The Whole Beast Supper. part one.

I had been waiting for this since last summer, when K., one of the owners of Lark (she runs the dining room), had told me about the annual Whole Beast Supper. They order a whole animal - usually a pig and a lamb or two, possibly a goat - and cook various parts of it in twenty or thirty ways. It is served family-style, at communal tables (unless you have a large enough party for a whole table), which is a great way to meet other people. I am excited and a little scared at the same time, and have prepared for tonight's feast by eating lightly for two days - a little macaroni and cheese for lunch and cereal for dinner yesterday, some yogurt and a few chocolate malt balls for lunch today. I think I'm ready, and in fact I am so excited about the evening ahead I run down the hill, down the four blocks to Lark, taking the shortcut that crosses the Seattle University campus and deposits me almost directly across the street from the restaurant, a few minutes early.

K. has seated me at the first table just inside the entrance - this is the table we had the very first time I ate here in February of 2006 - where three people have already taken their places. We shake hands and introduce ourselves; they look familiar to me. We are all regulars. They are joined by two friends, taking up half the table, and two more couples flank my place at the other end. Actually everyone looks strangely familiar, and I am sure I have seen them here before. No one ever looks at a woman dining alone, which gives me a certain anonymity, as well as allowing me to watch all the diners around me. The tables fill up, and bowls of Marcona almonds and marinated olives arrive. The party at the other end of the table have ordered glasses of cava, while the couple to my left have brought their own wine, which they promptly share with me.

The menu is arranged in four waves of four or three dishes each, with a palate-cleansing ice before the last wave, and then dessert, a total of fifteen dishes and two desserts (including the almonds and olives as one course, but not the sorbet cleanser). I resolve to pace myself, to avoid eating the bread, to take small bites and savor each one slowly. Hard to do when a platter of salami and coppa floats into view. Or perhaps it was the lardo on toast with mostarda di uva, melting cured pork fat over a grape jam, sweet and a little salty, soft and a little crisp. (Despite my notes I can't remember the order in which the courses arrived; I can only remember that they did not come in the order as described on the menu). At some point the chef/owner came out to talk a little bit about the dinner, to introduce the guest chefs, and to warn us that we should eat the guanciale-wrapped dates very carefully, because they are hot and the Gorgonzola stuffed inside is like "molten lava." They are sweet-salty-creamy-tangy all at once, which is what you want in a starter, and even though I want more I know there is much, much more to come.

The second wave begins with - I think - a warm pork pate en croute, which is like meatloaf, only better. Later the chef - one of the two visiting guest chefs - comes and sits next to me (she is a close friend of the two women on my right) and tells us that she didn't quite like how the pastry turned out, but I thought it was just fine, better than fine. It is warm and savory, homey and sophisticated at the same time, elegant rusticity. It is one of my favorite dishes this evening. There is squid stuffed with chorizo and eggplant (again, I am not sure about this, as the details are a little fuzzy), and it may be the only stuffed squid I have ever liked, tender and richly flavored by the stuffing. A salad of pig's ears and watercress with green papaya is passed around, all crunchy textures (the ears) and cool green flavors (the watercress and green papaya) spiked with pickled chiles.

We have only made it through the first two waves. I'll get to the rest of the meal tomorrow.

Saturday lunch/Lark.

I had been at work for some hours when the noises of lunch became apparent from the kitchen. A., the cleaning lady, was cooking for our boss; I could smell the clean, nutty fragrance of steaming brown rice, hear the sizzle of radish cake (made from daikon radishes and goodness knows what else) frying on the stove. K. swoops in, calls me to lunch, and whooshes off to call my other co-worker, T., to join us. The four of us sit down to steamed brown rice, sautéed shrimp with ginger, stir-fried soy beans, and a heaping pile of radish cake, my favorite, lighter and crisper than the often leaden kind found in crowded dim-sum restaurants. There is a salad, lightly dressed with a balsamic dressing, and a small piece of fish, also cooked with ginger. It feels nice to have someone cook for me; usually I do my own cooking, or go out to eat, and often either one can be a burden. There is something comforting in eating someone else's home cooking, something calming and reassuring. It makes me feel cared for, loved, even. I didn't have to do the shopping and cooking and cleaning, or decide what to order. It just appeared before me.

