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Beyond the sea, I long to see
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rushthatspeaks and I celebrated our fourth anniversary today.
We had planned on dinner at Sarma. And so we went: I got off the 88 I had caught by running a block up Elm Street after it and not quite banging on the door at the light, Rush met me at the stop and we walked over together. The restaurant is decorated mostly in shades of blue and green, including some beautiful hanging lamps in concentric circles of lighter and darker blue, so between my good shirt and Rush's hair and earrings, we fitted right in. It has the most counterintuitive door I have ever met, in that it is a pleasant robin's-egg blue and located some distance down the side of the building from the other, identically painted door that doesn't budge an inch when you try it. You worry that you're about to walk through the fire door into a very surprised kitchen. You don't.
What you do is sit down and share an assortment of extraordinary small plates, including crisp sugar snap peas with pistachio tahini and mint, dense flaky kunefe with translucently sliced heirloom beets and plums in a drizzle of saffron honey, the sesame-fried chicken with tahini remoulade that is going around in little bowls as one of the specials of the night, spicy dark bluefish falafel wrapped in a lettuce leaf with pickled peaches and jalapeño labne, (which contains too much onion for Rush, so I eat the remainder with no regrets at all while Rush eats the) eggplant borek where the ribbony eggplant is the wrapper for the ricotta with pomegranate molasses, and for dessert very tart plain frozen yogurt with a choice of toppings like halva caramel, peaches with almond-rose shortbread, Turkish coffee brownie bites, and lime curd with blackberries, none of which we actually got. Rush went for the cherry ouzo sauce, which they pointed out could not have been better designed to appeal to them personally. I chose the raspberries in hibiscus syrup, because I wanted to know what they would taste like. (Answer: really floral and really delicious.) Sarma's non-alcoholic drinks are as impressive as their alcoholic ones. I am not sure why the mocktail I got was called the Buzz Aldrin, but it had cinnamon and sage and lemon in it, so I didn't quibble. Their bread is also great. It comes with olive oil and has charnushka on top.
(Bonus for people with allergies: the staff were excellent about Rush and onions. We got a handwritten list of all dishes without onion and the server pointed out the additional dishes from which the onion could be deleted if the chef was warned in time. As it turned out, the bluefish was the only danger and I ate most of it. Would throw myself on that grenade again anytime.)
And then as we were walking home up Medford Street, we saw the moon framed between the roofs on the other side of the commuter rail tracks—huge and smoky yellow, one day past full—and we decided to drive to the sea.
Mostly we drove up Route 16 and then Route 1A, on the theory that if we went north and east, we couldn't help but find water. Our goal was Nahant, but we agreed that we could always settle sooner if a suitable coast presented itself or continue up the North Shore if an unknown tied island was a bust.1 Rush said it was the kind of night driving that demanded a soundtrack of "Roadrunner," except we were headed in the opposite direction. I warned them that if we passed a Stop & Shop, I would shout "Radio on!" This happened. Twice. We decided against Revere Beach as we passed it, though it offered a beautiful blue-black sweep of sky, but we got a great view of the rebuilt Wonderland station with its cable-stayed pedestrian bridge like a baby Zakim, electrically blue-lit from underneath. We rolled the windows down and the air smelled like salt and tide, lung-filling deep. Coming into Lynn, there was a drawbridge and the cloud-ribboned moon ran glitter-backed roads across the water, bright silver under the piers. A Chinese restaurant with an old-style sign2 advertised lobster six ways. There was a racetrack. And we found the causeway to Nahant and drove over it in a scrim of fog and streetlights, the channel lights winking red and green to our right where gulls dozed on the water and little bits and breaks of rock and seaweed swirled in the silhouette light, and right at the head of the island was obligingly a beach. We couldn't find anything on the sign to prohibit us from stashing the car and walking down to the water, so we did. The tide was low: the sand ran out forever, nearly colorless in the moonlight and the luminous haze of the causeway behind us and the faint glow of human habitation circling the bay, although at this distance it looked more than anything like bioluminescence, small warm-colored points of light and cool ones in a web of milky light. The tide retreating had left a pattern like scales in the packed wet sand. Stones and shells like windbreaks with the beach drained away behind them. There was a little channel to walk over, curving darker than the sand and more reflective; there was seaweed tumbled and heaped at the bottom of the tide-line, feathers and strings of foam. There was surf spilling white to shore, a low hushing roar, and the moon turning the waves as silver an old photograph at the edge of the cove. We held one another and watched the tide come in.
