Americana.*

My Dutch husband loves a lot of things about the US.

He loves the existence of newspaper dispensers, and their honor system. He loves that people, out on the street, open the machine's door--and take only one paper. This would be completely unworkable in Europe, according to him. Way too many Europeans would head off with the whole stack of papers, just for laughs. Or to sell. Or the dispensers themselves might be more or less artfully dispensed with.

There are a lot of things to love about America--one of them being how much more feasible it is to have decent Mexican food. For my first lunch stateside, a friend and I made our way to a little mom and pop place in Washington, D.C., that serves up made-from-scratch yumminess. Under those unassuming slices of radish topping the tortilla on the left are chunks of unbelievably tender, stewed lengua. To date, this is the only way I'll eat beef tongue, because it is so darn good.

We dawdled in the serene, oddly compelling courtyard at the National Portait Gallery, designed by Norman Foster. The courtyard made the annual list of Conde Nast Traveler's Seven Architectural Wonders of the World. Additional big plus: because the Gallery is located in Chinatown instead of on the Mall, it is a far more uncrowded place than one has a right to expect for a free, world-class museum. I loved the Edward Hopper paintings, and this portrait of poet Walt Whitman. 'Sing a song of myself' indeed. This younger museum-goer seemed more taken by the iconic photograph of Michael Jordan, though.

Raising American children overseas, I am sometimes struck by how little they know of American history, or of America period. I don't know why this startles me: I experienced that same expat distance myself as a child. So while this trip was primarily about spending time with family, it was also an excellent opportunity to explore America's past and present. With this in mind, we were off to the Museum of the American Indian. This, one of Washington's newest buildings, is a very cool space. And conveniently located next to the Air and Space Museum, wildly popular when I was a kid and, I can now confirm, still crazy-busy today.

To try something a bit more sedate, head sixteen miles hike due south of D.C. past Old Town Alexandria, and you can find yourself walking through the entrance of Mount Vernon, George Washington's well-loved home.

The guides are sweetly enthusiastic, and relate all those details you never stop to consider about daily life in the mid to late 1700s. Cooking was a different kettle of fish. There seemed to be a lot of roasting on the spit. There was a separate room for hanging meat (i.e. letting a fresh kill bleed out). And, by the way, I will never complain about doing the laundry again.

But, to be honest, within sight of the lazy Potomac River, ensconced in a porch chair, the less pleasant stuff (like, say, the fact that George was one of several slave-holding Founding Fathers, despite his rhetoric) can't help but recede. And you're left with contemplative admiration for the particularly fine-looking pecan trees in his back yard.

We missed Mount Vernon's Spring Wine Festival which starts this week, but the kids enjoyed seeing the farm anyway. I tried to avoid boasting that I could identify the beef breed and could artificially inseminate the females if I had to...Respect.

You may get a notion that I'm more carnivore than omnivore, but I had a number of cravings to answer to while stateside. And yes, one of them just happened to be BBQ. So I headed further south, dragging my family along with me.

Thanks to tips from the food-savvy, I knew where to head for hickory-smoked pork, superlative coleslaw and hand-sliced fries. If you're dubious about 'cue, its shady past (or my passion), you can learn more about it here. Or you can sample the all-American tastiness at Post 401 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as I did.

There's more to do in Fredericksburg than scarf down slow-smoked meat, though. For starters, it's a college town (home to the University of Mary Washington) so there are the obligatory scads of quirky coffee shops.

Fredericksburg's Old Town is above quota as far as antiquing goes, and you can indulge your own passion for funky vinyl, charming (and over-priced) bait buckets, Civil War memorabilia...or the very American art of scrimshaw.

If you are feeling inexplicably peckish after that BBQ sandwich, you can sidle up to the lunch counter at Goolrick's Pharmacy, claimed to be the oldest continuously running soda fountain in America, with a 1912 start date. Get a strawberry malt for the kid in me...I mean, you.

You'll need to walk off that oversized malt shake, but there's more than enough charm to distract you.

A second walkabout may be in order after having a Goolrick's BLT sandwich. Fact: I cannot make myself a BLT in France without special ordering sliced bacon from a butcher. In France, lardons are the pork currency of the realm. Don't get me wrong. Lardons are wonderful, yes, but you simply cannot make a BLT with them. You can make a BLT salad with them though, and this goes a long way.

In fact, I think that recipe will have to fill in as today's recipe, because I haven't yet gotten the exact proportions on my mom's laborious and crab-intensive soup. While it's too early in the season and the crab traps are still on land, she pulled out some superb broth she'd frozen from last summer, when it was actually ho-hum to pull out a trap loaded with a dozen crabs after just a couple of hours sitting in the brackish baywater. Frankly, I don't think most of us can afford the amount of crab it takes to make such a rich soup. I will say there are tomatoes, celery, cilantro and Vietnamese noodles involved.

I miss my mom.

 

To be clear: I can heartily recommend escaping the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Northern Virginia for the splendid, Sunday-drive kind of countryside due south.

You could find yourself chatting up a bluegrass musician who's played in a band since 1951, including one performance for Elizabeth Taylor, back when she was married to former Virginia Senator John Warner. Said musician might just serenade you, warbling hillbilly gospel and Patsy Cline on the Appalachian dulcimer he made himself. That's when you'll learn that this instrument is the only one invented in the United States; the banjo's from Africa, or at least that's what the banjo-player told me.

After that, you'll follow the signs...

...and be back in time to taste dad's catch of the day: twenty-plus pounds of striped bass.

For dessert: watermelon flavored Hubba Bubba. Because the French don't have that, either.

* My apologies to those who wrote comments on this post.  This post, along with all the original comments, managed to disappear completely AFTER being published.  Unfortunately, Blogger (my blog publisher) was having problems and they removed people's posts to resolve it.  Only they didn't restore mine or its comments.  I had to reconstruct this all over again...

P.S. To taste more of Virginia's sounds, click here.