Dinner at Lark has that same quality of being cared for, of being comforted, which is why I come here as often as I can. It is unusually cold outside - it has been snowing lightly in some parts of Seattle - and I run the three blocks to Lark in my usual monthly ritual. Never mind that I will be here again on Monday night (more on that later); tradition must be upheld. Someone I haven't seen before - she must be new - leads me to a table at the end of the room, the corner banquette. (By now I think I have sat at every table on this side of the room, and most of the ones on the other side). I flip through the menu, but as soon as I hear that the special is a rabbit shepherd's pie, my choice is made. I don't order anything else - not a salad, not a plate of sautéed mushrooms or the nettle soup or a bite of seared foie gras - I don't need anything else, not tonight. I eat bread and butter and imagine what the party and the large table in front of me will be like - they always seat large parties at that table, or at either end of the banquette-lined wall - will they be loud and boisterous, or chat quietly as they choose their meal?

My shepherd's pie arrives, distracting me from all other thoughts. The pie is baked in a small oval Staub cocotte, with a little salad on the side. I made myself some little shepherd's pies last week, but they are unto this one as a Hershey's kiss is to a Maison du Chocolat truffle. That is to say, very good in its own way, but nothing compared to the other. Unlike my own humble concoction, there is not a dense layer of mashed potato forming a crust, but rather some airy, potato-scented cloud that seems to be mostly butter. Below that airy cloud is a sort of stew - but that is too pedestrian a word for this - of rabbit meat and cauliflower florets in a slightly tangy sauce that sharpens the sweetness of the rabbit and the cauliflower, point and counterpoint. I think there is mustard in there, and more butter, and I would have mopped up all the sauce with my bread, but I am too full. It is the perfect little dinner for a cold night.

I have the pineapple tarte tatin, because it is warm and sweet with caramel and I have a cold walk home, and it is as good as ever, crisp buttery pastry, golden fruit, cool melting ice cream. I pay my (unusually modest, because I only had one dish and a dessert) bill and walk home. My bag feels lighter on my shoulders, my strides longer; I am home before I know it. And in two nights, I will be back.

Eating. marrow.

Most people I know look at me like I am a cannibal when I confess to a deep fondness for marrow bones; I only order them when dining with like-minded friends (of which I have, happily, a good number). Or when I am alone, as I am tonight. I was craving fish and chips, day-dreaming all day long of golden-battered fish and crisp chips and creamy tartar sauce. (If I were being honest I think of fish and chips as merely an excuse to eat tartar sauce, much the way I view cupcakes more as a vehicle for frosting than anything else). The consolation for being still at work at 5pm (having arrived around 6:30 am) is that once I leave I can go straight to dinner, and I walk very quickly towards Quinn's Pub, one of my neighborhood favorites. It is early for dinner, and there are few diners. I have an upstairs table, tucked away in the corner by the window.

Then a crushing blow is dealt - there is no fish and chips tonight. The fish delivered that day was unacceptable to the chef's exacting standards, which I suppose is always a good thing in a restaurant, but I am momentarily heartbroken. I really wanted fish and chips tonight. I turn instead to marrow bones, roasted and served with a red onion relish and toast, and the gnocchi with oxtail (which also comes with a crispy nugget of marrow, my favorite part), which my server assures me are two of the best things on the menu. (I usually order either the gnocchi or the cheeseburger, one of the best I've ever had, but I've never tried the marrow bones before). More diners begin to filter in; the music seems to fade a little as the voices rise.

Four marrow bones arrive before me, each towering bone capped with the onion relish. There is a little salad next to the bones, a spoonful of sea salt, and a stack of toast. I scoop bits of the marrow onto a piece of toast, adding a little relish and a sprinkle of salt. It is perfect, the rich fat of the marrow melting into the toast, with the contrast of the tart-sweet relish that adds a little bit of a crunch. I wish the toast were more toast-like; it is merely lightly grilled bread, but it is still incredibly good. Yellow dribbles of fat stain the napkin that lines the plate; crumbs scatter everywhere. I am making a mess, but fortunately, no one seems to be looking.

