When I was small I decided that I liked Dijon mustard but not yellow. I decided that I liked the kind of peanut butter that had to be stirred and kept in the refrigerator. I ate muesli whenever possible. In short, I became a food snob at an early age and actually had to rediscover the crappy food items like American cheese or Totinos pizza rolls at a less haughty and more accepting age.
Yet all of my pre-teen bravado and PBS-cooking-show devotion, and all of my food-network viewing and owning of capers is just a little bit deceiving because although I enjoy all of that type of frou-frou flim-flammery, until yesterday I had never tried foie gras.
I used to be the food columnist and I did what I could with my limited knowledge. I felt my job was to review the restaurant as a whole and I become intrigued with atmosphere. It's almost as though when a body-hairless me decided that I only liked brown mustard what I was really doing was choosing a pompous atmosphere for myself. Pompous little me was also choosing to favor a more rewarding and challenging flavor.
Separating that pompousness from the desire to experience the different tastes of the world with all the discerning and appreciative faculties was an important task, and a different one since being aware of your own discernment seems to make people pompous.
When a chef writes a short piece that describes farmers as friends and the virtues of the specific spinach in familiar--yet flowery--prose and places it on the top of the menu, when there is a map of Wisconsin with arrows pointing to the birthplaces of all the ingredients used that day, when the waiter speaks with a fake accent, is it all pompous or is it all part of a necessary scenario to raise dining to an aesthetic experience?
I am of course hinting that I went to L'??toile this weekend. There is nowhere else I have wanted to go so badly as L'??toile. I was curious as to whether all the slow-food (knowing where the food comes from, usually organic, etc.) ideals and the Odessa the Beloved welcomes you to her splendid kitchen of widely acclaimed wonders would rub me the wrong way or not. I also wanted to try the food.
L'??toile did not disappoint. The d??cor is inviting and classy at the same time. There is a hanging wood and copper grid-like structure in the main seating area and it succeeds at being interesting, making the atmosphere more intimate, keeping with the wood and copper theme of the bar, being both shiny and dun and in general winning me over. There was a bit of the pomp and circumstance about the place. The root vegetable pure?? with truffle oil was described in a vowel-clinging pretentious Wisconsinite voice as, \A gift from the kitchen."" I didn't mind it.
The staff never made us feel like unworthy college kids and everything from the skate wings to the coffee was utterly fantastic. The whole experience was invigorating and utterly incorporated into the consciousness of the moment. To me fine dining is when you eat slowly because each bite is the product of deliberation on what to taste next. I just try not to be an ass about it.
Next week: Bon Appetit Caf??. Is more hipster and less yachting better?
Justin R. Damm is a senior majoring in English who may be reached at scavenberry@hotmail.com. His column runs every Monday in The Daily Cardinal.
