Travel

Of course you surely know the only reason to travel is to eat, so when I got an invitation to attend the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience, I jumped at the chance. I admit to a bit of hidden skepticism. I mean how could an island sitting in the middle of the Caribbean Sea possibly have any interesting food?

I’ve been to several different spots in the Caribbean and have been universally underwhelmed, with one exception on St. Lucia where I met a stupendous Swedish chef running a five star restaurant in a waterfront hotel. That was Bobo Bergstrom’s “The Edge”, and he, who started his career as a mere boy cooking for the Swedish court, turns out astonishing Eurobbean Haute Cuisine, but I digress.

St. Croix is a different sort of place from the frenchified St. Lucia. It is the very soul of the American Virgin Islands and the choice for those who want to understand the culture and heart of the Virgin Islands. It’s exotic and foreign but you don’t need a passport and you will understand the money. It’s good old Dollar Bills.

I admit it. I eavesdrop. I love it, but sometimes I end up a buttinsky. I start chatting with random people in a restaurant, and it’s so transparent that I have been leaning way far over in order to hear it all. One time, in New York, I overheard a first date. They met on Match.com. Two middle-aged people (pushing 70, so maybe not middle age) were having a conversation and the cuckoo bird woman was telling her date she was a princess in some obscure country no one has heard of. I’m not kidding. I wanted her to go to the bathroom so I could tell the guy to make a run for it. And it was SO none of my fucking business. And yet, I continue this pursuit even though the hearing is now diminished in my right ear and I have to be seated just so in order to overhear everything.

I’ve been in Quebec the past week and can’t often eavesdrop because everyone is speaking French, damn them -- and me for not learning the language. But, the other night I did spend a great deal of time totally engaged in other diners’ conversation. We were in a small room, three tables of families. The middle table asked the couple by the window how long they’d been coming to Gibby’s. I perked up because hey, it was in English. Apparently, the couple drove many miles, from Laval, to come to this small village, Saint Sauveur, as did the family in the middle who came from Saint Agathe. They agreed it was a wonderful experience and worth the drive. Then the conversation went into a whole boring part with questions from the middle table about the window table’s drilling business. Don’t you hate when other tables’ conversations get boring?

I was looking forward to seeing the tulips on a recent trip to Amsterdam. I imagined endless fields of brightly colored flowers. Unfortunately I missed tulip season by a week. While the tulips were gone, the spring herring were running and long lines of devotees waited patiently at the herring stands throughout the city.

Pickled herring with sour cream and onions was a staple in my house when I was growing up. Every night my dad had several fat pieces on buttered pumpernickel bread.  Wanting to connect with him, I would join in. The firm fleshed pieces slathered with sour cream, topped with thin strands of pickled onions took some getting used to, but eating herring wasn't so much a culinary preference as an attempt at father-son bonding.

My dad passed away many years ago and I haven't eaten herring since.

While I was in Amsterdam, I wanted to try the local favorites. The Dutch love Gouda, beer, bitterballen – a crispy fried ball of meat and dough – and, of course, herring. I wanted to try them all.

Brian and Maria Gabriella are Americans who live in Umbria part of the year. They’re opera singers and run a travel business on the side, which affords them some great travel perks as they check out possible adventures for their clients. They recently got back from a trip to Sicily and were regaling us with stories.

“I ate pasta with eggplant and tomatoes every day for two weeks,” said Brian. “Sometimes twice a day. “If I never see another bowl of pasta with eggplant and tomatoes, that’ll be just fine.”

All I could think of was that I wanted a big bowl of pasta with eggplant and tomatoes. He got me going.

And then the universe – as it will do sometimes if you’re lucky and aware – dropped a remarkable coincidence in my lap. The next day I was out shopping for, you guessed it, eggplant and tomatoes, and there was a truck parked in our little piazza manned by three guys from Naples. The back of the truck was filled with gorgeous produce, fresh from the south – not only the veg I needed for my pasta, but crates of red and yellow peppers, nectarines and strawberries so fresh that if you didn’t eat them within ten minutes, they’d be over.