 Yurts have been around for 3000 years, and so have some of the cooking methods used by their owners. “Congratulations! I think you’ve managed to find the blandest food on the planet,” I remarked to Rich as we hurtled down the highway. “It says here they mostly eat plain boiled mutton, with no seasoning. If they’re feeling frisky they might cook up the bones, fat, organs, and head of the sheep in horse’s milk with root vegetables and salt. Apparently they put salt in everything, including the tea.” We were heading to a hole-in-the-wall said to serve genuine Mongolian food. “Big deal," you may be thinking. "I’ve eaten at one of those Mongolian Barbecue Pits — they’re all over America!” It turns out those slightly kitschy stir-fry palaces have nothing to do with Mongolia — or barbecue, for that matter. The so-called Mongolian BBQ trend started in 1951, when comedian Wu Zhaonan fled from Beijing to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. To survive, he opened a food stall and called it Mongolian because he knew his preferred name, Beijing Barbecue, was too politically sensitive; his home town had just been declared the capital of Communist China, Taiwan's enemy. His food stall was a huge hit until it was wiped out in a typhoon, at which point he gave up cooking to pursue a successful career as a stand-up comedian. Others picked up on the popularity of “Mongolian barbecue” and ran with it.  A so-called "Mongolian Grill" in Texas. Photo: Luna 715 So it turns out very few people outside of Mongolia itself have actually tasted the real deal. Rich heard about an authentic place in nearby Richmond, and as we drove there, I was skimming Lonely Planet’s guide. My first impression? Mongolian food wasn’t going to take the culinary world by storm. “If you get a chance,” advised the guide, “don’t miss the opportunity to try boodog, blowtorched marmot (prairie dog), a delicacy of the steppes.” “Tell me I’m not going to eat blowtorched prairie dog,” I said to Rich. “No, no. This place’s big specialty is khorkhog.” It’s pronounced “whore-hog,” which I felt was unlikely to enhance its popularity. “You start,” he continued, “by killing a sheep.” “Tell me I’m not going to be killing a sheep.” “You put chunks of sheep meat into a pot with horse milk and root vegetables, and cook it a long time. It has to be ordered in advance, so we won’t be having it today.” I managed to contain my disappointment at this news.  To make khorkhog and other dishes, including boodog (blowtorched prarie dog), rocks are heated in the fire then added to the meat to help it cook. When it's time to eat, you pass the hot, greasy rocks from hand to hand. It's supposed to be good for your health. How? Still researching this. “The place we’re going is called Dumpling House,” Rich said. “I’m always up for dumplings. Will there be vodka?” “Why?” “Lonely Planet says it’s traditional to interrupt meals for rounds of vodka. Apparently before taking a swig, I’m supposed to dip my left ring finger into the vodka, flick it in the air four times to honor the sky gods in the four cardinal directions, and then wipe my finger across my forehead.” Mongolian eating obvious had its exotic side, and by now I was imagining Dumpling House as a smoky yurt with a colorful door, surrounded by vast open plains and herds of sturdy horses and nervous sheep. This is what I found. On the positive side, a restaurant in a strip mall was unlikely to require customers to do their own butchering or blowtorching. I climbed out of the car and went inside, only to find the place completely empty. Eventually a woman appeared, and for a short time confusion reigned. Once I’d gotten the hang of her accent, and she’d gotten over her shock at seeing non-Mongolians on the premises, we got down to business. I asked about various dumplings, all of which seemed to be deep fat fried. This was unwelcome news, as I was trying to eat a little healthier than usual; my annual physical was looming on the horizon, and I was hoping to avoid awkward conversations about my cholesterol. Finally she said, “Momo?” And pointed to a picture of doughy steamed blobs; the description included the world “vegetable.” “Momo,” I agreed. “And two beers.” Making a heroic effort not to imply in any way that I was a complete blockhead, she pointed to the drinks list, from which alcohol was conspicuously absent. “OK,” I said, “Ice tea.” She disappeared back into the kitchen.  Don't have a pot handy? In Mongolia, it's common to hollow out an animal skin, stuff it with meat and hot rocks from the fire, wire it shut, and use a blowtorch to singe away the fur and cook the meat inside. Any strong flame will do; in the olden days, they used torches made from sticks. “How am I going to honor the sky gods?” I asked Rich. “Somehow finger flicking with iced tea doesn’t feel right.” Over the next half hour, the restaurant slowly filled with people, all of whom wore ordinary American clothes but had the kind of rugged faces that suggested they could easily have ridden in across the steppes on horseback with their hunting eagles.  Mongolian burkitshi have been using eagles to hunt small mammals for 4000 years. Today, they still do it wearing traditional clothing. Photo: National Geographic When a middle-aged couple escorted a fragile-looking old man to the corner table, the head cook came out to greet them. She was magnificent, a stocky woman who walked with the ponderous grace of a sumo wrestler and surveyed her queendom with a stern eye. I could easily imagine her gutting a sheep with one hand while blowtorching a meat-stuffed animal skin with the other. At last the iced tea arrived. I took a sip; it was loaded with sugar and lightly laced with salt. I was still reeling from that flavor sensation when the food showed up. Six giant white blobs squatted on the platter, accompanied by a sort of tangy coleslaw and a little pot of hot sauce. I picked up my fork and carved out a bite of the momo's dense boiled dough, which somehow managed to be both fluffy and chewy. Eventually I found the filling, a walnut-sized glob of stewed onion, cabbage, and potato.  One momo each was all Rich and I could manage; we took the rest to go. “Whatever you do,” Rich gasped in the strangled tone of one who has just regained the power of speech, “do not try the hot sauce.” I would love to be able to tell you that real Mongolian cuisine is marvelous, and it is — for those raised on it. This was hearty fare, skillfully prepared. What it lacked in gourmet seasoning it more than made up for in protein and carbs — a practical diet for the harsh life of the steppes. You need something stronger than arugula and veggie burgers when you drive herds across the Gobi Desert on days when it's twenty below zero. Everyone around me was tucking in to their dinner with enormous enthusiasm. “We should come back,” Rich said. I stared at him in astonishment. He added, “This is a meat culture. What were we thinking, ordering vegetables? We should try the khorkhog.”  Khorkhog is a meal that will really stick to your ribs. “But the menu says it contains nine to ten pounds of meat,” I protested. “I can barely get through one momo. Why don’t you bring your Navy buddies here?” Rich was delighted with the idea and is planning to pitch it to the guys; this manly meal seems right up their alley. As for me, I confess I’ll be happy skipping this particular culinary adventure. Rich has agreed to take photos and provide a full report; I’ll share the highlights in a future blog post. Meanwhile, if you find authentic Mongolian cuisine in your neck of the woods, try it and tell me how you like it — and whether you think it will become America’s next comfort food craze. Сайхан хооллоорой (Click to hear this Mongolian version of bon appétit.) Well, that was fun! Want more? Sign up to receive updates when I publish new stuff. LEARN MORE ABOUT FREE UPDATES HERE YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
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 Beets are the #1 most hated food in the world. If you ever want to reaffirm your sanity — something I feel the need to do on a fairly regular basis these days — go to the Yelp forum “What’s your worst picky eater story?” Rebecca H: I used to work as a Personal Assistant for a woman who was going through an "orange phase" meaning she would only eat things that were orange. As part of my job, I made her dinner three times a week. What a pain to try to come up with three all orange meals! Chang L: i like to eat mushy things. mushy cereal (i let the milk sit for at least 1/2 hr), mushy bananas (the one with a ton of brown spots), mushy cucumbers (i freeze them, then defrost them) Johnny L: Were you born without teeth? Deeeeeee: I think most people are born without teeth, Johnny. My point is — and stop me if you’ve heard this — people eat the darndest things. And they can get pretty fanatical about it.  You won’t be surprised to hear pickiness usually starts during childhood. In her wisdom, Mother Nature hardwires infants and toddlers to be reluctant about experimenting with new tastes and textures. "If you're a caveman and you're two or three years old, it's not a great thing to be running around and eating berries off all the different trees," says Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Center, which researches taste and smell. Now scientists at Monell are learning our preferences probably start in the womb, when the foods your mother eats become part of your flavor repertoire long before you draw your first breath. My mom actually liked broccoli and so do I. Coincidence? Apparently not. “Obviously my mother liked ice cream,” Rich observed when I shared this factoid. For many, the fun train goes off the rails the moment solid fare appears. After six months of giving kids warm, cozy milk in soft breasts or bottles, suddenly we’re demanding they open their mouths so we can shove in metal implements loaded with mushy, overcooked peas. Is it any wonder they express their sentiments by flinging the green glop at the wall?  