My Boyfriend is a Stud

Last weekend, Ed won the Hunter Mountain triathlon. He didn't just win his age group. He won the whole thing. As in, he was the first person to cross the finish line. Out of everyone. I speak both for myself and for Team Edward when I say that he is awesome and we are all very proud of him.

And they're off!

The triathlon was the fourth of five events staged during the weekend. A half- and full Ironman were held on Saturday, and Ed and I watched competitors running the marathon course in the rain as darkness fell. (It looked very unpleasant.) On Sunday morning, Ed's olympic distance triathlon was preceded by a sprint triathlon. We arrived at the transition area a little after 6:00 in the morning. Ed set about arranging his equipment while I sat in the car and shivered. It was light out, but the sun had not yet emerged above the tree-covered hills and it was freezing. I stood on the beach, dancing from foot to foot, and thanking my lucky stars that I had the good sense not to have signed up for an event that would force me to dive into a lake in semi-darkness on a 40-degree morning. Ed, wet-suited, hopped into the water to warm up and emerged a few minutes later to say that the water was warmer than the air and head back to the lake again. Finally, the horn blew and they were off.

Ed between laps

The course was triangular, so the swimmers headed for a buoy, turned around it to head for another buoy, then came back to the shore. The olympic distance required them to do two laps, an arrangement Ed said he really enjoyed because the short run along the beach in between laps really broke up the swim for him. I lost him immediately as all the swimmers plunged into the lake. One guy was far in front of the others almost immediately, and when he emerged to run to the start of his second lap, I saw that it was Mike,  who we'd me the day before and is something of a local legend. He won the half-Ironman last year, then came back the next day to medal in the sprint triathlon. Ed figured this guy would be his biggest competition, and based on his swimming skills, this seemed to be a good prediction. The swim is Ed's weakest event, so I was impressed to see him hop out of the water after the first lap in fifth place. 

As Ed finished the swim, I walked back to the transition area and positioned myself a little way up the road. My job was to count how many people were in front of Ed and yell his position to him when he came by. Mike was the first on the bike, and about three minutes later, another guy came through followed by Ed a short while later. He was still trying to get his feet into his bike shoes as he pedaled by me. I learned later that he'd come out of the water in fifth place but had transitioned faster than two of the other guys who'd been ahead of him.

Making adjustments

In first place!

Now I settled down to wait. Ed had estimated that the bike would take him about an hour. I sat in the car, huddled in a patch of sunlight coming through the windshield, and read until I calculated that Ed should be arriving soon. Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw the lead motorcycle pulling up at the far end of the transition area. A guy on a bike was right behind it, and I crossed my fingers. As he came closer, I was able to see that it was Ed and started scanning the road anxiously for second place. Ed came trotting towards the start of the run course, then abruptly turned on his heel and raced back toward his bike, where he pulled his watch off the handlebars and stuck it onto his wrist before coming back towards the course again. D'oh. But I still hadn't seen any other cyclists come in, and I yelled this to him as he ran by me. "My feet are numb!" he called back. I assured him they'd warm up, and then he disappeared. He told me later that the course was much harder than he'd anticipated. Not only was it very hilly, it involved a lot of trail running over rutted, rocky ground. Despite the extra exertion this required, he said his feet didn't regain feeling until near the end of the run (which was probably good, as he discovered at the end of the race that a pebble in his shoe had rubbed through his skin to draw blood). 

Now there was more time to wait. I went back to the car for a bit, anxiously watching the clock. Ed's been focusing a lot on his running lately, and it was hard to believe that anyone would be able to catch him with a lead like the one he had. But I didn't want to make any assumptions. When I figured he should be just about near the end of his run, I left the warmth of the car and went to the finish line. The race course finished on an uphill - how sadistic is that? - and the final chute was still cloaked in shadows, but it was clear that the champion the announcer was crowing about was Ed. He crossed the finish line, fists pumping, and gave me a very sweaty hug, which I didn't mind at all because I was wearing his fleece over my clothes. Mike came in second place several minutes later. Ed said that he'd given Ed high fives every time they passed each other on the run course.

When you win a triathlon, you can't just go home at the end. You have to hang around until the awards ceremony to collect your swag. We chatted with other competitors and snacked while we waited.  Ed ended up taking home a plaque, a hydration belt (in camouflage, in case he wants to train undetected), compression socks he says he will never wear because they are based on shoddy science, and special, springy shoelaces that never need to be re-tied. 

Champ!

As the winner of the triathlon, Ed was, of course, the most impressive celebrity in the area. But we did spot another, second-class celebrity over the weekend. Matt Damon's brother, Kyle, is an Ironman competitor, and when Ed and I were eating dinner on Saturday night we were treated to a ten-minute long window in which Matt and his wife and kids waited on the sidewalk right outside the restaurant to cheer on his brother. Matt snapped pictures and then hugged Kyle as he ran by, and we later learned that he ended up winning the whole thing. It is always surreal to see someone so famous only 20 or 30 feet away, but some of the inevitable barriers between us seemed to have been knocked down by the fact that we were both there to support an athlete. Yeah, Matt and I are practically best friends.

