WE NEVER TAKE THE BEFORE PHOTO

I can’t remember where this was, or what we ate, but somehow that seems appropriate.

Bleeding heart. This is an Elephant Heart Plum. 

My leftovers. His fucked-up sense of feng shui.

(Soup from Momofuku Noodle Bar. Re-served at home.)

She is good at melting. He is good at knowing how to put her back together. 

Dark chocolate gelato infused with jalapeno peppers. Standing at the kitchen counter, at home, in Brooklyn.

Vinegar Hill House. Brooklyn, NY. That night, we were the only two people there who were not wearing plaid. The beet greens tasted best when we ate them with our hands in the back seat of the cab, during the ride home.

Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. 02/17/10. Everything in their home was well-designed. The label matched the kettle, for example. I refrained from commenting on this out loud and poured some more wine.

Balthazar. To go. In the H&M dressing room. 10/24/09

Another boy, another Balthazar tart-type-thing. To be precise: a small quiche. What else was in it does not matter. What matters is that we were asked to leave. Not for illicit reasons, and not because we were eating quiche while he tried on button-down shirts. We were asked to leave after I expressed my disgust at the salesgirl who found an iPhone in the dressing room next door and then asked us not to “tell on her” since she was excited to keep it. I told her that I was going to “tell on her.” She said, “Well, I’m going to tell on you,” for sharing a dressing room and a quiche and a fork, I suppose, at the same time. She said, “I am NOT going to ask you to leave, but I SHOULD.” I did not have a response funny enough for that, so we left.

Momofuku Noodle Bar. 12/26/09. This wasn’t our dish, and we felt sort of annoyed with ourselves — taking a quick stealth photo, with our phone, of the chef who was about two feet in front of us, while we pretended to be swiping at something on the small internet we held in our hands. But look at that steak! And those knife skills.

At Balthazar, or, outside of Balthazar actually. Yesterday. 12/15/08. It might have been a date. We shared a tart of sorts. A small round mess of gorgonzola, mushrooms, thin potato slices that seemed unnecessary, and carmelized onions that were perfectly translucent but kept slipping out all over the place.  We forgot to take napkins so I wiped my hands on his pants. Oh, I guess that makes it a date.

Chocolate pudding he made, accidentally, with my anti-anxiety medication. His kitchen. New York, NY. 12/08/08

The before photo would have involved a box of cocoa powder, a few cups of heavy cream, some eggs, a stand mixer.

The after photo should not include my Xanax in the bottom of the bowl. He was preparing for a very long flight. And cooking chocolate pudding from scratch.  I could only really help with one of the two situations. I should not have placed the Schedule IV drug I was giving him for the flight into the mise en place glass. I thought it a safe space for a small pill.  I guess he’ll have to take the pudding on the plane.

Golden Osetra. 12/04/08. I am allergic to fish. My reaction: anaphylactic. But I was offered a taste of this amazingness.  The image above actually is the after photo, though it looks pretty much untouched because I ate only exactly two eggs off of a tiny white spoon.

I’d always laughed when they described great caviar as being like “a kiss from the sea.”  Now I get it.  Those two eggs tasted like making out with the ocean.

But then I got nervous. I wasn’t sure if my lips were starting to itch, if my throat was swelling shut, or if it was all an imaginary response, in my head.  So I took both a Benedryl and a Xanax to cover all bases — potential allergic reaction and panic attack.

Wedding dinner. Short Hills, New Jersey. 11/29/08. We’re not even sure what is on this plate. Note the one bite taken and a bit of moving things around so it looked like we were eating when the bride stopped by to greet the table.  We were done. We’d already had like a million mini hot dogs at the cocktail hour.  And then, after a few drinks, we had trouble figuring out what we were served. They said it was salmon. We were stunned. Rarely does a before look so much like an after, and an after like a before. They called “all the single ladies” on to the dance floor, but then they did not play Beyonce. 

Cupcakes. Billy’s Bakery. Second dessert of the night. After a trip to the Shake Shack. Oy. 11/26/08