My Dinner with David

On a hot and humid night in July 2007, I made my first visit to Hidden Kitchen. The “underground supper club” was brand new and still buzzing from a write-up that had appeared on Chocolate & Zucchini. I had brought a new boyfriend and was trying to convince him that I was cool and cosmopolitan. That illusion was shattered when we entered the apartment and a certain someone caught my eye. “Holy crap!” I blurted like a jittery school girl, “you’re David Lebovitz!”

Cornered in the kitchen, David had no choice but to suffer my stalker-like admiration. He was sweet and polite (while inching almost imperceptibly toward the knives) as I rambled on about my favorite blog posts.

I was thinking about that embarrassing encounter last night during a dinner that David and I hosted at Hidden Kitchen. A lot has changed in the three years since that first meeting. David has published three additional books and seen his blog skyrocket to become one of the world’s most popular food sites. Hidden Kitchen has transitioned from being a word-of-mouth secret to something that’s splashed across the front page of the New York Times. And I, well, I’ve learned to control myself and stop acting like such a groupie.

The guests at last night’s dinner, which was organized by Context Travel as part of their “Out of Context” series of special events, did a much better job of behaving themselves than I did when first meeting David. There was hardly any squealing – just delightful conversation between sixteen food lovers from all around the world. Guests had come from as far away as Amsterdam and Los Angeles for the event, and it was great fun to talk food with them between mouthfuls. Braden and Laura revived a few of their greatest HK hits for the occasion, including this personal favorite:

Laura’s dessert was built around a mind-blowing cake, made from David’s recipe for carmelized white chocolate and paired with fresh rhubarb sorbet. While we were licking the last drops from our plates, Lily from Context Travel began to pass out copies of David’s latest (and heaviest!) book. It was a wonderful bonus to an already special night.

A big thank you to everyone who came, to Context Travel for hosting us, to Hidden Kitchen for the delicious meal, and to David for treating me like a friend and not the fawning groupie that I once was (and secretly still am).

Additional links

• My 2007 review of Hidden Kitchen for Gridskipper
• Seth Sherwood’s recent article about Hidden Kitchen in the New York Times
• David’s latest/greatest book, Ready for Dessert
• Context Travel’s gastronomic walking tours of Paris