The French table presents many challenges to the average American. The first is one of stamina. I will never forget my first twelve hour meal. Well, to be exact, it was two meals, but one ran right into the other. Lunch began at noon and the conversation carried us through dinner until midnight. At one point I broke the spell and went for a quick walk, but I was the only one—my poor glutes just couldn't take any more sitting in my wrought iron chair. 

Apart from such marathon feasts, your derrière better be ready to sit for a good three hours even for an ordinary weekend dinner. 

The second test is one of table manners. I've learned not to be ashamed when most of the small children at the table brandish their steak knives with more grace and agility than me. Or when my dinner companion asks why I keep switching my utensils from hand to hand when I need to cut something. Or when someone points out that, technically, it's rude to cut salad. (Why am I the only one left with salad dressing on my chin when shoveling a lettuce leaf the size of a quilt into my mouth?) But, the third, and most important, is the challenge of the food itself. 

We simply haven't been introduced to many foods that commonly feature on a typical French menu. Of course, this is changing as the foodie-culture continues to rise in the States. These days you can find whole restaurants dedicated to using all parts of the pig and hear tales of Manhattan investment bankers retiring at thirty to become artisanal cheese makers in Vermont. But, still, in many cases, French food has the power to shock Americans. Or, if not shock us, at least shut us and our taste buds up with trepidation, and the French get a huge kick out of this. They like putting your Francophilia to the test: "Oh, you like our wine and our literature, but what do you think about our headcheese?"

Over the years I have worked out that there are certain levels in the quest to full French acceptance in this regard:
Level One: Things Found in the Forest or Pond
Level Two: Mold
Level Three: Parts Cruelly Prepared 
Level Four: Viscera
Level Five (The Ultimate Test): The Animal's Periphery, aka Face and Feet

In general, French people love to discuss food, and when they dine with an American it's a great chance for them to relive some of their favorite dishes, while simultaneously freaking out their guest, so this is a familiar conversation: 

Host: "Have you tried frog legs? How about escargot?" (Level One)

Guest: "Sure! It's easy to love anything bathed in garlic, butter and herbs." 

Host: "I'm glad to hear you're not like most Americans. Here, try this nice Pont L'Eveque." (Level Two) And, you are presented with the source of the stench that's been knocking you over for the past three hours, the king of stinky cheese, which has been ripening at room temperature on the counter. 
 
Guest: "Why thank you, that's delicious." They're annoyed when you don't protest.

Host: "And foie gras? We've heard that some American cities have banned this delicacy!" (Level Three)

Guest: "Actually, I think that ban's been lifted." Now, they're truly disappointed.

Host: "What about blood sausage? Andouillette? Tripe? Kidneys?" At this point, they're trying anything to stump you, but when you've finally passed Level Four, you may be the proud recipient of a French nod-frown of "not bad". 

But, I'm ashamed to admit, I flunked Level 5 completely. 

Over the years a friend from Lyon, which some French people consider to be the culinary capital of the country, had heard me repeatedly profess my love for various scary French foods and seen me flaunt my hearty appetite, and I'm convinced she decided to test my mettle once and for all. So, one evening she invited us for a simple, light dinner outside on one of those mild summer nights when twilight hits late and lasts long. 

When the aperitif began, I should have recognized the bad omen lurking in the lawn. A black cat hovered over a patch in the grass, unmoving for what seemed like an hour. Finally, he pounced in a frenzied, brief attack. In the alien blue of the evening it was difficult to see what he had succeeded in capturing, so the guests took a stroll over, champagne flutes in hand, to discover the cat batting around the detached head of a gopher. We watched the grisly game, fascinated. 

At the same time, our hostess was laying out the repast: fresh bread, a bottle of cellar-cooled red, and two large salads, one of museau, the other of pied de cochon, which in French sound beautiful, but when translated are immediately stripped of their appeal: snout salad and pig foot salad. 

In concept, I didn't object. Our hostess is an amazing cook, and I knew she was serving the best, and indeed, the other diners tucked in and sang the salads' delicious praises. 

The first forkful of cartilage did me in. Usually I have no problem with texture. Chewy, slimy, gooey, mushy? No problem. But I had the distinct impression that I was affectionately nibbling on a cold pig's ear. It was too much. Of course, I kept my proud mouth shut and hoped my uneaten salads were somewhat hidden in the shadows. 

Did I imagine a mischievous crinkle at the corner of my friend's mouth when she offered me seconds? Perhaps we both knew that I had been vanquished, that I hadn't passed Level Five. 

The cat was still busy with his savage playtime in the lawn. The guests at the table elegantly chewed their thin pink squares of museau and pied. I tore off a chunk of baguette, took a big swig of Burgundy and promised myself to do better the next time I'm presented with a gourmet foot on my plate. 

Five years old, walking with my dad / I call him Mom.

New in English class, just finished German, fill out a form with my name and major / I write: Audrey—Englisch.

Shoot off a quick email to my boss; read it after sending / Kind regards, Audlrkey

Running by the river, policeman stops me / Are you okay miss? / Yes, why? / Your face is just so red.

I've already established my wariness of moving vehicles and propulsion of any kind. This unfortunately extends even to relatively safe modes of transportation like bicycling—a regrettable aversion (I loved biking as a kid, albeit mostly just around the neighborhood) owed to a few minor incidents, collected and amplified over time: 

Incident #1: I am working behind the counter of a café on a popular, historic road in Boston. I like looking out the large picture windows at the red brick buildings and, sometimes, the snow. One day, I see a jolly cyclist coming down the street just as a woman, on a cell phone, swings open her parked car door right in his path. He flips and sails clear over the door. He is stunned, but unhurt. The woman apologizes, then continues her phone conversation. 