Matt Damon congratulates Kyle at the end of his race (in a photo I copied from a website and did not take myself).

Oysters. Sweet, Sweet Oysters.

I want to report on a very pleasing trend that has become a part of my life recently: I have been eating a lot of oysters.

I love oysters. Really, really love them. Briny, buttery, succulent, plump, and tender with an icy bite of cold and salt as they slide down your throat... Sweet mother Mary. I have sampled all kinds of condiments - vinegar, horseradish, lemon juice, cocktail sauce - but in my mind, the oyster is perfect as it is. Au natural. Any other flavors detract from its sharp, sweet perfection.

Oysters, alas, are expensive, as well all know. When we've been feeling decadent, Ed and I have ordered half a dozen before meals and gazed with delighted anticipation at what seemed to be a large platter of them only to be crushed when, 90 seconds later, they are suddenly gone. There is no sadder sight on earth than a plate of empty oyster shells. You can slow yourself down when eating oysters, but you're simply prolonging the inevitable. All too soon, they will be gone, and you will be devastated.

Luckily, a tapas restaurant 15 minutes from our apartment has a happy hour special which features $1 oysters. Seriously. Even better, the oysters they serve are beau soleil, one of my favorite kinds. We've eaten there several times and it did not seem like the kind of place that would give you food poisoning with cheap oysters. And, honestly, I was willing to take the risk. Ed and I went there recently and ordered a dozen. And then, ten minutes later, we threw caution to the wind and ordered a dozen more. Except that it's not throwing caution to the wind when they cost $1 apiece. The oysters were small, but tasty, and I don't mind admitting that I would have been happy to order 12 more. But one must be careful not to indulge in too much euphoria at once.

Lure

We met our friends Leonard and Maggie at a fantastic fish restaurant called Lure a few nights ago, and the oyster-fest continued. Maggie, as my regular readers will recall, is quite a foodie, and so she was not about to pass up the oysters on the menu. We ordered a dozen, composed of 6 beau soleil and 6 blue points. The blue points were huge, plump, and heart-breakingly wonderful. The beau soleils were smaller and more subtle. It was bliss. (Lure, it is worth mentioning, is wonderful for reasons other than their oysters. I tasted three out of the four entrees we ordered and each was superb. Ed, who is normally not a huge dessert guy, agreed to share a warm chocolate cake with me and I thought I was going to have to fight him for my half of it; the cake itself was so good it made me dizzy, and the caramel ice cream and caramel popcorn that came along with it were perfect compliments. The service was wonderful, and the decor of the place is fantastic. You feel as though you are sitting in the cabin of an enormous yacht. The windows are shaped like portholes. Even the mahogany floorboards and small lighting fixtures that illuminate the steps are spot on. It was so convincing I swear I felt the place rocking now and then.)

Mermaid Oyster Bar

Last night, Ed and I went to yet another seafood place called the Mermaid Oyster Bar with our friends Rasool and Mary. Let it not be said that I am greedy: I was prepared to go without oysters this time, and for the first few minutes that we perused our menus, the discussion focused on a range of other available appetizers. I determined to keep a stiff upper lip. Then Rasool suggested that we whet our appetites for the appetizers with a platter of oysters, and I found myself overwhelmed with feelings of admiration and affection for him. We selected a dozen east coast oysters (blue points and beau soleils, of course) and Rasool chose another half dozen west coast oysters for good measure. The meal itself was wonderful, but with an introduction like that - to say nothing of the espresso mug filled with complimentary dark chocolate pudding at the end - how could it have been anything else?

Training Update

Ed performed some seriously impressive feats of athletic prowess over the weekend, but until I have time to upload the pictures, I thought I'd take a few moments to update interested parties on my own quest for greatness - or at least, for a status slightly above mediocre - as I train for the NYC marathon. I've got about 5 weeks left, and I'm happy to say that I show no signs of sliding back into that nasty slump I struggled with a while ago. I've been pretty diligent about doing every one of the running workouts (3 per week) and almost all of the cross training workouts (2 per week, my choice of 30-minute cardio) mandated by my training plan. I've been timing my runs more regularly, and have been very pleased with the results. Below are my reflections on the process thus far. I'll start with the cons, so I can end on a positive note.

CONS
Blisters: I haven't had problems with blisters in ages, but for some reason lately they've been an huge annoyance. I'm running in the same shoes I've worn for months, so the only explanation I can come up with is that since I'm working harder during training runs, my feet are sweating more (sorry) and damp skin is more susceptible to blistering. Yuck. I have a few small ones on my left big toe, on on the back of my heel, and a giant one on the ball of my left foot. I've ordered some fancy-schmancy socks that are made of moisture-wicking material and are double-layered, meaning that the outer layer will rub against an inner layer of sock instead of my poor epidermis. The brand, WrightSock, has been very highly reviewed. They arrive Friday, and I am counting the days. Knock on wood, but my knees have both been feeling fantastic, however.
Fatigue: I'm tired. When my workouts are short enough, I try to do them in the morning before work to leave my evenings free, and it's hard being out of the house when it's still dark. If I don't get up or my workout is too long, I have to do it in the evening, which is tough to do after a full day of work. I find myself hardly able to keep my eyes open past 10:00 (which sucks because I'm reading a really good book) even on the days I don't get up early. My workouts are taking it out of me, particularly on Saturdays when I do my long runs. My thighs burn after a single flight of stairs. My calves threaten to cramp up if I stand on my tiptoes to reach something on a high shelf. Sitting down feels great.
Scheduling: I can't be as easy-going about my schedule as I used to be. If I'm going out to dinner with friends (8:00 seems to be a common meet-up time), I have to be sure I run that morning and possibly even hit the gym again in the late afternoon because I'll be home late that night and won't want to get up the next morning. If I'm social a few times a week, I have to be very meticulous about planning my training agenda, and I have to stick with it or risk falling behind. An upset stomach last week almost derailed my training for the whole week since I had so many other things going on. I have less time to read, knit, cook, and practice the piano, too. Luckily, this won't last forever and I'll have my life back again soon.

