warm evening ride

In the late, late afternoon, just before the sun disappeared on me completely, I biked to Ed’s place.

It has been a long week and I admit it, I am sleepy tired. Ready for a winter nap.

My Polish grandmother always went to sleep when the sun set and got up just before it came back up. I never appreciated how short her awake time must have been in early winter and how long her up time was in midsummer.

Today, I felt like I had a week of Polish midsummer days.

I watched once again (probably for the last time this year) the farmers in the fields next to Ed’s place. Bending, always bending.



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It’s that last effort before the final frost allows you to give up. It all moves at a slower pace now. There's less to pick. And there are fewer family members picking. No kids in the fields now. The shelter from the sun is neglected.



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I allowed myself a five minute nap in the sheep shed at Ed’s, then asked for a ride home.

the thinker

I am more like McCain than Obama in at least this way: I act on impulse. I think afterwards. I have to say that this has lead to some unbelievably fantastic results. And, I admit it, some poor ones. The interesting thing is that my unbelievably fantastic results would, most likely, have happened eventually, had I not acted on impulse. On the other hand, the bad outcomes may have been avoided had I paused to think. So I’m in favor of thought.

Like this guy, discovered on my walk down the hill in the early afternoon:





For those who think I have become too serious, what with my postings on thought and dirt paths disappearing, well, we are in the midst of serious times. But, life is silly anyway. Agree? I mean, look at this trio. I passed them on State Street this afternoon. Bucky! Buck up already!





Much later, I gathered up my texts and papers and set out to bike home. On Bascom Hill, all was quiet. Almost. I’m not sure what these people were doing. Do you see them? Specks on the darkening turf. Push ups? Exercise inspires thinking. So that’s a good thing.





The bike ride home was long. My gears wouldn’t shift. Here’s the good part: I didn’t fall. It was a thought-filled and thoughtful ride.

erasing the dirt road

Until the 1970s, my permanent home was in Warsaw Poland. The family apartment (where my dad lives to this day) was in the city center, but very quickly I discovered that this center also harbored a secret wee little neighborhood of homes along a dirt road. Strolling along that stretch of unpaved road, well hidden behind a city park, you could imagine you were in the countryside. It felt remote, insular, peaceful.

I was away from Poland for some years and when I returned for a visit, the dirt road and the homes adjacent to it were gone. So much so, that I really came to think I had imagined it all. No one talked about it. No one seemed to remember it. In a push for modernity, Warsaw had wiped the dirt from its landscape.

I do not recall ever seeing a dirt road in New York (where I lived afterwards), nor Chicago (my next residence). But something similar happened when I visited Beijing in China. Toward the close of the last century, I found myself searching for a neighborhood of huts and dirt tracts. I’d read about them in a book. No one seemed to be able to tell me how to find them. But I did find them. Here, this time I have proof (with apologies for the quality of the photo):



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Two years later, I returned with my daughter to Beijing. I wanted to show her this older, exceedingly tired neighborhood. But this time I really could not find it. I realized that it had disappeared. Erased from the city plan, it will survive for me only through this photo. In a push for modernity, Beijing had wiped the dirt from its landscape.


I learned this week that the block across from the condo where I live (in Madison) is no longer going to house a bigger and better Whole Foods. You need only say “the economy” to understand why. People nod and sigh and then they look to the big hole in the ground made ready for the store and wonder what will become of it all.

Today, for the first time, I went to a place that, until now, I hadn’t known existed: a community garden just next to the Department of Transportation building. Just down the street from my condo. The garden looks tired now. Some tomatoes still cling to spent vines and the zinnias are relentlessly pushing their color, but you know that the season is really over. You can smell the indifference to growth.



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This garden has a dirt path. Not a road exactly, but a path. More than you’ll find in Warsaw or Beijing, that’s for sure. (Don’t tell me about parks. I know about parks. They are sensual. They are sublime. But they are not the soil that, for better or worse, covers your feet and gets under your fingernails.)