Incident #2: Walking home from work in Chicago, a driver revs his engine in impatience as I cross the crosswalk. I give him a dirty look. Once on the other side, I hear a thud. The aggressive driver had rolled right into the street and knocked over a passing cyclist, who gets up, smooths his clothes, remounts his bike and continues on his way. The driver peels off. 

Incident #3 (Hearsay): Many of my coworkers at the library bike to work and swap stories about angry Chicago drivers. I ask one if he's ever been hit by a car. He responds: "Yes, five times."  Curiously, he does not seem traumatized. 

Incident #4: Well, I have to tell you more about Incident #4…

These days a lot of big cities have bike-loan programs, in which you rent a bicycle at one location using a credit card in a machine and drop it off at another. A brilliant idea for non-vehicle-phobic members of society, especially tourists. It's a cheap, quick, low-hassle way to explore large stretches of a new city. 

Many years ago, pre-bike-loan programs, I traveled to Munich. A friend of a friend, a kind native of the city, had agreed to show me around, and we would start by lunch in a beer garden at the famous public park, the English Garden (so named for its style of landscaping), which is larger even than Hyde Park or Central Park. 

"Wilkommen to the Englischer Garten!" 

At the food stalls he ordered me a stein of cold beer, sausage with strong mustard and delicious warm, vinegary potato salad. We carried our trays over to a wooden picnic bench and began planning my city itinerary: "You must see the Deutsches Museum and Marienplatz, of course. But, first you should see more of the Englischer Garten. It's a beautiful day."

"It all sounds great!" In the fresh air, after this cozy meal, I would be content anywhere in this welcoming city.

"I have an idea. Let's go for a bicycle ride through the park!" 

"Oh. Well, okay. But… too bad, I don't have a bike. Shucks. Guess we'll have to make it a walk instead. Don't worry, I wore my walking shoes!" 

"Nein. You must see the park by bike. It's no problem. You can borrow one from my neighbor." 

A little tipsy from my afternoon beer, I agreed to the plan, and we walked to his apartment building and knocked on his neighbor's door. My German was just good enough to understand that she wasn't keen on lending her bike to a stranger. And, plus, she hadn't used it in awhile. We would have to check the tires. 

Reluctantly, she gave the key to her persuasive neighbor, and we unlocked a small, sad-looking bike outside. Already, I could see that my tall American body was much too large for its tiny frame. Out of his garage my host wheeled out his own impressive bike, and I secretly hoped that he would notice our disparity in height and offer me his obviously superior, larger bike. 

He inspected the loaner bike thoroughly, squeezed its tires, and then trotted out his own pump to ensure maximum oomph. 

Finally I swung my leg over, clearing the seat easily, and felt immediately awkward. My knees almost brushed the handlebars. 

"Are you sure it's not too small?" I asked. 

"It's fine," and he took off down the street. I pedaled vigorously, trying my best to keep up with him. He glanced back and I thought I read annoyance behind his round spectacles. 

"Wait for me!"

He extended his arm out in a turn signal and glided gracefully through the park's entrance on pale crunchy gravel. I followed with pumping knees, my face squished in concentration and effort. 

The harder I pedaled the smaller the bike felt. The park was Wonderland and I was a growing Alice on a shrinking bike. 

I called out to him, "Could we slow down? I really think my bike is too small." 

He slid his bike to a stop and looked back. "It's not too small." 

"I think something's wrong with it. It's too old. Or, I don't understand the gears. Sorry!" I chided myself, Bad, Bad American, can't ride a bike or handle a daytime stein. 

"It's perfectly fine. My neighbor rides it all the time." 

"I think maybe I'll just walk it awhile," I declared, my discomfort aiding my stubbornness. 

"Look, we'll switch bikes for a bit, and I'll show you that your bike is perfectly fine. Here, take mine. But, be careful. It's a very nice bike." 

"Oh thank you!" 

He looked immediately regretful and repeated, "Just for a bit." 

Climbing onto his fancy bike was like slipping into a Ferrari after riding around in a Twingo. 

"It's perfectly fine!" He shouted for the third time, and he took off with more force and vigor than before, clearly determined to show me how trusty the bike was. He looked just as awkward as I must have, with his knees splayed out to the sides. 

Meanwhile, I liked the feeling of my new tall ride. Yes, this was much better. 

He pedaled harder and harder, his hair flying. He was handling the pathetic bike as if it were a suped-up dirt bike in a road race. Ahead of us I saw a small hill, and he gunned it, standing up to full height on the pedals, his butt in the air, flying over the hill. 

Then, in midair, the bike seemed to explode. A chain flew in one direction, random pieces of metal in another. The moment of the bicycle's last shattering paroxysm seemed to swell, the rider bucked off, until they both crashed down to the ground in a dusty heap.

I did not know how to say "I told you so" in German. 

We cut short our tour of Munich's English Garden on that fine day. I relinquished his nice bike, and he rode slowly home beside me as I walked back the mangled remains of the other. 

I.  

Just beyond Customs, a woman, one half of a sleepy couple who look like they just rolled out of bed and tumbled, still murmuring, to the airport, holds a sign with my name on it. In the car I think, they could be serial killers and I have fallen for an elaborate ruse, but as we drive further into the city, she grows kind and starts to point out landmarks and discuss the program and my living arrangements while I'm here: two other students will share the apartment; she personally has stocked our kitchen; call if we need anything. 