PROS
Audiobooks: I have listened to some outstanding audiobooks while training, and I love plugging in my headphones and losing myself in a good story at the start of each tempo or distance run. (I can't listen to audiobooks during intervals because I get too wrapped up and forget to push my pace.) My books of choice are young adult literature. The storylines are easy to follow even in distracting places like parks and roads, and I like staying up-to-date on what literature is available to young people. I get the CDs for free from the library and load them onto my computer, then my iPod for hours of entertainment.
Physique: My legs are getting more and more muscular, my arms and stomach are defined, and my tendency to eat like a horse hasn't caused any of my clothes to be too tight. I love the feeling of being starving just before mealtime and knowing that I earned it.
Progress: When I started training, I decided to shoot for the paces recommended by my training plan for people who want to run a 3:45 marathon; I figured that I probably wouldn't be able to go that fast on race day, but aiming for a faster time during training certainly couldn't hurt. While my interval times are still just shy of pathetic, not only have I been holding the quick paces recommended for my various tempo and distance runs, lately I've been able to go faster. On Saturday, I ran 15 miles at what I hoped would be an 8:45-minute pace. Instead, I finished the run with an average pace of 8:38-minute miles. Similarly, this morning I ran 5 miles at 7:53 minutes per mile instead of the recommended 7:59. (It damn near killed me, but I did it.) That's only a few seconds faster per mile, but over the course of a 26-mile course, it could really add up. I can hardly wait to see what this means for my time come race day.
Outlook: I am proud of myself for working hard at this. If I was in a black mood when I couldn't drag myself to the gym for a while, I'm walking on air now that I'm surpassing the goals I set for myself. Anything could happen during the marathon itself, but even if my performance is derailed, I hope that I'll be able to remember how good I feel about the effort I'm putting in now. After all, many months of training should mean more to me than four measly hours on the course.

Come Sail Away with Me

(The events in this post are now more than a month old, but it was an experience worth recounting, even if it took me a while to write about it.)

Ed's dad really enjoyed boats and sailing. He spent a lot of time on Long Island racing his sailboat, and he left the boat to Sean, Ed's cousin, who grew up with boats on Long Island and still lives there. Sean loves racing the boat and often asks Ed to come be part of the three- to four-man crew he needs to assemble when he wants to race. For the first time, I went out to Long Island with Ed a few weeks ago to watch him help operate the boat from a photography boat that would be anchored near the middle of the course.

When we arrived, it turned out that Sean had found only two other people for the crew and that there was space for me on the boat. He asked if I wanted to join them - though I had no sailing experience, extra weight in the right places at the right times would be helpful, he said - and I happily agreed to come along, having no idea what was in store for me. It was a beautiful day, and we set out for the course from the small yacht club where Sean keeps the boat, rubbing on sunscreen and getting to know our fourth crew member Joe, an appropriately crusty older man who'd spent decades on the water.

The crew of the Doodlebug II: Sean (standing), me (in sunglasses), Ed, and Joe

Sean's boat model is called a raven, and apparently it's one of the hardest sailboats to operate. As this was my first experience around a sailboat, I had no basis for comparison, but I can say that there certainly seemed to be a lot of different ropes to pull. Sean has almost everything labeled, which really helped me learn my way around. My jobs were to put my feet under a strap and lean out to counterbalance the boat when it tipped far to one side, do odd tasks when directed, and otherwise stay out of the way. Sean manned the rudder and directed everyone, and Ed was on the trapeze, which meant that he wore a harness and, bracing his feet against the edge of the boat, leaned really far out to counterbalance us more than hefty Joe, Sean, and I could do put together. Joe was kept busy by adjusting sails. 

We're the leftmost boat. Ed is leaning out to the side on trapeze.

The course was pretty simple: We started at the same time as everyone else and went back and forth a few times around some buoys before trying to cross the finish line first. All this rapid turning around meant lots of adjustments to the sails. We tried to get the spinnaker - the extra sail that billows out in front of the boat - going a few times, but ended up scrapping that plan because the time it took to hoist it was not worth the minimal speed it provided us before we had to take it right back down as we changed directions. Apparently, lots of things on the boat needed repairing, making for a frustrating sailing experience for everyone who knew how it was supposed to work (i.e. everyone but me).

