Passing along Southern Italian Foodways to You

**Announcement!**

I would love to host you at my final cooking class of the summer in August, so email me now to reserve a space!

This class will focus on Southern Italian foods and cultural foodways, which, as you'll see below, I learned a lot about while in Naples, Sorrento, and Sicily this spring. It was gorgeous. In fact, this was the sight that greeted me from the window of the hydrofoil as we docked- quite amazing.

Pozzuoli and Napoli held their own charms- views of the sea and charming locals high among them- but the next stage of my trip launched me into the independent mode of travel. From the seaside you see above, I scaled the cliff (ok, climbed the stairs) with my suitcase, and getting some advice from the tourist office, I scouted out a few small hotels before deciding on one.
The night of my arrival I wandered around the small town of Sorrento, glimpsing citrus trees in every yard, people in every cafe, and a bustling center of town, which included this gated corner alcove, apparently an ancient men's club (so unfair).

I walked and walked until I was so hungry I had a hard time making a dinner decision... ending up with this spread, so I didn't end up too badly...
Whole fried anchovies (unless they were sardines? I can't find a good way to tell them apart when battered and fried), octopus, shrimp, and more- all celebrated the generous gifts of the Mediterranean Sea. Perfect for my sampler nature.

After a couple days like this, I went to see one of the most famous historical sites right nearby: Pompeii. Having gotten a good look at Vesuvius on the hydrofoil journey crossing the bay from Naples to Sorrento, I was excited to see this city that was buried in an instant, so long ago.

What bowled me over about the site was not the professionalism of the preservation or the views of the countryside (although the site was well managed, the surrounding suburb was rather scrappy), but the unbelievable detail brought to us whole and untouched from that distant culture. Here is a frescoed wall from a bath house. Such colors, thousands of years of ash and dust later!

I recently had "atavism" explained to me in an online course, and it was connected to the idea of a discontinued past, that past which is not linked to our present because we perceive it to be too different. Pompeii was nothing of the sort- the people living here had road ruts under repair, were building extensions on their houses, and had decorations lovelier than many expensive ones I've seen  in our own time.



Mosaics laid so precisely.

Signs lettered so carefully
--and in recognizable script!





It made the tragedy of the deaths in the settlement all the more real. Here, the archaeologists had left their mark, finding the bodies burnt to ash, essentially vacuuming them out, and making plaster casts of how their bodies were found. It was both eerie and compelling to see the models, composed of some of the ash of the bodies themselves, on display in their final, frantic positions.

But since the one plaster model I saw was placed near the entrance I used, I had a couple hours after that of wandering around the narrow streets and peeking through other courtyards to sweep out the sad thoughts. Marvel at the art and society of this little town was the foremost emotion, and by the time I finished, I was ready for switching gears.

What did I jump to? My cooking lesson with Chef Lucia!

She had a menu planned and printed out for me, and we mixed it up a bit as we went along. Chef Lucia took me through an immense amount of details as we made our way through rolled beef, stuffed eggplant, and rolled eggplant (I requested the eggplant- love it!). One of the highlights of the class was the ballet dance of languages we all did, as her son translated for me, I tried to understand Lucia's Italian, and she mostly understood my English. It made 2+ hours of standing on my feet in the little kitchen fly by, and that is saying something!


Chopping.

Tearing.

Mixing.

Heating garlic in oil!

There are proper ways to do everything, and traditional ways, too, as in whether you peel your cucumber completely or in stripes- one way gives you the Napolitano version, the other, the Sorrentino.


One of the add-on items on the menu was fresh pasta from potatoes, usually known as gnocchi (that is a link to an excellent tutorial with step-by-step pictures- go see for yourself!).

We used a pasta machine, the kind that clamps on the counter and cranks by hand, which led to some more ballet-like hilarity among the three of us. We also used a tool like the one shown  in the linked tutorial above, which looks like a miniature washboard. It is obviously a skill learned through repetition, to drag two fingers with a dollop of gnocchi dough over the wooden board in such a way to create the classic shape. I tried, but my pasta didn't win any beauty contests!

It was a lot of fun, and even though setting up the class was stressful at the last minute, and finding the place was another adventure, it was all totally worth it.

Now I have this precious experience to share with you!

Have you taken cooking classes on vacation? How did it give you a different view of the location and the region's people? Did it help you connect the region's past with its, and your, present?

