Category: Food

Food porn, Sicilian style

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It’s 33 degrees outside and a cold winter sun glares from unblemished skies, the deep snow melts and the tweedly doodles and musical Morse code of birdsong fills the chilly air. Even inside, my hands are numb and puckered, and I should really put on gloves. But I can’t type with gloves. The blogger’s quandary.

Here’s another quandary: I just got back from my maiden voyage to Sicily — namely, the capital city Palermo — and, writerly speaking, I am constipated, all blocked up. Ex-Lax for writers — is that a thing? Gloves or no gloves, my typing is stymied. 

Let’s try this. Let’s look at a picture of one of my many fabulous meals on the fabulous trip, like this heartbreaking pizza:

Or this exquisite specimen of pistachio gelato:

And why not this prosciutto panini with a popular Italian beer:

Or the best cannoli I’ve ever had, made before my eyes in an actual nun’s convent:

See, with most of my journeys, food takes up considerable real estate on my itineraries, at least 50 percent of why I go and what I do. Art, cathedrals, quirky museums — like the marionette and Inquisition museums in Palermo, the gruesome catacombs, plus the Mafia tour I took — are mandatory and rewarding. But nothing quite so viscerally gets the gut like, say, this succulent, perfectly seasoned chicken I feasted on:

Sicily — infamous for its Mafioso, which is actively being stamped out — is the biggest island in the Mediterranean, set just below mainland Italy. It boasts a regional flavor, dialect and attitude all its own, and its denizens are a proud people. They are also unfailingly kind, helpful, funny — and self-admittedly gesticulative and loud.

All of my Ubers were sleek black Mercedes and, as it was low season last week, non-local tourists were scarce. Booking a tour or a table was a cinch, and the weather hovered in the very comfortable mid-60s. (No gloves needed!)

Palermo, a coastal city of about 700,000, is exciting the way gritty Naples is. It pulses. It’s richly historical and traffic-choked with throngs of motor scooters; graffiti-strewn and colorfully multicultural. Pet dogs are plentiful — sidewalks are mushy minefields of poop — and street food rules. Like the Sicilian Arancini, fried rice balls, nearly the size of a tennis ball, filled with melty cheese and meat. Phenomenal.  

As I’m still a bit writer’s-blocky, I exit with these non-foodie shots of the rightfully famous Palermo Cathedral, a dazzling architectural melange of Islamic, Norman and Christian influences. I’ll share more about picturesque Palermo when my brain freeze thaws. Ciao.

Don’t eat dogs. Just don’t.

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

I would never eat a dog. This goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway to broadcast loudly that I would never eat a dog. Or a cat for that matter. But this is about dogs, a bit broached by a new law in South Korea banning the consumption of dogs.

In a brief from today’s newspaper: “Breeding, killing and selling dogs for their meat will be banned in a country where it has fallen out of favor. Hundreds of thousands of the animals were still being bred for human consumption.”

The first sentence fills me with joy, relief and pathos.

The second sentence renders me a clenched fist of disgust, outrage and sorrow.

The story goes on: “A person who butchers dogs for human consumption could face three years in prison or a fine of 30 million South Korean won, or about $23,000 … The breeding and selling of the animals would be punishable by two years in prison or a fine of 20 million won.”

Not nearly as draconian as it should be, but a start. 

While South Korea joins Hong Kong, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan as places prohibiting the trading of dog meat, millions of dogs are still slaughtered for their meat in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other barbaric regions.

I know first-hand about the trade in Vietnam. Some years ago, riding on the back of a ramshackle moto-bike in Hanoi, my makeshift guide decided to swing by an open-air market where cooked dog remains — whole torsos, heads and tails — were displayed. 

He then took me to a “dog restaurant,” where a trio of giggly, visibly drunk male diners beseeched me to join them for some bubbling dog stew (I waved them off). It was nauseating. (Of course later, the guide and I feasted on a cobra that was slaughtered in front of us. This was not a banner day for animal welfare.)

