Eating in a Foreign Country -- America
Italian cuisine has always enticed me. First it was pasta, then, not so much—pizza. However, as our Italian cookbook collection has grown, we have been constantly delighted with all things Italian—not just the noodles. Pasta, according to Alton Brown (Food Network), is originally Italian and not Chinese. Sadly it’s what everyone thinks of when you say Italian food. But there is so much more. So much! Remember, the traditional meal has several courses in Italy and can last for hours, each course accompanied by a complimentary wine. I want to experience this. Not only the slow, unhurried pace of the meal, but the camaraderie and talk with friends and tablemates--something starting at say nine and lasting until eleven.
Sure family meals in the Jones family are like that. Many families are like that. Every summer when my brothers and our families get together we have the obligatory burgers, potato salad, corn on the cob, and desert with ice cream. It takes an hour or two, but that’s because the beer is flowing generously and the BBQ takes too long to start. But by 8:30 P.M. we’re through and ready for a card game or something on TV.
Recently we had a couple, newer friends over for dinner. It was a ‘reciprocal’ meal for the one we were invited to about a year ago. Hey, we’re slow, but we do return the compliment. We met Duke and Lori through the theater. He popped up one day about a week before auditions for the show I was directing, “Art” by Yasmina Raza. He was a brilliant cut above the caliber of middle aged actor we usually get. Obviously he had had some training somewhere in his past. He is a marketing annalist and has a real flare for promoting and later took a board position (even a year as President) with the theater. He was, of course, cast and did an outstanding job, along with the two other actors in the show. His wife, Lori, is a lawyer for the Public Defenders office in town. She, we found out, loves riding horses, and is accomplished in both western and English riding. They met in the Bay area half a dozen years ago and were married. He loves wines and has the broadest and specific knowledge of the subject of anyone I know. He has even worked for a local vineyard, Abacela, one of the best, in the tasting room on weekends. He said it was just so he could stock his “cellar”.
Marianne and I kept our attack about possibly joining us in Italy low key. Not wanting to spring it on them and scare them off right away. The subject of traveling in foreign countries casually came up and before long we were talking in depth about the trip they had made to Provence, Burgundy, and Paris last June.
“Provence is my second choice of places to visit,” I said.
“What’s you’re first?” They asked.
“Italy.”
“Oh, we would love to go to Italy.”
“Well”, Marianne chimes in, why don’t you join us next June when we go?”
“You are? That’s wonderful. Where are you going?” We proceeded to tell them about our plans to visit Tuscany and Umbria, about Rosetta and Fernando, and the week in Firenze. They loved the idea.
“Of course, it’s supposed to be two weeks,” said Marianne, “but David wants to stretch it to three.”
I kind of shrugged with a “you can’t blame a guy for trying” kind of look. They wanted to know every place we were thinking about going and soon the conversation turned back towards France. Duke talked about driving through Burgundy, with the small villages, and rolling hills of vineyards, and I could just imagine my self there, enjoying it all. One particular highlight of their trip was when they were looking for a tasting room to sample some Beaujolais. It was Sunday and nothing was open. They couldn’t find anywhere.
As they were driving through a small hamlet, they came to a four-way stop—pausing to look at the map and figure out where they might find some wine. A car pulled up on there right on the cross street and motioned for them to proceed. They motioned back for him to go ahead. He insisted. They held up the map and pantomimed looking for something. He did not speak English and their broken French made things difficult. Lori’s take on the language is to use it correctly and get all the verbal just right. Duke just cuts a straight line. He pantomimed drinking something, focused “binoculars” for ‘looking’, and yelled out the word Beaujolais. After a rough banter back and forth he motioned for them to turn around and drive into a small road on their left.
As it turned out it was the fellow’s house. He drove in, got out of his car, and opened his garage door. Inside was his winery! He graciously became host and treated them to an impromptu wine tasting that, despite the language barrier, was wonderful. And the wine was very good. That’s what is so special about France and Italy, everyone is vintner and has a long heritage of producing subtle, multi-layered wines. It’s sad, but so many of the big European winemakers are trying to copy the big single flavor of a California wine, and forsaking centuries of tradition and refinement.