The city stretches out along the sea like an ancient, beautiful statue turned on its side, its face open to the sun. "Did you know that Christopher Columbus was from Catalonia?" she asks as we circle around a priapic tower with a figure of Columbus at the top. Past the port we continue up La Rambla, a main artery clogged with tourists and bursting with colorful markets and noisy cafes. Finally, we plunge into the Gothic Quarter where light is choked off by old buildings, which are connected by raggy ropes of laundry drying overhead.

At first glance the neighborhood looks like an American's realized fantasy of Old World Europe with cobblestone paths, gas lamps closed in foggy glass and cool, gray-faced buildings. Snaky streets dart this way and that and then open onto squares and courtyards with gushing fountains. 

Our apartment sits on a street so narrow you feel like you could stand in the middle and touch the buildings on either side. At the top of the interior stone stairway, a tiny window in the ceiling lets in a drop of sun; otherwise the space is dark. The man, still rumpled and withdrawn, drags my suitcase up three flights.

Key in the lock: "Home." The door opens and a pillow of musty air hits me in the face. 

My roommates have already arrived and are sleeping off jet leg behind closed doors. I put away my things in the last small room with a thin mattress and a sliver of a window. I look outside and feel a stunned ache at the novelty of this home. The cold tile floor seems coated with three hundred years of dirt, a grime impossible to clean with normal soap. One would have to scrape it tile by tile, on their knees, with a putty knife to make any progress. And, yet still it would not have a distinct color. The entire place seems to have a dusty veil thrown over it. 

After unpacking my deep suitcase I go investigate the kitchen and find that the overhead light doesn't work. The apartment is so dark it feels like a cave I've tunneled my way into, like I'd opened a manhole cover on La Rambla and shimmied underground to find this place. 

Opening the fridge I am unimpressed. Yogurt, milk and a jar of tomato sauce are the only contents. In the pantry: boxes of dry pasta and muesli. I want to wait to meet my roommates before venturing out and don't feel like cooking, so I shake some muesli into a big bowl in the dark kitchen, pull up a chair to the formica table and take a bite. 

It tastes fuzzy. It tastes green. 

In the shadowy kitchen it looks fine, but clearly something isn't right. I take the bowl into my room and hold it under a dim lamp. The oats are suspended in a soft white mold. I run back to wash out my mouth and just then, one of the bedroom doors opens. 

My roommate looks like a bright sunflower against the apartment's gray walls. 

"Hi. I'm Emily."

"Hi. I just ate mold." 

II.  

We cross La Ramba on our way to the subway station. The streets are clean and Barcelona's populace looks dazzling and regal, like the descendants of bejeweled Renaissance royalty. Businessmen in suits stand at cafés reading the morning's news over tiny cups of strong coffee, and women walk with purpose in tall heels, swinging shiny leather briefcases. 

In white sneakers and big backpacks slung over our shoulders we are from another world; we are the descendants of scrappy Puritans. 

In the subway station the crowd grows thick and loud, and we hurry with the throng down the steps, rushing toward the platform where the train, already packed with people, waits. A warning from the conductor. Quick. People push behind us, and I thrust my arm between the subway car's closing doors with enough momentum that my backpack slips off my shoulder, down my arm and into the car. The doors don't bounce open. 

I'm able to jerk my arm out of the closed doors, but my backpack is caught inside and I grip it by the one strap that is sticking out of the jaws of the train.

Through the windows of the car, passengers look at me with blank eyes, motionless. The train starts to move. 

Emily grabs the strap too and we jog along the track with the moving train, shrieking, pulling as hard as we can. We make it halfway down the platform when the conductor finally concedes defeat to the American terriers in this fierce tug-of-war, stops the train and opens its doors. 

We stumble back onto the platform with the backpack containing my passport and my laptop and my life. The commuters still watch like bored, impassive ghosts. 

We wait for the next train. 

III. 

Young, we feel bullied by the strange circumstances presented, again and again, by the city and the selves we have discovered within it. 

The romance of the Gothic Quarter has been whittled down, day after day, until I am left only with grotesque splinters of images: at night the gas lamps illuminate endless piles of cat shit; a man flashes a knife at a girl on her walk home down the cobblestone; drunks in ever-gray doorways piss and leer. 

On the last day I am burning up with fever. I've been kept out late for long midnight dinners and awoken, always too early, to learn. I've been stuffed with tapas and saturated with sangria. Now I yearn to eat something not bathed in olive oil, something not caught from the sea, something not served out of terracotta. 

I would like a tasteless microwaved dinner before going to bed at a reasonable hour in a high-ceilinged suburban room, frozen with conditioned air. 

One night like that would give me strength for the continuing journey. 

We trudge down the street to pack our rental car. No one is here to drag our suitcases for us or tell us what to do. We are our own navigators, and so we've readied ourselves with maps and guidebooks, one of which explains that only Catalonians believe that Columbus was Catalonian. 

We will drive north along the Mediterranean with everything belonging to us within this small car. 

But first, we want America in our mouths. 

To spite the city and to try to capture a taste of a faraway, and therefore mythic, home, we walk to the ubiquitous, unofficial embassy for all longing Americans. But, this McDonald's does not look familiar. My fever and the crush of people make it feel like a wavering, chaotic dream. I slump in the long line. 

Though it's the middle of the day, all the customers look like the nighttime demons of the Gothic Quarter come to life. Next to us, a man, whose face is covered with wounds, some stitched, some fresh, inches closer and closer to us until we shrink, guiltily, away from him. He sees our repulsion and smiles, showing yellow teeth, and puts a hand on my shoulder and then slides it slowly down my arm. The gesture begins as reassurance and ends as an insult.

