January 21, 1994

[One] should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats.
Michel de Montaigne Essays

Fritz was there with the stuffed clams, and Wolfe sat and took the spoon and fork. He couldn't have sat before giving me instructions because that would have been talking business during a meal, and by heck a rule is a rule....As I helped myself to clams I held my breath, because if you smell them, mixed with shallots, chives, chervil, mushrooms, bread crumbs, sherry, and dry white wine, you take so many that you don't leave enough room for the duckling....
Archie Goodwin The Final Deduction

Stuffed Mussels
Why mussels - not clams?
Mussels are one of the world's most plentiful and delicious shellfish. The meat is creamy golden-yellow, tender and sweet as a small clam.
Julia Child Everyday French Cooking

[The mussel] is one of the most abundant seafoods in America and one of the most neglected.
James Beard Fish Cookery

I love mussels.
Laura von Behren

Caviar
There is more simplicity in the [person] who eats caviar on impulse than in [one] who eats Grapenuts on principal.
G. K. Chesterton

Champagne
Here's to champagne, the drink divine
That makes us forget our troubles;
It's made of a dollar's worth of wine
And three dollars worth of bubbles.
Anon.

The small room upstairs at Rusterman's had many memories for me back to the days when Marko Vukcic was still alive and making it the best restaurant in New York, with the frequent meals with his old friend Nero Wolfe helping to keep it the best. It was still better than good, as Lon Cohen remarked that evening after his third spoonful of Germiny à l'Oseille, and again...after his first sip of claret.

With about his fourth sip he said, "I'd be enjoying this more--or less, I don't know which--if I knew the price. Of course you want something, or Nero Wolfe does. What?"
Archie Goodwin Please Pass the Guilt

Germiny à l'Oseille
Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!
Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup!
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The making of a good soup is quite an art, and many otherwise clever cooks do not possess the tour de main necessary to its successful preparation. Either they over-complicate the composition of the dish, or they attach only minor importance to it, reserving their talents for the meal itself, and so it frequently happens that the soup does not correspond to the quality of the rest of the dishes; nevertheless, the quality of the soup should foretell that of the entire meal.
Madame Seignobos Comment on forme une cuisinière

There was no sense in spoiling his dinner, so I waited until after we had finished with the poached and truffled broilers and broccoli and stuffed potatoes with herbs, and salad and cheese, and Fritz had brought the coffee to us in the office.
Archie Goodwin Fourth of July Picnic

Poached and Truffled Chicken Breast
You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourselves for an apple, what might you not have done for a truffled turkey?
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin La Physiologie du goût

The truffle is not an outright aphrodisiac, but it may in certain circumstances make women more affectionate and men more amiable.
Alexandre Dumas (père) Grand dictionnaire de cuisine

Broccoli
"It's broccoli, dear."
"I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."
E. B. White caption of cartoon in The New Yorker

Herbed Stuffed Potatoes
What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
A. A. Milne Not That it Matters

Chablis

At lunchtime on Thursday, anyone who wanted to know how things were shaping up could have satisfied his curiosity by looking in the dining room and observing Wolfe's behavior at the midday meal, which consisted of corn fritters with autumn honey, sausages, and a bowl of salad. At meals he is always expansive, talkative, and good-humored, but throughout that one he was grim, sullen, and peevish. Fritz was worried stiff.
Archie Goodwin And Be a Villain

Soujouk with Grapes and Apricots
Dine, v: to eat a good dinner in good company, and eat it slow. In dining, as distinguished from mere feeding, the palate and the stomach never ask the hand, "What are you giving us?"
Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary

Corn Fritters

Salad

Beer
Most people hate the taste of beer--to begin with. It is, however, a prejudice that many have been able to overcome.
Winston Churchill

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.
James Beard

Blackberry Sorbet

Shortbread

Chocolate Truffles
The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Sculpture, Poetry and Architecture--whereof the principal branch is confectionery.
Antonin Carème

.......................

Coffee

Liqueurs
Without a liqueur and a coffee the best of meals ends as tamely as a pretty mermaid.
H. Warner Allen Through the Wine Glass

All people are made alike. They are made of bones, flesh and dinners. Only the dinners are different.
Gertrude Louise Cheney People

After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives.
Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

No one is drunk so long as he can lie on the floor without holding on.
Anon.

It's all right, Arthur, the white wine came up with the fish.
Herman Mankiewicz

Some people are alarmed if the company are thirteen in number. The number is only to be dreaded when the dinner is provided but for twelve.
Lancelot Sturgeon Essays on Good Living 1