Man makes chicken with pears

Not just any man; the coolest man in the universe.

White grape gazpacho

The above-mentioned soup has been on my mind since I ordered it at Botticelli's in Austin two weeks ago. A quick Google™ produced many recipes with this name, but none seemed quite right; they had scallions and cream cheese, or tomatillos and rice-wine vinegar.

Doubtless they were tasty, but they didn't sound likely to produce the result I was craving: a light, clean, sweet flavor.

And then I came across a Chowhound recipe for minted cucumber soup with toasted walnuts. It was close enough in philosophy that I could get the basics and use my own ingredients.

My version of white grape gazpacho, then, goes like this:

1/2 cup cucumber, peeled, seeded, diced
3 cups white seedless grapes
4 oz plain nonfat yogurt
3 tbsp sliced almonds, toasted, ground
4-5 medium mint leaves
2 tbsp white wine (optional)
Baby mint leaves and almond slices for decoration

In a blender, mix cucumber and grapes together. Add half the yogurt, the mint leaves and the ground almonds; blend until smooth. Pass liquid through a sieve; discard pulp. Add remaining yogurt and wine to the liquid and blend again. Chill for at least an hour before serving. Finish with a few almond slivers and a teeny sprig of mint. Makes about two cups. Easy peasy.



I made this for last night's dinner, followed by a salade Niçoise with fresh tuna, which I was also intending to photograph for posterity. But after searing the tuna, I managed to wreck my brand-new, three-day-old Cuisinart frying pan (dumbly forgetting that the extra-thick bottom meant it retained heat longer, I set it down on a plastic cutting board and managed to unite the two for eternity). So I was just too sad ...

(I also forgot to include the snails bought specifically for the salad. I know they'd make it even more inauthentic, but they looked so, so tasty.)

Zebra Attack: The Movie

A few thoughts on Texas (food division)

Lambert’s in Austin is a great place for a barbecue lunch. The sides include mac ‘n’ cheese, finished under the broiler so the top gets a melty crust; and collards with salty nuggets of bacon. Amazing pulled pork and fork-tender brisket.





Austin WholeFoods carries family-size portions: gallon tubs of nut butter, sacks of black beans, monster bags of tortillas. Also ground chorizo. Also fresh quince and carambola. Also clothing and housewares. The basement-level parking lot is redolent with the smell of barbecue, which is wonderful unless your recent brisket lunch (see above) has yet to be digested.

Something I'd never seen before, in a small deli near the Capitol: individual halves of deviled egg, each in a tiny single-serving to-go container. Because you never know when you might suddenly get the urge.

At the airport--you know, the place where you usually have to choose between sub-Applebee's burgers and dubious pizza--there's a Salt Lick taco stand (featuring such lovely fillings as pork with green chilies and carne guisada), as well as a full Salt Lick window, in case you need to fill up on ribs and collards before you fly.

And you can follow this with Amy’s ice-cream (we tried Mexican vanilla and ouzo-chocolate).

For the convenience of the traveling public, the former also offers brisket to go, and the latter can provide containers to keep your dairy treats frozen for up to eight hours.

The two best places we ate on San Antonio's Riverwalk:

The Fig Tree, with its tiers of tiny patios overlooking the water and its back-to-the-'70s menu (snail vol-au-vents! Tournedos Rossini! Bananas Foster! Baked Alaska!)

And Boudro's, whose upscale-Texas menu includes grilled quail with roast corn, smoked chicken quesadillas and an amazingly rich, spicy, complex duck and chorizo gumbo. Delicious though the latter was, it was still hard to sit next to the water, watching cute lil' duckies paddle by, and not feel a twinge of guilt. I paid penance with an offering of fresh tortilla chips.

At Boudro’s, they also make guacamole tableside. I recorded the recipe for posterity (click the image to see the more legible version):

Ostrich attack! (Forestalled)

I would have written this earlier, but was suffering PTSD...

Mere minutes after our assault by ravenous zebras, we rounded a corner and were confronted by this:



One of them made a beeline for the car. And some long-buried memory, an instinctual, primal resonance of a survival tactic, kicked in.

"Roll up your window," I said to The Boy.

Sealed into our car, we watched as the ostrich lowered its head and peered at us through the glass.



It regarded us for a moment with its black, unblinking eyes, and then started opening and closing its beak as though snapping out a blistering insult.

"What does it want?" asked The Boy.

