You say potato – I say pomme de terre.

Hello, my name is Emily and I am a Foodie. That is...major schnoz-in-the-air, fancier-than thou-hierloom-varietal, organically-au poivre snob. You say beans, I say haricot verts. You say mushrooms, I say chanterelles. I won’t be caught dead with American cheese singles or Wonder Bread in my cart. Those are for the birds or toddlers with four teeth. I adore over-priced farmer’s markets and pray to the God of prix fixe. I will spend $200 on one dinner for two without blinking but refuse to buy a pair of shoes for $75 that will last me ten years. Priorities.

I blame my mother and grandmother, Baba. Raised as the daughter of a peasant farmer in the Czech countryside, my Baba mastered simple ingredients grown in the garden or butchered in the barn. There was beef with dill gravy, dumplings and cabbage in the winter - grub that stuck to your ribs and made you sleepy before sundown. In the summer there were tomatoes to strain, cucumbers to pickle, and peaches to peel. In the morning, chicken bones clinked like chimes against the soup pot while Baba braided strudels that bubbled of yeast and apricot jam. Her family used everything - down to the grease that was packed and perfumed into laundry soap.

The thrifty resourcefulness ingrained in that generation’s DNA immigrated with my grandparents to their eventual home in the West suburbs of Chicago. As a child, my mother became accustomed to traditional homemade Czech meals, but she quickly developed an itch to experience the American concept of “dining out”. This was an extravagance not in my grandparent’s vocabulary. When my mom set the table, she often daydreamed of dining downtown in a fancy room with linen tablecloths, crystal chandeliers, and waiters with silver trays who folded your napkin when you got up to use the ladies room. She longed to peruse a menu written in cursive and order something French or Italian that she couldn’t pronounce. She vowed that one day her daughters would know about champagne, caviar, and seafood forks.

My family’s love affair with food was evident decades back on my dad’s side as well. The story goes that his grandmother, Emma, was so fat that they had to saw down the front door upon her death in 1949 to remove her from the house and special order a mega-coffin from California. But, I argue that there is a critical class difference between being a compulsive eater and being a Foodie – besides the cholesterol. Where bingers love to eat, Foodies put equal stock in admiration. We are a discerning, adventurous, and fastidious breed. We are awed by the purple pigments in Dragon tongue beans and the subtle plantain flavor in a Butterstick summer squash. We could chat for hours about the hint of mandarin in a cardamom foam or discuss what herbs to add to a mirepoix to properly flavor chicken stock. We are enamored with gastronomy and fatigued by flourless chocolate cake. We subscribe to Food and Wine Magazine, Gourmet, and watch Top Chef on Wednesdays. We maintain a bucket list of restaurants to spend five hundred dollars at before we die. And we brag. Foodie to Foodie. Under the pretense of recipe collaboration, we truthfully love to pound our own chests.

My brother and I do this - indulge in culinary chatter. He painstaking describes how he basted a honey-dijon glaze over grill-skewered brussel sprouts on Friday and I see his “BS” and raise him a homemade butterscotch semifreddo drizzled with a rocky road brittle. He pauses. Considers. And folds. I win this round. To boost his ego, I casually mention my last encounter dining with savages.

“Last week I overhead this girl at a bistro ask her date what cream bro-leigh was. I turned around, thinking that the guy would be mortified, until I saw he was trying to eat the cedar plank under his salmon.”

We both laugh and snivel, basking in the warm glow of superiority.

But, this type of taste-bud transcendence produces an unfortunate side effect. We are commonly bored. I refuse to support restaurants that aren’t churning out something I can’t parboil, poach, or puree at home. Frequently I scan dessert menus on-line to see if they reek of the ABC’s: Apple tart, Bread pudding, Chocolate cake. It doesn’t even have to be expensive – just give me something original and sexy and deconstructed. Give me a meal of a lifetime.

When we do hit that crescendo - that orgasmic, trifectus climax of peak flavor, texture, and presentation - we cannot help but spew to all of our Foodie friends. Each of us, broadcasting our most elite conquests like decorative patches ironed proudly on a Girl Scout sash.: “Oh yes, we ate at Charlie Trotter’s for George’s birthday last year. The maitre d’ even gave us a private kitchen tour.” or “Bill was so romantic this fall – he surprised me with a garden table at Commander’s Palace for jazz brunch!” Even if you happen to know someone who has visited the Super Elite - like a sister-in-law who once ate sashimi at Nobu in Toyko - you can earn partial credit. At least you are in the game and fellow Foodies know, “Ok, he gets it.”

Which leads me to my latest conquest during our upcoming wedding weekend: Thomas Keller’s impervious 15-table magnum opus in Napa Valley, The French Laundry. The Crème de la Crème. A place where just securing a reservation earns you a patch. It has been on my list ever since my family visited wine country in 2002 and the concierge cackled in my face, “French Laundry!? Honey, the next time they have a table open, you’ll be a grandmother.”

