Sour Cream

Croquette with Sorrel, Smoked Steelhead Roe

This amuse-bouche tastes like a date. When she greets you, she looks cute but plain. Is she really what inspired your lavishly composed outing? Yes or no, you greet her at once, still more underwhelmed by the single flavor.

Then pop! a small egg of incomparable bliss. A quip, an eye, a flattery - it perfectly suits your tastes. The finer, subtler flavors begin to swim in her smooth, singular character which you prejudged as so plain.

More pop! moments spurt around and more flavors emerge and what appeared plain turns out perfect.

Octopus

Shiitake mushrooms, Papaya, Toasted Soy Milk Broth

This appetizer tastes like an urban pine. When you see its organic shape and skewed needles, you behold something irregular to your city life. The only evergreens downtown are conical department store tannenbaums of questionable naturality. This 3rd St tamarack prophesies wild(er)ness from every chipped trunk and splayed limb.

But still, when you approach, it radiates that same piquant freshness, just more. That first familiar whiff comforts you but jives against the toasty air - bizarre temperature for the wintry aroma. The taste reminds you and introduces you all at once and you feel lost - Christmas in July?

The final sip is decidedly unfamiliar and you know this isn't merely something common in an odd time; this is its own species in its own land and you are a happy stranger to it all.

Chanterelle

Parfait with Spinach, Carrot, Ham

This savory parfait tastes like a tailgate. Standing with great festivity and expectations, it releases its items from the controlled preening into an entropic soup. This confusion is also a union, fusing ingredients as individuals at a pre-game parking lot: one nation under sport.

The repast spread before you, you scoop some of everything onto your plate, forcing the items to blend amidst the excessive piling on. Even the taste is filling, primarily filling. As you walk into the game, you feel fullness more than flavor.

Apple Juice

In a Cocoa Butter & Horseradish Shell, Celery Juice

This shot tastes like a surprise party. Looking normal, just a ball in a shotglass, you open up and expect only the typical tang of juice box apple, plain as a living room. Then the casing cracks and out bursts an array of people. You can't perceive them each, but you feel the flooding sweetness of their presence.

As the tide surge settles into a pool, you look around and see close friends - old and new - a few acquaintances, family, and you grin. But your face wilts and puckers as the sourness seeps in - she isn't there. She's around, you know from last week's conversation, but not here. Your teeth clack at the bitter crunch of the crumbled shell.

As the cocoa butter chunks melt in the bittersweet sea, she wades in, sensually completing it. You gulp and grin again.

Monkfish, Three Ways (Fried, Poached, Moussed)

Snow Peas, Coconut/Lime/Banana Pudding, Caramelized Onion Flakes, Curry

This triptych tastes like a porch evening. You sit back and chat crisply with a best friend, starting on simply presented subjects - the job, the dog, the wallpaper - where the texture overwhelms the taste, which is comfortable and laced with soft smirks at your salary and Ferguson's fleas.

Then, more delicate moments, glazed with some flair. He starts to revelate about a new lady. She is spot-on gorgeous with a classic style poached from Paris. She has this unsavory quirk of showing tongue when she scowls, but he finds it sweet and not disjointed against the richness of her flesh. He tries to irk her just to see what he hopes to taste on their next date - Friday.

But even the romance is surpassed by the rarefied blend of us and the life to come, moussed up in an airy binding of real experiences. Mixing these rich aethers, unformed but profound in flavor, you dream combinations of the local onions and the exotic curries. Everything mingles symphonically, and the harmonic taste rings beyond any particular shape.

All of this in one pot.

Duck - Confit, Tenderloin, Sweetbread

Yogurt, Turnips, Mango, Juniper Air

This plate tastes like a spring roll. Windows down, radio off, you cruise through cherry blossoms and vineyards, slathering your nose with local red fruits. The air freshens everything even as the dust road powders your Sunday suit.

The decadence of the emerald pastures would drown you but for the vibrant flora sewing fiery patches into the cool vernam landscape. Splashes balance the waves into a smooth drive.

And then! A mango bird of paradise, transmigrated from the tropics, soars across the continental plain of ducks and earthy vegetables. It cannot be there but it is and, on this day, its sweetness joins the cool land and hot shrubs into a high-risk S-curve that tatters your tie.

Black Truffle Ravioli

Romaine, Parmiggiano-Reggiano

This packet tastes like an ocean liner. You watch it from the coast, knowing exactly what it is as soon as its emergence above the horizon. It freights without haste into the harbor where its sudden mass softly startles you.

