CHAPTER 17 MY BOSTON MARATHON

Sometimes we create our own problems to complain about. It’s not that I like to complain, but I really should learn to relax sometimes, we all should. I finally got a trip to Boston, a trip I had been waiting to get since I was hired. But it wound up not going as smoothly as planned. This excerpt from chapter 17 describes how I turned something that should have been simple into a journey.

You couldn’t tell from looking at me, but I can be a picky eater. Put a plate in front of me with a whole lobster and I’ve just lost my appetite. I learned this the hard way at a meal in San Diego a few years ago. My large bowl of “seafood pasta” came with a halved lobster and all sorts of shells from clams and mussels. I don’t want the animal I am about to eat half sticking out of its shell or lying on my plate with its carcass on display, its eyes looking up at me. Even the act of cracking into the lobster shell is barbaric to me, not to mention, just too much work.

That’s why in the five years I lived in Annapolis, I never sat down to enjoy ‘good old’ Maryland blue crabs. People sit for hours at a table covered in paper eating them. The paper makes it easier to clean up the entrails and shell fragments that fly when the shell is cracked open. This is done using small wooden mallets. Whack, whack, whack. Crack!, as the shell splits open to reveal the meat within. I love the meat, but not the act of getting it. So I spend more money to buy the meat sans the carcass and the mess.

I do love lobster meat dipped in drawn butter. So my mission on this layover was to find some. I also remembered that the video I watched as part of the home study program prior to leaving for training had a scene playing out a typical day of a flight attendant. There were three people in the scene. One was a girl on her first day as a flight attendant, another lady had been flying for a few years, and the man was quite senior. Their trip was to Boston and they were all going to head out to dinner together that night when they arrived. The lady with a few years seniority asked the man if the restaurant they were going to still served fresh lobster. Although it was not my first day, I was the new flight attendant on the trip, looking forward to lobster, much like in the video. And it was here that my trouble was about to start.

On the ride to the hotel we passed the Faneuil Hall Marketplace with its shops and restaurants, crammed with people and situated near the waterfront park and wharf, so I figured I could find lobster there. The hotel was just a few blocks away. After parting with the crew and changing in my room, I went back the way the van had come to find the marketplace. The sky was overcast, which was nice, since it was warm and humid out.

I walked a quick pace to the marketplace and stopped at the first restaurant to look at a menu. Looked good, whole lobster, great price. “Keep moving; don’t want whole lobster.” This went on restaurant after restaurant. I thought there must be a place here somewhere that served lobster tail. I went to high-class places, low class places, even a food court. There would be a hostess near the menu board in several places and I would mention that I was seeking lobster tail and was told by each that they served only whole lobster.

In the meantime, I admired the old buildings and dodged the many people out and about that day. I eventually found myself overlooking the water and turned left, soon finding myself in an area void of eateries. I turned again, heading in the general area of my hotel, passing more places with whole lobster, places with no lobster, and pubs and clubs serving no grub at all. I kept going and soon had run out of restaurants. I decided to head back towards my hotel and try in the other direction.

I got to see a lot of the city on my mission for carcass-free dining. It was very scenic and I found some old cemeteries, where people such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Admiral Fleet were laid to rest. The headstones were old, thin, dark gray slabs with skulls and laurel wreaths engraved on them. Many people filled the sidewalks that meandered through the headstones. Most moved around respectfully, as one should in a cemetery. But there were some who were loud and boisterous and quite rude in their behavior. Old buildings with large, new windows surrounded the graves, like I was in a large room with no roof. It was an odd contrast. Inside, people went about their business. Outside, tourists posed for photos aside graves and monuments to the dead and well known. Near Sam Adams’ grave, people posed holding a bottle of the ale bearing his name. I thought, “if he only knew.”

Onward I walked, through a large park where an outdoors-Shakespearean play was about to begin. Part of me wished I could stop to watch, but I was growing hungrier with each step. I crossed the street to another section of the park with a pond full of swan-shaped boats. The grass was green and the trees were large with broad dark trunks wrinkled with thick bark. Under their canopy, people played Frisbee or sat on blankets with their loved ones, some with picnic baskets. (Probably with lobster tail.)

