I held a small silver trident in one hand and a metallic butter knife in the other. Mrs. Kronenburg, Mr. Ramsey, and the Brownies sat around a rectangular table. I stared at the fish centered in the middle of my plate, framed by small and black bead-like balls, lettuce of some sort, and brown squares.
We were at the fancy restrant, L’espalier, where arms covered in black material and hands come out from behind you and grab your empty plate immediately, where your water glass is never half empty, and where they push your chair in for you as you sit down. This was a new and fun experience for me with amazing strawberry lemonade.
The halibut was great mixed with the food around it. Suddenly I noticed a weirdly shaped brown and lumpish thing on my plate that looked like some kind of meat. I swallowed. I had eaten smaller squares of this…delicacy. Nightmare images spun in my mind at a sickening pace that it was snail meat. I asked one of the waiting waiters behind me what it was.
“Squirrel,” he informed me. The world began to spin a lot faster.
“What?” I asked quietly. I pointed at the stuff again hoping he was mistaken. Surely, he thought I was talking about something else!
He pointed to the lettuce and named it something similar to squirrel in his accent. Then his finger moved to the lump on my fine plate. “Mushroom.” Nothing sounded better to my ears. The world slowed down to its normal speed and my throat suddenly cleared itself.
Nothing matched that tense moment for me even though today was a bit rushed with two collage tours and information sessions! I visited Wellesley College, an all girl school, and Boston College that is Catholic based. I liked Wellesley’s internship program, that you could take classes at MIT, and that there was a piano in all the living rooms of the dorm buildings. I liked Boston College’s dorm system where you can get a full kitchen when you are a senior and have your bathroom when you are a sophomore, the craze for sports, and old buildings. Plus Boston College’s dorms have air condition! I will look for these types of things in other colleges and universities.
Tomorrow I go to Harvard!
Lydia,
ReplyDeleteAs I'm reading about your sauteed 'squirrel' I'm in the middle of barbecuing my Friday supper. Since my barbecue is outside and under a tree, and since it's the dead of night here, I sometimes get raccoons and squirrels wandering around near my barbecue grill. When reading your description of your dinner I had visions of an errant squirrel falling out of the oak tree above my grill and adding his own presence to my pork chops and salmon steaks.
As dark as it is out there, I might not notice until the third or fourth bite.
As for that butter fork, a fish fork is similar in shape but usually a little more round. It was the same funny end to it, though, and isn't sharp enough to even cut the butter unless it's at room temperature.
Never fear, though, should you ever eat at my house. We have one type of fork, one type of knife and one type of spoon. Bread, salad and my entrees all end up on the same plate. I'll admit, though, that I actually have wine glasses and I rarely put my milk in them.