It's magic!

Let us hear about it in the comments...

Ramping up the Delight

For all you locavores out there, this post is a bit embarrassing...

For me, that is.

Yes, those are ramps up there. Ramps, as in the trend-du-moment harbinger of spring ending and summer beginning. Since we had an awfully long, drawn-out spring (who's complaining? not me), and a peek-a-boo summer, things may have been a little mixed up. And they were. But it's still a bit late to talk about ramps.

But that's ok, I'm not giving a recipe. I'm actually highlighting a delightful observation I made at the time of cutting up the expensive, farmer's-market, little darlings:

I matched my food!

As I looked down and the penny dropped, I felt happily content to be so in tune with the season that I had on a purple top and green shorts- ha!
The ramps went into a lazy-man-scramble with some early tomatoes, and were paired with those all-stars of the sustainability world: anchovies. More specifically, marinated white anchovies, a specialty which the Spanish call boquerones, and the Greeks call gavros. I first met their ilk at Estadio, and later bought these at Vace, an Italian deli-and-pizza stronghold in the Cleveland Park neighborhood.

It was a simple, filling, and nutritious meal. Eggs and anchovies = good proteins and fats; tomatoes, ramps, and herbs = 2 fruit and vegetable servings for the day. And that's pretty much how I do my food accounting. It's not overly complex.

Moments when you match what you're chopping... now THAT's ENTERTAINMENT!

I'd love to hear how you all entertain yourselves with your own passions. These types of stories sustain us as we follow our dreams. So do be a peach and tell us a story, eh?

I am currently trawling for students for my next cooking class, possibly next week. The armchair travel theme is Southern Italy (oh, aren't you dying to see where I went? Soon!), and the menu will be different from the last one- modified to include Pizza, as only southern Italians can make it. (And those who have learned from southern Italians, of course!) Send me a message if you or someone you know may be interested!

**Sincere thanks to all who have like the new Taste Life Twice Facebook page! I'm delighted to have another way to connect with people, and look forward to enjoying the recipes, stories, and opportunities to be shared.

Highlights of Home in October

Highlights of October, after the Road Trip

Peach-Rhubarb Crisp with Walnuts and Pecans, riffed from this very good recipe, sharing counter space with the walnut fudge I picked up at Dakin Farm in Vermont, which has the byline, "What Vermont tastes like." Good, apparently.

Egg whites whipped a little too stiff for Orangette's Salted Peanut Butter Cookies recipe. I guess the hand mixer made things a little too easy...

These cookies were pretty different from others I've made: for one, salted peanut butter instead of unsalted, PLUS salt, PLUS milk chocolate. I typically trade that stuff out for dark chocolate, but for science's sake, I stuck with the spirit of these cookies.

For another thing, they were HUGE. Instead of a dainty teaspoon or a rounded tablespoon, Molly had us taking big 1/4-cup handfuls (I actually just used my hands and rolled it off like play-doh; it wasn't too sticky for that, thankfully).

And the third thing, as you saw above, was the separating of whites and yolks before combining. Now I've done that for cakes and things, but for a cookie? My efforts, while a little too enthusiastic, were not made in vain. As always, my touchy oven needed to be cut off in its cooking 25% earlier than the recipe said in order not to overcook the beauties, but then they came out, and I had way too many big, gorgeous cookies to hand to deal with!

So I took them into work, and two dozen disappeared in 2 days (I brought them in in two shifts, since we always have people working from home, and it seemed only fair to give everyone a chance). The other half dozen might have disappeared from the counter in that time...
Finally, returning to the savory world, I made this concoction- my first steamed (poached?) egg from Judith Jones' recipe for Steamed Egg(s) Nestled in a Bed of Greens. I really like her recipe-writing style. Something about it is so comforting, warm and reasonable. This felt great to eat, being so healthy and homey, and using up the last of summer produce I had stashed (tomato) plus the rare bit of fall bounty that had arrived (maitake mushroom, sprinkled on after this photo was taken). Happy Fall!

