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Listen: Here’s what you do.
You leave the kids at home. Not that kind of night.
You take somebody special—a friend, a lover, a sister or brother you need to catch up with. You tell them it’s important. You make the time.
You get over to Machete, in Fisher Park on Battleground. No reservation? Go a little early—just after work, before the rush. Maybe sit at the bar, It’s just the two of you. You order some drinks. Not your usual. One of the house cocktails. Audrey’s Little Helper, maybe. The Pro Tiki/Con Tiki. Or just tell them what you like, leave it to them. They’ll take good care of you.
You look over the new summer menu—small plates, just lists of ingredients, really. Piques the imagination, leaves room for surprises. No, it’s not cheap. But you don’t do this often. You don’t do it often enough.
Here’s what you don’t do.
You don’t miss the roasted James River oysters with peanut, coconut, and Thai green curry butter. You don’t eat them too quickly. Savor those tingling layers of briny and sweet that taste somehow new and startling and like every sunburned summer from your childhood. You don’t miss sharing that with someone you love.
It’s impossible not to hear my mother’s rueful, head-shaking laugh as I tell you that.
I come from generations of Eastern North Carolina commercial fishermen. Growing up on the coast, we had no idea our food was special. Clams and oysters, crabs and lobster, shrimp and flounder—we ate what our family caught, mostly battered and fried or steamed with plenty of butter. Growing up that way, you actually got tired of it.
Come on, Mom — fish again? Can’t we have hot dogs tonight?
I was shaving before I realized not everyone could eat seafood any night, without considering where to get it or the cost. We didn’t eat out much as kids. We didn’t need to. Money was beyond tight. But bushels of oysters? Those were handshake greetings—one of the few fringe benefits of punishing hard labor lives without overtime, health insurance, or any kind of stability. We feasted when we could on what was plentiful. Times were often tough, and it was important to appreciate the good nights—not to worry about whether that was your second or third helping, your second or third drink.
My grandfather and uncle were lost at sea some years back when their boat went down in a storm off Cape May, New Jersey. Just the kind of thing that happened in those communities. Word would go out — late-night phone calls waking friends and family across the county. We’d gather together to mourn, realizing it could have been anyone’s father or son. And we’d eat and drink together, telling our favorite stories about absent friends, summoning up those good times again.
It’s hard to say what would amuse my mother more—me eating river oysters, that they were smothered in curry butter, or that I paid $6 a piece for them. But if she were sitting with me at that bar, she’d have to admit they were damned good. And she’d get that bemused little smile, that faraway look I came to recognize when I’d take her out some place in the city.
How’d we ever get here from those little dirt road trailers? Ain’t it strange and beautiful we did?
Go taste something new over at Machete soon. Make some memories together.
Joe Killian is The Assembly’s Greensboro editor. He covered cops, courts, government and politics at Greensboro’s daily paper, The News & Record, for a decade. He joined us from NC Newsline in Raleigh, where he was senior investigative reporter.