We fight our instinct to run, and we wait for our warm paper bags and cold waxy cups and take a last walk down La Rambla to the packed car. Though not hungry, I eat my fries through my fever and taste tears in my throat. 

Emily looks over at me, her roommate turned inside out by the city, and drives. 

The longest bus ride of my life was from San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico to Puerto Escondido, a coastal town in the country's southern state of Oaxaca. My friend and I had thumbed through our guidebook looking for a place by the ocean that wasn't completely overrun by tourists, and Puerto Escondido, which means "Hidden Port", sounded perfect, a small charming village next to beautiful beaches a thousand miles away from the usual haunts of spring-breakers. 

At first we were pleasantly surprised by the Mexican bus, which was much cushier than any Greyhound coach we'd ever come across. The seats were plush and there were even TVs mounted on the ceiling showing grainy soap operas. The bus filled up quickly with passengers and we got comfortable for the twelve hour ride ahead. 

The first six hours were fine, but things started to get funky halfway through the trip, and just as the air grew dense with the stench of traveling humans and their food and their cigarettes snuck out of cracked windows, we hit the thin coastal highway. The driver throttled ahead, disregarding any speed limit, hugging mountains on one side and touching a dark abyss, high above the nighttime ocean, on the other. 

Having an overactive imagination regarding perils to my own safety, I clearly envisioned plummeting over the precipice to certain death, so I remained stapled to my seat, whose maroon fabric no longer felt so plush, and squeezed shut my unsleeping eyes against the hours.  

We finally arrived just after dawn, and already the town sank under palpable heat and humidity. Every surface and object seemed engorged with the air's moisture; the soil was black with it, the vegetation practically vibrating. 

In our cheap hotel room, a small metal fan on the fake-wood-paneled wall slowly whirred, its tiny force not enough to move even a breath of air. We were exhausted from our sleepless ride and needed to nap for a few hours before exploring the town, but it was almost too hot to sleep. We got a bucket of ice water and placed it between our twin beds and took turns dipping towels in it which we laid over our foreheads and arms and legs in an effort to dampen our emanating heat. 

When we awoke in the midday brightness the mattresses were sopping, and it took all of our will to comb back the hair plastered to our faces, put on our thinnest clothing and head into town. We quickly saw that even in our sundresses we were overdressed. On bar stools, in restaurant chairs, on car hoods, over pool tables, we saw surfers, only surfers. Lithe surfing boys and languid surfing girls. Having spent a lifetime in the middle of Texas, I had never seen a surfer in the flesh, and most of them looked like stereotypes made manifest, all blonde braids and shell necklaces and cool tattoos. Their bodies looked like they'd been formed by moving ocean water, like the cliffs smoothed by centuries. 

As we continued our walk through the town, their omnipresence made us feel even more uncomfortable than we already were. They looked fresh and tan in bright, dry swimsuits while we were rosy and wet in clingy clothes. 

It seemed odd that we would be swimming in their midst. 

We circled back to our place and decided to hit the beach, which we could see from our hotel. The ocean was calm and the sand eerily empty. The water was perhaps too still for the surfers and that's why they had taken over the town. Do surfers spend time reading on the beach like regular tourists? Do they relax on towels or are they only interested in the wave, the thrill, the transcendent active experience? 

We were happy to have the horizon and the water to ourselves, where we would finally rinse away the bus ride and the ruthless humidity. We waded into the opaque water and immediately felt the floor drop off sharply. We paddled close to the edge, looking out at the limitless, primordial, frightening blue of the ocean. 

"Hey!" Cutting across a dirt path was one of the beautiful surfer boys, with long trunks and hair the color of the sand. 

"Hi!" We waved back to him. 

"What do you think you're doing?" He jogged toward us.

My friend and I glanced at each other, a little deflated. Clearly he wasn't coming over to introduce himself and welcome us new girls to Puerto Escondido. 

"Uh, we're swimming."

"You can't swim here. Do you have any idea how dangerous this water is? There's an undertow that only professional swimmers or surfers can handle." 

Like children being scolded by the older, cute lifeguard, we dragged our unprofessional bodies out of the deep water in shamed silence. He had recognized that we were not of his ilk just from our bobbing heads in the water. A second later we asked defiantly, "Well, where the heck are we supposed to swim?"

"I don't know, but you can't swim here." And he immediately turned back, leaving us on the empty, forbidding beach. 

We stayed awhile to dry off and exorcise our embarrassment. There aren't even any signs! It's a beach town, for crying out loud! Where are the beaches for us regular folk? This is ridiculous! 

The town wasn't exclusively populated by surfers, was it? Our guidebook had said "Puerto Escondido is known for its beautiful sandy beaches" not for its superior surfers and deadly undertows. 

We crossed back over the dirt road to the hotel and saw our surfer savior, surrounded by those of his own stripe who were draped over white plastic lawn chairs in the grass drinking beer. 

"Hey girls!" He called and we reluctantly made our way over to their group. "You asked me where you could swim."

"Yes?"

"Your beach is over there." And he pointed to the kiddie pool at the front of the hotel. They all laughed, and we moved away, red from sun and humiliation.

Later we asked at the front desk and the clerk showed us a different beach on the map, safe for us tourists. 

It was crowded with beach towels and happy families lounging. There wasn't a surfer in sight, and we were content splashing around in the shallow water, just like the kids. 