Getting Away for the Annual Pilgrimage Home (Early August 2009)
So I had a ‘back to back’ “two services to play for” whammy at church. I had to play keyboard for the annual picnic and be choir director for our new priest’s ‘Celebration’ of new ministry. The duties fell to me, being the Music Director for our church, because the regular organist didn’t want to play the ‘lighter’ music and the pianist is in her husband’s home town attending a high school reunion. When they returned I heard all about the heat of central Oregon and a side-ways rain-thunder-lightning-hail storm that knocked out the lights and power, at the restaurant where the dinner was taking place. She said that they couldn’t cook, but that the beer taps flowed on into the night, until people could actually venture outside and leave—over the legal limit, but it’s central Oregon, so you know “no problem’.
The service Sunday morning before the picnic went fine, but not many folks attended. The last picnic I attended (15 years ago) had been a completely different affair. They were families and children everywhere. Food was abundant and the young pastor couldn’t set-up and run kids events fast enough. This year the quiet Eucharist and picnic had mostly the eldest members of the church in attendance—only one family with a teenage daughter.
The large service that next night was a bright and spirit filled event with many more parishioners and clergy from the community and from around the state. The visiting Reverend from Richland, Washington, gave an eloquent homily on her long-time friendship with our priest and the ministry of Saint Francis.
I got home from the service after eight PM and realized that we were set to leave on our yearly ‘pilgrimage’ to northern Idaho where my family lives. I hadn’t thought about packing and hadn’t fussed about details up to that point. I actually was very surprised and pleased with myself for not getting over anxious about the trip—which I have been know to do from time to time.
We left early and missed traffic in Eugene and Portland, but not Spokane. The yearly hurtles of road construction seemed surprisingly few. Only in the Tri-Cities had things gotten ‘messy’ as the Washington Department of Transportation tried again to solve the interchange problem of this ‘wildly’ out of control sprawling group of cities. I was amazed that even though the bad economy has hit the west so hard over the past year, this place continues to experience growth.
Spokane was messy too near 5 P.M., especially because they were once again ‘resurfacing’ the freeway after another hard winter. There were lots of pothole in the freeway.
Spokane was messy too near 5 P.M., especially because they were once again ‘resurfacing’ the freeway after another hard winter. There were lots of pothole in the freeway.
My brother Matt, the Optometrist, and his wife, Jody, the lawyer, were hosting the annual block party for the national Crime Watch observance. They have a great yard for hosting big events and they love to entertain. They had, easily, 50 neighbors there--mostly young married families who brought all the kids along. Luckily one of the closest neighbors had an inflatable ‘bouncing house’ to keep the kids entertained. Unfortunately the older play structure tended to deflate when more than eight to ten kids played inside. This was the source of entertainment for the adults.
As Jody always plans ahead, she had arranged to have her best friend, Christie (who she grew up with in Choteau, Montana and her husband, Paul. They are both retired, and my age. Marianne and I, and the Pierces, who we’ve known for about 20 years, were relegated to the patio bar area, where we proceeded to drink Kokanee beer and catch up on the past year.
Since everyone had to have name tags, and none of the neighbors knew us, we decided to write Bill, Hilary, Barrack and Michelle on our tags. Yes, I was called Bill several times, and some of the party goers did give us the ‘eye’ when our laughter got out of hand, but we had a great time. Towards the end of the evening one of Matt’s more vocal neighbors came over to talk with us. She was worried that we were over at the bar drinking all the beer. We quibbled that we were hoping no one was noticing our strategy.
The hour and a half trip from Spokane to Sandpoint went smoothly until we got back on the only highway that goes north out of Coeur d’Alene, 95. At Chilco, where we have always avoided the summer congestion of traffic, we meet with construction and bumper to bumper cars. It’s great that they are putting in a five lane expansion, but sad that it’s only for Silverwood, the amusement park. The state roads department of Idaho has had to be tortured in the past to even admit that highways exist north of the Rathdrum prairie.
The scenery is beautiful, but the traffic on the two lane road has been a frustrating deterrent for ten to fifteen years now. Once the road gets to Lake Pend Oreille and the wide expanse of blue which reflects the Selkirk range where Schweitzer ski resort is nestled all my tight muscles release and sweet calm flows over my body.
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