As Dorothy Parker purportedly once said, “I like a Martini, Two at the very most. After three, I’m under the table, / After four, I’m under my host.”
I?Ryan Reynolds is a very dear friend and would never say such words. But Colin Firth probably would.
15
I met my wife, Felicity Blunt, at her sister’s wedding a little over a year after Kate had died. The wedding took place in Lake Como at a gorgeous home owned by a friend of the affianced couple whose name rhymes with George Clooney. I had taken the train there from Florence, as I was staying in Tuscany with my parents, my three children, my stepdaughter, and my father-in-law. This was a trip that Kate and I had always wanted to make with all of the above, but due to her lengthy illness we were never able to, so I had decided to make it in her honor.
The wedding was a three-day affair, and for me, as I had barely been away from my family for some time before Kate’s death, it was a welcome and, I discovered, much-needed respite. I saw some dear friends and met a few new ones, including the aforementioned sister of my friend whom I would end up marrying a few years later. Felicity and I chatted over those few days quite a bit, meaning she practically stalked me. （There is CCTV footage.） Most of our discussion centered around food. Conveniently, in about two weeks’ time I was to begin filming Captain America in London, where she lived, and we decided we would meet up for dinner. Thus began a romance that was… food-centric.
During those few weeks in London we ate at many a great restaurant, the first being the recently closed Ledbury, run by two-Michelin-starred chef Brett Graham and above which Felicity conveniently lived.
Now, I am not one who is necessarily drawn to the Michelin star. Often I find that many of the restaurants that have earned this coveted award are a bit fussy, to say the least, and I’ve left a few of them completely famished, as I have never found pretentiousness very filling. However, this was not the case with the Ledbury.
The small dining room was elegant and the tables quite far apart from one another, and at times it seemed there were more staff than patrons even when it was full. There was a warmth that both the room and the people exuded that put one instantly at ease. I chalk this up to Brett’s personality, for as they say, “The fish stinks from the head down,” but in this case it was a good stink. Although the food at the Ledbury was rarefied, Brett himself is not. He is very genial and relaxed for someone who works with such intensity and has maintained a standard of excellence for a very long time. （The Ledbury was voted one of the fifty best restaurants in the world for many years running.）
The first time we ate at the Ledbury, Felicity suggested we order the tasting menu so we might partake of as much of Brett’s food as possible and the accompanying wine pairings. Each dish, from the Kumamoto oysters to the stuffed loin of rabbit, was extraordinary. Our subsequent visits inevitably found us ordering the tasting menu almost every time. One night after yet another extraordinary meal, Brett was kind enough to invite us into the kitchen for a tour.
The kitchen was small and unremarkable considering the quality and complexity of the food it brought forth night after night. After a few minutes of perusing, we both noticed two pheasants, quite dead but still intact, feathers and all, lying in a tray on the countertop. We started oohing and ahhing over them and were about to ask Brett how he might prepare them when he asked if we would like to take them home. My wife is an agent and I am an actor, and therefore we both know a good offer when we see one, so, after Brett had explained how to “cold pluck” them, we spirited the fowl, tray and all, upstairs to her apartment and put them in the fridge overnight.
The next morning was a Saturday, and we awoke with the excitement that comes with knowing one has a passionate mission to complete. We pulled the pheasants out of the fridge, made a morning beverage, and plopped ourselves in front of the television to watch my new favorite show, Saturday Kitchen, and pluck our birds. An hour and a half later, our dressing gowns covered in feathers, in the tray lay the denuded carcasses of the avian gifts Brett had bestowed on us the night before. It had been a perfect morning. Two food nerds becoming more emotionally intimate by tearing the feathers from a pair of dead birds. It makes no sense that this would give us both such joy, but in a way, it did. First of all, if you’re a food lover, there is always something gratifying about connecting with the vegetable, the fruit, or whatever animal, whether you’ve grown it, raised it, or hunted it, before it becomes your food. But to make that connection and then connect with someone else simultaneously is an exalted, almost spiritual level of foodie intimacy. To me it was one of the most romantic mornings I have ever spent sitting down. I struggle to remember how we prepared the pheasant, but in this case, it really doesn’t matter. Sometimes the process is more satisfying than the result.