Post Lost and Found

Here's a post I wrote at the beginning of the year that got lost on my desktop. Time for a little cleanup there, I guess.

Happy as a clam?

We went with friends to a local seafood restaurant for dinner on New Year’s Eve. As I studied the menu, which included lobster and oysters and New England clam chowder, it struck me that I don’t know beans about fish and seafood.

Growing up in Illinois, the fish we ate most often was breaded cod in stick form and tuna from a can. As an adult, I ordered shrimp and calamari and crab in local restaurants and generally enjoyed the flavors but, with no frame of reference, I often wondered what I really knew about how they should or could taste and how much better such a meal would have been several hundred miles closer to the source, fresh from the icy sea.

One of my favorite food memories is of an order of scallops I enjoyed in a restaurant in Aix-en-Provence.  I almost didn’t order them, however, because of a bad experience with some frozen scallops my mother served one Christmas Eve when I was young.  Once, in Nice, I watched two friends devour a tower of frutti de mare and wondered if I could ever eat those things, let alone with such obvious enjoyment.

Well, I’m going to set a challenge for myself. We’re moving soon to New England, and I plan to devote considerable time and energy to creating a new frame of reference for the enjoyment of seafood. On a recent trip to my future home, I went to my first clambake. As people all around me consumed bags full of the things, I tried one.  Clearly I’ll need to taste a lot more clams before I can fully appreciate their flavorful charms – but I’m game!

I’m looking forward to this relocation for a number of reasons. After living in the same suburban area for all but the first two years of my life, I think it’s time for a change. I anticipate that moving several hundreds miles away from home will bring about a new awareness and appreciation of my surroundings and day-to-day activities. Everything will be new.

You know how you say aloud sometimes “I’ve been driving this same route so often my car knows the way,” or words to that effect? I’m ready to shake free from that feeling that I’ve done all this before.

I’m looking forward to trying all kinds of new foods, and familiar foods in new ways, and creating some new food memories. New England, here I come.

Comments

[essays]

New England is definitely cool location! Hope you like it a lot!