Part 3: Dinner @ Trimalchios...
...From the Roman epic "Satyricon" by Petronius, Emperor Nero's "arbiter of elegance" and imperial sidekick.
This'll be my "foodie" sketch...
...I know, I know. I havent got to France yet. I'm still in Germany.
Ahem! (clears throat)
Never before having Summered in Germany I experience a "kleine" culture shock. Everyone's happy and...I know, I know! -it - oddly - sucks. I was all prepared for Weimar Dark, Metallica "kunst" and Kurt Weill soundtracks with stone vogue blondes singing: "Show me the way to the next Whiskey bar..."
But no. It's: "Ja, Dave! Try this cocktail: Die Swimming Pool."
You die.
...Happy-ish.
This takes place at a bar in Usingen called THE BLACK PEARL which, on discovering, I knock at the door and ask for "Capt Jack", and I'm allowed entry as long as I follow "the Code", which is/are more like "guidelines"...
...And I really would like to tell you more about this event but then I'd have (to kill you) to tell you about my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen and his sprawling garden because every time we rustle up a meal, here in the "schloss", Herr Graf (the Count) rushes into the "halle" sized kitchen with the native (?) produce, plucked right out of the local soil!
Liebstockel (Haggikraut) -for soup.
Salbei (sauce)
Kresse (sauce)
Estragon, for fish.
Thymian, good for meat dishes.
And, yay! -garlic, onions, tomatoes, radishes, ad infinitum.
Counting all that and with old friend (from Roman Holiday days), Sebastian, who catches Trout from nearby streams....with his bare hands....this sketch unfolds with all the expectations of a Tony Bourdain - No Reservations! - epicurean epiphany.
Don't hold your breath.
-Which, of course, is personal and resides - outside of Celeb-Chef TV-land - within your own Soul.
That's what it's there for.
So in your life OR future travels, "Capt, says I!", with eyes streaming from chopping onions and beating off Summer flies, perhaps you find your own time to take a breath and then start grating onions, garlic, ginger and prepping the proverbial skillet?
Bon appetite!...
PS: I'm really not missing the Denver Broncos, Nuggets and...what's the other team's name?
Oh, right. The Shotgun Willies!
(NB: For non-Denver readers: Shotgun Willies. A Strip Club in Glendale-Denver)
WATCH OUT FOR the next "Our Man in Europe" blog: "I STILL love Paris!"
Usingen. July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Saturday, July 31, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 2: SAALBURG, when it Sizzles!...
Part 2: SAALBURG, when it Sizzles!...
Going back to one's roots (Europe, of course) is like crackin' out the old vinyl record collection; you find your favorite tracks all scratched to blazes!
Every now and then you want to stomp on the floor to re-invigorate "ye olde stereo".
Similarly with WI-FI today, when your cherished www.myspace.com/davedelacroix jukebox tracks keep "buffering"...
It's enough to piss off the Pope!
Saalburg: A reconstructed Roman frontier castle, or Roman-Vietnam Fire-base. Walls, towers, statues of Emperor Hadrian, drinking wells, gift shops, postcards, etc., surrounded by dense forests and - in its day - the proverbial bogey-man
This time, NOT "Charlie": the Barbarians; probably you and me, actually.
The museum exhibits there are intrinsically spectacular. Planes -for smoothing wood: missed that one in History class. But, yup! -bad English. But our Roman forebears pretty much invented everything we now take for granted: Oysters on the half shell...and the "wunder" Bra!
Germany -post losing at World Cup Soccer (2010) is experiencing a heat wave, so the "Romischer-Kastle", re-created (1897 - 1907) from its ancient ruins, dosent really convey the misery of living in Denver c. AD-150 or Saalburg, Germany.
Like American kids who visit Washington D.C. or English kids with the Tower of London, my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, is familiar with this tourist trap: admission, 5 euros a'pop.
Note: Skip the Castle's "Bier-Haus" (way too tourist!) and, if you HAVE to bring children under the age of FIFTY-FIVE, you're an idiot!
Usingen, July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Going back to one's roots (Europe, of course) is like crackin' out the old vinyl record collection; you find your favorite tracks all scratched to blazes!
Every now and then you want to stomp on the floor to re-invigorate "ye olde stereo".
Similarly with WI-FI today, when your cherished www.myspace.com/davedelacroix jukebox tracks keep "buffering"...
It's enough to piss off the Pope!
Saalburg: A reconstructed Roman frontier castle, or Roman-Vietnam Fire-base. Walls, towers, statues of Emperor Hadrian, drinking wells, gift shops, postcards, etc., surrounded by dense forests and - in its day - the proverbial bogey-man
This time, NOT "Charlie": the Barbarians; probably you and me, actually.
The museum exhibits there are intrinsically spectacular. Planes -for smoothing wood: missed that one in History class. But, yup! -bad English. But our Roman forebears pretty much invented everything we now take for granted: Oysters on the half shell...and the "wunder" Bra!
Germany -post losing at World Cup Soccer (2010) is experiencing a heat wave, so the "Romischer-Kastle", re-created (1897 - 1907) from its ancient ruins, dosent really convey the misery of living in Denver c. AD-150 or Saalburg, Germany.
Like American kids who visit Washington D.C. or English kids with the Tower of London, my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, is familiar with this tourist trap: admission, 5 euros a'pop.
Note: Skip the Castle's "Bier-Haus" (way too tourist!) and, if you HAVE to bring children under the age of FIFTY-FIVE, you're an idiot!
