Saratoga News

Some people are born leaders

By Mary Ann Cook

Some people are born leaders, with an inborn quality that there's no explaining. Let me illustrate.

There were three of us--my son, my daughter, me--on a leisurely tour of Alsace. To know just how leisurely, you have to remember that Alsace is about 30 miles long and we were spending five days. Six miles a day: we can handle that frenetic a pace, we assured each other, and took off.

We saw: picture-book towns nestled in the hills, studded with castles, cathedrals, bazaars, shops. Storks atop nearly every turret, living logos of the region. Structures built to last and erected while the U.S. was still a buffalo run. Heart-wrenching monuments dedicated to the children of Alsace, killed during the world wars.

We saw all of this; we savored and appreciated all of that. But these sights were not what we were after. Our true quest, our real reason for being in that part of the world, was that we were on a pilgrimage. Not a spiritual quest exactly. More like, well, let's face it. We were there for the food.

Alsace borders Germany, so it's changed hands with nearly every war. And the cultures mingle when it comes to food, too. Its fame rests on its quiches or onion tarts, its dessert tartes, but mainly on choucroute; sturdy fare, but nothing more than hot dogs and sauerkraut, dressed up.

Cabbage must be king in any culture that uses "small cabbage" as an endearment. And its people must have had a more provocative relationship with a cabbage than I can even imagine.

At any rate, we were there to eat, and we jockeyed for position daily over who-would-decide-where when mealtime rolled around. My reputation had already been sullied. The first night I asked--in impeccable French, if I do say so myself--if they were still serving onion soup. Yes, yes, the waiter assured me in two or three different languages.

Instead they triumphantly brought out some sort of a stew for the three of us. We were too hungry, too intimidated and too polite to protest. The next night I ordered green beans and was presented with liver. So my banner as French menu spokesperson was dragging in the dust. My high school French wasn't going to cut it.

My son, on the other hand, had been in high school as recently as two years before, and his German somehow managed to surpass my French. So he was put in charge of menus. But even his crown toppled the day he chose Kayserberg, Albert Schweitzer's birthplace, as our lunchtime destination.

It must be a beautiful town, we agreed, from the little we could see through the thicket of tourists. All we wanted was a flower-bedecked outdoor cafe. So, evidently, did the hundreds of others there, presumably for a Schweitzer celebration. So we tooled on south.

By now it was edging toward 2 p.m., a time when most restaurants stopped serving. Firm action was needed We put the youngest in charge, officially. Unofficially she's always been in charge. My father nicknamed her "the general"--and that was when she was 18 months old. Now she was 15, and not much had changed as far as issuing directives was concerned.

After a few minutes of driving time had transpired, she yelled out, "Here. Stop here." And I don't use the word "yelled" unadvisedly. We stopped. We don't name luncheon advisers and then not take their advice. This place was next to a river, and that began and ended its external charms.

It was a businessman's hangout, and when we walked in, it was still crowded. A good omen, we thought. And so it proved. I had the kind of crudités I had been searching for for days; my son pronounced the trout poached in Riesling the finest meal he had ever set a fork to; and my daughter barely evaded gluttony by limiting herself to one piece of apricot flan, not the entire flan, as she had originally proposed.

Maybe it was because we were hungry. Maybe it was because it was France and we were on holiday that made that meal so memorable. My own explanation is that some people are just born decision-makers.

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