The brave new world of baby-led weaning, as demonstrated by my sister-in-law's grandniece, Olivia. “I was visiting my baby granddaughter,” a friend told me this week. “At mealtime, her mother set out little separate mounds of brightly colored food — mango, avocado, sweet potatoes — on her high chair tray. The child was encouraged to touch them, smear them around, play with them, taste them, and eat what she wanted.” “Does that get a little … messy?” I asked, picturing mango dripping from the ceiling and the dog happily lapping up mounds of sweet potato in the corner.  The canine community is wholehearted in their support of baby-led weaning. “Well, yes. They have to put a tarp down under the high chair at every meal. But it’s the latest thing. It’s called baby-led weaning.” Not having kids or grandkids, I’m seemingly the last to know about this newfangled notion that kids will eat better all their lives if they start with real food and make their own choices. I grew up in the era of processed mush laced with sugar, salt, and MSG, baby food that’s still the norm in much of America today.  In the 20th century, America's moms were told — often by doctors — that modern processed foods were better for their kids. Families in other parts of the world often stick with traditional fare. Italians, for instance, tend to start kids off with fresh vegetables and cheese drizzled with olive oil. Yes, I’ve already put in a request to come back as an Italian in my next life. Think rookie eaters will find it hard to stomach mozzarella, broccoli, and olive oil? Inuit kids begin their food journey consuming nuk-tuk made of seaweed, seal, and caribou. The Chinese give babies rice with fish, carrots, seaweed, eggs, and pork. In Kenya, the little ones join the rest of the family in chowing down on the sweet potato ngwaci. Japanese babies get rice with fish, yogurt, fruit, and vegetables. In other words, most kids get whatever mom and dad are eating. Until a hundred years ago, all kids ate and drank like miniature adults. "Coffee was extremely popular for children in the 19th century. And they sometimes drank alcohol, although that was getting less popular by then," explains food historian Dr. Helen Veit.  (And that's why we no longer give children coffee.) In the early twentieth century, all sorts of “experts” began admonishing parents to do better. Baby food manufacturers insisted processed products were safer and more nutritious than fresh. Doctors advised parents to give kids milk — as much as a quart a day if they could afford it — for strength. To build them up further, parents were told to provide snacks. That’s when “children started rejecting food for the first time,” said Veit. “They no longer were hungry when they started dinner." That created endless arguments at mealtime — and an opportunity for Madison Avenue to join in the fun. Advertisers claimed the solution was kid-friendly foods — the ones being marketed directly to children during Saturday morning cartoons. I remember sitting with my brothers chanting the catchphrase “I want my Maypo!” We actually hated this maple-flavored instant oatmeal, but we couldn’t resist chanting the slogan in the obnoxious tone of the kid in the commercial. Thinking back, it’s a wonder any of us lived to adulthood. Lots of people old enough to know better develop quirky food fetishes. Elvis Presley loved the Fool’s Gold Loaf: an entire loaf of bread hollowed out and stuffed with a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon. He was also a big fan of the honey-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. I actually sampled one (although sadly, not with the King himself) and it tasted pretty good. But once was enough. Steve Jobs lived almost entirely on dates, almonds, and a huge number of carrots. "Friends remember him, at times, having a sunset-orange hue," writes his biographer Walter Isaacson. French author Honoré de Balzac used to drink fifty cups of espresso a night, saying, “Ideas begin to move like battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield. And the battle takes place." Unfortunately, the battle was too fierce even for his strong constitution. He died of caffeine poisoning at the age of 51. The history of food madness goes on and on.  I taste-tested spackle — fried spam covered in molasses — when stocking the Apocalypse Chow food locker. Rich said if a disaster strikes, he'd rather subsist on rats and wood shavings. The fact is, nobody makes dietary choices based solely on logic. My college roommate ate nothing but purple food because she believed it had the best karma. I can only assume this was a rumor started by all the ingredients of other colors, as a way to avoid winding up on the dinner plate. However whacky our choices, one of the great pleasures of adulthood is being able to make our own decisions about food. I don’t know what the karma rating is for mashed, overcooked peas, but I can tell you this: anybody who tries to shove a spoonful in my mouth is just asking for trouble. You have been warned.  Pizza is the #1 favorite food in the world. These pizzas, from Durres, Albania, were among the best I've ever tasted. FYI I'm heading off to a family reunion in the mountains and won't have any internet access for a while. I'm not sure when or whether I'll put out a post next week. But you can be sure I'll come home with lots of stories to tell. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY Well, that was fun! Want more?
Sign up to receive updates when I publish new stuff. LEARN MORE ABOUT FREE UPDATES HERE  Great luggage always has an exciting backstory. I remained in blissful ignorance of the catastrophe until just after checking into the hotel. Dazed by the long drive and stunning heat, I just wanted to drop off our stuff, grab a little lunch, and dress for our friends’ country wedding. Rich walked around to the back of the car, popped open the hatchback, and peered inside. “Where’s your suitcase?” “What? It’s right there.” No, it wasn’t. There was an awkward pause. I clearly recalled him saying, “Would you like me to take your bag out to the car?” To which I replied in the affirmative. I’d assumed he was volunteering, but had it been a rhetorical question, along the lines of “Would you like to taste test chocolate for a living?” In the bustle of closing the house and throwing things into the car for the trip, I hadn’t given my suitcase another thought. And clearly neither had he. An oversight that was obviously coming back to haunt us now. It wasn’t a complete disaster. My dress was on a hangar in the back seat. And having traveled luggage-free before, I knew I could survive without my nightgown and other small luxuries. But it was a bit daunting to think of showing up for a wedding without jewelry, decent shoes, a handbag daintier than my baggy satchel, and a sweater (because California nights always turn cool). My first response? I laughed. And then I said, “Looks like we’re going shopping!” But where? On our brief drive through the small town of Cloverdale, California, all I’d seen were a few ancient diners and a Dollar Store.  Under ordinary circumstances, I'd have loved to check out this 1923 diner, but that afternoon I was a woman on a retail mission. Rich drove along Cloverdale Boulevard — slowly, so we didn’t blink and miss anything — and I spotted a sign saying “Cloverdale Retail Therapy.” Inside I found the kind of general store where you can buy scented candles, cowboy boots, beach bags, and — yes, thank the Lord — clothes and jewelry. The proprietor, quickly grasping the nature of the emergency, threw herself into the hunt and helped me find the right jewelry, purse, and sweater. I didn’t think cowboy boots would do my outfit any favors, so I resigned myself to wearing my grubby espadrilles. As it turned out, the wedding was not only the most glamorous I’d ever been to, it was the most glamorous I’ll ever go to. My friends had purchased a nineteenth-century power plant which had been converted into a spectacular home. There was enough champagne to float the Spanish armada. The food was divine. To make sure we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, we were all issued kazoos to provide a ragtag version of the Wedding March. I wondered what the folks who’d built the power plant would think if they could see it now. Repurposing old buildings is an art, and it always warms my heart to find one transformed into something so wonderful. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of this in the years ahead as cities struggle to find new uses for offices vacated by remote workers. Right now San Francisco has 18.7 million square feet of empty office space to play with, and I hope some of the solutions are as creative as these. I’ve never had occasion to repurpose a whole building, but a lot of my home furnishings come from flea markets, yard sales, and second-hand shops. I'm always on the lookout for unwanted treasures that can be saved from the landfill and adapted to new service — the more unexpected the better.  Using an old car as a planter? Sure, why not? This one sits proudly on a street in Krakow, Poland. Now isn’t that more exciting than just going down to Ikea and buying stuff that looks like everyone else’s? To be fair to Ikea, they are doing their best to keep their products out of the landfill, starting with their Buy Back & Resell program. If you have fully assembled, fully functional Ikea furniture you no longer want, they’ll take it off your hands and pay you between 30% and 50% of the retail price, depending on the condition. They’ve been doing this in the UK and Ireland for a while, and in April they launched the program in 37 US stores. Their goal is to become a “circular” business by 2030 — that is, to produce all products with materials that are 100% recycled, remanufactured, refurbished, or reused. Amen to that. I’ve certainly bought my share of Ikea furniture and admire its practicality, but I generally prefer home furnishings with more character. That goes for the garden, too. In the summer of 2020, Rich and I used our quarantine time to clear out an overgrown patch of the yard for a seating area. To screen it from the narrow strip of land separating our house from the next, we wanted a slender door. After a massive online search, Rich found one that had originally graced a children’s bathroom in a mid-century Midwestern school. I added a decorative toper I found on Etsy, sanded and primed the door, painted it, varnished it, and figured my job was done.  