I heard that the garden is slated for removal. Something about future development, bla bla bla.

My friend Barry thinks we should turn over the once meant for Whole Foods plot to the people who want to garden. A community place to grow things, right there, on the intersection of University Avenue and Segoe Road.

What a terrific idea! There would be something enormously gratifying to live across the street not from Whole Foods, but from whole fields of foods. And let me put in a quiet plug for a dirt road cutting through. No pavement, just dirt. With woodchips maybe, to keep the dust low in the summer. In Madison, progress means that you can think about making room for dirt roads.

when not to bike

The decisions you make at daybreak come back to haunt you by sunset. Call it a Polish proverb. Though I think in true Polish speak, it would be something like: drink vodka before the cows are out to pasture and you’ll lose your herd by sunset. I’m not stereotyping. Many Polish proverbs have agrarian roots and involve references to drinking and/or dancing.

As a good Madisonian who would rather not drive if she can help it, I took the bike to work this morning. Yeah, yeah, drizzle on the horizon. Drizzle will come and go. And I miss the lakeshore path. Something to do with the ducks, I suppose (or, are they not ducks?).



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In the course of the day, the drizzle gets worse. By evening, it rains.

It’s a long way home in the rain. I’m despondent. It’s easy to let the stork fly south when the winds are favorable (another Polish proverb that I just made up).

My students say – put that bike on the bus bike rack and leave the driving to others. I watch a film clip on how it’s done (thank you, students). I set out.

I wait at the bus stop, wet and tired, along with others who are wet and tired.



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The maneuver is successful: bus comes, I pull down its bus rack, place the bike on it and clip it in place.

I am so pleased with my accomplishment. And like so many who feel the tickle of success, I let it go to my head. I get off at the Whole Foods store. I need some greens for supper. And bread. And a bottle of rosé to help me through tonight’s debate. I stuff my purchases into my backpack. Oh dear, it’s really raining. I whip out my umbrella and climb on the bike. Clumsily. At least I have the sense to stay on the sidewalk.

At the intersection I pause. And then, suddenly, it’s not so easy to get back on the bike. I don’t know why. I’m tired. My coat is in the way. My umbrella is crazily obstructing my view. I wobble and I fall. Onto the green strip by the sidewalk. Pure mud.

Sigh… I make it home alright. Wet and muddy and bruised, knowing that it’s all my fault. Because I let the cows graze with vodka on my mind. Or something.

so long as we’re on the subject of art…

In the days when I was looking at various photo printing options around town, I stumbled upon the studio (workshop? salon?) of Tom & Barbara Crozier. Picturesalon.com: Fine Art Giclee Printing Services – their ad says.

Ed was intrigued. Don’t you want to find out what giclee printing is all about? He has a mechanically curious mind. I don’t. Besides, he was mispronouncing the word terribly, making it all sound very slippery and eelish.


But today, a day after my own “art show,” I am primed for something new. We call Tom and Barbara, the owners of Picture Salon, to see if we can pop in for a visit and learn more.

They are the friendliest people in the world. If I were to construct friend material, I’d say, let’s start with a base, modeled after these two.










Though this is perhaps besides the point. I'm on a mission to find out what giclee printing is all about and how you pronounce the darn word anyway.

Here’s Tom and Barbara’s take on it: Giclee is a French term which means "to spray." It was actually coined by a U.S. company to distinguish the printing process (using a highly refined inkjet printer that sprays micro-droplets) from that of a standard offset printing process.
And it’s pronounced "jhee-clay.”

That’s the short of it. But for me, it is truly an eye opener on how one might (okay, I might) present photos: on beautiful, creamy, all cotton art paper, for example. Or on a canvas, stretched over a wooden frame.





Such possibilities! And as you inch toward the model of a painting, you get inspired (I got inspired) to play with photos (on my computer) so that they become canvas-like in all ways. Like Tom’s own work, seen here:





Someone asked me at the art show this week-end why I don’t paint. Well, really, it’s because I am awfully average. I mean, I can do a credible job of putting something down on canvas that looks like a rendition of what is out there, but my God, it’s nothing I would ever put anywhere, not even on my own bathroom wall.

