press week eats
I had a good goddamn meal tonight. Blair, Paul, Erin, Chelsey, Laura, and I went to Restaurant 17 and just ate everything in sight.
Smoked local trout spread. (With pickled onion & buckwheat “Wheat Thins”)
A platter of cured local meats, artisan cheeses, and housemade pickles.
Housemade rye panzanella. (With roasted beets, peppers, shaved onion, local greens, baby fennel, shaved breakfast radish, pickled wild ramps, ricotta & herbs)
Heritage pork crepinette & belly. (With Anson Mills farro piccolo, spring squash & zucchini, roasted peppers, cippolini onion & baby tatsoi)
Local trout. (With brown butter cauliflower, pickled shallot, pistachio, citrus, wild ramps, local kale & brown butter)
Herb goat cheese agnolotti. (With local ramps, oyster mushrooms, citrus rind puree & chervil broth)
Alabama grass-fed flank steak. (With fingerling potatoes, kohlrabi, roasted fennel, charred scallion, shaved French butter radish, salsa verde & roasted garlic jus)
Plus some desserts they don’t even have listed on their website right now.
I don’t know how you beat that. Even better, Chef McPhee came out and chatted with us for a bit--we hung out with him last week when Paul shot the charcuterie.
Something was missing, though. I have a suspicion as to what. But. A suspicion is all.
On the way home from out past Travelers Rest, I drove my beat-to-shit Honda like I haven’t driven in months. Maybe a year. It felt good, and I felt a little better. I wanted another drink or so. But I just went home and walked to the apartment pool and smoked a year-old Camel.
I’m tired after this week. And though it’s been five business days, #pressweek isn’t over yet. We go back into the office tomorrow, and we might not ship until Tuesday. Hopefully late Monday.
It’s good to share this food, this laughter, these drinks with friends and coworkers. I love them all dearly. But I have seen them a lot this week.
And maybe I’m just in the mood to look at someone else, and to share a look or a taste with someone amid all the laughter and conversation. A private flash of a moment.
I feel like I’m writing like I’m drunk. I’m not. I’m just sitting on the edge of my bed, smelling vaguely of cigarettes and looking at floorplans of apartments I can’t afford in this tiny city I call home and, as much as I can tell, do love.
I’ll drink more water. Set my alarm for 9am. Maybe do laundry in the morning. Go to work. Go to the gym. And then it’ll be Monday.