Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Signs and portents

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Darin and I took the kids to Knott’s Berry Farm yesterday for our one meal of the day. (Not the kids’ one meal—Sophia and Simon had plenty of meals. Darin and me: not so much.) We like the fried chicken at Knott’s, what can I say.

In case you don’t know, Knott’s Berry Farm is in Orange County, and Orange County is renowned as Republican-central around these parts. I mean, Los Angeles is pretty damn right-wing to begin with, and OC is right of that.

On the way back from Knott’s, we passed one of the apparently legion of auto row dealerships that exist at apparently every exit off the freeway in OC. And on the gigantic electronic sign that would usually flash something like the weather or maybe “God Bless America” was

George W. Bush: It’s the Economy, not the War.

Okay, when you start seeing signs like that in OC, you’re losing the people.

One wafer-thin mint

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Darin and I had date night tonight. I’ve wanted to use date night for movies, but since there isn’t a damn movie out there right now I want to see, I decided we should go out and have a special dinner together. I picked Spago, because the one time we went there before I was newly pregnant with Simon and sick to my stomach. I don’t remember a thing about the meal other than that Darin, Fernando, and Nancy raved about the food.

So we had date night at Spago, which as date nights go doesn’t suck, and once perusing the menu we decided to go nuts and have the tasting menu.

The nine course tasting menu.

The nine course plus two desserts tasting menu.

Around the cheese course I wrote down what we’d had. I even managed to forget one—Darin remembered it, but we were both somewhat hazy at that point about where that course fit in. So here goes:

  1. spicy tuna roll in a Florentine-cookie type hardshell cone—the best damn spicy tuna roll I’ve ever had
  2. Jerusalem artichoke soup with two different sides of foie gras
  3. sweet shrimp ceviche
  4. agnolotti with truffle shavings
  5. sea scallop with pad thai noodles
  6. sea bass on a bed of parsnip potato puree
  7. guinea hen with brussel sprouts
  8. duck with foie gras
  9. the cheese cart, with unlimited cheese choices
  10. pear and fennel sorbet over blackberry and cassis granita
  11. two blocks of a chocolate layer cake with a tiny scoop of a chocolate gelato

Now, each course was kind of small—one scallop with a side of pad thai, instead of a gigantic entree. But still…after the first 17 small courses I was like, “I don’t really need the dessert.” My stomach actually hurts right now. That’s why you couldn’t eat like this night after night: not just the caloric intake, but you’d be in actual physical danger of your stomach exploding after a while.

But good God, this was a good meal.There’s a reason Spago has such a great reputation. Yum. Yum yum yum.

I like date night.

Update: It’s around 11pm and instant karma has bitten me on the, um, esophagus. I am having the worst heartburn I’ve experienced in some time, and I’ve been pregnant twice. I’ve opened up the Costco-sized bottle of Calcium Antacids (“Tropical flavors”) that I lived on while pregnant and I’m chewing them like…oog, I don’t even want to make a food-related analogy here.

I hope this feeling subsides soon, ’cause I’d sure like to get to sleep some time tonight.