Note: This post should start off by mentioning that our trip was cut short because our little pug Clyde developed some freak melting eye ulcer. And from where we were it took us 2 hours by car, 2 hours by train and having to wait another day to get return flights back to New Jersey. The feeling of helplessness meant that Jenny and I didn’t really sleep for several days. The thought of him being in pain, surrounded by strangers, and with a catheter made me sick. When we got back to Paris with a night to wait the only thing that soothed the knots in my stomach was a bowl of pasta. I love French cuisine. It’s clever, introspective, and embraces seasonality more than other cuisines. But straight forward Italian food holds my hand when faced with precarious situations. We made it back to my little boy. We still haven’t really slept and as I write this, tomorrow he’s going in for surgery to get his eye removed. I expected that though we fought for a days to avoid it. Soon he will be a true Passaic dog: feral and filled with a deep smiling rage.
Dordogne
This trip was about settling in. No longer overcome with planning, rushing, and anxiety my mind didn’t know what to do with itself. Like Galactus, it consumed. I felt like a Porsche that went off a cliff and was still in midair. Where was I going?
My long gone friend Etienne used to say that I wasn't like the average American, that my soul was to the whole world. And regardless of where you stand it is evident that the American mind is quickly closing. I needed to go to a place where I could attempt to feel and see the things in my mind in particular freedom hence Dordogne.
To be deep in France in a part that is so ancient there is memory of a time before civilization is to be glorious. But we did have to make a pitstop in Paris, a place I wasn’t necessarily pining to be back in. I’m not in any way knocking it, in many ways it is better than New York, but I needed to be in more primal or bucolic surroundings. We zipped down to Bordeaux on a train (Why the fuck don’t we have good trains here? Punkass, bitchass, motherfucking government) and snagged a Peugeot.
Finally in Dordogne, if it wasn’t for all the boulangeries one would think it was the English countryside. The mornings were crisp and carried the sounds of babbling streams softly. With the hearty food and towns of stone it is a fine place to be provided there are less crowds. The wine is also quite good and deliciously cheap. Out of the many bottles of Bergerac was on average €15 with layers of flavor that would make me sound like a wine asshole.
What attracted me to Dordogne is the thing that never escapes my daily mind. The precariousness of existence. Do not take that to mean I’m some melancholic mope, though maybe I am. But what lingers over me is that when you strip away the civilization, the literature, ideologies, and religions all of life exist on a razors edge. Even worse, we have a nasty habit of taking ideas as real, the great barrier to actual progress. As I strolled through stone villages and observing ancient outcroppings I could see there were different times when we did less of this. When a destination was more than a dream. I wanted to go to a place that was at one point the limits of humanity. The ice age made it so that humans couldn’t push much further. And those who lived here semi settled down and created culture. They thrived on this razors edge. Somehow life became more than just struggling to find food and struggling to raise children. Life seems to have become special, something to be celebrated. That isn’t something to be taken for granted. And dotted all around the valleys are caves with art of various animals, some possibly sacred and others food.
Another thing that drew me was reading Henry Miller. He spent some time here, and spoke fondly of it. I only encountered his writing a few years ago, and at first was dismissive. And I know why: reading him is like listening to myself talk. He can be prickly, coarse, and dismissive while also being accommodating. We stayed at the same Inn he did, probably sipping wine along the same stream. His life, in his words, read like some alternative universe to my own with both of us naturally seeking out select places. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think back to the roaring waves of Big Sur.
That’s as much as I can say about Dordogne, or care to. But I expect you are here to read about food. So don’t let me disappoint you. Dordogne is also the land of foie gras, truffles, and walnuts amongst other things. Did I eat truffles everyday? In some form, yes. Did I eat foie gras everyday? No, I would have died. But I had it plenty. It’s not something I enjoy as much anymore. It’s just not as primal as I’d prefer. There are places to get a simple roasted piece of goose liver with some onion jam and a sweet sauce. That is more my thing.
The restaurants here are all great as far as I’ve experienced along with the people. Many speak directly with a touch of disdain at first then welcome you with a big genuine smile. Free time was spent enjoying a cigarette over a game of cards. One particular man seemed to despise me. I think he thought me a Patagonia vest wearing American to which I playfully displayed my own disdain for. He reminded me of a classmate from culinary school, a particular working class oaf with big dreams. After a few days our greetings were with a slyness as if we knew a secret joke.
There’s the wine. In Dordogne, the most attractive thing a person can do is tsk at you when asking about wines from around Bordeaux. The tsk seemed to best converted to American English as: bitch, please. The disregard for a neighboring region is one of the ways I judge if a place is truly a place. We lugged back a few bottles that I look forward to tearing open once life settles down.
I stopped writing to enjoy this trip and thought maybe I’d experience enough to propel my work further. And it has, though not in the way I expected. There have been doubts about my efforts due to my inexperience and paranoia that I’m never good enough. But I did realize one thing: that I’ve come to enjoy the characters in my book. They aren’t entirely my creation and no longer solely based on people I once knew. They are alive. The only problem now is that it makes my progress slower, because I spend a lot of time discovering them.