365 Memories

So, my mention of Irish colcannon in yesterday's Portugal post (both countries have traditional recipes with potato and kale) now has me thinking of Ireland. Ireland brings many memories, some I've already posted on the blog, but one I have not yet mentioned: bushwhacking. In September of 1995, my parents and I visited the Emerald Isle. It was my second of three trips and their first and only. My father made all the arrangements—he is personal travel agent extraordinaire, as I may have mentioned elsewhere—and he decided to rent a car for our travels up and down the rocky western coast. For small group travel through Ireland, car rental is a great way to go, but it does entail some hazards. Actually, this is another thing that Ireland has in common with Portugal: for some years, the two countries have seemed to compete fiercely for the unhappy distinction of having the most traffic accidents in Western Europe. For locals used to the lay of the land, things like extremely narrow...

Today, I purchased a fabulous cookbook: The New Portuguese Table , by David Leite . It has traditional recipes as well as updated recipes that bear the personal stamp of the author. The photographs are lovely, and I can't wait to try the recipes. But more than just whetting my appetite, this purchase brought back memories. In May of 1991, my parents and I had the good fortune to visit Portugal. This was following my college semester abroad in France, where I had stayed with an inhospitable host family and worked a job at La Defense. Study abroad is usually no holiday, despite how magnificent the surroundings and how eye-opening the experience; it's often quite difficult. I was in need of a vacation, and had a splendid one. My parents came to meet me in Paris, then we took a short hop to Lisbon and from there headed toward the resort town of Cascais . We stayed in a posh hotel by the the water—one that was at one time a private home, a royal summer retreat—the Hotel Albatroz . T...

Warning: the content of this post is not for the faint. On our way to and from a baseball game today (the New York–Penn Minor League), my son and I crossed New York Harbor on one of the cheerful orange boats that make up the Staten Island Ferry fleet. The ride was fabulous, passing Lady Liberty on calm waters, and the second round-trip we've made on the S.I. Ferry. I hope we'll do much more of this. The thing about the trip, though, was that it brought up a not-so-pleasant memory of another ferry ride, in June of 2006. My son was three years old then, and my parents were celebrating their ruby (fortieth) wedding anniversary. Despite how not romantic it might seem to celebrate a wedding anniversary with a daughter, son-in-law, and three-year-old grandchild in tow, this was how my parents wished to celebrate: with a family vacation to Block Island, Rhode Island. I had never been there, though I had heard wonderful things. The island lived up to its reputation—it was charming, l...

We made the best of an unexpected stay in Brussels. Eight years ago, my fiancé (now husband) and I were on our way back to New York following a visit to his family in southwest France. We were flying Sabena , the national airline of Belgium that was in service from 1923 to 2001 (they declared bankruptcy not long after our trip). September 3, 2001. We were of course ignorant of what lurked just around the corner of history. If I'd known it would be the last time I'd fly with my safety taken for granted (as silly as perhaps that always was), I would have enjoyed the flight experience more, despite the hassles we encountered. The hassles themselves, in fact, would have seemed like nothing compared to the immigration nightmares to follow. The way our "layover" started was this: Despite having boarded our originating flight in Toulouse without a raised eyebrow, once in transit (in a different country, where we knew no one and could not call for someone to return to the ai...

Exactly seven years ago, I was on the island of Naxos , in the capital town of Chora . My husband and I were enjoying the second leg of our honeymoon, having traveled from Crete to this smaller island, following Ariadne's trail. We stayed at a charming hotel, the Anixis , located in the Old Town area, where cars are not permitted and where you get hopelessly, fabulously lost—for just moments at a time—in the maze of narrow, whitewashed streets that turn every which way and bring surprises of hidden doorways, bright red potted geraniums flashing against blue painted doorways. (Perhaps we did not escape Crete's labyrinth mythology after all!) The night before today's anniversary—that is, July 14—we were celebrating at the harbor: not Bastille Day, but the festival of Aghios (Saint) Nikódimos . A splendid display of color streaked through the black night sky. There were fireworks, their red smoke lingering over the docks after each screeching burst of light. Never to be outdo...

