LA CAILLE
La Caille is an elegant five star restaurant at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon, a short way off the road leading to Snowbird. Sitting on 20 acres with a breathtaking view of the Wasatch range, this innovative restaurant put Utah on the map for excellence in fine dining. The setting is complete with peacocks, ponds, and honeymoon cottages in secluded corners. Mary Kay and I first went there in 1971 when it was known as Quail Run and was much more basic…a series of refurbished farm buildings had been carefully cleaned and skillfully repainted, turning the sheep sheds and chicken coops into a country French restaurant. Despite the clear evidence that it actually had been used for real farm animals and was a little too rustic, it was still a magical location for the spring social for the BYU Cougar Club. Those were the days when Mitt Romney was one of my best friends in Cougar Club and long before he morphed into Pierre Delecto. Nowadays I mostly just want to punch him in the beak.
Quail Run got a first class upgrade in 1975 and became known as LaCaille, the go-to venue for my brother-in-law’s wedding events. The reluctant teenage male cousins soon discovered the waitresses wearing French Maid outfits, and figured that La Caille was the push-up bra capital of the world. Those relatives failing to make the connection were puzzled by the enthusiasm of these healthy young men for wedding receptions. The only exception to the fun was when one bride specified male waiters dressed in black pants, white shirts, cummerbunds, and bow ties. Apparently, she thought that the young men wouldn’t notice. When the French maids did not appear, there was visible pain and disappointment on the their faces. I had seen this look before on some of my patients who were passing kidney stones.
At one event, in addition to family members and friends, the guest list included church leaders, politicians, and prominent Utahns. We had time to circulate and meet many of these truly interesting and wonderful people. As we were invited to go inside for the dinner-program, my brother in-law said that his son wondered if Uncle Roger would give the blessing on the food. I told him that I would be honored to do that and then realized that all of the other very talented people on the program had been preparing for weeks, and I had only been given a two-minute warning. In a panic, I turned to Mary Kay for support and asked, “What should I say?” I fully expected a boost of confidence. Instead she said, “Uhh, I don’t know.”
The relaxed country French ambience was perfect. A string quartet could be heard, but was somewhere unseen from where I was sitting on the other side of one of several large plaster columns. Crisp white linen tablecloths were set with the best china, an abundance of silverware, and wedding goblets on a sea of round tables. The aroma of fresh flowers, perfume, and an elegant buffet filled the room. Polite, muffled conversation and occasional amused laughter was interrupted as my brother- in-law welcomed everyone and announced, “Uncle Roger, from Idaho, will give us a blessing on the food.”
As I slid the chair back and worked my way around the nearest column, I realized that, while I had enjoyed the setting, I still had not decided what to say. And so there I was, hugging a huge plaster column in a fancy French restaurant, struggling to get by people’s chairs, trying not to step on them as I went around to the microphone to give a blessing. There were with no words.
Behind the column, I was out of the vision of almost everyone. As I looked down to make sure that I would not tangle in the wires leading to the microphone, I discovered that I had just spent the last two hours shaking hands with over 200 of Salt Lake’s finest—with my fly wide open. I had just enough sense and time to zip up, unseen, as I was rounding the column. It was then that I imagined that I was the Disney character, Goofy, with his fly wide open, swinging his arms, rocking back and forth saying, “Yup. Yup. Uh, huh, I'm Uncle Roger, from Idaho and I will now give a blessing on the food—uh, huh; Uh, huh.” I arrived at the microphone in my zipped-up pants, peacefully smiling and inwardly laughing at myself and the situation. That little distraction took me away from worrying about myself and probably saved me from a wandering prayer-babble. Instead, it was the most eloquent blessing on the food that was ever given at La Caille. Uh, huh. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Yup. Yup.
