what defines a scentic highway-- part 1

i was trying to buy tickets to a music festival--  this was about a year and a half ago.  i was looking at all the permutations, trying to make it as cheap as possible,and trying to get this all figured out in enough time to also ask off from work.  should i get the package?  should i get a hotel separate?  everything seemed to be condos--  condos with no pictures.  i looked at what i could find, picture-wise, and i didn't like it.  so i stayed at a hotel straight outta the seventies in destin.  it was a little drive, but, worth it.

but, wait, i'm getting a little ahead of my story.  i took too long.  in the morning everything was fine, but by lunch it was sold out.  wtf!  i had to go.  it's not so much that i wanted to go.  i hate crowds of people.  i don't enjoy people, generally.  i had to go.  i was pretty sure i had told him i was going.  this time would be different.  this time had to be different.  but now it was sold out.  i freaked out a little.  maybe he would stop loving me.  maybe he would become angry or depressed.  i looked again.

there was an option with a $200. chef experience dinner.  that made it a lot more expensive.  crap.  well, it's your own fault.  you wanted it to be affordable and now it's not.  you didn't really want to do it at all, you just wanted to see him, you had trouble pulling the trigger and now you're fucked.  but, then i talked myself into it.  you know you have to have something else to do.  you have to have it be fun without him because you can't count on him to suddenly do something he has never been willing to do.  you love all those cooking shows.  for your birthday, give yourself that experience.  figure out how to pay for it later.

as it turned out this pushed it into an expensive enough charge that the whole thing became time payments that i took about a year to pay off.  i didn't ask for that it was just an amex gold card sign and fly type benefit.  thank you amex for giving me a card in college.

i assumed that the meal would be fish.  or, really, i was so insane with panic that i wouldn't get there, that i didn't even think about whether the food would be things i could eat.  surely it would be fish, surely, i said to myself over and over later.  spoiler alert.  at the risk of telling the story out of order--  because this story is really about the dinner, not the music festival--  only the appetizer and the desert and the wine were things i could eat.  now, i did eat them, mind.  yes indeed i did.  and, what i found is that i don't like the taste of meat any more.  it didn't make me sick.  it just didn't add any value.  the appetizer was fish,and it is one of the best things i've ever eaten.  the desert was two quenelles of some kinds of mousse.  i have an unpleasant history with mousse.

when i was like around twelve, on one of the trips my aunt and cousin and i took to galveston, i had chocolate mousse.  we went to the wentletrap which was a fairly fancy restaurant (probably not that fancy, but, you know, whatever, pretty fancy) down on the strand.  this may have been the first time i went there, maybe.  i loved it.  i went subsequently with my mother as well.  also my aunt and i went on other trips.  i know guido's is like the traditional place to go, but we liked the funky places.  the wentletrap, tuffy's, some little local place down on O ave.  i even got to go to the bon ton room--  once or twice which had an amazing series of hallways leading out to the ocean on a pier.  i got to hear about wild exploits i'm sure (although, perhaps, the tame version).  my aunt had a youth filled with singapore slings, colt 45 players, and run-ins with the law in new orleans.  some kind of exploits must have been discussed then, though i don't remember them.

but, i digress yet again.  the wentletrap was awesome (word not used yet) for not only it's shrimp cocktails and upscale bistro fare, but also it's resort shop.  they had so many things.  they had cinnabar beads!  they had some sort of seed pods carved into octopi and frogs and wizened chinese men's faces.  they had fancy shells from all over the world. they had a small selection of resort ware.  the floor had varrying levels.  it was an extremely cool jem on a street full of jems.  i loved it.  through and through.  all sea towns will forever be judged by the scale of galveston in the seventies.  which was not galveston's hayday, not even close.

however.  chocolate mousse was a non-starter.  it was creamy and chocolatey and delicious.  i loved it.  i ate it all up.  and i did make it back to the commodore before it made clear why i was never eating mousse again.

i think i spent the next eternity of time in the bathroom.  it was painful and embarrassing.

my theory is that it has something to do with an intolerance for cream, but that is largely anecdotal.
i have had a similarly bad experience when what i thought was custard (a favorite since early childhood) turned out to be creme brulee.  regardless.

i tasted the quenelles unenthusiastically, and, even though they were only about a heaping tablespoon each,didn't consume more than a teaspoon.

the middle two courses were a lamb something ragu and a vennison sausage something.  i forget.  it was weird.  i had kinda agonized about whether it was ok for me to eat them--  since i was supposed to be a pescatarian and all--  and the answer i arrived at was, well, fuck it.  it's not like that amount was likely to make me sick and, if it did,well then i was just gonna have to be sick.

i tasted the spices. i tasted the textures.  i'm not sure i could really taste the meat.  it was weird.  and, it was kinda a waste.  the wine was quite good.  and there will be more on that later.  obviously the story is not about the food--  it is about the dinner.