Five Things Make Up an Entry. I've tried to make them good ones.

1. I am writing a short story for one of you. It's called "Twelve Things You Don't Know About Dryads." (There is a reason for this title, but the person whose story it is doesn't know the reason yet.) Yesterday I sat down with a creamy thick piece of notepaper and a pen with leafy green ink and wrote down eighteen possible section headings. I crossed out six. Now I have to reorder the remaining twelve. But I think this is good. The first three were usable but tepid. I'm sorry to have to miss #15. I am happy with this process, though. It was satisfying in more than one way.

2. One of the things I crossed off the dryad list was, "Who last really impressed them." Who last really impressed you? It was much more of an lj question than a dryad question, I think. ("Why dryads do not use lj" was not on the list.)

3. I got two hours of extra sleep this morning and feel almost human as a result. Still nauseated this morning. Still much vertigo. But far better to have nausea and vertigo without feeling like I'm going to lose structural integrity and melt into a little puddle of exhaustion on the floor.

4. I have a birthday present! I don't know what it is or from whom, but an Amazon box arrived addressed to me, and I hadn't ordered anything for myself, so I had markgritter check to see if it was a birthday present, and it was. So it will remain unopened for another 11 days. (This is actually my second birthday present of the year, but the first one arrived in June and was not clearly labeled, "BIRTHDAY PRESENT: DO NOT OPEN." So I opened it. It arrived from a different country, whose inhabitants were less confident of the mails than this occasion warranted.)

I suspect that I am putting a bit too much emotional weight on this birthday being a good one. But there are some years when you really sort of need a good birthday. And I am the easiest person in the world to make happy on and around my birthday. Time with friends and family is the very best thing. Lj comments and e-mails are great. Cards/postcards and phone calls are happy-making. And I maintain that I am the easiest person I know to buy presents for, since a wide variety of types and prices of gift will make me flat-out gleeful, and not only do I have a long list of happy-making options readily available online, I am also pleased with things not appearing on that list. We already have plans for the birthday-related baking being accomplished (by Mom and me, so it'll be fun time together rather than me flailing at vertigo limitations). I have a family party and a friend party planned, with other family and friend options on the horizon. This seems like it's going to work out.

5. markgritter and I are trying a new restaurant this evening. I like getting past the "we should do that sometime" phase to the "sometime is now" phase.

Cafe Levain report

fmi_agent asked for a report on our Cafe Levain experience. Short version: good stuff, we'll go back.

Longer version: I ordered a glass of the Spanish white that was on special, but I didn't catch the name. It wasn't special enough for me to ask the server for the name later, but it was a quite drinkable, happy white wine. markgritter had something else, but I don't remember what. Bread was crusty and good. We had the scallop starter, which had a fresh green salad on top -- wonderful greens, though I couldn't identify most of them -- and a carrot-vanilla puree for the base. I wasn't sure how the carrot-vanilla thing would go, but the carrots didn't have the bitter undernote some carrots do, so it was really quite fine.

I had the "Vegetable Tasting" for an entree, with brussels sprouts for the side. I polished off the brussels sprouts, which shouldn't surprise people who know me well. They were braised with garlic slivers. Nothing complicated, just done right. The "Vegetable Tasting" surprised me, though the menu listing was fairly clear: Cafe Levain emphasizes local, fresh ingredients when possible on their menu, and yet this was a vegetable main course that could have been done in November or February without any problem at all. It had fingerling potatoes of varying hues, all flavorful (pale gold to deep, deep purple), small carrots, braised "long red onions," braised greens. And local chevre, and slivered garlic. Very tasty, very fine...but there are fresh peas in the world right now, among other things. I was a little startled not to see more seasonal stuff, but once I got past that, I really enjoyed what was in front of me. (And also you all know I'm a winter girl; having a culinary visit to winter was no bad thing.) markgritter had a steak on potato puree with the local mushrooms for the side. I tried the potato and mushrooms, and they were both tasty. He enjoyed the steak as well.

Aaaaand...that's when the power went out. So we were extremely lucky. There were a couple of tables of people who'd come in after us and hadn't ordered when the power went. The chefs sent out salad and cheese and bread but eventually sent them home (without charging), on the theory that they really kind of needed power to do anything on the menu.

But! The same was not true of the dessert menu. So despite the power outage, I could still have Valrhona truffle cake (very dense, reasonably dark but towards the midpoint of my admittedly very dark tastes in chocolate) with Italian cherries and caramel, which combination was somewhat unusual and definitely worth attention. There wasn't enough caramel to make it oversweet, and the preservation method of the cherries was a little bitter as well, which is a win for me. And markgritter could still have angel food cake with passion fruit ice cream and rhubarb compote. Again, I left what might have been considered the central portion of his dish strictly alone (angel food cake is on my list of Complete Wastes of Dessert), but the passion fruit ice cream and the rhubarb compote were nicely complementary types of tart.

Success. We will go back. And they were very charming and rueful about the power outage, handled themselves well.