blogborygmus

Soap Opera (n.) — a subgenre of science fiction (q.v.) set in a parallel universe indistinguishable from our own except that males habitually discuss their feelings.

Our Seattle seminar/symposium/get-together/bacchanale got under way Saturday night with a banquet at Ten Mercer, the wonderful Mercer Street institution just a few blocks from McCaw Hall. Both owner Brian Curry and chef Doug Wilson have gone many extra miles for us in the weeks preceding our event; for one thing, construction of the new private dining room upstairs was hastened, and completed (at no small effort!) just in time - so our Vorabend banquet was the first dinner ever held in this lovely room!

Chef Wilson outdid himself with a four-course menu inspired by the four Ring dramas, opening with a Bay Scallop and Golden Apple Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette – Freia’s golden apple was in the form, of course, of a gold ring.

A current Ten Mercer standby followed, the Grilled House Smoked Pork Tenderloin with Apple Horseradish demi glace and Pan Fried Spätzle – but this dish took an unusual form: on our very wide platters, the three components formed the blade, hilt, and handle of a stout sword worthy of representing Nothung. We wasted no time taking our cue to complete the picture by becoming the scabbard.

An Aromatic Duck Confit with Black Mission Fig Jam and Braised Greens, specially created by Chef Wilson, followed. More than a few quizzical looks indicated that though the dish had a wonderful rustic quality that superbly evoked the setting & feel of Siegfried, few of us had quite made the connection yet. All became clear once it was pointed out that we had the Woodbird before us – or rather, a noble stand-in, for said bird still would still be needed for Act Two next Thursday evening, and we did not wish to become responsible for a somber announcement before the curtain.

Ducklings dutifully dispatched, the lights went down for Chef Wilson’s Götterdämmerung course: Flaming Valhalla Tiramisu. These delectable fortresses – for they well depicted the “ewige Burg” – went down in flames for us, providing a piquant Ragnarökish tang for our meal’s conclusion.

Those keeping score at home may wish to note Chef Wilson’s wine choices – a fine & appropriate Sekt to whet the appetite, Pierre Sparr Brut Champagne to start, and a Crosspoint California Pinot Noir with dinner. Thirsty Wagnerians contributed an Eyrie Pinot Gris and an Erath Pinot to honor Washington’s neighbor just to the south.

Breaking bread together always provides a fitting opening for a week of immersion in the vastest drama in the repertoire. But we were greatly blessed, for our banquet was more than fitting: it was a monumental work of art in itself, worthy of the work it celebrated, in that most magical and evanescent of artistic media – convivium. Many, many thanks to Brian and Doug for making it so!

“And for you, sir?”

“A martini, please.”

“Gin or vodka?”

“Uh, a martini.”

“Up or over?”

“A martini, please?”

“Olive or twist?”

“Twist, please.”

Why does it have to be this hard? Especially when every single waitster who forces me – because forced, by general conditions if not by management – to engage in this game ends up saying, “You know, I agree with you 100% . . . .”?

Well, since it comes up so often, I’ll say it again: figure skaters — especially pairs skaters — are the greatest athletes in the world. By the way, they routinely go out and compete with injuries that bench hockey players.
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“What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature! This precious jelly, made up of just such ordinary elements as the rest of creation, affirming, like a precious stone, that the elements count for nothing, but their imaginative and happy combination counts for everything — this bit of slime embedded in a bony hole, destined some day to moulder lifeless in the grave, to dissolve back into watery refuse, is able, so long as the spark of life remains alert there, to throw such beautiful, airy bridges across all the chasms of strangeness that lie between human being and human being!”

(Thomas Mann, The confessions of Felix Krull, confidence man)

“The graphic signs called letters are so completely blended with the stream of written thought that their presence therein is as unperceived as the ticking of a clock in the measurement of time. Only by an effort of attention does the layman discover that they exist at all. It comes to him as a surprise that these signs should be a matter of concern to any one of the crafts of men.

“But to be concerned with the shapes of letters is to work in an ancient and fundamental material. The qualities of letter forms at their best are the qualities of a classic time: order, simplicity, grace. To try to learn and repeat their excellence is to put oneself under training in a most simple and severe school of design.”