There were only four boats in the race, and we competed in three different rounds. We took two second places and a third place. I gradually learned where things were and got better at ducking under the jib as the boat came about, hoisting rigging where directed, and operating the bailer, the hole in the bottom of the boat that will drain water that's sloshed in. All told, we spent four or five hours on the water. I had a great time during the races, but the trip back to the yacht club was less enjoyable. The sun had disappeared behind thick clouds, the wind had made the water choppy, and a persistent drizzle ensured that the few tiny dry spots the waves had spared were sodden in minutes. I was cold and miserable by the time we got back to shore at last.

Because I'd thought I was going to be on the photography boat, I'd worn jeans and a cotton t-shirt for the occasion, which is about the last thing you want to wear on a sailboat where you're going to get soaked. Luckily, Sean's wife is just about my size, so after we'd gotten everything on the boat squared away, he drove us back to his house where I traded my wet clothes for some dry ones of hers. It was a welcome relief, as the train back to New York was overly air conditioned, as usual. I was exhausted that night and sore the next morning, so it was hard to imagine how Ed, who actually did hard work all day, could even stand.

I had plans for Sunday and so could not go back to Long Island the next day for the second round of racing, and another man joined Sean's crew. Ed said they spent the first part of the morning repairing all the things that had been malfunctioning on Saturday. As a result, the sailing went much more smoothly, and Sean's raven won most of the races. The weather was better, too, and Ed came back covered in scrapes and bruises but in high spirits. I really look forward to next summer when I can go back on the boat again, this time with a better understanding of how the boat operates, and dressed in more suitable attire.

Legit Lit: Plainsong

Like the small, hard-scrabble town in which it is set, Kent Haruf’s Plainsong is desolately beautiful.  The plot is comprised of a series of interlocking stories that follow a high school teacher and his sons who are grappling with the loss of their wife/mother to depression, a pregnant teenager whose mother has kicked her out, two elderly bachelor brothers who live on an isolated cattle farm, and an insightful, single teacher taking care of her elderly father who has slipped into dementia.  It sounds depressing, but though the lives of the characters are certainly bleak, they demonstrate that they are tough, rugged people who outlast the punishing blows life deals them to find joy, peace, and beauty around them, in each other, and in themselves.

The exploration of the relationships between the two pairs of brothers, one duo still in elementary school and the other in their 70s, was one of my favorite parts of this book.  The little boys, joined at the hip, are written beautifully.  They are innocent in the face of some pretty serious events in a way that feels very real and not the least bit patronizing, as often happens to young characters in books.  The two old men are similarly innocent, though their simplicity is the result of many decades of life on their farm with only each other for company.  They live rough, but beneath their gruff exteriors are gentle hearts, and their banter is hilarious and feels very genuine.  I very much enjoyed the juxtaposition between the two of them and Victoria, the pregnant teenager.  The plotline of a young person charming a craggy older person after a rough start is not a new one, but one critical variation here is that the brothers are always kind to Victoria from the very start, even if they haven’t the foggiest idea how to talk to or treat a young woman.  (Their attempts at this are delightfully endearing and funny.)  Haruf’s take on this theme is so fresh it seems that he invented it.   Maggie, the wise teacher, advises the men as they clumsily try to provide Victoria with the home she needs, and they find that Victoria's influence is as crucial to them as their home and companionship are to her.

I read this book in about two days, devoting more time to it than I have to any book I haven’t brought on a plane within the last year or so.  The plot wasn't what made it a a page-turner. I think I kept reading so fixedly because I came to care about the characters too much to leave them in stasis; I had to press on and see them to the satisfying conclusion they deserved.  

(Apparently there is a movie version of this book, though I don't know anything about it. Let me know if you've seen it and think it's worth the time.)

Mid-Season Slump

(Holy consistent blogging, Batman! Must be a slow week at work.)

Although I went hiking a few times in Europe, my exercise regimen in general was less than admirable, particularly for someone training for a marathon. I started off great with some uphill intervals in France, but a combination of hilly terrain, thin air, trails crowded by Italians who looked at you funny if you went by at anything slightly above a leisurely stroll, and recurring headaches made me fall off the wagon pretty fast. I did lots of reading and lying around, and returned to New York thinking that I'd better swing back into action, pronto.

I landed late on Sunday night, and on Monday I was feeling drained and unmotivated. I went to the gym for about half an hour and did some half-hearted work on the erg before heading home. On Tuesday, I couldn't bring myself to do even that. The following two days were the same. I'd plan my day carefully, always envisioning a long-overdue run at the end of it, but by the time I got home from work my will to do anything more than lie around on the couch and swear at the cats was sapped.




I read a lot and finished the fourth season of Breaking Bad. I bought a keyboard, printed some sheet music, and started to practice it. I unpacked, did lots of laundry, and tidied the apartment. All the while, I waited for this unpleasant, exercise-linked malaise to shift. But it never did. When Ed called from exotic locales, I talked to him about it. Though he was sympathetic, he couldn't really relate; the guy's a machine. He couldn't honestly tell me that this had never happened to him, and his advice was to just push through it. Have a good dinner with lots of iron, get plenty of sleep tonight, then get up tomorrow morning and run for just a few miles, he suggested. Get your endorphins going. It sounded like a good idea, so I ate a hearty dinner and got to bed early after setting my alarm for 5:45 A.M. The next morning, I woke up with the buzzer and lay in bed for over an hour, waiting to get up. 