Thank god I saw none of this sort of atrocity, dogs caged like chickens:

The newspaper story has a link to Four Paws, an animal welfare group out of Australia, to which I just recently and coincidentally donated $100 and plan to drop more. I implore all animals lovers to do the same. Look at the site. It will break your heart, hopefully not your bank.

Sicily and beyond …

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

My brother and I bought our widowed stepmom a two-week trip to France for April, which makes an unbroken streak of family travel, as my brother just returned from Madrid with his brood, I go to Sicily in February, and my brother and his wife hit Italy this spring to visit my nephew, who will be studying in Rome. 

It sounds all jet-setty, but it’s pure coincidence. We’re hardly the Roys of “Succession,” or the Kardashians of depression. We’re strictly economy — zero legroom and chicken curry meals swathed in foil. 

But it works. It gets us there. No matter if I don’t sleep a wink during a nine-hour redeye. They say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Bull dookie. It’s totally about the destination when you’re flying United. 

I go to Sicily in a month. Never been, but I anticipate the ancient splendor of Rome and the graffitied scrappiness and coastal beauty of Naples. It’s “Godfather” country, once infested with mafioso, and I’ve booked a tour that’s actually called “No Mafia.”

Yet, if you’ve seen the Denzel Washington action flick “The Equalizer 3,” which unfurls in Sicily and is operatically violent, you might think the Italian mafia, namely the homicidal Camorra, are alive and killing. “No Mafia”? How about “Uh, I’m Afraid-So Mafia?”

Harbor of Sciacca, Sicily

Though I’ve been to Italy a few times, I’m re-learning some basic words and phrases, like “Do you speak English?,” which is a big one for me. I ask that constantly in foreign countries, often in plain English, which is both foolish and boorish. In Sicily I will politely approach a local, clear my throat nervously, and ask, “Parli inglese?” (That’s: par-lee-inglesy.) And then, most likely, be promptly bopped on the nose.

I’m really not such a klutz in my travels. I tread lightly, mindfully, and rarely find myself in awkward tangles. I keep my trap shut, until I’m desperate for a small pointer. (“Mi scusi,” I might begin. “Where is the toilet?”)

We are travelers, my family and friends. I returned from Budapest and Kraków in October and I’m already greedily charting a post-Sicily trip. Where? I haven’t a clue. For the second time, I seriously considered Ireland, but research has again left me cold and bored. Besides Guinness and grass, what is there? A plethora of pubs? Some castles? Rain? Sheep? Elves?

I read an article, “20 Cool Destinations to Escape the Summer Heat” — ditching the heat is a huge selling point for me — and it includes Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Chile, South Africa and more. 

Chile sounds aptly chilly and attractively off the beaten track. (I’ve only been to South America once, Buenos Aires in July 2022 — our sweltering summer, their swooning winter.) At a glance, Chile in July offers snow skiing, wineries and temps in the low 60s. Heavenly. I used to ski madly back in California. Though if I try to ski at this late date, I’ll wind up with two broken femurs, four cracked ribs and a neck brace. 

Meantime, Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, beckons. It’s awash in zesty history, a strange (and strained) relationship with mainland Italy, world-class cannoli, singular pizza, and a people I hope will brook a humble tourist’s blundering attempts at speaking Italian. A tourist who, spongelike, yearns to soak it up, metabolize it, then, months later, jump to the next place with almost juvenile impetuosity.

As the cliché goes, I’m like a shark: I have to keep moving or I die. That’s glib, but rather true. And if it is, I’m definitely a Great White — tenacious, voracious, and dying for an authentic pizza margherita.

Celebrities in the hot, hot, hot seat

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

If you haven’t watched “Hot Ones,” you have to watch “Hot Ones.” 

A blazing and blistering (literally) plunge into bar-food sadomasochism, the long-running YouTube show is a micro-budget showcase for today’s brightest stars to brave the burn of some of the cruelest hot sauces known to sear the flesh off your tongue. If you want to see A-list actors and musicians writhe in their most tortured, vulnerable, teary-eyed human condition — with extra-spicy schadenfreude drizzled on top — this show’s for … well, all of us.

