I took a quick trip to Chicago last week, 48 hours from the time I left the ground in Knoxville until the time I returned 2 days later, give or take 5 minutes. I was inspired to book the trip when I learned that Paul Barnes would be performing the Phillip Glass Piano Quintet at Roosevelt University on Friday April 19th. I heard the word premier in Lincoln Nebraska, last year in April, but I had yearned to hear it again. But I am not writing about the music now. I am writing the first, of what appears to be a couple of potential posts, about how a small trip, taken on a whim, can become a time of peaceful recalibration,
The original plan had been modified slightly. Although I had booked my trip specifically to hear Barnes, I had, admittedly, been thrilled to learn that Emmanual Ax would be performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the same weekend, and I planned for a musically intense interlude: Two pianists; two entirely different programs; with a trip to the Art Institute Thursday night. That isn't what happened, The Chicago Symphony cancelled their April programming, and, when I spoke to my friend Patti, we decided to meet at the Art Institute Friday afternoon before going to dinner and the Glass concert.
Sometimes, all we really need is a little serendipity. And so, with Thursday evening now free, I decided to go out to eat. Luckily my hotel was a block from Mercat a la Planxa, a tapas bar where I had dined with friends several years previously and a perfect place for solo dining. I began with a plate of house-marinated olives and a glass of my favorite sherry, Tio Pepe, by Gonzalez Byass, which is not available in Tennessee. (Well I almost always have some on hand, necessitating occasional driving trips to Texas, or Atlanta in a pinch.)
Although I love dining with friends, the conversations over food, the connections, dining alone can also be the perfect sybaritic experience. I could savor the sherry, allow the salty richness of the olives to roll on my tongue, to savor the refreshing bite of the dry mineral-sweetness of the sherry. I could sit back and watch the room. Sometimes I really want to just experience the sybaritic pleasure of the food. This is not always a shared priority in dinner with friends, and I have, in fact, been criticized on more than one occasion for caring too much about the food itself, and the experience of eating it. In fact, I do not think the food is more important than the conversations around the food, only that the food should create its own space, enhancing and enriching the experience.
Anyway. I was very happy. I followed the olives with some Pulpo a la Gallega, which was savory and beautifully prepared, the just toothsome tenderness of the pulpo contrasting with the soft bed of potatoes beneath. Admittedly I have become increasingly spoiled about pulpo as I get perfectly prepared octopus regularly in Knoxville at my favorite restaurant, Emilia. It is one of those surprising little treats in my small city, the kind of thing that makes me smile as I think how far this country has come. I remember eating octopus and squid as a child the year we lived in Spain, just as I remember my parents buying squid on trips to Houston and Galveston after we returned, where it was not found in the fish market, but sold fresh, for bait.
I followed by pulpo with Butifarra; admittedly a rich dinner. But butifarra is something I do not see often in my part of the country, and this was excellent, summoning all kinds of sybaritic taste-neurons and their associated memories. Mercat's butifarra is stuffed with cepes, and the soft gentle seasoning of the pork melded perfectly with the creamy earthiness of the mushrooms as well as the bed of simultaneously creamy and foamy white beans on which the sausage was served.
This all took me several hours. And perhaps, much as I enjoyed simply sitting and experiencing the room, watching and savoring, there was an added dimension as well. After the sherry, I ordered a glass of Ribera del Duero, one of my favorite wines, and one I haven't had often, not since I lived in Hyde Park, not since we had a wine cellar, not since I had someone to share a bottle of wine with on a regular basis. I've had Rioja, a more commonly found temperanillo blend, but rarely a Ribera. I admit that for the first 10 or 15 minutes I was content to simply sit and swirl the wine, watching the pattern of the wine on the glass, inhaling and absorbing the aroma. With that first inward breath, I was filled with contentment. Memory swelled and I thought, Ribera del Duero. Well, I new what it was, but some part of my brain remembered something else, a familiar scent, completely different from the aroma of a Rioja, more fruity, still earthy and mineral-laden, but less obviously so. In a moment's breath it was like reconnecting with a long-forgotten memory, a part of myself and my experiences; other tastes, other scents, and yet still there, in that moment. In fact, although the wine was delicious, its minerally-tannic fruitiness perfect to offset the pulpo and the butifarra, I didn't finish it. The aroma of wine was my dessert, all I needed to round-out the memory and close a perfectly satisfactory evening.