A small plate of gnocchi arrives, a handful of tender little dumplings in a creamy sauce, topped with braised oxtails that fall apart at a touch, crowned with a round of fried marrow. I like this crispy little nugget of marrow more than the marrow from the bones; it is just one, perfect, bite. I am full now, and happy; I tell my server that it was all wonderful, even though I really wanted fish and chips. It was a good way to start the week.

A tale of two cakes.

I was recently commanded to make two different cakes for two lab birthday lunches (late March, and then early April). They were greeted with mixed reactions ranging from rapturous (the chocolate cake) to completely disgusted (the rum cake). This is not particularly surprising, as the rum cake (from a recipe that came from someone's mother-in-law) is made with a yellow cake mix, which you doctor with Jell-O vanilla pudding mix, rum, and a sort of rum-butter syrup. Of course, I am notorious for the reckless abandon with which I throw around liquor while cooking, and this cake is no exception. After (or before) you make up the batter, you grease a bundt pan and sprinkle it with finely chopped walnuts (which my lovely sexy food processor can do in about three seconds), pour in the batter, and bake it. Then you poke holes in the bottom of the cake with a skewer and pour the syrup on top before inverting the cooled cake onto a plate.

The person who had requested this cake loved it, or at least said she did, but everyone else hated it. Including me. It was too sweet. It tasted too artificial. There was too much rum. There was not enough rum. It was too rich. I thought it was kind of boring, but then I think all cakes that don't have frosting are boring. I had poured the rum syrup into a fissure that formed around the top during baking (I had probably overmixed the batter) and sprinkled the cake with a bit more rum (I couldn't resist) and it had collected itself into an uneven vein that ran through the cake, giving you a shock of sugar and rum with each bite. I cut myself another piece - actually, it wasn't that bad - and defiantly ignored the ungrateful sods who were verbally pissing all over my perfectly good cake.

But I had to redeem myself somehow. For the April birthday lunch C. requested a chocolate cake, one with lots of frosting. I briefly considered one from the pages of Gourmet, all dark chocolate layers and billowy icing, but my last venture into something from their test kitchens was, how shall I put this? - not a success. (A bourbon-fig-pecan cake had turned out rather dry and uninteresting, unless heaped with a drift of whipped cream or ice cream). I was wary. My reputation was already shaky. So I turned to Amanda Hesser, who has never failed me, and her mother's Chocolate Dump-It cake, which I had made before. (When in doubt, work with what you know). Like the rum cake, it is made in a bundt pan, but this one is liberally frosted with a sour-cream frosting that is basically equal parts semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted, and sour cream. I could do this. I could melt together butter and chocolate and whisk in sugar and eggs and milk that had been clabbered with a bit of vinegar.

As always, flour got everywhere, on the floor, all over the counter, in my hair. I stepped into the spilled flour and left ghostly footprints on the pale mocha of the carpet. The batter looked lumpy and unprepossessing; it seemed too liquid-y to come together into anything like a cake. I set my timer and crossed my fingers. The smell of chocolate filled my apartment; maybe everything would work out ok. I couldn't remember whether I was supposed to frost the cake the night before or just before serving; I called K. in a panic. Bring the sour cream and chocolate chips to work and make it there, she tells me. I tuck a spatula and a measuring cup and the bag of chocolate chips into my backpack, leave a note so I won't forget the sour cream. It worries me that I need to do these things now; what will my memory be like in ten years, twenty, thirty, forty? The cake emerges from the oven, a dark chocolate crown has risen to fill the pan. I let it cool, flip it out onto a rack; it falls out easily with a soft whump.

At work I melt chocolate chips in the microwave, let the sour cream come to room temperature in a small bowl. The frosting is not perfect - it is a little lumpy - but no one will care. I slather it over the cake recklessly, and then add strawberry halves around the top and sides. The recipe suggests piping rosettes and leaves and decorating them with almond slices, but I haven't piped anything onto a cake since 1993 and don't plan on starting anytime soon. It was good cake, moist and rich without being dense, the icing creamy but not too much so, the tartness of the sour cream cutting through the sweetness of the chocolate. I thought of all the things I could have done differently, and then dismissed them from my mind. It was good cake.