Fish Tea, Stravaigin, and a See's Candy look-alike

Scottish Food, Installment 3 of 3
And here I've got my final three food experiences, all in Glasgow, and all pretty positive (2 out of the 3 also had some annoyances associated).
These first couple pictures are of the "Fish Tea" I ordered at The People's Palace. And while it might sound like a bad Asian packaging description of tea, it actually meant 'tea' in the afternoon-meal sense, and an afternoon meal that included fish. With chips, of course.
I ordered a caramel shortbread along with the 'Tea' and boy, was I rewarded. The little annoyances here were that 1) the greenhouse felt like it had heat piped in from somewhere, and was uncomfortably warm, such that my shortbread got all melty (which was fine, but so did I), and 2) that they lost my ticket for the fish and chips part, and I had to go back up and reinstate my order. They felt bad for losing it and so gave me a free bottle of water (and I was already carrying one, so my backpack got pretty heavy, but I'm not looking any gift horses in the mouth). The caramel shortbread was dee-lish. And very worthy of being reproduced in the States- Go To!

The second experience catalogued here was undilutedly fantastic. I went to a restaurant called Stravaigin (the original, in the Kelvinbridge neighborhood, I think; there are two). If you visit their site, right now at least, they have a picture up of the very same entree- the hake fillet salad! But mine shows the architecture a bit better, I think...

 The restaurant, servers, lighting, other eaters... all was lovely and relaxing and amiable. I liked the iron stairs up with lights, the fun second story that overlooked the first, and the fun architectural finishes that made the place seem magical and whimsical, not modern or sleek or posed. It was a great place, and has a fitting name for one like me: 'Stravaig’ means ‘to wander’ and that is exactly what I enjoyed doing while in Scotland.

The final experience was part of an homage to Charles Rennie Macintosh, an architect famous in his hometown of Glasgow, and an artist well-known internationally for those interested in art history. I liked the part of his work that was all about an organic whole, form serving function (Arts & Crafts), natural forms being used (Art Nouveau), nothing thrown in for no reason (Modernism but not the Jetsons kind). It's like smart growth for buildings and furniture!
Anyway, he's famous for designing the Glasgow School of Art and the Willow Tea Rooms, which of course I had plunked on my list as a Must-See. Tea? Scones? Art Nouveau? Yes, please.

 

This is the dining room, accessible weirdly through a jewelry store on the ground floor...

 

And look! As I was leaving, this is the line that lined the whole stairwell! (Pays to be an early bird...)

I had the choice of the open-center room or the Room De Luxe, so guess what I chose? Why not, after all. It didn't cost any more. It had the windows out onto the street, which I thought would be nice, but... I was plagued my whole luncheon by a very bad saxophone player busking across the street. Grr. He had no rhythm, which made his rendition of Moon River very jarring. Ah well. After I exited, I got to hear a very talented bagpiper... and the tea was lovely: finger sandwiches (crustless!), a meringue tart, jam and double cream for a scone. Yum.

Why can't we get cream like that here??

Scottish dumpling, not your dim sum variety

Scottish Food, Installment 2 of 3
The last post was mostly food in Edinburgh, so here we'll progress on to other places and experiences.

First up (and making a grand impression) was the breakfast set-up at my B&B in Inverness. (highly recommended!)
Keep in mind, this was just the COLD breakfast. Gorgeous cereals, fruits, yogurt,etc. Add to that your choice of eggs, meats, and my favorite, tattie scones. They might be a bit of work for one who is not accustomed to having mashed, or in fact any, potatoes on hand, but they were tasty enough to give it a try nonetheless.

Next is the food at the cafeteria of the Culloden Battlefield Memorial site. Now I've heard that there is a fancy guest house and gourmet restaurant nearby, but you're off your rocker if you think I could afford to go there. As it was, I had to check at the bus station for where to pick up the city bus to visit the memorial site, as it was not obvious from their website. After an inside talk, a self-tour of the museum, and an outdoor guided tour, I scoured the gift shop and settled into the cafeteria to stave off a food-headache. I saw these crisps, which amused but did not entice!

I also tried Clootie Dumpling, a traditional fruitcake-type dessert, which turned out to be fabulous, 'smoored' as it was in custard. SO good, especially on the misty, rainy, chilly day that we had that day. But once again, there's a challenge to make it-- where on earth does one get suet in the States?
Third, we have the famous visit to Leakey's Bookshop & Cafe. I loved this bookshop, not least because it had a cafe upstairs where one could procure delectable baked treats and a warm beverage to best accompany the reading material at hand.
On my first visit, I had a pot of tea. And I didn't look closely at the menu because I was busy observing and then speaking with a young Swiss mother traveling with her young son (but not too young- he was old enough to talk excitedly about where they'd been and what they'd seen, about 11 or 12 years old). Did I mention we spoke in French? It was AWESOME!