And then we drove around Nahant for something like half an hour, looking at houses, extrapolating history, finding breathtaking views every time another road turned outward to the sea. There were some rocks beneath the Marine Science Center that looked especially promising. The fact that there is an MBTA bus that runs out to Nahant blew our minds (and determined us to take it some afternoon, epically inconvenient as it will no doubt prove to be). The moon climbed and grew smaller and silvered off. On our way off the island, we glimpsed a Dunkin' Donuts Café that had shockingly missed the pink-and-orange memo. The sea-smell stayed with us nearly to Medford.
And then we drove home. And I am writing this as one cat dozes on my desk, under the mermaid lamp which he has commandeered as his own personal sun lamp, and the other drowses on my green basket chair, on top of the towel I have put over my clean clothes so that she cannot practice her claws on them. And I should go to sleep myself.
1. Full disclosure: my brother was married at the Nahant Country Club. I remember nothing about the geography from that day.
2. "Green Tea Chinese Restaurant & Bar" in green and yellow cut-out letters, including lowercase cursive font. On our way back through Everett, we passed something called Ho Win Palace—"Specializing in Cantonese, Szechuan, and Polynesian Cuisine"—which prompted Rush to reminisce about their childhood tiki restaurant in Ohio. Flaming moai heads were apparently part of the decor. I was impressed. There were some great signs on the Lynnway and I am too tired to remember most of them. At one point we passed two Dunkin' Donuts directly opposite one another, on either side of the highway. At another point we passed a donut shop that was not a Dunkin' Donuts and cheered.
rushthatspeaks and I celebrated our fourth anniversary today.We had planned on dinner at Sarma. And so we went: I got off the 88 I had caught by running a block up Elm Street after it and not quite banging on the door at the light, Rush met me at the stop and we walked over together. The restaurant is decorated mostly in shades of blue and green, including some beautiful hanging lamps in concentric circles of lighter and darker blue, so between my good shirt and Rush's hair and earrings, we fitted right in. It has the most counterintuitive door I have ever met, in that it is a pleasant robin's-egg blue and located some distance down the side of the building from the other, identically painted door that doesn't budge an inch when you try it. You worry that you're about to walk through the fire door into a very surprised kitchen. You don't.
What you do is sit down and share an assortment of extraordinary small plates, including crisp sugar snap peas with pistachio tahini and mint, dense flaky kunefe with translucently sliced heirloom beets and plums in a drizzle of saffron honey, the sesame-fried chicken with tahini remoulade that is going around in little bowls as one of the specials of the night, spicy dark bluefish falafel wrapped in a lettuce leaf with pickled peaches and jalapeño labne, (which contains too much onion for Rush, so I eat the remainder with no regrets at all while Rush eats the) eggplant borek where the ribbony eggplant is the wrapper for the ricotta with pomegranate molasses, and for dessert very tart plain frozen yogurt with a choice of toppings like halva caramel, peaches with almond-rose shortbread, Turkish coffee brownie bites, and lime curd with blackberries, none of which we actually got. Rush went for the cherry ouzo sauce, which they pointed out could not have been better designed to appeal to them personally. I chose the raspberries in hibiscus syrup, because I wanted to know what they would taste like. (Answer: really floral and really delicious.) Sarma's non-alcoholic drinks are as impressive as their alcoholic ones. I am not sure why the mocktail I got was called the Buzz Aldrin, but it had cinnamon and sage and lemon in it, so I didn't quibble. Their bread is also great. It comes with olive oil and has charnushka on top.