Me: OK, seriously, let's go.

Body: (no response)

    Me: This is really ridiculous. It's been, like, 20 minutes.

    Body: (no response)

    Me: Pretty soon it's going to be too late to go. You'll have missed your chance.

    Body, not cowed by threats: (no response)

Sure enough, soon I had to get up and dress for work, which I did willingly. The problem was clearly not fatigue; I'd had no problem lying wide awake at that early hour, nor rising to do something, as long as it wasn't going for a run. That evening, I found I still couldn't bring myself to go.

I found the situation deeply distressing. I had no idea what was wrong with  me, which was unsettling. Would I have to drop out of the marathon? More than that, I've always identified myself as a runner. If I wasn't Beth Who Loves To Run, who was I? What was I going to do with the rest of my life?

On Sunday, I got really firm with myself. I set out for what I hoped would be a 20-mile run at about 10:00 in the morning. By 11:00, I was home again, having run 7 miles. Seriously. SEVEN. It was hot and nothing seemed to feel right. All of my joints hurt, my stomach was unsettled, the sun was in my eyes... It just seemed intolerable. I couldn't believe I'd spent countless hours doing this kind of thing for fun. Determined to give it another go, I started earlier the next morning. I got closer to my goal, 12 this time, but still a far cry from the 20 I'd hoped to reach. I was feeling seriously disheartened. I found myself wondering what the point was. I was never going to be impressively fast, even if I did have the motivation to train hard. I was always going to be just a notch above average, toiling away for - what?

Ed came home, and to my great annoyance headed out for a run early in the morning, not even 12 hours after he'd returned. I lay around. We had dinner plans with friends, I had plans to fold laundry, I wanted to catch up on email, something always seemed to come up that left me unable to get out of the house and go. This pattern persisted all week. On Thursday night, we went out with two friends of ours and I confided my woes to Jenny. Jenny isn't a terribly fast runner, but she's done a fair number of marathons and has quite a bit of long distance training under her belt. She said that she knew exactly what I was talking about, and to give myself a break. She said that everyone goes through this, especially when they're putting in a lot of mileage. It would pass, she was sure of it. I told her about my plans to try to get in that 20 miles on Saturday morning (a distance, by the way, that I'd covered a month before with little trouble) and she wished me luck. "I know my body can do it," I groaned, "I'm just not sure whether I can bring myself to stay out there..."

On Saturday morning, Ed and I got up early. We planned to head out together, which really helped me get going. I felt achy and my stomach hurt a bit, but I determined not to think about any of those things. We ran to the park together. Three miles down. The plan was to do most of the loop together, then he'd head for home and I'd keep going. We did, and to my amazement and relief, I felt better with every step. When Ed split off from me, I completed the loop and started another one. I zig-zagged around the park, following whims. I added two laps around the reservoir - something I don't usually do - for variety. I listened to a great audiobook. The wind suddenly picked up and the clouds simply opened, soaking me in moments. It rained on, and I found myself laughing. (I learned later that this freak storm had brought a tornado to Queens. Whoops.) I finished my last loop and headed home, clocking the whole run at 20.75 miles.

Woohoo!

On Sunday I felt slightly stiff, so I rested but followed my down time with an interval workout and a swim on Monday. I'm looking forward to a tempo run tomorrow, and another long run over the weekend. Amazingly, according to the training plan I've been following, I'm somehow not behind, even after that long period of soul-searching. I must have counted wrong and started it too early, because this week I'm working on the line-up scheduled for the week after the interval workout I did in France. Somehow it's as if all that time off never happened. I feel refreshed and positive about running all over again, and I can't wait for the marathon in November!

Same Place, Better Pictures

For more pictures of Chateauroux les Alpes, check out the most recent blog by Eliot, our travel companion and photographer extraordinaire. Fabulous shots!

Eataly

Ed and I spent our first weekend together in New York for what seemed a very long time this weekend, and it was great. My friend Dave was visiting from Boston, so we enjoyed spending time with him, and Ed's friend Dennis came over to play guitar and hang out with us on Saturday night. And we capped the weekend off right, with a trip to Union Square, a visit to one of my favorite bookstores (Strand), and my first trip to Eataly.

Eataly is owned by celebrity chef Mario Batali. Ed and I very much enjoyed his restaurant Babbo, and I'd heard wonderful things about Eataly. It's a huge space that's part market and part restaurant. They carry/serve lots of wonderful products that are made in Italy (candies, olive oils, smoked meats, etc.) but they also make a lot of things in-house. In addition, they have a produce section, meat and seafood counters, a huge cheese selection... The list goes on and on. 

Various filled pastas

Ed and I decided we wanted to make pasta. We entered the store and found ourselves in the coffee and dessert section, where we were impressed by all the beautiful pastries and cakes, lorded over by a truly huge, sparkling silver espresso machine. We squeezed through the crowds to the pasta counter, where we hemmed and hawed over various noodles and fresh pastas. All of them are handmade in house, and looked wonderful. We eventually settled on squid ink pasta. I stayed in line to order it while Ed went off in search of sauce and came back with a jar of tantalizing vodka sauce. The man behind the counter handed us the pasta in paper wrapping just like at a deli counter in a supermarket.

