Taste Hawaii: Savoring Alan Wong’s fresh farm-to-table feast

by Don George on

On a recent trip to Oahu, my wife and I had the excellent fortune to dine at Alan Wong’s eponymous restaurant in Honolulu. Consistently named one of the best restaurants in Hawaii, Alan Wong’s has been at the forefront of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement since its founding in 1995. Our farm-to-table, fusion feast featured a number of dishes that embody the chef’s culinary quest to showcase Hawaii’s fresh food products and its marvelous mélange of culinary cultures. Virtually every dish was a compact lesson in taste, texture, and tradition.

Our favorites included such signature concoctions as the Soup and Sandwich, a stemmed glass filled with chilled vine-ripened Hamakua Springs tomato soup presented with a yin-yang design, crowned with a parmesan cheese crisp and atop it a mini-kalua pig foie gras and mozzarella sandwich; Butter-Poached Kona Lobster, savory chunks of lobster served in a sauce of green onion oil with flavorful morsels of Hamakua Heritage eryngi mushrooms; North Shore Tilipia on a bed of local saimin noodles with Naked Cow Dairy lobster truffle butter nage; Ginger Crusted Onaga with piquant miso sesame vinaigrette, Hamakua mushrooms and sweet corn from Kahuku; Crab “Tofu” Agedashi, consisting of a tofu-like spanner crab mousse with Kona lobster medallions and plump lumps of crab meat, served with kudzu dashi; and a delightful dessert called The Coconut – scrumptious coconut meat-like haupia sorbet served in a chocolate “coconut” shell, surrounded by tropical fruits in a lilikoi sauce. Yum!

%Gallery-140566%Before our feast we had devoured Chef Alan’s 2010 book “The Blue Tomato,” which beautifully showcases both his culinary art and his life philosophy. So our dining experience was enhanced by the knowledge that he is a passionate and idealistic chef/entrepreneur, who goes out of his way to support sustainability efforts in Hawaii and to mentor and inspire his staffers to dream big. The aloha energy that he pours into his cuisine and co-workers seemed to fill the restaurant that night; from the warm, knowledgeable, and infectiously enthusiastic kitchen and wait staffers to the companionably oohing-and-aahing diners, everyone seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

After our feast, I looked more deeply into Chef Alan’s background. Born in Japan and raised in Hawaii, he worked his way through the kitchen trade, first at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, then at Lutèce in New York City, and finally at The CanoeHouse on the Big Island of Hawai’i before opening his restaurant in Honolulu in 1995. Since then, he has won the James Beard Award and was one of 10 chefs in the United States nominated by the Wedgewood Awards for the title of World Master of Culinary Arts. Bon Appétit has recognized him as the “Master of Hawai’i Regional Cuisine,” and Alan Wong’s Restaurant has been ranked by Gourmet twice. It is also the only restaurant in Honolulu that appears in the Top 10 of America’s Best 50 Restaurants. In addition to “The Blue Tomato,” he is also the author of “New Wave Luau” and is a 10-time winner of the Hale ‘Aina “Restaurant of the Year” and Ilima “Best Restaurant” Awards in Hawai’i.

Inspired in general by the emphasis on ethnic fusion cuisine and farm-to-table practices we found in Hawaii and in particular by Chef Alan’s attitude and achievements, I asked if he would do an email interview with me. He graciously agreed. Here’s our conversation:

DG: Did you cook when you were a child?

AW: No, but my mom was a great cook. Her cooking taught me a lot about seasoning, and she showed me the value of not wasting anything in the kitchen.

Who have been your principal culinary mentors and inspirations?

Andre Soltner, Chef Proprietor, and Christian Bertrand, Chef de Cuisine at the Lutece Restaurant, in New York City, when I worked there; Mark Erickson, chef at the Greenbrier Hotel when I did my apprenticeship there; and Joe Kina, instructor at Kapiolani Community College where I went to culinary school.

What first inspired you to create the cuisine you are now famous for?

Being the Chef de Cuisine at The CanoeHouse Restaurant at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, opening it in 1989. Meeting all the farmers on the Big Island and using their products, and being charged with creating Hawaii Regional Cuisine with 11 other chefs from across the state. HRC was born in 1991, and we have been celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

You mention “being charged with creating Hawaii Regional Cuisine with 11 other chefs from across the state.” How did HRC come about? Was it a spontaneous creation of island chefs or was it something that was proposed from some outside source such as the Hawaii Tourism Board and then adopted by the chefs?

