Tuesday June 23 and Thursday June 25, 2015
A tale of two completely different dinners.
When most people hear the initials CIA, they think about spies and such. But in this neck of the woods, CIA stands for Culinary Institute of America.
There are three branches of the famous cooking school, in California, Texas, and Hyde Park, New York. We were fortunate enough to get dinner reservations at the American restaurant on Tuesday night and at the Italian on Thursday. The New York campus was originally built as a boy’s military academy, with panoramic views of the Hudson River.

Our dinner on Tuesday night was magical. On the way from the parking garage, we shared the elevator with another couple. Had they been there before? No. Where were they from? Annapolis! Turns out we have lots of mutual friends. karen and Paul were  seated next to us, and we compared notes on which dishes were best (all of them).

Our server was Alexandra, and she was great. I had the lobster roll appetizer, duck breast main course, an a luscious dessert that included a dark chocolate cookie with intense raspberry filling accompanied by mint ice cream.Wonderful.

A couple walked by during our dinner, and I called out to them. We had met Denise and Mark at the rendezvous in Norfolk and again at the yacht club on Staten Island. Like many other loopers, they had been waiting for the Erie Canal to reopen. Fun to see them.

jim was excited about going back to the CIA on Thursday night. I had been feeling lousy, agreed to go anyway. It was not the magical evening that Tuesday had been.

We noticed when we arrived that there were several tables at the end of the room that had a cameraman hovering, taking photographs of the diners. Turns out that it was a special wine dinner, and National Geographic is doing an article with pictures on the events. I started out facing the wine dinner, but the rapid blasts of light from the flash was really bothering me. Never had a reaction like that before. I asked our waiter Andrew if I could switch seats at our table, so I could face away from the flashes. But even then, I’d jerk every time the flash went off, even with my hands covering my eyes, it was weird.  I flagged down Andrew again. How long was this going to continue? It was really bothering my eyes. The manager got involved and asked the photographer to stop. Flash, flash, flash,,,, I felt like I was in a war zone, not a fine Italian restaurant

The young man at the next table also complained about the flashes. By the end of the meal I had my eyes shut with my hands covering my face whenever the cameraman started shooting.

And dinner? It was ok. I had not been feeling well, and I really was not hungry. The risotto was good, and my swordfish was fine,  Jim loved his dinner.

C’est la vie!