I?Even though in England the variety of crabs is wonderful, for me the cream of the crustaceous crop is the American East Coast blue crab. Sweet, delicate, and just enough flesh to make it worth one’s while to keep hammering away at them for hours on end.
II?Organizations like Riverkeeper have made a significant difference in rectifying this.
III?Although people often associate corn with the Midwest, New York State has some of the best sweet corn on earth. Come August, grocery stores and farm stands are overflowing with a variety of corn that I believe is called Silver Queen, whose kernels are small and white.
3
In 1973 my family moved from our home in Katonah to Italy for a year as my father had taken a sabbatical to study drawing, sculpture, and bronze casting at the renowned Accademia di Belle Arti, situated in the heart of Florence. My mother, my sisters, and I had never been north of Vermont or south of Manhattan, nor had we ever been on a plane, so the prospect of flying halfway across the world to live in a completely different country, and in a city no less （as opposed to the suburbs）， was thrilling and of course a little nervous-making.
When we arrived in Rome, we stayed in a pensione for a couple of nights in order to do some sightseeing before taking a train to Florence. We visited the usual places of significance, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, etc., which were overwhelming for eyes that had never seen anything older than Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, or a few relatives. At the end of each day we ate in a restaurant just a few doors down from where we were staying, and if truth be told, it was the first actual restaurant I had ever eaten in. Even though I was almost thirteen years of age, as far as I can recollect, basically the only eatery I had been to was a pizza joint a couple of miles from our house called the Muscoot Tavern.
The Muscoot was named after the reservoir it was adjacent to, one of many reservoirs in upstate New York that supply the drinking water for New York City. Built in the 1920s, it was a narrow, dilapidated shack of a building with a floor that sloped like a perpetually keeling ship. It was dark and dingy, with a battered wooden bar and about twenty checkered tablecloth–covered tables. Cold beer on tap, Miller High Life or the like, was served in scratched glass pitchers for about $2 each. Iceberg lettuce salads were served in those small flimsy “wooden” patchwork bowls that still grace tables in certain diners all over America. However, regardless of the crumbling surroundings and I believe a multitude of health violations, the place did a hearty business, because the thin-crust pizza was delicious. （Many other pizza places opened over the years as that area of upper Westchester became more and more populated, yet none of them ever made pizza that was nearly as good.） My family would go to the Muscoot maybe two or three times a year as a special treat, and besides a hamburger at the Mount Kisco Friendly’s after our annual doctor’s checkup, that was my experience of dining out. （I recently discovered that Massimo Bottura’s wife, Lara Gilmore, waited tables at this very same Friendly’s, as she comes from Bedford, New York, next to my hometown of Katonah. I just thought you’d want to know that information and it allowed me to drop Massimo’s name, which I will now continue to drop, among others.）
Anyway, fifty years ago there were very few restaurants in that part of Westchester, and those that existed were either diners or very high-end places serving duck à l’orange or other French classics that were all the rage in 1970s America. Public school teachers’ salaries being what they were, and frankly still are, dining out for a family of five was cost-prohibitive, so logically, we ate in. Also the fact that my mother was such a good cook made it certain that we never would have gotten anything nearly as delicious as what she was serving on any given night even in the upscale restaurants, and surely not at any of the diners.
So eating in a restaurant, but especially eating in a restaurant in Rome!!, was a whole new world for my sisters and me. Do I remember what we ate those two evenings? No, I do not. Most likely, it was just a simple pasta dish that would hopefully satisfy three children aged twelve, nine, and six enough to make them sleep through the night and not awaken their exhausted and anxious parents. However, what I do remember is the tidiness and cleanliness of the place and that, like most Italian restaurants to this day, it was very brightly lit. I remember how precisely the place settings were laid, that the glasses were turned upside down and then deftly set right by the waiter as we were seated. I remember the starched white tablecloths and how the waiters’ jackets were equally starched and white, and I remember how kind they were to us as my father explained with pride, in his then-slightly-broken Italian, that we were to be living here for a year. All that surrounded me was completely alien, and I loved it. I loved the taut readiness of the dining room, the preparedness of the staff, and the sense of expectation that sat invisibly at the empty tables. Who knew what might happen here on this or any given evening?