"Dunno," I said. "I never learned to beak-read."

Having said its piece, the bird moved on. We looked back to see it halt the car behind us and thrust its entire head and neck inside the vehicle. I shuddered. Rather them than me.

It was only later that I recognized the source of my discomfort: years of watching Rod Hull and Emu.

A few thoughts on Texas

It’s not really fair to comment on an entire state based on a week spent in two of its least representative cities. So rather than a “this is why Texas is so craaaaazy!” stereotype-reinforcing op-ed piece, here's a list of observations and experiences. Draw your own conclusions.

You can get drive-through barbecue. And drive-through Starbucks.

Many bars, stores and modes of public transportation post signs in the windows alerting patrons to the fact that it is illegal to bring concealed weapons inside. Because of course the assumption is that you're carrying one.

Those damn crickets are everywhere. Including on your towel when you stumble blearily into the bathroom first thing in the morning, and also in your shoes when you go to put them on. This is after they've been singing in some hidden corner of your room all night.

In the suburbs, you have to be careful when driving after dark, because deer may wander out from the woods, across someone’s front lawn and onto the road. We were lucky enough to see one on Sunday night; he stood in our headlights for a moment before trotting across the street.

San Antonio’s downtown can pretty much be done in a day. You see the Alamo:



Then you browse the zoo of a gift shop (need an Alamo fridge magnet? Alamo Frisbee? How about an Alamo cookie-cutter?).

And then you mill with the herd along the Riverwalk, which is beautifully designed:





but lined with chain restos: Hard Rock, Coyote Ugly and Dick’s, as well as a generous smattering of Mexican’t places).

That's about it, unless you really need to visit Ripley's Believe it or Not! and Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum.

A San Antonio resident said to me, "I've lived here all my life, and I really believe the folks here are the friendliest in the country. Would you agree?" How could anyone possibly answer in the negative? ("No, I think you're all a bunch of jerks.") And in the center of San Antonio, the only folks one meets work in the service industry, so of course they're friendly; their tips depend on it.

They have the strangest-looking ponies.



Okay, he's really a Longhorn (no kidding!). Ten-year-old, 2200 lbs Sancho. We met him at a historical recreation fair, where his job was to model. And he was great at it; he'd munch hay quietly until it was time for his closeup, at which point he'd stop, pose and look right into the camera. What a pro.

Zebra attack!

One of the advantages of being a grown-up is the ability to take detours on road trips. Example: as we drove from Austin to San Antonio yesterday, we passed roadside billboards for the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch ("African Safari--Texas Style!").

"Shall we?" I asked.

"Yes, we shall," said The Boy.

The entrance fee also gets you a bag of animal feed; we picked up another one, just in case. Tasty little bran-based nuggets. ("Are you eating them?" asked The Boy, incredulously.)

And then, observing the rules about staying in the car and not driving above 5 mph, we entered the Kilimanjaro Overlook. And saw, among many other deer/gnu/elk-related animals, this:



And had a visit from this:



And then, when we crossed into the Kenyan Preserve, we were attacked.

We saw them coming down the road.



"Why hello! I believe you have something for me?"



"Perhaps if I come round to the passenger side?"



"Come on, gimme."



"GIMME!"

Austin City Pie Limits

Wednesday

After a reasonable free continental breakfast at the La Quinta (Spanish for "a cockroach in every room"), we saddled up and headed out. The weather was humid but overcast, so it was quite a pleasant stroll through the UT campus. We circled it a couple of times and then headed into the middle so that The Boy could live out his lifelong dream of seeing the clock tower. (It’s a long story.)

At the base of the tower is a small pond with water liles and a sizable population of turtles. It’s a quiet, attractive memorial to the victims of Charles Whitman’s sniper-based escapade—much more compelling than a chunk of marble.

And then a reviving stop at Jamba Juice, because my friend Sue in LA says it’s the best thing ever, and they don’t exist in Boston yet. The Boy had a Pomegranate Paradise; I had the Aloha Pineapple with an extra shot of immune-system booster. Very fresh and delicious.

As we sat, we read the Austin Chronicle, the free alternative rag (think Phoenix) and found a listing in the dining section that promised “11 different flavors of authentic Aussie meat pies in flaky crusts.”

If that’s not lunch, I don’t know what is.

So we headed further north up Guadelupe. And after a short detour in the form of Buffalo Exchange, a vintage and second-hand clothes store, where The Boy picked up a soft gray-black cord jacket and I found a couple of funky t-shirts, we found Boomerang's Pies.

