you can imagine how I felt when I was with my dark horse brother one day, driving through Montecito, as JB passes us going in the opposite direction, and waves to my bro. "Do you know him?" I asked. "More to the point, does he know you?"
Turns out that when my brother was driving limos (he was laid off from a job and vowed never to be out of work again, so he made sure he had various commercial driving licenses, including limo driver to "fall back on") he had a gig to take JB to LAX where a private jet was supposed to be waiting. The flight kept being delayed, which meant my brother had to wait in JB's driveway. Eventually, JB strolled out and told my brother to come in and wait - so they hung out in JB's kitchen chatting for a few hours. My bro says he is just one of the nicest people you'd ever meet.
I really liked Starman too, and I have yet to see The Big Lebowski - better go out to rent it soon before there's a run on it!
Great dialogue. I loved that movie, too. What's Michelle Pheiffer up to these days. I haven't seen her in anything for ages.
ReplyDelete