The Last Brunch

Handsome and I made a point of going out to brunch today, having realized a little belatedly that this is the last weekend of the year 2009, and thus the last opportunity for weekend brunch in 2009.

We've been dining in a lot recently, cooking at home much more frequently than was typical at the beginning of 2009. I'm happy to report that they've been mostly tasty and presentable, these kitchen-based efforts of mine. I feel a sense of accomplishment about that, having wanted for years to improve my skills in that direction.

But my attempts to make a good home-based brunch are more than skill-oriented. I'm learning to make brunch out of an abstract, reactionary belligerence.

Why aren't there more options for delicious, casual, bruncheon dining out in central Denver? (I just made up that word. "Bruncheon". Or maybe I'm bringing it back. Like how your grandma called lunch "luncheon".)

Even on the weekend, I don't feel like driving out to Lakewood or Boulder for a quality casual brunch. Especially when I live in what I consider to be the city center, the heart of the metropolitan area. That not just geographical snobbery, or hometown pride. It's population numbers and demographics. We should be able to produce a better-than-just-decent brunch here. There should be a whole set of options for delicious brunch in Denver.

Instead, I go to places, even places that have come highly recommended, and I think, "Well, shit. I could've done better than this at home." That is not how I like to feel at the end of a meal I'm paying for. I don't burn the potatoes. I don't cram people into my dining room. I don't overly sweeten and salten and fatten my cooking to make up for what I might be lacking in skill or the food might be lacking in freshness.

Offhand, I can think of three restaurants in town that originally seemed promising but ultimately just didn't deliver.

And Denver patrons piss me off, because each one of the restaurants that come to mind as disappointments is still open, and at each one of them, there will be a wait for a table every Saturday at noon. I mean a wait with a line out the door.

Make that four restaurants.

I drive by this one restaurant, with its line of patrons that have agreed to wait outside for mediocre brunch in an hour, and I want to heckle them. "Too bad you can't fry eggs at home..."

For real.

So, basically, my at-home brunch is an act of resistance.

Yes, in my imaginary world where it's me against the tyranny of bad food, I'm taking action.

Anyway, it takes something special to lure me out for brunch these days - the company of a good girlfriend, an outrageously good review, a compelling proximity to my house.

Or the reliability of what's tried and true.

Enter Le Central, where the host greets Handsome by name, and we're willing to wait a few minutes for an intimate, wobbly two-top on the invariably sunny patio. You can go in heels, you can go in jeans, you can go with the whole fam damily, you can go a little hungover. The prices are affordable without feeling cheap. The food is consistent without feeling routine. The vibe is casual without being grungy. The ambience is evocatively francais without being intimidating.

Le Central was the obvious choice for brunch today. It's lovely to linger over a meal, sharing bites and munching on crusty bread. As a fan of noontime drinking le weekend, I always appreciate the arrival of my white wine flight, four petite glasses of monochromatic three-ounce selections from the wine list. We tend to stay a while. Today, two different parties were seated, ate lunch, and departed while Handsome and I and several other tables sipped and nibbled. They don't get it, I thought to myself.

I have aggressive at-home cooking goals for 2010, or I should say, aggressive goals for culinary skill-building. I'm really excited about learning more and getting better. I've been enjoying poring over cookbooks, organizing recipe files, and conducting internet research. I've been watching more cooking shows and talking food with a wider variety of people. I love it when dinner tastes amazing and looks attractive and my guests take pleasure in eating with us.

I also love a place that makes me feel glad I chose to eat out.

Happy Last Brunch of 2009! Hope you chose it well!

Thanksgiving Prep

There was a time in my adult life when I would spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother, Meemo, my mom's mom.

It was a tradition that began after the weakest Thanksgiving ever, Thanksgiving 1997. I had graduated from college, dropped out of grad school, and moved back to Denver. That year, my parents bailed out to the mountains for Thanksgiving with my uncle and aunt, leaving me and my brother stunned to find that we were on our own for Thanksgiving, being explicitly not invited to join the elders at elevation. Frere and I tried (a little belligerently) to rally. We'll have our own Thanksgiving, we said. We'll do it ourselves.

So with Frere, and my best pal, and Frere's young family, I celebrated Thanksgiving 1997 with a late and lousy meal at my parents' house, where I was living at the time. Some important things were overcooked, some important things were undercooked, and both cheer and ambience were noticeably absent from our proceedings. I vowed internally to have a better option next year, and with gritted teeth, started to craft a plan for a meaningful Thanksgiving tradition of my own.

And I was successful in that goal. Every year thereafter for Thanksgiving, I'd fly down to Meemo's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For a few days, I would visit with family, watch cable, and be overfed. I'd spend hours cooking Creole specialties with Meemo in her pretty, yellow kitchen. I'd spend hours lolling on her bed with her watching tv after dark (we liked Emeril, Wheel of Fortune and the news). I relished the hours I got to spend hearing stories about her life and telling her stories about my life. And on Thanksgiving Day, Meemo and I would gather with the relatives at my aunt's house to celebrate with a decadent feast fit for kings, or Romans, or Southerners, I guess. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I went alone and basked in the attention. I went with my boyfriend in 2000, and came back subsequent years with that same handsome man, now playing the role of husband.

Then in 2005, three days before my 30th birthday, my grandmother passed away suddenly.

(And I still want to kick somebody.)

So, naturally, I spent Thanksgiving 2005 and Thanksgiving 2006 surly and isolated and drinking about it.

But in the last few years, I have come to understand that's not how Meemo would want me to play it. I never thought I was "honoring her memory" by acting that way, I just didn't know what else to do on Thanksgiving Day when I was supposed to have plans with her. Mom finally called me out, at some point, and I had to agree, Yeah, Meemo would want me to hold my head up. If she could weigh in on it, Meemo probably would want me to spend Thanksgiving with "Alta" -- my mom. Thanksgiving with Alta is something Meemo would love to do, if she could.

So in the last couple of years, I've been showing up for Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom & Dad, brother, nieces, and other local family and friends. I say "showing up" because while I typically aim to scintillate in social situations (youknowhowwedo), I'm nothing but a presence on Thanksgiving. I'll put on a dress, I'll bring mashed potatoes, I'll bow my head for prayer. But I'm waiting for it to be over.

Thanksgiving 2009? I'm not aiming for a lot more than showing up again this year. Frere's divorce has just become final, my uncle recently had to file for bankruptcy, the Handsome Man and I are entering another holiday season childless and not pregnant. Thanksgiving 2009 and I are hardly making eye contact at this point.

But here's one thing I plan to do this year to try and make the holiday a little special for me. I'm thinking maybe this year I'll have the heart to come home and watch the last and only video I took of Meemo, from Thanksgiving 2004 -- which was an awesome Thanksgiving, if it had to be the last one. It was great. And from it, I have my grandma on video, talking one-on-one with me about her visit to Denver the previous summer, and about her childhood in New Roads, and about her satisfaction with her life.

I haven't watched it since 2005, but I remember that in the video, Meemo talks about me. She talks about a conversation she had with my Baton Rouge aunt after the two of them visited us, the Denver clan, the summer before. And what Meemo said was that they agreed: "Alta's got a daughter, child."

I remember it word for word.

And it will be nice to hear it again.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.