two nights ago i had a meal i will never forget. if you're prone to getting annoyed by overzealous descriptions of food...stop reading now.

so, one of the guys who plays beach volleyball nearly everyday with steven is a master chef from france--aptly named Jean Paul Sitbon. he moved here to get out of the restaurant business and into cook-privately-for-the-stars (i.e. Oprah and the President)-and-hang-out-at-the-beach-for-the-rest-of-the-time-business. i used all my wide-eyed power with him, naturally, to make sure he knew what a cheerful volunteer i would be to partake in one of his five course meals. he happens to be one of the nicest guys we've ever met, so all the pre-conversations were very enjoyable. after making me truffles for christmas, he finally promised a dinner party, which took place on sunday night.

so, here are the courses (and this is all from memory--not the proper descriptions...i hope he doesn't blog in his free time because this would be an affront to his expertise and France itself):

1. Appetizers: Champagne with pomegranate juice, assortment of olives, toasted herb baguettes with melted mozzerella, some rolly things that were delicious, nuts, another toasted spicy dish, and a refreshing annis (black licorice) liqueur drink.

2. Entre #1: White wine, herb crusted seared halibut with glazed asparagus and white herb risotto.

3. Entre #2: Red wine, crusty glazed duck leg with white bean ratatouille and green beans.

4. Salad: Red wine, toatsted baguettes separated by big balls of brie (hmmm..that didn't sound as elegant as it looked) and fresh spinach with lime vinigerette.

5. Dessert: Wild Sweet Orange Dessert Wine with flourless chockolate cake, raisin almond shortbread, and homeade prailine gelato.

enough said, too much eaten, not enough left over.

new york, new york: everything you say is funny or beautiful. 

…the future enters into us…in order to transform itself in us long before it happens. and this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is somuch closer to life than that other noisy and fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside.

the more still, more patient, and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours, so much the more will it be our destiny, and when on some later day it “happens” (that is, steps forth out of us to others), we shall feel in our inmost selves akin and near to it.

and that is necessary. it is necessary—and toward this our development will move gradually—that nothing strange should befall us, but only that which has long belonged to us. we have …to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth form within people, not from without into them.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Letters to a Young Poet”