Culinarily Speaking

This past weekend was exceedingly exciting for me.

Firstly, I left Corvallis for a day.  Isn't it amazing how tied to home we become week after week, and how exciting a trip to Albany can be?  Oh----maybe that's just me.

Secondly, I got a little further than Albany this time.  I actually made it all the way to Portland.  Woo hoo!  Bright lights, big city!

Thirdly, I had an excellent day with a lovely friend.

Fourthly, I had a fanTAStic dinner in a fancy restaurant.  I had a bit of nice cheese.  I had a delicious roasted asparagus salad, and even ate the egg yolk that unctiously coated the perfectly cooked spears.  I had a veal chop with fingerling potatoes and a smoked marrow butter oozing down over the top of it.  I experienced the divine velvety smoothness of foie gras for the first time.  I sigh dramatically...

What did this all lead up to?  I saw the man speak who wrote Kitchen Confidential, and now stars in No Reservations on the Travel Channel.  I had to eat delicious food before seeing him, because there is no better way to honor a man who speaks so lovingly of things like veal and foie gras.  He also cusses worse than any sailor I've ever seen (not that I meet a lot of sailors...) 

Anthony Bourdain was in Portland flogging his newest book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, and I was fortunate enough to get a signed copy of the book and see him in person at the Bagdad Theater.  The whole experience was pretty awesome, I have to say.  I was ever-so-slightly awestruck by his person, even though he was way down on the stage, and I was WAY UP in the balcony.  His "reading" was loosely based on the same excerpt I'd read on NPR.com, and he sounded like he was kind of done with that particular passage, to be honest.  The Q&A part of the evening was interesting, though.  He seemed relaxed and honest, if tired, and was ready to drop the requisite string of F-bombs.

All in all, it's interesting to hear the author of a book you enjoy talk about what he's written and what he loves.  Bourdain has certainly grown up since the publication of his first book (grown up?  He was 45 then...), and it's interesting to see what's different and what he's learned.  It was an awesome trip.

Any trip with such a dear friend three before her wedding is by definition awesome.  (Congratulations, My Little Friend!)

And now I get to settle down and read the book with fond associations.  See you at the bookstore, friends.

Pamela.