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Today is my mom's birthday, so we all took her out to lunch. I wasn't too happy about this. I had a really nice first date yesterday and she and I had talked about maybe making today the second date, so that'll have to wait a bit, I guess. I'm not a big fan of eating with my family. My dad, never the most adventurous diner, has regressed to the point where he'll only eat things that would hypothetically appear on the kids' menu, but basically just hamburgers. It's getting a little embarrassing. The only TV shows my parents watch are those on major networks in which people are sequentially eliminated: Bachelor, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars. I like to read books, so there's just not a lot of common ground here.
So imagine the coalescence of sour resentment and personal giggling that came with finding out we would be lunching at Cooper's Hawk! No one understood what I found so funny about Cooper's Hawk. All I could do not to dwell on my own dissatisfaction was to imagine a blustery JORR being dragged there. And so I smiled.
So you walk in and there's a gift shop that leads into the dining room. It's like Cracker Barrel for the bourgeoisie! The decor and ambiance are both tasteful in the most indistinct way. Nothing stands out. All you can do is look around at the exposed brick and vaulted ceilings with exposed rafters, nod, and say "yes, this is most tasteful." I don't drink, so I didn't have any of their wines, which the waiter was proud to tell us was made in Countryside, Illinois. In the words of Les Grobstein, "Okay. Cool."
I had the maple/mustard/pretzel-encrusted pork medallions with mashed potatoes and asparagus. It was pretty good! I like asparagus more than most people do, I'd wager. The mustard had some pleasant notes of horseradish to it, and the maple wasn't too overpoweringly sweet, which was my fear going in. The potatoes had the skin mixed in, always a plus, and soaked up the sauce nicely. Alas, so did the pretzel crust, which failed to maintain any of its structural integrity and sort of puffed up into a big carbohydrate blob. I would have eschewed this aspect of the entree. Perhaps cashews would be a good substitute if the objective is to provide a nice crunch.
My dad had a cheeseburger.
Overall, it wasn't terrible, but it would never occur to me to go there, and I sure wouldn't call it a good thing about living in the suburbs. Too boring.
_________________ Molly Lambert wrote: The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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