I guessed correctly that the place was the result of the owner’s trip Down Under, in the course of which he discovered pie and found it good and decided to share it with the residents of Austin. (I should do the same with parmo.)

When I think pie, I think pork, beef, steak and onion. The varieties here include Southwest Adobe chicken, Texas BBQ, Mediterranean Veggie. I opted for the Guinness steak, as it was the last one, and The Boy chose traditional beef. And as the best accompaniment for Australian pie is Australian beer, we got one each: a Cooper’s Light Ale (bottle-fermented, so there’s sediment at the bottom) and a Tooheys.



Both pies were good—excellent crust, generous filling. This is the Guinness version:



But the trad beef actually brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes: the meat had been cooked for so long that it had almost completely dissolved, creating a thick, beefy, salty ragu-like sauce. Took me back, it did.

And the restroom had this on the wall:

A few hours in Austin

I was planning to post every day of our Texas trip, but we've been without WiFi (gasp!) for three whole days. So I have a little catching up to do.

Tuesday

Modern travel is a wonderful thing. At 8am this morning, I was having breakfast in my own apartment. Twelve hours later, I was sitting on a grassy knoll 2,000 miles away, cursing bats.

What happened in between? A reasonably comfortable and hassle-free flight to Austin, marred only by a slight delay in St. Louis and the fact that the passenger behind us on the second leg of the trip was the four-year-old lovechild of Tattoo and Rainman, who spent our entire time on tarmac at both ends saying, “I see an AIRPLANE! Look, an AIRPLANE! Mommy, look a BLUE airplane! ANOTHER airplane! Look, there’s an AIRPLANE!”

We took a shuttle ride from the Austin airport to the hotel (the La Quinta, which is Spanish for "Our WiFi connection is a big fat lie"), dropped our luggage and headed out. As it was close to 6pm, our first order of business was—naturally—food.

We ambled past the impressively oversized pink granite Capitol building and down toward the river, past suspicious-looking Mexican't places and a plethora of small and funky but closed cafes, until we came to a short row of stuff that looked interesting.

The Starlite looked particularly so. We went in.

The space is a long, narrow room, separated into two areas: the front part holds the bar, and is a little like the Miracle: wood and slate, with a high ceiling at an offset angle. Beyond the bar was the dining area, which was white, high and open, with an oversized chandelier and wall-filling mirrors. Both were practically empty, which the bartender said was not unusual for a Tuesday night in the middle of summer.

We sat at the bar and had cocktails: Pimm’s with Keffir lime gin and lemon juice for me, and sour cherry margarita with cointreau-soaked cherries and cherry brandy for The Boy. And because we couldn't resist, we also ordered a couple of apps: incredibly tender and melty beef carpaccio with greens, romano and crostini, and fried green tomatoes with a bright, bold julienned cucumber-mint-lemon salad and Neal’s Yard Cheddar.

Sufficiently satisfied, we strolled down toward the river to find the bats. Here’s the deal: 1.5 million of them live under the South Congress Street Bridge. At dusk, they fly out en masse—it’s been described as being like a cloud of smoke—to grab a bug or two for dinner. The bats have become something of a symbol for the city, and are quite the tourist attraction.

Ha.

On the grounds of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper offices is a small park with trails that lead along the river, a little like Boston’s Esplanade. Next to the bridge is a steep grassy hill, and as people were already starting to congregate, we followed suit. The bridge was in front of us. The sun was setting. All we had to do was wait.

And wait.

And wait.

After an hour, our grassy knoll was filled with families on blankets, young couples and passing cyclists. And the bridge was lined with people from one side to the other. All waiting.

An hour and a half after our arrival, just as the last streaks of light started to fade in the sky, people in the distance started pointing. Some of our fellow knollers got up and wandered closer to the river. One by one, others followed, so finally we did, too.

What did we see? Well, The Boy saw a couple dozen shadows against a street light. I saw not a thing.

So the bats were late for work. This is what we should have seen.

The only possible consolation being food, we set out further along South Congress. The bartender at the Starlight had suggested we try Botticelli’s, so we strolled into the latest area to become gentrified, otherwise known as SoCo and already lined with hip boutiques and home-décor stores with one-word names, until we found it.

The space would not be out of place in Boston's South End, all white-painted exposed brick and groups of young hipsters. And us.



