Thyme for Fish

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So, the plan was to rendezvous at Refuge Farm, Pete motoring in from the Great Dismal Swamp, and Mike from his daughter’s outpost in the Terrapin State. We live in such disparate places that regular gatherings of old shipmates are rare, though we bat the great issues of the day around with zest each morning through the Internet.

When Mike is on the road, as he was this week, we lack his carefully-crafted essays on the excesses of the passing parade to spark the morning debate, which sometimes informs my daily rants.

My guests arrived within minutes of one another, and we agreed to not hold me to cooking, but to go into town and hit the Frost Diner on historic East Davis Street for the country cooking. The day was magnificent: Indian Summer (if we are still permitted to call it that) is in full flower. The sky was a corn-flower blue, and it just felt good to be alive.

I road with Pete in the Jeep with Porter the English Bulldog in the lead, with Mike following. There was no place to park on Main Street, and we wound up in the free two-hour parking at the curb on East Davis after a U-turn that put us near the splendid Knakal’s Bakery. We dismounted, from the vehicles, ensuring the windows on the Jeep were cracked on the Jeep so that Porter would be comfortable.

Walking west toward Main, I explained our choices: “We can do down-home diner food at Frost, or try the fine dining experience at “Its About Thyme.”

Mike looked a little dubious about fine dining in Culpeper County, Pete didn’t care one way or the other. “Frost Diner it is, then,” I said. Which happened as we stood directly in front of the entrance to Thyme, when a young man emerged from the front door and started a sales pitch:

“Thyme is the place you want to be for lunch, he said. You should see our specials, which includes our superb steak salad. You can’t beat it for the ambiance or the quality of the food. If it had a bar, it would be the Culpeper equivalent of The Willow. Pity about that.”

I wasn’t driving anywhere, so I asked about the wine selection, which the young man detailed in short order. I was sold and so we found ourselves at a nice dark wooden table in the front of the restaurant under the dark pressed-tin ceiling.

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“This place was the start of the renaissance in Culpeper,” I said. “Like a lot of towns down here, it was sort of on its ass. The Big Box stores on the east side of town had taken all the business and this street, surveyed by the young George Washington, was in the dumps. In 1995, John Yarnall- that’s him over there-” I gestured toward the man in the dress shirt and slacks walking out of the kitchen- “brought his French restaurant down from Philadelphia to Culpeper. He changed his menu to adapt to broader audience, but kept the European flair. One of his daughters got her training as a chef at the renowned Cordon Bleu Academy in Paris, and his other girl is House Manager. He has expanded down the block to include a gourmet market, a bed and breakfast and The Copper Fish restaurant for fine seafood.”

I got a glass of Chardonnay to go with the steak salad, Pete got iced tea with the same, and Mike had lemonade with a cheeseburger on house-baked focaccia with pommes frites. As I was raising my glass I had one of those out of body experiences. A man with an uncanny resemblance to William Devane, the actor who flacks the sale of gold on Fox News against the coming financial apocalypse walked in, eyes scanning the growing crowd for someone.

“Jesus,” I said. That is Smilin’ Jack, the Naval Intelligence Assignments officer who send me to the Bureau of Personnel back in the ‘80s. Mike and Pete peered at the man and we agreed that if it wasn’t Jack, it was his evil doppelganger.

Then we talked about Naval Intelligence gossip from the Cold War, and as old men will, we came to the conclusion that no one had done it better than we did in the Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) and that the state of things in the Intelligence Community had sadly come down to a reprehensible state.

I had another glass of wine when it was about the right time, and the steak salad was fabulous, the greens dressed with a light vinaigrette, and some sautéed root vegetables and peppers. Mike’s burger was upscale and on a delightfully light focaccia roll.

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There was a line down the sun-drenched sidewalk when we eventually got to the end of a delightful meal, and since we were not going to do coffee and dessert, we told the server that we would take the check and settle up. John Yarnall stopped by to inquire about our dining experience, and I assured him I considered it one of the gems of the town. Before we left, we walked back to the table where Smilin’ Jack was dining with an associate. He looked at me blankly as I asked if it was too soon to be talking about my next set of orders.

Pete and Mike introduced themselves in turn as Jack’s moment of country cognitive dissonance passed- we should have been in London or in the Pentagon, not at a restaurant in Culpeper- and he realized he was talking to three men whose fates he had once directed. It was a surreal moment as he mentioned his mailing address was Mineral, thirty miles to the south. I gave his a card, and told him to be in touch. We country folk need to take care of one another, you know?

We decided the excellence of the day merited a fine cigar on the deck back at the farm, and strolled back toward the cars. Passing the door to the Copper Fish, I decided to look inside and excused myself. A young South Asian man asked if he could be of assistance, and I asked if they had a bar.

“Indeed we do, Sir. Happy Hour four to six, and seasonally we have a roof garden.”

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