Misadventures in Cooking

Cooking by following a recipe after not doing so for a long time feels a lot like when I started my translation work. I think I know what all the words mean until I really get into it. I start doubting my understanding of the language and probably way over-think it.

Do I really know the difference between chop and dice and mince? I guess it's a given that I'd peel the potato before chopping it? If you simmer onion in broth do you need to bring it to a boil first?

I managed to stumble through the first recipe, which was for a Harira, and it turned out pretty well) and ran smack dab against the second recipes, which was for Greek spinach rice balls.

It called for scallions, and since I was flustered I read that as shallots, especially because they called for browning it. I've put scallions in the oil first but I never really think of that as browning. I only think of browning onions or garlic or meat or shallots (hence my confusion). Next I discovered that I didn't have bread crumbs even though I remember seeing the container in the drawer, so now I had to use panko crumbs instead.

At this point I thought about turning back, but in Chinese there is a saying (a real saying, not like the "may you live in interesting times saying" for which I still haven't found a Chinese version), "When you're wrong, be wrong to the end." I think it can mean to stick with something and see it through to the end to see what happens, or can be talking about someone who stubbornly clings to misguided views. It really depends on the context, or your perception of the situation. Plus I subscribed to the Joey Tribbiani school of eating, if the components taste good the final product can't be that bad, right?

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled programming. Then the recipe calls for steaming the spinach. I don't really have a steamer so I settled for sort of cooking it all in a little bit of water, so it was kind of like blanching and steaming it at the same time (or so I hoped) and then I spent some time squeezing all the water out. It also called for brown rice but we have this healthy rice mix and the rice was still a little damp after I cooked it twice. Finally I was ready to roll up the mixture into balls and dip it into the panko crumb and then put it in the oven.

It came out ok. The ball of rice was still on the loose side, probably because the rice and the spinach were probably still too damp. It was also a little odd to taste dill in rice. Ah well, maybe I'll put it in the Harira and see what happens.

Plays

Maybe it's just me, but the plays I have seen seem to be overwhelmingly about misery and suffering and bitterness. I just saw Homecoming by Harold Pinter at the A.C.T. and my reaction can be summed up in a word, "Huh?"

Maybe plays reflect who we are, our real selves. After all, life can't be as glamorous as a musical, even if we walk around with our personal soundtrack thanks to our iPods. Maybe when we feel trapped we do lash out and say mean and hurtful things to each other. I'm not denying that, I know I do it, but it feels that plays are often used to express regret and sadness about life and relationships. Sometimes they do so in a humorous way, but at the end of the day, still sad.

The first plays I ever read were the Glass Menagerie and Death of a Salesman in English class. Without looking at them again, the things that come to mind when I think of them are the longing for a gentleman caller and fragility, and well, death, and the volatile relationship between parent and child. Real. But not very happy or uplifting.

Perhaps if I watched more plays and studied the text I may be able to tease out some bigger themes. For example, the program talked about how memory is used in the play and there is a point made about living in the present and not the past, but if I didn't read that, I don't know if I would have caught it. So it's not really an organic observation. I walk away from the play thinking about how cruel we are to those closest us to us, in blood and in proximity, and the power dynamics between a woman and a group of men, and how odd plays are and would I see another one.

The next play at the A.C.T. is No Exit by John Paul Sartre. The description reads: "A mysterious valet ushers three people into a shabby hotel room, and they soon discover that hell isn't fire and brimstone at all—it's other people." Sounds like a rollicking good time.

From the Chicken Ranch to the Diamond Cabaret

A few weeks ago, my BF emailed me a Living Social deal (like a Groupon with a different name) for CY Steaks, wondering if I'd be interested in going for a date night. I'd never heard of it, so I did a quick Google and found that "CY" stands for Cliff Young. Hooray!, I thought.