It goes like this: Hello, Superstar. Now, as we chat, bite into that sauce-daubed wing. Chew. Squint. Fan your mouth. Weep. Curse. Cough. Choke. Guzzle ice water. Go on about how you can’t feel your mouth. Cough some more. Bite. Chew. Cry. Tell the host he’s a son of a bitch, or worse, for subjecting you to this. 

The celebs, always great sports, do this while answering smart, probing questions about their life, work and latest projects from the host, who has diligently done his homework about their past and present. And who clearly has callouses on his tongue, for he rarely even sniffles at the nuclear scorch of sauces with names like “The Spicy Shark” and the annihilating “Da’ Bomb Beyond Insanity.”  

The setup: Host Sean Evans, bald, beaming and boyish, invites a celebrity guest to nibble hot wings with him and engage in a very casual interview. They sit at hightop tables, with chicken wings and a row of 10 hot sauce bottles aligned in order of lethal heat. Guests — who’ve included Dave Grohl, Jennifer Lawrence, Jake Gyllenhaal, Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, Billie Eilish and heaps more — may seem calm, but their trepidation from watching prior episodes of three-alarm distress bleeds through. 

But on they go, biting hotter and hotter wings until they can barely take it anymore. They try to laugh it off as snot, spit and tears involuntarily spray from taxed orifices. Meanwhile, a composed Sean, he of the steel maw, keeps asking them questions. (“The show with hot questions and even hotter wings,” goes the tagline.) 

Gordon Ramsay gets burned, and is NOT happy.

That’s when many of our sweet superstars shred their chaste public personas and begin cussing at him for putting them through the gauntlet of fire. Sean chuckles apologetically, but not too apologetically. Tissues, milk, ice water are the guests’ paltry balms. Such mortal salves can only do so much. Chef Gordon Ramsay, crimson-faced, spluttered 128 expletives as he burned in “Hot Ones” hell. The show is about 24 minutes.

This makes for excellent lowbrow comedy. I don’t know why, but watching Gal Godot (“Wonder Woman”) do a magnificent spit-take while trying to douse the flames in her mouth is strangely funny. So is seeing Shaquille O’Neal gargling a gallon of milk and begging for “ice cube ChapStick.” Or Charlize Theron, clearly suffering, saying, “I like spice, but this is like somebody being an asshole.”

It’s a contest of will. And pain thresholds. And stamina. And sweat. And good humor. And, really, just why-the-hell-not fun.

Celebrities, those paragons of poise, in (harmless) agony. Bliss. 

Feel the burn here. 

Bonus track: A highlight reel of guests frothing at the host for setting them on fire, here.

Budapest or bust

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

And so, just back from Scotland — beautiful, bracing, beer-soaked and brogue-y — I do what I always do when I return from a hearty journey: immediately plan the next one, high on the fumes of the one just completed. Travel intoxication: a hazard of the unquenchable wanderer. 

Friends obligatorily ask: “How was it?” 

And I fan away the question with this impertinent question: “Where to now?” 

My quasi-ADD manifests as a cockeyed restlessness that makes me want to pack my suitcase about six times a day, even if I’m not going anywhere for months. I consider what mini toothpaste I should take, how many extra razors, what and how many pairs of socks I’ll need. I’m certifiable, but goddam I’m efficient. 

When it comes time to actually pack for a weeklong trip, I can do it in 30 seconds flat. (I’m like Robert De Niro in the movie “Heat,” and if you get that reference I’m sending you a Christmas card.) 

I’ve been spending an unhealthy amount of time eyeing my scuffed carry-on suitcase since I returned from Scotland. That’s because within two days of the return, I knew where I was going this fall, something I figured out with a kind of crazed alacrity.

First I narrowed it down to places I haven’t been to. That list is endless, sorrily. Then I did some math ($$) and realized it would have to be some time down the line, and not excessively exotic.

And so, a place I’ve never been but have almost gone to: Budapest. Which I figure is good for four days. To fill a week, I chose a second Eastern Bloc location, Krakow, the medieval Polish city that knocked me out so many years ago. Late October is the date, Eastern Europe is the place, borscht and pierogis are the plates.

