Roswell, New Mexico hadn't been on my radar screen until Kathryn and Duane Elms (the competitive costumers we met in Santa Fe) said they live there. Since our route led right through this place we'd heard so much about we figured it would be worth a stop. I had a hazy understanding of the "incident in 1947" which involved aliens crash-landing on a ranch outside town and the conspiracy theories that resulted and have simmered since. Did the government gather up all the evidence and then do a massive coverup, or was this whole thing the result of overactive imaginations? Given the conspiracy theories swirling around the country today between the Russians meddling in the election and the release of long-withheld documents on the assignation of JFK (whoops, I mean assasination), I figured it might be fun to learn more about what happened out in the lonely New Mexico desert that night 70 years ago.
Roswell seems, at first glance, to be the town the UFOs created as every store up and downtime the main street beckons to curiosity seekers and conspiracy theorists. They compete with the more legitimate looking Roswell Museum and Art Center and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. Both offer the opportunity to see art that's a tad more 'of this world.'
I found the whole experience pretty darn creepy. Truth be told, I'm the one who has her head under the covers as soon as the scary music begins in something as benign as the Simpsons. I'm still suffering the trauma from watching a segment of the Twilight Zone as a child.
I was happy to leave Roswell behind and head on to Marfa -- a town in West Texas you really should visit.
We had first heard of Marfa from our son Max. He had never been there himself but heard it's an artsy, pretty Victorian era town in the middle of nowhere that we should definitely visit. Along with Burning Man and Woodstock (via time-traveling), I suspect it's on his bucket list and we were happy to do a pre-check.
The prime reason to visit Marfa is The Chinati Foundation, located on an old Army base where some German POWs were housed during World War II. The artist Donald Judd bought the abandoned base, all 340 acres of it, and created a dazzling installation of his own work and the work of other artists whom he invited. All the works were created for the site and interact with the desert landscape, the Army buildings and the changing sunlight. Photographs and words don't even begin to convey the feel and excitement; you simply have to experience it.
There are other reasons to go to Marfa. One is that's where the movie "Giant" was filmed in 1956. Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean stayed in the Hotel Paisano, and you can stay there in the James Dean Room. (We actually recommend The Saint George Hotel.)
I learned from my friend Joe Polumbi of another big reason to visit Marfa. I mentioned our plans to him while he was cutting my hair and was amazed to hear that he had been there. He wanted to see the Marfa Lights, elusive and mysterious lights that appear out in the distant desert (at times) along a lonely stretch of highway several miles east of town. Someone told him that his chances of seeing the lights were increased if a woman was with him, so he took his mother.
There are many theories and many videos of the lights that sometimes bounce around, zoom close and then disappear. No one really knows for sure when they will come or what causes them, but David thinks the phenomenon may be related to the quantity of alcohol consumed by the would-be viewer. Nevertheless, he indulged me two nights in a row in my desire to see the lights first hand. We had some jolly good company while staring off into the blackness, hoping for a siting, in the form of folks who had been 'dipping their beaks,' as my friend Gigi describes happily inebriated people. But it was a windy, cold night and we didn't last long enough to see anything but a vision of a nightcap back at the hotel. I did get up at dawn the next morning and found another version of Marfa lights which suited me just fine.
Another reason to visit Marfa is to eat at the communal table at Stellina, the Italian restaurant in the middle of town. On one side of us sat Darryl and Jim, charter pilots who had flown a group of wealthy Houston women to Marfa for the weekend. It was the first time they had flown together and we had fun learning about a slice of life that we will most likely never experience. It was yet another example of how talking to people whose life and work experiences are so different from ours can result in an unexpected connection. (More on that in a second). On our other side sat Marsha and Bob, a lovely couple from New Hampshire who, like us and Jim and Darryl, were in Marfa for the first time. We encouraged all of them to visit Chianti while they were there.
Then came the thing that, at least for me, was literally the icing on the cake and brings this story full circle back to Max. Take a look at the bottom of Stellina's menu where they list the desserts:
The Bête Noire is my recipe that appeared in the New York Times back in 1983 and jump started my career as a cook book writer. It's appeared in restaurants all over the place and lived on in Max's restaurant, The Night Kitchen, in Montague, Massachusetts.* There was much excitement at the table when I discovered this happy connection. Darryl's wife is a cookbook collector and he asked me to sign his menu. They ordered the cake and, as chocolate is known to do, there was happiness and new friendship all around.
*The Night Kitchen closed in 2013 after 10 years of serving wonderful dinners to folks in and around the Pioneer Valley. Max's new restaurant, The Buxton Common, is slated to open this spring a few miles outside Portland, Maine. You can receive updates about the opening date and menu by visiting The Buxton Common Facebook page.