Company

Foodie is not a word that I enjoy or use to call myself. I do like food, a lot, and after years of working in hospitality and with a healthy dose of curiosity, I know quite a bit about it. I even cook it. But really I'm just a very passionate and sensual person, enjoying all senses with equal vigour. A great meal in my book satisfies all of them; it's beautifully presented, obviously it smells and tastes good, and it's enjoyed while surrounded with good company.

Who you dine with makes just as much of an impact on your experience as the person preparing the food, the decor, the music, the seat, the view, the service and the choice of wine. The balance has to be right. If any of these are not quite right, it will negatively affect the dining experience whether you realize it consciously or not. I recently enjoyed some great food at a beautiful restaurant with some incredible women. But the acoustics were off and I had to struggle to understand my friends, and because of this I have no desire to return. A few weeks ago I ate at one of the "Best New Restaurants" in New York City and although the food, decor, and wine were all as great as promised in the reviews, and my dining companions were expertly curated I must say, the server's attitude made us close out early and continue our evening elsewhere. I wanted great food but my limited time with my friends was more important.

Some of the best meals of my life come with really great stories. There is a Spanish tapas restaurant in Greenwich Village called Alta that I read about in a travel magazine years ago as a place where top chefs go when they go out, always a good sign. I chose it for my birthday celebration with my fabulous  group of friends, and I still smile when I think about that dinner and will recommend the restaurant without hesitation. I have no idea how many stars that place has, or what any of the critics had to say about it. I know that we had a Bacchanalian feast for the record books and laughed harder and left with bellies and hearts full. Everything was perfect. I remember running into Calvin Klein and John Leguizamo, and the cougar hitting on my friend at the bar. I remember friends from different parts of my life meeting each other for the first time and it makes me so happy to see that they are still friends. I remember the sounds of the kitchen and the music and the laughter, the taste of the bacon-wrapped dates and white anchovies and the Cava, the love I felt surrounded by so many wonderful friends and the man sitting next to me who would ask me to marry him a month later. 

I remember every beautiful moment of a dinner in Paris, laughing at the intimidation we felt looking at the triple-phonebook-sized wine list and welcoming course after course of food far more rich than we were used to eating, but enjoying the rare gluttonous indulgence with friends from around the world. I remember being with some of those same people in Cancun clinking the biggest margarita glasses I've ever seen. I remember Sex and the City-like conversations on sidewalk tables in New York with my girlfriends with mimosas, a business dinner on Central Park South with a table full of South Americans, and another one in East Berlin where we laughed so hard with a group of Austrians that beer came out our noses. And I remember everything being absolutely perfect at that first date dinner with my Texan at WD-50 in the Lower East Side when he came to visit me in New York one autumn evening three years ago.

The first "epic dinner" I experienced was on a beach sixteen years ago. I was in Greece as an exchange student, eating with my host family and their friends at tables under white lights and stars on the edge of the calm and warm Aegean Sea. On my plate was a whole grilled fish, something I'd never seen before, but I followed the lead of everyone around me and I can still taste and hear everything from that dinner if I close my eyes and think back. I have no idea what that restaurant was called, or what most of the people around me were talking about in Greek, but it's not important. What was important was what I sensed, what I experienced, and who I was with. That dinner started the evolution of this "foodie," shaping me to appreciate the beauty of these multi-sensory experiences around a table.

But this all works the other way, too. I have been fortunate to dine at some of the best and most critically-acclaimed  restaurants in the world, but sometimes, unfortunately, with people I didn't love or enjoy. Pained conversations, lack of any kind of intellectual or (in the case of a date) sexual chemistry, uncomfortable situations, and quite simply a bad day physically or emotionally have ruined their share of meals for me and I would imagine for most of you. Some of the restaurants I have no desire to return to because the memory is just too bad, boring, or even worse, so completely forgettable that I committed little to nothing to memory.

While on a run on the Katy Trail here in Dallas earlier this year, I spotted a restaurant that looked like my favorite little bistros in Manhattan and Paris. The doors were all opened up to the warm air, the wicker chairs were the French cafe standard issue; t was exactly what I missed since moving to Dallas. I wanted to call up some friends to grab a table, order a couple bottles of wine and S. Pellegrino, and eat and drink and talk for hours until we were kicked out.  How did I not know it was there? Why haven't I been there before? Until I realized... I had.