(Bonus for people with allergies: the staff were excellent about Rush and onions. We got a handwritten list of all dishes without onion and the server pointed out the additional dishes from which the onion could be deleted if the chef was warned in time. As it turned out, the bluefish was the only danger and I ate most of it. Would throw myself on that grenade again anytime.)
And then as we were walking home up Medford Street, we saw the moon framed between the roofs on the other side of the commuter rail tracks—huge and smoky yellow, one day past full—and we decided to drive to the sea.
Mostly we drove up Route 16 and then Route 1A, on the theory that if we went north and east, we couldn't help but find water. Our goal was Nahant, but we agreed that we could always settle sooner if a suitable coast presented itself or continue up the North Shore if an unknown tied island was a bust.1 Rush said it was the kind of night driving that demanded a soundtrack of "Roadrunner," except we were headed in the opposite direction. I warned them that if we passed a Stop & Shop, I would shout "Radio on!" This happened. Twice. We decided against Revere Beach as we passed it, though it offered a beautiful blue-black sweep of sky, but we got a great view of the rebuilt Wonderland station with its cable-stayed pedestrian bridge like a baby Zakim, electrically blue-lit from underneath. We rolled the windows down and the air smelled like salt and tide, lung-filling deep. Coming into Lynn, there was a drawbridge and the cloud-ribboned moon ran glitter-backed roads across the water, bright silver under the piers. A Chinese restaurant with an old-style sign2 advertised lobster six ways. There was a racetrack. And we found the causeway to Nahant and drove over it in a scrim of fog and streetlights, the channel lights winking red and green to our right where gulls dozed on the water and little bits and breaks of rock and seaweed swirled in the silhouette light, and right at the head of the island was obligingly a beach. We couldn't find anything on the sign to prohibit us from stashing the car and walking down to the water, so we did. The tide was low: the sand ran out forever, nearly colorless in the moonlight and the luminous haze of the causeway behind us and the faint glow of human habitation circling the bay, although at this distance it looked more than anything like bioluminescence, small warm-colored points of light and cool ones in a web of milky light. The tide retreating had left a pattern like scales in the packed wet sand. Stones and shells like windbreaks with the beach drained away behind them. There was a little channel to walk over, curving darker than the sand and more reflective; there was seaweed tumbled and heaped at the bottom of the tide-line, feathers and strings of foam. There was surf spilling white to shore, a low hushing roar, and the moon turning the waves as silver an old photograph at the edge of the cove. We held one another and watched the tide come in.
And then we drove around Nahant for something like half an hour, looking at houses, extrapolating history, finding breathtaking views every time another road turned outward to the sea. There were some rocks beneath the Marine Science Center that looked especially promising. The fact that there is an MBTA bus that runs out to Nahant blew our minds (and determined us to take it some afternoon, epically inconvenient as it will no doubt prove to be). The moon climbed and grew smaller and silvered off. On our way off the island, we glimpsed a Dunkin' Donuts Café that had shockingly missed the pink-and-orange memo. The sea-smell stayed with us nearly to Medford.
And then we drove home. And I am writing this as one cat dozes on my desk, under the mermaid lamp which he has commandeered as his own personal sun lamp, and the other drowses on my green basket chair, on top of the towel I have put over my clean clothes so that she cannot practice her claws on them. And I should go to sleep myself.
1. Full disclosure: my brother was married at the Nahant Country Club. I remember nothing about the geography from that day.
2. "Green Tea Chinese Restaurant & Bar" in green and yellow cut-out letters, including lowercase cursive font. On our way back through Everett, we passed something called Ho Win Palace—"Specializing in Cantonese, Szechuan, and Polynesian Cuisine"—which prompted Rush to reminisce about their childhood tiki restaurant in Ohio. Flaming moai heads were apparently part of the decor. I was impressed. There were some great signs on the Lynnway and I am too tired to remember most of them. At one point we passed two Dunkin' Donuts directly opposite one another, on either side of the highway. At another point we passed a donut shop that was not a Dunkin' Donuts and cheered.
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Nine
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We had a marvelous time.