Posted by: Steve Hemmingsen - 04/25/2009 12:00 AM
Spring is the time of year when the Norwegian Legion’s thoughts turn to food…along with winter, summer and fall. Lutefisk used to be the only international delicacy, so popular that the little town by the lake added Syttende Mai…May 17th…to be celebrated this year on the weekend of May 8th, to the list of lutefisk high holidays along with that month-long stench, er, stretch between Thanksgiving and New Years.
Periodically, a couple dozen ladies, mainly of Nordic extraction, venture beyond the culinary fjords. What used to be a craft club made up of women from the White and 
I was invited to join them, but I decided to observe from a distance as the courses of escargot in garlic butter, French onion soup, Salade Nicoisse topped with an anchovy, au gratin potatoes and sliced breast of duck in wine sauce with cherries morphed from works of art to empty plates, except for that ubiquitous, decorative bib of lettuce that nobody eats. 
Even though I hadn’t had time to dress for the occasion, to shop the big and tall department where there’s a vertical smile in every aisle, I was called up for duty, to regale the gang with my adventures with French dining, both of them. It was really an improv stall until the stubborn au gratins were ready. It was easy to conjure up memories of our private after-the-news, after closing dinner at the old Lafayette Restaurant with Charles Kuralt. I miss that place…and Charles. They both died. And there was the time when I led one of those “Hi, join me and your KELOLAND neighbors” junkets to
With the slightly tardy, but tasty, arrival of the au gratins, it was almost an international sweep…almost. The ladies ate the snails or passed them on to one of their dinner mates who would. The duck breast with 
But it was nicely “presented.” You have to give points for the quality of rejection. I don’t like the little buggers, either. They look like leeches and taste like sardines.
As for dining alone, a table away from 25 women, I’m waiting for that “trophy wife.” Not that I’m all that fussy, nor in any hurry. A first or second runner-up…or even a nominee…would be fine. Maybe I’ll start my own site “e-dysfunction.com,” pairing up the anchovies and lettuce bibs of life.
12:00 AM
