dinner at Paesano's

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Lest you think our life is all about cleaning and de-cluttering and work (and SL!)....

We went out to dinner the weekend before Christmas.

Of course we couldn't just GO out to dinner. We discovered the hard way that the slowplows had left enough hard-packed snow and ice in the end of the driveway that we couldn't get the little car out.

So we had to get out and shovel it loose before we could go. It was cold here. Really cold. 10F or 5F something like that, and windy. Luckily this is Ann Arbor, and you don't have to dress up to go out to eat. Not even to a nice restaurant. So we didn't have to change before we could shovel................

We finally got the car loose, and went on to Paesano's, one of our very favorite restaurants. The chef does seasonal specials, and we tried a couple of them, in addition to one old favorite (which was very good, as usual). The orange and pomegranite chicken (with whipped sweet potatoes) was lovely, as was the Swiss chard ravioli with short ribs and bacon. These dishes were very different from each other, but each was layered, nuanced, cohesive............ Mmmmmmmmm.

We also tried the spice cake. Having recovered from shoveling, and with that lovely chicken fortifying me, my brain kicked back in and I got the camera out.

It looks like olives on top of the cake, but they are grapes. In grappa, if I remember correctly what the menu said. This, too, was lovely. The grapes were raw, and their taste and texture were a perfect complement to the cake.

Yum.






I made an attempt (well three attempts!) to capture my water glass with its multiple shadows. With, alas, marginal success.

The (best) original.





With the water color filter.





With the "high pass" filter, which, I read somewhere, is supposed to sharpen..... Not sure why, with that intent, it also got rid of color...........





Hmm, having seen that nearly colorless version, I wonder what will happen if I desaturate the water-colored image?

I think I like this better than the more sepia one above. I desaturated it about 75%, so it still has a bit of color...........



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