We had a couple glasses of a velvety Chianti, and a few more appetizers: mixed greens salad with swiss chard and watercress with a bright and lively vinagrette; an amaaazing, refreshing white-grape gazpacho with almonds, yogurt and mint; grilled roma tomatoes stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs and cheese (not the most exciting dish; needed something more in the stuffing); and the lightest and fluffiest gnocchi, in a creamy sauce with truffles, capers and anchovies (almost completely melted) and cheese.

And then we walked back to the hotel to find ourselves in the middle of the Great Texas Cricket migration.

I’m used to crickets. They're the little delicate things you find, very occasionally, chirping a reedy little song in the back yard.

But this is Texas, where everything is allegedly bigger.

These were the size of your thumb. Not your thumbnail, mind you; look at your thumb now. Look at it. Now imagine it’s cockroach-black, with wings and legs. And there are dozens of thumbs everywhere you look: on the sidewalk, on the sides of buildings, throwing themselves at your door, sitting on your bathroom floor, by your bed, on your pillow …

Cool as a cone of cucumber

Yesterday I went to venerable Boston-based ice-cream store JP Licks on a hunt for El Diablo, their rendition of chocolate-chili gelato. I didn't find it--doubtless a seasonal flavor--but instead came away with something from the other end of the flavor scale: cucumber.

Yep. Cucumber ice-cream.

I wasn't sure what to expect; being mostly water, cucumber doesn't exactly pack a punch--no exuberant berry burst or deep coffee complexity. And I remembered trying the green tea ice-cream at Christina's, in which that ingredient's subtle flavor was completely overpowered by the richness of the cream, and guessed that this would be similar.

(To Christina's credit, this was more than a decade ago, before the whole "let's start throwing all kinds of crazy stuff into the churn!" concept had really caught on. I'm sure it's much improved since then.)

In line to pay at JP Licks, too impatient to wait until I'd picked up a spoon, I swirled my tongue surreptitiously across the top of the ice-cream. It tasted just like ... cucumber. Perfectly crisp, refreshing cucumber. The cream was sweet, but not overly so. Just enough to heighten and enhance the cumber-ness.

After a few legitimate spoonfuls, I realized it was most comparable to a good melon ice-cream: light and fresh without being cloying.

After a few more, I started to wonder what to pair it with. In the same way that Vosges's coconut-curry ice-cream would (I'm convinced) work with roast chicken, this flavor called out for a few thin slices of jamon serrano.

But I'm still not sure how to match up these two food groups in a sensible way.

Oooh, another option--slightly less insane--would be a chunk of zesty lemon cake. Maybe lemon-ginger.

Or of course lavender; we know how well the two ingredients pair in my favorite cocktail ...

The future is now, and we're in trouble

According to most sci-fi films, the future is going to be really, really depressing. Whether caused by man-made or natural events, the movie world of tomorrow is a disturbing, dystopian place.

There's sometimes a veneer of harmony--racial equality, global peace, eternal youth--but apparent perfection comes at the expense of something else: liberty, self-determination, the threat of subterranean creatures, retirement not spent as mystery protein crackers.

But these movies are, after all, fantasies. And we can watch them, and become engaged in the basic, universal, human struggles of the characters, in the comfortable knowledge that the future they present isn't going to happen--or at least not any time soon.

Think Escape from New York (which, okay, was set in 1997); is Manhattan going to become a maximum security prison? Are robots likely to rise up and overthrow humankind, as in the Terminator movies?

(Don't ask The Boy; he's convinced we're on a slippery slope, as evinced by such developments as this, this and this.)

But recently we saw two sci-fi movies that suggest something far more sinister: a future society that is, in tangentially diverse ways, frighteningly recognizable and horribly close.

The first was Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven's 1997 guns 'n' glory flick lightly based on Robert Heinlein's novel. The movie's main characters, high-school friends who enlist in different branches of the military after graduation, are thrust into the front lines of battle when war is declared against giant insects whose asteroid strikes Earth.

At first glance, it's your typical Hollywood future-war story: aliens attack, so plucky humans must stand up and fight for the survival of the planet and everything on it. But as the film progresses, the underlying message becomes more complex, and, released six years before the start of the Iraq War, is stunningly prescient.

For a start, it's unclear whether the arrival of the asteroid is a deliberate move on the part of the bugs; it could easily have been an unconnected event. But the Earth's military-industrial complex, always ready for a raison d'être, is quick to assign culpability and strike back, no matter what the cost.

