the great leslie

Last night a friend of mine, a food editor, took me to eat the Cub Room, a fancy restaurant with a new chef in SoHo. I ate oysters on the half shell and lobster risotto, two things I don't ever eat at home (oysters, for obvious reasons, and risotto, because it takes too long).

Years ago, I ate the best oysters of my life at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. A friend and I were on a cross-country road trip, but after six weeks on the road, our car was stolen in Portland, Oregon. We took the Greyhound from Portland to San Fran, where we stayed with my cousin and some friends. We were semi-busted, since we'd basically been living in that car, but we managed to have some fun in California.

Chez Panisse was on the "must-do" list, along with visiting the home of Willa Cather in Red Cloud, Nebraska and seeing a bear. Getting dressed was stressful; we thought we should dress up but all our clothes had been in the car. We pulled together the best of what we had, borrowed a Cabriolet, and went to eat the famed cuisine of Alice Waters.

My oysters were perfect: separated from the muscle, thus easing eating, and served with a red onion salsa that added texture and tang. The waiter, an attractive African-American fellow who seemed exasperated with his day, slipped an oyster fork into its proper position at my setting without me even noticing.

I don't remember what else we ate that day, though I bet I wrote it down in my journal at the time. But I remember those oysters. The oysters I ate last night were good, but they were perfect at Chez Panisse, as evidenced by an 11-year-old memory of mollusks.