Photo canvases are different. The paint brush is irrelevant, except as it appears on my laptop's little photoshop icon. The canvas is stroked by what the camera framed, delivered in a format that suits the image -- muted maybe, or dappled, or faded, or made bold. And then delivered on a canvas as if it were a painting.

Barbara and Tom walked us around their studio (workshop? salon?). Impressive stuff! I watched one of their workers stretch a canvas. In another room, I looked at a stack of quality prints, ready for shipment to the Art Institute of Chicago, a regular client.





Do you guys want to handle small jobs? Like a print here and there? From insignificant me?

You see, here’s where their agreeable nature clicks in.
Sure. Of course! -- they tell me.

So watch for this new way presentation of cherry trees from Door County, or of the café at sunset in Avignon. As I said on Saturday: time for a new project!


Want a preview? Okay, here's my favorite so far. Send me an email if you like it. For example, on your office wall. At special, crashing economy prices! Dreams of constant travel recede, but art's a constant. This canvas-print wont fade. At least not in your lifetime.





[For the loyal reader who keeps track of ongoing other projects: the writer’s shed will have heating. And walls, too, I’m told. One of these days. Months. Years. As for my book project? Always on my mind. Sometimes I even make progress.]

post art show reflections

I’m not a fan of giving advice. I think my personal experiences in life may be interesting, but they don’t offer much in the way of wisdom or guidance. Still, after working through an art show (my first one), I have some nuggets that others may find, well, interesting. Not instructive. But interesting.

So, thinking of showing your stuff to the public?

Wonderful. Stay calm, stay focused. And consider the following:

Don’t be shy about sending invitations to your best pals. I sent none. But when a handful of friends (Suzanne, Tom, Joan + family, Barry…) showed up on Sunday, I was ready to hug them forever. It’s good to talk to people who sort of accept you with your quirky flaws already and who aren't there to learn about your medium.

Don’t put out brownies as treats. Kids will come and eat them rapidly. Their sugar high will be your afternoon low.

Do suggest conversation topics for those who visit your space. I posted on the wall three questions people could ask me (note banners in photo below). People did come up and ask me all three questions. True, my mind ceased working when, for the 100th time, I addressed my own questions, but that’s just me.



If you put out wine, because it’s sort of a gallery type event, put out cheap stuff. Don’t worry that it has cheap written all over it. No one cares. They’re pleased that they can drink and look all at the same time.

Make your occasional traveling companion or partner or loved one or someone be there when it’s time to close down and pack up. Not because you yourself can’t take out nails and cart down art pieces, but because this is the way it’s done. And then, of course, accept his (or her) dinner invitation (if one is forthcoming…sigh…) to celebrate your “accomplishments.” I imagine that would be a fun way to close the event.

Sigh…

update from the northern state

Hats off to you guys, the vendors-farmers at the Westside Community Farmers Market here, in Madison. Second night of frost and this time, it was no superficial pat of cold. It was the real thing. A slap, a kick where it hurts. I knew it when I biked in the morning. My knuckle cracked.

So maybe hats on, farmers. And bottoms up. Or thumbs up. (Am I getting my cheers right? They’re awfully anatomical.) To the good crop, to your relentless efforts. Thank you.








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the show stumbles on

There are some people who never act on skills that they have and then there are those who make way too much of skills that, even after much massaging and coaxing, never amount to much. I err toward the second, unfortunately. I pursue too much rather than too little.

Late this afternoon, I headed for the industrial penthouse space in my condo building to get ready for the studio art show that runs this Saturday and Sunday. How thrilled am I with this event? Truthfully, I’d rather be camping.

When I stayed in Pierrerue (a tiny village in southern France) some two years back, my dark cave of a room abutted the house of a painter. I loved her art. I make no comment on its worth, but I will admit that her paintings made me happy. (I brought a piece back home and it has made me less happy here, but I think that’s a statement about me and not about her talent; I’m not very adept at appreciating art out of context.) I asked her then why she did not display it, sell it, promote it. She shrugged her shoulders and said – I guess I don’t think I’m there yet. To me, she was holding back.

