On Finer Things

When my favorite cousin David passed, at his eulogy I told stories about us being kids. We spent a summer with him, cousin Camerina, my brother and myself. The mischief we got into having pillow fights, and how being slaughtered by the boys every night, being the youngest and wanting to save my skin, I devised a plan to cheat. The crowd roared from my invention. We took day trips such as going to the beach and boarded a bus to Disneyland, fighting all the way. On the way home, as his treat, we took a cab.

As five years my senior, he introduced me to my first rock concert, caviar, wineries, Neiman Marcus, The Legion of Honor, the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, the writings of Gurdjieff and La Costa Resort in Carlsbad.

He lived high on the hog and we shared an aesthetic for being a Renaissance man and woman with a love of all things money. He pampered me and I was the chosen one.

Today I’ll share our last dining experience. It was a Michelin-starred restaurant hidden behind two unmarked doors at the back of a supermarket in downtown San Francisco, by the egg and dairy fridge. The restaurant seated eighteen, at the counter, facing the open kitchen, and required reservations months in advance, with a $200, per person, deposit.

The chef’s tasting menu was served with no modifications from Tuesdays to Saturdays, at the bar, in a two-hour window. In two hours, fish and shellfish… and foie gras and truffles and a Japanese sobacha cake, the experience reified by fine wine and crowned with the finest of all fine things: caviar, like little jewels.

Caviar at the bar. One of the rarest, most expensive foods in the world. Russian black caviar comes from beluga, a prehistoric fish that has existed for 250 million years, can live for a hundred, weigh a ton, produce the equivalent of 25% of its body weight in caviar,

And is now endangered. Caviar is roe, the sturgeon’s eggs cured in brine. Highly demanded, overfarmed, extracted by killing the fish, it is no longer plentiful, cheap, eaten by the bowl, over porridge, by Russian farmers; plopped on a blini for tsars with a boiled egg and sour cream to offset the salty taste—or, in the opposite case, served by American bars in the 1800s, for free, in scoops like pretzels, to encourage drinking…the finer things, today, even at the bar, are reserved, for eighteen guests, for two hours Tuesdays to Saturdays. There was a waiting list.

There was sushi in the fridge next to the eggs and dairy. Salmon roe is not black, but orange, crowning the maki. With vegan modifications possible: seaweed, cucumber, carrot, avocado, and zucchini.

Prosecco was served with clear cups, and paper napkins. The days of linen and glass are over. Berries are on sale. Strawberries, blackberries… apples. There is no line at the checkout. We have time. Or so we thought, the time to look at the sky and roam the city.

San Francisco nor will be eating caviar ever be the same without him.