July. Time for watermelons, which I'd always eat right down through the white and palest green of the rind, all the way to the very skin because I didn't want the sweetness to end. I remember someone telling me that swallowing the black seeds meant a watermelon would grown in my belly—I never was that gullible, not even as a child. Still, I spat those seeds out, held contests to see which friend could spit them the farthest. The white ones, thin and soft, I usually ate along with the red flesh of the fruit. There was never anything so good as a watermelon when summer was reaching its hottest temperatures and the sun sapped your appetite for anything substantial. Adulthood has done nothing to curb my summertime watermelon cravings. In fact, my husband brought a giant one home last weekend, cut it up and stored it in four large Tupperware containers in the refrigerator —I have nearly eaten every piece, all on my own, since my husband is not home much and my son for some reason ...

My logical mind that likes order, my Presbyterian upbringing that makes me prone to sober reflection, taking things seriously . . . These aspects of my personality would have me believe that travel from point A to point B on the island of Crete would actually correspond to kilometers measured on a map. I am here to tell you: the one has nothing to do with the other. In July 2002, my husband and I honeymooned at the resort-heavy town of Elounda , a small dot in the northwest sector of the island. As it turned out, many of the things I wanted to see were at the opposite end of Crete. It didn't matter. We were adventurous, newly married, two for the road—on my husband's preferred mode of transportation , a motorcycle. Correction: it was not a motorcycle we rented but some kind of moped that had seen better days, but was serviceable. It put-putted along, my husband driving and I clinging to the back. I don't remember where we were headed for the first leg of our day trip, but ...

Another food memory, once again in France. I would wonder if readers are tiring of this cycle of posts, and yet . . . who could tire of the undeniable romance of French fare? Done simply and well, certainly not I. This memory is of tomatoes. Other things, too, but mostly tomatoes; some very particular ones. Deep crimson and full of taut tomato flesh. Not the pale, dry, mealy disks that pass for tomato slices in many places. No, these were real, juicy tomatoes with more meat than membrane and seeds. Sliced and served up in a perfect rustic arrangement of a tart, with a quintessential French butter pastry crust, simple. I don't remember ever before (or since) tasting a tomato that was the epitome of tomato; a tomato in which you could taste the earth it was grown in, the sun that ripened the fruit, the farm freshness, the . . . terroir . Does anyone talk terroir when talking tomato? If they don't, they should. And these would definitely be AOC tomatoes. Where were they? Served...

At some point, a marriage becomes a matter of routine; taken for granted. It's something that, being human, we are all guilty of at some point or another, despite the folly of the practice. We tell ourselves that it's just a comfortable sort of being together, worn like a favorite shirt that's fading at the elbows but still intact; more often, though, it's stagnation. It's our duty, I believe, to fight against complacency. Some people do this with reminders of those early days, however long ago, when everything seemed new. Others seek to replicate the newness by seeking future adventures, possibly crazy ones (depending on how prone to midlife crisis one is). Past, future . . . the best way is of course to pay attention to the now. And when you do that—really pay attention—you can amaze yourself with the power of your memory. My husband and I seem to be people who look back on the first blush when we want to rekindle. And our collective memory, I must say, is all abo...

To enjoy your French breakfast: 1. Sit outside at a wrought iron patio table, in a patch of light. 2. Lift a warm bowl (not cup!) of creamy coffee to your lips. 3. Notice how the baguette, baked just minutes ago, is still warm; split it lengthwise through its perfect golden crust to expose the soft, white inside. 4. Demi - sel butter? Slather it on without hesitation. 5. Take the slim, long-handled wooden spoon resting at your elbow and dip it in lavender honey—pale, thick, creamy. Spread this over the buttered bread. Its aroma will make you want to sleep in a field in the sunshine, content. 6. Dip your buttered, honeyed bread into your coffee. 7. Smile at the man sitting across from you. There will always be a handsome man sitting across from you in France. 8. Sip the coffee. Bite the bread. Chew. Swallow. Repeat at leisure. A charmed morning in Provence: waking up to love. Honeymoon, day one. France forgives us our tired-writer clichés , seen through a newlywed's rose-colored gl...