Originally twelve chefs got together just to “enjoy the party” for a change instead of providing the party all the time. We established HRC Inc. for two reasons. The first was to help develop an agricultural network in the state with the help of the Department of Agriculture. We did this by divulging all of our farmers and purveyors whom we bought produce from. Our second goal was to promote Hawaii’s culinary scene so that tourists and locals would know that there was a different new cuisine of Hawaii evolving and developing.

What are the primary characteristics/ingredients of traditional Hawaiian cuisine?

The word “Hawaiian” refers to an ethnic group entirely on its own. They originally came from the South Pacific islands. They ate a lot of raw fish dishes. They cooked in an underground imufrom which kalua pig is most famous today. They grilled on hot rocks, called pulehu. Now we have iron, so we cook on hibachis. They placed food in the imubesides the whole pig, and that method is steaming today. Another method of steaming was known as lawalu, where a fish or meat is steamed in tileaves over the fire. Taro turned into poi was the main starch. For seasoning, the Hawaiians would use inamona(roasted kukui, or candlenut), sea salt, and seaweed.

What are the primary characteristics/ingredients of contemporary Hawaiian cuisine?

Hawaii (without the “an” at the end) Regional Cuisine is a contemporary cuisine that borrows from all the ethnic cuisines found in the islands today. To Taste Hawaii, we utilize as much locally grown and raised product as possible to feature what we have — the fish from our waters, grass-fed beef and lamb, local eggs, dairy, pork.

How important are fruits and vegetables to HRC, and how much do these vary from season to season? That is, because of Hawaii’s climate, are the same produce products available throughout the year, or are there seasonal differences and specialties?

We have two seasons in Hawaii, rain and sunshine, or another joke is mango season and no mango season. Fruits and vegetables play a big role in the cuisine. We have the best mangoes in the world when in season. Pineapples are best from here and do not travel well. Tropical fruits grow well here and for the most part, because of our weather, we can enjoy a vine-ripened tomato all year round.

What are the goals of the fusion cuisine you are seeking to create?

The most important things are flavor, good taste, having a sense of place, and featuring the food, not your ego.

Could you take one of your favorite fusion dishes/creations and “deconstruct” it: What are the different elements in terms of ingredients that go into it? How are these prepared and put together? Which cuisine traditions are you combining in this dish?

Ginger Crusted Onaga was inspired by childhood memories of Chinese cold ginger chicken. The miso sesame vinaigrette that goes with it is Japanese inspired. Combining ethnic flavors together comes naturally to me; the most important thing is that it has good flavor.

Are there any special techniques you use in creating this cuisine?

Most of the techniques are influenced by European techniques and French training. The different ethnic cooking styles, flavors, ingredients, and techniques do come into play and using the Hawaiian influence is important to me.

What’s the biggest challenge of creating Hawaii Regional Cuisine?

Your own imagination and creativity

What most excites you about the culinary scene in Hawaii today?

It is still growing and evolving, so there’s a lot to look for in Hawaii. Today the popularity of farmers markets is growing. People can go to the markets and meet the people who grow their food, and they can get products that are much fresher because they come from the source. There’s more variety in what’s available. Twenty years ago when Hawaii Regional Cuisine was first started, we didn’t have products like locally grown mushrooms, hearts of palm, abalone, chocolate, and vanilla. As more farmers continue to grow a wider variety of products, we as chefs can continue to be inspired by what’s fresh, local, and in season.

In your mind, how is Hawaiian cuisine related to Hawaiian culture?

Family is important, sharing food, talking story at the table. Aloha means many things: doing the right thing, to make things right, to have the right intentions. Hawaii’s multi-ethnic cuisine begins from the immigrant plantation days. Most of the immigrants came from Asia, so the local people are a mixed bag. When you are raised in Hawaii eating local food, you find that the source comes from this time, and it is heavily Asian influenced. Most of the food comes from a poor time and so something like the “Plate Lunch” is born out of necessity to fill your stomach so that you can go out and work again tomorrow. It has evolved quite a bit today.

What’s your favorite food memory?

I don’t have a particular one, however, cooking for Chef Andre Soltner every day for his dinner with his wife taught me so many valuable lessons that helped create who I am today professionally.

Is there a special goal or project you are working on now?

We plan to open another restaurant on Maui, partnering with the Grand Wailea Hotel. It will be called Amasia, featuring small plates and family-style fare. We’re hoping to open it in early spring 2012.

