(2 of 4)
For real food I thought holiday season and went hunting for a goose. At goose.com I found I could acquire a rifle for the purpose--it's an outdoors store. This is when I fell in love with Jeeves, the fictional British butler who helped Bertie Wooster put his pants on one leg at a time, reincarnated in cyberspace as a cheerful search engine that sorts through all the others at AskJeeves ask.com) As in life, you need a friend of whom you can ask anything: What is love? What's the GDP of Monaco? Where can I buy a goose? The easily distracted might choose to go elsewhere, for there are no nonstop flights at AskJeeves. The whimsical Jeeves served up Mother Goose, along with the chance to hear one (a nasal honk right out of your laptop) and a recipe (Remove stray pinfeathers. Place orange rind and celery leaves under the loosened skin. Truss). That was enough goose for me.
The encyclopedic Jeeves brought me to goose liver, which led me to foie gras, which took me finally to France Gourmet Traditions gourmet-tradition.com) a quintessential Parisian grocer that had precisely what I wanted. Jean-Marc Donce could get the foie gras to me on time--if I were in the Paris bureau. At its site a Strasbourg charcuterie posted this bad news: "Cannot at this time ship. USDA does not return our calls." Funny, I have that very same problem with government agencies.
A few more clicks, and I found the same pate at GreatFood.com which I ordered, along with mustards and cheese. It's a luxurious site with Hollywood-studio visuals. You can't touch, smell or squeeze the merchandise on the Web, so pictures, however doctored, are essential. It was at GreatFood that I met temptation in the form of dinner for 24 at the click of a mouse. But the meat worked out to about $40 a pound and...it would have been wrong.
GreatFood had a link to Omaha Steaks omahasteaks.com) which I'd seen advertised but never tried. There was a scrumptious picture of beef Wellington--very festive, very holiday, very Savoy Hotel--with a bonus gift of six 4-oz. sirloins. Maybe there is such a thing as a free dinner, after all.
I went to Napa Valley at the eponymous Wine.com (what luck to nail down that name), proved I was 21 and ordered better wine than I'd ever served. Since I was already in California anyway, I called up Patisserie Lambert patisserielambert.com) where I'd eaten in real time--I mean, real life. It's a small shop, remarkably cybersophisticated, with visuals so good you could almost smell the madeleines. And there it was, the cake of my dreams, Chocolate Fantasia, three layers of chocolate caramel mousse cake with ladyfinger biscuits soaked in espresso. A dramatic dessert can redeem many a main-course sin, so I went for it. But Lambert quickly replied that a three-tiered cake was too dicey to ship. Then send the layers separately, I said. Some assembly required? No problem. Then came word that this was actually a wedding cake. Hey, pal, no problem. I'll have someone get married. One of these government officials will preside--captain of the ship, quick ceremony, that type of thing. Just send the cake.
No go. I settled for two separate cakes with raspberry sauce on top. In a marvel of packaging, considering their delicacy, they arrived intact. Just to amortize the FedEx charges, I threw in a couple of tomato tarts. Major cost lesson: it's not the food, it's the shipping that kills you.