For the past fifteen years, it has been ranked as one of the top restaurants globally. This is the holy grail of the West Coast. Every night, approximately one hundred chosen disciples indulge in a hallucinatory orgy of culinary lovemaking. Foodies will give their left pinky toe for a chance to feast on Keller’s ambrosia: “Oysters and Pearls” or “Foie Gras en Terrine”. If only appendage amputation was so easy…. You actually have to put in the work. It may be about as difficult to snatch a table at The French Laundry as it is to win the Indiana Lottery – twice. And so, I set off to do my research.

First, I sensibly google ‘How to get a reservation at the French Laundry?’ I am bombarded by an obscene quantity of posting boards and chat rooms. Foodies in Portland and Charleston lamenting on Trip Advisor that they have been trying unsuccessfully for five years, perhaps searching for some sort of miracle fertility treatment to increase their chances. There is a message board where you can trade dates and tables with other couples who have reservations on days that they can no longer attend. It all reads suspiciously like a personal ad, Silver-haired San Francisco couple with a secured 4-top, searching for fun-loving pair to join them for Late Seating on Tues, September 14. Must love food, red wine, small talk and be willing to spend a fortune. Gay is a plus! There are numerous references to a mysterious man named Aren Sandersen who will guarantee your party a reservation on your selected day if you give him 70 days notice and hand over your Visa number.

The French Laundry currently takes reservations two months in advance to the day. Their largest table is a six-top and we have eight anxious Foodies in our group. I need two tables of four (13% of the restaurant!). October 4th is our night. We have one shot at this. Like the hunky astronauts in those Hollywood Blockbusters attempting to reroute apocalyptic meteorites and save the human race from total obliteration with one last Hail-Mary computer algorithm.

I call on August 2nd, just to make sure they haven’t changed their policies. I call again on August 3rd to double check and confirm the first person I spoke with wasn’t a vapid idiot. During the night, I have a nightmare about getting stuck in an elevator when the reservation office is about to open and having to tap out a SOS in Morse Code to the emergency responders who don’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of my distress. I have my fiance stationed on his overnight shift, stalking Opentable for any possible loopholes per online rumors that the website releases one table per night. On August 4th at 11:30am CST, I arrange my notebook, credit cards, pens, back-up pens in case the first two run out of ink, and stress ball in front of me on the bed.

11:45am - Begin calming breathing exercises.
11:50am – Text my sister to remind her for the fifth time to call on her phone.
11:55am – French Laundry voicemail, “Our reservation office will reopen at 10am PST”.
11:57am – Quick breathing exercise
11:58am – French Laundry voicemail
11:59am - Busy signal
11:59:32am – Busy signal. Shit.
12:00:02am – Busy signal. Double shit.
12:00:13am – Busy signal. Triple shit.

I redial every eight seconds for the next twenty-two terribly tedious minutes. 165 calls. At one point around 12:19pm, I peer down at my index finger, blistering from redials, and think, What the hell am I doing? Dinner at this place is about as much as Baba’s annual social security check. I must be nuts. But then, I come to my senses and realize I have just wasted eleven precious seconds. At 10:22:46am I actually hear a ring. I screech with excitement as the drone announcement comes on, “Thank you for calling The French Laundry. Your call is important to us. All representatives are currently with other clients. Please remain on the line and the next representative will be with you shortly.” I glance at my watch. 10:23:55am. I am probably screwed. More bad elevator music. A voice cuts through the other line - a formal British accent – “Thank you ever so kindly for holding. This is Victoria”. Very proper. I think they must only hire reservationists with proper British accents so all the bitter Americans don’t become irate and vulgar on the phone once all the tables are lapped up. You just can’t take a tone with Victoria.

“Congratulations,” she says breezily. “We have exactly one table left for October 4th. A four-top at 9:15pm.”
“I’ll take it.”
As I rattle off my credit card information and put my name on The Wait List for an additional table, I am already scheming – Who out of my eight family members is expendable? Amy is skinny. Maybe she can sit on my lap.

A week later, I get a call that their private event room has opened up and would we like to secure it for our party of eight? More breathing exercises. Absolutely! I actually do heel clicks and sashay across the living room all afternoon.

Many of you will probably think I am certifiably crazy. For those who don’t – welcome to the club. You are definitely a fellow Foodie. I leave any aspiring Foodies with this small piece of advice. As my mother always instructed my siblings and I, growing up: Fake it until you make it. I recommend investing in an excellent French/American cookbook and dictionary. And remember, everything sounds better and more expensive in French. Meme quand c’est la laverie. Or as we say here....even when it’s the laundry.