I had not a clue that this photo would lead to a continuing fascination with recording the visible remains of meals and other adventures with foods gone by.
I should have known that something was brewing creatively inside me when, after the opening of my travelling Ali photo exhibition http://alifolio.com/exhibition.html in Longview, TX, I was taken to one of those chain, franchise eateries . . . . I don't know which one it was, something like a Chili's . . . . and, believe-you-me I fully admit to being a food snob, and it was the first time in years that I'd been in such a place. What I noticed more than the noise was how much was loaded up on the plates and how much was left over on peoples' tables once the diners had the toothpicks a-working. I mean piles and piles of paper and food and condiments, all left over, in a disarray that so shocked me I literally was too stunned to take a picture at that time. Mental note made.
Fast forward a year, and I am once again, taken out after the opening of my travelling Ali photo exhibition, this time at London's Proud Gallery, for a fabulous meal (or so I was led to believe) at the oldest restaurant in town, Rules, located just off the Strand. This time I was struck once again by the tableau made by the leftovers, this time, of our own meal. I waited till we got outside to shoot inward to capture not only the still life of our napkins and cups, but the ambiance of this 18th-century landmark (you can just see the beginnings of the date on the window--1798!). The photo was made both as a record of a meal enjoyed (but enjoyed only by dint of good friends and colleagues present, certainly not for the enjoyment of the food itself, about which more below) and as a visual statement.
And so a series has started.
I invite you to add your own After Eats photos in the Comments section. The more variety, the more fun this blog will be! To add some spice to this affair, do give us as full a description of the meal or the place as you can, or wish to.
And now, about the food at Rule's: I do not know what has been lining the stomachs of Brits all these years, but surely something has been protecting them given what we were served that night. This was an example of "traditional British food" allright, the kind that Gordon Ramsey has been rebelling against, I imagine. I was so looking forward to the steak and kidney pudding, especially since, according to the menu, it was prepared with oysters. Wow, that sounded great! My chops were ready to pounce on that creation. I so loved the version my Mom used to make us. What I cut into instead was the sorriest-looking pile of overcooked kidneys (and I mean seriously overcooked ... so heat stressed those babies looked jaundiced), around which were some large steaming chunks of randomly lopped off beef, sitting on and covered by the most leaden pie dough known to mankind. On top of all this sat three, count them, three shrivelled, sorry-looking oysters, though I can't vouch for the fact that they were actually from the sea, and they might as well have been produced out of a tin can.
My friend next to me seemed to be enjoying her lamb chops just fine, though the dwindled size of the portions precluded her from offering me any, and I believe her dish cost something like £25 ($50) and mine cost £19 ($38). Others at the table didn't seem to be having anything too desirable either, as I didn't hear a single "M-m-m-m" throughout that meal.
But I've learned to keep my food-snob mouth shut when eating with friends/colleagues and just pretend it's all just fine. If this is all TMI do let me know in the Comments. Oh, and I'm not done, the crowning moment was when we got up to leave the venerable eatery I did quietly let the maitre d' know my complaint about my meal, to which his business-as-usual retort was "Perhaps Madame doesn't care for kidney?" I just chortled and kept walking out the door.
Ah, memories are made of this!
