Well it started strangely enough with a trip to the library. You know when you go to the library and they have nothing you want to read? Well, for some reason we hit it late on a Friday afternoon and brought home a treasure trove of great books. Apparently folks of literary taste return all their books on Friday so that they have the weekend for non-literary endeavors such as Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Tim Tebow, and other attention grabbers. So we thought, we are on a streak, lets keep it going. And we did. We had one of the best meals ever set before anyone, royalty or commoner.

For cocktails, we had  Manhattans and cosmos. (Manhattan is capitalized because it is a geographic designation; cosmo is not as of the last time I checked. Unless we have gotten to Occupy the Cosmos. I don’t know. I haven’t watched the news in several hours.) To accompany cocktails I told the Maitre’d to assemble something from the pantry, not on the menu. We were served a delightful plate of smoked oysters, radishes with olive oil and salt, and a block of sharp cheddar. These seemingly disparate things got along quite well on one plate.

Just as the alcohol did its duty of sharpening the senses, we were served a spinach salad with roasted baby red and golden beets, walnuts, and blue cheese drizzled with a rice wine vinegar. I have always secretly loved beets, but wow! This was really something. Then we had baby lamb chops in a pinot noir sauce with a potato and parsnip gratin. Lamb chops done perfectly — what can one say. We all know the perfect lamb chop right? Reddish-pink, juicy. Well when you put a pinot noir sauce with herbes de provence over the perfect lamb chop, you have something worthy of confession. Now the potatoes; an integral part of any meal right? A potato and parsnip puree is something we have done at home. But in a gratin? You know that sort of undefinable crisp sweetness that parsnips impart to any animal, vegetable or mineral with which they share intimate space? Well why would that not happen in a gratin? Hey, it does.

There was a little bit left over, which we now have at home. A lamb chop and some of the beets. In memory of my father, I will have breakfast tomorrow of a fried lamb chop and a roasted beet omelet. (Unless you grew up in the Logue household, you will not get the significance of this.) We passed on coffee and dessert, but that does not preclude me from a single malt scotch and pipe of English flake tobacco later.

Now, if you can guess what top rated dining establishment served us this meal, I will donate $1.00 to your favorite charity.