Eating. instant pudding.

The pain began yesterday. Or perhaps the day before; I can't remember. It started out as a dull throb at the back of my jaw, which I ignored all morning and afternoon and evening as I ate leftover pizza and fried rice and that lovely roasted elk tenderloin with root vegetables followed by bread and cheese in lieu of dessert at Lark. By lunchtime Sunday I was reduced to carefully eating small mouthfuls of plain, steamed white rice and making congee (with the rest of the rice) with pork riblets and lots of ginger. It bubbled away slowly on the stove, filling the air with the sweetness of braised pork and spicy ginger, as I nursed my sore tooth (now agonizingly painful) and watched the Food Network. The elk with chestnuts and parsnips seemed very far away. Even the normally soothing congee was like pouring fire over my wounds. Would I ever eat solid food again?

Today it was worse. Opening my mouth was agony. The thought of food was unbearable, and I am someone who can eat through almost everything, even when angry or sad or depressed. But I have a birthday party to prepare for, a cake to bake, and I found myself walking up and down the aisles of my local supermarket, recipe in hand (more on that later). And then I found pudding. All kinds of pudding. Instant pudding, lemon and tapioca and vanilla and chocolate and butterscotch. I have never made instant pudding before, have never poured cold milk into a measuring jug and stirred sweet powders into it until it all becomes a smooth, creamy mass, thickening miraculously in minutes, without the mess of whisks and double-boilers and sieves, eggshells littering counters and spilled cornstarch on the floor. I give into the seductive promise of instant gratification for the first time, and run home with my packets of instant pudding (and some foil-capped plastic tubs of pudding for backup).

I have hardly taken off my coat and shoes before I am pouring milk into a glass jug and adding the pudding mix, stirring it until smooth, dividing the mixture into individual servings. The grocery bags lay abandoned next to the refrigerator; by the time the pudding is ready to eat I have put everything away, the milk and eggs and butter and boxes of cake mix and pudding cups. Now my vanilla pudding is pale yellow, thick and creamy. It tastes good, even with a toothache. It tastes like childhood and school cafeteria lunches and Jell-O ads on tv. I have everything I need: pudding (vanilla, butterscotch, and chocolate), an appointment with the dentist on Thursday, and the day off tomorrow.

Saturday Lark.

Another Saturday at work, another dinner at Lark. Although this time I am done early enough to go home and comb my hair and change into something a little less scruffy and grab a handbag instead of my usual backpack before I head out to dinner. It's a beautiful evening, the flowers in bloom everywhere, sunny and only lightly cool. As usual, it is quiet in the dining room; as usual, I am greeted as a regular. (I am glad that none of my friends or family is here to raise an eyebrow when my new haircut is immediately noted by two people). K. comes by, and tells me about their annual Whole Beast dinner next month. I'm in!, I tell her. There are two specials tonight, and when I hear the word "elk" I know that it will be my dinner tonight. I add a salad, and sit back with my bread and butter.

My salad arrives, and I find that it is impossible to eat a watercress salad gracefully, the stalks going every which way. It is very tasty, though, the watercress leaves tossed with delicate curls of frisée, tiny florets of cauliflower, crunchy bits of toasted pecans, crumbled blue cheese, and chewy little lardons. I eat it slowly, enjoying the contrasts of all the flavors and textures on my plate, as more and more diners filter into the room. A large party takes over the big table nearest the kitchen; a birthday party, it looks like. There is nearly always a birthday party here, just as there is always a "fun" table, happy and almost boisterous, chatting enthusiastically with the owner and the servers and amongst themselves.

