It’s been a rough couple of days at Tapestry Craft. Mr. Laurie Morris, founder, friend, and father figure to many of us, has passed away. Laurie opened the shop with his wife Ruth nearly thirty years ago and, though his sons run it now, he still liked to pop in and visit. I first met him about a year ago when we were frantically trying to get the shop moved to our new premises in time for the grand re-opening sale we’d planned. That night is pretty much a blur for me. I remember packing wool; I remember painting the walls of the new shop; but mostly I remember sitting in front of Albert’s crappy computer frantically trying to create all the sale signage we needed but had somehow forgotten til the last minute. And it was pouring rain and I’d been running back and forth down the street to Kinko’s – without an umbrella – and stressing that I wasn’t going to get it all done… And there sat Laurie in the corner, sketching on his pad. I’d heard that he was an artist and cartoonist of some renown when he was younger, but at that point I hadn’t seen any of his work. Later that night, he slipped me a piece of paper. It was a cartoon of me. (Click on the thumbnail to see the full version.) How charming is that? The old guy loved to flirt. I’ve had it sitting on my desk at home ever since. Tomorrow morning I’ll go to his funeral and say goodbye. He was a really nice man.

I added 199 more tapestries to the shop’s website yesterday, including my most favorite one of all: Topless Centaurs on Mars. I’m not joking. Be sure and view the large size; it’s hilariously bad. The Snook’s grandmother was bugging us a while ago to pick out a tapestry so she could stitch it for us, and if she asks again this puppy is MINE.

Whoa! The food blogger I’ve been reading for the past six months is a girl! For some reason, I just always thought she was a guy. Here I am craning my neck in every restaurant in the Inner West looking for a tubby guy with a camera, when I’ve probably passed this innocuous-looking Asian chick ten times…

Dear Other K. Howards in the world…
Please learn to type your damn e-mail address. I’m stick of my Yahoo Mail account filling up with spam from Classmates.com for Katherine and Ancestry.com for Keith.

After Serenity…
Me: “Hey, he didn’t wear the hat!”
Snook: “What hat?”
Me: “I don’t know. All these Firefly fans are knitting crazy yellow and orange hats with pompoms, and I think the big Jayne guy was supposed to wear one. But he didn’t.”

So, “Browncoats,” what was up with that? I loved the movie, by the way, and though I’m definitely a Joss Whedon fan, I never saw a single episode of the show. I guess that makes me one of those converts y’all were hoping to get with this movie! I did cry at the end, even though I didn’t have nearly the emotional connection you guys must have had. The Reavers scared the crap out of me. Jayne made me laugh. I kept waiting for River to kick some ass (and it was hugely satisfying when she did). Mal was suitably Han Soloish in a way nobody else has been since 1982. I just have a few (possibly spoilerish) questions for the fans…- Who was “Mr. Universe”? I got that he was some big hacker, but I didn’t get why he had such crazy powers and yet the Alliance hadn’t taken him down.

– Was Inora a priestess, a hoochie, or both?

– What happened at that battle of Serenity Whatever? I felt like it probably had thematic resonance with their last stand, but we of course missed out on it.

– Hey, Catboy, what was the big moment where Mal did something that you thought was shockingly inhumane? Since his character was new to me, I just sorta took him at face level…

And yeah, yeah, we’re totally going to go rent the DVDs. I just thought maybe you could point me to a little primer since I’m very stoked about getting into it at the moment…

So… last night was The Night. The Night We Went to Tetsuya’s. Amy had made the reservation months ago and by the time it rolled around all four of us (me, Snookums, Amy, and Rob) were pretty keyed up with anticipation. The Snook and I had a late breakfast and then didn’t eat anything else all day; THAT’S how much we wanted to have empty bellies for all the culinary goodness that awaited us. At last the doors were parted by a pair of waiters and we were led inside like royalty. We were quickly seated in a small dining room (at that point, we were the only people in it) and we informed the waiter that we’d all be having the degustation with matched wines. We also decided to have the optional starter of oysters to begin. Interestingly, Grab Your Fork visited the restaurant in April and the menu was almost exactly the same, so you should go there to read AugustusGloop’s review and see pictures of all the different courses. (We thought of taking photos but didn’t want to look too touristy.) Read on for my take…Okay, so here are my remembered responses (in order of consumption):

