Every so often we give up on cooking entirely and let somebody else do it for us. This was one of those Saturdays. We walked in under the kind of late-October sun that makes a marble tabletop look like a pond, and by the time we’d sat down the day had already slowed.
We started with bread, because of course we did - a croissant that came apart into more layers than should be possible, and a split brioche with a soft quenelle of butter that I kept meaning to save some of and kept not saving. The plates said Coquette in a small serif along the edge, the way a house signs its things.
Then a mimosa with a curl of lemon peel, because my husband said it was still basically morning. Then something taller with a marigold flower and a dried orange slice leaning on the rim, because by then it wasn’t anymore. I took a picture of that one because the light was coming through the glass in the way light does when it’s deciding to be afternoon.
We let the savory plates come in whatever order they wanted. A croque madame crowned with a pile of shoestring fries that collapsed when I cut into it; a thin pizza with little coins of salami curling up at the edges like tiny cups. I didn’t make any of it. That was the whole point. Somebody else had thought about salt and heat and plating for us, and we just sat there.
It’s nice, sometimes, to let the kitchen be someone else’s.