Next stop: the seafood counter. There were several varieties of clams, some oysters, some lagostinas, and all kinds of fish, but Ed and I decided on some beautiful scallops. With our pasta in order, we conferenced about what else to have. My mom had sent me some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and bread dipping spices from a farm in California she visited, so we got a loaf of bread to go with them to make an appetizer. Though we chose a very basic baguette, the bakery counter had about 20 different kinds of bread to choose from, all in different shapes and all baked that day in Eataly's wood-fired oven. I figured we should have a salad, too, so I wandered, breathless, through the vegetable section. There were strange bean-like things mottled green and purple, snow white eggplants, all kinds of very red tomatoes (definitely not the flavorless kind that are picked green), and a huge variety of tiny vegetables like patty pan squashes and zucchini. I selected a lettuce mix, a bunch of basil, and some tender roma tomatoes.

The edge of the produce section

Ed took charge of selecting some fresh, house-made mozzarella for the salad, which came in a giant ball submerged in whey. The cheese counter bordered one of the many "restaurants" in Eataly. Each one is specialized, so you can only eat one type of thing there. They've got an area for pizza, an area for pasta, etc. In most places you sit at tables, but I saw some people sitting at counters around small kitchens, watching chefs busily cooking up their orders. Apparently the steak restaurant is one of the best in the whole place. Ed has eaten there and says the food is fantastic, and I'm not surprised. I'll certainly jump at the next excuse to go back and try it.

A handsome man selecting cheese. Note the hanging meats in the background!

In addition to the restaurants, there's an area where you can stand at tall tables and eat cheese and drink wine that you buy from the counters. You can even browse the store with a glass of wine in hand! That's my kind of shopping experience. Rumor has it that there's a Biergarten (not terribly Italian, but still very cool) on the roof, where house-made beer is sold. You can purchase some of the many pre-made or made-to-order foods from the counters and bring it up to the top to make your beer run into a meal.

Wine and cheese tables

We got in line to check out, and I was pleasantly surprised by the price. We bought a huge amount of fresh, gourmet pasta, fresh scallops, delicious sauce, salad makings, a giant ball of fresh mozzarella, fresh bread, and two sodas and paid about $45. It certainly wasn't pennies, but in a city where people will pay exorbitant amounts of money for anything they think is high quality, I thought it was quite a bargain. The resulting meal took about 30 minutes to make (about 18 of that was spent waiting for the water to boil) and it was just as good as a restaurant meal would have been. We even have leftovers!

Our "homemade" meal: squid ink pasta, jarred vodka sauce, and sauteed scallops

Eataly is just blocks from our apartment. I can't believe it's taken me as long as it has to get there for the first time, but now that I've discovered it I have a feeling I will be back frequently!

Aquagrill

When I told Ed I wanted to take him to dinner and asked him where he wanted to go, he said he needed to do some research. He came up with Aquagrill, a restaurant he's been wanting to go back to forever (he'd been before but I hadn't) whose name he could never remember. So we called and found that they had a table available at 8:30, booked it, and headed to SoHo for what was to be one of my favorite dining experiences in some time. 

I knew nothing about the place initially but was immediately optimistic upon seeing a sign declaring it an "oyster bar" as we approached. I was further cheered to see a heaping mound of unshucked oysters packed in ice on the bar as we entered. Oh yes, this was going to rock. The waiting area was crowded, but we were led to a table in the back almost immediately. The decor left a little something to be desired, though I thought the light fixtures - large spheres of translucent shells surrounding a hidden bulb - were pretty cool.

Piles of oysters

Ed asked whether I wanted to order oysters, a very silly question, then how many I thought I'd want, which was a more reasonable question. He said that he thought we should get at least 12, and I agreed. We settled on 14. Ed is a fan of Blue Points, but the list was very long and there were too many other choices on it for us to decide, so we told our waiter we wanted a chef's selection of east coast oysters, preferably of different sizes, with two Blue Points thrown into the mix. He returned with a plate of ice on which the shucked oysters shimmered. We consulted the slip of paper listing all the varieties as we slurped them down. The Blue Points were tasty, but my two favorites were the Watch Hill and the Beau Soleil, mellow and briny all at once. The problem with oysters is that it always seems you are ordering a lot, but they are gone in moments. 

I was too busy scarfing down our oysters to take a picture of them, so I pulled this picture from Aquagrill's website. Our platter looked remarkably similar, however. This type of dish doesn't vary much.

