Tale of Two Cities

Each June I’m invited to visit a friend of mine, Laura, from London who has taken up residence in Monaco but spends her weekends at her husband’s family villa on the French Riviera. Two years ago, just days after leaving the Riviera, I also had the opportunity to spend some time with Kelly, my college friend in Illinois. Théole-sur-Mer, a jewel in the heart of the French Riviera and Danville, Illinois, a small industrial town in the heartland of America are about as different as caviar and deviled eggs, yet when I reflect back on my experiences at each, they were surprisingly similar.

Laura’s home on the Riviera is an impressive white villa, called Le Trident. It sits precipitously on a three-pronged point overlooking the vast Mediterranean Sea. The guest suite where I slept was the best in the house: one window looking eastward toward Cannes, the other straight out to the ocean, and the third onto a secluded cove--which as the sea gull flies, would be on its flight path to St. Tropez.

I awoke each morning to the glowing red sun rising over the city of Cannes and fell asleep each night to the rhythmic sound of the ocean. Along with a few other guests of the villa, we spent the day lounging by the pool, talking about our children, our husbands and mutual friends. When we tired of gossip and sun bathing, we walked down an ancient stone path to jump off the rocks and dive into the sparkling blue sea where we’d swim until the refreshing initial plunge started to chill us through like a bottle of wine pulled from a crystal ice bucket. We lazed our way through the evenings sipping champagne cocktails on the veranda and watching the glittering lights of Cannes come alive in the distance.

After a heavenly week on the Riviera, I hopped a British Airways flight to London, and the following day headed back to Heathrow where I boarded a United Airlines jumbo jet to the United States, enroute to visit Kelly who lives with her family in Central Illinois. Her house didn’t have a name or the spectacular ocean views, yet it was comfortable and inviting. Most importantly, I spent time with my college roommate, talking about our old friends in common and catching up on our two very different lives. After a few days there, we planned to attend our 20th college reunion, where--as my dad joked-- Kelly and I would “knock ‘em dead”. I think he was referring to the fact that we both still had it goin’ on.

At Kelly’s house I swam at the local country club pool; which putting it politely, was just a bit more chlorinated than the soft water of the Med. And instead of seeing schools of brightly coloured fish I swam above colored band-aids and floating mosquitoes. Even though the water wasn’t exactly crisp--more like bath water better suited to children’s swimming lessons, I still felt revitalized by the end of my workout.

As we were in farm country, I suggested to Kelly that I’d like to take her husband and three children to dinner at a local ‘steak joint’. Her husband, Tom, said that he knew of the perfect place, The MoonGlo; but it was a bar, a real bar, he emphasized. “Sure,” I said, wondering why he was smirking. “Let’s go for it.”
The drive through the cornfields brought back many found memories of my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, a time when there were still fields of corn growing and not acres of 4000 square foot homes sprouting from the earth. After about 20 minutes we approached “the bar.” The parking lot was full of motorcycles and pick-up trucks, but the smoky smell of meat barbequing on the grill was exactly what I‘d been salivating for.

We walked into a dark building with low ceilings and small windows. An electric red and blue Pabst Beer sign flickered from one window, and from another a small air-conditioner hummed, dripping water onto the cement floor. The metal tables were covered with wipe-down plastic covers. The waitress brought out a stack of paper plates, small white bar napkins and a pile of cutlery for us to place around the table. The laminated menus listed three cuts of steak, as well as hamburgers and cheeseburgers. The ‘sides’ consisted of an array of fried vegetables: mushrooms, onions, zucchini and French fries-- but since this was the heart of America we wouldn’t have dared referred to one of our dietary staples as anything French, so we called them Freedom Fries as they do in the cafeterias of the US Senate. Kelly and her family all ordered hamburgers, fries and onion rings, but I came for nothing except a thick, juicy steak.

The waitress told me that she’d put the steak on the grill, but that I’d have to cook it myself. Of course I thought she must be joking. I looked up at her with bewilderment, but my friends explained that this place was not only famous for great steaks, but also for their ‘grill your own’ policy. Okay, I thought, I’ll go with the program. I excused myself from the table and headed up to the grill situated next to the bar, which was rapidly filling up with men in sweaty t-shirts and work boots. From a five-gallon plastic bottle I poured a bit of yellowish, viscose liquid onto the steak, salted and peppered it and returned to my table to join my friends where we chit-chatted about our upcoming college reunion and our children’s summer activities.

