Go Places & Eat Things

iPad induced memories of a centuries-old city

I was checking out the offerings served up this morning on my Zite Personalized Magazine app for the iPad  and found this lovely article about Bologna, Italy in the New York Times. It had me pushing aside a few years worth of mental clutter to uncover the Wayback Machine. In I hopped and soon I was transported back a few years and several centuries, ambling along covered walkways, making my way to Piazza Maggiore, where I sat, sipping wine in the spreading shade of a springtime afternoon. There are photos, somewhere, in a box that is in storage at the moment. But I don't need photos to recall the feeling of time slowed, even in the ebb and flow of strolling pedestrians on a major shopping avenue. And somewhere nearby, a church where a companion and I lit candles and sent good thoughts into the universe. The richness of flavors tasted for the first time in a little restaurant - known to some Italian friends, where we ate what the proprietor had prepared - are still on my tongue, though the name of the restaurant is not.

Interesting that these memories of centuries old Bologna were brought to life again by a very modern device. Bologna is one of the many places I experienced while traveling on business, to which I'd like to return with a very different agenda, or no agenda at all.

Drinks at The Herrington

I had a lovely but all too brief visit with a couple of good friends this evening. We sipped a little wine and got caught up on our busy lives in the beautiful lobby bar at the Herrington Inn and Spa in Geneva, Illinois.

I've never spent the night at the Herrington, nor relaxed at the spa there, but I have enjoyed some wonderful meals at Atwaters and a number of memorable evenings perched on a comfy sofa chatting with friends in the cozy lobby bar. My husband and I have been meeting friends for drinks there since the place opened, whether for a bit of bubbly before or for a night cap after an event, and sometimes for wine and an appetizer, but always when we wanted a quiet, comfortable and elegant place to gather. Other bars are made for a pint or two of local brew but, for me, the Herrington suggests a more refined approach.

As a frequent business traveler, I've come to appreciate the hotel bar as a place to go for a glass of wine at the end of a long day, as a convenient gathering spot for colleagues and customers, and perhaps most importantly as a place where a stranger can feel a part of something even if not everybody knows your name.

Topping my list of memorable hotel bar experiences is The Bar American at Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, for the people watching. We enjoyed a nightcap at Le Relais at Hotel Negresco, in Nice, on another trip to the Mediterranean. I met Gordon Ramsey at The London Bar in New York, and on a later visit there had my first unforgettable taste of Lagavulin, a single malt Scotch whiskey with a robust smokey aroma.

Tonight at The Herrington, the wine was good, but the get-together was more about the company. The crowd swelled and subsided like waves on a shoreline, moving around but not disturbing our comfy island of calm, where my friends and I created yet another memorable evening.

 

Go Places and Eat Things

It all started when I was just a child, with the great good luck to be born into a family marshaled by two good cooks with keen interest in the world around them. My parents, apt pupils of the hearty pork-roast-and-oven-browned-potatoes school, had done some traveling before settling down, and their stories fueled my early and enduring interest in visiting new places and checking out the menu while there.

Sure, my siblings and I ate our share of breaded fish sticks and packaged macaroni and cheese, but every so often we were treated to home versions of chicken curry, pork chow mien and kielbasa with sauerkraut. These humble forays into global food traditions gave us an early understanding that there was a lot of good stuff out there, waiting to be discovered and consumed.

We joke that my kid brother learned to read as we traveled the interstate highways on family vacations. Clan lore tells that the first word he recognized was EAT!, a command, no less, towering over the cornfields on signs located for maximum impact on weary parents with hungry kids, at off ramps and major intersections right next to the Holiday Inn. We were happy to comply.

In this environment of road trips and roadside restaurants, our family motto evolved. Go Places and Eat Things defined not just what we were doing, but what brought us joy. As the miles rolled by and the meal tally rose, we imagined a family crest of crossed knife and fork on a field of tablecloth checks. “Gravy over everything!” became our rallying cry.

My husband embraced the family watchword early in our marriage, and over the years we’ve managed to strike a nice balance between EAT! and bon appétit! We’ve traveled to some wonderful places and enjoyed some memorable meals both close to home and far away. Taking the measure of a place through its points of interest and its plats du jour is simply what we love to do.

So it is in the tradition and spirit of Go Places and Eat Things that I write about food, travel and life, separately and together, in no particular order. Let’s see where it takes us, and what’s to eat when we get there.