 The second time I returned however, I tried a baked good (a caramel shortbread, I believe) with my tea. And perused the menu details, which included a historic bit.  I'll wait while you read.

Good bit of cheeky humor there, eh? And another connection back up to that Diana Gabaldon and her fictionalized version of the Culloden Battle- really fascinating!

Fourth and finally, we leave Inverness to include the day trip to Stirling Castle, in a metaphorical middle of Scotland: between the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow (E-W), and between the cultures of the lowlands and the highlands (S-N).
At Stirling, I had a very informative tour which encompassed different ages of the castle, famous architectural elements, rituals of life, changes for military needs, etc. But the one place the guide didn't take us to but strongly recommended was seeing the exhibit on the Renaissance kitchens.
There were very lifelike mannequins/models pictured at work, and everything looked so busy! There was sound piped in to mimic the hubbub of a feast in the making. It was really well done.

This shows a servant slowing down in the course of serving all the courses (hehe) at a typical 16th century banquet, which included:

• pottage (soup)
• roasts
• small pies and pastries
• tarts or fritters
• fresh or preserved fruit and sweetmeats

I guess they didn't go in for salads, hmm...

Here was my favorite- all raise a cheer for the bakers! Rough men's work at the time, because it took a lot of bread to feed the people, who didn't have much of a varied diet unless they were high-fallutin'.
Don't they look real? Better than a wax museum, though; those are just creepy.

The last photo from Stirling kitchens was an oven that was used before the expansion for the palace's guests, when it was more of a fort stronghold. These kids were around and I felt a strong urge to be the witch pushing them into the oven for getting in my shot...

Next up will be the final installment of Scotland food (Glasgow) and some preamble about the New England road trip, where Produce, and not Preparation, turned out to be King (a-ha-ha, we were just talking about the Castle, get it?)

Scottish Food, and I don't mean McDonald's

I've got a request for "More Scotland, while it's still fresh!" but there are a host of other things going on too, which I'll try to capture in a logical and pleasingly readable fashion.
First, an installment of food-related pictures from the Scotland trip.

Here is the first place in Edinburgh I plunked down for something to eat- it took a lot of thought. I would have been ill-equipped to make the decision had I not spent all morning wandering up and around Calton Hill's fresh air. It was a quite respectable pub-looking place that turned out to be a cut above: The Conan Doyle. This is their Cullen Skink.
No, it doesn't involve skunk like it sounds, skink is a word for a style of soup, and this one came from a place called Cullen. Simple enough, right?
Amaaaaazing. Smoked haddock, potatoes, and onions, a creamy soup but not over-heavy like some chowders here in the States can be. Mmmmmm, next time I get my hands on some smoked Finnan haddie (haddock), watch out!

 

This was the smoked halloumi salad I got to go with, which was unnecessary because 1) I was full and 2) the smoked halloumi cheese was the only worthwhile part. Oh well. Win one, lose one.

 Breakfast setting at the B&B in Edinburgh- pretty glassware can make a big difference. Who knew? (Well, I guess Stewarts are an ancient clan...)

 Breakfast surroundings at the B&B in Edinburgh. That is, I believe, one of the reputed Aga stoves? Or am I completely wrong? It looks like I'm wrong by the Google images, but it did look exactly like the stove in the one-room hovel (a 'single-end') exhibited in the The People's Palace (in Glasgow).

And just in case we were wondering, this is the state of beef in Scotland:

 Moving on quickly now to safer topics...
this is a Bedfordshire Clanger: meat pasty with 3/4 mincemeat/ savory filling and 1/4 marmelade/ sweet filling. Too good not to give it a go, right? Definitely the most interesting thing on the menu here at The Dogs in Edinburgh, although in practice it was very heavy and I didn't get half through it. Cool decor, though. This is a huge mural behind the bar just visible in the mirror.

