The TableTalkPortland SHARE DIET

It all started last Monday night at the Living Room Theatre. All movies are $5 on Monday nights, and we headed in to see The Band's Visit, which was a beautiful and moving film with a very tasty violinist character. Also very tasty was the crab panini, thick slices of brioche held a mixture of fresh Dungeness crab mixed with red peppers and briny olives and capers, and escorted by a cluster of lightly dressed organic spring lettuce mix. Michelle and I shared the panini as part of our revolutionary new TABLETALKPORTLAND SHARE DIET! See, we love to eat, and we are fiercely anti-deprivation. But we also love to look smashing in our matching zebra print string bikinis, so some sort of dietary compromise had to be struck. Thus we consulted with a crack team of dieticians, nutritionists and fitness experts to develop the TABLETALKPORTLAND SHARE DIET! Actually we came up with the idea whilst watching The Barefoot Contessa and trying to throw Godiva truffles into each other's mouths from across the living room, but whatever. The TABLETALKPORTLAND SHARE DIET is excruciatingly simple: We share everything we eat, and that way, we can eat whatever we want. So simple!

We can drink whatever we want too! We just share it! So, we shared a bottle of the house sparkling wine ($23), which the Living Room Theaters staff will bring right into the theatre for you. It is better than home, because at home I have to pause the movie every 20 minutes to get my own bubbly.

The theatre bubbly was lovely, a crisp fresh sparkling wine from California, I guess I would have written the name down had Michelle not chucked the bottle at someone in the front row when their cell phone rang during one of the emotionally tense skating rink scenes.

 

I guess the Living Room Theatre wanted to support us wholeheartedly in our SHARE DIET endeavors, because they only brought us one napkin, so we ripped it in half and shared that too.

When the movie concluded, we were reluctant to go home, so we went across the street to Clyde Common. It was a beautiful night, the clouds almost unrealistically white and ripply soft in the summer sky. Michelle was moved to throw her arms out and say a little prayer. Me too, and mine was: Dear God, Please let Michelle behave herself in Clyde Common because we are still on probation from my birthday party night, when someone lit a boa on fire and someone else became a little ill in the bathroom. Eeek! Amen.

Inside Clyde Common, we claimed our favorite perch, the row of stools by the front window, and surveyed the bustling dining room and bar. Our favorite bartender Charlie came over and we ordered a bottle of the House sparkling wine ($22) to SHARE, as part of the TABLETALKPORTLAND SHARE DIET. Charlie kindly agreed to go outside and take our picture through the window. I am sure that everyone will find it as amusing as I did that the black print on the window makes Michelle look like she's missing a few teeth. Michelle was peevish about this and threatened to erase the picture, so I promised to Photoshop it out. I don't actually know how to Photoshop stuff out, so I will just hope she doesn't read this posting.

Michelle took off her boot to let her broken foot relax, but to preserve its gimpy privacy, we covered it with a Clyde Common drink menu.

Our wine came and we got down to official business, conducting our Monday night TableTalkPortland editorial meeting. Here is a copy of our agenda:

TABLETALKPORTLAND EDITORIAL MEETING AGENDA
Monday, June 23, 2008

I. MINUTES FROM LAST WEEK'S MEETING
Did someone take minutes? I sure didn’t. What are minutes anyway? They sound boring!

II. THE SHARE DIET: SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
a) Success: When we managed between the two of us, to SHARE three Queen of Sheba chocolate cakes at Pix the other night.
b) Failure: When Michelle went to the restroom at Bar Mingo Saturday night and the lock got stuck and in the ensuing delay of her reappearance Jen accidentally drank the whole bottle (NOT SHARING) of Vernaccia, a light, crisp, slightly effervescent Italian white. I was just so worried and stressed by the situation, okay?

III. WHO PUT JEN’S ZEBRA PRINT STRING BIKINI ON THE CAT?

IV. WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK
a) Belly Timber b) Little T American Baker c) Le Pigeon

V. SERIOUSLY, QUIT PUTTING MY CLOTHES ON THE CAT, SIS.

It was a productive meeting. We didn't actually address anything on our agenda, we never do, but we DID spot wonderful Ken Forkish of Ken's Artisan Bakery eating a salad at the bar (shouldn't he have been eating pizza up at Ken's Artisan Bakery? Monday is Pizza Night!)

THEN we found out that our blog hits had once again taken a significant jump, which we were incredibly excited about. THEN I looked in the mirror and saw my hair, which looked terrible. Michelle didn't even bother to tell me I had pea shoot tendrils poking out all over the place. What a sister!

She thought it was funny.

I became despondent.

So, we called it a night.