Then comes the elk loin, over roasted chestnuts and what appear to be parsnips, scattered with huckleberries and a deep fuschia berry sauce. The meat is surprisingly tender, intense rather than gamy, offset by the sweetness of the chestnuts and parsnips and the berries. I regret that I did not order some pommes de terre Robüchon, that puree of potatoes that is really more butter than potato (or so it seems). Spring has come; winter is at an end, and sooner than I can imagine it will be summer, time to turn to lighter dishes instead of the warm earthiness of roasted and braised meats that have sustained me through winter. Time to put away the pork belly and elk and turn to fish and fresh vegetables. But that comes later.

I want something more, but not something sweet. I don't want dessert, not the lemon parfait or the brown-sugar-date cake or the pineapple tarte tatin. The cheese list is a mystery to me, but finally (with a little help from my server) I order some clochette, a goat cheese from the Loire Valley. A fat little wedge of the cheese comes with a tiny dish of what turns out to be heather honey. The honey comes from Italy, and it is like warm sunlight, with a slightly crystalline texture that contrasts perfectly against the creamy smoothness of the cheese and the nutty bread. I slice the cheese and lay it on a piece of walnut bread with a smear of honey, and it is better than any tarte tatin or brown-sugar-date cake. At least for tonight.

Eating. steak for one.

Steak at home became one of the great pleasures of my life when I began living alone. I would experiment with different methods - broiling it in the oven, searing it in a cast-iron skillet or ridged grill pan, or frying it in the thinnest film of olive oil. (And there was the incident with the flaming whiskey which has yet to be repeated). I would rest the steak for an hour or so before dinner, letting the meat come to room temperature before laying it in the hot pan. Usually I would just season it with salt and pepper, but sometimes I would smash a few cloves of garlic and throw them in a zip-top bag with the steak and a few sloshes of olive oil, soy sauce, and perhaps a little Worcestershire sauce, marinating it for a few hours or overnight. With the steak I would have mashed potatoes or creamed spinach - never both, because making more than two dishes for one person is tedious, leaving the kitchen a disaster and the diner overstuffed - with the steak, usually enough for dinner that night and lunch the next day.

The difficult part of cooking steak at home is achieving the perfect balance between a crusty, well-browned exterior and a medium-rare (my preferred degree of doneness) interior. Many writers have written at length of the science of cooking meat, and they have all confused me. Then there is Jeffrey Steingarten, who warbles at length about marbling and different cuts and different animals and various steakhouses and wet-aging versus dry-aging and low heat and high heat and so forth. Which confused me even more. Not to mention I have no intention of trying to age my own beef at home. Also, I live in a condominium, and therefore his instructions on grilling a porterhouse steak over coal (there are three different recipes for a grilled steak in It Must've Been Something I Ate) are of no use to me. But then he includes a recipe for A PERFECTLY FINE UNGRILLED STEAK. This could be interesting.

My steak - a rib-eye this time - has been marinating overnight with olive oil seasoned with a splash of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, smashed garlic cloves, and sprigs of rosemary. I let it rest on the counter until I'm ready to start cooking. The rice is steaming away in its white plastic cooker. I'm starting to get hungry. Jeffrey Steingarten's recipe calls for lots of butter, six tablespoons, melted in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan. (I console myself with the fact that I am using a smaller pan, so I only use four tablespoons, and most of it stays in the pan. But I am probably only fooling myself). Actually my pan is a small, heavy non-stick frying pan that I use for omelets and pancakes. The butter melts, and just before it starts to brown I slide the steak into the foaming butter.

The smell of garlic and rosemary and browning butter and browning steak rises in the narrow kitchen. I take a spoon and baste the steak with the golden butter. As promised, a firm, dark brown crust begins to form on the bottom, although I keep the heat on just past medium heat, instead of medium-high. (My electric stove reacts a little differently than the gas range I learned to cook on, and I have had to relearn everything). I turn the steak over, continue cooking, continue spooning brown butter over the top. At last it is done, both sides with a fine, deep reddish-brown crust, the inside just on the rare side of medium-rare. I scoop some rice on a plate, add a piece of my steak, and settle in for dinner. It is perfect, with the flavors of garlic and rosemary and brown butter mingling with the richness of good beef. Who needs a grill when all you need is a little butter and a hot pan?