Usingen, July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 1: "Verboten till Frankfurt!"
1) "Verboten till Frankfurt!"
So fare thee well ol' trucking days of yore. Farewell, oblique times; my thumb at attention on bleached, tattered, freeway On-ramps, launching pads to nowhere in particular, their recurring names: North, South, Truth and ALL its Consequences-New Mexico. Adios to my old accessories, shoulder bag, guitar hunchback, the perpetual "rollie" cigarette...
Now? I am older and somehow more dependant, though not quite at the level of Blanche Dubois.
ROLL FILM SOUNDTRACK: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."
-in the July 4th gridlock of airports, queuing, clutching E-tickets for check-ins with elephantine (SAMSONITE) "wheelie" bags, baggage fees, boarding cards, dignity stripped Homeland Security, from Denver to Chicago to...to Europe!
...And on today's fashion runway, Delacroix can be seen sporting laptops, E-books, cables, chargers and cell-phoned up to the gills, crammed into seat 48A of AIR INDIA's wide bodied 777, and SCREAMING - along with several infants - for that cigarette, "verboten" till Frankfurt!...
But then, on my arrival, old German friend, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, plucks me from the "flughafen" maze and beamers (BMW) me out into the deep greens and wood scented wilds of the oulying country of Hessen, through Grimm Brothers-fairytale villages of timber framed houses and spruce goose postcard, tourist attractions; an antithesis of geo-shock and awe.
...Pausing at a deserted forest lake for a beer and a smoke, Keatsian stillness (Do I wake, or sleep?) showers the senses and a new rhythm is born, whilst church bells from a nearby hamlet Christen this pastoral moment.
In a day or two the funny-tummy and jet-lag will be exorcised and rusted shackles of routine, the habit of accrued domesticity, will crumple at my feet.
At my host's ramshackle "schloss"-cum-farmhouse near the ancient town of Usingen, BITBURGERS, SICHER Pilsners, DRUM tobacco, dark breads, bier-wurst, handkas, prosciutto, schinken, kartoffel-salat, "blau und grune kase", are all to be enjoyed. We will dally with Weisen-bier, apfel-wein, Mosels, Rhien-gau's and dry "Sec": Deutsche champagne. The Backerai, the Fleischer, grated "fenschel"...in peppers, herbs, "essig" and olive oil.
Such feastings are common here, morning, noon and night, and friends - old and new - with guitars "ist befehl" (are always "de rigeur"), so later, in the candle swathed wee hours when my turn comes to play, red-eyed but willing, I forego Willie Nelson's "On the Road, again" and render an old folk tune from Beatles-land:
"It's not the leaving of Liverpool
that grieves me,
but me' darling, when I think
of thee..."
Let the Games begin!
Merzhausen, July 2010
c 2010. All rights reserved. Dave Delacroix/Our Man in Europe.
So fare thee well ol' trucking days of yore. Farewell, oblique times; my thumb at attention on bleached, tattered, freeway On-ramps, launching pads to nowhere in particular, their recurring names: North, South, Truth and ALL its Consequences-New Mexico. Adios to my old accessories, shoulder bag, guitar hunchback, the perpetual "rollie" cigarette...
Now? I am older and somehow more dependant, though not quite at the level of Blanche Dubois.
ROLL FILM SOUNDTRACK: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."
-in the July 4th gridlock of airports, queuing, clutching E-tickets for check-ins with elephantine (SAMSONITE) "wheelie" bags, baggage fees, boarding cards, dignity stripped Homeland Security, from Denver to Chicago to...to Europe!
...And on today's fashion runway, Delacroix can be seen sporting laptops, E-books, cables, chargers and cell-phoned up to the gills, crammed into seat 48A of AIR INDIA's wide bodied 777, and SCREAMING - along with several infants - for that cigarette, "verboten" till Frankfurt!...
But then, on my arrival, old German friend, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, plucks me from the "flughafen" maze and beamers (BMW) me out into the deep greens and wood scented wilds of the oulying country of Hessen, through Grimm Brothers-fairytale villages of timber framed houses and spruce goose postcard, tourist attractions; an antithesis of geo-shock and awe.
...Pausing at a deserted forest lake for a beer and a smoke, Keatsian stillness (Do I wake, or sleep?) showers the senses and a new rhythm is born, whilst church bells from a nearby hamlet Christen this pastoral moment.
In a day or two the funny-tummy and jet-lag will be exorcised and rusted shackles of routine, the habit of accrued domesticity, will crumple at my feet.
At my host's ramshackle "schloss"-cum-farmhouse near the ancient town of Usingen, BITBURGERS, SICHER Pilsners, DRUM tobacco, dark breads, bier-wurst, handkas, prosciutto, schinken, kartoffel-salat, "blau und grune kase", are all to be enjoyed. We will dally with Weisen-bier, apfel-wein, Mosels, Rhien-gau's and dry "Sec": Deutsche champagne. The Backerai, the Fleischer, grated "fenschel"...in peppers, herbs, "essig" and olive oil.
Such feastings are common here, morning, noon and night, and friends - old and new - with guitars "ist befehl" (are always "de rigeur"), so later, in the candle swathed wee hours when my turn comes to play, red-eyed but willing, I forego Willie Nelson's "On the Road, again" and render an old folk tune from Beatles-land:
"It's not the leaving of Liverpool
that grieves me,
but me' darling, when I think
of thee..."
Let the Games begin!
Merzhausen, July 2010
c 2010. All rights reserved. Dave Delacroix/Our Man in Europe.
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