A Little Too Much Salt

I am aboard the Acela train hurtling south at 83 miles per hour and the conductor, a woman, is yelling in my face that instead of reaching my destination of Washington I’ll be taken off the train and arrested in Baltimore.
My crime? I asked other first-class passengers whether they enjoyed their sous vide meals and wrote down their responses for a food review I’m doing.
As the conductor screams that I’m not allowed to interview other passengers, what goes through my head is what I will say if another prisoner asks “what are you in for?” I don’t think I’ll mention the French low-boil cooking method. It’s probably discussed ad nauseam in Baltimore jails.
I call my editor and she doesn’t seem to grasp the gritty reality of my situation, saying only that getting arrested will make a better story.
The odd part is I enjoyed my sea bass with tequila pesto and wheatberry pilaf and all the passengers I talked to said paying the extra $100 for the meal and unlimited drinks in first class was a bargain. The conductor sent a security officer to question me.
The incident demonstrates that life is not all amuse bouche for critics. It can be harrowing. I once work up suddenly during the final crescendo of a musical at the Kennedy Center and realized I had slept through the play that was to be the subject of my review due in a few hours. Damn those comfortable seats!
What made me think I could review restaurants and plays, especially since dinner out with my family when I grew up usually meant shouting your order into a microphone and then driving around to the first window. Two things persuaded me I could do it. First, I really like food and second, I saw a photo of a guy who reviewed restaurants for Bloomberg in New York and he looked like he wouldn’t be allowed to wash dishes in fancy restaurants much less sit in judgement of them.
The editor wanted me to visit only the most expensive places in Washington, on the theory that our readers, mostly stock traders and analysts, had money to burn. So I ordered the largest lobsters and thickest steaks at places I couldn’t afford and found things to criticize. I compared the dreary atmosphere at a swank hotel restaurant to a “poorly attended memorial service.”
At a place so chi-chi you could choose the napkin color to coordinate with your clothes, I described the shrimp as “slimy.”
I ate at the same table at a Georgetown Italian eatery where former President Clinton entertained the German prime minister. I tracked down the Mexican place George W. Bush frequented that has the chair he used hanging from the ceiling. I happened to be at a Chinese place famous for its Peking duck the same evening as former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and I squawked that I had to wait for my table. At Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, I had to decline free drinks and appetizers after the staff figured out I was reviewing the place (It’s excellent). I once spent $450 of company money on dinner for three.
Back on the train, the security officer flashed a badge and half-heartedly tried to intimidate me by sitting next to me and listening as I chatted with other passengers. But he soon grew bored and left as Baltimore flew by in the darkness outside. I wondered what they were serving for dinner at the jail.