Scallops

I worked myself into quite a tizzy trying to decide what to order. First of all, every single item on the menu was a seafood dish. Many of you know that I'm a pescetarian, meaning I don't eat meat, though I do eat fish. I'm used to having only four or five options, at most, to choose from. Having a whole menu at my disposal was overwhelming, but I finally did narrow it down to two dishes. One was scallops served with crabmeat risotto. The other was truffled cod served over mushroom ravioli. I mean, seriously, what the hell is a pescetarian to do? I agonized and made faces for five minutes before finally deciding on the cod, though, as I complained to Ed, I was pretty sure that either choice was ultimately going to make me unhappy, no matter how good it was, because I'd know I wasn't going to be eating the other one. Ed was unsympathetic, having chosen his meal easily. But when the waiter told him they were out of the special he'd wanted, he decided to order the scallops! I beamingly told the waiter how thrilled I was about this because I'd wanted to try both, and then the waiter became my favorite person on the planet for a while by offering to have the kitchen split both dishes between two plates and serve us half of each dish in a two-course line up. Bliss, I say. Sheer, unadulterated bliss. And both dishes were absolutely divine. The scallops, seared to perfection, were tender, sweet, and buttery, and the cod was delicate and tasted like truffles, which is really about the highest compliment I can think of. My only complaint about the meal was that it made me far too full for dessert. I guess I shouldn't have eaten all three pieces of bread they brought me, though one was onion focaccia, one was cornbread, and one was chewy french bread, and really, how is one to resist? We did get a complimentary plate of petit fours after our entree dishes had been cleared away, which was very nice, as I always like to end with something sweet, however small.

Truffled cod

The best part of the evening was yet to come, however: My credit card was declined. Turns out someone had tried to get a cash advance using my account number a few weeks ago but had entered the PIN incorrectly three times in a row, so any purchases that seemed "unusual" were being flagged and declined. So Citibank is sending me a new card, and dinner, despite my best intentions, was on Ed. Looks like I owe him.

Legit Lit: Salvage the Bones

Feeling down? Looking for a lift? Avoid this book, unless your lift can wait a few hundred pages. But boy, oh boy, is the lift worth the wait. Jesmyn Ward's National Book Award winner is set in a small, backwater town in Mississippi. The story begins days before Hurricane Katrina ravages the coast and ends the morning after the storm departs. Fifteen-year-old Esch is the main character and narrator. Her mother died years before and her father, though mostly well-meaning, is usually too drunk to act on his good intentions. She and her two brothers, Randall and Skeetah, struggle to care for themselves and their much-younger brother, Junior. Esch has a complicated relationship with her brothers, and with their friends, who constantly hang around their ramshackle house. She is the lone girl in a boys' world, and finds the abundance of male presence both comforting and isolating. The boys are sometimes protective and sometimes abusive, but Esch remains strong and matter-of-fact, living the only life she has ever known as best she can. She is generous to the point of personal destruction and longs for that affection to be returned.

Skeetah's pride and joy is his pit bull, China, whom he has trained to be a vicious fighter. The juxtaposition between the dog and Esch is really interesting. Both are females in a world that doesn't acknowledge them. This has made them fighters, but both can be tender to the ones they hold dear. And the boys alternately love Esch - just as Skeetah adores China - but unthinkingly trample her feelings the way Skeetah is eager to throw China into the ring at her peril.

The character development in this poetic gem is superb. I found myself effortlessly understanding people I'd have been quick to judge and was able to empathize with them even when they made poor decisions. Even Esch's father, who is at best useless and at worst a detriment to the family, turns out to be a sympathetic character, more broken by his grief over his wife's death than cruel.

Motherhood is a prevalent theme in the book. Esch and her brothers miss their mother constantly and try unsuccessfully to combine their efforts to fill her role. Junior, who never knew his mother, is obsessed by memories of her that are not his own. China is busy rearing her first litter of puppies, and Esch, to her surprise and dread, finds out early on that she herself will be a mother soon.

Salvage the Bones builds the way a storm gathers, and the climax is explosive and destructive. But, like Katrina, the irreversible flow of the plot seems to lay out hope and possibilities for rebuilding a world better than the one that was destroyed.

Trip 3: Alleghe

So back to Alleghe, Italy, which I adored from the first minute despite its lack of printing facilities. There's just something about ranges like the Alps and the Dolomites that I can't get enough of. I think must be the juxtaposition of abundant green against dramatic mountains. We have dramatic mountains in California, but the landscape tends to be pretty dry. The time I've spent in southern Germany, the French Alps, and the Dolomites, however, have convinced me that this type of landscape might be my favorite. Add to the verdant, wildflower dotted meadows and rugged peaks neat, wooden houses with windowboxes overflowing with red, pink, and white geraniums, and honest-to-god goats/cows with bells around their necks, and...wow. 

Alleghe from the opposite side of the lake

I don't actually have too many details to share about our time there because very little happened. I went running three times, read four books (great ones - look for Legit Lit posts about them soon), drank too many cappuccinos to count, and napped every day. I also walked around the town and the lake and the days slipped by very quickly. There was a really great pizzeria very near the apartment that we'd rented, and I enjoyed looking in the souvenir shops, though I didn't buy much. Prices in Europe are funny. We paid endless tolls on the road from France to Alleghe and gas was very expensive, but we bought bags of fresh bread every day from the local bakery for about two Euros and a glass of very tolerable wine from the pizzeria was only one Euro. I had always associated siestas with Spain, but apparently it's a pretty sacred time in at least some parts of Italy, too. The grocery store was open for a few hours in the morning, then shut from noon until 4:00, when it would reopen until 7:00. Most shops in the town were closed in the afternoons, though of course the restaurants and cafes stayed open so we could be sure of access to cappuccinos, macchiatos, and the like.

