Goose Egg + Mercurial Rock
Look west through Eero Saarinen’s catenary curve, well beyond the stringy shadow of the Gateway Arch, to where Vicia roosts. A warm industrial space in St. Louis’s Central West End, muted in design and Nordic in palette: paned glass, unfinished metal, white tile, and natural and charcoal-stained wood support the main act. This monochrome stage amplifies the brilliant hue of the food.
Returned home from a transformative tour at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, chef Michael Gallina, along with business and life partner Tara, presents a vegetable-forward menu where local, seasonal ingredients are composed into delicious melody. In springtime, geese from Grand Army Farm in Labadie start laying in earnest. Their golden production is deconstructed and reorganized into satisfying snacks by Vicia’s kitchen.
The hard pearly shells are served convertible-style, top down. Dig in with a fork to uncover layers of flavor. Conducting this tabletop performance is like hearing Missouri-born singer-songwriter turned mercurial rocker, Angel Olsen, contorting her persona track to track. Olsen’s pensive stage demeanor is as neutral as this appetizer’s cool exterior, while her voice trembles, vulnerable like the silky scramble suspended at its core. “I could make it all disappear/You could feed me all of your fears” she croons in “Shut Up Kiss Me.”
Ridged morels inside the egg mirror the meaty guitar chords that back Olsen’s earthen vibrato. Green garlic is as sharp and cyclical as her pure-voiced cynicism: “Heartache ends/And begins again.” Wheat berries pop like a soulful baseline, building toward crescendo as bread crumbs crackle in your mouth—snare, cymbal, and tom-tom all struck while chewing. And lacing each bite is a whisper of light cheese rind foam, ethereal as a lament for what is gone and anticipation for the next taste. “Til I am nothing else but the feeling/Becoming true.” A wistful wail, exquisite yet powerful, braced for whatever life serves.
4/11/2019