She was more than a little pleased to see that this restaurant at least had not bent to lawyer’s demands and changed their recipe for Hollandaise sauce; it was made from scratch with scallions, egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice the way it should be. Louise adored Hollandaise sauce on asparagus and could even tolerate Brussels sprouts or broccoli if they were doused in the heavenly mixture. Her friends joked that she’d eat rocks if only they were drenched in real Hollandaise sauce. Louise abhorred the powdered pre-prepared faux bastardization of Hollandaise sauce that restaurants foisted on the unknowing public as the actual article to please lawyers in an attempt to mitigate lawsuits caused by food poisoning from bad eggs. She knew that life was an adventure and that nothing in life was safe. Eating the Japanese dish called Sashimi could be dangerous because it was made from raw fish , but she loved the clean “unfishy” flavor of the fresh fish flesh.

Louise sighed to herself thinking that rare hamburgers, soft-boiled or coddled eggs and faithful husbands had become things of the past because of the legal profession. She wondered how the restaurant’s lawyers had allowed them to serve the things that prudent and “utterly safe” dining prohibited. There on the menu under sandwiches was a glorious “Louder’s Half-Pound Cheeseburger served on a toasted white or whole wheat bun with all the trimmings, cooked Blood Rare, Rare, Medium Rare, Medium, Medium Well or Well-Done according to the Diner’s Wishes”. Louise enjoyed raw fish, rare Hamburgers and rare steak as well as her beloved Hollandaise sauce. She was more than a trifle miffed that the lawyers of the United States, the MEN who had deigned to make themselves the arbiters of everyday life by their power to disrupt and bankrupt anyone whose activities were not in accordance with their wishes, had chosen to attack her food choices. Had it been within her power, she’d have turned everyone of the unmitigated bounders into permanent infants so they could learn how helpless a person feels when overwhelmed by the laws that the lawyers and the bureaucracy they’ve created to assuage their underfed-egos.

Maybe the Chef had convinced the lawyers by letting them sample the blessed savor of Hollandaise sauce, but she doubted it. In her experience, the lawyers she had met in life had no souls that could truly experience the wonders of life. In her estimation, lawyers were zombies, androids or animated bodies without ethics or spiritual value. They would do anything for a price because they had surrendered their souls to a prior thinking and a dependence on the material and moral philosophies that had gone before them. Legislative lawyers tried to make laws within the United States that they could inflict on the entire world, willy-nilly, without regard to enforceability. Lawyers did not understand the concept of sovereignty of a particular state or of the international agreements for law that limited a nation’s laws to its boundaries. Neither did they understand the sovereignty of an individual. They were merely fellow-travelers in the climb to civilization with the human race. At their very best, they appeared to be very human creatures, albeit those who were lazy without let, completely vindictive of temperament, and had no taste for the greater achievements of humanity except for an overwhelming desire for sex, power or both. Of course, that was to be expected of the semi-humans to thought themselves wise enough to rule all mankind without an inkling of Science, History or Human Knowledge. They were universally hated and they therefore sought solace in the back streets of the cities where they could find women who were desperate enough to lay with their kind for the money that the dregs of humanity needed for survival.

Maurice had given her the table in the rear of the dinning area that was normally scorned by diners, i.e., the table closest to the kitchen door, but her location was perfect for her purposes. The high walls of the planter with it’s leafy greenery that hid the movements of the waiters and busboys into and out of the kitchen from the patrons would completely isolate her and her husband from any auditory or visual observation from the rest of the restaurant. His chair faced the rear of the restaurant completely concealing it, while position allowed her to push her chair away from the table and catch a glimpse of the front of the Café. She knew that the planters and their thriving plants made an excellent sound damping material that reduced the voices of the diners to muted whispers. The effect of the plants, coupled with acoustical absorptive qualities of the muted green indoor-outdoor carpeting beneath her feet made the Café an excellent place for either a private rendezvous or a tête-à-tête supper with one’s spouse.

The plants had an emotional effect as well; Louise knew instinctively that the restaurant was somehow magickally devoted to foster life and growth in favor of death and stagnation. She had the strangest feeling that the restaurant was a sort of Temple to Karmic Justice, wherein the forces of Life and Death battled, but where the Judge of Life always prevailed.