Other updates:

• I took the recommendation of Heidi of 101 Cookbooks and used the Magic Sauce with scrambled eggs this evening for a light dinner. It didn't look too hot, but it tasted good.
• The Lemon Rosemary Zucchini bread? First loaf tasted great, but second had disturbing pockets of what I can only call acridness. A lump of something like sand in texture, but tasting like... well, the word pustule came to mind. Rather than risk other coworkers besides Catherine and me experiencing this, I threw the rest of the second loaf out. If I was a superstitious person, I would be spitting up a storm here to ward away the bad luck. Yeuch.
• Cooking adventures at home since Scotland, including my own Millionaire Shortbread, a rice FAIL, treats at the work retreat, my first ever, of-any-kind, kugel, and a girls' night out for a 7-course meal at Thai X-ing in DC, which was absolutely heavenly.
• Oh yeah, and a solo road trip from Philadelphia through upstate New York to Vermont and back to DC. That was pretty awesome too. :-)
• All this... and more! Coming soon...

Truth in Advertising, Installment #4

When I first started blogging here, I had a few examples of cooking recipes that turned out looking amazingly similar to the pictures in the books (I like cookbooks with color photos!). I called these "Truth in Advertising" installments, and it was just a fun way of documenting that I could actually achieve what looked like it took 3 photographers, a stylist, and one of those special light umbrella thingies to achieve. Go, me!

A similar thing happened on the trip to Scotland. I had been researching, pining, yearning... you get the picture-- to escape to Scotland since I bought my plane ticket back in March. This left considerable time to browse photos, think about what I wanted to visit with my limited time, etc. Many of those photos ended up as desktop backgrounds (what can I say, I'm a daydreamer!), such as the one to the above- beautiful, non?

Well, it's a picture of Glen Affric. Sorry to the person who took it whom I am not crediting right now- let's just say I did substantial Google Image browsing, which I don't need to repeat.

Anyway, the image must have sunk deeper in my consciousness than I realized, because I went and took the same photo!

The light was very different, we had different-shaped fog hiding the full mountain, and I was a bit further back, but there is that same stand of trees, jutting out into the water. Truth in advertising- it was gorgeous, and I'd go back to explore more in a heartbeat.

The Peaty Bog

Here's another peek from the vacation in Scotland:

Where I Found a Bog, Or a Peat, and almost Lost my Shoe!

I had a million+one ideas about what to spend my time on, but a lot of the decisions came down to travel time. I decided against a long-and-involved train day in favor of a morning outing to Glen Affric (where the above video was taken). And against a day trip to the west coast in favor of going inland to see Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. I don't regret either decision.Glen Affric was my favorite part of the trip, and Stirling gave me some good history about the only castle I visited while there!
The peaty bog, as I've taken to calling it, was brilliantly colored in reds and yellows and greens and held a whole lot of moisture. At one point I strayed from the path for a different vantage point and delighted in stepping carefully to see how much water I could push out of the moss with my weight. It was pretty fantastic.

De - Tension

I had never thought of the root or origin of the word detention before this morning. It was a hated word, not worthy of being examined. It represented a feared and loathsome experience in grade school, and so I conveniently forgot it when I left high school.
But I woke up this morning thinking about my exposure to Judaism growing up. It started with the U.S. Open, which 2 people I knew were attending this weekend, who were both Jewish. Then I thought of my first memory of meeting a Jewish person (at a Catholic school in a small California town, this was an event). Then I thought of a friend in high school whose family was Jewish, and what I most remember about her, besides that we shared a penchant for wearing bell-bottoms, was that we got in trouble in Biology for dropping a piece of paper. The ensuing detention was a traumatic event for me, as a goody-two-shoes at the time.
This is usually how my thoughts work, but if you're lost already already, it's ok. My trains of thought often go off-track, and I'm lucky if I can preserve the links before I forget how I got to the end!
Anyway, I started thinking about the word detention, and liked that it sounded like 'De - tension.' I could use some of that right now!
Since I got back from Scotland, it has been a rough two weeks for me. I had to right away take the reins for a big work project from a coworker, we DC-ites had an earthquake, then I got a bad cold (from the air travel I suppose), then we had to prepare for a hurricane, which meant I had to leave on Saturday morning for a Sun-Tues work retreat (in order to make sure my flight would not be cancelled), leaving me with no weekend break, then I had to struggle to stay present with the cold and the altitude, ...
it's all been a bit much. So I am very content to have a 3-day weekend to recover.
I have been able to edit down my Scotland photos, but my first foray into online photo management was disappointing: Flickr is made by Yahoo, but not part of Yahoo, like Google and Gmail are, so there are more hoops to go through. Plus, it segments its accounts into 'free version' and 'paid version,' thus limiting the photos you can put in a 'set,' and send to people. I almost made it- 10 photos and 10 videos did not make the cut. So I'll include a couple of those here, with some explanation. :-)

This first clip was filmed at a free music concert housed in the National Museum of Scotland, located in Edinburgh. There was a pair of talented musicians in to perform some traditional and some contemporary music. Here the lad is enjoying the breakdown of a certain song- I recorded a part right between two choruses, so it may be hard to tell, but can anyone guess the tune?

