'Loose Talk'
By Benjamin Benedict
Stood Up
It was a very early diner. She needed to eat early so she could catch her train. I ordered a glass of white wine and some water and waited for her to arrive.
To pass the time, I looked through the menu which was different to the menu on the restaurants website. I had never eaten there before. It had been chosen because it was just around the corner from where she worked. The general ambiance was what you would call ‘rustic’ with hard backed chairs and bottles of wine displayed in racks. The paintings were the only major assault on the senses, worked on by someone who undoubtedly displayed their work in ‘Art Markets’ at weekends.
I delved deeper into the menu and came to the conclusion that I would have to settle for the tried and trusted warm goat’s cheese salad, followed by a grilled tuna steak with risotto. The second dish worried me and I resolved to ask them to change the risotto for sauté potatoes and salad.
She still hadn’t arrived, so I scanned the wine list and found that they split their wines into ‘old country and ‘new country’ which seemed as good a way of helping you make a decision as any. I went for the ‘new country’ selection and decided on a pinot noir from New Zealand.
She was now fifteen minutes late so I called her mobile. “You are not on a train heading home, are you?”
“Well yes.” She said. “I thought it was tomorrow.”
“No, it was today.” I said, as nicely as I could. “I am on a plane tomorrow. It couldn’t have been tomorrow.”
“I’m sure it was.” She said. “I thought it was.”
“No, it wasn’t. Too bad.”
“Well, I am on a train now.”
“Have a nice trip home,” I said, and hung up.
Not into eating alone with the paintings and a chef who liked the idea of grilled tuna with risotto, I paid my bill and walked back towards my car looking for somewhere more suited to the single diner.
There were intimate restaurants with white table cloths and flowers, or they were minimalist and lonely. Then a few steps away from the car I came to ‘The Lucky Spot’, a narrow wedge in between its grander companions with plastic red peppers and strings of artificial garlic hanging in the window. I was their only customer.
To cut a not-so-sad story short, their paintings (prints mainly) were a big improvement on the place before. The ‘Insalata Caprese’ was as good as you will get anywhere with sliced vine tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and most importantly fresh basil leaves. Their red house wine was passable enough to merit a second glass and their ‘Fetucinni con Porcinni et Gamberonni’ would have been great if they had forgotten about the prawns which were tasteless and added nothing to the dish.
The Proprietess and I discussed this at some length. I suggested that if she had to have the prawns then they needed garlic, but we both saw that this would conflict with the creamy mushrooms and the end consensus was that it would be better to leave the prawns out altogether. She said that the next time I was there, that was how it would be.
And so, by eight o’clock, I was on my way home to find that my calendar was right and the lady’s wasn’t.
It’s not the only time I’ve been stood up lately. About two weeks ago, I was cooking for a couple of friends on a Friday night. They were half an hour overdue when I called them. “But we thought…..” They said.
Hey, let’s forgive and forget. They know who they are and this little piece marks the spot. And after all, who got what out of it?
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