The door when it went up in 2020 To my dismay — and considerable annoyance — the paint began bubble and peel almost at once. Repeated attempts at repainting only seemed to make it peel faster, until by this spring it looked as if something inside was trying to claw its way out. When a woodworker friend came to lunch, I showed him the disaster. He exclaimed, “Karen, you could easily fix this.” I sincerely doubted it, but I listened with interest until he got to the part about removing the inset plywood panels that were absorbing too much water and retrofitting new wood in their place. At that point, it was clear the project was way beyond my meager skills, and my eyes glazed over. Rich, however, embraced the project with unbridled enthusiasm. “And think of all the money we’ll save, not having to buy a new door.” Yes, you know where this is going. So far he’s purchased three bottles of stripper to remove 60 years’ worth of yellow, green, orange, blue, gold, brown, and white paint, a cement stripper wash, five disposable tarps, six KN95 face masks, a box of disposable gloves, two clamps wide enough to encompass the width of the door, sandpaper, epoxy, something that looks like pressed tin but is made of a synthetic material, four buckets, three bags of rags, and some polyurethane sealer. He’s been working on it for two months and is just now down to bare wood.  The door in May 2022 I suspect, eventually, it will be finished, and the sweat equity will make the little door all the more precious. In much the same way, my Cloverdale accessories will always have a special place in my wardrobe, thanks to the frenzied effort that went into finding them. “The things we love,” said Thomas Aquinas, “tell us what we are.” Apparently Rich and I are all about not-quite-lost causes and loony backstories, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Have you ever salvaged objects, buildings, or potential social disasters? Tell me your story in the comments below. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
Well, that was fun! Want more? Sign up to receive notices when I publish new stuff. LEARN MORE ABOUT FREE UPDATES HERE  Will cutlery soon seem as quaint as buggy whips and rotary phones? “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra My sister-in-law’s new rescue dog — whose previous life was pretty grim — arrived with an ingrained habit of eating so fast it made her ill. Now Sophie gets her kibble in a slow feeder bowl designed with special ridges and pockets that require hunting for every bite in a sort of maze. These days her meals are considerably more leisurely and easier to digest.  Slow feeder bowls stop meals from becoming a feeding frenzy. No, I’m not suggesting you buy a slow feeder for your kids or grandkids. Sadly, the human tongue just isn’t up to the task. But it’s apparent that when left to our own devices, we humans have a Sophie-like tendency to wolf down our food. One of the major tasks of civilization has been to slow down our meals so we can savor them properly. Until the mid-sixteenth century, most Western Europeans were perfectly happy with what the French call service en confusion, platters of foods tossed helter-skelter on a table while everyone grabs what they wanted and eats with their fingers. Like modern pizza nights, only with messier food and no napkins. When forks burst on the scene, this newfangled contraption was viewed as the devil’s implement. I mean, just look at the shape — straight out of Hades, right?  Celebrity chef Guy Fieri strikes a devilish pose. Early efforts to introduce forks went down in flames. In the year 1004, Greek Princess Maria Argyropoulina shocked the civilized world and her bridegroom, the son of the Venice Doge, by using a fork at her wedding. She had her eunuchs cut up her food and then she daintily lifted each bite to her mouth with this strange pronged instrument. The wedding guests gasped, scandalized. “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks—his fingers,” said one irate clergyman. “Therefore it is an insult to him to substitute artificial metal forks for them when eating.” When the princess died of plague two years later, Saint Peter Damien told everyone who would listen it was the Creator’s response to the fork incident. “This woman’s vanity was hateful to Almighty God; and so, unmistakably, did He take his revenge. For He raised over her the sword of His divine justice, so that her whole body did putrefy and all her limbs began to wither.” Yikes! As you can imagine, that put a damper on fork usage, and for nearly 500 years people continued eating with their fingers and wiping them on their clothes in god-fearing righteousness. It was the Italians who first broke ranks, embracing the fork’s ability to gather up pasta more efficiently. The French continued to turn up their collective noses at these unholy utensils. According to popular legend, all that changed in 1533 when the fourteen-year-old Florentine princess Catherine de Medici married the future King Henry II of France. She supposedly brought along several Italian chefs and immediately had everyone cooking with garlic and truffles, and picking up forks to eat manicotti and lasagna. That's so not how it happened. For years Catherine was largely ignored by everyone who mattered because her husband was so besotted with his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, that his teenage queen was pushed into the background. Catherine didn’t bring any Italian chefs with her and was probably too busy trying to survive and, if possible, get pregnant with a royal heir to worry overmuch about what was happening in her kitchen.  The wedding of Catherine de Medici and the Duc d'Orleans (later King Henry II) presided over by her uncle, Pope Clement VII. Painting: Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli The Italians in Catherine's entourage, nostalgic for home cooking, found a surprising number of kindred spirits at the French court. In those days, the French were often in Italy engaging in minor warfare with various city-states. In between all the fighting, laying siege, pillaging, looting, and occasionally running for their lives, the French sampled the local food. They liked what they found and brought back fresh ideas, such as serving meals in courses, baking with butter — once ignored as “poor people’s fat” — and eating mushrooms. Catherine’s dowery included several dozen dinner forks crafted by the great Italian silversmith Benvenuto Cellini, and these gradually appeared on the dinner table. The French courtiers teased each other mercilessly over the amount of food they spilled learning to use the goofy new implements, but they eventually got the hang of things. Soon fashionable guests were showing up at dinner parties carrying a cadena, a specially made box (like those of dueling pistols) containing their personal fork and spoon.  If you were heading to a fancy dinner party in sixteenth century Paris, you'd pack cutlery like this. The British held firm, continuing to despise forks as unmanly, proudly eating with their fingers for another 100 years. Then in 1633 Charles I declared, “It is decent to use a fork.” History buffs will remember Charles as the controversial king who ran afoul of everybody and was beheaded for treason, ending the monarchy and making England a republic. He is generally viewed as among worst kings ever inflicted on the realm. But a sound man on forks. Since then forks have been showing up everywhere and taking on all sorts of shapes and functions. The Victorians went overboard creating special versions for spearing lettuce, fish, mangos, olives, pickles, and bread in a basket, to name but a few. The late nineteenth century sprang the spork (half spoon, half fork) on an unsuspecting public. Sporks became popular in the 1960s, and everyone attempted to figure out how to manage this awkward hybrid, which could stab your tongue if you tried to sip soup, yet had such stubby tines eating spaghetti was a hopeless struggle. Nowadays sporks are most often found in prisons, school cafeterias, and budget airlines.  Disney's Toy Story 4 included this spork character called "Forky," Apparently he wasn't ready to accept the spoon side of his identity and had self-esteem issues. How are forks likely to fare in the future? Some suggest they may be on the verge of extinction. “The rise of casual dining, convenience foods and drive-throughs means that for the first time since the 1500s we regularly eat complete meals with our hands,” observes food writer Chad Ward. “Forks and knives may again become the source of confusion and social unease.”  Americans eat 20% of their meals in the car. Photo: Getty Images Say it ain’t so! Because if the fork has given us anything (besides fewer stains on our clothing and tablecloths) it's a sense of eating as an occasion worthy of thoughtful preparation and leisurely consumption. We don’t need a slow feeder bowl, or a staff of eunuchs peeling our grapes, to dine in civilized manner. All we have to do is follow the lead of Princess Maria Argyropoulina, Catherine de Medici, and other pioneers who had the courage to buck prevailing trends and pick up a fork at the dinner table.  Oh no! Our statue of San Pancracio, Seville's patron saint of health, suffered an accident this week, possibly knocked over by the neighbor's cat. At the same time, Rich had a rebound, testing positive again for Covid. Coincidence? That's for future historians to decide. San Pancracio has now been glued back together and Rich is testing negative again. Whew! Well, that was fun! Want more?