Glimpse

I just got back from Scotland, folks, and I had a marvelous time. Lots of historical places, new art, intriguing new foods, and most of all, I enjoyed the temperatures! Ok, ok, not just the coolness in August, but also the ability to be out in the country. This is Exhibit A- heather heaven.

More to come as I narrow down 700-odd photos from my 8 days abroad. Slainte!

Many Things in a Big City Day

One of the great things about Big Cities of the World is that they present so much variety. If it is a true Big City, that is (this is why Cleveland, even with its 2.5 million inhabitant, doesn't qualify; it's too one-dimensional). Here, for example, is a sunrise:

A sunrise you can get anywhere, of course, but different places have their own kinds of sunrises. There are sunrises over fields of wheat, sunrises over dramatic stones, sunrises over skyscrapers. Each place takes the experience and makes it unique.

It's the same with buildings. There are books upon treatises upon tomes about different types of buildings, varying with function, era, architect, materials, but I'm highlighting location as a key variable here. Some buildings you look at and think, "San Francisco," or "Home."

This one makes me feel at home because it has many of the characteristics of the home and neighborhood I grew up in: Victorian era, color, craftsmanship, greenery. But it also has those stairs, which make it different, and that narrow citified look, which makes it take on a completely different personality as a building. (I love how the people here have put up fabric in the glass part of their door for extra richness of palette). So to recap, we have sunrises, buildings...

And I can't visit anywhere without sampling the baked goods, can I??
No, the answer is no.
I stopped at a delightful [chain] bakery called La Boulange on my long walk from the Mission to Downtown. I had poked my head in one or two before this one, but they were both too expensive and not cheery enough. This place hit my expectations on the mark. I had planned to walk leisurely from where I was staying in the Mission up through Hayes Valley and zigzagging up Market St. to meet my mom and a friend of the family at Samovar for lunch.

I adored the homey, folksy, clunky yet cute style of the bakery, and enjoyed 'un bol' de chocolat chaud, avec un croissant magnifique. I wrote a bit, observing, listening to a French family at one of the round tables, not unlike the one I sat at growing up.

Here's a bit of the character of the place- the small type at the bottom of the functional yet whimsical service sign says, "We have decided to be happy because it is good for our health." It's like a kick of cowboy boots for fun. So now we have seen a sunrise, some buildings, the bakery,it must be time for some culture.
I had singled out the small Museum of Craft and Folk Art on my itinerary because they had a Corita Kent exhibit that would end the day I left, so I figured it was meant to be. Corita was an interesting 20th century American artist, especially since she started out as a Catholic nun.
She bucked a lot of trends.
Here is an excerpt from a page that has the 10 Rules for the art classes she oversaw at the Immaculate Heart College Art Department:

An important lesson, and one which is a good reminder at certain times.

After I met with my mom and Gayle and had a delightfully modern concoction of teas and amuse-bouches (see the commentary on the tea vintage above for a comparison with bombastic wine connoisseurs), it was time to journey on to another feature of the Big City: community gatherings.

Now, as I said in my last post, I've never actually lived in San Francisco (yet), but I had heard about a local organization that does urban foraging for edibles, home cooking, and promotion of local food artisans, all causes which I can get behind. I had signed up for their newsletter, hoping that I could go on a food walk the one day that I would be in town (talk about trusting to fate). It turned out there would be no walk, but there would be a foraged dinner. Well.
I signed up.

It was pretty great. There was a many-coursed meal lit by candles, served by volunteers, foraged from city neighborhoods or local producers. Much of it was very good, and the few things that weren't settled for being fascinating. And as I had come on my own, I met the 4 people on my right and talked with them for the several hours that the meal lasted, making some new friends in this City that contains so many worlds of interest.