Miss Edith Goes to Cape Cod, Eats

My dears, I know you’ve been worried about me. I know it’s not been like the good old days when you could rely on Miss Edith to spew pith and nonsense like clockwork, when you could distract yourself from your jobs by visiting me, knowing that you’d find something guaranteed to not involve an Excel spreadsheet. I have been remiss.

It is true, however, that I’ve been busy in other arenas of my life – What? Miss Edith has a life?; aye, she does – and often that has meant that I didn’t stand a chance of posting here. For example, I find it difficult to compose while traveling. And I recently spent several days on the road, en famille, and was hence unable to keep in touch with you, my darlings; I am so sorry. Many of you have emailed to ask me what the fuck, and I appreciate your concern.

Several days recently found Miss Edith in an environment where she was really quite at home: Provincetown, Massachusetts. You have to understand that while Miss Edith is actually female, the reality is that a large portion of my head is somehow… a drag queen. And so I find it at some level entirely natural to visit Provincetown. This is a town that cherishes Auntie Mame; I feel quite at home there, if always a bit underdressed. I enjoy being in a place where there are more dogs than children. And such nice bookstores! Really, if one has to be in an out-of-the-way place, a vacation area, then Provincetown is quite a nice place to be.

Notarius and I were there with members of his family; it wasn’t a reunion or anything formal like that, just a few of us who enjoy each others’ company, knocking around. Notarius had read a recent Mark Bittman article about restaurants in Provincetown and was determined to eat at one of the places mentioned in the article. We have spent a great deal of time on Cape Cod, Notarius and I – he is from there, and his family still lives there – and one of the things we discuss endlessly is how it is possible to have a part of the country where there is so much wealth, and such sophistication, and yet for that place to have such utterly miserable dining options. It is true that if you want fried clam bellies, which I often do, then Cape Cod is the place to be. But if you want other types of food, you are shit out of luck nine times out of ten. The number of undistinguished meals we have eaten in Cape Cod restaurants is beyond calculation.

Notarius was determined that for once, we would eat an actually impressive meal while on Cape Cod. Unfortunately, he could not remember any of the details from the Bittman article (and I’m not sure it would have helped much anyhow, to be honest; I’m confident that Bittman’s budget is not like ours, given that the Times doesn’t reimburse us for our meals). And, being a boy, Notarius was not interested in doing the sensible thing (going online to scout out the article and refresh his memory for the cited location -- too much like asking for directions, something the boys never do). So in the end, Notarius and I, with three of his relatives in tow, several of whom badly needed to use a bathroom, myself included, trotted up and down Commercial Street, looking for “the right place.”

As you may imagine, this got old fairly quickly. Notarius was stubborn, though, and would not simply accept anyplace that looked relatively ok. “It’s got to be good,” he kept saying. Frustrating? Yes: thank you for asking. Eventually he stopped to pause at the menu, posted at street level, for a second-story restaurant called Café Edwige.

The place is better known for its luxurious breakfasts, and the breakfast menu did look quite fabulous, but there is also a dinner menu. It was filled with trendy ingredients. I felt a sinking feeling and knew this would be where we’d end up eating dinner – not because the place was sure to be excellent, but because Notarius was in the kind of mood where he wouldn’t be happy unless there was something relatively elaborate and reasonably fashionable on his plate. Lo, I was correct: though we kept walking and looking for another twenty minutes, the five of us ended up seated at Café Edwige, known during dinner hours as Edwige at Night.

This is what I would like to say about Edwige: it has lovely waitresses. The food is fine, if a little silly. The tres leches cake was a serious disappointment, but the strawberry garnish was perfect. And while I look forward to the day when I get to sample a breakfast there, I do not feel a pressing need to have dinner there again.

It’s not that it was bad; I’d like to make that clear. But: was this a wholly memorable meal? Was there anything I ate that left me swooning? No. It was solid, fashionable-fusion (heavy on the Asian, light on the French, Italian, and Mediterranean) food. I suppose that compared to the heavy “American” food that one finds all too often on the Cape, it was actually a nice change – I was glad to not see a single breaded thing on the menu – but had we been at home, for the same money we could have done just as well if not better.

For the life of me I may never understand why it is that the food on the Cape is so bad. Perhaps all resort areas are like this. But if that’s true, why would I ever want to go there? A place that doesn’t have interesting food is a place I do not want to be. It’s not about “fancy” or anything like that; I truly do not require baby field greens, roasted pine nuts, or seafood-stuffed ravioli to be happy (though those things are nice once in a while). There are times when baby field greens and goat cheese are really the correct thing to eat, when that is the honest meal. When you’re on Cape Cod, however, it is not.

The next day, before we left Cape Cod to head home, the five of us went out to Seafood Sam’s, which is kind of like McDonald’s except all the food is seafood and fish. It’s fast, unpretentious, and a little sloppy, but you know why you’re there when you go. Notarius and I ordered clam bellies. They were excellent.