Soaring Through Blue

oh, the honeymoon.



















Dearest, darling reader friends, in this latest installment of My Ineffably Charmed Gluten-Free Life , I would like to tell you the story of our honeymoon. Or how we came to the decision of where to go on our honeymoon, rather. The actual honeymoon details will remain private and closed to prying eyes- please understand.

We thought we knew where we were going on our honeymoon.

Honeymoon. The sound of it made me feel like shouting from the rooftops, or at least from the back door of our rented home, as I’d spent all of my life being jealous that other people were getting married. Mind you, I would not be your normal, boring bride- far from it, as you already know.

After nearly four decades of being YESLY, ravishingly alive, I had nearly given up hope of meeting that man of my dreams. Most men didn’t seem interested in a second date, much less marriage. But I had found Him, dear readers; we’d been living together since we met, desperately, longingly. We ate lard and bacon fat and mayonnaise and duck fat together in bed, and we regarded every day as a laughing, dancing, joyous adventure with none of the mundane realities that most married couples face. No, our marriage would be different. I knew this, in my heart.

We deliberately planned an indie, non-traditional wedding that would be nothing like the usual backyard, low-key weddings everyone grows so frightfully bored with these days.

It wouldn't cost much, as practically every expense would be covered by our dear, generous friends, from the gluten-free catering (strictly overseen by me- after all, who wants to grow ill on the most important day of their life?!), to the 5-sizes-too-small dress and mostly unsuccessful alterations (ah well, when life gives you lemons... and anyway, we said YES and that's all that matters!), to the desperate, sweaty-from-the-summer-heat hair and makeup attempts, to the sprucing up of our home's garden because I've never been much of a gardener and I just don’t know what I’m doing!

This blushing bride was too busy worrying about the thousands of possible contaminants in the food that other people would lovingly and graciously donate, per our continued gentle public blog and printed invitation reminders.

How I adored my life, starting then.

Call me a girl, but it turned out that I am traditional after all, and I wanted traditional wedding elements, even if we didn't call them traditional or acknowledge that they were traditional. A rose by any other name, as I always reminded my students!

And I wanted a honeymoon. And he wanted a honeymoon with me.

The thought of ten days together, doing nothing but eating and walking and laughing and dancing and turning heads with our glowing love and other as-yet-unnamed-but-you-know-what-they-are honeymoon activities? Oh, yes, YES YES YES YESLY MOANINGLY YES. All I could think was YES.

So, early on, we decided where to go, without concerning ourselves with the financial details. We are a chef and a writer, after all, but we say YES to life so brimming happily that we knew it will all work out.

We thought and schemed and thought some more. Ireland, because we both have “a bit of the Paddy in us”? Nope, the food there is abysmal and I can’t even drink the Guinness. Oh, dear, no.

Road trip? Visiting famous restaurants so that we may tell you about them, glowingly, gloatingly, afterwards? YES. You see, our real online friends, the ocean where we shared our first longing public makeout session, driving while laughing because you know all we do is laugh and I just wanted to remind you of that, and eating at two of the best restaurants in the world, taking pictures of our lovingly mussed and crumpled post-lovemaking sheets, and of course, eating until our bellies burst and the exquisitely scented lard was positively leaching out of our pores- now that’s a honeymoon.

The funny thing about plans, though, is that they often change. Because we change them. Funny thing, that. Ineffably absurd, but don’t you worry- we laugh and laugh and laugh about it all the same.

Jamie, that devilishly handsome and famous man who is my close personal friend on Twitter, convinced us through his book: Italy. We needed to go. Now. Finances be damned.

Our dear friend Melinda sealed the deal- after hearing us oooh and ahhhh about this place where we’d never been and knew nothing about, she looked up at us and said, “why don’t you just go to Italy for your honeymoon?”

Oh, we thought. Our friends will help? It had never occurred to us, but of course! This was the answer. Other people would make it happen. I felt a wonderful release. We giggled and giggled some more, and then stole off to the bedroom to seal the deal, while Melinda washed up, as always when she comes over, the dinner plates. And the pots and pans. And the utensils.

YES, we said, together, afterwards, exhausted and elated, we’ll go to Italy.

We will eat and eat and eat until we slump in our chairs with joyous exhaustion, telling everyone in the vicinity who will listen “il sonno celiaco,” so that they may ooh and ahh over us and cater to us joyous, blissful newlyweds appropriately, and so that I would not grow ill on the wandering sunny hillsides sprinkled with tar-black olives and sparklingly musty grapes and the love of generations of people who appreciate food in a way that most Americans will never understand.

We would be the young, just-married couple in love, and they would notice. It would be wonderful, all that attention focused entirely on me. The thought made me dizzy.

But, as always, we needed your help. So we asked, "does anyone out there have suggestions? Where should we go? What should we do? Most importantly, what should we eat and how many times a day can we get away with it without looking like foreigners? And how will you help us finance this trip?"

And now we thank you, belatedly, for your generosity. I'll get to those thank-you notes someday, I promise.

"We will miss you during this private time," we said. "But we will be back with stories."

And we delivered.

We know you are all inordinately grateful.

You're welcome.



















Crispy polenta with fennel sausage and tomato sauce

Crispy polenta

Laughingly, slapdashedly make a big bowl of polenta.
Nestle in some herbs if you like- any ones that suit your fancy.
Season, joyfully, to taste.
Allow, longingly, to cool until cool to the touch but not so cold that you can’t form it into cakes.
Form breathlessly into cakes.
Fry cakes impatiently until crispy, but not over or underdone.
Set lovingly onto a vintage platter.

Fennel Sausage

Buy, moaningly, lots of gluten-free, local, free-range, partially wild, special Island pig breedpork sausage.
Sprinkle, gleefully, fennel seeds on top and cook in skillet until cooked.
Slice, ineffably, into rounds of your favorite thickness.
Set lovingly into a vintage bowl.

Tomato sauce

Happily peel and seed lots of fresh Island or farm stand tomatoes in your favorite method.
Add love and a few sweet nothings.
Cook unabashedly until bright but cooked.
Pour lovingly into a vintage bowl.

Assemble photogenically in vintage bowls.

Eat photogenically with vintage utensils.

Scape plates half-clean, photogenically.

Photograph, preferably at twilight or later, in the shadows, with nothing but lambent, luminous natural light.

Do not use computer programs to correct the color or brightness of your results. That is not saying YES to beautiful, romantic imperfections.

Serves 2-3 or 3-4 if you have company, or 1 if you’re in love.