Tonight's Appetizer #4: Brie Baked in Puff Pastry with Rose Petal Jam

Tonight's Appetizer was Brie Baked in Puff Pastry with Rose Petal Jam from Papa O's in Capitola Village, CA.

This huge THING arrived on an outsize triangular platter, kissed with a pale glaze of flowery ooze, topped with scattered walnuts and surrounded by toasted crostini* and round, thin apple slices. I lost my bearings while looking at it, dizzied by the warmth and fragrance rising from this beautiful dish.

Then - I came to my senses and realized what had to be done. I cut a wedge of pastry, fat with hot brie and cooled by a gauzy drizzle of rose petal jam. I spread it over a crunchy toasted oval and topped the concoction with a section of sweet-scented white apple.

Lord. This dish is what snobs eat in heaven. The savory pungence of good, strong brie...the almost (but not quite!) cloying floral sweetness of rose petal jam - like swooning in a labyrinth of rose bushes, trapped in a beautiful perfumed reverie (except that this reverie was more taste than fragrance). The delicate puff of pastry, melting into air and water in the mouth. The crunch of the crostini and the crisp snap of apple. Every bite was like a clash of powerful armies of opposing flavors, who upon meeting in the middle of the battlefield do not fight! - but are instead violently swept up in a riot of sudden lovemaking and debauchery.

I love this appetizer so much that at one point I was gripped by a wave of paranoia that it might be secretly planning to break up with me.

The chef (Papa O himself) is a swashbuckling culinary mastermind. I know this post is about the appetizer, but wait 'til you try his meatloaf. I've never seen such meatloaf. Such richness of flavor, and the consistency of it...! So dense...so smooth...it's more like...pâté, or something! And the GRAVY!!

I have to stop now. I must stop now. I'm about to go eat my own leftovers.

*"toasted" crostini redundant? Perhaps. But taste the dish first, then be the judge.