The restaurant was empty. The waitress showed me to a table near the window.
She seated me, then apologized for the frenzied pace of the evening, rushing off to the kitchen where she claimed something was on the cusp of burning. I picked up the menu and glanced at the list of daily specials. Returning, she looked disheveled, as if she’d just finished wrestling with the chef.
“Is everything okay back there in the kitchen?”
“Oh, yes” she sighed, running one hand through her hair while the other smoothed a few wrinkles out of her skirt.
“May I bring you something to drink?”
“What do you recommend?”
“Nectar of the gods.”
I picked up the wine list, scanned it, but nothing going by that name was listed.
“Is this nectar concoction a mixed drink?”
“Oh no, it’s the actual thing.”
I looked up at her, expecting a smile, a giggle, some acknowledgment of the incredulity of what she had just said, but her eyes drifted dreamily toward the ceiling.
“So, what’s in this nectar drink?”
“Gee, I’m not entirely sure, but I know Zeus orders it every time he’s here.”
“Zeus?”
“Yeah, him and Cronus. And the Vestal Virgins, when they’re out on the town, which isn’t that often I’m sorry to say.”
I glanced around the restaurant once more, every table vacant, not a soul aside from the waitress and me.
“Are you trying to tell me the Greek gods eat here?”
“Oh yeah, and the Roman gods too, but not on the same night.”
I decided to probe a little deeper: “Has Thor been in?”
She glanced around surreptitiously, then leaned close to my ear: “He ordered take-out once, but complained about the meatballs.”
I didn’t know what else to say, my knowledge of mythology was hampered by a single poorly taught high school English elective over forty years ago.
“Do you serve ambrosia?”
“That’s our speciality!” she announced, clapping her hands together like a water nymph that’s just had a shower.
“I’ll have a mug of your nectar, then, a plate of ambrosia, and a side of french fries.”
Mythological food is fine, if one has an appetite for it, but a little fat can get a person through the leaner times.