Like so much of the world, a historical shadow, a practical pall, hangs over Hungary and Poland. So there will be much about soul-crushing Communism, the collective Jewish plight, the Holocaust — Auschwitz-Birkenau is just outside of Krakow (I’ve been, and I’m going back) — not to mention the abhorrent  intolerances harbored by the current leaders of both nations, which echo America’s far-right reprobates. Travel is exploration and edification. I’ll provide a full report on any evident ugliness.

As far as mapping my journey, I’m (surprise, ha) frenzied. I have a bulging itinerary with wriggle room for spontaneity. Flights are booked, restaurants reserved, tours scheduled, free time sketched out, etc. 

Four months out and my brain is abuzz. So much so that I’m already scoping the trip after this for sometime in February. (I won’t tell you, but I’ll give you a hint: It’s near Italy and it starts with Sicily.)

Budapest

Scotland: heat, history and, yes, haggis

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

It was 65 degrees F and the Scots were on fire. Summer’s here, the locals kept blissfully declaring, as they peeled off jackets and dabbed beading brows and dipped into pubs for emergency pints, as if they were dangerously parched from the sizzling rays of a vengeful sun.

This was comical to me, who was strolling about in long sleeves and a quilted black jacket and feeling just right in the rare Scottish weather event called “sunshine.” A cool breeze mussed your hair and creeping cloud cover furnished a periodic chill. 

Not so for the delightful natives I encountered in Edinburgh and Glasgow last week, where miles of pale flesh — as pasty and pink as a baby’s — almost required Ray-Bans.

Edinburgh

Part of why I went to Scotland for my biannual travels was for the cooler late-spring weather (it’s going to be 90 in my parts this week — disgusting). And so watching the denizens get in a happy lather when temps broke the 60s amused me a bit (a “wee bit,” to borrow the local vocabulary).

Scotland was a lovely surprise (“lovely” being another highly trafficked descriptive). Why Scotland?, even the locals asked me. Dunno. Been around the world a couple times, looking for someplace new — and climatically cool — and my research convinced me it holds sights and treasures and, yes, food, worth checking out. 

Food? That’s the big punchline with Scotland. I’ve written about it here before, and when I texted a friend I was there, she wrote back sarcastically, “Enjoy the great food” with a dubious emoji. 

But first, the big national rivalry: Edinburgh vs. Glasgow. Who wins? No brainer. Glasgow can use the excuse that Edinburgh is too touristy. But there’s a reason for that: It kills Glasgow, a big, homely city with a few historical sights and other feeble points of interest (hey, here’s a university and over there’s a giant mural).

Meanwhile, Edinburgh is encrusted in history, flush with medieval flavor, cobblestone, and an attractive village vibe, especially as the country’s capital. The ancient Castle is there, sure, but the city’s overriding character stomps the generic urban tang of Glasgow. Yeah, I said it.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Scottish pub culture is familiar to all of the UK, and much of its food is delicious. But dig deeper, beyond the burgers, fish and chips, Eggs Benedict and bangers and mash, and a quality bounty awaits. Like Cullen skink, a thick, fantastically savory soup of cream, smoked haddock, onions and hearty potato chunks that I had at a pub before (one of many) whisky tastings. 

Here’s some of the rest:

Scottish Eggs: eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded and fried
Lamb shank atop mashed potatoes in wine and onion gravy
Potatoes, with haggis on the right (sheep & beef guts with oats — fantastic)
Hake fish with potatoes and baby asparagus
Fresh peas and scallops
Cod wrapped in pork, with poached egg at right

And for dessert:

The charming, super-historic Grassmarket, where I stayed in Edinburgh

And, of course, a fragrant flight of whisky at one of several mandatory tastings:

To that last one I say, Slàinte Mhath!, or Slanj-a-va, meaning ‘cheers’ in Scottish.

Scottish cuisine — really?

~ Chris ~ 6 Comments

So I was walking around the hood recently and I spotted a squirrel in the road squished like a jelly donut. It was gruesome and sad and got me thinking about mortality, careless drivers, blameless rodents and, yes, Italian food. 