The traveler notices that he cannot hide his otherness from those who inhabit the city. No matter how hard he tries to imitate them, to keep his map and camera hidden, to not step on and off blaring bus tours, he obviously is not of this place. 

And it's not his clothes or his gait which give him away—it's in the way that he takes in the city, with eyes wide and senses dilated with newness. He gives off the scent of wonderment, which with time has faded from those more familiar with the city. 

He is drunk with the sights and sounds of the place, even as he walks soberly down the street. The city hits him again and again with her buildings made differently and streets curving unexpectedly. He is even enticed by the city's smells, cross-hatched filaments of metal and stone and human.

And all the while the city's inhabitants seem to glide through unseeing, their senses liberated from this place that so ensorcels the visitor. 

The traveler laments: but they cannot recognize the beauty of their own city. He thinks, I appreciate her as she deserves to be appreciated, in her overwhelming totality. 

He believes it is like seeing a striking woman across the room, who is on the arm of a man who has known her too long and no longer sees the beauty at his side. 

But, while it's true that the man with the woman on his arm can see her objective beauty only in flashes now, that does not mean she is unloved. His perception of her simple charms and obvious dimensions has been transformed by the persistent flow of their daily lives. To him she is not an object, but the deep warmth in their house, the embodied rhythm of their days, alternating annoyance and amusement, the eyes that are his witness. Longterm intimacy is the inverse of objectification. He knows her like the city-dweller knows his home. 

The tourist is the new lover who can perceive the city's face more clearly and is moved by it. The seduction is quick, the liaison brief, and he has the luxury of falling for first impressions. 

And so the resident recognizes the traveler in the streets. One is dizzy with first love; the other's mind is elsewhere, because he's made of these streets and thus always in the arms of his familiar beloved. 

When I moved to Chicago many years ago I chose a tiny studio apartment in the heart of the Gold Coast, because it was in the thick of things, but also because it was directly across the street from a decent bookstore (when alone in a big city, it's always helpful to have a book haven nearby). 

But, until I sat down with the building manager to go over my lease agreement, I had no idea that I was moving a block away from what some locals refer to as the Viagra Triangle. 

After explaining the apartment's pet policy, the building manager, a pretty Chicagoan in her late twenties, said casually, "If you ever want a free meal, you should go to Gibsons. It's just around the corner on Rush Street."

I thought it odd that she would be referring me to a soup kitchen when I had just signed a year lease. Were my shoes that shabby?

"A free meal?" 

"Yeah, in the Viagra Triangle," she clarified.

I imagined a charity group called the Triangle ladling out free hot soup and pressing handfuls of Viagra into grateful palms. 

"The what?" 

She laughed, "You know, all the restaurants and bars down the street. That area's called the Viagra Triangle because it's where older rich dudes pick up women. So, yeah, if you ever want a nice free meal, just head down to Gibsons Bar, wait a bit and a dude will buy you a drink and a steak in no time. My friends and I do it all the time." 

She probably saw the look of horror on my face, because she dropped it and started talking about bike storage in the building. Or maybe her advice was simply part of their welcome orientation: Pets, Viagra Triangle, Bikes, Recycling. 

During the summer I would pass Gibsons with its outdoor tables covered with snazzy green and white checkered tablecloths and look for my building manager with a steakhouse sugar daddy, but I only ever saw families, cozy couples and tourists digging into impressive Chicago-sized plates. I was almost let down. Where were the impresarios and soulfree girls hungry for steak? Everyone looked disappointingly normal. But this was actually a relief, because one day my new boyfriend, who is now my husband, asked if I wanted to meet there for lunch. 

"At Gibsons? Have you ever been there before?" I asked apprehensively. 

"Of course! They have the best steak in Chicago." 

After one lunch there, I too was won over, and I could almost understand how someone might hang out at the bar hoping to be offered a martini and a meal, because it's just that darn delicious. If ever you were to sell your soul for a steak, theirs would be the one to do it for. 

Gibsons would not be Gibsons in any other city in the world. It is quintessentially Chicago. Everything is large and lavish, but its Midwestern values cut through the ostentatiousness; its spectacle is simply the natural result of bighearted generosity. The friendly servers set down huge portions on the table as if they were mothers over-serving their children home for the holidays. 

Before ordering you will be shown a gigantic platter with all the cuts of steak available. The waiter probably presents the same tray of raw meat sixty times a day but from the first to the last table his delivery is just as spirited and magnanimous. He explains each hefty piece with pride and finally recommends the Chicago cut, a twenty-two ounce challenge to good sense. 

And, why not some sides? Now's not the time to get fancy. Creamed spinach and mashed potatoes will do just fine. 

You ask for a serving of ice-cream, as my innocent mother-in-law did one day, and you are presented a towering 6-scoop sundae. You order a slice of chocolate cake or macadamia nut pie, and though the price should clue you in to its size, the server doesn't tell you that it's enough to share with all six of your dinner companions. The waiter wordlessly arrives with a slab of cake that is the size of some European cars. 

"Here you are. The chocolate cake. Would you like some extra forks by any chance?" 

I spent many Saturday lunches at those outdoor tables at Gibsons, and unfortunately, I never once witnessed a transaction like the building manager described. Although there are certainly some interesting characters that frequent the joint, the naughtiest, most blush-worthy thing about the place is the food. 

I only met my great-grandmother once, in her small white cottage with a pretty porch swing, and what I remember most about the visit when I was six years old was a plate of greens she sautéed in bacon and fed me in her kitchen. I can't be sure, but I'm almost positive that in her life she never tried Tofurkey, sushi, protein bars, mole enchiladas, biscotti, curry or blue-veined stilton. 

