from MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL FEBRUARY 1, 1999

On the weekend we ate

at an Italian restaurant in Appleton and at an East Indian restaurant in Milwaukee. Friday night we ate American, definitely American, at Country Kitchen in Ripon. With only an hour's drive, or an hour and a half, we can travel 'round the world. Actually we have brought the world to us, haven't we?

There are so many who live in this village, so many I work with, who would not be interested in some of the foods, some of the cultures which interest Mary and me. Why is that? Why can one Iowa farm boy find a hunger for the great wide world, while so many others do not? I'm not going to argue that a wide and catholic taste is morally superior to that which is more circumscribed, but I would say at least that it is more interesting. Notice that "interest" is the operative word here, and what interests me - for whatever combination of reasons - may interest no one else in the region or in the world. Certainly it is not a moral question. Yet how can you understand "other" when you don't know anything of it? I might argue that wide understanding is morally superior.

Well, then, how can I be so intensely interested in the local? Actually, I'd say an abiding interest in the particular of a particular region - ours, here - is a good doorway to other regions as well. If I don't know my own land, how can I recognize another land? Perhaps, conversely, those who have little interest in the outside world also have little interest in this country round-about. If the door is closed, it is closed for everything perhaps.

It is a mild and pleasant morning. Ice is frozen in the driveway, but the air does not feel so cold as that. It is a modest breeze. Snow and ice have mostly disappeared from our driveway. The plow banks along the curbs are still knee-deep or deeper. Here and there, a green circle at the base of many trees where the snow has moved back from them.

In the country a bit of haze is hiding the distance. A flock of Canadian geese are set down on a field, the birds walking on snow. What are they looking for here, now?

A farmstead in the distant haze is as indistinct as my memories of my youth.

Crow makes his run. He is heading east. He is looking for the sun. He is looking for warmth. The reservoir of his black heart does not warm him this morning.

Comments

[susurra]

I was very surprised to read you had access to an East Indian restaurant but of course its not so far to any place in the world anymore, especially when you can order things on the internet as well. But yes, then there's the question of interest. A bit of the experimentation and risk taking, and a bit of sensory attention required, I guess. I remember moving from Los Angeles to Eugene in 1981, and lamenting the lack of ethnic restaurants, but then, we just learned to cook the things we missed. What I miss having most in Portland is good pupusas. I did track some down, but they just didn't taste as good. (they are salvadorean patties of corn meal and ground meat or cheese served with a slaw and incindiary hot sauce)

[Tom Montag]

Ah, yes, susurra - one must learn to cook those things he loves if they are not otherwise at hand. Mary and I both do some Indian dishes, and I've been making my own Thai Mussaman curry for years. We still haven't yet made Pad Thai as good as you can get in restaurants, however. Some part of its essence eludes me, even with the recipe in front of me.

I haven't yet learned to made the sopes like we find in Cozumel, but I will. Sopes are used like tortillas, but they are made of cornmeal, are thicker, and get crisped on the bottom on a hot stove. The Iowa farm boy loves corn in any form, especially as sopes!