Crab Cakes on Lake Champlain

Thursday, July 16, 2009, 6:30 a.m.

Alison lies warm in our sheets, but I have made coffee and now sit on our balcony overlooking a framed little strip of beach and then Lake Champlain. We have reached the resort of "Molly and Kay," where Jenny worked for five summers, and which Alison visited with her eldest at least six summers. All day yesterday as we drove through New York's rolling glacial hills, Alison was introducing me to her Adirondacks.

Last night we camped in a noisy state park on Lake Cayuga, just east of Rochester, as I recall. We drove leisurely yesterday from there to Westport, where, as the afternoon and evening unfolded, we were to experience one of the best dinner events in the history of this planet and--since no other planet has yet developed our palate--the solar system.

Our table was outside at the Coco Cafe here on a small point of mowed land where cottonwoods, conifers, and "oak-maples" (I had to make this one up.) line the lakeshore. The waiter, Steve, was from Birmingham, England, and had no knowledge of the history of British cotton imports in the 1820s. The chef, Arnaud, was and I hope (thinking of breakfast) still is French. The scrod was fresh from Nova Scotia, and the crab cakes depended much less upon their provenance than upon the fulfillment of their destinies on the tops of our tongues. The carrots, potatoes, and almondine green beans did their work nobly and will be honored by my meagre imitations on Millbrook Road, and I would travel far to lay the moist flakes of such scrod in my mouth, but the crab cakes, while playing their role in the visual scene, stood quite apart when viewed as a taste sensation.

There was a cream sauce in them; the chef is highly skilled who can suspend the crab, the seasonings, and the cream sauce in the perfect terraqueous balance with the light breaded crust. The thronging taste buds sang Hossanahs in the valley, the meaning of life became quite the moot question, and the cherubim above--they did a little jig.

So we raised our glasses to the lake, to love, and to the whole of human history that brought us to our dinner last night. Te Arnaud, laudamus.