She wasn't spoiled for choice like we are today, and yet she still made one of the best dishes I've ever tasted. These days we tend to idealize this simpler culinary time, imagining our foremothers gathering fresh herbs into their aprons plucked from sunny gardens and cooking up glorious feasts with food cultivated and produced by their hands or their neighbors'. They didn't count calories or go to the gym or think about blood pressure. They worked hard and ate well, but simply. 

But, to be honest, Great-Grandma was fat. 

Maybe it was all that bacon. Or maybe my memory is flawed, and she was an early fan of Coke and Doritos. Who knows? The point is, the simpler time wasn't necessarily better. If my foremothers reflected upon food, it was most likely along the lines of "Do I have enough food to feed my family?" not "Where does this fall on the Glycemic Index?" 

In any case, we cannot go back. We can try to replicate their restrictions by focusing on local, organic, seasonal vegetables and sustainable protein sources, but it must be a conscious choice and a deliberate effort, because the reality is, we are flooded by choice. 

Our grocery stores, practically warehouses themselves, overflow with the products of infinite combinations of manufactured flavors and newly invented textures to entertain your tongue. Fitness experts urge people to steer clear of the interior aisles and concentrate on the periphery, but even the periphery bulges with fruits and vegetables of all seasons, suspect fish and hormone-injected meat. We're obliged to be informed consumers, reading books on the proper way to eat for the planet and for ourselves. For the first time, we, not just our cultural or socio-economic reality, are responsible for our health, and if we are lucky enough to have the means for making knowledgeable decisions, we should try to do just that. 

In our idealized past, our mothers ate what their mothers gave them and they brought those lessons to us. But, in reality, our grandmothers discovered the joys of convenience food and our poor moms suffered the resulting stomachaches. Our mothers began the search for a healthier way to live, a better way to eat. 

My mother does not have an idealized culinary childhood. She remembers getting excited when a rare vegetable, canned of course, made an appearance on the dinner table. She remembers stomachaches, day after day. And, she remembers the nuns. At Catholic school pupils would bring in their bagged lunches and eat them at their desks in the classroom, and every day, my mother would unwrap her bologna sandwich on white bread with dread. So she began hiding them inside the convenient desk among her pencil box and notebooks. Of course the stashed sandwiches were found by the Sisters, and they charged ahead in a daylong campaign of shame that only ended when she had to carry home the moldy sandwiches in a sack to her parents. 

It's no wonder that she began looking for something better, and in her early twenties her health guided her to principles that she has maintained for the last 30+ years: no meat, very little processed sugar. She has stayed lean, healthy and stomachache-free ever since (except for that time I took her to Paris and introduced her to crêpes  and fondue). She created her own habits from research and experimentation; it was not passed down from generation to generation, if anything it was a break from tradition. And that is what many of us have to do today. We must examine our assumptions about food, from our childhood and culture, and find out what works best for us. 

We all have different traditions, and it's up to us to keep and honor them or reject them. Food can be a pleasure, a poison, a comfort, a cure and a hobby. It can sabotage our health or deliver us into wellbeing. We feed our cells with our chosen nourishment, so how do we choose? Do we let our tastes guide us? Do we let convenience dictate our diets? 

This is where wacky diets are helpful. 

I agree, the concept of a diet is kind of a downer, especially in the traditional sense of restricting food in order to lose weight. But, what if a diet was just a way of paying attention and trying new things in order to find your body's preferences. Unlike my mother, I haven't easily or quickly found my own perfect principles. It's a much more haphazard, scattered endeavor, one that careens toward one principle "Eat to live rather than live to eat!" then toward another, "Everything in moderation, including moderation!" 

If left to my own devices (which, to be honest, I often am), I would be a full-blown, full-time culinary hedonist, indulging in every pleasure known to the palate. I simply don't get bored eating. I find it endlessly fascinating and fun, from meal to meal. Because we are inundated by choice, we have to set some limits from time to time. People might argue that wacky diets set us up for failure, but to me wacky diets are simply self-experiments used to discover what works best for us. Try it out! See if it works! Something might stick, like vegetarianism for my mother; others might get crossed off the list (myself, I can't give up chorizo). What makes you feel good? What gives you the most pleasure? What's your body telling you? It was on a cleanse that I discovered that what I had assumed was an inbred anxiety was just my natural reaction to caffeine. 

Diets are a way of tuning into your body's subtle reactions, flipping on a light switch and seeing what's been present all along. I've done cleanses, tried Paleo, taken breaks from sugar, gluten, dairy and alcohol. In every case, yes, that pizza at the end tasted even better than I remembered, but I also came away with a new awareness. The pizza is delicious, but it does make me want to take a nap. Such an experiment can be a tool for mindfulness. 

The point is, eating must be done consciously these days. Perhaps our great-grandmothers were less neurotic about food than we are. They ate what they had access to. Obviously, it's a highly privileged position to sit at the foot of an entire world of choice now. Centuries of tradition, mountains of information and almost limitless food availability are our blessed burden. We must take our time, learn and choose well. And, when we do, it helps to maintain a spirit of exploration rather than restriction. Reflection and eating can both be celebrations. 

The fitness blogosphere is full of competing information, but sometimes trends emerge. If you had your finger on its collective pulse (by the way, it would be a very fit, athletic pulse), you might discover some patterns in the given advice. 

