The French Laundry

My mom just checked out a book from the Sonoma County Library called The French Laundry Cookbook. Looking through it, seeing all this crazy-fancy food, getting kinda-inspired, kinda-terrified, I did some research. For those who don’t know, The French Laundry is a world-famous four star restaurant in Yountville, CA (right over the hill from my hometown of Sonoma). To get a reservation, you must call 2 months to the day in advance–if you can’t get through, no reservation. The cost of the nine course meal (with a menu that changes daily) is $250 PER PERSON, and that does not include the wine you select from their 103-page-long wine menu. At that price, I know I will never go there: even if I become incredibly wealthy and demented, I doubt I’ll ever be able to fathom spending that much on a meal. I love food in general–but I’m more than satisfied with the regular kind. I’m assuming if Thomas Keller (chef at FL) ever made me anything, I would never be able to eat again. I’d probably get some sort of newfound and exclusive respect for amazing food, obsessively refusing anything but the best. I’d die of starvation, but I can assure you I’d die happy.

I learned a little about presentation from the pictures in that book, and by presentation I mean stacking. The way to make food look so worthwhile is to stack it. Start with a puddle of sauce, stack your ingredients, one, two, three, garnish, and voila: you may now peddle your creation for several hundred.

The bottom one is Caesar salad. Don’t ask me how, just feed it to me.

Verdict on The French Laundry: I’m in lust with it, but it’s rich and famous and unattainable. And ultimately, pretty guilt-inducing: thinking of all the starving people in the world and then thinking of spending the better half of a grand for one meal?? Never.

If someone took me there I cannot promise I’d respect them, but I would surely fall in love with them.

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