Cliff Young was basically the Frank Bonanno of the late 80s/early 90s. His restaurant at that time, called Cliff Young's, was the pinnacle of fine dining in Denver. White linen table clothes, delicious (and expensive foods), definitely a special occasion kind of place. I ate there with my family a couple of times when I was young, and remember it fondly. So when I saw that CY Steak was Cliff's latest venture in Denver, I bought the deal without further ado.

When doing my cursory research, I'd noticed something about CY Steak being near or next to or in the neighborhood of the Diamond Cabaret strip club, but didn't think much of it. Then a couple weeks later I had jury duty - the new Denver court house is right across the street from the Diamond Cabaret. As I was walking to get lunch, I noticed that CY Steak appeared to be IN the Diamond Cabaret. As in, it is the restaurant OF the Diamond Cabaret. As in, I was about to take my BF to dinner at a strip club. Awesome.

We were not to be deterred from enjoying Cliff Young's food (and making use of our rather expensive groupon), so I went ahead and made a reservation. The big night arrived and we were both excited to see what this dining adventure had in store for us.

Excited to try diner at the strip club...

We drove across on Colfax, and sure enough found the Diamond Cabaret in all its glory. Fortunately, the restaurant has a separate entrance so we didn't have to walk through the club part of the establishment.

Nancy outside the Diamond Cabaret entrance.

Very classy sign for the restaurant entrance.

Pondering the adventures that await us inside...

The restaurant itself is quite lovely. It's all dark wood and stone, black table cloths and red accents around the room. You'd never know it was part of a strip club if it weren't for the windows in one wall that provide a view into the club, or the platform in the middle of the restaurant with poles (for the entertainment later in the evening). Or the thumping bass music that bleeds through the wall from the club. But besides that...

The lighting was bad for picture taking, but this gives you some idea of the
ambiance. Note the poles. Those are attached to a raised platform
in the middle of the restaurant.

The moment we walked in, we were greeted by Cliff Young himself. He was very gracious and showed us to a cozy booth that, conveniently, was up against the wall with the windows, so we were not gazing into the strip club all night. Classy touch, Cliff.

The food was AMAZING. Cliff did not let us down on that front. Truly some of the best food I've ever had in Denver, and probably the best service as well. Here's what we ate:

The amuse bouche: Foie Gras Creme Brulee. Heavenly.

My dinner: 8 oz. Filet Mignon with Caramelized Onion Red Wine dipping sauce and

Roasted Herbed Veal Bone Marrow. Plus a side of Potatoes and Onions Sauteed in Duck Fat.
Rich, ridiculous, seriously delicious.

His meal: Curried Lamb Chops with Israeli Couscous and Cauliflower.

Similarly rich, ridiculous and delicious.

Dessert: House-made ice cream sandwich with vanilla ice cream,

Colorado cherries and chocolate wafer cookies.

Compared to all the animal fat-covered foods in our entrées, this was rather light. Very delicious.

At about 8:30, a couple of the cabaret girls came into the restaurant, climbed up onto the pole-bedecked platform and began to "entertain" the dinner guests. Yep, stripping, strutting and gyrating right there in the middle of the fine dining establishment. This was a little awkward for a date night, but we ended up having an interesting conversation about strip clubs, feminist principles, and the new trend of strip-club-steak-house combos.

When all was said and done, we were happily full of delicious rich food:

After dinner, we headed to Larimer Square for drinks at our new favorite bar, the Green Russell. I got a drink called European Royalty (Port based, delicious), and he got one I can't remember the name of (whiskey based, also delicious to me, but not to his taste so he ended up trading it for something else that I did not get a photo of). They were both beautiful, and Green Russell was once again a great experience. We will be returning often.

While going to a strip club for dinner obviously isn't for everyone, the food really was amazing. So if you can handle the scantily clad women and don't need to worry about someone blackmailing you with photos of you entering a strip club, by all means give Cliff Young's cuisine a chance. I'm not sure I'll be going back any time soon (partly because I can't afford to), but I'm glad I had the experience.