During one of my first visits to Dallas, I sat at one of those charming little tables for a brunch with some people I was meeting for the first time. Suffice it to say there is a reason I blocked it out. The food was fine, standard French-American bistro brunch fare, the service was sufficient, and as mentioned the decor was charming. But the conversation was so forced, unenlightening and uncomfortable that it dominated the entire experience for me. Usually I can find something to talk to anyone about; it's always been my strength. Whether with newly-immigrated busboys who barely speak English, with an international billionaire CEO, a shy spouse of a business colleague, or with a Prime Minister backstage before a big speech, I can always find something of interest for us to talk about and to make them comfortable and open. But this was beyond my reach. When a person can't talk about anything but Real Housewives, Twilight, or eyelash extensions, announces that "pretty girls don't have to work," refers to my hometown as "um... interesting" and has no idea who Malcolm Gladwell is... I honestly had no words. I couldn't rescue it and I didn't want to. I was powerless and passionless and couldn't wait for the meal to be over. The conversation may actually win the unofficial award of the most vapid of my life, and I do remember that part when I force myself to. But how in the world could I be expected to notice the food when I was concentrating on not jamming a fork into my temple to relieve the pain?

The point of this silly little story is that a good or bad restaurant experience depends on so much more than the food. I've returned to Toulouse since and I have loved it despite my miserable first experience. Thankfully it got that opportunity. I know it wasn't the restaurant's fault, but bad company will make or break an experience faster than anything else. It doesn't matter how it rates on every other factor. And that brings me back to why I am so grateful for those amazing epic dinners where the conversation flows as easily as the wine, and you leave knowing more and loving more than you did when you arrived. Sharing plates, sharing stories, opening yourself to new experiences and new senses... that's what a truly great dinner is all about.

Last night I had another one of these good experiences, and I woke up with a smile, knowing that I felt more at  home here in Dallas more than ever before because of it. A group of the most interesting, funny, talented, smart, and kind people that this city has to offer all sat around a table at Marquee Grille in Highland Park Village and toasted to Christmas and every other winter holiday we could think of. We laughed, we shared, we ate and we drank. The Chef dropped by a few times to say hello, and white twinkle lights glittered outside of the windows. I was in love, with my betrothed sitting next to me, with the ambiance, with my pork belly and tuna tartar, and with my friends.

Maybe I am a foodie, but I think I'm more of an experience junkie. Bring on the epic dinners of food, laughter and intellectual conversation, and let's not waste any more time with people who aren't lifting us higher and heightening our senses. Because in the end it's always about the company.

In a NY Minute: A Traveler's Guide to Germany and Poland

I am full-on in the weeds in my professional life these days and have no idea what time zone I am in right now. But I didn't want to wait too much longer to write about some of our experiences in Germany and Poland last week as jet lag has a wretched effect on memory. So to get this done I will revert back to my New York disposition and give it to you quick, to the point, and without all of the niceties that get in the way of efficiency. That is, after all, also the German way.

Should you ever need to fly through Frankfurt, stop there instead and rent a car for the weekend. Drive the hour and a half to the quaint little town of Bacharach on the Rhine River and stay in a charming hotel built onto a Medieval wall where your window view includes a castle and the remains of a cathedral. Walk through on the cobblestone streets and hike up into the vineyards and have a cup of coffee in that castle and enjoy the view of the river valley early in the morning. Should you take a boat up the Rhine to see the Rheinsfels Castle in St. Goar, be sure to confirm the return times. If you don't and the boat doesn't arrive, take the train and don't worry if the ticket machine doesn't work- the conductor is cool.

Ignore all of the restaurant suggestions online and in the guide books and instead go to Münze restaurant. Make friends with Lutz the owner (because of course that's his name) and let him choose everything that you are going to eat and pair everything with local wine. Hear about his years living and cooking in Ibiza and his business interests in Morocco. Make friends with Otto the chef, and if you're lucky maybe he'll take off his hat for you. I won't ruin the surprise. When an American soldier from Illinois wanders in with his backback looking for an ATM, invite him to your table and buy him a beer. Eat more of Lutz's food and drink more of the local wine with Lutz and Otto and buy the soldier some more beer and meet a grumpy man named Dimitri from Moscow whose role is fittingly mysterious. Play with a dog named Snob, smoke cigarettes and talk food and wine and international politics long after all of the other customers leave. Celebrate Lutz's lady's birthday and then stumble out all together well after midnight with a couple of bottles of wine, selected and packed up by Lutz, to take home for your next dinner party (you may start lobbying for invites now).

Cure your hangover the next morning by hiking through the woods in the freezing cold up to Burg Eltz in the Mosel Valley and feel like fairytale characters when the castle suddenly appears on the horizon. Defrost with a a hot bowl of potato soup at the bottom of the hill after you've hiked back down. Drive cross-country to Berlin. 

In East Berlin eat at Cafe Einstein. In West Berlin eat at Gendarmerie surrounded by art, or Felix in the Hotel Adlon next to the Brandenburg Gate. If an Austrian suggests that you and your friends go to a "really posh bar" at midnight, don't listen to him. But if he asks you to drink beer with him, don't hesitate for a minute. But brush up on your drinking games skills before you do. And be advised that the German phrases that you learned in junior high school may have rather crude alternative meanings while at a table of Dutch, German, and Austrian men. Follow dinner by going with a group of friends to Hotel du Rome and charge your drinks to your friend's room at his insistence. Cure that hangover with Chinese food prepared at a counter on the gourmet floor at the top of KaDeWe. 

