All grown up

Published On: March 30, 2010

I have eaten a lot of good food in my lifetime. More than I deserve. Okay now stop snickering—that's what Spanx are for. Since it's our Epicurean issue, I was thinking about some of the finer meals I've enjoyed over the years. It's hard to beat dinner with my folks at some joint in NYC. Then again, my best friend Lezley and I had a ball dining courtesy of her parents at Le Cirque. Then there were all the James Beard dinners I attended courtesy of Jack Daniel's, where chefs like Eric Ripert and Wolfgang Puck took me and my friend Mindy into the kitchen.

True epicurean delight started years earlier for me when I was wearing shusher pajamas, and Mom said company was coming. We dined formally when I was little, but to me, company signaled some serious treats. Like Boursin. I remember licking the last remnants from that pleated foil after Mom took that big chunk of cheese love out of its package. Boursin was reserved for BYOS and B nights—that's Bring Your Own Steak and Bottle night. The Colemans, Warners, Wallaces, Halls, Cammacks, Harts, Ingrams, Kitchells—all would gather with their favorite chunk of flesh and libation. Fancy and cheap.

Those nights, another sign of a fine evening was that ubiquitous brick of Philly Cream Cheese laden with jelly or maybe even A-1 Sauce, piled on saltines. And water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, soaked in soy sauce and brown sugar.

My favorite part was the slim possibility Mom would allow us a TV dinner. Those delightful little tin trays that were nothing more than a lesson in geometry—a rectangle of salisbury steak, the triangle wedge of fake mashed potatoes, and a pea cube. Yep. I loved it when my parents' friends brought over steaks. Better than the TV dinner was the chance I could slink into the pantry and score a box of vanilla pudding dough that I could scoop out dry and raw, from the box. To this day, my tastebuds run immature. I like Cherry Slush Puppies, Pop Rocks, raw cookie dough—and never, I mean ever, get between me and a bag of lemon drops or Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. I've never really grown up.

But the other night, I had an experience that catapulted me into adulthood. And I didn't mind it at all.

During a trip to the market, I picked up Caribbean lobster tails and an array of other treats and traveled with a friend to my cousin Carrington's. Along with her family, we proceeded to cook all the stuff I had bought.

My mother wouldn't have approved. We ate in waves. There were the grilled asparagus, the dates, the shrimp cooked with lime and ginger, the crispy prosciuitto, mozzerella and cantaloupe salad, the pot stickers. Strangely enough, this was spring break, and we bemoaned the fact that we were stuck at home, here in landlocked Nashville. But we looked about the table and knew we had traveled the world with our Carribean lobster, Italian salad, California wine, Asian potstickers and Tennessee whiskey.

And the conversation was so much more interesting. The clothes more casual. The liquor—free...

But my favorite part? When Carrington's middle son Julius tugged at me and whispered, "I'm gonna eat 30 brownies," as he nodded seriously. And I, feeling a lot younger (and rounder), replied, "I'm going to eat 31."

enelson@nfocusmagazine.com