My wife and I are enjoying a wonderful time in Seattle–she’s here for a radiology conference and I’m here enjoying myself and reading and writing reviews in various coffee shops and the Koolhaas designed Seattle Public Library building. Last night Lori and I celebrated our anniversary at Tilth restaurant–on Mondays they have a set menu in which they feature local fare. Yesterday the local feature was line caught tuna which was amazing. Here’s the menu:
Butternut Squash Soup
ginger, gala apple, mint
Albacore Tuna Confit
dried tomato, nicoise olive, frisee
Seared St. Jude Tuna
israeli cous cous, avocado, grapefruit
Lemon Cream Tart
meringue, mint, muscat grape
I should get back to my book before I start getting hungry again…
Nice. Nothing better than a city full of coffee shops and some free time. Enjoy!
You forgot the most important aspect of the menu: the wine. Good food is designed to accent great wine. Not the reverse. (Too many Americans still haven’t figured this out; we’re still suffering from the backlash of 1930′s fundamentalism and prohibition. Don’t get me on a rant…) How’d you pare the courses? Or should I say, what wines did the food accent?
Yay! Your foodie side comes through on the blog! Biblical studies and eating are wonderful companion activities.
Jake, I teach at an institution that prevents me from accenting my food with wine.
Angie, I completely agree–Biblical studies and eating are great companion activities. Lori and I went to Chicago last weekend and we ate at HotChocolate of which the pastry chef was just nominated for a James Beard award. The food was great, servings were a bit large though and the hot chocolate was good, but too rich for me.
Charles: I’m sorry to hear about that. Sacrifices need to be made in our small field of study. I have several agnostic/atheistic friends who said they’d teach at Bob Jones if they had to. I love coffee and would give it up in a heartbeat to teach at BYU–so I’m right there with you. In any case, I’m glad that you got to indulge and enjoy the hedonism of great food while celebrating your marriage.
By the way, I meant “accenting wine with food.”
HotChocolate sounds interesting. I’ll probably be in Chicago this year and will check it out. My wife and I want to go to this restaurant called Alinea.
Another good restaurant in Chi-town is called Avec. Communal dining (thus the name) and a really interesting menu. And very hip.
Jake, your comments on wine are kind of puzzling. There’s not really one right way to pair and wine does not necessarily take the upper hand. Good food has its own raison d’etre. As I see it, pairing is about finding the right match. The partners can’t compete with one another, should complement one another, and maybe even bring out interesting things about one another. This is fun when you start to see the terroir in both the food and the wine. Like a good marriage, I suppose, both partners are unique on their own, yet complimentary.
Maybe I can tell the authorities at BYU that my brother voted for Romney. That will get me the job!
Charles, your non-drinking pledge extends not only off-campus but out of town?
I agree with Angela about the food-wine issue. For example, the French are quite serious about both, and would not assert the “primacy” of either, I don’t think.
Chris, beverage alcohol is herem in town and out of town.
Gosh–sensitive! Can’t someone who happens to love wine write tongue-in-cheek.
But if you must ask, with the very best wines (Petrus, Romanee Conti, etc..) the wine will have primacy over the food. But how often do people drink $1000+ bottles? Not often, so the issue is moot for those us not named Robert Parker.
Charles: I looked on the student Handbook at the Southern Baptist Seminary website and noticed that alcohol was placed besides illegal substances, and that both were prohibited. I couldn’t figure out why wine would be put under the same herem as heroin? Poor Jesus (John 2)!
Jake, that is interesting syntax isn’t it? I’m sure that everyone in the admin at SBTS would not equate narcotics with wine–otherwise the deity of Jesus is at stake which they surely would avoid–but it possibly reveals a Freudian slip of sorts.
Why is the deity of Jesus at stake?
It’s a matter of a syllogism:
Using recreational heroin is a sin
Using recreational wine is synonymous to that of heroin
Deity is that being without sin
Therefore, if Jesus used/made wine he cannot be divine
What’s the Greek term for “recreational heroin use”?
Seriously — obviously there is nothing in the Bible outlawing drug use. Is there some extrabiblical rationale for the claim that it would have been a sin for Jesus, then? For example, was drug use outlawed by Roman or Jewish law in the first century?
Chris, you’re certainly right that there is no Greek term for recreational heroin use.
The ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world certainly didn’t have synthetic drugs and I don’t think they had refined narcotics like heroin; I’m not sure about ditchweed and the like, but I haven’t read anything saying that they did.
The thought that recreational drug use would be sin is implied from the prohibitions against drunkenness–if it’s a sin to be drunk then it’s a sin to be under the effects of shooting heroin.
OK. I can’t tell if you buy those arguments or not, so let me just point out that in John 2, AFTER all of the wine supplied for the wedding has been drunk, Jesus turns somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of water into wine (2:6). And he even cares enough to make it really good wine (2:10).
This is not a teetotaling Savior, praise God. Just don’t do anything foolish like messing around in the buff with your kids, and it’ll be OK.
Also, if people aren’t supposed to drink, why is YHWH serving wine to the peoples in Isa 25:6?
What do people at SBS say about such passages?
I wonder why God made marijuana. For the medicinal value we’re always told about?
Chris, I don’t think that Jesus was a teetotaler, however, I respect my employer’s policies and I abide by them.
If you would like to hear the president and dean discuss this issue here is a link to an audio file:
http://www.sbts.edu/MP3/Mohler/Alcohol&Ministry.mp3
I figured I owed it to you to listen to that recording, since I gave SBS a hard time. I listened to the whole thing. I certainly could not work or live in that context. I don’t want to offend you, so I’ll just bite my tongue and not say anything more.
Chris, you haven’t offended me. I have great students at Southern and the faculty and admin have been extremely wonderful to me so I have thoroughly enjoyed my time there so far.