by Crystal Coser ’12
December 2009 Issue

Ah, L’Espalier. The name alone sends a tingle down from my palate and fills me with a sense of deep-seated longing, but the “$$$$” listing tends to keep this food lust at bay. Fortunately, my mom was recently in town, and like all savvy college students, I knew how to maneuver myself into a fabulous meal.

Charged with anticipation, my mother and I strode to 774 Boylston and arrived at large metal doors. Past the entrance, we found ourselves greeted by a host in a miniature elevator foyer. We were directed to take the elevator up to the dining room. This was not just any old elevator – it was a glass elevator à la Willy Wonka. Talk about perfect prelude to my dining fantasies.

Immediately upon arrival, I was filled with a sense of sophisticated homey comfort that comes only with an exquisite interior designer. We arrived in a marble lobby adjacent to an area that very much resembled a family room, a magnum of Dom Perignon on ice and all. Well, more like family room of my dreams.

After having been seated at a wonderful window-side table overlooking Boylston, my mother and I eagerly awaited the bread service. It may seem frivolous to recount what can be a negligible preface to a meal, but at L’Espalier, every facet of the dining experience, including the bread, is exquisite. A tray of bread was brought to our table with warm Kalamata olive and sourdough, and was served with soft peaks of butter. I need to pause here for a second to talk about this butter. This wasn’t just any old mass-market variety- this was butter that would make Ina Garten and Paula Deen fall to their knees. We used the bread merely as a vehicle on which we could pile this soft, unimaginably creamy, rich, and salty primrose pleasure.

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For all you foodies and other starved students out there, I lovingly bestow upon you my midterm pick-me-upper, my “fml General Gao’s chicken again” curative, my black book of food fetishes – a collection of my food porn pics.

These are pictures of dishes that were just so good that I needed a visual testimony to their toe-curling deliciousness, and can only be fully appreciated one at a time.

So my first treat comes from Susan Feniger’s Street in Los Angeles. These savory little packages of pleasure are Spinach Varenykys, Ukranian pan-fried dumplings filled with spinach and a light layer of salted cheese. Fried onions and lemon marmalade offset the luxuriously creamy filling.

Now if this isn’t masochism for the palate, I couldn’t tell you what is.

I’m always ecstatic (really, I get that excited) when I see the board menu bar in our dining halls. That one special little section of the dining hall where I am finally given the opportunity to cook, actually more like assemble, my dinner. Luckily for me, my favorite of the board menus is the most recurrent – the panzanella bar.

Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad that traditionally contains tomatoes, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and, yes, stale bread. The dining halls put their own spin on it by also providing us with arugula, olives, and pickled onions. When the panzanella has been prepared appropriately, the slightly dense, crusty bread is mollified by the absorption of some of the oil, vinegar, and juices from the vegetables; however, it still gives the salad some texture by retaining a bit of its chewiness.

I find it to be a lovely, well-balanced salad, but am always slightly put off by the bags of pre-cubed, mass-market bread, and also miss an integral part of my meat-loving, quotidian diet: protein. Read how I improve upon the panzanella after the jump.

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The Mojito

Banana Daiquiris, Brandy Alexanders, and Caramel Apple-Tinis, each of which I savored at 5 p.m. on a Monday evening. No, I did not spend my night in a drunken stupor, but in a sweet sugar high from the cocktail cupcake happy hour at Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square.

As unfortunate as this may sound, I consider myself to be quite the cupcake snob. Being from LA, I am a wholehearted follower of the cupcake craze that swept the country and now the world. Cupcake shops have sprung up in Rome, Istanbul, Berlin, Seoul, and Sydney, and I’ve made a point to find the best. I’ve waited forty-five minutes for a Sprinkles cupcake in Beverly Hills, tried more artisanal varieties from local bakeries across the country, flocked to Sweet upon its grand opening and, of course, flew to New York for the mecca of cupcakes: Magnolia Bakery.

See the verdict on Kickass Cupcakes after the jump!

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Delicious, and you made it yourself!

Today the dining halls were serving chicken wings (more like chicken skin) and our ever-recurring golden nuggets. Not being in the mood for these dining hall delicacies (out of fear for immediate heart attack), I opted for one of my favorite salad bar creations.

Barbeque chicken salad is just a good thing. It breaks up the monotony of simple green salad, is heartier and less frilly than other varieties, and most importantly, is incredibly easy to prepare when you’re in a dining hall rush. Read the quick and easy recipe, after the jump!

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