And then, in the night fog, it melts away as you gaze after its whispering lights until only pungent clouds lurk.

Beef Short Rib

Peanuts, Broccoli, Guinness Film

This assembly tastes like a party. Several groups, peaceable, congregate under a pitched canvas. The cliques, dispersed, stay distinct in their miniature ghettos. The party has failed.

But the rich host beef, some Gatsby, emerges at center, greeting each old sport and welcoming perfectly each pocket of partygoers. He spins them, but they never merge. The tent gets folded in favor of moon cover. The night and music both dwindle as band members indistinctly depart, gradually. The oboe drones the finale, and Gatsby bids you an especially personal farewell, hoping you will stop around for the next.

After all, it wasn't such a rotten crowd.

Yuzu

Frozen and Chewy

This bon bon tastes like hose water. You took the summer day off, preferring to run beneath the soaring sun. Your course waves over hills and distance. It is a tribulation and you are not as pure as you had thought. Everything burns through your skin, and you suffer even with miles to go before you rest.

You gasp down the final road and clatter to a stop just past your mailbox. Clenching your hair, you slump onto the car that your son had been washing. He turns the nozzle at you and the blast mists over the sirens in your legs.

Chestnut

Pureed and Frozen, Bourbon-barrel-aged Maple Syrup, Star Anise

This morsel tastes like snow. Vermont clouds frost in early October, but the blazing auburn leaves resummon a few warm days, sweating autumn into final fever.

Then drops the real winter - solid and sweet. The true residents ride free on their toboggans, whistling through shedding forests. Behind the old trees, Green Mountain boys are kissing blushing mountain girls, a sweet embrace of the cold days to come.

Persimmon

Mousse with Raisin Compote, Ginger Tea Orb, Grapefruit, Brioche Pudding

This mélange tastes like nirvana. On the mountain path, your low steps on the deep leaves stretch your knees and hips into an aligned strength. Quickly, you trod forward, eyes roaming the multitudinous landscape of dark fruit and light fruit and sweet fruit and sour fruit. E pluribus, pulchritudo.

Then you stop at a sudden bend for some ginger tea. One sip snaps you. You drop your pack, unlace your shoes, and throw your socks down the shrubbed slope. You crimp your toes into the mossy trail, walking on in a new reality of path. The casual comfort has dissolved into pedestrian perfection, freeing your soles to experience the land all new.

Licorice

Taffy, Spun Sugar, Orange Confit

This bite tastes like a swamp. You jump into the sticky, taffy muck, delighted that Mom and Dad have lost sight of you. The slime clasps your calves, so you kneel. Staggering up, you stare at your forearms, seemingly slathered in molasses. Obviously, you would look entirely better with your full corps so glazed. You scoop and spread the goo across your cheeks, comb it through your hair, and squeeze it down your neck. In a glorious self-coronation, you fashion a vibrant crown from some orange petals, slopping them around your hairline.

Your mother quickly hoses down her child-cum-swamp thing, but spots of the decadent reign still stick around.

Alaskan King Crab

Sea Grapes, Sea Salt, Parsley, Ginger, Sake Vinegar

This sashimi tastes like a kiss. You dated her well for three months, extended to four by buquets and silver. The effort bled freely from your gasping heart, beating faster to grasp her slipping fingers. Which, as they escaped, left distinct scrapes in your palm - a bereft lover's stigmata burned by your bitter sea of tears.

You sat in the park, tracing each raw line and noting each's distinct surge. Sharp. Full. Rough. And then you look up to see her walking down the knoll. You stand and she turns into the arms of the former classmate who looked over your shoulder in calculus. Your almost waving hand starts to throb, so you swallow and put it in your pocket. The denim stitches scrape it again.

Skate

Lemon-Caper-Butter Powder, Banana, Haricots Verts

This filet tastes like sweat. An afternoon in the forge. Starting a new sword, fevered upon perfection. The hammering the pumping the furnace the precision the temper. In a fierce swirl, you chisel and gnarl the hilt into a frightful symmetry of loops, bending the usual garnish with a slight exotic flair.

You raise it in the evening, watching the deep sunset drip down the sheer blade. Wiping your brow, you envision how it will look in the hand of the king or the heart of the enemy.

