I finally made my pilgrimage to TSE's childhood home. (Not the home that he was born it, which was torn down and is now a parking lot.) Before I went, I read a bit about it and watched a video tour of the inside of the house. The video said that it is a home appropriate to one of the leading families in the city (the home was built by Eliot's father, Henry). But before I show you his home, I want to show you the others on the block:
The neighborhood is lovely: it's the grandest I've seen in St. Louis thus far. Everywhere you turn, there are playful and ornate designs.
Except the Eliot home, that is: it's the most austere and plain and square on the block. It may contain some indication of why Eliot turned out how he did.
After exploring Eliot's neighborhood, I headed to a very non-austere dinner at Brasserie by Niche, a French restaurant in the Central West End. I had cauliflower soup and cassoulet, a slow-cooked dish of white beans with meat: duck confit, ham, and sausage. Basically, the ideal rainy-day fall food. And, what's more, espresso after dinner--the key to a really complete meal. I can't say enough about coffee after dinner, although I will say that I prefer mine with the dessert itself, while waiters always seem to think that they are two different courses: the coffee course and the dessert course.
And, of course, there was fine conversation, which covered everything from a rather explicit discussion of Augustine's views on sex to the debate over whether Machiavelli is a medieval or a modern.
No comments:
Post a Comment