Saturday, September 23, 2017

Riding the Rails


I want to be William Holden in Picnic, jumping on trains and going to places like Iowa. Disrupting other people's lives. (Not that I'm aiming for Iowa. I was in Davenport once when I was young.)

Truth is, it has been that romantic for three or four months. Hostels, motels, people's homes. In San Francisco, in Portland, in Seattle. I know my way around -- not that there is much to know -- a Motel 6. I know how bad the coffee will be, and the fact that there will be a fighting couple in the parking lot. Someone crying.

A very small sampling of friends I have made, for a day or two or possibly longer: "Retired" gentleman who spends his day in the nicest hostel in SF; lovely older Danish woman with whom I went to the farmer's market and walked up Telegraph Hill, then down the other side for beers at Mario's; various charming French women, all with advanced degrees; young Dutch boy and young English boy in a dorm room at the edge of the Tenderloin, both sweet and uncomplicated and fun to hang out with; kind divorced father with a plain-Jane small clean home in St. John's, Portland; smart couple in another Portland neighborhood (can't remember which), she having gone to Kenyon of all places; Aussie biker guy who couldn't fix his motorcycle so sold it at a loss, terrific at beer time; assorted oddballs in Seattle plus another Aussie guy who'd gone to Burning Man and was... unexpected.

Crushes, fascination with other people's stories. Dinners. It's a world of that. At 54, you can go years without meeting anyone, learning anything new about people.

I love it.

If there were still a culture of hopping trains and picking up yard-work here and there, I'd be set for life.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Canard (with asterisks)


One time I went to Paris* and met a guy named Patrick.**

Patrick insisted that we go to this one restaurant for this one dish. Magret de Canard.***
Like if you ordered a steak, but it was duck instead.

I could still find that place in The Marais. The magret was tremendously good, and it was an enchanted evening. Just drunk enough, candlelight, this kid from Toulouse.

The next morning, in my hotel room, Patrick took a bath. There was no shower. I took a photo of him in the tub (chaste, of course).  Belmondo.****

He had to go home, I went back to Amsterdam and then New York, but we wrote each other. In French. He spoke zero English. And while I speak decent French, I am not a good reader or writer of it. On Jane Street, I'd get these letters on international mail paper,***** and pull out my dictionary and respond. A lot about his entretien. A lot about missing me (after a 24-hour fling). I missed him too.****** J'ai besoin de toi.

So Patrick came to New York on vacation.  No.  He came to see me. I can't even imagine how he got the money together. I suck. , but I greeted him at the airport and then with a bottle of Champagne and a ride to Staten Island on the ferry, because I'm just that kind of guy.******* Then dinner at the late, lamented Savoy in SoHo, or NoLiTa, you pick.

It was a terrific night, although we were really too drunk to eat.

Patrick stayed with me for a week, and I had to take a business trip to Chicago, so bought him a ticket to tag along. This is unimaginable now, but I told my client he'd be coming with me, at no cost to them, and they were fine. We served Remy Martin sidecars together, and there is an amazing picture of that.

We did not fall in love. Well, I didn't. He was a kid. I seriously do not know who I was then.

In New York, prior to this, Patrick came to my office in jean shorts, and although that was normal empirically, I was very embarrassed.  Keep in mind, this was a handsome handsome masculine guy, but too young, wide-eyed, and never been to the city.  I have some finesse, so wasn't rude or anything: just aware that the people who worked for me were like what?!  Maybe we don't have to respect you so much anymore?  Maybe we have leverage?

Anyway, Patrick called me at the office from my apartment, because land lines. And he wanted to make me magret for dinner. I have no idea where he even found it. But he needed pans. I owned maybe two. We had an incredibly long conversation in French about pans, found no understanding, and I went Bed, Bath and Beyond (my nemesis) and bought everything.

He made me a lovely dinner.  As good as Paris. He was a truly beautiful guy (yes, inside as well as out).  If we'd had less a distance in age, and if my French had been better, who knows?

Some years earlier, my friend Anne from Georgetown came to stay. It's all baffling, but Anne and I sat in my SoHo studio -- terrible place -- and watched a made-for-TV movie starring Melissa Gilbert.******* And out of nowhere, in the heat of an argument, Melissa said "canard." Anne and I immediately burst out laughing.  Anne had a great girly-haughty laugh.

I still can't think of "canard" without laughing.

I miss Anne, and I miss Patrick.

Canard is an accepted truth that is in fact untrue.********

Ring any bells?

*It was accidentally for Europride: truly, I didn't know. It was really fun.
**I am only allowed to meet people named Patrick or Mark.
***I am not Googling any of this. There may be factual errors. Untruths.
****I have pictures of him, on FILM.
*****Do you remember how exciting this was?
******We were at least ten years apart in age, maybe more, but there is precedent for that in my family.
*******I've lost control of the asterisks.
*********I was very handsome at the time. The point of being good looking is to attract people, but it all goes haywire.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Henry's Taiwan Kitchen

Happens to be next door to the Seattle hostel where I am staying and couldn't cook up the pasta and tomatoes I meticulously selected at Pike Place Market today, on account of other hostel residents making elaborate meals. Henry's has the usual accolades in the window, always suspect, but the price point was irresistible and the menu reassuringly not too wide.

What I got was noodles with slivers of fried egg and chives and bean sprouts and perfectly small nuggets of pork the way I like it. I had to go back and ask if it was pork... just small crispy chewy bits of protein. But the key to the dish was the conversation I had with the man I ordered from.

I said, "I want it spicy."

He said, "Light, medium, strong, or maximum."

An old hand at this, at being cheated out of heat, I said, "Maximum."

And it delivered. Look, I don't want heat for the sake of heat. I want flavor and contrast and textural finesse too. But I want heat! It always sounds like bragging, like Bourdain worldliness, to say you want authentic Asian spiciness. But I do! It's just in me. It's in no one else in my family, but they enjoy witnessing what happens to me; what happened, alone, tonight: It starts out without incident, and then some sweat forms on my forehead, and then I'm wiping moisture out of my eyes, and then taking a napkin across the back of my neck, and then my hair is soaked through.

One time, in Jakarta, I ate through a delicious Indian lunch and the people at the table were like why are you sweating? I said I don't know I think it's the green beans. They seem spicy.

Laughter.

There were no green beans on the table. Just incredibly potent peppers as a condiment, which no one else had touched.

Next post I'll give you a food picture, because there aren't enough of those going 'round.