Then there's the fact that the first wave of army grunts landing on the alien planet is heavily outnumbered; they suffer huge losses and gruesome injuries. Earth's military leaders admit they'd had no idea what to expect, and don't know how to fight an enemy they don't understand.

Not to mention the way the movie ends: with the capture of one of the bug leaders, discovered in an underground cave--and the sense that this isn't the end of the war by any means.

So while it's set in a time in which people chat via video screens and space travel is taken for granted, Starship Troopers still has enough uncanny connections to recent events--not to mention the chilling use of military propaganda--to create a disturbingly recognizable future.

And then there's the flipside of the coin: a society in which everyone is inept, ignorant and incompetent. That's the world of Idiocracy.

Mike Judge's 2006 film starts with the premise that average IQ rates will continue to drop over the next 500 years, leading to a country in which the justice system involves monster trucks, crops are irrigated with sports drinks (also good for cows and babies) and the most popular TV show is called Ow! My Balls (and is pretty much what you'd expect with that title).

Newly arrived in this cultural cesspool is Joe (Luke Wilson), an army librarian chosen for a military hibernation experiment in the early 21st century. He's originally supposed to sleep for a year, but when the top-secret project is canceled and forgotten, he naps for an extra half-millenium and awakens to find he's the smartest guy in the whole world. As a result,
the president wants him to fix the whole world's problems.

Idiocracy is a comedy, so of course the futureworld gags are broad. But that doesn't make the concepts any less credible; given the current state of cable news, are we so far from shirtless Fox and Friends anchors? Does the preponderance of Starbucks outlets and Girls Gone Wild videos make the concept of the future "Gentleman's Latte" completely unthinkable?

(If you've never heard of this movie, don't worry; you're not alone. Fox, in its infinite wisdom, didn't release the film for a year after its completion, and then only opened it in six cities. Not including New York.)

Maybe, one day, monkeys will rule. Perhaps overpopulation will eventually become so uncontrollable that everyone will have to be euthanized when they hit 30. The world of tomorrow may well include flying taxi-cabs and luxurious offworld space hotels. For now, these concepts remain fantasies.

But watching Starship Troopers and Idiocracy, especially in close succession, is like looking through a telescope made from a paper-towel roll. It doesn't bring the future closer; it just shows that the future is right where we're standing. And it's not pretty.

WholeFood HealthFood

Yeah, I'm still on the nitrates-are-bad-but-red-meat-is-okay rant. Deal.

This is what we had for lunch today. Salad, yes (and good, too: mixed greens, shaved carrot, pear, cucumber, cherries, plus asparagus thin and tender enough to eat raw), but also a three-quarter-pound hunk-a hunk-a burning (grilled) toploin beef topped with chimichurri.

Plus a fabulous 2005 Bordeaux.



At least it was nitrate-free.

Breakin' bacon news

This morning, during our weekly grocery run, I checked in with the people at WholeFoods' cheese department to see whether they were likely to get the Vosges chocolate bar with bacon any time soon.

"Oh yeah, I heard about that," said the assistant cheesemonger. "Let me go check."

He came back with another guy, obviously the Big Cheese (oh, like you didn't see that coming), who explained that any new inventory additions needed to be approved at a regional level before making it to individual branches.

But there was an added wrinkle. An extra-thick rind, if you will.

"If it turns out the bacon has nitrates, we won't order any," he said. "That's what happened to the wasabi bar; turned out it had Yellow No. 5, so we stopped carrying it."

So WholeFood's selections of chocolate, wine, butter, beef, heavy cream, pork-liver terrine and brie are all healthy dietary choices, but a little nitrate is going to kill ya? Yeah, I know, I know ...

As we're heading to Austin in a week, home of WholeFoods' flagship store (80,000 square feet of organics, including walk-in beer cooler! Chocolate fountain! Live music!), I can check to see whether they care about nitrates. They probably do, the spoilsports.

And of course, worst-case scenario is just ordering some from the Vosges website, nitrates and all ...

Wagamama, veggies, jugglers

After a day offshore, what with all the fresh air and walking and whatnot, we arrived on the mainland hungry. And as we were in the neighborhood, it seemed like a good a time as any to check out Wagamama in Faneuil Hall.