I envisioned the shockingly good meals I ate last year in Rome and Naples: pizza margherita, caprese salad, pasta carbonara, ravioli, gelato, etc. And that led to thoughts about the kinds of food I might eat on my upcoming journey to Scotland. 

This was tricky, because I don’t really know what native Scottish fare is, except for the shuddering national dish haggis, dubiously defined as “a pudding composed of the liver, heart and lungs of a sheep, mixed with beef or mutton kidneys and oatmeal and seasoned with spices, which is packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled.” 

Suddenly, I see that pulverized squirrel.

This is a job for some A.I., I mused, too lazy to grab my Scotland guide books. So I asked ChatGPT to spit up some famous Scottish dishes and it gave me haggis (#1), smoked salmon, porridge (!), black pudding (sausage made with pig’s blood) and other grub that doesn’t sound wildly appetizing on paper, but rather Dickensian.

That said, I’ve made reservations at seven restaurants in Edinburgh and Glasgow that seem delicious, and almost all of them boast Scottish cuisine (the exception is an Indian joint that looks otherworldly). I’m particularly amped about Makars Gourmet Mash Bar in Edinburgh, which merrily touts affordable farm-to-table dishes featuring lots of mashed potatoes and scads of fresh meats and veggies. Bangers and mash? Um, yeah. 

I was watching “Top Chef” the other night and the show’s deceptively sweet host Padma Lakshmi — she of the cutting parting words, “Please, pack your knives and go” — reminded me how food is of paramount consideration when choosing where to travel. I go partly for the local cuisine, be it sushi and takoyaki (octopus balls) in Japan or jamón ibérico and patatas bravas in Spain (or, gulp, haggis in Scotland).  

This trip is different. Despite my A.I. research, nothing but the cursed haggis stands out, and yet the menus at my reserved restaurants are thoroughly enticing. A quasi-foodie — sort of a Foodie, Jr. — I’m all about adventuresome eating, be it silkworm cocoons in China or that whole cobra in Vietnam I’ve mentioned here a thousand times. Will I try haggis? Maybe. Yet I don’t want to order an offal-filled sheep’s stomach only to gag on the first bite and then where will I be? Embarrassed and out 20 bucks. 

I rarely strike out in my gastronomical exploits — OK, the silkworm cocoons were disgusting — so anxiety is low. I bet I can do haggis. Right? After all, it really isn’t like it’s roadkill or something. 

Damn. That poor, pitiful little squirrel. 

Haggis. There you have it.

Kilt me now

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

I’m trying, I really am. 

I’m trying to get super excited about Scotland, much as I tried a year ago to get jazzed about Ireland. 

We know how that turned out: I bought a flight to Dublin only to exchange it a week later for a flight to Paris. It was after I studied the destination with a flea comb, burrowed into my research, only to arrive at the great existential query: What am I thinking? (I ask this frequently in my life.)

I’m sure Ireland is splendid, despite the fact that pubs, pubs and pubs are invariably named the top experience in everything I read. A friend just returned from Dublin and said it’s terrific — for two or three days. Then you run out of things to do. At that point, of course, you rent a car for the verdant countryside and … yawn, you lost me. 

I’m an urban traveler. I seek culture, cuisine, cobblestone. Art, edifices, bustling humanity and idiosyncratic neighborhoods. I also seek cool climates — I’m done sweltering in the tropics — for summer travel. Last July I went to Buenos Aires to, among many reasons, escape our heat. I slipped on my jacket each day with a big grin. 

And so, Scotland. I’m eyeing a May trip to the capital Edinburgh and Glasgow, the largest city in the country, both of which brim with museums, castles, street art, music (here is where I make peace with bagpipes), hearty food (do I dare try haggis?) and, a-ha, whisky. May weather hovers in the mid-50s and below and I’m already happily shivering.

Like Ireland, Scotland is comprised of highlands, lowlands, islands, cliffs, crags, rolling pastures and billowing grass. It’s lousy with forts and castles. It doesn’t look like I’ll get into all that, though I might be whisked away on a day trip. I probably should.

