In this case, we decided to return to The Atlantic Inn on Block Island. This decision was a blend of nostalgia and a really tempting new menu. The nostalgia part dates to the early years of our marriage: The Atlantic Inn was where we stayed on the island before our house was built. The inn’s porch is still one of our favorite places for a drink because of its stunning views over the rooftops of the town and over the harbor to the long sweeping curve of the northern neck of the island and out to sea.

But the restaurant is a different story. At some point the menu switched from a la carte to a multiple-course prix-fixe-only menu with disappointingly few choices for pescatarians like us. On the few occasions when we ate out on the island, we always ended up going somewhere else. But now the menu had changed. A-la-carte options had returned, and lots of them. The menu sounded wonderful.

I wish The Atlantic Inn would get around to posting a current menu on its Web site. But they haven’t yet. I actually considered scanning the entire menu and posting it here because it ought to be posted *somewhere*. But this is not the right place. Are you listening, Atlantic Inn Webmaster?

I will, however, post the menu items and descriptions of what we had.

First, I do have to say that I told them it was our anniversary dinner. I did this so that we could get our favorite table, the one in the corner at the far end of the room overlooking the sunset, the harbor, and the sea. And they were happy to oblige us in this. But we weren’t expecting the complimentary celebratory glass of champagne. This is a class act!

We also weren’t expecting the amuse-bouche of a tiny glass of powerfully delicious gaspacho with a lime froth.

Here’s what we were expecting, and ate with pleasure:

Appetizers

Frisee aux Lardon (sans Lardon)

Baby frisee, slow-poached Blazing Star Farm egg, housemade pancetta lardons (omitted for us), grapefruit and truffle vinaigrette

White Tuna Sashimi Tasting

“Sea essence”, citrus-galangal pearls, ikura, dashi-hijiki, served with prawn crackers

Entrees

Spring Bounty

Polenta cake, wild mushrooms, spring peas, fiddlehead ferns, Fontina Val d’Aosta, garlic essence and baby greens

Halibut Cheeks

Lightly seared, garlic bagna cauda, escargots, English peas, fiddleheads and wild mushrooms

(Note: These two items sound similar but in fact were quite different, and both delicious.)

Dessert

Lemon-Chamomile Pound Cake

Fresh blueberries, lemon curd sauce and honeyed creme fraiche

When you’re celebrating your thirtieth anniversary at a restaurant that has been a recipient of the Wine Spectator‘s Award of Excellence for the last nine years running, how can you not splurge on the wine? We selected a Far Niente 2005 Chardonnay. The wine was as wonderful as the meal.

Our heartfelt and full-bellied congratulations to newly promoted Executive Chef Aaron Wisniewski and to pastry chef Linda Rondinone for an evening we’ll remember for a long, long time.

“This might be better with rum,” I suggested.

But there was no rum in the house. It was, after all, a second home, and the liquor closet was only half stocked.

“Brandy?” I persisted. “Cognac? How about tequila?”

It turned out they had a surprisingly good tequila. Now, I am (she said modestly) a master of the true margarita. And thus was born Ginger’s cranberry margarita. The drink for which everyone was willing to abandon their cosmos.

–

Ginger’s Cranberry Margarita (recipe makes two drinks)

Mix the following:

• Juice of one lime
• 2 jiggers of cranberry cocktail (added sweetener is okay, but not the cranberry-apple stuff. Try to avoid high-fructose corn syrup or indeed any corn products in anything you eat or drink.)
• 2 jiggers of triple sec or cointreau or one of each (add more if you have a particularly juicy lime or a drinker with a particularly sweet tooth; this is your main sweetener in this drink)
• 3 jiggers of reposada tequila (never, NEVER use anything less than “100% de agave” tequila for anything where tequila is the main ingredient. Certainly not for any margarita)

Stir. Check for balance. Pour into two margarita or martini or, hey, even wine glasses. Add ice to bring the liquid level to the top of the glass.

If you want to be fancy, decorate with a thin slice of lime on the glass.

Enjoy!

But tonight, we were very, very close.

The name of the restaurant is Tidal Raves, in Depoe Bay, Oregon. Okay, so we didn’t deposit a penny a million billion years ago to pay for the meal, but even with wine and a martini, dinner for two came to less than a hundred dollars. The service was outstanding. The food (fresh wild coho salmon with dungeoness crab risotto; wild Pacific snapper with smoked salmon potato cake; summer vegetables; salad with berries and shrimp) was superb. And the view…

Well, that’s what makes Milliways Milliways, isn’t it?

We sat at a corner table by the windows and looked out over the Pacific ocean as the evening descended.

And there were grey whales breaching in the waters just outside. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying people shouldn’t eat meat. But in this country we vote with our money. Let’s eat the meat from farms where we know that the animals are treated humanely and live in a way fairly normal for their species up until when they die for our steak dinner. Or let’s not hear any more of your whining about the “poor animals”.

Wendell Berry said it better than I can:

“Eating with the fullest pleasure–pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance–is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.”

The events in this story occurred in the winter of 1985 at the Usenix Conference in Dallas, Texas. I was working for a company in Cambridge, MA called Mirror Systems (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Times Mirror Corporation, a major publishing conglomerate). I was the Vice President of Technical Development. Our IS group, under my management, comprised two people: our operations manager and our systems programmer. We used the UNIX operating system, and so the Usenix conference was an important event to these people and to some of the developers as well. The company sent perhaps eight people to the conference. I went too. I went because as manager of a UNIX shop, I felt the need to know as much as I could about the technical environment.