Sign up to receive notices when I publish new stuff. GET MORE FREE UPDATES HERE I do my best with technology, but occasionally readers report snags when signing up for the blog or stop getting notices each week, usually due to spam filters. If that happens, send me an email and I'll fix it. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  Munich's cathedral floor bears the actual footprint of the Devil himself. Or so they say. Photo: theregoesrose.com “Travel is no longer just about ‘going somewhere.’ Coming out of such a long period of constraints and limitations, 2022 will be the year we wring every bit of richness and meaning out of our experiences.” Christie Hudson, Expedia I’ve been getting lots of emails from readers with questions about making the most of 2022’s wider travel opportunities. In an effort to keep up, this morning I was skimming a NY Times article. Hmmm, yes, as expected, “fewer restrictions … hotels with robots … sexual healing.” Wait, what? That’s a travel trend right now? Yes indeed, says the wonderfully named Schlomo Slatkin, a rabbi and relationship therapist who runs retreats in exotic locales offering “no blame, no shame” couples therapy. “Going away is really powerful, because changing the relationship requires a paradigm shift. The lockdowns brought out a lot of maintenance issues in relationships that need to be addressed.” Helping people rescue relationships that have run aground on the rocks of the pandemic — that’s a bit outside of my wheelhouse. I can, however, speak to the question of finding richness and meaning in our journeys. For instance, several readers have asked, “How can I keep my husband interested? All through Europe he keeps saying, ‘If you’ve seen one cathedral, you’ve seen them all.’”  Perhaps the husband in question doesn’t fully appreciate just how quirky these old cathedrals really are. While theoretically built to praise the glory of God, they’re often monuments to human ego, one-upping the neighbors, finding a place to put all the weird stuff your ancestors brought back from the Crusades, making sure some miracles get attributed to the saint underneath the altar, and housing objects of local pride. In short, if you know how to read them, cathedral walls can be as sensationalist as today’s tabloid headlines. Say, for instance, you’re touring Modena, the lovely Italian town that gave the world Pavarotti, cars such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati, and fancy balsamic vinegar. You might breeze through the cathedral without ever noticing the object that kicked off the War of the Bucket in 1325. At the time, the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church were locked in a power struggle for control of Europe. Modena backed the Empire; neighboring Bologna supported the Vatican. The two city-states engaged in many scuffles and skirmishes, with a few buildings torched here, an unlucky soldier ambushed there, and plenty of bravado and braggadocio all around. Then a few merry pranksters from Modena’s army had the bright idea of sneaking into downtown Bologna and stealing the wooden bucket from the city’s main well. As soon as they were back outside the gate, they brandished their trophy with appropriate expressions of derision and took off home.  Apparently "Thou shalt not steal" doesn't apply to buckets. The one that launched the war has spent eight centuries in Modena's cathedral — and astonishingly has never once been struck by lightning. Bologna demanded the return of their property. Modena jeered. Bologna said to give it back or else! Modena scoffed. Goaded beyond endurance, the Bolognese declared war on Modena. Bologna assembled 30,000 foot soldiers and 2000 mounted cavaliers and marched to the advantageous high ground near what’s now the town Zappalino. Modena gathered just 5000 foot soldiers and 2000 horsemen on the plane below — but these were battle-hardened veterans who knew a thing or two about tactics. And by now, they were pretty fed up with the Bolognese attitude. It was just a bucket, for heaven’s sake! Where was their sense of humor? Time to get this over with. A few frenzied hours later, the surviving Bolognese were running for their lives, making a mad dash back toward their city’s main gate with Modena’s army whooping, hollering, and nipping at their heels. Modena’s troops then held a mock horserace in front of the enemy’s gate and tossed snarky remarks over the battlements at the seething Bolognese.  Modenese soldiers returning home in triumph from the War of the Bucket. Photo: History.net After wallowing long and hard in their victory, Modena packed up to head home. Some versions of the tale claim that at this point they stole another bucket from a nearby well and waved it at Bologna in a mocking manner. I wouldn’t put it past them. The original bucket is locked away inside the cathedral, but the replica is on permanent display, a reminder that you mess with Modena at your peril. Of course, much of the real drama revolves around religious relics, which are bits of a saint’s body or possessions that are believed to have miraculous powers. For instance, the dried blood of St. Januarious, patron of Naples, is said to liquify in emergencies and is credited with saving the city from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 1631. Nice work, Januarious!  Using materials available in Medieval times, modern scientists have recreated a substance that looks like dried blood and liquifies when shaken. Many vials of "miraculous blood" have been debunked. The Church won't let this one be opened for testing. Paris claims possession of the actual crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head during his last hours; it was in Notre Dame until the fire, when it was taken to the Louvre. More dubious sources suggest his beating heart lies beneath the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Naysayers question the validity of many relics, including the three different foreskins said to have survived from Jesus’ circumcision (all were debunked). And what a miracle it would be if all six of St. John the Baptist’s heads (held in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Rome’s San Silvestro in Capite, Munich’s Residenz Museum, Amiens Cathedral in France, a chapel in Antioch, Turkey, and a parish church in Tenterden, Kent) proved to be real. And then there are the impossibly anachronistic sculptures on Salamanca’s cathedral. Hidden among the sixteenth century carvings around the main door there’s an astronaut in a spacesuit. Naturally this has given rise to endless speculation about time travel, alien visitations, and ancient prophecies. Incredibly, not one of those theories is true; the figure was added during repairs in 1992. As is the custom with cathedrals, sculptor Jeronimo Garcia was given permission to add a few touches of his own and decided to have some fun. Just about every cathedral houses a spooky crypt, and few are creepier than the one below Vienna’s St. Stephen’s cathedral. During the Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1735, the eight cemeteries abutting the cathedral were emptied, and 11,000 bodies, old and new, were dumped into catacombs beneath the cathedral. Not surprisingly, the stench became so unbearable nobody was showing up for mass. What to do? A few unlucky prisoners were dispatched to go down and rearrange the remains, removing flesh and stacking bones neatly, skulls over here, femurs over there, etc. They never completed the task, so deeper sections remain in horrific disarray. In a more upmarket section, you’ll find the Ducal Crypt, which for some unfathomable reason contains 60 jars of imperial intestines, including the stomach of Empress Maria Theresa. (Suggestion: visit at Halloween.)  