[Photos by Kuniko George]

Gadling’s Don George wins Society of American Travel Writers award

by Grant Martin on

Narrative travel writing is an important component to any site working in the travel space. While clicks and viral attention tend to come from the shorter, service-oriented pieces, the goal of any travel site should be to inspire and the provoke travel and thoughts about travel. Narrative travel writing is the best way to do that.

That’s why we initially brought in Don George as our features editor at Gadling. He’s a legend among the travel community, with past appointments at Lonely Planet and the San Francisco Chronicle among his myriad accomplishments. He’s also well connected in the travel community and most importantly, an exceptionally talented writer and editor.

That talent was recently recognized by the Society of American Travel Writers in their annual Lowell Thomas Awards for a piece that Don wrote on Gadling called The Aeroramme and the Email. Don’s piece took a silver award in the “Short article on Travel” category, and he also took a bronze award home for Making Roof Tiles in Peru written for Recce: Literary Journeys for the Discerning Traveler in the “Personal Comment” category.

We’re proud to have Don as part of our team on Gadling and aspire to produce more award-winning content in the coming year. Congratulations, Mr. George. You’re an inspiration to team Gadling.

Lynn Ferrin, travel writing, and the meaning of life

by Don George on

I recently attended a memorial service for a great friend and a great writer, editor and adventurer who passed away this summer at the age of 73. Her name was Lynn Ferrin, and for 37 years she was an editor at the AAA magazine in northern California; she was the editor in chief for the last seven of those years. For most of these almost four decades the circulation of that magazine was between 2 and 3 million, and by that reckoning Lynn was one of the most influential editors and writers of her lifetime.

The service began with a procession of friends reading excerpts from Lynn’s own travel articles, most of those published in the magazine she edited and in the local newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, when I was travel editor and when our friend John Flinn became travel editor after me.

Three of the pieces read were stories that Lynn had written for me, for a quarterly travel magazine that I was privileged to edit for many years called Great Escapes. It was these stories that inspired this essay. All three of these pieces – one about exploring Morocco on an equestrian tour from Meknes to Fes, one about searching for tortoises on a grueling expedition to the rim of Alcedo Volcano on the Galapagos island of Isabela, and one about riding by horseback across the plains of Inner Mongolia – were magnificent; they were not only beautifully evoked descriptions of particular travel experiences, they were also meditations on the meaning of those experiences and by extension, on the larger meaning of life.

Listening to those stories being read, I had two reactions: The first was viscerally recalling the thrill I had felt as an editor upon opening the envelopes Lynn had sent me, holding her meticulously typed and double-spaced manuscripts in my hands, and reading her words for the first time. The frisson of exhilaration coursed through me again, the pure thrill of mentally moving through a piece that transported me first to an entirely foreign place and experience and then back to my own place and experience in the world, and seeing these anew. My second reaction was the thought that both Lynn and I had been the recipients of an extraordinary gift, that as the editor of a quarterly travel magazine in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, I had been able to offer writers an almost unlimited canvas on which to paint their word pictures, and that as a writer for that magazine, Lynn had been able to lovingly paint the pictures she wanted to paint, to shoot for the stars in her writing, to dream big and to have the space to realize that dream.Since that memorial, these thoughts have been whirling inside me, and I have been feeling that travel writing today is somehow diminished in this regard. Perhaps it always has been so diminished and I was just lucky enough to inhabit a small corner of the travel writing universe where it wasn’t. Or perhaps it isn’t so diminished today and I’m simply looking in the wrong places.

I know that great, ambitious, star-reaching writing is still being published here and there and I’m still exhilarated when I find it. But it occurs to me now that really every piece of travel writing should be about the meaning of life. It doesn’t have to be the central theme of the piece – it shouldn’t be the central theme of the piece – but it should be a filament of the story. To my mind that’s the subject that great travel writing – like great travel itself – is ultimately all about: what is the condition of our journey, what is the point, what do we learn from each trip, what pieces of the vast puzzle do we bring back with us, what notes and hints and intimations about the broader picture of it all.

If as a writer you approach travel writing thinking in this way, you can see how just about any story – whether a piece on the best taco stands in Taxco or an exploration of off-the-beaten-track Bhutan – can be about the meaning of life. It’s really up to the writer (and of course the editor): If you give yourself permission to think that big, to put your subject in that context, you create a richer, deeper, more meaningful experience for your reader. Your piece is about the best taco places in Taxco – and about the place of tacos in the larger worlds of Mexico, and eating, and humanity; about the role of craftsmanship in food preparation; about the importance of passion and adherence to high standards in any craft; about the value of the passionate enjoyment of a simple meal. All of these are filaments that tie us to a much larger story – the purpose of our lives, the meaning underlying our journeys every day, at home and away. These are filaments that only we as writers can spin, and to do so, we have to prod ourselves, and give ourselves permission, to spin them.