Maybe I’ll spot Nessie, the wondrous Loch Ness Monster, and hitch a ride on her mythical scaly back through the chill waters. (As a kid, I used to love Nessie, that bashful and elusive lake dinosaur. I thought she and Bigfoot should get married.)

I am a wee nervous about the language, specifically the knotty Scottish brogue, which contorts familiar English into musical pretzels and thick-tongued tootles that leave some of us wincing with incomprehension. I once worked with a native Scot named Alan Black and I couldn’t understand a damn word he said. We got along swimmingly, but I’m sure I missed 60 percent of what he was telling me. 

This worries me, the rogue brogue. I’ll be made the fool by cheery locals who will snicker at me between sips of lager and Glenfiddich, doing spit takes. I’ll be the dumb American carrying around an ear funnel, going, “What’s that, mate?”

I can do this. The more I excavate, the more Scotland attracts. I’m thinking seven days between the two cities, yet there’s more to explore. The trip could get longer, epic, out of control. It could go from a jaunt to a journey. I like that. (Cue: “Loch Lomond.”)

Am I sure about this?

Getting down with dinner, and keeping it down

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Last year in Lisbon, Portugal, I was served a 12-course meal that stuffed me so brutally, I was this close to dashing to the restaurant bathroom and purging myself. I felt like an engorged zeppelin, about to burst with the sloshing goulash bloating my belly. I was in theatrical distress. 

And the food, which was amazing, kept coming. And coming. I finally had to hold up a hand when the server brought the final course, which was a square of baklava the size of a matchbox. That hand said, “Cease. Go back wherefrom you came. Take that morsel of food with you. Be gone before disaster strikes.” 

Still, he insisted on boxing up the dessert. I conceded. All the while an argument raged between my mind and my stomach. The mind won. By the grace of god, I did not vomit. 

I was reminded of this fine-dining discomfort the other night at an eatery that’s the opposite of the gourmet Portuguese blowout: La Tapatia, a homey, festively painted Mexican restaurant/cantina in Concord, Ca., some 30 minutes east of San Francisco. 

(My brother and I are in the East Bay clearing out my late Mom’s townhouse and putting it on the market. Wading through Everests of old photos is by turns amusing, exhausting, and wildly depressing.) 

We adore La Tapatia and anticipated its decadent cuisine before we left the East Coast. It’s a destination spot dishing up fiercely old-school Mexican food: chips and salsa, margaritas, rice and refried beans, tacos, burritos, the whole enchilada. 

With a tangy margarita, I had a chicken taco and chicken enchilada. The plate was massive, flooded in a sea of beans and rice: 

It was deliriously good. But here’s the thing: I got so gorged on chips and dinner, I spontaneously puked when I got back home. It was quick and painless, and I topped it with a gin and tonic. I’m disgusting. (A girlfriend once told me I have the “constitution of a bird.” I cannot argue with this.)

To offset the stress and gloom of this seven-day trip, we’ve turned it into a foodie foray, hitting many good places — we’re eating out twice a day, every day — as well as favorite restaurants we’ve long loved in the area.

Like the scrappy, frantic joint in San Francisco’s Chinatown. From the SF airport, we went straight to our reliable haunt House of Nanking, where I had the celebrated Nanking Sesame Chicken, a dish of cosmic savoriness:

I’ve mentioned before that I own a House of Nanking t-shirt. It’s that good. I learned that scenes from “The Matrix Resurrections” were filmed there. Photos of Keanu Reeves with the beaming owner paper the windows. For some reason, I’m proud.

Yesterday we met our old friend Tony for lunch at the classy, very bougie Acre Kitchen & Bar on College Avenue in Berkeley. Though the sardines, arriving with three tiny bottles of Tabasco, were wonderful, Tony was the highlight. He’s about the nicest guy you could know, a real mensch, radiating a gentle joy that inspires faith in the world. He ate a French dip and took a selfie of us.

Sardines and Tabasco. Tony didn’t have any.

