After a somewhat dull Wednesday spent doing my Chemistry homework and some stuff for English and for Communications, the Mrs. and I went out for dinner to celebrate being together for four months. :) I know that's kind of high school, and mostly it was her idea, but it was an excuse to go and spend some time together and have a romantic evening that we could look back on and smile about when it's been a week since we've seen each other, and we're both stressed out and pushing each other's buttons when we finally do get a chance to talk on the phone, so I was for it. She suggested Saffron, in downtown Minneapolis (almost into Near Nordeast, but not quite) on Hennepin and 1st. Middle Eastern/Mediterranian food is kind of what it's about, and after having been lusting after Thai food all week, this seemed like it would be just barely not what I wanted. I was prepared for ok, but not great--and a little unsatisfying, if I'm honest. But I was going there with my Mrs., and we were going to have a good time together, and I sort of made up my mind to at least try to like whatever was going on on the plate, even though I had it in my head that it wasn't going to scratch that Thai food itch.
WRONG. This was the best meal of my life--everything about it was perfect. We got in the patterned frosted glass door after the mostly nondescript vestibule of the building which houses the restaurant and several boring-looking office suites. Red and black and soft, cozy, caraway-scented browns were on the light fixtures, the cushions around the overstuffed booths, and the candles on each table flickered against the dim, seductive glow of lights that barely illuminated the menus in front of us. Our server, David, was about 5'7" with a five-o'clock shadow and a ready sense of humor. We giggled and said we needed more time when he asked us for our order the first time. Keeping careful watch at a distance, he waited until we had looked over all the options on the one-page menu, from which we determined we would have to come back--just so we could get one of everything at some point, and had made our selections. We ordered the corn soup, the arugula salad, a plate of olives and pickles, and a lamb shank tagine. With the smells of spices coming from the kitchen and the muted sounds of conversation coming from the few tables where other people were seated this late on a Wednesday (it was about 8:00), I felt lulled into a dreamy happiness, thinking of how much I love olives, and how happy I'd be to have lamb in thick, chickpea-studded tomato broth that's even better when you mop it up with pita. I was already in love. I didn't know that the best part was on its way.
The olive and pickle plate came--sublime. Briny, vinegary olives that I could gnaw off their pits, tangy and spicy string beans and peppers and carrots and onions--it was so salty and so savory. My palate was in fighting form by the time the soup arrived. That's right. The moment I'm about to explode really IS about soup.
David came out, carrying a creamer-sized white beaker, and a large, deep bowl. In the bowl, there was this wash at the bottom of piquillo pepper-infused oil, and on top of that was a garlic-yogurt sauce nestled in a soft, creamy white circle. On top of this circle sat charred-looking kernels of golden corn, and Spanish corn nuts for texture, and like punctuation at the end of that sentence of decadent, rich flavors, this mad alchemy of spicy pepper and cooling yogurt was topped with a modest-looking neat row of black fig quarters--all lined up with parallel strands of chive laid across them. My eyes got wide, and I couldn't help it--I clapped my hands a couple of times in sheer glee, smiling like an elated preschooler with eyes the size of the tapas plates before us. David: "That wasn't even the best part! Here's the soup--it doesn't have any sugar or any cream in it--it's just the sweetness and texture of the corn you're going to taste." And with that, he poured the delicately yellow, thick-looking liquid from the beaker and into the bowl--so artfully, not one little delicate wisp of chive was displaced. Instead, the bottom of the bowl looked like all the colors of the fall, layered affectionately next to and on top of one another, and the sweet, grainy-but-vegetable smell of the corn seduced us into dipping our spoons into its depths. Rich soup. Velvety mix of the soup plus the yogurt. Savory, crunchy, fresh-tasting corn nuts and chives. Sweet, dark, complex figs. Dangerous-tasting piquillo. Comforting, soothing waves of happiness coming off of it in the aroma. Warm spiciness without pain. Pillowy, soft bites of the fig and the yogurt and the soup together. The light felt like a halo around the plate. Everything in my brain and my body and my environment breathed a light, fluttering, delicious sigh--I felt perfectly nurtured and relaxed and drowsy and cozy. This soup made something cuddle up inside my mind, and put my anxieties and my nagging thoughts and my irritations so far in the background that they almost fell completely below the horizon. Each bite was a renewal of this bliss, and i found myself dragging my finger through the viscous, autumn-colored wreckage to lick precious molecules of it from between the ridges of my fingerprint. It was like reaching Nirvana, Zen, complete peace and light and warmth--and next time I feel stressed and wound too tight to function, I'm taking the Cure at Saffron.
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