St. Stephen's in Vienna is creepy even before you descend to the crypt. Photo: Haunted Vienna My point is that cathedrals aren’t all about boring tributes to pious saints; they chronicle bizarre and blood-curdling chapters of our collective past. It's easy to scoff today, but many of these traditions have given countless generations a thrilling sense of connection with mystical forces beyond human comprehension. And they can add some excitement to your visit, too. Do a little research ahead of time, and you may find enough lurid tales to fascinate even the most reluctant travel companion, turning “just another cathedral” into a rich and meaningful adventure you’ll talk about for years.  Ouch! This unusual gargoyle on Salisbury Cathedral is both a functional downspout and a device to ward off evil spirits. Speaking of warding off evil spirits, I am happy to report that Rich and I have recovered from Covid. We are testing negative and back among the living. Yay! Many thanks to all of you who wrote to wish us well. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  The famous Montparnasse derailment of 1895 is a good reminder that no matter how bad things are now, they can always get worse. It’s not often you get to introduce someone to America for the very first time, and in the beginning I thought it all went rather well. Our teenaged goddaughter Ana arrived from Europe after an East Coast stopover, and she seemed gobsmacked to discover the West Coast is so . . . Western. We took her to Nicasio, an old rancher’s roadhouse among the dairy farms and cattle pastures, where a live band belted out rhythm & blues. We had to explain everything from the jackalope head above the bar to what Billie Joe MacAllister threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Her eyes were like saucers. Doubling down on the Western theme, we went to Rich’s sister’s ranch, where Ana saw longhorn cattle, met the family horses, and rode the ranch cart around wide open spaces. There was even a brief encounter with a cowboy — Stetson, spurs, silver belt buckle, the whole megillah. You’d have thought we’d introduced her to a Martian. “A real cowboy,” she said in awe. “I didn’t think they existed.”  This curious longhorn wanted to get a good look at us, so she moseyed over to the trough and pretended to drink. Turns out there wasn't any water in the trough at all. It was about this time that I began to get just a teeny bit concerned about my tickly throat. I always assume it’s just allergies, and it usually is, but just to be on the safe side, I’d taken a Covid home test before heading to Rich’s sister’s ranch. Negative. Whew! And yet after we got home, I started to feel kind of funky. Next morning I tested again. I think you can all guess where this is heading.  Uh-oh. After two years and two months of keeping this particular wolf at bay, it finally bit me. Damn. Of course, testing positive now, after double vaxxing and double boosting, doesn’t hold the same terrors it would have two years ago, or even last summer. I counted myself lucky. Yes, I was sick, but it was no worse than many a respiratory infection from my past, with the addition of the muzzy-headedness known as Covid fog. I decided to reconfirm with an official test, available at the pop-up hut around the corner. All I had to do was make an appointment online. Easier said than done! The form took forever: symptoms, insurance, credit card, photos of Medicare card, how many of my library books were currently overdue … OK, maybe not that last one, but just about everything else they could imagine. I filled it out five times, and it kept kicking back, insisting I couldn’t pay for the rapid test I wanted because I had Medicare. “This makes no sense. Must be my Covid fog,” I told Rich. “Let me try.” Two minutes later he was back. “You have an appointment in two hours.” “How did you do it?” “I lied. I told them you didn’t have Medicare.” The man’s a genius.  I masked up, shuffled around the corner, and presented myself at the hut. I was coughing and sneezing so badly I could tell the medical technician was thinking, “Why bother, honey? I can tell from here how this is going to come out.” But we went through the ritual and reconfirmed my positive status. My husband and house guest sensibly decided it was time for a road trip. In an excess of caution they wore masks and kept the car windows open as they rolled across the Golden Gate Bridge and meandered around San Francisco, giving Ana her first glimpse of the city. Rich navigated Lombard Street, “the crookedest street in the world,” and showed off such famous landmarks as Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and Alcatraz before stopping at a taco truck for lunch.  Lombard Street is not for the faint of stomach. “What did Ana think of San Francisco?” I asked him later. “She was excited and enthusiastic about everything. Kept shouting ‘Wahoo!’” Ana may have loved her San Francisco tour, but she wasn’t keen to spend more time at our place — or as we were beginning to refer to it, the Plague House. By a stroke of enormous good fortune, she had friends in the area who, learning of her plight, offered her safe haven. She took off, and who could blame her? Meanwhile, I began taking the antiviral Paxlovid, said to reduce Covid’s severity and duration. Did it help? Who can really tell? All I know is I’m getting better. The main side effect is a strange, persistent, metallic taste in my mouth. After rigorous yet totally unscientific testing, I’ve determined that that the best way to offset the yucky taste, if only briefly, is by eating graham crackers. I pass it along for what it’s worth.  And then Rich tested positive. As deeply sorry as I was to hear it, my life perked up considerably. Rich and I no longer had to mask up around each other or sleep in separate rooms, and instead of being banished to the bedroom, I now had free run of the house and garden. My germs could do no further harm to him or anyone else. As we’d notified everyone in our orbit of my illness, nobody was coming within a mile of us. After a few miserable days, Rich felt somewhat better. His biggest complaints? A sore throat, for which he is taking copious amounts of lemon sorbet, and the metallic taste caused by the Paxlovid, for which he takes yet more lemon sorbet. It’s a tough regimen, but he’s bearing up manfully.  Rich believes ice cream cures just about everything. Here he's enjoying gelato in Parma, Italy, during our 2019 Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. Rich also had some Covid fog, which is why I was a bit worried when he decided we ought to use this time productively and fill out our absentee ballots for the upcoming election. They’d just arrived by email, and we opened them up and did our best to make sense of them. It took us hours to study the list of candidates, find the candidate statements online, read them, read them again because we’d already lost the thread, and then go over them once more. We studied the photos, made snarky remarks, read the candidate statements a final time, and picked someone. Then we’d move on to the candidates for the next public office. At the end I said, “So, we’ve voted for Obama for president and Nixon for dog catcher. I think that went rather well.” Two days ago we started feeling strong enough to go for short, slow walks around the neighborhood, heavily masked and taking good care not to get within thirty feet of anyone. “Shouldn’t we be ringing a bell and shouting, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ — you know, like medieval lepers?” I asked. “Not with my sore throat.”  I'm thinking of ordering this from Etsy and hanging it on the front door. Rich and I are slowly getting better, but this morning’s home tests confirmed that neither of us is out of the woods yet. Ana is off on her next adventure — an internship on an organic farm. It’s not far away, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing her or anyone else any time soon. For now, we’re puttering around the house and garden, reading, trying to find something on Netflix we haven’t seen three times, and waiting it out. So that’s the story of my week. How was yours? Well, that was fun! Want more?