Soon I found myself at Cheers, the restaurant and bar that the popular show was based on. I walked down the stairs and took a look inside. I expected to see an open, four sided bar with a billiard room beyond, tables of people dining, a wooden Indian statue by the door, and maybe some lump of a man at the bar a la Norm. What I did see was nothing like the television set. The wooden Indian was there and there was a bar, but it had a large wall behind it, which ran the length of the room, which was long and narrow, not open and square. The wall was lined with bottles of beer and hard liquor. Glasses rested on shelves and hung from above. The barstools were full of people; it was cramped and crowded inside. I was not the only one disappointed at the place not looking like the television set. I heard from locals that they were planning on revising the whole place to more resemble the television set to please the tourists. At any rate, Cheers did not have lobster on the menu, so I didn’t stay.

It was now getting late. I had walked several miles on one side of the hotel, and now was about a mile on the other side of the hotel. My plan was to keep looking for a place on the way back, and if I didn’t find one, I would settle for what ever they served in the hotel restaurant.

So I am sitting at the table in the restaurant of the Parker House Hotel. The hotel originally opened in 1856, making it the nation’s oldest continuously operating hotel, according to the brochure in my room. Of course they boast to have slept presidents, kings, famous actors and politicians in the building (and now me!). But I thought one of their guests was particularly interesting. On his American lectures, Charles Dickens would spend long periods here, of up to five months at a time.

The Parker House is also known as the birthplace of two popular foods. My hostess was quite proud of them and she told me all about it. The first was brought to my table in a linen-lined basket- the Parker House Roll. I could have made a meal out of these warm, doughy treats. The butter they served with them was tasteless and brought back longings of the sinfully delicious butter I had on my Paris layover. But the warm bread melted the butter and made it tolerable. The second famous recipe from the hotel kitchen is the Boston Crème pie. As she finished up, the manager came by to say hello and asked if I had any questions about the menu.

I ordered the lobster after a discussion with the manager, where I learned they could remove the meat for me. Apparently, any restaurant would, if asked. I tried to reassure myself how healthy my lobster marathon was. I tried to tell myself, had I stopped at the first place that had lobster, I would have had the meat removed from the shell, I would have enjoyed my meal, gone back to the hotel, and not seen as much of the city as a result. It was good that I walked for miles in search of lobster. All though my feet were telling me that they never wanted lobster again.

The meal was good and I did order the Boston Crème pie. After all, I’ve had the dessert before and loved it. It would be an insult to be at the birthplace of the Boston Crème pie and not try the original recipe.

“People either love it or they hate it,” I was told. Well, I didn’t love it. The cake was heavy, not light and fluffy, it was much like a pound cake. The crème was almost bland and also very thick, more like icing, but not as rich. Finally, the chocolate was fancy, not really chocolate-y. I was used to fluffy cake, pudding-like cream and a rich, creamy frosting. To me, it was like the difference in cheesecakes. There are the New York styles, and there are the instant-from-a- box styles. This restaurant served the equivalent of the New York style and I was used to the box style Boston Crème Pie. But let’s not get into my love for cheesecake here.

It was late. I had walked a marathon. The lobster was puny and they fortified the over sized plate with extra salad to make up for the carcass not being there. The dessert was unsatisfying. The service was slow; I didn’t even see my server until after I had been there for nearly forty-five minutes. I left for my room wishing I had ordered the baked scrod and had the crème broulet, instead. I shouldn’t be so picky. I brought it all on myself for walking all over town to find a place to eat, then winding up doing so right where I had started from. This was just another one of the little things not going right far from home. But as the saying from my high school days goes, it’s nothing but a thing. I am glad to have such problems in my life. Everyone should have such problems in their life, eh? If this is what I have to complain about, I’m a pretty lucky guy.