On a recent Sunday
Dody and I had lunch with one of our favorite authors at the Casablanca,
a Mexican mariscos (seafood) restaurant on the edge of
Santa Monica that we have been frequenting for years.
Maeve Binchy.
There was to have been
another favorite author of ours there, too, but he was called
out of town on an emergency. Carlos Haro, the guy who owns the
restaurant.
Binch’s (in her school
days in Ireland Binch was her nickname) latest best seller is
"Scarlet Feather," the story of two Dublin foodies who start a
top-drawer catering service and do other interesting things together.
Haro’s extraordinary novel, "Tequila," hasn’t been published yet.
In English, anyway. It was published in Spanish and he allowed
us to read the English translation in manuscript. Best novel we’ve
read in years. Except Binchy’s, of course. "Tequila" is about
three generations of the family that owns La Esmeralda, a vast
Mexican tequila estate.
What sort of connects
"Scarlet Feather" with Haro is that he is a caterer, too, as well
as a restaurateur. And while food is not as pivotal in "Tequila"
as it is in "Scarlet Feather," it is important and just as lovingly
described.
There the similarity
stops. Take a funeral Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather are catering
in Dublin. Ham, salad, a selection of Tom’s breads, Cathy’s homemade
chutneys, asparagus quiche, Irish cheese with apples and grapes.
No dessert. "Inappropriate was a word they kept using to each
other." This the low end of the Scarlet Feather repertoire. For
posh affairs there are far more elegant menus and even, for Dublin,
exotic ones when the occasion demands.
In "Tequila," Haro
exhibit’s a reverence for food, something you like to find in
the proprietor of a restaurant you frequent.
Listen:
"Come now, come closer
to the comal full of piping hot pig lard, so hot it shines
like stars. Take a cooked tortilla and begin to push your fingers
around as though it was a casserole, but careful, you could get
burned. Come on, don’t stop, now you have your sope ready.
Take it and put it in a bowl with that hot red sauce made from
chile guajillo, tomato, garlic and onion. Remove it carefully
and place it in the hot lard for just a few seconds---take it
out and add whatever you like…it is good with beans and on top
lettuce, fresh cheese, radishes…Bravo!"
But be advised they
do not use lard at the Casablanca.
Binchy ordered the
calamari al mojo de ajo—squid with garlic—on
Dody’s recommendation, Dody explaining the squid was pressed into
a steak that looked like abalone (that’s what Dody ordered). It
was Binchy’s very first squid. Gordon Snell, Binchy’s husband,
a writer-journalist who wears glasses and looks more like a friendly
CEO than a writer-journalist and looks younger than his 65 years
(Binchy is 60 and proud of it) ordered the huachinango—red
snapper. I opted for the camerones—shrimp-Yvonne,
a succulent dish named for Haro’s wife, who runs the place with
him.
Binchy, a lady of queenly
proportions whose manner is more down-to-earth than regal, cleaned
her plate. As did we all. And would have complimented Haro, had
he been there.
Binchy, who had announced
she was retired from writing when she turned 60 (more’s the pity)
and had sent out postcards announcing it, and Snell were in California
on an extended vacation. They live near Dublin. They’d first spent
a few days in New York and were on their way to Australia, where
they will spend a month. They have friends here, there and everywhere.
Sunday was the first
time I’d met Queen Maeve in person. We’d been corresponding ever
since I wrote her a fan letter after Dody and I saw a movie adaptation
of her novel, "Circle of Friends." We’d spoken on the phone a
while back when she was in San Francisco on book business.
My favorite Maeve Binchy
story is about me (isn’t that just like a man?) She told me that
in London, in the airport, I think, she had seen a man reading
"Von Ryan’s Express." She went up to him and said she knew the
author. Binchy, a 1000-watt bulb to my flickering candle, didn’t
tell him she was Maeve Binchy.
After lunch at the
Casablanca, she signed our copy of "Scarlet Feather" and Haro’s
copy. I gave her a novella of mine published when she was ten
years old. Snell gave us a copy of "Thicker Than Water," a collection
of Irish short stories he’d edited.
Haro?
He compted the lunch.
David Westheimer lives
with his wife of 57 years, Dody, in the same Los Angeles apartment
they moved into from Houston, Texas 40 years ago. Their son, Fred,
is a Senior Vice-President at the William Morris Agency and his
younger brother, Eric, is a veterinarian. Succeeding generations
include five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. As a journalist,
David worked for Oveta Culp Hobby. At 83, David Westheimer continues
to write, and not just for Senior Women. His latest effort, "The
Great Wounded Bird", his recollections of World War II, winner
of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize, was published this year
by Texas Review Press and may be ordered from Amazon Books, where
it is 1,458,159th on their sales list, from Barnes & Noble and
Borders Books. He is a novelist and a retired Air Force Officer.
He can be reached for a repertoire of feigned curmudgeonly remarks
at: DWestheime@aol.com.
