eating greek
Last night SK took me to a shi-shi greek restaurant in the Pearl district for a belated Valentine's dinner. SK lived in Greece for something like 16 months and loves the food and learned a lot about it while she was there. SK has lived a long time in many places and she has a breadth of experience that is inspiring and intimidating at the same time. "Tell me again about the village in Nepal, the food in India, the land in Tasmania." My stories tend to revolve around a much more internal landscape, but we both manage incredibly well together.
The shi-shi Greek restaurant was dim and glittery and I regretted too late that I hadn't worn better clothes. Instead, I worked from 8 to 4 at my little homeless shelter and wore the kind of bum-wear normal to that setting and somehow resisted preparing for our evening any more than just that. Oh well. It was a passing regret that faded.
We saw a mutual friend who is a server (not a waiter -- but why a server and not a waiter? it is a mystery...) he is a server at this restaurant -- a strikingly gorgeous man I've known since 2001 and who I see very infrequently, so last night I noticed how he is aging, so subtly, his body changing slightly, thickening, his face ever so slightly slipping a little. Just a little. Some of the shine is off. Just a bit. But god, a beautiful man. And generous -- he sent over the tastiest prawns and gave us our wine on the house. A greek wine, I can't remember the name, but promised (warned) to be "piney" -- its claim to fame, its pininess. I (who grew up among the high pines of the southeast, having sucked many pine-needles in my day, licked stubborn sap off hands, etc) I was intrigued by the possibility of drinking piney wine and was a little disappointed that it didn't taste the least bit piney to me. Perhaps my palette was ruined by sucking pine-needles as a child?
Regardless, the restaurant was lovely, SK was un-fucking-believably gorgeous, and the food was a non-linear, meandering feast which took 2 hours for us to work through. It is now my most favorite restaurant experience. We ate slowly, we shared all dishes, I tried new things (mostly lamb, new to me), we talked and talked throughout and our time was punctuated with little micro-visits from Aleks as he whisked among tables tending to everyone during his very busy shift. Saturday night in the Pearl.
Then we walked to the car and looked up at the few stars shining bright enough to penetrate the city's penumbra of light-pollution. And it was all quite magical. The end.
The shi-shi Greek restaurant was dim and glittery and I regretted too late that I hadn't worn better clothes. Instead, I worked from 8 to 4 at my little homeless shelter and wore the kind of bum-wear normal to that setting and somehow resisted preparing for our evening any more than just that. Oh well. It was a passing regret that faded.
We saw a mutual friend who is a server (not a waiter -- but why a server and not a waiter? it is a mystery...) he is a server at this restaurant -- a strikingly gorgeous man I've known since 2001 and who I see very infrequently, so last night I noticed how he is aging, so subtly, his body changing slightly, thickening, his face ever so slightly slipping a little. Just a little. Some of the shine is off. Just a bit. But god, a beautiful man. And generous -- he sent over the tastiest prawns and gave us our wine on the house. A greek wine, I can't remember the name, but promised (warned) to be "piney" -- its claim to fame, its pininess. I (who grew up among the high pines of the southeast, having sucked many pine-needles in my day, licked stubborn sap off hands, etc) I was intrigued by the possibility of drinking piney wine and was a little disappointed that it didn't taste the least bit piney to me. Perhaps my palette was ruined by sucking pine-needles as a child?
Regardless, the restaurant was lovely, SK was un-fucking-believably gorgeous, and the food was a non-linear, meandering feast which took 2 hours for us to work through. It is now my most favorite restaurant experience. We ate slowly, we shared all dishes, I tried new things (mostly lamb, new to me), we talked and talked throughout and our time was punctuated with little micro-visits from Aleks as he whisked among tables tending to everyone during his very busy shift. Saturday night in the Pearl.
Then we walked to the car and looked up at the few stars shining bright enough to penetrate the city's penumbra of light-pollution. And it was all quite magical. The end.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:07 PM
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