Listening to: Father’s new single, “Bounty.” I love this trendy rap/80s elevator music hybrid à la vaporwave. Along that same vein, listen to Zack Fox’s “mind your business” for some fun quotables. Some people hate meme rap that functions solely in similes and cliches. I personally have a dumb, internet-fried sense of humor, so… do with that what you will.
Thinking: 1.) For years, I have claimed that gifts are not my love language. I still stand by that to some degree, but the gratitude I feel toward receiving a gift and the excitement of finding a trinket that screams someone’s name are sparking some Christmas introspection. I vacillate between revering tradition and holidays, and wishing gift-giving was more of an organic cultural value, i.e. we get someone a gift because we thought of them, and it’s not just designated to some pressured holiday. I always think of this prof I had in college whom everyone loved. He was vehemently against gift-giving in a kind of Larry David bit way. He’d be like, “I’m an adult. If I want something, I’ll buy it myself,” among other quips that betray the purpose of gift-giving, but are funny in their matter-of-factness. He was also inappropriately open about his taste for small blonde women. Maybe we can’t trust him.
2.) Today is my sister Dawn’s birthday. She would have been 34. I don’t want to wallow, but I’ll never not use this space to commemorate lost loved ones on their special days. I hope there’s plenty of strawberry Laffy Taffy among the stars.
Feeling: So elated to share that I officially have a published piece of music industry journalism. (Can I call it journalism? That feels fraudulent. Writing? Reporting? I don’t know.) I was fortunate enough to profile a local events and artist management company who just bought a major venue for edm.com. This is especially meaningful to me as a longtime dance music fan. Check it out if you feel so inclined.
Grateful for: Andrew and I’s two year anniversary dinner at Vetri on Sunday night. This was a dining experience so special, I actually missed it the second we got in the Uber home. I still miss it as I’m typing this. Some evenings are just that romantic and cinematic you can’t help but want to be trapped in them forever, like a snowglobe full of antelope carpaccio and pistachio cake. Let’s reminisce, shall we?
My friends are in town for the weekend. I’m going from one sleepless night to the next, literally hanging by a thread all Sunday. I’m shivering in bed without so much as a bite of food or a sip of water at 3 PM, watching the clock tick closer to our 8:30 reservation time, wondering if I’ll be the world’s worst girlfriend to cancel. There’s a $50 reservation fee at Vetri. I was that down bad that I was willing to pay Andrew back his $50 and order us a pizza.
But like Christina Aguilera, I am a fighter. I ate a salad and drank a Topo Chico and committed to this dinner that my partner decided he was ok spending $400 on because he actually happens to love me, no matter how undeserving my brain tells me I am. I started getting ready around 7:45, and my hangover sort of Irish goodbyed. I couldn’t feel it subside until it abruptly disappeared in a haze of cream blush and sheer black pantyhose. I was feeling 80s glam in all black with a ruffled purple skirt, gold jewelry, and a high ponytail.
We’re waiting outside for the Uber in 36-degree weather, and the driver blows right past us. That’s strike 2 (strike 1 is the lingering shadow of my hangover). Then when we arrive, we have a 15-minute wait for a table Andrew booked over a month ago. The lobby is crammed with people trying not to get c*vid before the holidays as they, too, wonder why they’re crammed in this space in a restaurant with a reservation fee. That’s strike 3.
The second we are seated–a corner table by a staircase draped in garland and lights with a perfect view of a kitchen where a pastry chef is baking panettone–magic ensues. We weren’t planning to drink, but were greeted with multiple “happy anniversary!”s and two irresistible spritz cocktails. The amuse-bouche sets the perfect tone for the food: crispy artichoke in lemon and olive oil, tiny tarts of creme fraiche, caviar, and beet. My taste buds weep joyously, we can’t believe we are here!
Vetri is a four-course meal. Each patron selects one from each menu: antipasti, pasta, secondi, and dolci. As I consider my antipasto selection, our lovely server helps me choose the antelope carpaccio. When else in my life am I going to eat antelope, much less thinly sliced with fried oysters, capers, and brown butter? What kind of crazy genius decides those things go together? Andrew orders the sweet onion crepe. Our first course arrives, and the server has thrown in my second choice, the ribollita, a classic Tuscan soup with twice-fried pork belly and beans, for free. I now know shawty is a rider.
For pasta, I chose the chestnut fettuccine with wild boar ragu, and Andrew, the ricotta ravioli with little mandarin oranges. The flavors are bright, complex. Almost too sophisticated for a scrub like me. For secondi, I went with the baby goat over polenta which tasted a bit too much like the pork belly from the ribollita (my bad), and Andrew had the pork prime rib with pears and chicories. Before dessert, we were brought the most interesting palate cleanser known to man: a tart pear sorbet with pumpernickel croutons, candied coriander, and celery foam? What the hell is celery foam? It was stunning. My mouth was cleared and ready for the best dessert of my life: the molten pistachio cake with brandy-mascarpone gelato. I’m only mentioning Andrew’s lemon meringue tart (very good) as a formality. The pistachio cake brought me to tears.
You’ll walk right past Vetri if you don’t know to look for it. It’s literally just a house on Spruce Street, indistinguishable from the red bricks next door. I sometimes leave dinners out thinking about how much more intimate and memorable it is to dine at someone’s home, but this was one time I felt otherwise. Vetri is someone’s home. And I hope to be welcomed back again someday.
Currently Reading:The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins. I paged through a bit of this book when Andrew got it for Christmas last year, but never returned for the full read. Admittedly, political nonfiction is a genre I rarely touch; so, who’s to say I’ll make it through this time? This particular work called to me, though, in how underreported the Indonesian genocide is, and how little the average American knows about Indonesia in general (the 4th most populous country in the world; the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world). Vincent Bevins is obviously an esteemed international journalist and polyglot, and so far, he does a great job distilling this horrific mass murder for even the least educated on the Cold War, communism, etc.