First We Quit Our Jobs

  * * *

  Montana has been called “the last best place,” and we had a hunch why. We had crisscrossed its Rocky Mountain spine several times. It was spectacularly pretty country, full of peaks and valleys, lakes and streams famous for trout fishing. There had been lots of complaining in the past few years about Ted and Jane and all the other celebrities buying up property, bringing with them an entourage of pricey art galleries and cutesy home-furnishing stores, driving up the cost of basics for the locals. To our jaded eyes, Montana looked fresh, young, and bright. True, Missoula surprised us on this visit with a new Costco. Good for developing film, bad for keeping the pace down. Bozeman had a new shopping area under construction. The trailers scattered about gave the impression that housing couldn’t keep up with the boom. Perhaps nothing ever stayed the same anywhere except the complaints: A town was either growing too fast or slowly dying. It either reached a critical mass and became a city, or it returned to dust. Still, for the most part, we very much liked what we’d seen of Montana. As we were debating the merits and debits of living in Montana, on the way to our campsite we found definitive proof, and obtained photographic evidence, that bears do shit in the woods. A black bear cub was doing his business by the side of the road. Not even a thirty-foot Winnebago was going to interrupt him.

  We set up camp in the woods near a stream. After scouting the area on foot, we started fixing dinner. Since our major scores at the Pike Place Market and the farm stands of Washington, the larder was well stocked. Cooking was a sport for us as much as a necessity. At times it was also an almost erotic pleasure. Tastes, textures, and temperatures of a good meal could mingle to produce alluring evenings or, in our liberated condition, idyllic afternoons. While Sandy fired up the grill, I hauled out provisions and thought about the components of meals for the sensual traveler.

  Breakfast, when possible, should include a small bowl of local berries, sprinkled with sugar, if desired, and glazed in a few spoonfuls of freshest cream. Eat slowly, and play with the food in your mouth, rolling it around with your tongue till you’re done.

  Lunch was made for leftovers. Any kind of grilled meat can be appreciated when sliced and bedded down on some salad greens, dressed appropriately in garlic and oil. (See this page.) Lots of flavorful oil makes it all slide down nicely. My favorite lunch requires no preparation, other than shopping. Here’s the recipe: Take a good sourdough roll or slab of bread. Apply a heaping spoonful of soft blue cheese; six or eight slices of crisp cold apple, preferably a Fuji; and a wedge of salami. Eat slowly, in alternating nibbles.

  Dinner should be simple yet satisfying, fortifying you to live through the long (or short, if you’re in Alaska) night. Always use spice and zest. Flank steak or chicken slathered in garlic/chili paste is good. Little containers of pesto last months and always make a robust pasta dish. Pork is especially good on the grill. Try this: grilled pork chops on top of a salad of red leaf lettuce, chopped radishes, tomato wedges, scallions, and cukes dressed in mayonnaise or soy sauce and ginger.

  Miracle foods include couscous—it can be made fast. Toss in chopped leftover anything and eat hot or cold. It also stores well. Tomatoes can be cooked as sauce or baked and stuffed, sliced on a turkey sandwich, or with good mayo, make up a sandwich in their own right. Bacon is good because it makes everyone happy just to eat it these days.

  Surprises: Grilled carrots, sliced lengthwise, marinated in salt, olive oil, and crushed rosemary, are a treat for dinner—and leftover on sandwiches, instead of tomatoes, say, for lunch. Smoked things are aromatic, tasty, and practical—they keep well.

  Garlic Dressing to Bond You to Each Other

  In a small bowl mash a handful of garlic cloves and a teaspoon of

  salt with the back of a spoon till it forms a paste.

  Add a light olive oil to it, while stirring to combine.

  Flavor with raspberry vinegar, Tabasco, and black pepper.

  Make a lot—it keeps well refrigerated.

  If you have a blender, so much the better.

  That night we started off with luscious ripe honeydew melon slices wrapped in prosciutto—a nice salty/sweet, chewy/slippery combination. Following that we had grilled spicy andouille sausages, steamy jasmine rice, and green salad dressed in garlic. Dessert involved nibbling away at the pastry collection. It’s a rough life out in the wilderness.