Pineapple

Flavored Film wrapped around Powdered Bacon

This packet tastes like a mountain. Your hike started near a shallow trickle, which dampened only your expectations for the waterfall's grandeur. But as you walked into the smoky sweet mountains, you forgot the petty flow and grinned at the chipper saplings. The mere look of the young forest is cute, sprightly beneath the serene fathers, towering.

And there you are! And it is rushing, churning, and shaking the rocks beneath. The mighty foam, the tender leaves. You snap a photo and coast down, sweetened by the surprise.

Lamb Tenderloin

Trio with Mastic Cream, Dates/Sherry, Red Wine-poached Cabbage, Rosemary Aroma

This trio tastes like progeny. You grow through the lives of a young household - the glamorous daughter, the plain middle child, the contradictory son. All in a piney, pacific suburban atmosphere, the three entities come of the same stock but adorn themselves independently.

And yet, at the end of the day, their dissimilar accoutrements only mask their inner wealth. They can assume many trappings and still be true to their souls and their siblings. They are all one family, one body.

Potato

Soup and Orb, Black Truffle, Butter

This soup tastes like a blanket. The March sleet besieged you for three days and finally scraped through your walls, springing a weakening trickle from your nose as you walk from your englazed car yet again. Tripping out of your shoes at the front door, you smile wetly at the fat cat on the couch. You roll her off the folded blanket and rub the soft fleece, felinely warmed, against your crackling cheeks. Your nasal spring dries up.

Venison

Savory Oatmeal Granola Crust, Celery Puree, Cherry Juice

This medallion tastes like a tree house. The first time in it, you clamor into its cavernous space, falling as into a ditch. Exploring with wonder, you see the profound sanctity of home and refuge. You squeeze into the tightest corner to behold the full depth.

The next day, you invent new games with the boys down the street, changing your refuge into a raucorium but never losing the foundation of your place; your corner is not touched even during the brand new, anarchical form of handball you four crafted for your elevated arena. You could always go back to its original personal empty expanse.

Foie Gras

Crunchy Cinnamon, Apple Paté

This trinket tastes like a hug. She was your great hope until she decided she could do better, leaving you below. But you never turned down your desire, quietly waiting, standing along the line. Years later, threaded barely near, you surprise her in the street. She stands up and draws you in, holding. You hold and she holds and her arms start to dampen your neck.

Creamcicle

Orange and Olive Oil Ice Creams, Almond, Green Olive

This bar tastes like Christmas morning. You behold wondrously the panoply spread across your vision. Five minutes pass, turning the room around to inspect it all, poking and probing to discern where to start first. The stately solid ice cream rectangles? The smallest dots of olive? The mystery of stockings?

You tear apart your wisdom, succumbing to the basic instincts: bigger is better, start with the best. You don't even separate the two equal boxes, slicing from both at once. Despite their twinship, they are completely different but meant to be together, related deeply. The rest of the cadeaux are add-ons, building the biggest even better. A good year beneath the tree.

Coconut

Coconut Ribbon with Corn Hash Gelee, Crystallized Cilantro, Saffron, and Sumac

This landscape tastes like a carnival. Casually walking, you smile at the peaks, the slides, and the glimmering - so many attractions, you simply swim in the scene. Of course, you start with the main event. It is, after all, your favorite. You return to it regularly between samples of the sparkly twisted mirrors and minor gems.

At midnight, you know that some of these games robbed you, but with such sundry, you never expected immaculate delight. You go home with some absurd stuffed beast, frivolously charmed.

Chocolate

Ganache with Passion Fruit, Kumquats, Soy Sauce Reduction, Kaffir Lime Leaf Sorbet

This tastes like chamber music. Classically minded, you went for the dark chocolate of Schubert but they began with the nouveau Shostakovich. You wince at the sometimes sour dissonance, plucked by the seeming independence of each instrument.

In the second movement, you see how flats and sharps form a robust sound, something fuller than the sweet, sensual Schubert. You enjoy it.

The third movement goes further. It creates a place. You no longer listen but enter into Shostakovich's tunescape.

The finale is unheard of; you experience it and polish it off, not with a flourish but with a nervous scoop of the minor adagio plate.

Caramel

Cinnamon, Meyer Lemon Rind

This tastes like baseball. At the week's end, you need plain and old. The reliable ballpark welcomes you into some sweet seats, simply in the sun. With a beer and a pretzel, you watch the home team strike out the side. In the fifth, with runners on the corners, he zings a fastball into the upper deck. We all stand to applaud this ecstatic addition to a smooth evening beside the river. After a casual save, you stroll out the gates into a warm breeze.