Within a few minutes I heard our waitress shouting from the bar area, “Steak on fire! Steak on fire!” I snapped my head around, and sure enough, two-foot flames were shooting from my steak. I jumped up from the table, ran to the grill and grabbed a pair of metal tongs. I managed to grip the steak without burning myself and move it to another part of the grill; but the steak was still on fire. Thinking quickly, I pulled a pitcher of water from the bar and poured it onto the grill. The flames were extinguished within seconds and my steak was saved. But I almost didn’t get a chance to eat it.

From the tv hanging over the bar, a severe weather report was flashing on the screen. The winds outside had picked up and the sky had blackened. An emergency alert was now in effect, warning everyone to move away from the windows and into a stable part of the building, better yet into a basement. The wait staff and bartender were ready to pack it in but I came for a steak, and tornado or no tornado, I was going to eat it! Even though the heavy raindrops were pounding fiercely against the windows, the sky was not yet green, which from my past experience indicated an imminent funnel cloud, so I wasn’t too concerned. I looked over at my friends and they didn’t look too worried either. The children had dug into the basket of fries and Tom and Kelly were devouring their burgers. Within five minutes the winds had died down, and my steak was cooked to perfection.

My dining experiences on the Riviera were more than just an ocean and continent apart from those in Illinois. In France, when we weren’t dining on the villa’s open-aired veranda eating plates of fresh fish and drinking perfectly chilled blush wine, we were indulging our taste buds at a two-star Michelin restaurant called The Oasis. The setting and décor of this elegant restaurant--pale pink linens and subdued lighting--made me feel like I was ensconced in a pastel-colored cloud. Lush green plants and gently trickling waterfalls created a surreal ambiance that was only topped by the exquisitely prepared food.

The five-course meal started with a bowl of spring pea soup in a whipped cream base. Along with this delicious potage, a basket of warm bread and puffed pastries, baked from their wood-burning oven was passed around the table. I chose a cold succulent lobster placed over a bed of freshly picked vegetables and greens from their organic garden as my second course. The lobster was so sweet and creamy that if I weren’t looking at my plate I would have guessed that I was eating lobster ice cream. For my third course I ordered a locally caught fish drizzled in basil oil complimented by miniature vegetables and potatoes dauphinoise. This masterpiece was arranged on my plate like the work of a 19 century impressionist—but painted on Limoges china. Next came the cheese course that I ignored, because I had earlier spotted the dessert trolley laden with creamy cakes and fruit-filled pastries. After two of our guests sampled a variety of French cheeses, which I later learned were as sacred to the French diet as American-made cars are to Michigan, the dessert trolley rolled over to our table. The four of us agreed to split a chocolate cake. The warm liquid center oozed onto the plate when we cut into it; and after my first forkful I felt like I had drowned in Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. At this point none of us could eat another bite, but that didn’t stop another wave of sweets from flooding our table. With the coffee the waiter presented us a large glass bowl of puffy meringue cookies and a plate of hand-dipped chocolates. Even I have limits on how many culinary creations one can consume in a night, so I slipped a few of the pastel-colored cookies into my purse for my six-year old daughter. Very déclassé, I know, but she loved them.

Throughout the meal the wait staff, dressed in black suits and white gloves, was beyond attentive. Both the wine and the water were poured from a silver cradle and the warm bread continued to seamlessly appear on our plates, discreetly served to us from delicate silver tongs. Besides the food and ambiance, everything else about this meal differed drastically from my dining experience in Illinois.

In France, we discussed business deals in Bangalore, India and Lagos, Nigeria. Other topics of conversation included the Monaco Grand Prix and the post-parties at Jimmy’z where the minimum drink tab, including a bottle of water, was 78 Euros. In Illinois we talked about summer camp, swim team and our college days. At the end of each of meals, I walked away thinking that I had a great time laughing with my friends and enjoying fantastic food. The only major difference was that in Illinois I got off by paying less than fifty bucks, where as in France I had to take out a second mortgage.