Home by Another Way by Robert Benson Page B

to cook for her family. Tomorrow night she would cook for them and for us.
    So she stayed for an hour, and she and Sara talked about all manner of things. The next night she came back with our dinner, all gathered up in the best china and serving things that she had, and she sat for a while and chatted before she left.
    Mrs. Louvin made dinner for us twice that week. She also dropped by the day before we were to leave, and she and Sara talked for a while and then said good-bye to each other. They put their arms around each other, and there were tears in their eyes, and there were promises made about when we would all see each other again. Sara called her the next day on our way off the island and had tears in her eyes while she did so.
    I suspect there are plenty of places no matter where you are that will deliver food. There are not many places that can deliver a food event.

    From time to time on St. Cecilia, we decide we are in need of comfort food. Not that life there is so uncomfortable,of course, but we are southerners, after all, and our love for Italian cuisine and seafood and other interesting things notwithstanding, sometimes we need meat and potatoes. “Roast beast,” as Sara calls it, with potatoes and carrots and gravy. Or a good steak and maybe some french fries and a wedge of lettuce and blue cheese dressing and homemade ice cream for dessert. Somewhere on this island you can probably get good sweet tea, the house wine of the South, but we have not found it yet. (Our research will continue, of course.)
    But we have found the place for the comfort meal. We always know it is time for such a meal when, during the food-event meeting, a committee member says, “Let’s go see David tonight.” When we go to see David, we know we are in for comfort food and for comfortable conversation to go with it.

    Over the years we have learned that the best place to sit and eat in most restaurants, especially smallneighborhood ones, is not at one of their best tables. It is at the counter or the bar or the little table closest to the kitchen door. That is where you find the regulars. If you sit at one of the “good” tables where the “guests” are seated, then the conversation is limited to whoever is at your table. Which can be a good thing, depending on what sort of event you had in mind to go with your food.
    If you know where to sit, you are automatically included in every conversation within hearing distance. If you want to be private, you can get a table or stay at home. If you want to make friends, sit where the regulars sit.
    Which is how we met David and why we go to see him.
    David is in charge of where the regulars sit at the Galley Door on St. Cecilia. His bailiwick is a big open-air, circular bar attached to a house. The house is where the kitchen is, and the porch that connects the two is where the tables are. Over by David is where the regulars are. The whole business is only about twenty yardsfrom the beach, looking over a sheltered cove that faces the sunset. The place has all manner of things nautical hanging from the rafters. It is the authentic version of the décor that a Red Lobster tries to do while being in a strip mall instead of being in the West Indies.
    When we go to see David, we talk about mystery novels and sixties rock’n’roll music. We talk about how people live on St. Cecilia, and we get tips on where to find stuff that we are having trouble locating, like fresh lobster to cook at our house or the good coffee that comes from Puerto Rico or fresh coconut for the sunset-round snack tomorrow afternoon.
    Sometimes David will introduce us to people who come in. Later he fills us in on who they are and what they do. Which is how we met Andrew, who is the chef at the Galley Door and who also runs the sailboat race that we had watched a few days before from the porch at Seastone.
    We will ask David about another restaurant, and he will tell us whether or not the chef is good or bad or on