  * * *

  After the ups and downs of Washington, the Sue started complaining. She increasingly objected to heights and was none too pleased as we made our way through MacDonald Pass at 6,320 feet. The higher we climbed, the more she sputtered and coughed, and the slower she went. She took no consolation in the view of the valley as it spread out before us from the crest where we stopped.

  Montana’s valleys are always breathtaking to me. Several mountain ranges run north-south in this part of the state, creating huge fertile basins in between. I always thought of Barbara Stanwyck, hands on hips, standing guard in The Big Valley. Unlike terrain in the East, where the mountains are gently rounded and valleys scooped, here the peaks are younger and still jagged, breaching the surface of the earth in a more angular fashion. The distance between ranges allows the broad valleys to become level, giving the eye the opportunity to imagine the curve of the earth in the distance. We’d fallen in love with the openness of the land and the people years before. Folks we met here were independent, to be sure. Before we’d heard the word militia, we thought of that independence as a good thing, not as a euphemism, and in our experience it remained that way. There was simply a distaste for interference, whether the source was personal or professional, neighborly or governmental. It was as if everyone had come here to be alone, a state full of Greta Garbos. That seemed fine to us.

  Susie breathed a sigh of relief as we coasted into Helena, the state capital. We were eager to explore the town a bit, a difficult thing in a thirty-foot truck, so we opted for a tour. The “train” went through the elegant Upper West Side with its handsome Victorian and Arts-and-Crafts-period homes built by captains of industry. It then snaked through the small downtown to the far end of Last Chance Gulch—yesterday’s red light district, today’s main street. It was a distance of a mile or so. Downtown was in the process of being revitalized and had several fine turn-of-the-century buildings. The capitol building and grounds were impressive in a generic way. There’s nothing particularly unique or Montanan about the place. After the tour we drove around the perimeter of the town, which was depressingly like a giant strip mall. Hoping to find a town center or square, we circled twice and found none. We tried to locate the Chamber of Commerce to pick up a relocation packet. (Most towns of any size will give or sell you this handy compilation of information on industries, housing, population, climate, and the like.) The Chamber had moved, leaving no forwarding address. We used our phone (hallelujah, praise the gods of electricity, we had service at last) to get the new number, which turned out to be constantly busy. Finally we got through just as they were closing, and they did not offer to stay open the few minutes it would have taken for us to get there. It was a Friday afternoon, and, we supposed, even Chamberites have plans and lives. We were miffed anyhow.

  In this cranky frame of mind, we headed for the post office, where we were hoping to pick up some mail forwarded by a friend. The envelope was there! We felt much better. When we opened it, we were shocked to find it mostly filled with the friend’s own junk mail. We felt sick. Panicked about what we’d missed, what bills might be overdue, we wondered about our friend’s well-being. In the parking lot we hauled out our office box and did a quick review of checks outstanding and bills paid. There was no obvious gap, so we hoped for the best, but we felt queasy anyhow. We called him, hoping he wasn’t ill with some mysterious mis-filing fever. He was terribly apologetic and embarrassed. It seems he’d quit smoking that week and was a little befuddled. He promised to recheck everything, and we hung up, relieved and amused. We both used to be smokers and remembered those first few weeks after quitting, when
the smoke was replaced with a mental fog. We breathed a smoke-free sigh of relief. What a weird afternoon. We headed for a campground to Garbo it, be alone, for a while.

  That night we met with the publisher and his wife at a funky saloon for burgers and talk. He was a wiry fellow who immediately gave the impression of being a natural runner. His wife reminded me of my college friends, with her soft flowing batik-print clothes and long luxurious hair. The four of us seemed a comfortable mix. He gave us a brief history of the business, their roles in it, and its current condition. His books were of excellent quality. The spreadsheet looked healthy. His energy level was such that he could barely stay in his seat as he told us about his unique and aggressive distribution ideas, as well as the editorial projects he was eager to undertake. Far from the drumbeat of Manhattan, this guy had formulated plans that large publishers could only dream about executing. Because of dogged hand selling and creative marketing, he had been able to place his books in locations where books are generally not sold. Because his operation was largely localized, he could afford to cover those areas in depth. It was an exciting discussion. They drove us back to the Sue, and we agreed to meet again in the morning.