Lynn brought this larger sense to her writing, I realized again at her memorial. She infused her pieces with the wonder that was at the core of her life’s journey, with the big-heartedness, big-mindedness and sense of limitlessness that graced her days – and that graced all of us who knew her. She brought these gifts to her writing, she dared to reach far and dream big in her stories – she dared to write about the meaning of life. And because she did so, she touched all of us in big, and deep, ways.

This is what we all need to do as travel writers, I think now. We need to dream big, think big, fling out filaments that tie our travels to a wider perspective. Our work matters only as much as we make it matter, and we need to write pieces that matter. We need to honor ourselves and our readers in this way. We need to honor the act of writing and the act of connecting – connecting with the world when we travel, and connecting with our readers when we write. In the same way that we look for the interlocking pieces of the whole, we also need to be those pieces – we need to interlock, article to article, reader to reader, becoming a part of the vast puzzle we seek to understand and replicate.

It’s a high and daunting calling – and thank god for that. Why waste our days aiming low and taking no chances? At her memorial service, Lynn once again – as she had so many times in the years before – showed me anew how we are all interconnected, and how we are only as big as the bridges we build, the ambitions we seed, the dreams we seek. We are only as big as the world we dare to make. In Lynn’s case, as in the case of all great travel writing, that world is still expanding.

[Flickr image via Francesco Magoga Photography]

Starry, starry night: Notes on an edible epiphany in Burgundy

by Don George on

It all began with the carpaccio. I don’t hate carpaccio, but when given another choice on a menu – fermented yak tail, say – I’m likely to choose the alternative. So I wasn’t really expecting much when the tuxedo’d waiter ceremoniously placed the plate with a generous disc of raw beef, sliced mushrooms and a confetti of foie gras before me.

And then I put a forkful in my mouth. And the world moved.

The combination of textures and tastes was astonishing – smooth and rough, salty and sweet, lean-beefy and fat-foie-grasy and smoky-musky-mushroomy. An edible epiphany.

For a moment I simply savored the symphony in my mouth. Then I said to the Splendid Sixsome, “I love it when a dish teaches me something about food.”

And that’s how my recent feast at a three-star Michelin restaurant began.

* * *

The restaurant was Jean-Michel Lorain’s establishment at the soul-soothing Relais et Châteaux property La Côte Saint-Jacques, in Joigny, northwestern Burgundy, France. I was there with four fellow travel writers and two press trip hosts, one from the French national tourism office and one from the Burgundy regional tourism bureau.

We had arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport that morning from the U.S., taken a van to the Gare de Lyon in Paris, then hopped a slow train to Joigny, where another van took us through the tiny-in-population and huge-in-charm town to the hotel.

After a break to freshen up, we’d toured the property, then repaired to a terrace overlooking the placid Yonne River, with the green fields of Burgundy and the century-old stone buildings of Joigny shimmering in the late afternoon sun.

Our celebration began with an aperitif of Rose Champagne that shimmered in its flute like a liquid sunset with bubbles.

Accompanying the Champagne was a little rectangular plate with a quartet of variations on egg: a wonton-like pillow stuffed with quail egg and leek, an anchovy and pepper-tomato-omelette combo, fluffed egg whites with red wine served in an egg shell, and a fruit-dotted flan-like dollop in a shot glass.

We sat on the timeless terrace and sipped and supped and sighed. The air was as soft as the light, the light as rosy as the aperitif, the aperitif as bubbly as the bonhomie. The world oozed tranquility.

* * *

And then we repaired to the elegant and airy dining room.

That room was a beguiling combination of warmth and exquisite taste, but what really took my breath away were the ceramic plate settings and matching bread plates, which reminded me of treasures I’d found in Japan. These asymmetrical pieces were designed with wavy, grainy white frames around a pastel blue-green-purple central square. Each piece, we were told, was individually crafted and fired by François Guéneau, a well-known craftsman from nearby Noyers sur Serein. They were such beautiful works of art that I wanted to take them home. Already I loved the restaurant!

