Not Another Cobb Salad
Following Taste, Finding More
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, South of France
Twelve years ago, I finally worked up the courage to try a dish that I’d watched others eat in front of me for years when I lived and worked in Los Angeles. A stubborn, clueless student of taste in my know-it-all, early twenties, I was rebellious and resolute in my choice never once to cave and partake.
Despite enjoying long lunches almost daily at some of Beverly Hills’ most outstanding eateries, I chose instead to order safe (boring!) and predictably. I probably ate every Cobb Salad in the city.
I don’t even recognize the girl who placed those orders anymore. I do, however, vividly remember when the dish would arrive at our table how revolted I was. It was a competition between my stomach and eyes for which turned in disgust first and fastest.
People with money, I thought. They’ll eat anything.
Since then, this dish has become a lifelong favorite.
I’m talking about my beloved Steak Tartare.
In the summer of 2014, my favorite traveling companion and I splurged on a big trip to the South of France. We had just made our way up and around the coast from Nice to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a tiny little seaside village with more yachts in its harbor than people.
Suddenly and much to even my own surprise, I was finally ready to take the bougie leap and give tartare a proper try.
I’ll say one thing. I knew how to best my old circumstances. Tartare here, would be prepared and taken seaside. Literally, waves from the cobalt blue Mediterranean Sea splashed up and around the patio we dined and sunbathed from for four sensational days.
I can still hear the waiter mixing up the ingredients in a metal bowl. Sadly, I didn’t think to document the preparation or the moment. It lives only in my memory and as a friendly pang of lust in my gut. A reminder to always try new things.
It was far from revolting. It was divine.
For the next twelve years, I would try it in nearly every country I visited. I would order it at home, coaxing it upon colleagues, friends and family.
It was more than just a new dish I was taking a chance on and trying that trip. It was a bridge of sorts between the right-out of undergrad film school version of me and my post-MBA marketing self. It was acceptance that travel and taste go hand in hand.
Tartare was an unexpected calling away from the banal habits in taste that no longer served me to a palate shaped by insatiable curiosity and the obligation it inspired to see and taste whatever the world asked of me.