Now, like many subsidiaries of major corporations, Mirror Systems, despite its small size, was subject to intense financial controls by the parent company. And like many technically oriented companies, especially in Cambridge, its internal culture resisted such control. The people who attended the Usenix conference were among the most technical of our staff and therefore in general were among the most resistant to the financial bureaucracy our parent company imposed. And among the technical staff, none was more resistant than our systems programmer Franklin, Unix wizard extraordinaire.

Mirror Systems employees were subject to limits imposed by the parent corporation on how much we could expense for a breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And expenses over a certain amount (perhaps $25) had to be accompanied by a receipt. Wanting to have one dinner at a particularly good (and expensive) restaurant in Dallas, those of us traveling to the conference agreed that we’d skimp on dinner expenses for the rest of the conference in order to afford this one splurge of a meal.

Eight of us were present for dinner. The meal was great. The wine was excellent. When the bill came, Franklin picked up the tab and put it on his credit card. This surprised me—he wasn’t much of one for dealing with finances—but he assured me he wanted to do it.

When Franklin’s expense report crossed my desk the following week, I saw at once the amusing pattern that had prompted his eagerness to pick up the check. For the entire duration of the conference, he had expensed only $5 for each meal—probably less than he had actually spent. There were no accompanying receipts for these expenses, none being required. And for the one dinner, he had expensed the entire tab for a meal for eight at a pricy restaurant—perhaps $600. It made me laugh. I approved the expense report and submitted it to our comptroller for processing.

The next day, the president of the company called me into his office. The comptroller was there. He looked very upset, and the president no less so. “What is the meaning of this expense report?” asked the president.

“I know it’s a lot for one dinner,” I explained, “but there were eight of us there. See, Franklin has listed the attendees. We all ate very inexpensively all week long so that we could have this one meal. Look at all the expense reports, and you’ll see.”

“That’s not the problem,” said the comptroller. “I can’t submit this to corporate.”

“But why not?”

“This will stand out like a police car with its lights on. If we submit something like this, we’ll get audited for sure. And that will be more work for me than you can imagine.”

“Why would they audit us? The expense report is legitimate. If anything, Franklin has cheated only himself by understating the amounts he actually spent on meals.”

“That’s exactly the problem! Who spends exactly $5.00 on every meal, all week long? It looks too suspicious. You have to tell him to vary the amounts.”

“You mean, submitting $600.00 for one meal is okay; it’s the $5.00 meals that are the problem? And if he submits some meals for $5.00, some for $6.50, some for $8.95, that would be okay, even though it would cost the company more?”

 “Yes!” Relief shone on the comptroller’s face.

And so I had to tell Franklin that the pattern was really beautiful, but that we needed random numbers here. And so it was done.

And no, we didn’t get audited.

I boarded the ferry for the return trip from Block Island, carefully washed the tabletop of the booth in the passenger section, and laid out the tablecloth. Laid out black plasticware cutlery, blue cups, and a bottle of red wine. Organized appetizers of aged gouda, homemade guacamole, chips and crackers, and set out a meal of lobster meat (tail and claws) with fresh-squeezed lime, and a salad of homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers and farmers-market radishes.

As Dan and I dined, the sun set in a splendor of colors, nonstop fireworks and glory that faded only slowly to deepest lingering red.

At last. Dinner at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. We have been there, and it is good.

That’s okay with me, but what to do, what to do?

How about some veggie-burgers? he suggests. Or veggie meatballs. Or those veggie sausages you bought? And let’s use up some leftovers.

Dinner can get challenging when you don’t eat meat.

He’s coming home in half an hour and I still haven’t figured it out. The meatballs sound the best. Plus, I get double brownie points for using up leftovers. Artichoke hearts, I think. Kalamata olives. All of the good things and none of the bad things.

So here’s the recipe.

Group A:
Garlic (at least 2 cloves [1 if it's elephant garlic] )
Scallions (whatever is leftover)
Onion (1 big one; small is acceptable if you used the scallions)
Jalapeno peppers, fresh (2 maybe, or to taste, but only if leftover)

Chop fine and combine.

Group B:
1 can artichoke hearts, cut lengthwise into strips
1/3 jar Trader Joe’s julienned sundried tomatoes
1/3 jar Trader Joe’s pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
Capers (as many as you want)
Parsley (if leftover)
About 4 veggie meatballs per person, or whatever is in the open package (allow to defrost)

Group C:
1 can diced tomatoes (use 2 cans Rotel if you didn’t have any jalapeno peppers in Group A)
Worcester sauce, or vegetarian substitute
White wine, optional, if you have any open already

Basil leaves, fresh from the garden, cut coarsely if large
Leftover angel hair spaghetti, preferably (but optionally) the high-protein variety. Or any leftover pasta. Or any pasta you cook up.

————————————-

Saute group A in olive oil till it softens a bit. Add group B. Cook till warm. Add group C. Check taste and seasonings as many times as you’d like, but be sure to leave some for dinner. Add the basil and the pasta. Cook and stir till the basil is wilted and the whole thing is mixed and warm through and through.

Be sure to collect all available brownie points for using up leftovers. Do not point out that this dish will create new leftovers.

This is my favorite kind of recipe, dispensing with all that irksome measuring, and using only all of the good things and none of the bad things. Enjoy!