This Salad Will Make You Some Friends

I'm catching up on food picture uploads to my Flickr stream. This salad was created by the skillful culinary masterwork of Natalie a few weeks ago.

I need a better camera in order to get better depth-of-field in my food pictures. This is becoming an obsession. Is there a self-help book or a twelve step program to help me?

On a totally unrelated note but a blogably worthwhile tangent, I saw a big column of smoke rising out of the Warner Bros. studio lot on my commute home today. There were at least six helicopters flying low and buzzing around the scene. I was sure they'd crash into each other but, no dice. Two of the heli's were actually firefighting copters and I saw them dumping water on the site of the fire, which was actually on the hillside behind the studio and not on the lot itself. I have no idea what could have caused it, but I didn't see any wreckage and the fire was out by the time I drove by. Update: It was a brush fire

My hunch as to the real cause? Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise must have gotten very drunk, and hatched a plan to burn down the Paramount studio. Unfortunately in their stumbly rage, they burned down the wrong studio's empty mountainside. They're both really sorry and will soon issue a statement on the matter.

The Scientology building can see me.

Spago

Last night I took a couple of exhausted newlyweds to Wolfgang Puck's flagship eatery, Spago Beverly Hills. It was such a good experience that I can't help but write about it here despite my serious neglect of this blog for the past few weeks.

We started with martinis. Dan and I each had a dry vodka martini and Elina had a cosmopolitan. The pre-first course breads were awesome for me, although my two seasons companions were disappointed at the lack of funky whipped butters. A server came around with a big tray loaded with every possible variety of bread and you could make your selections. They had really tasty crunchy flatbread seasoned and topped with Parmesan.

For the first course, I had a risotto with chanterelle mushrooms. It was pretty tasty, I was trying hard to savor the mushrooms to understand why they are so expensive. They were tasty but not as flavorful as I had imagined. D & E each had funky first course dishes that I wasn't really into trying. He had some five-layer beet cakes, and she had a dish with Adriatic figs and mozzarella.

Elina was really exhausted so she wasn't really into drinking, so Dan and I each got a glass of a nice red wine called Barolo.

Before the main course, Wolfgang Puck himself came around and introduced himself. We didn't really talk to him, he just said hello and went on. Nice of him to do that with all of his guests. He has like 10 restaurants bearing his name but this is the only one he is actually at. I wish he had come by after the main course so I could gush about how good it was...

Because it was amazing! I ordered the Kobe beef flatiron steak with sweet roasted garlic and wasabi mashed potato (which wasn't in a pile or anything, it was like a teeny tiny streak of mashed potato on the plate that looked more like a little bit of sauce than a side). Seriously, this Kobe beef was the best thing I had ever eaten in my life. When it touched my tongue for the first time, I could feel it in my spine. I am not exaggerating. I took every bite with my eyes closed and didn't care about looking like a fool because it was just so good. Dan and Elina both had the duck breast, and it was damn tasty as well. But they both reacted to tasting the Kobe beef the same way, each exclaiming "wow!" in turn.

For dessert I had a chocolate dish with soft little donuts, creme fraiche, and chocolate sauce. It was delicious but Dan had a dish with some special strawberries in it. They were so sweet and savory, we couldn't figure out where they came from or what was done to them. We had dessert wine pairings with our sweets and left the restaurant exhausted but oh so satisfied.