Despite the sunny weather, there were no customers sitting at the outside tables, which was worrisome, especially as the surrounding restaurants and oyster bars were doing brisk trade. But our waitron reassured us that they weren't in danger of disappearing.

"It's quiet right now," she said, "but usually there's a line out the door at lunchtime. We're doing pretty well."

Phew.

We started with fresh juices: a cocktail of raw carrot, apple, cucumber, tomato and orange for me, and carrot juice with fresh ginger for The Boy, who'd been battling a summer cold for the past few days. They were nutritious and, yes, also delicious; there's something about a glass of fresh fruit and veggie juices that makes one feel virtuous without having to suffer.

Which then meant we could move on to the fun stuff: generously filled deep-fried duck gyoza with a bitter-sweet cherry dipping sauce. and grilled asparagus (see, more healthy veggies!) drizzled with citrus and finished with sesame seeds.

Actually, it's hard not to eat healthily at Wagamama; pretty much everything involves fresh raw vegetables, chicken, fish or tofu (even if these last are occasionally fried).

We'd initially intended to just sit and nibble on small plates, but were quickly diverted from that plan and went for something more substantial. The Boy had a big bowl of chili chicken ramen, which came loaded with cilantro and beansprouts and made him feel much better. I opted for the asian fish salad: a thick wedge of grilled barramundi on a heap of julienned radish, carrot and zucchini, finished with a coconut-chili sauce, the veggies acting as a nice carrier for the sweet-spicy juices.



Sitting at an outside table in a high-traffic area like Quincy Market is a blessing and a curse; yes, the people-watching is fun, even if it mainly consists of white-sneakered families clutching Cheers bags and duck-tour merch.

But you're also at the mercy of the street performers. And if one happens to stake out the spot next to your table as his stage, you can forget trying to make quiet conversation until he has switched off his mike, collected his balls and gone away to count his tips. I kept hoping our particular juggler would call me up to help with his act, but I think he could tell from the gleam in my eye that I was likely to wing a club in the general vicinity of his forehead ...

Island life

When our plans for a long weekend in Manhattan fell through, we decided it would still be fun to spend Friday on an island, albeit one much closer. And much smaller. So we packed a pic-a-nic* and headed downtown to catch the ferry ten minutes out into Boston Harbor. Destination: Spectacle Island.

Spectacle has only been open to the public for a year--this time around, at least. In the past, it has housed a horse-rendering plant, a grease-pressing factory, a smallpox quarantine hospital and illegal casinos. It was also used as a municipal waste dump for almost 40 years--which added 30 acres to the island--before it was capped with excavated rubble from the Big Dig.

Now it has five miles of gentle walking trails, an eco-friendly visitor center, a small beach and 28,000 hardy native plants, attracting butterflies and migratory birds. There are great views of the Boston skyline and of flightpaths in and out of Logan airport.



Much more inviting than horse glue.

Part of our reason for visiting--apart from giving us an excuse for a picnic--was to check out the ICA's "Art on the Harbor Islands" exhibit. There's something different on each of four islands--including a white-clad water-carrier who wanders mutely around George's Island and some woman who spent some time living in a yurt on Lovells --but we wanted to check out Teri Rueb's Core Sample, an audio soundscape tour of the island's history that uses GPS to play back different sounds, depending on one's location.

We picked up portable audio systems from the visitor center and headed out to listen.



It took about five minutes for the GPS systems to kick in. And then there was a gentle rushing sound; birds and water and motors and wind tangling together and separating, building and rising.

We set out along the trail around the island's perimeter, feet crunching on the gravel path like a thousand soldiers on the march and setting up a rhythm for the noises of the soundscape.

Sometimes the sounds seemed like enhanced foley for the surroundings: a low roar that coincided with a jet taking off over the harbor, or an aural close-up of the water lapping against the distant rocks below. At other points, it was hard to tell where art ended and reality began: were those bird calls coming from the headphones or from the pine trees ahead?

But as unusual as the experience (and as cool as the technology) was, we decided to return the headphones after about a half-hour. The island's natural soundscape--birds, crickets, wind and water, free of cars and sirens and the hundred other aural urban interruptions--was all we needed.



*Picnic consisted of mozzarella-sopressata-tomato-basil sandwiches on Iggy's French baguette; cherries, grapes and apricots; and a chocolate with celery, truffles and port wine from an Austrian company called Zotter, which also offers such crazy combos as banana-curry, date-shiitake and coffee-plum with caramelized bacon (see? It's catching on!).