One is the loneliest number !

There is fairly well known comedy skit with Sid Caesar.  In the skit he his applying for a job as an actor to play Tarzan.  He has only one leg and shows up at the tryouts wearing a basic "Tarzan"  outfit.  The casting director takes one look at the actor,  realizes that with one leg there is no way he could possibly do what the Tarzan character needs to do in the film and says "I cannot possibly hire you?"  Caesar responds by saying "Why not, you have not even given me a screen test".  "It's about your leg" the director responds. "What do you have against my leg?" Caesar asks incredulously.  The director responds immediately, "I have nothing against your leg, and that is precisely the problem, neither do you!"

Our dearest friends Bob and Kris Bickford had asked us to join them for a special valentines dinner at Pauline's in Shelburne.  This small restaurant is a fairly well known "upscale" french

 bistro.  Sylvie and I have dined there on a few occasions and were excited about celebrating with Bob and Kris.  Kris had prepared a few appetizers that we had at their place before we went out.  I noticed that Kris was not eating too much and assumed that she was saving all her appetite for diner.

We arrived at the restaurant and poured over their special "Valentines" menu.  It all looked good

 and it took us a while to make our final decision.  We placed our orders, I ordered a bottle of

 Rombauer Merlot from California and we returned to our conversation eagerly anticipating the meal.  Kris was having a good time but not as animated as she usually is.  I could tell that she was REALLY hungry.  And while she enjoyed the dialogue, it was obvious that she could hardly wait to eat.  Hunger, I find has a strange way of affecting your mood.

The waitress brought our appetisers.  Sylvie and Bob ordered the escargot and we were all a bit surprised to find that there was only one escargot on the plate!  Just one tiny, well cooked snail,

generously enveloped in a puff pastry.  A few salad greens adorned the tiny plate but it was still just one escargot.  This crustacean could have been dispatched in a single bite!  They were both disappointed.  Kris did not really notice as she was working hard on her crab cakes and was happy to finally get a little  sustenance in her. Sylvie and Bob had finished their appetisers rather quickly, while Kris had finished her crab cakes before I had even put my napkin on my lap.  Poor Kris was really starved.  While the three of them watched me tuck into my crab cakes I told them of a story that happened to me while staying in a pretty swank hotel on the west coast.  I had decided to have diner at the hotel's well know and authentic french restaurant.  I ordered a filet mignon and was surprised to see how small it was.  I mean it was tiny!  I was disappointed but I also knew the reputation of french cuisine and their penchant for undersized portions.  I was hungry and of course devoured the little steak.  Just before I paid my bill, the waiter Pierre came up to my table and asked, "Monsieur, how did you find zee steak?", I took a moment and responded, "Well, I looked under one of the carrots and there it was!" Pierre was not too happy he turned on his heals, walked away briskly harumffing.  In fact he harumffed twice! and in French.  I heard him  clearly say "Le harumff, sigh, le harumff".  What a way to treat a customer I thought.  I decided show my my displeasure by leaving a very small gratuity.  The next morning as luck would have, it I ran into Pierre in the hotel lobby, he

 just looked me up and down, but before he could harumff me again I leaned into his ear, "Pierre, how did you find zee tip?"

The waitress finally brought our main course.  Luckily, because by then Kris was looking a little pale from hunger.  The crab cakes had not kicked in yet and she was teetering in her seat.  Bob had ordered  a steak and boy what a steak she set down before him.  I mean it was huge.  It overlapped both sides of the plate.  You could clearly see both a portion of the animals shoulder and his flank in the same piece of meat.  Kris had to move her chair away from Bob because his hunk of meat was overlapping into her dinning "zone".  Oh the cruelty, the waitress had decided to give Kris her meal last.  She had ordered the scallops.  As the waitress placed the plate in front of her, Kris' jaw hit the table.  There in the middle of the plate sat one small, lonely singletary, scallop surrounded by a sea of white plate. One!  Kris ordered scallopS, plural.  She did not order one scallop.  She did not say to the waitress, "I think I will have the scallop tonight"  No, she ordered a plate of scallops.  I mean who orders one scallop?  Scallops are served in a bunch, a clan, a group, a party but never  one.  You cannot even buy a single scallop!  Without a doubt when this scallop was caught in the sea it was with a bunch of other scallops.  Friend scallops maybe.  As they were

 being hoisted on to the boat, they probably thought they were all going on a grand adventure together.  I am sure that even the fisherman sold them to the restaurant in a bunch.  It was the chef who decided to isolate this poor scallop.  

When the waitress returned, Kris made her disappointment known.  "Yes but it is a five ounce scallop" the waitress apologized.  How could she say this with a straight face while Bob was wrestling with fourteen and a half pounds of prime sirloin right next to Kris?  Kris was devastate but she did not want to upset dinner and said that she was going to take her time between bites so we could all enjoy the meal together.  Graciously Kris took a tiny portion of the isolated crustacean, read a few chapters of her copy of War & Peace and then took another tiny piece.  Taking such small bites would have challenged the worlds best surgeons using the most advance arthroscopic instruments.  Kris did not complain, even when her elbows kept rubbing up against Bob's steak.

  

The four of us,  with Tolstoy looking on,  scratched our heads trying to remember if the menu had said Scallop or Scallops. We simply could not imagine the description of the entre referring to one scallop.

I guess there have been a few complaints about this practise and I noticed in the paper today that based on "customer feedback", Paulines is changing their name to more accurately reflect their offerings. Starting next month they will be called simply "Pauline".