* * *

Our formal feast began with an amuse-bouche: two thumb-sized slices of lobster arranged at the tail end of a purple and yellow wave of pureed potato. The pliant, sweet lobster meat was perfectly complemented by the smooth, settling puree. My bouche was extremely amused.

Then came the “Carpaccio de Bœuf et Foie Gras de Canard aux Cèpes” – and nothing was ever the same again.

A dish that artful, so knowingly concocted as a symphony of sensations and savors, makes you realize that a great chef is as much an artist as a composer or a choreographer. From a menu of almost infinite options, he first chooses the ingredients, then plans and executes the preparation of each ingredient, then sculpts their presentation into a visually and gustatorily harmonious whole. The proof was on the platter: It looked enticing, it smelled seductive, it felt wonderfully yin-and-yangy in the mouth, and it tasted orgasmic. That was the beginning of my education in what makes a three-star chef.

“I love it when a dish teaches me something about food,” I said, and the Splendid Sixsome murmured in assent, each lost in their own version of haute cuisine heaven.

* * *

The wonders continued with the fish course: slow-cooked skate wing served in a broth spiced with coconut milk and kafir lime, tomato confit and sauteed seasonal vegetables. We exclaimed over the presentation: a foamy pool swimming with bits of skate and vegetables, with an actual part of the skate bone rising like a fin out of the pool. And the taste! A touch of the tropics, a swash of the northern sea – transporting.

As the best meals do, the evening took on its own rhythm, the conversation ebbing and flowing, bursts of passionate chatter giving way to languorous stretches of silence as we savored new tastes.

Up to this course, the theatricality of the evening had resided mostly in the plates themselves. But the next course amped up the culinary drama: Two gentlemen in tuxedoes rolled out a sleek black tray on which was perched a casserole wearing what appeared to be a huge overflowing pastry hat. This was the “Poularde de Bresse à la Vapeur de Champagne” – Bresse Chicken Steamed in Champagne. The first thing we learned with this course is that appellations don’t apply only to wines; all manner of foodstuffs can have appellations, including chickens. And this particular bantam hen was from one of the most prized appellations – Bresse. It’s all about the terroir.

Our fabulous fowl had been slow-steamed in Champagne in a casserole that had been hermetically sealed with a dough covering – the aforementioned floppy hat. The waiter in the black bow tie held the tray while the waiter in the red bow tie raised a gleaming knife and fork and ceremonially pierced the dough that had prevented any molecule of Champagne escaping. When the top of the dough hat had been removed, the pot was ceremoniously presented to the table, brought from diner to diner so that we could peer in at the pale, plump, Champage-sotted fowl and ooh and aah.

Then the bird was returned to the tray, and the gent in the red bow tie lifted it out of its redolent pot and placed it on a wooden cutting board, where he proceeded to vigorously saw it into serving-sized pieces. In Act Three of this drama the fowl was whisked away and in Act Four it miraculously reappeared moments later artfully arranged on round platters in a creamy sauce with little pellets of corn, carrot and squash. The fowl was tender and flavorful but what really astonished me was the sauce. It reminded me of the great French Old School sauces in its rich layerings of taste — but without the artery-clogging consistency. This was simply the best sauce I could ever recall eating. Had I not been in such elegant surroundings, I would have picked up my platter and licked it. I almost did. Instead, I used my roll to sop up every last savory soupcon.

By now, the Splendid Sixsome was purring contentedly. And sharing what we’d learned about three-star splendour: that it’s the sum of all its parts and more — the location and setting of the restaurant, the design of the dining room and the plates and the silverware, the choreography of the evening, the attentiveness, precision and warmth of the servers, the harmonious procession and presentation of the courses, and of course the look and feel and taste of the culinary creations themselves. A three-star dining experience is a composite of all these things, we agreed.

* * *

At this point we probably should have gone for a brisk row on the Yonne, but instead the gentlemen in the bow ties reappeared, wheeling in an elaborate sideboard that showcased more than 20 cheeses, most from the region. I sampled a half dozen — soft and hard, goat and cow. All were delicious, but the one I taste most vividly still is the Epoisses, a proud cheese made in the Burgundian village of the same name (a cheese which, Wikipedia has since informed me, Napoleon was particularly fond of, and which the famous epicure Brillat-Savarin classed as the “king of all cheeses”). The Epoisses had a creamy tang that tasted like a sunny summer pasture in the mouth – and that seemed the perfect end to the spectrum of flavors we’d enjoyed.

