Better than me

It's 1 degree out there ('feels like -14F!' says weather.com, and hey, thanks, I really feel better now) and I have bubkes to write about, maybe because California's still a month away (and because I know they have tangelos and blood oranges and soon asparagus and artichokes there, while we have crappy shriveled lettuce and Fruity Pebbles up here in freezing snowland). I could go on about how it's Triangular Food Week chez PQ (hamentaschen! spanikopita!) but the muse has decamped to someplace less bone-chilling for the moment. So read someone funnier than me here. I, too, stand squarely behind the restorative value of food paid for by other people-- the secret reason for all those cheerful years as a restaurant critic!

Plus, this part just killed me.

At brunch, Brooke and I took full advantage of the wealth of drugs being offered us in the form of chocolate croissants, Bloody Marys, French toast, all things “benedict,” and, surprisingly to me, salmon. Brooke is Jewish, and of the many differences we share (her killing my savior, etc.) the one that I was having the most trouble with was eating fish for breakfast. I was taught that fish were strictly dinner food. Maybe on the weekends you could eat fish sticks for lunch, but by and large if it came from the ocean you couldn’t partake until after 6:00. I imagine if my family was ever stranded on a desert island and my father caught a fish to cook for lunch my mother would suggest maybe coconut instead. Or perhaps a turkey sandwich, because I also don’t imagine my mom understanding how desert islands work. But never fish.

I haven't yet gotten around to presenting K. with the full-on Jewish breakfast experience (lox! coleslaw! kippered salmon! bialys! green tomato pickles!) although I have shamelessly angled for baking-Jew points by making garlic and poppy-seed bagels at home. But next time we're in Brooklyn, a trip to Russ & Daughters is on the list. Now if only someone else would pay for it...