Sign up to receive notices when I publish new stuff. LEARN ABOUT FREE UPDATES HERE I do my best with technology, but occasionally readers report snags when signing up for the blog or stop getting notices each week, usually due to spam filters. If that happens, send me an email and I'll fix it. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  Some classic cars bring back an era so vividly you can almost smell the pot smoke. “What a week!” a neighbor once told me. “Yesterday I pulled up at the curb by my favorite restaurant and hit the brake. Only it wasn’t the brake, it was the accelerator, and I shot forward — right through the wall of the kitchen. The owner, who’s a friend of mine, stuck his head out the opening and said, ‘I take it you want this order to go?’” Some of life’s best and worst moments happen in cars. Contrary to what we see in the movies, not many of us — fewer than eight in 10,000 — are actually born in them. (And that’s a good thing; just ask Jia-Rui Cook who gave birth in the cramped front seat of a Prius.) For the rest of us, vehicles start looming large in our personal narratives the day we come home from the hospital. Like so many of my generation, getting a driver’s license was my most meaningful coming-of-age ritual. Buying my first car made me feel like a real grownup. And as for early romantic adventures — no, I’m sorry, those records are permanently sealed. A 2019 study showed Americans averaged more than eight hours a week behind the wheel and — here’s the worrying part — 64% actually consider their car a friend. Almost half reported crying when saying goodbye to a vehicle and 15% said they’d rather break a bone in their own body than see their car suffer a breakdown. Two thirds service their car more often than they go to the dentist. Science has a name for this type of obsession: objectophilia. Here in California, it’s so common we scarcely notice it any more.  Beverly Hills socialite Sandra West (1939 - 1977) asked to be buried inside her blue Ferrari “with the seat slanted comfortably." Because that would make such a difference in the afterlife. LA-based automotive journalist Robert Ross says it all started a hundred years ago. “The automobile stood for more than freedom of movement and “Westward Ho!” exploration, of course, and still does. It was never merely a matter of arriving at Point B from Point A — one had to get there in style, whether cruising the boulevard or driving a getaway car… The motorcar has —over the course of a century — become the accessory that defines its driver.” So how did the cars of earlier eras define us? Going by last weekend’s May Madness Classic Car Show in nearby San Rafael, those vintage vehicles were glorious technicolor statements to the world that we were bold, exciting people ready to go places and look life in the eye. Nowadays, it’s easy to criticize these old gas guzzlers as the villains that helped destroy the planet. But modern cars have a lot to answer for as well. “Considering the constant fatalities, rampant pollution, and exorbitant costs of ownership,” says The Atlantic, “there is no better word to characterize the car’s dominance than insane.” Vehicle pollution is damaging the environment and accounts for the premature deaths of 53,000 Americans a year. And then there’s the economic cost. “More than 80 cents of every dollar spent on gasoline is squandered by the inherent inefficiencies of the modern internal combustion engine.” Morgan Stanley calls it the “world’s most underutilized asset,” because it sits idle 92% of the time.  Dangerous, costly, inefficient ... remind me again why Americans are in love with their cars? “This ‘love affair’ thesis is,” says historian Peter Norton, “one of the biggest public relations coups of all time. It’s always treated as folk wisdom, as an organic growth from society. One of the signs of its success is that everyone forgets it was invented as a public relations campaign.” That campaign's voice was (drum roll, please) Groucho Marks, who launched it during a 1961 TV show sponsored by DuPont, which was heavily invested in General Motors. At the time, Americans were in an uproar over the expansive new interstate highway system destroying and disrupting neighborhoods — pushing “white men’s roads thru black men’s homes,” as some put it. Groucho framed the story more romantically. The driver was the man, the car — he called her “Lizzie” — was the new girl in town, and their “burning love affair” was wedded bliss, albeit with a few challenges. “We don’t always know how to get along with her, but you certainly can’t get along without her. And if that isn’t marriage, I don’t know what is,” said the comedian, who was married and divorced three times.  A young Groucho Marx with with his 1930 Model 740 convertible coupe Groucho’s broadcast “successfully helped seed two ideas that have been entrenched ever since: that we’re bound to cars by something stronger than need, and that people who challenge that bond are just turning up their noses at their fellow Americans,” said the Washington Post. That’s why our cities are friendlier to car traffic than foot traffic. And why, with the help of the auto industry, the new crime of jaywalking was invented, redefining pedestrians, rather than cars, as the menace to society.  Hester Street, New York City, in 1914, when the streets belonged to humans Except for dense urban areas like New York City, surviving without a car is really tough. Public transit is woefully inadequate. Studies appear to suggest Americans love automotive travel, but in reality, says historian Peter Norton, we put up with it because we have no other practical choice. “If you locked me in a 7-Eleven for a week, and then after the end of the week unlocked the door and you studied my diet over the previous seven days, then concluded that I prefer highly processed, packaged foods to fresh fruits and vegetables, I would say your study is flawed.” Some 69% of Americans say they like to drive, but compared to what? Walking the 25 miles to work? Driving has lost much of its glamor and excitement. A 2019 survey showed 77% of our cars are white, black, or grey/silver. As one VW exec put it, “If you drove down an American street and looked only at the new vehicles, you might be forgiven for thinking you’re in a black-and-white movie.” Paint colors dimmed in response to the Great Depression and the 1970s fuel shortages, too. In sobering times, flashy cars go out of fashion; nobody wants to stand out.  Henry Ford famously sold cars in "any color so long as it was black." He'd feel right at home today. Rich and I are bucking the trend. Twelve years ago we bought a flaming red second-hand VW, and I’m convinced it's bright enough to be visible from outer space. In crowded parking lots it’s like a homing beacon; to date it’s saved me approximately 279,456 hours of tramping around muttering “Now where did I leave that darn thing?” Last week, the VW had a tune-up that revealed some worrying developments, and this morning Rich drove it to a specialist for a more extensive, three-day treatment. Unlike those who would rather suffer a broken bone in their own body than see their car undergoing repairs, I’m actually looking forward to the time apart. In Seville I live vehicle-free and find I prefer the slower pace. But in case Rich starts feeling any separation anxiety, I’m keeping this card handy. I’m not sure whether it refers to him or to our ailing car; but then, does it matter?  Inside it says: "But will see you in the fast lane soon." How are you and your car getting along these days? Let me know in the comments below. FYI: I have a house guest coming soon, so my schedule is uncertain and I may have to skip posting this week. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY Well, that was fun! Want more? Sign up to receive notices when I publish new stuff. LEARN HOW TO GET FREE UPDATES HERE I do my best with technology, but occasionally readers report snags when signing up for the blog or stop getting notices each week, usually due to spam filters. If that happens, send me an email and I'll fix it. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  In San Francisco's downtown shopping area, will these fully automated, human-free taxis soon be a common sight? Photo: Cruise. It’s official: fully driverless taxis, with no human on board as backup, are hitting the streets. Self-driving fleets have been approved in China and are under consideration in San Francisco and other US cities. So we have to ask ourselves: did the world just get better or worse? Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of driverless cars. Who doesn’t find it tedious and annoying to navigate crowded freeways and hunt for urban parking? Much better simply to tell the car where to go and let it find its own way. As for taxis, Uber has automated much of the process already, so shifting gears to fully driverless cabs should be a no brainer, one of the count-your-blessings inventions of the modern era, like cell phones with GPS. And yet, I keep remembering the old saying, “To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.”  After decades of development and billions in investment, the European Heavy-Lift Rocket Ariane 5 explodes 39 seconds into its inaugural flight, thanks to a small software bug. History is littered with the charred remains of small computer errors with big consequences. Take the $8 billion Ariane 5 rocket project. A tiny piece of software that tried to slip a 64-bit number into a 16-bit space caused the unmanned rocket to explode thirty-nine seconds into its initial launch. Oops! Then there was Knight Capital Group, whose new, high-priced trading software ran amok in a thirty-minute buying spree that cost the company $440 million, leading to its demise. But hey, stuff happens. Just ask Chris Reynolds, whose PayPal account was accidentally credited $92,233,720,368,547,800 (that’s $92 quadrillion, in case you’re wondering). Sadly, he didn’t get to keep the money, although PayPal made a nice donation in his name to the charity of his choice, as their way of saying “Thank you for not making this worse by throwing a social media hissy fit.” Tech glitches are a fact of contemporary life. Which raises the question: could I trust a computer to make sure I get home safely after a night on the town (that would be my night on the town, not the computer’s)? History says, “Yes, probably, at least most of the time.” So maybe the real question is whether I feel lucky when it comes to technology. Right now I‘d have to say not so much, given my latest run-in with the world’s most powerful online retailer, which bungled a simple canned tunafish delivery. I’ll get to the tuna story in a moment, but in order to fully appreciate it, you'll want the bigger picture of my latest series of shopping debacles.  