THE WAITRESS WANTED to emphasize pine nuts. Pine nuts were the point, as far as the waitress was concerned, and she said as much: "Pine nuts," she said. Young waitress. Very nice. Smiley. Almost giggly.

Under discussion was a nine-dollar salad. –"There's meat in it," I said. The menu said so: ham. I wanted her to confirm this for me. Ordering a nine-dollar salad is something you don't rush into blindly, if you're me. If you're me, it's like buying a house, or a car. You have to ask a lot of questions.

(ANSWER: pine nuts.)

"How big is it?" I wanted to know, of course. I'm a big salad eater. Maybe you know this about me, but my favorite thing in the world to eat, after chickens, is salad – a big salad, a salad the size of a serving bowl full of salad.

The waitress held her two hands far apart from each other. "Big bowl," she said. If you wanted the smaller salad ($6.50, I believe), the bowl would be filled halfway, she explained, and if you wanted the nine-dollar salad, it would be filled all the way to the top. Lettuce, ham, Gruyère cheese, hard-boiled eggs, asparagus, tomatoes. Pine nuts.

The friends I was with, Napalm and Rapunzel, had already placed their orders: crepes, they'd ordered, a chickeny, spinachy, mustardy one ($9.50) for Napalm, and for Rapunzel, a seasonally vegetabled one ($7 according to the menu, $8 according to the bill). Technically, I should clarify, these were not crepes so much as galettes, galettes being savory buckwheat crepes. Galette being the name of the restaurant. Fillmore Street, Pacific Heights.

I went with the salad. A nine-dollar salad seemed like something to write home about. Plus they were both getting galettes, which came with little tiny sides of salad, just lettuce really. I could let them in on my big boy, they'd let me taste their galettes. That was part of the reasoning. Another part, I'll admit, was pine nuts. So I ordered the salad.

We sat there at the picnic table in the window, enjoying the casual Frenchish atmosphere, and enjoying the goofiness of being in Pacific Heights, waiting for galettes instead of burritos. And enjoying one another's company. Napalm had just come back from a too-long trip to London, Germany, and Amsterdam, so there was lots to talk about on that front: beer, sausages, and hash, for example. In the middle of talking about which, it just suddenly hit me: mayonnaise!

This was a French restaurant, and the French put mayonnaise on stuff, don't they? I hadn't asked enough questions. I hadn't asked about the salad dressing. My underarms started to sweat, and my appetite, as if to taunt me, swelled. Napalm and Rapunzel thought they'd make the most of my panic attack by changing the topic of discussion to mayonnaise and all the crazy places it shows up, like sushi.

I laughed last, though, because the salad showed up sans mayo, and with a great balsamic vinaigrette, in fact, and it was more substantial I suspect than either of their galettes. Which isn't saying much, except that I was the last one eating.

I tasted both of their things, and they weren't anything to write home about. But the salad ...

Dear Mom, Dear Dad,

Today I ordered a nine-dollar salad in a restaurant. Have I made it in the world, or what? There were pine nuts in it! But before you go bursting with pride, let me tell you what a sucker I was. The waitress said the large salad came up to the top of the bowl, whereas the small one was only half full. I asked a lot of questions, just like you taught me, but I wasn't thorough enough, I guess. The salad did come up to the top of the bowl, but only in the middle. In other words, it came to a point right around the top of the bowl, yes, but all around that point there was enough empty space to feed a family of nihilists (ex: the Yurkoviches). My friends let me taste their nine-dollar [sic] crepes [sic], but in the end two-thirds of us, myself included, went home hungry.

There's nothing worse than dropping 10 bucks on a restaurant, then going home hungry. Just to give you an idea, here's what all I scarfed down at home after dinner: a half a bag of snack crackers with blueberry preserves on them, the rest of the leftover bean soup, a biscuit, some tortilla chips (no salsa), and a side of beef.