In Berkeley, where my brother went to Cal, we kicked around used book and record stores, working up an appetite for an early dinner at Alice Waters’ legendary restaurant Chez Panisse. Considering this could be our final trip to the Bay Area, we splurged on the crazy-expensive four-course dinner menu, which changes daily, and it went like this: 

California white sea bass tartare with Meyer lemon, ginger, and fried capers

Wild mushroom ravioli in brodo with Parmesan

Corvus Farm guinea hen roasted in the hearth; with potato-rutabaga purée, spring onions, and spinach

Hazelnut sherbet and chocolate ice cream meringata

Guinea hen roasted in the hearth.

Pretentious? Nuh-uh. Chez Panisse keeps it real with a humble farm-to-table ethos that’s exquisitely prepped and presented. Service is impeccable, always with a smiling expansiveness, never fussy, and often with a quip or two. The food: spectacular without being show-offy. It’s special but to the point.

I don’t think I’m overselling the experience, because we went back two nights later  (after scrambling for a coveted reservation) for the more modest à la carte menu, no less delicious and memorable. My appetizer was “sprouting broccoli roasted in the wood oven with preserved lemon and mint yogurt”; my main course was “grilled lamb leg with shoestring potatoes, glazed carrots, and red wine butter” — all of it superb, as expected.

Bonus: I didn’t throw up. 

Clearing out the museum of Mom

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

Florence was a gas. I got back a few days ago and I’m still huffing the trip’s fragrant fumes and, I admit, getting a little high. It was an idyllic sojourn: the friendliest, prettiest people; piquant pizzas and pleasing piazzas; huge marble slabs of history; staggering art; so much gelato you could vomit. And dogs — a festival of dogs.

I’m leaving on a jet plane yet again in a week, but this one isn’t for vacation; it’s for vacating. My brother and I are going to the San Francisco Bay Area to clear out my late ole Mom’s condo and put it on the market. We are vacating the abode of its current renter and as much furniture and stuff as we can in a short stretch of time, about six days. It could be a herculean errand, or it might snap into place like Legos.

Mom passed in late 2019, so this isn’t really a mournful visit, though it is naturally tinged with blue-hued rue. Ghosts, memories, love and misses. We have to riffle through reams of photos — that’ll be fun and painful and snoringly tedious — and decide what things we want and what can hit the curb. My brother can’t wait to get his grubby hands on this damn metallic rabbit Mom placed next to the toilet. It’s probably spattered in urine.

Save for that weird rabbit, there’s nothing original about any of this. It’s just another life stage, a serial speed bump that most of us have to go through. My turn. Yawn. 

Yet we’re going to make the most of it, dammit, back in the Bay Area bosom we grew up in. From the San Francisco airport, we’re beelining it to our favorite restaurant in Chinatown, House of Nanking, a bustling joint we used to line-up for before they expanded a bit. I like their zesty food so much — especially the Nanking Sesame Chicken — and the surly, snappish owner, that I still wear one of their neon-bright t-shirts. 

Then it’s down to business. For a while. 

We’ve planned other sidelights to sustain our spirits and energy. Like a special dinner at chef /author Alice Waters’ legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley. This is quintessential farm-to-table California cuisine, which Waters practically invented. I’ve eaten there before. It’s spectacular, an institution. My brother, the foodie who’s been to them all, says it’s his favorite restaurant. We’re spoiling ourselves. We’ve also slated a day and dinner in Napa. Boo-hoo for us. 

Still, getting real, the trip won’t be fun; a few good meals can’t blot out the grim reality of the situation. Fortunately, Mom left a fastidiously tidy home, decorated with utmost taste and artistic flair. (We will be plundering her artwork and art books for sure.) She had class, and we want to honor that by doing this dirty work with a soupçon of respect.

We’re dismantling a life, in a way, dislodging and dispersing things that defined a real person. And we’re a part of it. My travel photographs adorn a wall. A painting my brother made of David Bowie adorns another wall. And so on. 

I think of the place as a museum of Mom — meticulous, magnificent —  carefully curated, painstakingly, and with inexpressible love. We have our work cut out for us.