Yesterday I ventured out of the house for the first time in 10 days. My coming out party was a long-planned trip to the Herb Farm, a local restaurant known for growing its own herbs and produce and for raising its own livestock locally. My Kobe beef-themed, nine-course meal was prepared by a former chef in the Clinton White House, and it was priced like it. The best meal I've ever had. I will therefore proceed straight to my grievances:
- When people have starved themselves all day, it's really, really cruel to make them listen to a 45-minute talk about what they would be eating if you weren't talking.
- It's disconcerting when you're taking out a second mortgage in order to pay for dinner and the preamble consists of a woman throwing herbs and flowers on the ground, where they're picked up and passed from one customer's grubby hand to another as each customer peels off a piece and consumes it. Pass. Especially since my immune system is presently traumatized. Serious pass. Other people seemed to have no problem eating herbs that I'd handled, my omnipresent, guttural hack notwithstanding.