The honeymoon starts unfairly, with my love divided. Moving along the curving Provençal roads, shaded by plane trees, we leave the festivities of the (beautiful but exhausting) wedding behind us—hightail it out of the Southwest region, trading Dumas for Van Gogh , for Cézanne . We arrive on the outskirts of Aix , and there she is: Mont Sainte Victoire in all her rocky glory. I have never been here, but I feel a sense of homecoming and desire, like returning to a lover after a long absence, seeing again the delicate way she peels an orange in a single spiral for your pleasure. I spent years looking at this mountain, through the eyes of the painter Paul Cézanne ; semesters analyzing his obsessive analysis of its geometry: the critical thesis for my MFA compared Cézanne and his modernist literary relation, Lawrence Durrell . But what can you really capture of a lifelong love? Which face presents itself to you, at what moment? A mountain, an Alexandrian woman, two people beginning thei...

Sublime: We are standing at what seems to be the summit of the world. Cordes - sur -Ciel, France. A fortified town (" bastide "), founded by the Count of Toulouse in 1222 as a safe haven for the heretic Cathars . The old town juts into the sky, high above the valley below, even above the clouds. Our physical height begs for metaphorical application: a couple of days now before our wedding, and we are also feeling high on hopes for the future, the beginning of a new chapter of life. Inside the ramparts, we stroll with some of our guests, point out the sculptural details of 13 th - and 14 th -century Gothic architecture. All is beauty and bliss. Chèvres : Amid the tall stone columns of the open-air marketplace, under the thick wood rafters and medieval pennants in the center of Cordes , our sublime moment takes a turn toward the ridiculous. My husband is on a cell phone, checking in with the manager of the château in Couiza , where plans for our wedding reception are underway...

Father's Day is coming to an end. I have been thinking of my dad throughout the day, though, and wondering what I could possibly write to do him justice, to honor him. A lifetime of memories—forty years of them, shy some months—often simply blend into a constant, comforting knowledge: less a specific image or recalled dialogue, more just an ongoing certainty that he is there for me, always has been, in every interpretation of the phrase. We are bound by more than our blood, our cells, our DNA . . . and without him, I would be a sorry shadow of the person I am. And yet, he reminded me of something the other day: our first trip together, just the two of us, in the summer of 1978, when I was almost nine years old. In August of that year, we drove from Chicago down into Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains, before continuing on to Georgia, where we'd meet other family members. We stopped and stayed a couple of nights in Gatlinburg , Tennessee , a quaint rustic town proud of its simple...

In the summer of 1993, my ties to St. Louis were growing thin, though they were also at their strongest then, too. I had left law school during the spring semester, had trained as a volunteer with the Sexual Assault Response Team, and had also landed a public relations internship in a boutique-style marketing firm. I was fortunate to work for and with incredibly generous people, and together we did amazing things in the city. During the day, I learned how to write press releases and good industry newsletters; I helped plan special events to boost awareness for local businesses, and to raise money for charity. (The year I was there, I got my first taste of NASCAR culture, when the racing association teamed up with Northwest Plaza for a flood relief fundraiser.) At night, I stayed on call at home in the event I was needed in one of the area emergency rooms to comfort survivors of assault. It was a busy, intense time. My former law school colleagues were, many of them, away for the summe...

Back to the summer of 1990, between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was working at the 9-G Diner (see post, here ) and was also wrapping up some Human Biology coursework at a local community college—the credits would transfer over to fulfill the rest of the "interdisciplinary" requirements I needed in my own school's science department. I thought that the community college's biology class was more appealing, and hoped also that it would be easier to complete, than the offerings during the regular school year. This was pretty much confirmed, though I did have a lot of studying to do regardless. But the class was coming to an end, and as the summer ground down also, I found myself with a bit more time on my hands. Which is when a spontaneous opportunity arose: my parents were on their way to Geneva, Switzerland, for a few days, and they asked if I wanted to join them, on their dime. Of course I did. I remember asking N. and R., the owners of the diner, wheth...