A person who blogs with photos doesn’t hold back. This blog, Ocean, pushes boundaries alright. Boundaries of sanity. Why would anyone, anyone post so much, so often? And then bring all those photos back again in the form of an art show?

Ed and I hung the photos and tomorrow and the next day I will sit by them and talk to people about book making and blogging and photo editing. And then I will go back to my own quarters, shut the door and look forward to my next project.



setting up

Alinea, the book, the author

The unexpected gift. The compliment, the pat on the back. The invitation that you never thought would be for you. Aren’t these magnificent?

It came in the form of a phone call several weeks back. Hi. We’re from Wired (the magazine). We’d like to send you an invitation to a champagne reception celebrating the publication of Chef Grant Achatz’s book, Alinea.

Yes! I’ll be there! (Oh, btw, when and where?)

I ate at Alinea two years ago (and wrote about it here). It was the most extraordinary (and most expensive) meal of my life. It could be that my blog post was spotted (they noted the camera). This was a party for loyalists and for the underground press. Apart from the blog, I fit into neither. Or, not they would know. I have been following the career of Grant Achatz with care and a lot of concern (about a year ago he was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue and the story of his treatment options is harrowing), continuously.

I think he is as close as we come to food genius.

Grant likes to say that he pushes the boundaries. I told him last night that I see him more as a person who releases people from a history of inhibition and restraint. We live in a world that tells us what to feel and how to feel it. We smell pine forests when we’re hiking and we taste good food at special dinners and we cry at sad movies and we laugh at funny stories. But mostly, we do one at a time and not a great deal of the other.

At Alinea, your senses take flight. You taste, smell, feel. Your eyes are entertained, your nose links smell with childhood memories, your mouth is bathed lavishly with beautifully orchestrated explosions of flavor.

You can’t do molecular gastronomy (that is what he does) badly. It only works if it is done with great precision and terrific imagination. How successfully is Achatz at pulling it off? After a meal at Alinea, the world is not the same anymore. You understand that your senses are screaming to be let loose, to bring you joy. And so you have new respect for food, for life.


And so on Wednesday afternoon, I take the bus to O’Hare, then the subway downtown. At the last minute, I find a room for the night. I don’t want the hassle of getting back to Madison in the middle of the night.

At 7 sharp, I enter the magical world of Wired. The magazine is holding a two week festival of innovation in Millenium Park. Normally it’s free and open to the public, but this evening, the pavilion is closed for this private event.

Inside, the light is blue, the people are mostly in black. Champagne and exotic drinks are mixed and handed out freely, generously.





I take note of the exhibits. Amazing. Beyond me, mostly. I’m not geeky enough to understand design brilliance, but it all looks sleek, exquisite, futuristic.









Grant is there, as are his assistants. There’s one small camera crew, but otherwise, it is more a party than a publicity event. I had made sure my camera and posting were okay, but it certainly is true that I was one of the few furiously trying to take it all in with my trusty Sony.





The chef looked even younger than in photos I had seen of him. To me, food greats are celebrities. More so than those labeled as such by, say, People magazine. I watch chefs with awe. There is something beautiful about cooking talent. Having worked in a kitchen with skilled chefs, I am even more impressed with what it is that they try to accomplish for those out front.

And so you can imagine how thrilling it is to watch Grant do a cooking demonstration for us.

He walks on a small stage and says – it’s easy. There’s a misconception that it’s really difficult. It can be, but mostly it’s all small steps (what he doesn’t say is that it’s many many small steps)

He talks about the idea behind this plate: autumn. Memories for him of growing up in Michigan. It’s his favorite season. It reminds him of hunting with his dad, of being young and jumping in leaf piles, of the smell of leaves burning.