• The oysters: Yummy, but I still have to fight hard not to think about what I’m eating or else I get a little gaggy.
• Black truffle butter: *still drooling* Amy and I liked this way too much.
• Snow egg and caviar sandwich: I liked the egg, but I think I can conclusively say that I’m not a big fan of the caviar. It’s still a little too fishy for my palate. (And all I could picture was poor Mirna shoveling two pounds of it down her throat…)
• Tartare of tuna on sushi rice with avocado: Very nice. The tuna was so meaty and fresh; there wasn’t even the slightest bit of fishiness. We all exposed ourselves as uncultured rubes though, when we didn’t realize that we were supposed to use the provided spoons to eat the avocado “soup.” Instead we just slopped it up with our forks. Oops.
• Cold corn soup with basil ice cream: Surprisingly YUM! I’ve eaten my fair share of creamed corn but this is the creamiest corn you’ve ever seen.
• Tuna marinated in soy and mirin: This was on a funny little spear and Rob nearly melted when he had his. With each of the fish dishes I had to fight the impulse to just knock it back without even tasting it, but I definitely noticed that this wasn’t fishy and it did have a pleasant wasabi tinge to it.
• Trevally with preserved lemon: Actually we didn’t have this one. Instead we had a small bit of scampi that somehow also incorporated some chicken. I remember thinking that the best part was the contrasting texture of the sliced green onion.
• Confit of trout: When they sat this in front of me, I turned to the Snook and said, “This is my nightmare. A waiter just put a big piece of fish in front of me and I have to eat it.” It’s Tetsuya’s signature dish though, so I squared my shoulders and dug in. Again, surprisingly good. Not fishy, and the texture was so soft it practically fell apart in your mouth. The seaweed on the outside was a nice touch in that it allowed me to focus on something other than the fact that actual FISH PARTS were in my mouth.
• Ravioli of lobster and crab with shellfish essence: Hmm, I know I ate this but I can’t remember anything other than it was good. We were onto our fourth or fifth glass of wine at this point.
• Twice cooked de-boned spatchcock with braised daikon and bread sauce: Finally, some warm-blooded animals! This was very nice. (We agree with AugustusGloop that the “meticulously carved” vegetable was a potato.)
• Grilled Wagyu beef with asian mushrooms and lime jus: This is the one I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately I’m not a big mushroom eater, but I soldiered on. It was very good. The Snook felt that the sauce was a bit overpowering though, and he would have preferred to taste a bit more of the beef itself. I guess I can see that.
• Orange and honey sorbet with black pepper: We didn’t have this one. Instead we had beetroot and blood orange sorbet. It was really weird eating red frozen mush that tasted of beets and oranges.
• Tetsuya’s take on strawberry shortcake: Ah, this one I LIKED. We asked the waiter what the bottom layer was, and he said it was pulverized biscuits (cookies) with sugar syrup. This was pretty much my only real foodgasm moment of the night, mostly because I wasn’t concentrating so hard on the weird things that I was eating and just allowed myself to enjoy it.
• Blue cheese ice cream with pear and sauterne jelly: I’m not a big fan of blue cheese but I really enjoyed this. I’d never had anything like it before. Very nice.
• Floating island with praline and vanilla bean anglaise: This was the softest, airiest meringue I’ve ever eaten in my life. You put it in your mouth and it just dissolved instantly. As I remarked to the group, “I should be annoyed at paying so much to eat air, but it’s really good!”

We stuck around for coffees afterwards and finally called for the bill more than three hours after we’d arrived. (During the course of our dinner the dining room filled up to capacity. Oh! And we even saw Tetsuya, who came out to wish someone a happy birthday.) The waiter set the bill in front of Rob and I grabbed it. “I just have to see,” I said. Even though I knew what to expect, I still nearly slid out of my chair. FOUR FIGURES for dinner is just the most ridiculously extravagant thing we’ve ever been a part of. Out came the credit cards and away we strode into the night.

So, Final Thoughts: Tetsuya’s definitely lived up to my expectations. Every dish was unusual and beautiful and challenged my tastebuds. The matched wines were all excellent and even the Snook – a minor wine connoisseur – was raving. The service was impeccable and it was every bit the “fancy restaurant” experience of this Midwestern girl’s dreams. But would I go back? I’m not so sure. I think the real lesson of the evening is that while I can appreciate this French style of “art for art’s sake” cuisine, it just isn’t my favorite kind of meal. It’s a nice treat, but I’d rather have one nice big main to concentrate on rather than half a dozen small ones. I was brought up to expect a fantastic, special dinner to end with being stuffed, and this fancy city food – while nice for an occasion – just doesn’t give you the same satisfied feeling at the end.

One of the Snook’s and my favorite Australian musicians, Paul Kelly, recently gave a one-hour interview to ABC Queensland. You can download the whole thing as an MP3 and apparently he performs four live songs on it. (I’m still downloading it at the moment.)

Good grief, how did we miss THIS? Lex, Big Tom, and Jerri from Survivor are all in town for “TribalCon” this weekend! Now I’m having fun envisioning all the great ways I would mock Lex in person for his non-righteous indignation over the way he was played by Boston Rob.

WOOHOO!
I just got in from a nice lazy Saturday morning with the Snook to find about seventeen hysterical messages from Amy. Remember that Knitty Calendar Contest we entered a couple months ago? Well, we just got an e-mail from Amy Singer saying that one of our photos was selected! (We’re not allowed to tell you which one yet, nor which prize we won. It’s kinda like going on Jeopardy and then not being able to tell how you did til your show airs. Knitty is all about building the suspense.) But anyway, HOW COOL IS THAT?! I’m a model! And of course, it’s all down to the phenomenal photo-taking ability of Rob. I think the formal announcement will be made when they post the Fall Surprises, so it shouldn’t be very much longer…

Oh my God. I just saw an ad on the ABC for Operatunity Oz. They’re doing the “Opera Idol” thing here! Note to self: Ask Joseph if you can borrow his video camera, because DUDE, I am SO AUDITIONING for this! (Don’t get me wrong. I can’t sing. I just think it would be awesome to try. And maybe my enthusiasm would win them over and then they’d train me so I could! Or maybe they’d just play my video on TV and mock me. Either way, I’d be teh Famous!)