A Window Table
by Gerald Michael Rolfe
Put me on a portico overlooking Bar Harbor and I'm loaded for lobster. Deposit me on a deck in Lahaina and let the wahine-watching begin.
I'm a fan of the window table. I absolutely love a dinner with a view. Be it the Brown Pelican in Cedar Key, Millard's At The Summit in Borodino, or the Whale's Tail in Channel Islands Harbor, nothing (save an attractive companion) goes better with filet and cabernet than the panorama of the natural world.
It isn't just about the food. When I eat out I am on an excursion of the senses. I feel an almost mystical oneness with the universe when I suck a sweet oyster from its shell while watching a gull do the same on the rocks below my perch. Salad is anything but just salad when my eyes are simultaneously treated to lavish displays of bougainvillea, crepe myrtle and palm. It's as if the whole vegetable kingdom is conspiring together to make my experience sublime.
When I savor the broiled snapper, the hunter inside me radiates with appreciation at the dive-bombing relentlessness of pelicans crashing into the bay for their own fresh catch. How much more fortunate, though, that I am a man. While the pelican must be content to swallow his fish whole, I get to chew every exquisite bite!
As window tables go, is there anything more perfect for the evening than a west-facing view over water? When the last of the dinner plates are taken away, I feel an abiding peace as the color of sunset paints my companion's face. The velvety richness of a cardomom creme brulee becomes a gastronomic echo of the subtle orange and red and grey of ebbing day, as if everything in the world is kissing everything else all at once. Conversation comes in effortless murmurs of affection and appreciation. Dessert yields to coffee as the last drops of daylight yield to night. The seamless transition of raucous day into romantic night is once again complete.
Evening coffee and an aperitif at the window table is a delight in its own right. Faraway lights, especially on boats gliding past, make me think of mystery and adventure. In answer, candlelight within conjures mystery and adventure of its own as it casts a beguiling sparkle upon goblets and jewelry and lipstick.
I melt like drawn butter when I think of holding hands under the cozy table as other lovers stroll along a lamplit path next to the shore. It's time to pay the tab and do a little strolling of my own. It's good to be in love with life, especially when I can love it from the window table.
http://www.geraldmichaelrolfe.com
http://actualthought.blogspot.com
Put me on a portico overlooking Bar Harbor and I'm loaded for lobster. Deposit me on a deck in Lahaina and let the wahine-watching begin.
I'm a fan of the window table. I absolutely love a dinner with a view. Be it the Brown Pelican in Cedar Key, Millard's At The Summit in Borodino, or the Whale's Tail in Channel Islands Harbor, nothing (save an attractive companion) goes better with filet and cabernet than the panorama of the natural world.
It isn't just about the food. When I eat out I am on an excursion of the senses. I feel an almost mystical oneness with the universe when I suck a sweet oyster from its shell while watching a gull do the same on the rocks below my perch. Salad is anything but just salad when my eyes are simultaneously treated to lavish displays of bougainvillea, crepe myrtle and palm. It's as if the whole vegetable kingdom is conspiring together to make my experience sublime.
When I savor the broiled snapper, the hunter inside me radiates with appreciation at the dive-bombing relentlessness of pelicans crashing into the bay for their own fresh catch. How much more fortunate, though, that I am a man. While the pelican must be content to swallow his fish whole, I get to chew every exquisite bite!
As window tables go, is there anything more perfect for the evening than a west-facing view over water? When the last of the dinner plates are taken away, I feel an abiding peace as the color of sunset paints my companion's face. The velvety richness of a cardomom creme brulee becomes a gastronomic echo of the subtle orange and red and grey of ebbing day, as if everything in the world is kissing everything else all at once. Conversation comes in effortless murmurs of affection and appreciation. Dessert yields to coffee as the last drops of daylight yield to night. The seamless transition of raucous day into romantic night is once again complete.
Evening coffee and an aperitif at the window table is a delight in its own right. Faraway lights, especially on boats gliding past, make me think of mystery and adventure. In answer, candlelight within conjures mystery and adventure of its own as it casts a beguiling sparkle upon goblets and jewelry and lipstick.
I melt like drawn butter when I think of holding hands under the cozy table as other lovers stroll along a lamplit path next to the shore. It's time to pay the tab and do a little strolling of my own. It's good to be in love with life, especially when I can love it from the window table.
http://www.geraldmichaelrolfe.com
http://actualthought.blogspot.com
posted by Gerald Michael Rolfe @ 7:46 PM
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