No, it is not what you think, get your mind out of the gutter. The etiquette in question is oenological , not sexual, although another writer might well draw parallels between the adult pleasures of wine, sensuality, and physical arousal. For a wine professional, of course, it is really no question at all. Faced with a long lineup of vintages for tasting, the thing to do is to sip, swish, and spit. Etiquette likely isn't even a concern; it's just standard practice, reflexive. For a twentysomething woman raised with good manners, who has never been on a wine tasting before, however, spitting is just not an easy thing to do. These days, of course, I know better. I am the wife of a sommelier , and after ten years of dating and marriage, I have been to enough tastings to know that any highfalutin idea of manners may be safely (and should prudently be) forgotten. But back in 1998, I knew no such thing. In October of that year, I traveled to southwest France to meet my husband (then...

I don't consider myself a phobic person. I have never been afraid of heights (though I have blogged about a recent fear of flying, here ); in fact, I have been skydiving and loved the experience. I am not fearful of things like speaking in public or needles or spiders. I am not afraid to take creative risks or to make mistakes. I am not, strictly speaking, afraid of the dark. However, on this last item, I have to confess: it depends on what is meant by "dark." For most of my life, I thought I knew what darkness was—I don't mean metaphoric darkness; I'm talking about the lack of light at midnight. But I was raised primarily in large cities—New York, Chicago, L.A.—and in a city like this, the darkness is never complete. There is always a light-leak from someplace. You get ready for bed, turn off the lights, and at most it takes your eyes a few seconds to adjust before you see outlines of objects emerging from shadow. If you have a window in your bedroom, then you sl...

I drove into Stonington , Maine, for the first time under cover of night. Still on the interstate when darkness fell, I had no way of knowing what would meet my eyes in the morning. Night up in Maine makes a city dweller rethink darkness completely. When was the last time I had driven on streets without streetlamps? Only the car's headlights to guide me down the twisting coastal road of 15 South, heading to Blue Hill, then farther down and over the bridge to Deer Isle; down the eastern length of the island to Stonington at its tip. In darkness, the senses of sound and smell are heightened: rolling down the window, the aroma of pine came in on a current of cold air that carried with it also a chorus of insect song. Due to my late arrival in Stonington , keys had been left for me in an envelope in a box at the office of the inn where I was staying. Tired, I dispensed with the necessary bedtime tasks, turned off the overhead light, and saw a single rippling gleam on the water. I slep...

The final panel in a Greek Easter triptych: Friday, Saturday, and now the wee hours of the morning, officially Easter Sunday. "Christos anesti !" " Alithos anesti !" He is risen indeed. Leaving church past midnight, through the smoke of celebratory explosives, my mom and I found ourselves following George Kanellopoulos , my grandmother's cousin on the paternal side, a man who was probably a good twenty years younger than Yiayia , but who now looked the spitting image of my memories of her in her old age. He was, for an evening, a surrogate Greek papou . We went with him to his house over the protestations and histrionics of another cousin of my mother's (on her father's side); she wanted to know why we weren't going to her house, although we only had learned of her existence moments before. She carried on about how she'd found us and now we were being taken away, and po po po  . . . the Greek tragedy continued behind her own closed doors, whi...

Darkness, thick and warm on all sides, enveloping us. Standing in a crush of bodies, shoulder to shoulder at the back of Saint Athanasios —the very same church where, a century ago, my grandmother attended Easter services. 2007 now, the pilgrimage made, a dream realized: to attend the resurrection service in the town of Filiatra ; to go to church with relatives, whom we had found only that afternoon (a story worthy of its own posting) thanks to the owner of one of the town's many kiosks. Expectation in the air, candles—this time white; those of children adorned with ribbons and trinkets—held unlit in eager hands. The lights in the sanctuary were extinguished just before midnight. Only the luminous canopy of this church's epitaphios , the bier of Christ, now reaches out its gleaming fingers to the congregation. The priest disappears behind the iconostasis . When he bursts back through, it is with joy and no longer grief: he is holding aloft a candle lit from the holy flame of Je...