Quintessential fall, he says. And so I am playing with memory and playing with your past. It’s a search for emotional triggers.

Achatz puts together the components: apple cider gelee, granny smith apples, apple cider and pheasant breast. And herbs. He cooks it in a sealed pouch, then cubes the ingredients, cubes also a cooked shallot and then dips this in tempura.









Finally, he takes branches of fall leaves and uses them as skewers. The leaves will be burned, the aroma will be intense.









Grant laughs as he recalls the presentation of this dish at Alinea. Because we take risks, there are always consequences. So we’re lighting these leaves and sending them out into the dining room and there are ashes everywhere. The general manager had to deal with this as chairs were getting stained and clothes are getting dirty and you could just see all the people sending us their cleaning bills… and then the embers from the leaves! We had to tell people – don’t touch the fire! And as we burn maybe 100 of these per night the whole place smells like one big campfire. But then, you see that some people are so moved by it. They’re laughing, they’re crying with the memory of it – it goes beyond just the bite.





After the cooking demonstration, we are invited to sample some Alinea tid bits, assembled for us around the room. Lobster cracker with tapioca and fennel mousse. Sort of like a lobster cheetoh, Grant explains. His little boys love the stuff. As opposed to, say, the lavender pillows – they tasted those and bluntly said shampoo! Then, the Alinea concord grape, and the bacon (Nueske’s! I asked.) with butterscotch, apple and thyme. Then the recently legalized in Illinois fois gras inside a crispy cinnamon meringue and an apple thing that sort of resembled a gummy bear. And finally, roasted pumpkin with whipped maple syrup, smoked salt, sage and cereal. I may have gotten the details slightly off. But you get the idea. Autumn.













As we walk, watch, eat and drink, Grant Achatz is signing his book. We each get a gift of his beautiful tome.






I have to say that this is art at the highest level. The book is dense, thick, beautiful. A great gift to anyone with an interest in food. Not for the recipes (although there are those), but for the ideas, for the beauty of visualizing a daring performance.

This year, Chef Achatz won the James Beard chef of the year award. No surprise there.


At dawn, I retrace my steps to the El, to the bus, to Madison, to work. The book is at my side. I look at it as a reminder of great ideas. It’s a good thing to occasionally get close to the masters. They sharpen your own edge and push you to try harder.

where am I?

Good question. A blogger should reveal that much: where, where is her mind right now?

I’ll answer briefly: I’m at the moment in a Chicago hotel. The view out the window is lovely, thanks to the kind desk clerk who put me up there where it’s grand, in spite of the not so grand cheaphotels.com reservation (made minutes before my departure).

I should not be here. I should not grasp at fanciful threads of improbable stories, I should not travel for frivolous reasons.

Still, I am here. Tomorrow, at the very tail end of the day, I’ll explain. For now – here’s a photo of my evening walk to an event at Millennium Park.



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California!

Big Basin Redwood Forest spreads from the summits of the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Barely sixty miles south from San Francisco airport, it sits there like a teardrop of quiet on an otherwise crowded California coastline.


FRIDAY

Late on this day, 3:15 to be exact, we leave the park headquarters and start the climb toward the highest summit. At 2280 feet it’s no Everest, but it’s been a long day and we are loaded down with water, in addition to the usual provisions. Ed can take in a gallon in a snap if it’s a warm day and we noted that it is hitting the low eighties as we leave the car.

I’m not psyched for this yet. The quiet is disturbing. Initially, we pass a day tripper or two, but soon the path is soulless. Deserted. The air is so still that every snap of a dead twig sends a vibration through the basin.


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But from the beginning, the forest is breathtakingly beautiful. I’d been among the redwoods before, but here, in the dry wild of the Basin, it is so palpably enduring that it makes you feel small, and that’s a good thing. And physically small, too: the trees are so up there in the sky that surely they are higher than most any other growing thing on the planet.



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It takes us nearly four hours to reach the campsite on the summit. The sun dips below the horizon as we threw down our gear. It’s a backwoods campground (mere clearings to pitch a tent, nothing else) and we’d been told we’d have it to ourselves that night.

