So last night SB and I had dinner at Henrietta’s Table near Harvard Square. I really want to do more eating close to home, so the fact that they listed the sources for their meats and veggies was really appealing. I ordered duck – because really, how often can you get free range duck? – and SB got lamb. After I ordered and started eating the duck, however, I remembered that we had spent a good part of the afternoon looking for the Make Way for Ducklings ducks on the Boston Common.
I guess it’s a testament to the freshness and quality of the food that I couldn’t bring myself to eat the duck (and barely eat the bite of lamb that SB offered me) because it was too much like the actual animal. In Jamie Oliver’s Italian cookbook, he included some really vivid, bloody pictures of the animals he was about to cook – he said that he included these photos because it’s important to understand and appreciate where your food comes from, how the animals have been treated when alive, and the conditions the meat has been in since the slaughter. Intellectually and morally, I really appreciate this – it’s so much healthier for your body (and in general) to know where your food is coming from.
That said, I actually started crying at the dinner table, and was totally mortified. SB was a good sport, though, and had a fantastic duck-and-lamb dinner, while I had a salad. I told him that if this had happened on a first date, I would’ve never called him again. The moral of this story is that Henrietta’s has really fresh and wonderful food (if less good service), and I’m going to be off meat for awhile.
latterdaybohemian 