My First Great Meal. Maria's, Rockford, Illinois

In the gourmand's life there are certain watershed moments.  The Great Meals. The dining experiences that you will remember the rest of your life.  My first one occurred when I was around thirteen years old.  The night I became aware that dining was more than eating.  That food was more than fuel. That a fine meal could constitute a marker on the path of a life well lived.

My father's best friend was a larger than life fellow, Mr. "AJI".  We used to visit him in Rockford, Illinois a couple of times a year when my father was forced to venture out of the northern woods on business. The evening in question, Mr. AJI took us all out to Maria's, an Italian restaurant famous for generations in that area.

I watched as we walked into the crowded dining room. The maitre'd knew him of course and greeted him warmly.  A waiter showed us to a table in the back. People glanced at us trying to figure out who we were. As we settled in and the adults ordered drinks, Mr. AJI announced that "tonight every dish is not on the menu". I had little idea what this meant but it sounded important. I felt like we had become movie stars. I really felt that way when the waiter brought the cocktails including non-alcoholic ones for Mr. AJI's three pretty daughters and my brother and me. Had I known who Frank Sinatra was at the time, I would have felt like we were dining at his table at Jilly's.  I remember Mr. AJI's expensive suit, his diamond pinkie ring and his gold lighter. My Dad's black alligator shoes that matched his watch strap.

The food was superb. We started with baskets of toasted bread drizzled in pesto.  Do you recall the first time you tasted home made pesto? I do. Then course after course began to appear, my Dad eventually complaining that it was too much, that we weren't the royal family for Pete's sake. Mr. AJI just gave his deep resonant chuckle of a laugh and the food kept coming. Along with wine in funny straw covered bottles from a place called Tuscany. Several bottles of this wine were dispatched by the adults during the long meal.

Somewhere during this feast a small casserole dish was placed in front of each of us. I remember the wonderful way this course smelled to this day. Garlic, butter, parsley, Mr. AJI was watching me closely since I imagine that it was obvious that everything in this meal was a revelation to me and I was absorbing everything I could from the experience. Perhaps he recognized a nascent bon vivant. I pushed through the browned bread crumbs with my fork and found that shrimp were baked under them in a sauce of garlic and butter and a bit of sherry. The flavor of this dish amazed me. My first experience of the towering dish called Shrimp De Jonghe. The James Beard Foundation says that it is one of the earliest known Chicago area specialties dating to around 1900.  Forty-three years later, I remember how this tasted. Too rich for an entree, perfect with a glass of dry Champagne, it is still my favorite appetizer of all time.

                                                                                Shrimp De Jonghe.

The main course for the evening was garlic rubbed rib eye steak with spaghetti and "red gravy" on the side. I was full to popping by then but there was no way I was not eating that steak. Also, it was the first home made marinara sauce I had ever had. Do you remember your first real marinara sauce? I do. My taste buds were firing like the pistons in one of Mario Andretti's Formula One racing cars.  Dessert arrived. Spumoni ice cream, still one of my favorite desserts.

                                                                                         Spumoni.

I don't know how long we were at the table for this tremendous meal. I have no idea how much it cost Mr. AJI but it must have been a lot. He wouldn't let my Dad pay anything which caused more protest although my Dad's words were not as clear as at the start of the night. Finally the meal was over. A baronial feast if ever there was one. The maitre'd helped the ladies with their fur wraps. Even Mr. AJI's three daughters had wraps. It was one of the only a few times I ever saw my Dad tipsy. It was the only time I ever saw my Mom drive us all anywhere. I remember my Dad trying to prop his head up and his elbow repeatedly slipping off the leather arm rest of his Cadillac on the way back to the Howard Johnson's "motor lodge" where we were staying.

                                                                       1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

                                                     The Rockford, Illinois, Howard Johnson.  Still in operation.

I learned many things that evening. Graciousness. The value of treating restaurant employees as special people and of being a "regular". The joy of wearing a blazer and dining well in the company of pretty women. The glories of marinara, fresh pasta, pesto, Spumoni, And, most of all, Shrimp De Jonghe. My family didn't dine out much. I never made it back to Maria's again.