And if that advice were distilled in a real day, it might look something like this: 

• You wake up and make your way to the gym in an intermittent-fasting-induced daze. 
  
• Your strength training session is short and intense, broken only for brief pauses to sip your branched chain amino acids. 
  
• This is followed by burpees or maybe you will drag something around like you're a husky or ox. 
  
• Stretching is out; rumble-rolling is in. 
  
• You sprint past the treadmills and stairclimbers and smirk at the cardio queens sweating it out. If you're not constantly afraid that a heavy weight will fall on your head, you're not working out! You might as well go home and eat a burrito in front of reality TV! 
  
• You are sprinting because you must drink your protein shake within 15 minutes of working out. 
  
• You make a greens-infused whey protein shake with cacao nibs, broccoli, Manuka honey, chia seeds, fish oil, digestive enzymes, a probiotic, almond milk and flax with your $600 Vitamix blender. That thing could purée an entire football field of AstroTurf if needed.  
  
• Walking should be leisurely. If your heart rate exceeds 65% of your max, you're no better than the cardio queens. Slow down bro! 
  
• Dinner is a gargantuan grass-fed bison burger, bunless of course, sautéed in coconut oil and a hearty serving of more greens, with some greens powder sprinkled on top. 
  
• But every fifth day you eat an entire large Pizza Hut Meatlover's Pizza, a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey and a liter of beer because it is your cheat day. 
  
• Swole is in; skinny's out.
  
• If you're a woman, being lean is a necessity, but you must also have boobs. A quandary. 
  
• At home you read your favorite fitness blog and discover that a new study has just been published that supports six meals a day, marathons and vegetarianism. 
  
• You cry yourself to sleep.

You pat down your person and make sure you have your passport, cell phone, Kindle, FitBit and iPod. You need a coat like a movie character selling stolen wares, with row upon row of interior pockets flashing gold as he whips it open with a flourish, except yours would be packed with electronics. 

At the airport bookstore you buy magazines and overpriced water and gum. Because you'll be flying in an out-of-time zone you feel unashamed reaching for the trashy magazines with horrible bleating headlines like "Worst Beach Bodies of the Century!" Only your seatmate will know your secret appetite for trash. 

You feel optimistic and excited. In only a short night's time, you will be on another continent, and on this flight you're determined to sleep and then wake up refreshed and ready to head into the city and explore. You've resolved to heed the internet's advice for a good flight: 

• Avoid alcohol
  
• Hydrate frequently
  
• Stretch
  
• Moisturize 
  
• Practice relaxation exercises 
  

It's like an 8 hour yoga retreat. You will land with plump skin and limber limbs. 

Miraculously, you've been upgraded and you lift your eyes toward the heavens to thank the Travel Gods. This is going to be the best flight ever, like the old days of glamorous travel. Your fellow travelers will have dressed for the occasion and you will dine on real flatware and then be able to recline your seat into a luscious bed. Now it's a five-star, luxury yoga retreat. 

"Miss, would you like a glass of champagne or orange juice?" 

The internet recommended the orange juice, but circumstances dictate that you will enjoy every perk available to you: "Champagne please." Your cells begin to shrivel and dehydrate even as you utter the words. 

You unpack the little goody bag that's been offered by the airline. Thin socks, a tiny tube of toothpaste, a mint. But any swag is good swag. 

Settled into your fancy seat you watch the march of life. Children galumph, happily unaware of the discomfort and boredom that await them on the flight ahead. Mothers, on the opposite end of the awareness spectrum, already look weary. Backpackers, as oblivious as the children, smile, smacking people on the head with their packs as they file past. Professionals look loopy from airport lounge cocktails, and they will continue to relentlessly work on their anesthesia throughout the flight. 

A particularly harried, but well-dressed family comes to a stop by your seat. The little boys in matching blue Polos with tiny upturned collars are smoothed by their mother and installed in two Business Class seats in front of you. "Now be good for Mommy." A daughter with a scarily lifelike doll is seated next to her mother across the aisle, and the father maneuvers by you to claim the window seat next to you. 

The wife, eyeing her husband with an angrily curled lip, makes a grand show of lifting her Louis Vuitton travel bag into the overhead compartment by herself, her armful of bangles clanging like a war bell. The husband is already mentally cocooned, but the wife is still jangling her bracelets waiting for his acknowledgment. 

"Do you want to switch seats so you can be next to your family?" You hopefully ask your seatmate in his cocoon.

"Oh, no, Dennis prefers the window seat!" shrieks the wife in response. 

"Or, I could…" you trail off, knowing that you have been designated the human buffer for a warring husband and wife. 

Dennis already has his eyes closed, but his nostrils are flared and white. 

Now you know that the free champagne is not a luxury, but a necessity. Economy Class starts to sound good. 

The boys begin to buck in the seats ahead of you, and Mommy is not pleased. As the flight crew asks for everyone to be seated she is still up, hovering over them, counting down. Dennis pretends to sleep as Mommy gets her LV bag down from the overhead compartment three more times before the flight attendant pleads for her to sit down. 

Mommy shakes her head in disgust at Dennis as she buckles the belt over impractically white trousers. 

At 10,000 feet Dennis revives and peeks out of his cocoon. After his first in-flight cocktail he begins an epic bout of small talk with you to spite his wife across the aisle. In front of you the boys spar like evil child hybrids of Ralph Lauren models and gladiators. 

"DiNofrio's, that's the Italian place we liked," Dennis helpfully recommends, "Or was it DiGiorno's, no, that can't be it, DiMarios? I had the tortellini. Or was it the ravioli?" 

