Travel

We’d walked past it a couple of times, a simple storefront set back from the street with a small porch, a glimpse of tables inside, unassuming.  The Key Lime Cafe.  Full at lunch-time, we assumed it was a Maryland version of a diner.  We never even ventured up on to the porch....

We walked across the road to Big Al’s Fish Store the first day for lunch and had a fried clam sandwich, we had fancy hotel food at the Perry Cabin and so much soft-shelled crab that Alan spent an afternoon in bed.

We’d moved my son into his dorms at George Washington University in D.C. three days before and driven to Chesapeake Bay to the small town of St. Michael’s, Maryland (birthplace of Frederick Douglass) for a few days of rest. It was hot and we were tired and the plantation style Inn at Perry Cabin was a lovely place to rest.

Tears always run down my cheeks as we cross that first bridge on the way to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I promise myself repeatedly that I won’t cry, but I always do. I can feel my emotions start to well up when I am denied Paris air when the Air France autobus door shuts out the sweet scent of my favorite city. I get anxious knowing the door won’t open again for a whole year as I start my ungraceful shuffle homeward bound. I’m not sad to be going home, I’m sad to be leaving Paris.

For 12 months I dream of all the smells of my early morning walks on the quiet streets of my favorite Arrondisement. The aroma of onions and shallots cooking in cafes as their day starts, the sleepy venders setting up their display at the daily market smile at me. The familiar butcher from a few doors down has arrived for his morning glass of red wine with his apron stained with fresh blood. No need for him to talk; an empty glass slides across the copper bar and the bartender fills it to the rim. The same faces of my wordless companions sit at the same surrounding tables as we all sip our morning beverages silently. We never talk but yet I miss them. I even check my watch when the garbage truck is running late. The sound of the truck and the assault of diesel fumes that fills my favorite café on the corner, I miss that too.

I always enjoy a weekend trip to the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. When I found they were hosting an Impressionist exhibit this year, I couldn’t have been more excited. The Age of Impressionism: Paintings from the Clark opened on March 11^th and continues through June 17^th. In fact, Ft. Worth is the sole American city on this exhibit’s first-ever international tour.

The Sterling and Francine Clark collection is world-renowned and includes some of the most famous masterpieces of the Impressionist era from Renoir, Monet, Manet, Pisarro, Sisley, Morisot, Gauguin, and more. In fact, the exhibition, a total of 73 paintings, includes 21 pieces by Renoir and 6 by Monet.

Within the exhibit at the Kimbell, there is an entire room of the most beautiful Renoir paintings I’ve ever seen in one place and in another room, there is a special focus on pieces by Degas. Some of my favorites from the exhibit were Marie-Thérese Durand-Ruel Sewing (1880) by Renoir and A Box at the Theater (At the Concert) (1880), another portrait by Renoir. There are also several breathtaking landscapes. The Cliffs at Étretat (1885) by Monet - took my breath away.

Well, the first thought I had driving through the streets of Edinburgh (and then later by train on the Royal Scotsman) is that the most impressive thing about Scotland is the great big hairy-chested men that roam about - similar perhaps to the “We like great big hairy- chested men – we are the senior class” which we used to sing about so wistfully at Marlborough. Now I know about which I sang! Seeing these critters who do indeed roam the streets in thin tee shirts and shorts when the rest of the world around them are dressed in sweaters and jackets, only remind me that they toss trees (the Caber Toss) in contest at the Highland Games and that in Clan Fightin’ Days of Yore, they would tear off their kilts to go into battle - running naked through the heather and the thistles. Into Thistles? Naked? Who would dare pick a fight with these manly men?

So what do manly men eat? Well apparently they love dainty frothy deserts like Cranachan (a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey, fresh raspberries with toasted oatmeal soaked overnight in – what else - whiskey), Bread and Butter Pudding, and Edinburgh Fog with Sponge Fingers - whilst consuming a great deal of Whisky and Vanilla Fudge… together!

Sounds good to me! Also sounds kinda like Southern Cookin’ (see earlier recipe on Mary K’s Pig Pickin’ Cake). Surely if Texans (Scots Irish to the bone) like their bacon baked in brown sugar until crisp) we can down our whisky with vanilla fudge. (Interesting factoid, the most delicately tinted whisky is distilled in used Tennessee Bourbon kegs)