For years I was a strict vegetarian until one day a friend took me to the floating sushi bar at Ichiban and my self- righteous ways nosedived into the world of eating things with eyeballs. Now I call myself a recovering vegetarian. Still, my flesh intake is limited to fish every few weeks and a bite of homemade venison summer sausage at Christmas.

So, how did it happen that I ate a bowl of beef soup? Well, my brother Mark was in town from Duluth interviewing for a job. What makes Mark happy is sitting deep in the woods with a gun, or hanging out in a kayak next to icebergs somewhere in the North Atlantic with a hook in the water. To see him in a business suit downtown Minneapolis happens once in a lifetime. It was an opportunity I was not going to miss.

Since he was dressed as fancy that day as he’s ever going to get, I met him and his girlfriend, Robin, at Vincent. Both are great cooks and until recently he was part owner and GM of a restaurant. He knows his food. Everything I’ve ever eaten at Vincent is good if not great- it hardly matters what you order.  Mark ordered the omelet of the day (his joint ran breakfast and he’s a stickler for an omelet made correctly- which it was.)  Robin ordered a massive nicoise salad- bright and filling on a winter day.  Since I’d just started a cleanse diet and didn’t want to get too off track so I ordered a bowl of the beet soup, which the waiter assured me was not cream based and seemed to fit right into my fairly restrictive diet.

Well, you’ve already guessed the punch line. When the soup arrived it was brown and saline rather than the bright vegetal fuchsia I’d anticipated. At one point I said aloud, “I’m just not getting the beets in this.” It crossed my mind for only a second to send it back, largely because I needed to get back to the office for a meeting. And it was only later, when my stomach was talking to me in an unkind way, that I realized I’d eaten beef soup, not beet soup.

Still, when my office mates asked how lunch was and I said, “Wonderful!” The experience reminds me that atmosphere and dining companions are as important, if not more than the food, to how a meal is experienced in a restaurant. Mark and Robin are two of my favorite people. Vincent’s is a gorgeous restaurant full of daylight , warm colors and smells. Our server was kind and professional. We had a wonderful conversation full of love and laughter. And honestly, the soup was pretty good. If I’d eaten a slightly salty clear beef soup in a different restaurant with different people, I wouldn’t have taken a second bite. As it was, it was one of the best lunches I’ve had in a very long time- despite what my stomach had to say about it.

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