We spent so much time at the bar that offered free wifi, which I mentioned in my last post, that we became quite friendly with the waitress who had seemed pretty frosty at first. Ed went without me once and ordered lasagna and a cappuccino, and apparently she gave him quite a tongue lashing in broken English about the lunacy of this combination and bullied him into ordering wine instead. When he ordered a second glass a while later, apparently she did a victory dance and chanted, "I win! I win!"

A nearby town

We saw a poster for a fireworks show one night, and excitedly hurried to the other side of the lake where we hoped to have a view of both the fireworks and the town. Alas, our poor Italian meant that we had made a grave error: The time on the poster did not correspond with the beginning of the fireworks. It indicated the start of a series of speeches which preceded the fireworks. I asked Ed, who speaks more Italian than the rest of us put together (which is not saying a whole lot), if he could understand anything. He was able to translate words like "very," "day," "happy," and "town." Hmph. Let me tell you, Italians can talk. This guy went on for about 20 minutes, then passed the microphone to someone else who gave us another 20 minutes of the same thing. Eventually, we saw a series of lit up boats drifting across the lake, but they were too far away for us to really tell what was going on. Later, we learned that this boat parade is actually a competition, and this year's winner had decorated his boat in a Hansel and Gretel theme, reconstructing the gingerbread house with all the trimmings. After an hour and a half of shivering along a wooden fence inhabited by unsettlingly large spiders, the show began at last. It really was gorgeous, and was absolutely worth the wait. (I say that only because the spiders claimed no casualties.) We listened to gorgeous classical music and watched the colored lights explode overhead, mirrored perfectly in the lake below.

We arranged to spend one of our last nights in Italy staying in a mountaintop refugio. A refugio is something like a cabin, a restaurant, and a youth hostel in one. They are all over the mountains in Italy, and exist so that hikers can go on multi-day hikes without having to worry about bringing much food or sleeping gear. You show up, pay your fee, and get a hot dinner, a continental-style breakfast, and a bed. There are also showers available for an additional fee. 

The view from the balcony of our apartment with the tram in the background

On the appointed day, six of the seven of us took the tram up several thousand feet and hiked at a leisurely pace (well, most of us. Eliot "hikes" like he is driven by an engine) for a few hours. The countryside was beautiful and green for a while, then turned into dust and rocks as we got higher. We stopped at a small lake populated by small fish that nibbled pretty aggressively at our toes when we waded in, causing much giggling and squirming among our ranks. There are spas that employ fish to do similar work; apparently it's a great way to eliminate dead skin. After our pedicures, we continued climbing.

Trail through the peaks

 We reached the refugio, got settled into our rooms - Daryl and Phil shared with other hikers, and Eliot, Ethel, Ed, and I shared a tiny room with two sets of bunk beds - and changed for dinner. This was less because we were concerned about manners and more because at that elevation, it gets very cold very fast as the sun begins to set. We enjoyed a round of beers and penciled our dinner orders onto a sheet, and eventually we were served salad, soup, and bread, a pasta course, and polenta with either meat ragu or cheese. Apparently most refugios are family-run operations; people just move up there with their kids in tow and live there for the season. There were several kids helping out who looked to be in their late teens or early 20's, and a toddler ran around the kitchen and dining room throughout the evening and the following morning. All told, there seemed to be over 30 guests in attendance, all speaking a dizzying mix of languages. It was a large crowd for a small facility, and seemed even bigger as the lines for the bathroom and sinks started to form after dinner. Ed slept like the dead, apparently, but Ethel and I had trouble drifting off. The wind was fierce, and it sounded as though it was going to blow the tin roof off the place. Also, the bunks, ladders, and floor were all made of very creaky wood that made a huge racket if you so much as set foot on a board or turned over in bed; I'd spend whole minutes debating whether or not adjusting my position to make myself more comfortable was worth disturbing my roommates. I decided that the sleeping conditions and food would both have seemed like quite a treat if I was exhausted from hiking all day, but after only a few hours on the trail I was more critical.

View from just outside the refugio

In the morning, Ed and I hiked off before the others in order to meet a friend of his who would be passing through Alleghe to join us for lunch. It was peaceful and lovely, and I particularly enjoyed looking down on the lake and town from different vantage points along the way, though it's hard to really feel a sense of accomplishment when you've ridden a tram most of the way up.

Looking down on Alleghe and the lake

That was my last night in Alleghe, and Ed and I celebrated by going to a nice restaurant in a hotel right on the lake, where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner on the balcony with a water view. He drove me to the Venice airport the next day, then headed back to Alleghe. I had to get back to work, but he, Eliot, and Ethel planned to spend a few days in Amsterdam, then head to Belgium to watch the Grand Prix.

This was one of the most relaxing vacations I can remember taking. Generally trips to Europe are anything but, as one rushes from place to place to try to fill every second with sightseeing. I enjoy both kinds of trips, but the New Yorker in my found the lazy days in the countryside to be a nice alternative to more time spent in cities.