  Sandy and I walked around the edge of the campground looking at the stars. It was the blackest night we’d had yet, and it was beautiful. A shooting star, so big we both saw it, left a smudge as it sailed through the sky.

  The offices were large and impressive. The people we met were lovely, and speaking with them individually, we were impressed with their abilities. The publisher clearly had surrounded himself with a talented, dedicated staff. It seemed to us that things were in great shape. In fact, there didn’t appear to be much we could bring to the party. His business instincts were good, and his editorial program solid. There was nothing obvious that needed fixing. He offered several ideas of how we might work together, but what became clear was that cash, not contributors, was needed. Unfortunately, we could not be the angel he needed. It was a wonderful visit, rekindling our interest in just such a business, and we promised to stay in touch. As we rode out of town, I admitted to being a little relieved. I didn’t know if I would be happy as a Greta Garbo in Last Chance Gulch.

  * * *

  We went to another gulch, to the place Norman MacLean had described so well in Young Men and Fire. Twenty miles out of Helena, up the Missouri River, is a place named Gates of the Mountains. Lewis and Clark explored this limestone canyon in 1804. In the summer of 1949 a sudden brushfire exploded with terrible heat and roared through Mann Gulch, jumping the river. The men fighting the fire were a new team, just formed. For many of them it was their first time out. The flames were whipped by the wind, and moving with horrible speed, they trapped the men in the ravine. The most experienced among them tried to convince the others to go back down into the fire with him, to stand in a place that had already been burned. He said it was their only hope—they could never outrun the blaze. Yet logic and the thirst for oxygen drove them up the mountain, where they perished. It’s a quiet spot now, the wind whooshing through the tall grass. A fitting memorial to the dead.

  We followed the water south to Canyon Ferry Lake and a harbor filled with sailboats. The clanging of the halyards against masts reminded us of the sounds of the Caribbean. My namesake hurricane was just then battering the Virgin Islands, and we hoped our friend Captain Gwen was in a hole as snug as ours.

  Company’s Coming

  In the morning we found ourselves in Townsend, Montana, where everything looked pretty much as it had for the last fifty or sixty years. Not only that, it seemed they’d forgotten to raise their prices. Surrounded by cowboys, we had an A-l breakfast at the corner restaurant: two eggs, two pieces of bacon, two sausages, two pancakes, two bucks. These were not miniaturized portions, either. What a treat. Just the sort of place we always hoped to find but rarely did.

  Appropriately fortified, we took the chance of getting lost down a winding back road. We bobbed and weaved through a narrow canyon dotted with tumbleweed and an occasional llama. They are becoming quite common in the West, though I always thought they looked kind of goofy and out of place. Our mystery tour led toward the Lewis and Clark caverns. Oddly, the entrance was way above us. To get there, we drove up to a parking lot on a mile-high mesa, then hiked up another three hundred feet on a dusty path in the noonday sun for three-quarters of a mile in order to get to the entrance. We figured this was a test to weed out the lazy, easily deterred, or unfit. Since parts of the tour involved navigating on your butt, crawling on hands and knees, and climbing stairs while stooped, self-elimination seemed a kind way to do things. Sandy was a sport to accompany me, since he really couldn’t care less about caves.

  For some reason I could not identify, I was always attracted to caverns. The constant climate and the odd formations of varying textures intrigued me. More than that, the feeling of being close to something primitive inside these ancient “chambers” thrilled me. The Lewis and Clark caverns were the most dramatic I’d ever seen. Huge stalagmites and stalactites, slick with moisture and smooth with age, surrounded us. Rooms of varying sizes, from closet to chapel, were filled with formations in myriad shapes and colors. In the semidarkness stone took on the features of flesh as the guide pointed out witch’s, lovers’, and papal profiles. There was a pleasant creepy-crawly feeling in the caves, though when the lights went off, I shuddered with real fear. Everyone stood still, and even the children hushed. Was this part of the routine, or had something gone awry? The moment before the guide spoke next lasted forever. This was not the kind of darkness one’s eyes adjusted to after a while, allowing for a dim perception of shape and depth. This was eternal pitch. The chilly temperature of the caves seemed enhanced, the moisture on my skin more pronounced as my sight was suddenly removed. I felt a prickly sensation where my scalp meets my face. Our guide remedied the situation, though he said he was puzzled about why it had happened. At the exit the sunlight was blinding, and the air remarkably fresh.

