Exodus...

A week has passed and headway towards the Vaterland is measly, longitudinally. In that time, however, I have managed to clock more hours hand-to-mouth than e'er before in my decades long love-affair with the story of my land and its unique cuisine. Famously, those dishes which define my childhood are cursed with the worst reputation of any Old-World cooking culture... and as much as this insults those several valiant chefs of Food Network and the Travel Channel, whose mission it has come to be to lay such blasphemy to rest and ring in an era of appreciation for the grittier things in life, for me it is as a stake to my heart, worth twice the world over in sorrow and grief. Though, in fact, no one's younger years were actually spent nostalgically scoffing down offal or at all enjoying the hardy, scathing crunch of crackling from the pigs that were most certainly not spit-roasted every evening over the family fire, most will find, eventually, that the intense weirdness of British heritage cooking is a point of pride and even patriotism, and he who it knocketh, hath not such heavenly manna tried. In the interest of brevity, I digress: soapboxes are built on such issues. That said, I have been blessed this week to find my journeys quite enhanced by the various deliverances of my Anglo-Saxon snout: surely the very stuff of life whose single, whispered mention transports my gustatory memory into a ringing psychedelia of glorious oxymoron, suitably described as at once "aloof", "grungy", "divine" and "pedestrian". In far fewer words, and a  far more apt demonstration, pictures should suffice. My lunch in London consisted of roasted bone marrow, mushrooms au jardin d'Eden, and a particularly mystifying glass of "Le Clos" 2010.

There are surely words enough in the English language to describe such monstrous tours de force culinaires, but in reverence, I should refrain from using them. They are also rather like unto the vocabulary we reserve to embellish stories of sexual excess... and as such, it is wise not to dwell.

 As a fact, surprising though it may be, healthier pass-times are also in no short supply in this, the nation for old men, and my favorite of these is naturally "rambling". A fitting measure of Englishness in either sense of its double entendre, an afternoon of rambling across hills and dales, tweed-clad in woolly glory, is tantamount to the expenditure of an entire afternoon coolly wagging chins with neighbors over tea you never asked for. In short, quite English. When in Sussex, the place to go to get in touch with one's tweedy side is Devil's Dyke; the emerald crown jewel of the South Downs. An afternoon was spent here, tagging along with the magical Riley clan, gawking at the awesome scenery and jealously watching hang-gliders launch gracefully into the wind from atop the hills, making the security of our picnic blanket a rather dull prospect, but for the miniature, individually-wrapped Soreen malt loaves (woof, so good) we had so cleverly packed for lunch. Turns out, the South of England can be rather enchanting, when it counts... the hills were simply humbling.

As hinted above, I made a rather appropriately dubbed "pilgrimage" this week to London, to see the new exhibit at my favorite establishment in the entire world; the British Museum. The "Treasures of Heaven" were well worth my while, and twice the entrance fee (though the museum is free, entrance for special exhibits seriously pays the bills). My hungry history bug had its ample surfeit on this educational smorgasbord: a masterfully arranged, snaking corridor of learning was beset with the gilded arms and feet of Christian saints and messiahs, ranging from the plausible to the positively queer, with shards of the "true" cross in full abundance. Other sculptured golden reliquaries had housed such curio as a thorn from the Lord's funeral crown and a section of His most holy umbilical chord (needless to say, a crowd-pleaser). But... the real treasured experience I gathered from this outing was the opportunity to actually employ the skills we developed so long ago in GERM 608: "Introduction to Middle High German". Naturally, the best 12th century relics were housed in German cathedrals (the Münster in Bonn among them), accompanied by official inventory documents and accounts of their legendary healing powers, which were all written in the local parlance. A woman standing next to me wondered aloud what could be written in this mysterious carolingean miniscule, to which I responded, not so humbly reading aloud from "das Lied von dem Rock unsres Herren Jesu Christi". And there was much rejoicing.

Other noteworthy activities have been conducted as "Patrick and James time", such as Eastbourne's Pier and Towner Gallery (a fabulous exhibition on John Piper in Kent and Sussex), the Brighton Museum and tea with some of the most pleasantly non-flaming homosexual men I've ever met. I said goodbye to the charming little devil this afternoon as we delivered him for a weekend at his Granny's, and I can honestly say he's been delightful. As his sister is starting her first year of secondary school at Brighton College (a veeery posh private school), attention hasn't been easy to come by for young James. He seems truly relieved to have someone here who has time to spend with him, and I am particularly honored to indulge him: needless to say, there has never been such a marathon game of air-hockey as we played this afternoon in Eastbourne. My remaining time in Brighton & Hove will be far quieter, but appropriately so as my focus shifts to the task at hand.

Saturday, I'm off on the train first to Aylesbury, and then to Alcester and the green bosom of Warwickshire: haven of my blessed childhood and my personal vision of England at its finest. I'm off to see my uncle and my cousins (some first, and some once removed), the dearest neighbors I've ever known and, most importantly, to pay respects and visit my home away from home one last time before the real adventure begins. Three more days in England, and then... the most anticipated pint of Pilsner in history shall be mine to savor.