Looking for a replacement frying pan at Target, I found mostly empty shelves. As my regular readers know, I spend half the year in Seville, where I do all my purchasing in person, on foot, as if it were the nineteenth century. Having returned to my native California for the summer, I am doing my best to keep e-commerce to a minimum. I’m old fashioned enough to want to feel a sweater before I buy it. The packaging waste makes me cringe. And returning unwanted merchandise is the worst, knowing 25% of all newly returned goods wind up in landfills because it’s too expensive to repackage and resell them. Nearly six billion pounds of returned merchandise go into America’s trash heaps every year; I don’t want to add one more sweater or can of tuna to the pile. So why don’t I just buy what I need at actual stores in California? If only. My attempts at in-person retail shopping have proven dismal and demoralizing. Look what happened when my old Melita pour-over coffee maker broke, as they tend to do every ten years or so. Could I find another? Nope! I drove to four stores and finally gave up and settled for a Chemex knock-off, a sort of glass beaker with a metal mesh filter. It was a horrible choice. The beaker was so fat it required an awkward two-handed lift. Cleaning the metal mesh wasted amounts of water that were shocking in a state suffering through the worst drought in 1200 years, so I had to add ill-fitting paper filters. I began to loathe the wretched thing and found myself snarling at it every morning. That’s when I realized I either had to replace it or give up drinking coffee altogether. Two weeks ago, I ordered a Melita online. Shortly after it arrived, I drove the despised off-brand coffee maker to Goodwill, trying not to think of how much of our planet’s precious resources had just been squandered.  In 2018, Burberry admitted destroying £90 million worth of clothing and accessories to avoid discounting that would dilute the brand. Most were burned; Burberry said the energy was captured, making it "environmentally friendly." Burberry has since revised their environmental policies. The Melita purchase left me feeling a bit more kindly towards online retail, so I placed an order for a number of small, difficult-to-find household items plus an eight-pack of tuna to restock our Apocalypse Chow emergency food locker. (Californians are urged to keep two weeks’ supply of food on hand to prepare for the next earthquake, fire, flood, or tsunami.) The online seller offered to deliver the stuff — for free! — by ten o’clock that night. But as a climate-conscious consumer, I opted for consolidated delivery the following Monday with fewer boxes. Monday came and the stuff didn’t. On Tuesday I was notified it had been returned as “undeliverable.” Really? Why? Had my address changed when I wasn’t looking? I re-ordered, and everything showed up but the tuna. “Supposedly it’s coming soon,” I told Rich at breakfast. “But now the website says that tuna eight-pack takes two months to deliver. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed the apocalypse doesn’t hit while we’re waiting.”  Rich spent the summer of 2020 building our Apocalypse Chow emergency food locker, which is kept stuffed with non-perishable food and emergency supplies. Online or in-person, it seems shoppers just can’t win. Last week at a pharmacy I watched a guy get into a fight with a self-checkout machine. He was frowning at the screen, muttering curses, furiously tapping keys, listening to automated beeps, stomping his feet, and tapping harder (because that always works). Finally he grabbed his purchases and stomped out without paying the $13.26 he owed. That’ll teach the darn machine! Despite optimistic articles about new stores opening, it’s pretty clear who’s winning the battle between online shopping and brick-and-mortar retail. A giant mall near me is being converted to housing. Sears and JC Penny filed for bankruptcy. Macy’s closed 131 stores. Bed Bath and Beyond shuttered 237 locations. CVS terminated 900. And have you been to a department store lately? Empty shelves, shabby dressing rooms, broken escalators, dispirited staff … it’s like a nature documentary where the hippo gets mired in quicksand while buzzards circle overhead and jackals lick their lips. Everyone knows this won’t end well for the hippo.  A shopper at Macy's in Corte Madera walks up a broken escalator. In my more optimistic moments, I don’t see this as a battle of human vs. machine but rather our species’ cleverness at sticking robots with the dangerous and boring jobs we don’t want to do, like toll collecting, bomb disposal, coping with rush hour traffic, and tracking down stray cans of tuna. However we feel about automation, machines are clearly going to be taking over more and more of our lives, and we have to make the best of it. “If you can’t change it,” Maya Angelou said, “change your attitude.” So I’m determined to make friends with with the microprocessors in my life, including the new human-free taxis. And if there’s a glitch and I wind up someplace unexpected, I’ll follow this wise advice I found online: “When something goes wrong in your life, just yell ‘Plot Twist’ and move on.” Well, that was fun! Want more? Sign up to receive notices when I publish more free stuff on the blog. LEARN MORE HERE Recently a reader reported trying to sign up but "it didn't take." In the unlikely event that ever happens to you, please let me know at enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com and I'll put you on the list.  YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY 
Toby is a Puerto Vallarta bar hound who loves stories that begin, "A dog walks into a bar..."
A dog and a man walk into a bar. Bartender says, “You can’t bring animals in here.” The man says, “But he’s no ordinary dog. He talks.” The man turns to his dog and says, “What’s on top of a house?” The dog says, “Roof!” The man says, “What’s on the outside of a tree?” The dog says, “Bark!” The man says, “Who’s the greatest baseball player of all time?” “Ruth!” The bartender throws them out. As soon as they’re on the street, the dog says, “Do you think I should have said DiMaggio?” People have been telling “A dog walks into a bar” stories since the dawn of time. Historical records from the University of Oxford include this 5000-year-old Sumerian joke: “A dog walked into a tavern and said, “I can’t see a thing. I’ll open this one.” Apparently that was a real thigh-slapper back in BC, but modern scholars continue to scratch their heads, and social media is full of half-baked explanations like, “It’s obvious the dog had his eyes closed,” or “There’s a pun in there somewhere, if only we spoke ancient Sumerian,” or “Must be a bawdy joke because they were wearing togas.” Huh? 
The Sumerians, who dominated ancient Mesopotamia, are believed to have been the first to domesticate dogs and invent the collar and leash.
My point is: dogs have been hanging out in bars with humans ever since alcohol was invented 9000 years ago. Twentieth century laws banned Bowser from the boozer on the basis of health and safety, but experts now say that's unnecessary. Healthy, vaccinated, well-behaved dogs, says veterinarian Eva Evens, “pose an extremely low risk to human health.” Today, thanks to California’s 2014 “canine dining law,” dogs are allowed in outdoor eating areas and some indoor settings, depending on the proprietor’s preferences and your pet’s ability to stay out of trouble. This is great news, because painting the town red can be a lot more fun when you bring along your best friend. And that goes double when you’re headed to a roadhouse. On Sunday, as part of my selfless research on behalf of my readers, I went to 7 Mile House, an 1858 roadhouse that has won the Best Dog-Friendly Restaurant award for the past five years in a row. There Rich and I met up with — oh wait, let me set this up properly. My brother, his wife, and their dog walk into a bar … and we all had lunch on the terrace, surrounded by other dogs and their human companions. I was having so much fun meeting dogs that it was hard to settle down and concentrate on the food. When I did, it was clear why this place was famous for such Filipino specialties as adobo (marinated pork) and lumpia (crisp-fried spring roll). My brother Mike briefly considered the Cow Palace burger, an entire pound of Angus beef plus bacon and a staggering list of other trimmings, but he was put off by the menu’s warning, “Dare to eat this only if you’re so hungry you could eat a cow!” He wisely opted for the half-pounder instead. No one was surprised that Deb and Mike’s French poodle, Django, barely nibbled at the beef patty from the dog menu; advanced years and missing teeth make him a notoriously delicate eater. So you can imagine our amazement when Django sniffed the doggie lumpia then leapt on it like a wolf, gobbling three rolls and making sure his humans took the rest home for later. The conversation turned to what makes a proper roadhouse. We agreed these roadside eateries are distinguished by stellar food — far better than you’d find at a typical diner or bar — and a dog-friendly attitude. I would also add a hint of danger from a slightly disreputable past (or present). The 7 Mile House began innocently enough as a toll house where drivers paid a toll and watered the horses. With the addition of a barroom and bedrooms, word went around it had become a brothel. An illegal poolroom in the 1890s launched its career as a gambling den, and I think we can all guess what kind of hijinks went on during Prohibition. In the 1970s the owner was arrested by the FBI for being the top bagman under Ron “The Cigar” Sacco, the most successful bookmaker in history. It goes on and on. I couldn’t make this stuff up. 