Last summer, I was sitting at my table at Cape Cod, the marvelous restaurant of The Drake Hotel in Chicago. Shrimp De Jonghe arrived as my appetizer. I was dining alone but I was wearing a much nicer blazer than that night at Maria's years ago. When the scent of the dish hit me I felt like my Dad and Mom and brother and Mr. and Mrs. AJI and their wonderful daughters were right there with me again. I took a sip of champagne, smiled, breathed in the wonderful aroma and was again transported back to the first great meal of my life.

P.S.: Sadly, Maria's closed in late 2013.  The restaurant's last Facebook post says:

We will truly miss serving you. Remember the good times at Maria’s and may they always make you smile and bring you happiness. And always remember Maria’s philosophy….

“After all is said and done, really, can there be anything more beautiful, more enjoyable, more memorable than good food, good wine, good conversation with family and friends?”

This is the good life.
SALUTE!

God Bless:

THE CASON FAMILY

An Epic philosophy if ever their was one. 

Love Day

In my experience Valentine's Day is either one of the best days or one of the very worst. I've seen the latter, but I have been very, very blessed to have outstanding Valentine's Days for a long time now.

I always post a Stevie Wonder video of "Ribbons In The Sky" on this day because I think it is the best love song I know.  To my wonderful Irish Redhead.

One Outstanding Bluetooth Gadget--From BLACKBERRY???!!!

I am thankful that I have a pretty great car.  The first new car I have ever owned.  And it has lots of cool gadgets typical for the price range.  One thing mystified me however.  The Bluetooth telephone connection for my cell phone is instantaneous and perfect in my car.  Not so for the music on my phone.  I have a new cell phone too, that my son described as "sick".  So I suppose that is very good.  But the music on my phone will not play on the car audio system.

One night when I had NOTHING better to do I ran this problem on Google and discovered that it is pretty common.  It made me feel good to see that there are cars costing a LOT more than mine that have the same problem.  Some sort of electrobabble about different types of Bluetooth signals or whatever.  No amount of Scotch was going to make that interesting. In one of the comments to a post about this issue however a fellow mentioned that Blackberry made a little device that, when plugged into the accessory jack in his car allowed his phone to play over his audio system.  I looked for the gadget on Amazon and saw it was under $30.00!!!! [It is under $20.00 today.]  Of course I "one clicked" it and it was winging its way to the hinterlands.

I have to say, this thing, whatever it is, works perfectly.  It is the size of a large pack of matches, requires no tech savvy to start using, doesn't take up any room, and does exactly what it is supposed to do.  I LOVE IT.  It allows me to play all my cell phone tunes through my car audio and I can also stream Pandora or Slacker or whatever through the car too using this and the app on my phone.

This little thing comes with the highest EPIC recommendation!!!  Trust me, if I can use it ANYONE can use it.  Enjoy!!

George, We Need You Now

Drafted late at night after watching "political television".  And after drinking some bourbon...

He lacked formal education but his intuition was keen.  He was at times envious of his elder brother. Unable to inherit his father's estate he turned to a military life under British rule.  He was a spectacular horseman but as a young commander he failed rather spectacularly. With legends trailing him.  He could not be killed. "Did you see him ride in front of that fusillade...not a musket ball touched him."  More than one time in his life a sea of gunfire seemed to part to allow him to pass unscathed.

He eventually married well, loved his land, cherished his wife. Loved her son as his own. He rode, brewed whisky, drank wine and ale. He was known when provoked to curse creatively.  Then one morning it was 1776 and something more was required.  Deeply believing in the notion that one's privileges came hand in hand with equal levels of obligation to the world,  he grudgingly accepted command of a rag tag band of amateur soldiers.  He freely admitted that he was unqualified for the task at hand.  Which was merely to attempt a fight against the finest war machine the world had ever seen.  Much of the Upper Crust was against him.  And the Politicians....they schemed and undercut and criticized at every turn. Even some of his own officers tried to depose him. He had to beg a bickering collection of "sovereign" states for guns, for uniforms, for boots, for food for his Army. But throughout it all he and his wife stayed with the troops. Many went home as was their right. Many deserted. The ones who remained did so for the independence of their homes from the overarching control of a king....and they stayed for him as well.

He was able to press down his ego to accept the help of several professional soldiers from other traditions who eventually turned his band of deer and rabbit hunters into a worn but formidable army. Not afraid to fail, he took chances and, eventually, began to win battles.  Trenton. Princeton. The rest, as they say, is History.

