Restaurant Magic

I love dining out, love restaurants of all kinds. There's something extremely relaxing about sitting across the table from a good friend or family member and chatting during the dining ritual. It's definitely not the same experience as sitting around the kitchen table at home.

It's difficult to pinpoint why this is so for me. Perhaps it's the sense of being removed from one's usual environment--like being transported to an alternate reality. There you are in your little booth or table, an island unto yourselves amid the other diners and the restaurant atmosphere. Somehow it focuses the concentration, neatly frames the subject at hand, preparing it for a more thorough discussion than is possible at home, because, after all, what is there to do but eat and talk?

This is why I am not a fan of the dinner theatre. And while a good hot dog at the baseball game is one of life's great experiences, entertainment at an actual restaurant somehow detracts from the experience I go there to enjoy. And this definitely includes singing waitstaff! Oh, please, restaurant owners/managers out there, if you must congratulate someone on her birthday, just give her a free beverage, or a free appetizer and spare us the bad vaudeville numbers performed by people who fervently wish they'd taken any other job in the world.

Going to a restaurant recalls happy times and funny stories. As in, "Remember when we rode our bikes (motorcycles, that is) out to that family restaurant we always used to go to and the owner told us he had a fabulous moneymaking plan to turn it into a seafood restaurant by serving fresh lobsters flown in from Maine (to Colorado)?!"

As a motorcyclist, there's something really festive about riding to a restaurant. Even if it's just an old divey diner not far from your house. It's the realization that you've finally escaped for a few hours to go riding and now you get to have one of those special eating experiences with your riding companion--how perfect is that? And you arrived there on a bike!

Okay, I understand if you've never ridden a motorcycle and most definitely don't want to. The same intensification takes place when you combine any jubilant experience with dining out. Try this one on for size:  your son just won the big game with his grand slam homer and you're taking him out to celebrate. I guarantee that food is going to taste fantastic--even if it's really only mediocre--while you relive every detail of the game.

Or how about the day you got your dream job--finally? You and your significant other went straight to your favorite place and ordered steak. You'll remember that celebratory meal a very long time and it will add to the store of pleasant restaurant memories readily recalled the next time you head out to eat.

I can rarely afford to dine out these days, but when I do go, it seems that much more special. An occasion to be planned and anticipated for weeks, savored when it arrives. "No hurry with the food. Just hold the singing, please."



Much of the Jude Hayes mystery Remover of Obstacles, centers around food, as that is Jude's niche market as a private investigator. I did a lot of unknowing research for the book while I owned a restaurant in Rhode Island and I wanted to create a cozy, welcoming restaurant for Jude's friends, Elio and Simone Tremont, to own and run.

Here's our excerpt for today:

Seated under the sun umbrellas—it seldom rains in Grand Junction but our high-altitude sun feels like a microwave oven broiling unprotected skin—we scanned the colored paper menus that Elio prints up every morning. The kitchen offers a continually changing bill of fare and every meal is a new surprise. Simone whips up original daily specials as her culinary muse instructs. Repeat customers are sometimes dismayed by the changes, expecting to order a dish they’d enjoyed the previous week, only to discover that it has vanished from the menu. Generally they find something that they like even better, but Simone is not above being flattered into re-creating the missing entrée if she has the ingredients in house. Some persuasion from Elio, ever the mediator between chef and diners, is usually called for in such cases.

Personally, I like the variety of dishes. It’s the kind of serendipity that you feel on Christmas morning when you get a really great gift that you never expected. All of Simone’s food is wonderful, even the dishes you never thought you’d like. She has a gift that cannot be taught in cooking school. I call it “cooking clairvoyance.” Somehow, she seems to know ahead of time exactly what the particular customers who appear that day will each find personally delightful and she creates it with the ultimate confidence that it will be savored and adored. It’s very spooky.

“I’m going with the Reuben special, Jazzy, how about you?”

“Same. Definitely. Shall we decide on dessert now or prolong the suspense?” An evil smile appeared as she rubbed her hands together. Jasmine, The Mad Diner.

“Nah, let’s just wait. I love a surprise. Maybe Simone has something special back there—like the last key lime pie of the season!” I tried not to drool on the placemats.

“Capital idea, Hayes!”