The Anne Samuel is back from Paris and ready to take on New York City…but something secretive is afoot, and more covert operations are in store for the future. What could they be? Today’s installment in the Anne Samuel’s glorious and gilded history holds a clue.
Get ready for another episode of epicurean excellence and dashing duplicity at The Anne Samuel!
(Missed last week’s post? Find it here!)
Chapter Seven — The Anne Samuel Puts on an Act
Lest one begin to fear that The Anne Samuel was doomed to travel down the slippery slope to becoming no more than a breeding ground for romantic dalliances (as is the trouble with most exclusive establishments), Elias’s and my next Anne Samuel adventure should offer readers a measure of reassurance. After all, it was then that Elias pulled a gun on me.
This dubious occasion was actually initiated months earlier in December, when I received a copy of the script for the Broadway version of Anastasia. Somehow, I managed to get Elias hooked on the musical; he and I spent weeks playing the soundtrack during our respective commutes, learning every song backwards and forwards, and, in the end, preparing for our starring roles as the entire cast in the Anne Samuel’s first Broadway production.
Not to be outdone by herself, my mother was also hard at work. But, instead of singing at the top of her lungs as she drove up and down the interstate or rewriting parts of a Broadway script to fit her fancy (and limited number of actors), Mom was busy transforming the playroom from old “Paree” into NYC. To do this, she bought yet another oversized wall hanging (this one featuring the Brooklyn Bridge) and enlisted my help to design a chalkboard welcoming the patrons to “New York, New York”.
And the food—the food was something magical in its own right, a slightly irreverent ode to the Big Apple featuring everything from savory cheesecake to “New York-style pizza” hamburgers. Decidedly un-kosher Jewish deli bites and black-and-white chocolate skillet cookies rounded out the menu, along with yet another cocktail: a “Big (Caramel) Apple-tini”.
We changed the passcode to match the theme of the evening’s entertainment, so, when Elias arrived, I opened the door and whispered conspiratorially: “Have you heard?”
To which he replied: “There’s a rumor in Saing Petersburg!”
He entered.
We dined.
And, after the dinner, we performed the entire play from top to bottom, singing at the tops of our lungs, not caring who heard us, and making up parts as we went. (It became a little awkward when I took the role of Vlad, a decidedly male middle-aged count, and even more awkward—yet likewise more hilarious—when Elias pulled a pop gun on me for the grand finale.)
The tweaks we added—and the extra kisses between the romantic leads—made the narrative as much a part of our own story as the night at the Anne Samuel itself. Little did I know that night as we danced beneath the hanging silver stars after our self-applauded curtain call, but Elias’s and my relationship had grown markedly more complex that day. Not only had singing and dancing and half-rewriting a musical drawn us closer together through the act of creation, but, that morning, Elias had taken his first step down a path toward a greater level of intimacy than I was, at that point, expecting.
He had met with my father.
Now, of course, Elias and Dad had met many times. They’d shot (real) guns together, dismayed to realize that I was naturally a better shot—Dad had to concoct a convenient excuse for why his sharpshooter self struggled that day—and played multiple games of cribbage during the holidays. Dad had even famously threatened to shoot Elias’s brother in a case of mistaken identity and misunderstanding the likes of which Elias is, to this day, yet to live down. However, this meeting was of a slightly more serious nature—Elias was ready to ask for my father’s blessing.
To their credit, both Dad and Elias (and Mom, who was, of course, in on the secret) kept so low a profile I was convinced that nothing was amiss. I sang and danced and laughed and ate that night as if it was any other amazing evening. For Elias, however, it was a victory dinner—a celebration of all that had happened since our first in-person meeting at a crowded, COVID-era coffeeshop and a salute to the promised joy in his not-too-distant future.
Because my dad, of course, said “Yes.”
The trio made up of my parents plus their future-son-in-law could have won an Oscar or (perhaps more aptly, considering the Broadway craze sweeping my world at the time) a Tony Award for the performances they put on over the ensuing month-and-a-half; not only did they succeed in not arousing my suspicions, but Mom also managed to host one of the Anne Samuel’s most fabulous evening events to date.
(During this time, there was also the first-annual Anne Samuel Easter Egg Hunt and subsequent Chick-Bunny race but, since I didn’t win either the egg hunt or the race that first year, I will avoid the rest of the subject altogether. Elias can surely fill in any of my blanks with his gloating, if such a thing is really necessary.)
Thankfully, in the midst of my grueling four-ish months of student teaching, lasting from January to mid-April, there was a certain blessed reprieve at the end of March called Spring Break. Getting up at four o’clock in the morning four days out of every week and making the drive to my host school the next town over had taken its toll. I awaited every day of sun-kissed freedom with predictably bated breath while Mom dreamed and schemed and planned several days’ worth of excitement for me and Elias to enjoy.