Afterward he was almost horrified to see that he was the primary choice to lead the nascent country. He was absolutely horrified that the proposal was for him to become King George I.  When offered a kingdom he was unique in history to refuse.  He became the first President of the United States of America.  President Washington knew he was a rural man of action sinking himself into a world of people who sat around indoors all day.  A world of political intrigue for which he was very obviously unsuited.  In his inaugural address he acknowledged that the smartest citizens would properly have a "distrustful scrutiny" of his qualifications; that duty was bound to privilege; and that by undertaking to be a new and free nation, he acknowledged that Heaven had ordained that "the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of government were deeply...and perhaps finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."  He also announced on the first day of his new job as President that he would work without compensation other than for reimbursement of proper expenses as allowed by Congress.

He was too different from what they really wanted which was a tall, famous figurehead that they could push around and tell what to do.  That was one game they should have known he would refuse to play. So the Politicians, back biters and anonymous editorial writers set upon him and made him suffer. Abused him in the public eye without the opportunity to defend himself.  Modern social media attacks have nothing on the newspaper editorials of Washington's day.  After suffering through two terms in office he walked away from government, retiring to his beloved Mount Vernon.

What can this man, gone since 1799, possibly have to teach to us?  We are so much more "sophisticated", "advanced", "educated".  We have connections to outer space in the palms of our hands for goodness sake.  How about notions of civility, of honor, of privilege leading not to more privilege but to the obligation to serve.  Sacrifice. Rejection of absolute power. Standing strong in the face of brutal adversity with the Faith that there is a Divine Reason for you to be there to take the punches.

A great historian has called George Washington America's "indispensable man".  Certainly true in the 1700s.  And if we care to pay him a bit of attention equally true today.  I will raise a glass on February 22 and toast him a Happy Birthday as I always do.  I, for one, miss him rather a lot.  Those other people--the ones who hated him then--would still hate him today.  That would probably be a very healthy thing.  In his farewell address he said...

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Two-hundred and twenty years later, nothing seems more true.

Happy 100th Frank!!

Happy 100th birthday to Frank Sinatra.  It is STILL Frank's world.  We just live in it.

"I'm gonna live until I die".

Fuzzy Photos From Great Bars

The Drum Room bar, Hotel President, Kansas City.  One of my top five bars.  Especially in winter. Tell Pam the fellow who drinks Pinch sent you.  She'll make sure you are well toasted by evening's end.

Nothing Like A River

When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come. – Leonardo DaVinci 

I have always preferred a river to the ocean.  Although the ocean has the glories of moonlight on a vast surface and of the sound of waves at night, rivers are just more...soothing to me. And more interesting. There is always something happening on a river that you can watch.  There is always something happening IN an ocean that you can never see.  And rivers are more safe where I live.  No river ever spawned a hurricane.

But the thing I like most about rivers is how therapeutic they are.  When you release your troubled thoughts to the ocean the tide brings them right back a few  hours later.  When you release your troubles to a river, they are gone forever.  I could sit and watch a river endlessly.  

All rivers, great and small, hidden or historic, know each other and share a common heritage.  They are all of the same tribe, so to speak. I've pulled a big canoe over shallows in the Wisconsin river as a boy, fished Hem's "Big Two Hearted River" and caught a trout, scattered my father's ashes in the Baptism River, had drinks on decks overlooking Bayou Teche in Lafayette and the New River in Ft. Lauderdale, had a love affair with the Seine from the Pont des Arts.  During each experience I felt my life clock winding back a few ticks.  Sometimes a lot more than a few ticks.  

Like yesterday when I spent an hour or two with a new friend, the St. Marks River.  Tucked away in the heart of North Florida, it was the first time I had been to her shores.  It is just the sort of adventure for your Epic these days when time has been brutally compressed and herds of significant problems and issues roam the landscape unabated. But an Epic adventure does not require immense effort or expense.  An Epic adventure requires merely the desire to grab a shiny pebble out of the stream of the day.

The St. Marks is not hard to find. If you look out your car window and see the Florida capitol building in Tallahassee, just keep driving south.  About thirty minutes.  Until the road ends at the front door of a great bar and grill.  The river is right there.

You can sit on free benches without beer but this IS an Epic journey after all.  Order some of the outstanding seafood on the menu.  Let that herd of issues run right past you into the river.  Trust me, the river will take it from there.