More Cheerfully and Better Fed

My liege's birthday was this weekend; his father took us out to dinner to celebrate it.

By us, I mean myself, my liege, and his fiancee.

There are layers upon layers of what this meant to me. That my liege treats me as a partner to the extent of thinking of seeing about having me along on such little expeditions is a big damn deal. That he asked, and that his father was willing to take me along -- and feed me! -- and that gets into the conversation I'm having with Little Light about the social rituals of feeding other humans. That the conversation included not only casual discussion of the state of the wedding plans, but asking after my husband, who is out of town this week. That my holding my liege's hand or resting my hand on his shoulder was not a matter of comment or alarm, just the normal interactions of people who touch.

The whole thing was just a quiet experience of being treated as real. As visible as a person, not needing to hide any of the little bits or pretend to get along.

And the food was fucking amazing.

The bread with the oil to dip in was freshly made and still steaming when my liege cut it, not pre-sliced. The oil was full of pepper flakes. Crusty bread with soft, generously yielding innards.

We got a salad and an appetiser. The salad was sort of five-parted, and since there were five of us, that worked out quite well -- a big slice of yellow tomato with some thin-sliced salty ham of some sort (prosciutto?) and buffalo mozzarella on top, with basil and greens and viniagrette, and the combination of the flavors was just ... spectacular. Amazing stuff. The appetizer was some sausage thing on I think polenta with a sauce, which I only had a little of (not a sausage fan, me, except in the metaphorical raunchy ways), but the rest of the table thought it was quite good. (I just don't have the space to judge from.)

And then the entree thing, I got chicken with a white wine, lemon, and garlic sauce, which was that perfectly tuned sharp bite of delicious goodness that a lemon sauce should be. With broad noodles and greens. It was spectacular, with that edge of pepper and ... oh, so good. I had the half of it I couldn't eat for lunch today, and it was still so good. Glorious, glorious stuff.

(I won't even get into the staff, who were a trip and a half.)

Well-fed helps with feeling real. But not as much as just the being there, and acknowledged, and having it not be a giant production.