You haven't even had time to crack open your tabloids, and you've given up hope of watching any movies as Dennis recounts every family vacation he's taken in the past five years. 

"Was this before your boys turned evil?" you want to ask. "Or before you began ignoring your wife?" 

You glance over at Mommy, who is on her third Chardonnay and has placed a pill bottle on her tray table as a provocation. Once the Ambien or the Xanax or the Valium is swallowed, it is Dennis who will have to hover over and cajole their offspring.  

As dinner is served, you finally resign yourself fully to the conversation with Dennis. At least it's nice to have someone to chat with while eating, but just as you begin to tell him about your own travel plans, he says, "Well, I don't want to disturb you." What, by listening? And he places his Bose headphones over his ears, shutting out the noisy, conflictual, demanding world around him. 

You start to wish Mommy would take her medication as she gets up again to bargain with the boys who could use a tranquilizer themselves. 

Finally you recline your seat and reflect on your plane yoga retreat gone awry. You haven't hydrated or relaxed or stretched. In fact, you have a kink in your neck from the awkward angle you were nodding at Dennis's small talk monologue. Well, at least now you're going to sleep. The lights have been switched off, and you look at the people around you, some nestled asleep, others lulled by flashing screens. It feels like nap time in kindergarten, being surrounded by all these other resting bodies. Still strangers, but now so intimately arranged. 

You put your eye mask on and your ear plugs in and strap your belt over your blanket and feel just as properly cocooned as Dennis. In the dark quiet you feel almost safe at the epicenter of this odd triangle of family tension. You don't sleep, but are elsewhere, carried by engine hum and cold air. Stuffed into a stupor. But at the very moment that your brain rolls over into a deeper dive you feel a pointed finger pressing your shoulder like an elevator button. 

"Excuse me, could you please wake him up." Mommy asks you. 

You don't have Dennis's power of pretend-sleep, but you still feign incomprehension. "Sorry?"

"Could you please wake him up." She points to the doughy sleep face of Dennis. 

With her improbable white pants and tight bun and her Chardonnay slur, Mommy is scary, so you comply. 

"Sir, your wife needs you." 

"Your daughter is cold!" she proclaims.

"So get her a blanket." 

"Can't. You. See. She. Already. Has. A. Blanket." 

Dennis sighs, "So get her another blanket." 

"Genius! Why didn't I think of that! I ASKED for another blanket, but the stewardesssss won't give her one! And they won't turn down the A/C!" 

Dennis repositions his mask over his eyes and curls away, toward the window. You are now Dennis's replacement. 

"Can you believe this? We pay thousands of dollars for Business Class and my poor Bianca is frozen. Frozen!" 

You glance over at Bianca who is sleeping soundly. 

Mommy stabs at the flight attendant call button again.

When he is halfway down the aisle, Mommy says, "This is ridiculous!" You also look pleadingly at the attendant. By God, do what this woman asks. 

"Ma'am, we already told you that we were trying to locate another blanket." 

"Well, I should hope so. And, I'd like another Chardonnay." 

With her three children sleeping around her and her Chardonnay on its way, Mommy seems to relax a little and turns your way. You immediately put your eye mask back on, but lie perfectly straight. If you curl right, your movement might look like you're essentially spooning Dennis. If you curl left, your face is too vulnerable to Mommy's stares or pokes. 

Hours pass which feel like days. Sleep doesn't come. You watch two Rom-Coms that make your Beach Bodies magazines look like high art. Across the aisle Mommy is wearing Chanel sunglasses in lieu of an eye mask. Her hand rests protectively on Bianca's presumably freezing body, now under two plane blankets. 

In the morning, which is the middle of the night to you, the lights go on. Nap time ends abruptly, cruelly, and the cabin is grumpy and stinky. Mommy and the children continue to sleep, but Dennis looks chipper and orders a brick-like omelet when breakfast is offered. You're barely conscious when the small talk resumes. "The golf tournament doesn't start until Tuesday, so we got tickets to Wicked tonight." Dennis doesn't care what Mommy and her pointing fingers have done during the night, so you don't feel obligated to nod this time. You busy yourself stuffing your bloated feet into loafers that were roomy yesterday but now feel two sizes too small around your salt-gorged toes. You're parched and sweaty and dirty, but you've almost made it.

When you land, you stand up immediately, determined to sprint to Immigration, away from the family, but sadly realize you have to take a shuttle from the plane to the terminal. You can't escape them yet, and you file onto the airport bus. Mommy, still wearing her Chanel shades, looks hungover, but oddly unrumpled as she clings to one of the poles on the bus. Fresh Dennis is busy organizing their passports. As the shuttle lurches forward, little Bianca raises her face to Mommy, "Where's Lola?" 

"Oh my god. Dennis! Where is Lola?" 

"Lola?" 

"Lola! Bianca's doll!" 

"Why would I have it?" 

"It's on the plane! Dennis, make them turn the shuttle around!"

The other travelers shoot Dennis and Mommy threatening glances and Dennis shrugs. Bianca starts to cry, "Lola!" Finally, Dennis, having done mental calculations about the torture of a vacation spent Lola-less, starts negotiating with the shuttle driver. 

By the time you spot the family at Baggage Claim, Bianca and Lola have been reunited, and Mommy looks grateful. Dennis must have come through in the end. Did he bribe the shuttle driver? The boys have run themselves ragged on the plane and they look like listless devils. As you roll past with your luggage, the family smiles warmly at you and waves. "Have a great vacation!" they say to their human buffer, their tired casualty of common marital discord.