Another travel post - this one about food!

When you're traveling Europe, particularly when you are being entertained, meals can be really special! Here are accounts of a few memorable ones for me (and I have to confess right up front - on most I don't remember what the food was).

The first was on one of my first trips. It was in Paris and Brian and I were traveling together. We stopped in a little restaurant on the Champs Elysees (near our hotel) that was nice but nothing really special - until we had to pay for it - over $100 (in 1980). That was educational!

Another Paris dinner was a few months later and was connected with a trade show. One of our reps (they call them "agents" there) had arranged for a dinner one evening. Picture a narrow street near the Seine with nondescript stone and brick buildings, plain entry ways and one turns out to be a drive into an inner courtyard paved with cobblestones. From there, we walked into another plain entry but inside was an elegant granite stairway that we took to the second floor. There we entered a dark wood paneled dining room. This really looked to be in a home rather than a restaurant and I still don't know if that was the case. It was a long four or five course dinner followed by cognac and cigars. I just remember that the food was excellent, the service was incredible, and it would have been a perfect meal except for the fact that one of the guests was a loud-mouthed American that was traveling with his equally loud-mouthed mother.

The last one I'll tell about (in this post anyway) was in Torino, Italy. It was a lunch and it began by our parking the car on, and blocking, the narrow sidewalk. There were three of us - a man named Guy Delaborde who was Swiss and Aurelio Busani, the agent for our company in Italy, and myself. It was a very small, local food restaurant and Aurelio was well known there. The decor reminded me of a Picasso painting with bright colors and a black & white floor. Guy and Aurelio were going to teach me about northern Italian food. Unfamiliar stuff that they would not tell me about until after I'd eaten it. Most of it I'd never had before and I've never had since. Most was very good. Probably four courses and a new wine for each course. Like many of the meals there - it was a long one, this one ending with a strong expresso. (I could hold wine pretty well then.)