7 Mile House in the 1940s
The 7 Mile House was a biker gang hangout when Vanessa Garcia took over in 2004, and with the help of her family she’s now made the place downright upright. But in the early days the cops were called out to restore order so often that she got to know them well. How well? She's marrying one of them later this year. Not all taverns can boast that much colorful history, but Pengrove’s Twin Oaks Roadhouse scores points for longevity (it's nearing the century mark) and maintaining the Western rancher atmosphere. When I walk in, I’m always vaguely surprised not to find saloon doors swinging at the entry and a juke box playing the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Here the standing joke is: A three-legged dog walks into a saloon. He says to the bartender, “I’m lookin’ fer the man who shot my paw.” Twin Oaks is a great place for lunch; the food is excellent, the service cheerful, and the atmosphere so sleepy it’s practically a siesta. Happy Hour starts at 2 pm (!), so about the time I'm heading out the serious barflies are trickling in. I’ve heard the place can get rowdy at night; last summer there was a fracas in the parking lot ending in a broken nose and lots of conflicting testimony. But so far I’ve missed all the action. Rich and I visited another fabulous roadside eatery this week but regretfully decided Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café is not technically a roadhouse. Good food? Check. Dog-friendly? Check. Seedy barroom atmosphere? Decidedly lacking. Still, this quirky, engaging spot is well worth a visit. These days lots of taverns and roadhouses feature Yappy Hour with "puptails" such as Barkaritas, CharDOGnay, and Bow Wow Bubbly. Some provide off-leash runs overseen by a “wooferee.” Temptations include desserts like the Poochini, a peanut butter sundae with dog biscuits. Yes, it’s all silly indulgence, but why not, once in a while? Dogs never turn down a chance to party. Their joy is contagious and if we’re lucky we’ll catch it again and again. Animal behaviorist Patricia B. McConnell says, “That is what dogs and their emotions give us — a connection. A connection to life on earth, to all that binds and cradles us, lest we begin to feel too alone. Dogs are our bridge — our connection to who we really are, and most tellingly, who we want to be.” She adds, “I invite all of you to show our own species the same patience and compassion that we show dogs. After all, dogs seem to like us a lot, and I have the utmost respect for their opinion.” 
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Here's my new book full of insider tips to help you plan your stay.  Japan’s Seiryu Miharashi station can only be accessed by rail; you cannot leave the platform and there are no roads or footpaths leading to it. Just when I though travel couldn’t get any weirder, I learned the Japanese built a train platform in the middle of nowhere with no entrance or exit, no amenities, and no grand vistas. Obviously, you’ll be asking “Why?” And, “No really, why?” And finally, “Is this a joke or some kind of esoteric performance art?” Burrowing into the online research like a badger, I unearthed clues suggesting you’re supposed to get off the train and simply stand on the bare platform for an hour or so until the next train comes along. (Obviously you want to be very, very sure of the schedule so you don't miss the last run of the day.) Apparently people are traveling hundreds of miles just to experience this unique way of creating a little pause in the headlong rush of their lives.  There are 7.753 billion people on the planet, most of them in a hurry to get somewhere else. I must say I prefer a few more creature comforts in the way stations on the journey through life. Give me shelter, food, a glass of cheer, good music, and congenial company. Not to mention a bathroom. Unique as it is, Japan’s Seiryu Miharashi train station is not making my short list of potential travel destinations — or my long list, for that matter. My tastes run more to hospitable old roadhouses that have been comforting weary travelers for generations. I visited one such establishment last Friday: Giaco’s Valley Roadhouse in San Geronimo, California. I approached the visit with some trepidation. I’d known the roadhouse in its previous 40-year incarnation as Two Bird Café, which started its career as a motor inn and morphed into a popular roadside restaurant with three rooms for overnight guests. It has now passed into the hands of the Giacomini family and chef Alejandro Cano, and I was a bit worried they might have yielded to the temptation to stage a trendy makeover. As you can imagine, I was enormously relieved to see the same sturdy wooden furniture standing its ground. “We kept it pretty much the same,” Andrew Giacomini reassured me. “We changed the name — Giaco is my nickname, so we’re calling it Giaco’s Valley Roadhouse — and updated a bit, but kept the atmosphere.” Whew! With that worry out of the way, I could get to grips with an even more critical question. “What is the secret of this Chicken Marsala? It’s extraordinary.” “I keep asking Alejandro, but he won’t tell me,” he said, laughing. “It’s his closely guarded secret.”  Andrea, Susi and Andrew Giacomini are making Giaco's a family business. In his youth Andrew worked in Italian eateries. His wife Susi is indulging his mid-life dream of owning a restaurant. Over dinner at Giaco’s, I told Rich, "I just read, on another roadhouse's website, the quote, 'We believe behind every favorite song there is an untold story.' You think that's true?” He nodded, too busy ravaging the Chicken Marsala to speak. Of course, I’ve known for ages his favorite song is Ben E. King’s 1961 classic “Stand by Me.” King incorporated words from an old gospel hymn drawn from Psalm 46: "will not we fear, though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." He tried to sell the song to the Drifters, but they turned him down (a move they no doubt came to regret) so he recorded it himself. The rest is megahit history. By now it’s been recorded by everyone from Otis Redding to John Lennon to Tracy Chapman to the 2015 lineup of the Drifters (better late than never).  In 2015, King's original version of "Stand by Me" was inducted into the National Recording Registry of music deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress. “So why is it your favorite?” I asked Rich. But just then more wine arrived, and somehow the moment passed. We didn’t get around to discussing “Stand by Me” until two days later, during Sunday lunch in our garden. “I’d always liked the song,” he said. “Then when I saw the movie, back in 1986, it became my all-time favorite. These boys go out on an adventure, and it took me right back to my childhood."  When you're a kid, every excursion is an epic journey. Photo: from the 1986 movie "Stand by Me" "When I was nine or ten," Rich said, "I started being allowed out on my own, without being under anyone’s watchful eye. My friend Bruce and I heard about this swamp in another part of town. It was supposed to have snakes and be dark and mysterious. So we decided we’d ride our bikes over there and have an adventure. "We left our bikes at the edge of the swamp and walked in. It was very muddy, and we found a stream running under an old iron train trestle with graffiti all over it. We climbed on the train trestle and started inching our way out over the stream. It seemed so dangerous, but looking back, if we’d fallen, it was probably only fifteen feet. We kept looking for snakes; never found any. But it didn’t make any difference. It was my first big adventure. I felt like a free spirit. It was perfect.”  Rich, the summer he went to the swamp "Bruce and I made a pact to keep the place our secret. And I haven't really ever talked about it ... until now." He smiled at the memory and added, “It gave me a taste for adventure, for being spontaneous, and is probably the reason I travel the way I do today.” Rich is never happier than when he’s setting off into the unknown, with minimal (if any) luggage and no fixed route or timeline, prepared to make frequent detours and follow whims to their illogical but fascinating conclusions. So far, he’s never invited me to shimmy along a train trestle, but we’ve done plenty of other chancy things; some of our exploits in Albania and the Peruvian Amazon come to mind. Not knowing what’s next adds to the fun; we’ve learned that too much advance planning can dull the edge of excitement and turn the whole enterprise into a mind-numbing exercise in dotting i’s and crossing t’s. “A journey is like marriage,” John Steinbeck once said. “The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”  On our honeymoon in Costa Rica in 1986, we were stranded in a broken motorboat on a remote, crocodile-infested river at sundown. Good times... Maybe that’s why I’m not so keen on the Seiryu Miharashi train station. When it comes to control, that bare platform clearly has the upper hand. I sometimes imagine travelers stepping off a train there, feeling interested and hopeful for about five minutes, walking from one end of the platform to the other and taking the usual selfies from this angle and that. And then, inevitably, they must realize they’ve plumbed the possibilities, and the next train won’t be along for 55 eternal minutes. Perhaps author PG Wodehouse describes that feeling best: “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” Or, as he writes of another character, “He had the look of one who had drunk from the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.” In my view, travel should not evoke dead beetles but rather the intoxicating sense of freedom we felt for the first time as kids — and, if we’re lucky, have kept on cultivating ever since. “We travel, in essence, to become young fools again,” says essayist Pico Iyer. “To slow time down and get taken in, and to fall in love once more.” Travel reminds us of the thrill of mystery and the half-forgotten truth that every destination is standing by, ready to offer itself as our partner in whatever adventure lies ahead. Do you have favorite song? Did you have adventures as kid? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY Well, that was fun! Want more? 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This blog is a promotion-free zone. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things that interest me and that I believe might prove useful for you all to know about. Whew! I wanted to clear that up before we went any further. Thanks for listening.  Karen McCann
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I'm an American travel writer based in Seville, Spain. Wanderlust has taken me to more than 60 countries. Every week I provide travel tips and adventure stories to inspire your journeys and let you have more fun — and better food — on the road Don't miss out! Sign up for my blog. MORE INFO HERE 
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