un magnifique dejeuner...lunch at L'Etoile du Nord

Vous rappelez-vous le gout de la nourriture? 

Do you remember the taste of food?   We rediscovered it today at L'Etoile du Nord.

Endive & pear gratin with stoemp (root veggie mash) and beets with caraway for me, a French-style omelet with beets and onions for John.

Perfect, wonderful, exquisite.......

As a teenager, my friend and I would take the train to Minneapolis on Tuesdays (our day off from work) and dine at a wonderful restaurant for lunch.  Charlie's Cafe Exceptionale, Murray's (home of the silver butter knife steak), various white tablecloth hotel restaurants---where they served your boeuf bourguignon tableside, ladling it onto your plate with a bit of a flourish.

Yeah, those days are long gone...except maybe right here in Bayport at this moment in time.

Perhaps one of the most exquisite meals I've enjoyed in a long, long time.   One bite of the pear...with its wine-kissed  get-your-attention flavor....slightly cooked but still crisp...paired with beautiful endive, a bit of ham and wonderful cheese that had its edges slightly crisped under the broiler...incroyable.

The sophisticated texture of John's omelet...filled with beets and onions....was a trip to Europe on a substantial white 'plate' paired with perfectly prepared heirloom fingerlings.  Not the greasy American rolled up sheet of 'scrambled' eggs...instead, in the French tradition---puffy, no trace of the intersection of the egg white and yolk----a singular-hued, enticing pillow of egg and veggie...tender and light.  Julia Child & Jacques Pepin would approve.

So, yes, apparently there is still a bit of food in Minnesota.   This ephemeral memory will stay with me as I travel to Europe this week...in search of food, as I remember it, and as it can be.