FlyNiki to Krakow and laugh through a crash course in Polish phrases. Butcher said phrases once on the ground but make friends with the locals each time you try. Wander around Old Town Krakow and be overjoyed with the knowledge that you're in on the secret- it is one of the coolest and most beautiful cities in Europe. Eat too much, drink too much, and walk everywhere. Try everything. Go into St. Mary's Basilica and let yourself gasp when you look up. Eat at a milk bar. Eat in an outside cafe. Climb up ancient staircases and take photos; climb down ancient stone staircases and listen to the live music in an underground jazz club. But do not order the Hungarian wine. Smoke more cigarettes in Rynek Główny, the Main Market Square, as you listen to street musicians and the hourly bugle song from the top of the tower. Run through the rain in the Jewish Quarter Kazimierz and watch a pre-taped hockey finals game at a Soviet-themed bar called Propaganda. Do shots of flavored Polish vodka with the locals but then slink out after reading on your phone that the favored team will soon lose.

Take a day trip to Auschwitz even if you're not sure you want to. Cry and be angry, but don't forget what you see. Come back to Krakow and warm up with hot borscht and pierogi. But save room for one of the best meals of your life in a contemporary restaurant called Ancora, complete with a cucumber sorbet and bison grass vodka intermezzo that you won't forget about for weeks. 

Try to get home without 4 layovers. Fly business class when possible. Be in love. Vow to return to Poland. 

"Oddity has always amused me and encouraged reflection. There is so much of it around that you only need to keep your eyes peeled. And if there is nothing in sight, you need to look further afield, beyond the horizon, in another country, another city, among other people."   

~ Polish travel writer Olgierd Budrewicz

Momentum.

Fifteen years ago I was studying theatre with the intention of becoming a professional performer. As so often happens, this led to a long and in my case quite successful career in hospitality.  A true gypsy, I waited tables in 7 states before I was 26 years old. And to be quite honest, I loved it. I loved the people at my tables and behind the bar, the people delivering the supplies and the people cleaning up after the doors were locked. And I always really loved the kitchen staff. 

My early years in restaurants were toned-down versions of Bourdain's stories in Kitchen Confidential. The back of the house guys (and occasional women) that I knew were pirates; the most interesting people you would meet with the craziest stories and backgrounds. Sometimes the stories were true and sometimes they weren't, but it didn't matter, because they held their own and did a damn good job. Some of my favorite restaurant memories are of delicately caring for some high brow celebrity in the dining room, and then walking through the kitchen doors to find fires, fights, blood, and general mayhem that the guests never knew about. It was all part of an average night and it was thrilling.

But in addition to having an absolute blast and learning insults in 8 languages, I managed to learn a lot about food. Daily lessons when I was a server, and later working one-on-one with chefs on menus when I was a manager are what led me to have the appreciation that I have for that world today. There are real skills back in those kitchens and those were some of the hardest working people I've ever known in my life. Some of the people I've worked with I am proud to say have gone really far and I love following their successes. Restaurants have taken people who could never belong or want to belong in other industries and has made them stars. Especially over the last few years as the 'foodie' trend has taken off and Middle America families are glued to the Food Network and Bravo instead of the Big Three. It's comforting to believe that there's a place for everyone and a person for every place, and I've seen more misfits and rebels find their true homes and families whilst dancing behind the line. Because there's pride there, and there should be; it's not an easy life.

Last night, in a loft curiously similar to one that I inhabited in Atlanta a lifetime ago, I attended, along with a new friend, a truly lovely event hosted by The Dallas Wine Chick, Ms. Melanie Ofenloch. It was such a treat to meet her and other food, wine, and art devotees in my new city, as well as some of the residents of the beautiful Mockingbird Station Lofts. The talented artists showing their work were Michael Cross and the lovely Samantha McCurdy, who I discovered was also a new transplant to Dallas, and a fellow Pennsylvanian. The synchronicity that I felt throughout the evening was slightly overwhelming but welcome. 

The catering was provided by Cafe Momentum, an organization that provides culinary training for at-risk Dallas youth, similar to a group started by the Jamie Oliver Foundation on the other side of the pond. This was the first time that I heard about this local non-profit and I'm enamored. They train these youth in all aspects of the restaurant business and bring in guest chefs to teach, mentor, and use as references for future employment. The food at this event was impressive and the service was professional, and it was so special for me to later learn the background of the people providing it all.

To bring new people into a profession that is so close to my heart excites me, but to know that the people being brought into it are people who may have been slightly off-course for a little while and are finding their way home- that is truly inspiring. Thanks to the beyond hospitable world of food, wine, and culture that I'm just starting to discover here in Dallas, I can relate.