Cutlery quiz

For my mom's birthday last year, James and I joined her at one of my favorite restaurants, a great steakhouse right on the Ohio River - literally. The restaurant floats on a barge downtown, right across from the stadiums in northern Kentucky. This place is known for incredibly delicious, and expensive, steaks. This is the old-school kind of place that has a circular bar with a piano and singer in the center, wooing you to drink and dance a two step while you wait for your table.

I love this restaurant for the swanky obnoxious charm of it. The colors are all pinkish purple, everything is made of a cheesy velveteen plush, and the lights are way down low. My mom and I always visit one of these types of restaurants, all owned by a (in)famous-ish restauranteur in town, and all just as expensive as the next, before a big event. We eat steaks and béarnaise sauce, sauteed mushrooms and asparagus, drink wine and then lolly over to the theater for a play. This night, we were headed to the floating restaurant for a grand dinner, then out to a piano bar after.

This was something totally foreign to James. The steak places he is used to usually have peanut shells on the floor. So imagine his shock when we walked the plank to this floating time capsule - still reeking of cigars and booze from the 40s.

When we were seated we ordered right away, this is the kind of place where you only have, and only need, one or two options. Soon our first course arrived, a salad. I waited a bit and excused myself from the table and was escorted to the restrooms and back by an attendant. That alone almost sent James over the edge. (Where do these guys think they are taking my girlfriend? She doesn't need to hold your arm, I'm pretty sure she saw the damn bathroom when we walked past it on the way in!) By the time I came back, my mom was deep in conversation with her friend and James was sitting patiently, his salad untouched.

I jumped right into the lively conversation, sipping wine and laughing all the while. I knew we had a while before our next course came, so I liked to take things slow and enjoy the atmosphere. About 10 minutes had gone by and I noticed James was still sitting, patiently staring at his salad. I leaned over and asked if he liked it. He hadn't even tried it. (Well, go on! Try it! What do you think?)

He stared a bit longer and finally leaned back and asked, "Would you please just pick up a damn fork and eat your salad so I know which one to use?!"