We'd taken the train and then a short cab to the restaurant nice and early so we could wander around the farm, but the rain precluded us from introducing ourselves to the actual chickens we might later feast upon. At the bar, where all time is better spent, Alex had a dirty martini with a splash of hot sauce (blargh), and I had a cosmopolitan they make with a puree of black currants and a lot of lime juice. It was really good and very tart. When Alex went to the loo, the bartender explained to me that they make almost everything themselves at Blue Hill from ingredients on their farm, and of course I had to be a smart-ass and ask if that included the cornichon speared with olives in Alex's drink, and he said, no, not that, those were imported from Italy and cured in a brine with olive oil. (Alex later admitted the olive oil in his drink was pretty gross, and I was all, you don't say!)

As we'd been instructed to do by friends who have eaten there before, we ordered the Farmer's Feast - a five-course meal the chef prepares in accommodation to whatever food grievances you have. Alex has zero (well, unagi and octopus, actually, but we safely assumed they weren't raising them in the puddles outside), and I had my confessional: no to the red meat, seafood and pleasenobeetsew and then, trying to compensate for appearing like I was raised under an epicurean rock, I said I really liked quail and duck. Feeling especially fancy, but mostly because Alex didn't let me peer at the price of this extravagance, we opted not to choose our own wines, but to allow the sommelier pair one with each course.

The meal was one of the best he or I have ever had, but there were small instances of food trendiness that made my inner Yiddishemama* groan. The first was an "iced tomato water" - basically, tomato juice that was completely clear and so cold it was practically slush, and then an amuse-bouche of, I kid you not, "vegetables on a fence," two carrot sticks and two pieces of yellow squash coated in vinaigrette and impaled on nails on a piece of wood. [*Inside me, I truly believe there is a little Jewish grandmother from the old country, and this little woman who has cooked simply, honestly and inexpensively her whole life would simply roll over in her grave to know that her great, great grandchild sat in a restaurant and in a meal expensive enough to feed her village for months, ate a carrot stick off a nail.] Now that I have exorcized my guilt, I can admit that it was a damned good carrot stick. One of the best I've had.

From there, the real fun began: an heirloom tomato salad with purple basil slivers (dolloped with a "tomato cloud" and a spritz of "Austrian tomato vinegar" and thankfully, the last instance of, IMHO, food ridiculousness that night), a sweet corn soup with an 80-minute poached egg (laid that morning) and cubes house-cured pancetta, and then, well, remember how I mentioned I like duck? They brought us foie gras. I had a bite or two and was done. [I could spend years opining on Chicago's ban and how disturbingly unsettled my stomach felt from that point forward, but I'll spare us all of that.] Course four was four small ravioli stuffed with gnocchi in a roasted tomato and shitake sauce and course five the most delicious chicken breast atop a sauce of artichoke hearts. Dessert came in two parts: mixed berries with "honey milk granita" and then a roasted peach with crème anglaise, and the wine flowed, well, past me the whole time.

That's the really embarrassing part, by the way, that I got bested by the sommelier. Prosecco and then three different whites and two reds and then an iced desert wine… the glasses kept coming and stacked up and my husband snickered and everything was pretty much foggy from the foie gras on. We were drunk enough when the cab arrived that we allowed ourselves to be talked into letting him drive us all the way back to the city ("I could have you home before that train arrives," I believe was the offer we couldn't refuse.)

And Monday I had my first food hangover. The mere thought of foie gras or granitas or softly poached eggs sent me into A Very Bad Place, but now several days later, I remember it all more fondly. Meals this spectacular might only come once or twice in your lifetime, but I'm hoping with a little jewelry-hocking and bank-robbing, we can go again next year. I can only imagine what they'll impale on fence posts next!

Re: the title. No, my mother is not a terrible cook, and neither is Alex's. In fact, it's quite the opposite, but you probably already know that. But, this is one our favorite lines from the movie Big Night, and after each course, we found ourselves reciting it. Basically, these two struggling Italian brothers with a restaurant cook this feast, this bacchanal of monstrous proportions. Course after course, wine flows, music is played, people dance, and at the end of the night, there is a haze of inebriated food coma across the room. The camera pans from patron to patron; a large, voluptuous woman lays across the table like a centerpiece, smoking a long cigarette, others nap, and at the end of the table, a woman sobs to her male companion, "my mother was a terrible cook!" The food was so good that it broke her heart to think she'd gone this long in her life without it.