Perhaps one of the most trite (because of overuse), yet true (cliches are cliches for a reason), phrases is: "You are what you eat." The conventional meaning summed up is that if you eat healthy food, you are a healthy individual... and conversely if you eat unhealthy food, you are unhealthy. But I think it can mean more than that. I think an analysis of what you eat can say a lot about your sensibilities and world views and experiences well beyond your nutrition education.
As mentioned yesterday, Edward Gorey was friends with a man named Jack who owned a restaurant named Jack's Outback (not outback as in Australia, but outback as in you can't see it from the road... because it's out back...). When Jack was alive, the system was to go in and write out your order on a ticket, put it on the wheel, grab silverware, and pick up your food when the cook, or Jack, shouted to do so. Apparently Gorey didn't throw away a lot, so a friend found his tickets for breakfast and lunch for an entire month and put together a visual piece that showed the whims and fancies and cravings and decisions of the man. Jack died in 2006, so now the frame of order tickets is in the Gorey museum.
It is now a more traditional set-up: you seat yourself, and the server comes and takes your order. We went this morning for breakfast. The food was very good, our server was attentive, and The Girl loved that there were two golden retrievers (one named Jack -- thus changing the name of the restaurant to Jack's Outback II) that were wandering around outside and amiable to gestures of love and appreciation... or at least one of them was, the other (Andi?) was waiting at the backdoor, presumably for some scraps.
After breakfast we headed back to the Cape Cod National Seashore visitor's center to wander through the museum, watch the movie about the shifting sands of the cape, and get completed Junior Ranger booklets signed off.
Before attending church we stopped by to see the Nauset Lighthouse -- preserved and moved 300 feet back from the eroding cliff in 1996. We also saw the Three Sisters Lighthouses. After being decommissioned each went on to have a different history before being reunited. I think that's a nice pattern for siblings. Together originally, then off to follow individual pursuits, but eventually coming back to be together again, for within a sibling is a great potential for true understanding and appreciation.
For lunch we went to Marion's Pie Shop in Chatham. Mostly it's a take-out place, but we got some hot soup and ate outside in the bright chairs. The soup was nice, but really it's the treats that bring people in by the droves. We tried the orange rolls (like cinnamon rolls, but with orange zest and a citrusy glaze), and the pecan bars. Both very good, and we have a Key Lime pie in the fridge for tomorrow... Though I'm not sure how fabulous of an idea it was to bring a refrigerated pie back all the way from the cape... if we don't all kick it tomorrow, I'll guess it was an okay idea.
And then the slog home. I drifted in and out listening to the kids harass The Sister in the back seat. She is such a sweet, good girl. Our family is honestly going to feel like there's a void when she leaves this summer... I know that it's her turn to go out and follow her individual pursuits, but while she's doing that I will miss her... and hope that someday we live by each other.
Before reentering the city we stopped an hour and a half out in New Haven. Considering that our first adventure of the trip was stopping at Brown, we ended up making an Ivy League sandwich. Yale has gorgeous buildings, but the town kind of suffocates them. I have a hard time getting a clear handle on "the campus."
We went to the Italian neighborhood -- to Wooster Street -- and, since we were early enough that the line wasn't too gruesome, had pizza and old school soda at the Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana.
We drove along Hillhouse Avenue -- which the guidebook said was declared by Charles Dickens to be the prettiest street in America. Eh. I've seen better. Though it was nice and wide, and is lined with beautiful mansions (that are now all owned by Yale).
We passed a quaint street canopied by blooming trees. It was truly lovely (Dickens must not have visited in the Spring, or he might have altered his judgment). There were people all about it taking pictures.
And now we're home. And glad to be. As we always say, we are happy to travel, and happy to come home.
Just as what we eat simultaneously shapes and explains who we are, so does travel.