  In compensation for being dragged through slime, I offered to take my hubby to our favorite Montana restaurant, Sir Scott’s Oasis in Manhattan, our home away from home. Dinner at Sir Scott’s was once described as “the defining beef moment” in the life of a food writer. So it had been for us when we were first there, four years earlier. From the outside it had looked like the kind of place we wouldn’t likely hang out in. Set across from the railroad tracks on the two-block main drag of town, a cheesy neon sign hung over its makeshift storefront bar. Good place for a brawl, I’d thought. In the rear was a rough dining room. The steaks, however, had been every bit as divine as we’d heard, tastier than any I’d ever had. Since we’d been there last, business had boomed. A major expansion had transformed Sir Scott’s into a large restaurant with a small bar off to the side. The eat-till-you-bust concept of dining remained intact, however. A pile of crackers and butter, soup and salad, a huge rib-eye steak, fries, and an ice cream sundae reminded me of the good old days before I knew the names of those demon sisters, calorie and cholesterol. We probably should have walked it off, but we preferred the Bozeman Hot Springs soak/melt-it-off approach.

  * * *

  We needed to do some housecleaning and shopping. Company was coming in at two o’clock that afternoon on the Delta flight at Gallatin International. Sandy’s daughter, Cindy, and her boyfriend, John, were spending the first part of their vacation with us before taking off on their own. We were really looking forward to spending some R and R together. Six years earlier Cin had started her own business, with one client, as a computer graphic designer. Talented and driven, she had no interest in going to work in a corporation. We needled her about getting a real job, prodded her about getting benefits, poked her about having insurance. Polite but firm, she went about work her own way, inventing it as she went. Now she had more customers, worked her own hours (too many), in her own way (perfectionism runs in families, I’m told), with two full-time employees and a floating staff of free-lancers. We were incredibly proud of
her but spent increasingly less time together. We were delighted when she and John said they wanted to meet up with us.

  In New York picking someone up at the airport is a stroke short of lunacy, an offense for which you can be committed to a nearby asylum on the say-so of the skycap. It can take an hour or two just to get to the airport. Parking your car presents the risk of having it broken into or simply not being there upon your return. Finally, due to security, passengers can no longer be met at the gate. Why bother? When someone comes to visit in New York, they get the message right away: If you can’t get into town on your own, don’t bother coming. Elsewhere, I had discovered, visiting was still a complete and relatively pleasant event. At Gallatin airport, the parking attendant kindly showed us which part of the lot was best suited to a thirty-foot vehicle. As we stood at the gate (one of four), waiting for Cindy and John’s plane to arrive, a sense of anticipation built. When an announcement was made that the flight was delayed, we waiters flocked to the bar, then migrated back just in time to welcome our loved ones. (Any leftover drinks were accommodatingly re-poured into paper cups.) With the exception of my dad and our friend in Seattle, we had seen no one we knew in over two months. When these two familiar faces walked into the terminal (through the fresh mountain air across the tarmac, not through a hermetically sealed jetway), we were thrilled. It was good to be with family.

  Ten or fifteen years earlier, I had worked on a series of books about the then-trendy subjects of single parenting, quality time, and stepfamilies. I had related to all of them from the perspective of the child: after my mother died, I’d been raised by my dad—now called a single parent—who had spent as much (quality) time with me as he could. When I was in college and he married Martha, we became an all-German-Jewish-American stepfamily. She and I both hated the term stepmother and silently agreed never to use it. She was introduced as my dad’s wife or, more commonly, as Martha, as if it were a title. As I approached forty, I married Sandy, his son and daughter, Alex and Cindy, becoming my stepchildren. They were in their twenties. When Alex married Fiona, a young woman from Britain whose mother was from Gibraltar, I became an in-law. Now John was part of the mix. An amiable Italian-American who showed tremendous appreciation for my cooking efforts, he added a generous amount of good nature and well-honed muscles to our brew. Now I had an extended nuclear multicultural multigenerational stepfamily. It occurred to me that I could now have read those same books from the parental point of view, if the kids had been twenty years younger. I wondered at the oddity of modern life.