The Hammock Papers: You don't have to die to get there

11 November 2008

You don't have to die to get there

It's late. I'm hungry. And, for some reason, Key West just came to mind. The last time I was there I had the best breakfast I've had to date . . .

. . . After a short bike ride from the Island City House, by Papa's place, we came upon Blue Heaven. Classic Caribbean restaurant -- all windows and doors open. No guests inside. Everyone is seated in the backyard beneath the banyan trees, which also have mainsails draped across their peaks. Chickens strut along the mulch-covered ground.

First, a Bloody Mary. Then, on to the professional business of planning my attack on the menu. Let's see . . . Oatmeal, yogurt, fresh fruit, made-from-scrtach pancakes (now we're talkin'!), and then I see it . . . (cue the sun shining through the clouds, brightly illuminating the words...)"Seafood Benedict."

It was heaven, Blue Heaven. A Cayo Hueso take on a classic. The first thing that caught my eye was the magic word, "grilled." I'll eat almost anything grilled . . . hmmm, let me think . . . no, I'll eat ANYTHING grilled. Breakfast off the grill proved to be a fine way to start the day. I was not disappointed. It was Redfish, grilled with crisp grill marks and firm, succulent, moist flesh. The piscine portion was topped with a poached egg (its donor was probably the one at my feet, patroling the plot for provisions), topped with a lime hollandaise; a perfect balance of acid and fat. This dream was then served atop a generous slice of grilled Cuban bread.

I remember the sun, the smell of the sea, and the sound of the subtle skanking, but the gate of Heaven that opened that May morning was the cover of a menu, the contents of which didn't require death to enjoy eternal happiness.

My boy, Jimmy, even wrote a song about it.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL