After The Last Post's Meal

Calvados from my balcony after the dinner shown in yesterday's post.  Not too shabby...

Lost Photos From My Phone

Throughout my travels over the years, I have taken lots of photos of places, meals, wine, and other random things that for whatever reason remain in my phone rather than becoming posts on The Epic.  As a result, I am starting a new series here taking photos from oldest to newest out my phone gallery and sharing them with you. 

This first set comes from a marvelous dinner I had in Sandestin, Florida a summer or two ago.  The restaurant is called Seagar's...

A gorgeous restaurant with a wonderful Epic-style lounge....they have a piano player too who will play Last Date by Floyd Cramer perfectly if you ask for it.  An Epic all time favorite.

Course one was an outstanding tuna and avocado stack....sushi grade tuna and so fresh.....

....accompanied by a very fine Pouilly Fuisse.....

Then the main course.  This dish was so tremendous it was my favorite meal of that summer.  Perfectly cooked Grouper with a lemon butter sauce accompanied by an amazing pasta with herbs and lemon zest.  This was perfect summer fine dining along the Gulf Coast of the U.S....

Dessert was a classic apple tart with a little bit of house made vanilla ice cream and just a touch of house made cinnamon whipped cream....and coffee....and, of course, Calvados...

Mining these photos, and the grand memories of this outstanding meal, and sharing them with you are what Epic dining is ALL about.  Enjoy!!

The Last Tequila Day...For Now

It's a funny thing. Over the several years that I have been writing The Epic I have published some things I thought were great, some good and some just OK.  It depends on my energy level at the time.  Like most things. But it has always amused me that my "most read" post of all time, by a huge margin, is Tequila Day from July 2009.  I guess it just struck a chord with a lot of people. Or a lot of people love Tequila. Or whatever.

But a central feature of that chapter of The Epic was a cement block Mexican joint buried in the depths of the Florida panhandle.  An Impenetrable Hideout.  It even has its own little motel. Provisioned with barrels of freezing cold Dos Equis Amber on tap and all kinds of Tequila for use as a medicinal chaser. And the finest carne asada steak, beans and rice I have ever had. All essential for an effective I.H.  In case the real world lays siege to the outer walls.  I have spent more than my share of time in hiding behind those walls, I can tell you. 

So it caused me the greatest degree of dismay last week to see that this old joint is being knocked down as part of an insidious plot by the Department of Transportation to make some road alteration.  You can sum up much of the sorriness of our times by the increasing number of road alterations and the declining numbers of Impenetrable Hideouts.  Particularly Mexican food and boozing joints.  But there it was.  The formerly unbreached walls in ruins.  I felt like a crusader viewing what was left of the walls of Arsuf. 

Oh, they say they will reopen next year in another location.  Probably with a brand new building.  And shiny new tables.  And overdone lighting in dining rooms that are laid out in a planned manner, not a dim rabbit warren of anonymous dining bliss like the old place. The new place will probably even have windows.  Fiasco.

But I must remain strong. There is hope that the new location will have something of the old magic.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, I am staging an orderly but hasty retreat behind the ramparts of a bar in an old house on a hidden waterfront in plain sight of a major thoroughfare.  That very few people know about including only a handful of the most trusty sorts in my occupation.  No food, just stiff drinks and odd nautical characters drinking them.  If you need me, find me there.  Last bar stool, back left.  If you can find me, we can talk.      

30 Days

One month to go.  720 hours.  I don't think I will really believe it until I get off the airliner and realize I am there.

I have been asked various questions.

Why Paris?

Do people really have to ask this?  Of me?  I have been an epicurian since the times back in the small house in deep snow country.  I've never been to Europe.  I'd love to run the bulls. Golf in Scotland.  Fish for trout in Ireland. See London.  Go to Budapest.  Italy. Monaco. San Sebastian. Good old Norway.  But I may get only one run at this.  So there was ever only one choice.

I did not become Paris-aware via Hemingway. Rather, through a slender volume by the great New Yorker essayist A.J. Liebling.  Between Meals.  His autobiography of a gourmand's life in Paris between the wars.  I don't even recall how I came to own this marvelous book.  I do recall that I read it through four times right away.  A literary epiphany.  They have places like this?  Where you can live this way? I'm going.  It only took twenty-five years. 

Why Now?

26.49.  This is what the U.S. government says is my odds bet on remaining years.  Not even to 80! 1.49 years longer than I have been married. And I haven't lived what I would call tamely either.  Oh, what do they know? Still...after her two really awful medical years, my Irish Redhead looked at me firmly last November as we returned from seeing Midnight In Paris and said "you know, if you are going to go, you had better go now".  I brought it up a week later.  She said the very same thing. That's why.

Why Alone?

I didn't plan it that way.  The IR cannot go.  No international travel. Ever. I asked a couple of very select pals who could not go along.  I'm not concerned about travelling alone.  It is almost all I do.  Were I to wait for the perfect travel partner to appear, I would probably never go. Anyhow, the return reader will know that I have a highly refined talent for self-amusement.  I'll be fine. 

Why Not Take Your Son, The Future Rock Star?

"Do I HAVE to go?"  Enough said.  If he wants to go when he is twenty, I'll gladly take him.  When my odds bet is down to 21.49.  We'll be even.

You Speak French?  Don't You?

Absolutely.  I'll wager I speak French as well or better than any other fellow who took a three month, entry level, college course thirty-three years ago. Hey, I passed the course. In any event, I am confident in the power of honest effort, humility, a friendly smile,...and ready money.

Food? Wine? Art? Books?

Well, yes.  And Calvados. Cheese. Macarons. Deux Magots. Taillivent. Closerie De Lilas. Chez Benoit. Vin Sur Vin. Le Grand Colbert. Mona Lisa. Vangende. Orangerie. Jardins. Notre Dame. Shakespeare and Company. And Calvados.

Isn't This Going To Be The Great Adventure Of Your Life?

This rather conflicts with my view of life as adventurecontinuum.  Helen Keller said it is either a grand adventure or nothing.  And my G.A. is ongoing as father/husband.

Still, to the point...I hope not.  And I hope so.

Again, why Paris?

Because, if I am nothing else, I am an incurable romantic. 
Because there has to be an epicenter for incurable romantics.
Because they all were there at one time or another.
Because they will all continue to go there.  Forever.
Because people like them are a tribe unto their own.
Because I want to be like them. If only for nine days.
Because of A.J.  Who wrote that book.  For me.

Update

42 Days to go.  Money in hand. Hotel. A reservation for what some say is the best restaurant in the world. I won't believe it is happening until I get off the airplane in France.

Fuzzy Photos From Great Bars

P.J. Clarke's, NYC, December 2011.

Epic Cinema: Midnight In Paris (2011)

I just saw it today. Do yourself a favor. If you are a fan of The Epic, you will love this movie. It is my new favorite movie. Ever. Displacing the hitherto undisplacable The Quite Man.

Do yourself another favor. This movie deserves a fine meal. Before. Not after. After, you want to be sitting by yourself, having a Calvados, listening to Cole Porter. Wondering about yourself. And about whether all times really do coexist. Having seen this movie I certainly hope they do.

I've made up my mind. In the early months of 2012, I'm going.