Nikki Yeager

Today was officially the first day of my 21 Days! So sorry I missed yesterday, there was a hospitalization (my boyfriend got attacked by an angry spider) and a rain delay (cats and dogs falling from the sky). So I'll have to double up skateboarding and another activity on another day. So goes life.

But that doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is the fact I just ate 10 different things all in one sitting.

It started out with me asking some friends about five course meals. Turns out my friend Ed is a bit of a foodie and loves a good meal with good company.. or at least interesting company. So he set the date and found a place that did extravagant tasting menus for vegetarian 20somethings like me. 

Turns out there's a place called Babbo in the West Village that was started by Mario Batali (my new best friend). Apparently this Batali character is famous, which is news to me but that fame is well deserved. Everything from the "Black Tagliatelle with Peas and Castelmagno" (read: black noodles with peas) to the "Bigne" (little lemon cream cake with a fig) was absolutely delicious, albeit difficult to pronounce. 

When we first sat down I warned Ed- "My phone may go off throughout the night, I'm really sorry." It's such a natural warning I didn't even think about it - Ed did.

"This is an experience, Nikki." He looked down his nose a little and I almost blurted out, "but my boyfriend has a spider bite and his arm might fall off, I have a hundred projects going at work and there should be brokers calling me every five minutes for an apartment I have yet to find." 

But when he flashed the next look of disdain I closed my mouth and shut the phone off. After all, a friend who's paying for dinner always has the first say. 

Telephone off we headed to our table and picked a red wine at random from the wine list. A full-bodied red. Whatever that means. 

The glasses arrived at the table and Ed picked up his glass natural as could be, did the customary swirl and sniff, then took a sip, swished it, swallowed. Looked at me as if I should do the same. 

So I swished, swalled, sniffed and smiled. All in the wrong order. And then I topped it off with a giggle (which makes everything ok), "you know I have no idea what I'm doing, right?"

To which he replied with a detailed explanation about what makes a wine woody, acidic, bitter, smooth, delicious, rancid, just plain icky. Or the most delicious glass of fermented fruit ever to grace the earth. Whatever it is, he told me how to figure it out.

Well my palate isn't very sophisticated so I just looked at him with a glazed over expression. "Can you repeat all that?" 

Next thing I knew a man in a well-fitted suit and heavy Italian accent came over to the table and started explaining how our bottle of wine was made, the family who made it, the barrels it was stored in. Everything down to how nice the grandma of the family was. Ed smiled, "thought you'd like hearing from him."

And then the man used a lot of technical wine-y terms I couldn't understand for the life of me. Instead I just nodded and enjoyed his sexy Italian accent. Oh how wonderful it was. 

Turns out this guy's sole job is to talk about wine. He's a sommelier, or the in-house wine man. And Wine Man is exactly what I've named him.

So Wine Man left after a few minutes and we went on to start our 10 courses. After the black noodles with peas landed in my belly I was shot into food heaven. I've never had food that good. There was so much flavor in it! First it was a little salty and then pea-y and then noodle-y and then all the different flavors collided into one mess of a dish and my tastebuds gave up trying to differentiate between anything anymore. My brain overheated and I was left with nothing but contentment... and an empty plate.

After the first mouth orgasm a squat little waiter-man promptly arrived to whisk away my plate. Being a good middle-class girl I grabbed my fork off the plate as he tried to take it away. He stopped for a moment and stared at me. 

I held on to that fork. I needed that fork for 9 more courses and no little waiter-man was going to stop me from getting what I came for. 

After giving him a good stare down he politely informed me that I could surrender the fork "we replace those every plate, ma'am". 

I blushed, tried to chuckle (but not too loud) and handed the fork back, "hehe yea. I knew that." Ed chuckled.

Then came more food, plates galore, coffee, three desserts, cookies, pastas, jello-like things, all over deliciousness. My brain was on overload. All my other senses started to shut down one by one until nothing but my mouth was capable of working. 

Finally with a little soft cookie the meal came to an end. And Wine Man came back. 

So naturally I took a picture with him.

Thank goodness I kept my phone off  Look at that cute foreign Wine Man. 

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