Delights and Prejudices by James Beard

Author:James Beard [Beard, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504004510
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-03-02T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Six

On working days my father loved to rise early and get breakfast for himself, usually preparing a tray for me also and sometimes one for Mother, before putting the final flourishes on his toilette. He was a very vain man and was always well groomed. His wardrobe, while not enormous, was very handsome, and he never set out on his morning walk to the office without a red carnation in his lapel.

Occasionally, instead of coming home for dinner, he would arrange to meet Mother and me in town, and we dined together in one of our favorite restaurants. At the age of four or five I had already begun to learn the art of restaurant dining: recognizing what was good and rejecting what was inferior. I soon grew very particular about where I ate. Going to a restaurant became an event for me, and I still feel that a good restaurant meal can be stimulating. Naturally if one dines in restaurants constantly, each meal cannot be a triumph. But if one is able to choose when he will dine out, it is possible to make eating away from home a special pleasure.

In addition to the odd weekday trip to a restaurant, we nearly always had dinner in town on Saturday nights, either the three of us or Mother and I alone. Very often Mother had taken me to the theater in the afternoon. (She believed in sharing her love of the theater with me while I was practically an infant. As I grew up, we remained at one on the theater and on music and food, but disagreed about almost everything else!) If we dined with my father, it was always at House’s Restaurant—in the early years—with a sally to Huber’s now and then. Father lunched at House’s nearly every day, so we were closely acquainted with the entire family of Houses and with their niece and nephew, the Feldmans.

This old, sprawling restaurant was primarily German in conception, but Mr. House had apprenticed in France and other countries and had a fine, general European approach to food. There was, of course, run-of-the-mill food on the menu, because this was a popular spot. But if you sat in the back room, delicious specialties came your way. We often took game to House’s to be prepared, especially venison, and they would do it with a rich red wine sauce and serve along with it tiny turnips and preisselbeeren. House’s didn’t have a bar, so one brought his own bottle of wine to accompany the meal-that is, until Prohibition hit Oregon, which was two or three years before it was felt in the rest of the country.

We often had duck or chicken at House’s or wonderful large porterhouse steaks, served with broiled or sautéed tomatoes and true country fried potatoes cooked in beef fat. The chef, Billy, was Chinese and a good friend of Let, so we had the best the house afforded. I shall never forget the other marvelous dishes that issued from Billy’s kitchen, and I recall especially his cole slaw.

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