The week started off gloriously, with a detective-themed outing that included dressing up like characters from Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries, picnicking in our favorite rose garden with sandwiches from the Anne Samuel kitchen, and indulging in double scoops of huckleberry cheesecake ice cream as we rattled around town in a vintage blue convertible, attempting to solve a caper that involved cracking a magnificent, Mom-invented code.
In the end, I walked away from the evening with a tangled passel of memories that included a flip-flapping sunhat and the smell of exhaust, a barbarous sunburn, and an invitation to visit The Anne Samuel at the end of the week for an undisclosed mission. The only instructions? “Dress to kill.”
I spent the week nursing my sunburn, and Elias and I texted back and forth for hours at a time, attempting to discern what sort of mysterious magic The Anne Samuel had in store this time around. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon that Friday, I could nearly consider myself sun-kissed instead of burnt (with the right amount of nose powder…which happened to be tons) and Elias and I had exhausted every conceivable possibility we could think of regarding what the evening might hold.
Adopting our detective-inspired pseudonyms again for the night, Elias and I pranced into The Anne Samuel to the tune of “The Pink Panther” (which may have inspired a number of jokes in regard to the permanently flushed state of my face) and recited the special passcode:
I don’t promise to forget the mystery, but I know I’ll have a marvelous time.
It was, of course, a quote from the first Nancy Drew book ever published. After photos, cocktails, and a small hors-d’œuvre on the overstuffed leather lounge couch, it became clear that “the mystery” in question would take center stage for the evening.
As we were seated at our table, the proprietress turned out all of the lights, leaving us in a sinister darkness penetrated only by the waning evening light peering in at us through the full-length glass windows. Of course, the darkness wasn’t really all that sinister—not with the medley of tantalizing unidentified aromas floating through the air. However, the evening’s playlist, peppered with themes from old noir movies, did well to paint a picture otherwise.
Once we were settled in our seats at the black-clothed table, Mom provided us with our menus for the night. But, other than the name of each course—amuse-bouche, entreé, etcetera—my sheet of paper was entirely blank. A line of text at the top explained our conundrum: “Do your best to identify the flavors you tasted in each course…but hurry! The lights could go back down at any moment.”
So, that was it. We would be dining in the style of “danse le noir”, a form of culinary experimentalism also known as “dark dining” based off of the belief that the absence of one sense heightens the others; as the theory goes, inhibiting a gourmand’s ability to see the dishes they consume results in an overall improved gastronomic experience. It was a concept I’d been desperate to experience for years, but one which was (unsurprisingly) nonexistent not only in my miniscule town but also in the entire state. Of course, with Coronavirus and face masks still a major buzzword atop everyone’s tongue, I wouldn’t have wanted to go to a “real” restaurant anyway.
Due to the unrelenting light from a pesky street lamp beyond the playroom window, discerning the primary composition of each dish wasn’t quite as much of a challenge as I’d been anticipating (and I wasn’t about to adopt a blindfold like many of the real-world variations of the restaurant required). The true mystery, in fact, was how my mother managed to produce nine courses’ worth of truly incredible food on her own in only a few short hours.
My view of the food that night might have been shadowy, but the truth shone with crystal clarity—my mother was an untapped well of culinary greatness, and her talents were only improving. That night alone, we sampled daring gastronomic feats of flavor such as whipped feta with tomato confit, chestnut soup, pomegranate-glazed lamb meatballs, and two different desserts—one being a delightful confection the name of which (posset) I had never before heard. The other dessert—Baked Alaska—further solidified my belief that both cake and ice cream, two of mankind’s most magnificent masterpieces, only served the purpose of enhancing the other. Meringue, as I discovered, didn’t hurt either.
Looking back on the evolution of The Anne Samuel, I find it easy to identify the institution’s major milestones, such as when it served its first prix fixe dinner or the time it received its official name. This night—this “danse le noir” dining experience—was another such event as to usher in a new epoch in the history of the Anne Samuel, one focused not merely on aesthetic and overall atmosphere but, instead, on true culinary greatness.
The “Danse le Noir Lineup” in the light of day, lovingly (and hastily) photographed by my mother for posterity’s sake prior to being served in the dark of night.
Soon, The Anne Samuel would secure its first of its three (imaginary) Michelin stars after a rather unfortunate experience at a lauded fine dining restaurant turned both myself and Elias into honorary restaurant critics. But, first, the proprietress would have to pull off the greatest, most challenging feat of her life.
That is, deceiving her own daughter…