But no, the true climax was still to come: a delicate dessert of rose-infused ice cream served in a pastry tulip basket with crystallized rose petals. Our colleague Krista characterized eating this dish as “an out-of-body experience.” To me it was like eating pure rose petals that had somehow been transmuted into a sweet cool creamy confection. A midsummer night’s dream.
By the end of dessert the Splendid Sixsome had slipped into a kind of post-coital collective culinary stupor. Had this been a French film, we would all have been smoking cigarettes.
But it wasn’t. So instead we waddled onto the terrace, where the air was still caressingly warm and soft, and where the universe had spread out its own visual feast. We sighed one grand collective sigh. And the stars shone bright in Burgundy.

* * *

Edittor’s note: This trip was hosted by Atout France, the French Tourism Development Agency; Air France; Rail Europe; the Burgundy Tourism Office; and the Champagne-Ardenne Tourism Office. All the ecstasies expressed herein are entirely the author’s.

Fore more information on La Côte Saint-Jacques, including room rates, menus and prices: http://cotesaintjacques.com/en/

[raspberry flickr image via JSmith Photo]

In San Francisco, savoring a slice of heaven on France’s Cote d’Azur

by Don George on


September 20, 2011 — I’m sitting on the sun-washed terrace of La Terrasse restaurant in San Francisco‘s gorgeous green Presidio. It’s a spectacular Indian summer day, with the rays warming my bones and the bay sparkling in the distance under a cerulean sky. All around me, California Mission-style buildings – pale yellow walls, curving arches, terra-cotta roof tiles – shine.

I’ve been eating escargots and poulet roti avec pommes frites, and sipping a crisp Loire Valley Sancerre, celebrating because in a week I’ll be in la belle France, exploring the regions of Burgundy and Champagne. Moments ago I was poring over the itinerary, giddy at the prospect of traveling once again in the country that changed my life decades ago. Suddenly this combination – the frisson of anticipation, the dejeuner francais, and the sun, roof tiles and glinting waters beyond — concocted a terraced time machine-magic, and I was transported to a sunny scene 18 summers before, and a time-stopping, life-enlarging afternoon at the singular – and to my mind, sacred – restaurant called La Colombe d’Or, in St.-Paul-de-Vence, on France‘s Cote d’Azur….

I am ensconced under a white parasol at a red bouquet-brightened table, looking out on a somnolent scene of green hills and straw-colored houses with terra-cotta roofs.

I have just finished a plate of green melon and jambon de Parme, and now the waiter has placed before me with a flourish a platter of grilled sea bream, known locally as daurade.

Around me is a symphony of sounds: the clink of silverware on china, the splash of wine into glasses, the mellifluous laughter and multilingual chatter of diners in summery clothes.

We are all caught up in a buoyant bubble of bonte and bonhomie — a celebration of life’s bounty and of our own good fortune to be sharing it on this sun-dappled summer terrace in the middle of one of the most blessed places on Earth.

Little slices of lemon float in the pitcher of water on my table, and as I take another sip of wine and contemplate the still life — “”Daurade with green beans and rice” — before me, I feel a little like floating, too.

To my left is a vibrant Leger mural, wrought into a section of the terrace’s streetside wall. And straight ahead are the rustic interior rooms of this celebrated hotel-restaurant, where I wandered a half hour ago in search of a restroom and instead found an astonishment of modern masterpieces — canvases by Modigliani, Bonnard, Dufy, Utrillo, Chagall, Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Miro, among others, all given by the artists when they were still struggling unknowns to the generous and perspicacious owner, Paul Roux, in lieu of payment.

This place is an enchanted little world, I think — reluctant to take fork to fish, reluctant even to move, wanting to hold and savor this moment forever.

Awaiting me, I know, is a medieval meander through St.-Paul; an espresso at the Cafe de la Place, where I will watch local gentlemen enact their afternoon rite of boules; and then the piney Fondation Maeght, with its incomparable open-air display of modern art.

But for now the world is wondrously reduced to this: the sunlight catching in the canopy of branches above and blessing the hills beyond, the murmuring music of the diners behind me, the perfume of the flowers mingling with the scents of the chef’s seasonings, the exuberant atmosphere of artwork all around, the cobbled stones beneath me, the fish and bread before me, the wine as red as the flowers, the tablecloth as white as the parasol; an ineffable moment of ease and artfulness, a soul-fulfilling scene of life lived to the full — the whole afternoon floating like a lemon in a pitcher of Evian, a little slice of heaven on the Cote d’Azur.

[flickr image via Wolfgang Staudt]