There are other meals that were memorable - that time I was berated by a monk while in food
tent in Bangkok; that time in Umbria, Italy when I sat looking at the lake where Hannibal was
routed by Flavius during the first Punic War while I ate local prosciutto and cheese, and drank local
prosecco; that time I drank mulled wine and ate breaded pork with my friend Winston in Budapest
during an Easter celebration and we were subjected to Renaissance re-enactors such as guy on stilts
and juggling dwarf (sorry - little person); that time when I was a child when my family took a train
trip in Australia from Sydney to Canberra on which we ate a simple breakfast of cereal and milk;
that time I befriended a Swiss couple and a Dutch kid in Florence and we four went to a little
osteria where I had a boar meat pasta and we capped the night off at our hostel by drinking grappa
with a guy who was surreptitiously crashing in our place without paying; that time I ate a donner
kabob mit broche (meat slowly cooked on a spit then sliced off and sandwich using a folded piece of
bread) and drank a pilsner on Unter Der Linden boulevard in Berlin in front of Brandenburg Gate
where the Nazis once paraded and Ronald Reagan defiantly ordered Gorbachev to "Tear down this
wall"; that time when I was eating fried pork in Prague by myself and was befriended by a group of
young German guys celebrating their friend's graduation from medical school - and we later met up
at a local Hooters to watch a Bundesliga soccer match; and other such times that I will cherish.
As you might have noticed, there were not cherished memories of feasting at haute cuisine
restaurants like Noma, like El Bulli, like French Laundry, or like Nobu. In fact, I don't aspire to eat at
those places, celebrated as they might be. The way I travelled doesn't let me make reservations way
in advance. I was freestyling. Testing my resourcefulness through a little progressive resilience. Yes I
can have tapas or curry udon without all the schlepping – but really, where’s the fun in that?
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THE CONE - ISSUE #7 - FALL 2015