So there's a movement called Slow Food. Have you heard of it? I hadn't, really.
It's the opposite of "fast food," like. Something about slowing down and taking time to eat, with people, indulging in the pleasures of the table, yadda yadda. These are values that I hold so I figure I had to see what it was all about.
There's a chapter in Edinburgh that has monthly Slow Suppers in a restaurant somewhere in town. It's meant to be £10, including a main and a glass of wine—not so bad as meals go in Edinburgh. I screwed up the courage to go down there tonight alone—although the flyer casually, slyly suggested "bring a friend or a colleague along!" After a long day of stating theorems and translating calculi each to each, I cycled home, ditched the bike, then walked up to a place called Wigham's Wine Cellar. Inside, what did I find but a bunch of people hanging about in a restaurant.
I expected the average age to be older than my own, but there were some unwrinkled faces here and there, so I didn't *quite* feel like the only cock at a hen party.
I bumped into the organizer, who helped me feel a bit at home and suggested I take a seat. Each table had about 2 or 3 empty chairs, which all turned out to be spoken for. I set my jacket at the empty table near the front and perused the literature ("Food Production Communitites" was one hefty tome).
Soon I noticed a—dare I say—attractive young lady talking to the organizer. He was making her feel at home, telling her to find a seat, etc. Now I was set! She'd make the rounds and fine no seats empty, then fall back to the same small table as me. But dashed! Instead she inveigled herself into one of the tables I'd found unwelcoming. Blast and bollocks! Sorted asunder.
But then ahoy! another organizer came along and asked if it was my First Time. It was! Well, let's find you a seat, then, she said. Perhaps right at this table over here—she led me to the seat next to the attractive young lady, which somehow now had its coats and scarves lifted away from it, and I was seated.
The woman on my right was a primly made-up, though friendly, middle-aged woman, originally from Belgium. She asked me several times how long I'd been in Edinburgh. The man across was an affable Australian, an engineer who just got work here. He was with his wife—together they cut a fine figure of what age 39 and two halves could be like. They were world travellers, with experiences from all over; but they weren't pushy with their experience, nor show-offs: just two secular humanists on the road of life, enjoying it in their turn.
Finally I got introduced to the solitary lady on my left. She looked just like the girl from Trainspotting (though maybe ten years on) and had nearly the accent to match—that is, charmingly Glaswegish or something thereabouts. Turns out she spent 7 years in Japan, and quite loved it: first teaching English, then recruiting for corporations. Her first degree was in Spanish, and she lived in Madrid for a spell. She described her favorite cafe there: with hams hanging all around, blue tile walls, and good strong coffee.
While she talked about a sauna on an island in Finland she'd visited, where you could run straight out and jump in the sea, I daydreamed about what it would be like to love a girl just for the way she talked about islands and cabins and experience, and not have any ambition that she should APPRECIATE ME. But I soon shook my head clear of it, remembering what I need, remembering how I've discovered my needs these past years.
The food was okay, not quite as good as one might think from an organization dedicated to the pleasure of food. I had the "onion tart"—the vegetarian option—which came on a bed of rocket. Just rocket. They could have put some nuts in the salad, is all I'm saying. Those who ordered the salmon were also disappointed, though the beefeaters reported success; theirs was a heartier dish if nothing else, with a potato concoction on the side. The prim woman on my right had eschewed the salmon for the same reason I did: you can't get wild salmon in this part of the world, certainly not in restaurants in February.
Though things seemed awkward at first (What did we have in common, after all?), we had gotten going over the food, and by the end of it we almost seemed sad to leave one another. I'd found out all about the likes and dislikes—eminently reasonable—of these strangers: what made the Scottish girl leave Japan, where in Asia you had the best balance of good food, with good temperature. When I got up and returned to the table, the Australian women was telling someone about the film Tampopo. I only overheard, "It's a cowboy thing, and they open a noodle shop..." and I knew right away what she was talking about. Our girl of the countryside was quick on the uptake, "Sure; that's what everyone's dream is, in Tokyo, they all want to open a ramen shop..."
I took a slow leave of them, and walked home on my own, now pleased, and chuffed, and floating a bit.