All I can think of how still and quiet the forest is. Turn on the nature already!

Instead, Ed turns on the portable stove and we set about with our dinner routine.





By eight, the garbage wis neatly folded and put away and I am close to sleep, relieved at the sound of crickets. For the first hours of the night, they help kick the silence buzz from the head.

But at midnight, I'm alert again to the quiet. Except for an occasional crack and plop. I wake Ed. What’s that? Acorns falling. He’s right. All around us, acorns fall with a regularity that is comforting enough to push me back to sleep.


SATURDAY

We wake just before sunrise (6:30 maybe?). This is our ambitious day: hike back down, past headquarters then up again to another summit and then, all the way down to just a mile short of the sea. The rangers are dubious that we can pull it off. I guess our age shows.It’s a lot of up and down miles, and one leg of the trail is so steep that it’s recommended for horses only. But these people don’t know Ed. He’s a great climber and I am a great descender. Together, we sort of muddle through.




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In a stroke of luck, we find a stream with water asking to be poured over the head, the upper body. Bath time. Of sorts. Refreshed, we continue.




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And now it feels toasty warm. We’re walking the mountain ridge and there is little forest shade. We drink insane amounts of water. But it is pretty. The vegetation changes. The soil is different too. Sandy? Limestone? The morning scrub is a thing of the past. We are sweaty hot and our feet kick up dust.




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Below, we see the goal: the coastline, with dense fog.




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The good news is that we make it to the campsite by evening. The bad news is that it’s Saturday night and this place is close to California 1, the coastal road. The campground is full. Of high school aged kids. The chaperone looks at our tired frames and suggests meekly that maybe there’s a spot to pitch our tent around the bend, away from the sqeel of adolescence.

We find a place that’s okay. On a slope. Ed looks doubtful. I’ll roll into you. Let’s switch sides, you’ll squash me. We do. I roll. Never mind, we’re tired. We sleep 11 hours.


SUNDAY

We wake up cold. The fog is in from the ocean. The air is at least 30 degrees cooler. The dampness accumulates and drops down on leaves. The plop of acorns is replaced by the plop of fog.




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Another ambitious day: hike down to the ocean, find water, please please find water, so that we don’t have to drink the undesirable stuff flowing past the campsite. Then, back into the mountains toward the falls and onto the next and final summit for an overnight.

The walk to the ocean is like a caress of luck: the fog lifts and drops, lifts and then drops with a final stubborn thump, but by that time we will have left the coast. For now, it is delightfully picturesque.




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The trail runs past private property here and we note that old California superior growing season. I mean, this, at the end of September? And then a fresh bounty in February? Ridiculously spoiled.




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The ocean has enough surf to bring out the men with boards. Like birds who ride the waves, they bob and wait for the big one. There are few big ones and so they spend a lot of time bobbing.




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…while birds stick to the land…




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…and tourists pull up on the road to get a glimpse of a California post card scene. Fog and all.










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There is a horse campground here and we find a faucet outside. Thank you horse campground. We take gallons and gallons of the stuff, even though we are told that our last campground will have ready access to a drinkable stream. (Just fyi, don’t trust the park dudes on the subject of water; assume no water anywhere and you will not be disappointed.)



We climb up to the falls, past those magnificent, monstrously beautiful redwoods. Two thousand years old and going strong. Enduring major fires, and human foibles, they continue to stand tall. So very very tall.


For Ed, the best part of the park is the path next to the falls. Four of them – each delightful, unusual, mesmerizing.



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Oh, but now we are tired. We unpack the tent by five, eat by six and fall asleep before 7. For twelve hours, we sleep. Okay, with interruptions. In the middle of the night, I hear delicate footsteps. Mountain cat? Fox? Wolf? What? Go back to sleep, Ed tells me. The noise stops, I sleep. Until the next one. The utter stillness is shattered. I hear the crash of a bigger mass moving through the dry twigs. Wait, they promised no bears. Ed? What the hell?? Quiet, he tells me. He snaps his fingers once, twice… The noise retreats. Go back to sleep. What was that?? Deer, obviously. Fine, but at night, it sounds like bears.

