One late April in Brussels when blooming wisteria was clinging to the cool stones of gray buildings and the nightly rain was pattering against the skylight above a bed in an apartment on the Chaussée de Charleroi, I arrived in the homeland of Jacques Brel to visit a best friend and drink beer. I thought I wanted only to catch up and eat frites. But the magic of an old friend can sneak up on you like that.
On a sunny Saturday, we woke up to the promise of a salad eaten at the long, wooden dining room table. We walked down the cobblestone sidewalks of Saint-Gilles, granny cart bumping along behind us, to a large grocery. The leeks were slimmer in Belgium, the radishes rosier, and bottles of rosé lined up at the end of an aisle were going for a song. We filled our cart with greens and cheese, and a long crusty baguette. On the way home, I bought a bouquet of orange tulips.
Back at my friend’s apartment, which is in so many ways my ideal apartment, I sat at the bar overlooking the kitchen as she whisked a vinaigrette of lemon juice, mustard, honey and olive oil. While she cut radishes, blanched haricots vert, sliced olives, slivered an avocado, and hard-boiled eggs with a vibrant orange yolk, I snacked on cornichons and goat cheese. I snagged an olive or two or five. I opened the wine, and she made me laugh.
I love nothing more than a proper lunch. One eaten with wine, with too much to say and the feeling that there is plenty of time in which to say it. The promise of a nap afterward. Provençal dishes, a best friend, the sun streaming in through tall windows and the best aged goat cheese you’ve ever had — they are not required, of course, but bring the lunch that much closer to something like a religious experience. And I don’t think I am overstating things.
I harp on and on about the French this, the French that, daydreaming about how a life in Europe could feel so different than a life in Brooklyn. But the truth of the matter is that my friend is American. She has hosted big dinner parties in small, charmless student-issued apartments in Minnesota. She has always had at least one bottle of wine on the kitchen counter and at least one go-to outfit that makes her feel, as my sister says, unstoppable. And she has always been imbued with the sunny dynamism of a woman in love with life.
I didn’t realize when I boarded the plane to Belgium, or when I stepped off it, or until my third day waking up next to a happy, curly-haired friend how serious my own life had become. My friend’s chattiness, her exuberance, her grace at the cutting board and love of pretty frocks eased a knot of stress in me that was buried so deep it had gone unnoticed. After one beer on a square here or there, one hard belly-laugh after another, a tightness in my throat began to gradually unfurl so that each time we passed a park redolent with lilacs blooming over a pétanque court, I had to stop. Each graceful scroll of a menu written on a window, each twist of art nouveau wrought iron and each time my friend told a story that made me laugh yet again, each time she set before me a bowl of something warm to eat or a cup of hot coffee was like a convalescence for a person who didn’t even know she was sick.
If I ever doubted my own hunch that pleasure is the greatest healer, or that a good friend can set you right again, no matter what ails you, I am newly convinced. And if I had ever forgotten that there is nothing better than a lunch of wine, salad, bread and cheese, I won’t need to be reminded again.