But we did spot deer. Twice. Black tailed, very people shy. Barely noticeable here, in this photo.





It’s funny how at night, you forget that deer are people shy. They seem, for once, mightier than you, there in your lightweight tent and your REI sleeping bag.


MONDAY

And now we must hurry. The goal is to meet my mom downtown SF for lunch and then dinner. We have more than three hours of hiking, a two hour car ride, a very much needed half hour for showering and a half hour BART commute to get through.

Our last trail is labeled strenuous, but it seems like a breeze. Our water supplies are depleted, our food bags are near empty. Lighter backpacks! Three hours and we’re done.

The forest remains as beautiful as the day we first walked into its fold. And why shouldn’t it be? I would hope that two thousand years down the road, it will be as lovely as on this day.



Ed, at the base of Berry Creek falls




Ocean author, hugging the smaller tree



My mom waits for us at the BART station downtown. We stroll (rather late) for a lunch salad (one misses salads when camping). The hours roll along leisurely now. The rush is done...





We take a cab down to Fisherman’s Wharf, for an early evening walk along the water’s edge.



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She is almost 85, and she is a character. No, I’m not like her. I am a whisperer. She speaks with authority. I know no one who is like her. If, momentarily, I felt chastised by her formidable presence, it is a thing of the past. Today, she is determined to make this a memorable evening of good food. She knows I admire good kitchens and she has researched the dining options. She tells us that the hot off the press top pick remains Gary Danko.

I give Gary Danko an A+ for this evening. Here’s why: the food is, indeed wonderful . That’s perhaps predictable. You’re not number one if you can’t get your food stuff together in this culinary epicenter (I would say northern California is, indeed, a culinary epicenter, spoiled that they are by a generous clientele and fresh produce year-round). Lobster pieces on melon balls, pickled cucumber and mango. Corn chowder with Dungeness crab and pancetta biscuit. Salmon in crusted horseradish and mustard sauce… Mmmm…


But beyond that, their set price menu gives you total choice. You buy three courses, you get three courses. Any three courses. You want three seafoods? Go for it. Three apps? Yours.

And then, most importantly, there was their treatment of us. Picture this: my mom is wearing her bright red fleece to keep warm, her tennies to keep comfortable, her peasant cap because she likes the fashion statement, and a huge Obama button because she believes in the man. Ed, well, he’s in his best Ed garb: the black t-shirt I once bought him in an attempt to make him blend into the background. Me – I stuffed a sundress into my backpack at the last minute. Imagine the wrinkles. Oh, and my well worn ballet flats. For comfort on tired feet. We were, well, different.

The staff couldn’t have been nicer. The maitre d’ came up several times and commented on Ed’s hearty appetite (he wipes plates clean of all sauce with bread routinely) and my mom’s political leanings. We were not quiet (for God’s sake, my mother can’t hear “quiet”). We raided the menu of all the choice dishes. We drank, between the three of us, only one bottle of wine and it was hands down among the cheapest. A dry New Zealand Riesling.

We were treated like royalty.

Danko, you have the best staff in the world.

The cabbie who took us to the Bart station was eerily the same guy whom we had flagged to get us to Danko. An older guy who hated the East Bayside. My mom could have made mincemeat of him for that (she’s loyal to Berkeley). But they parted friends, especially once he told her he was soon packing his bags and moving to Italy.

My last memory of the evening is of listening to them pass words in Italian to each other -- of the mamma mia, mangia mangia type (neither claims to know more).

At the BART, we go one way and she the other. I leave her, content that she is exactly where she wants to be, doing exactly as she wants, dependent on no one, forging her way ahead, unencumbered by the caring for others which had so weighed her down, especially when we lived in Poland.

Before dawn, Ed and I head back home, to the Midwest. By late afternoon, I'm in class, teaching.