“You are sure Texas?”
“He was there with a big show.”
“But frogs' legs. Americans don't eat them much.”
“Then perhaps we will have the lamb.”
But it was my night to howl, so I went to the waiter-and-owner of the little Roman eating place and I asked him if he had frogs' legs and he said yes… and I asked him if he would like to see them made American… and he said what the hell and the Virgin Queen, it was all the same to him… So I went into the shoebox-sized kitchen, and created frogs' legs American. I helped myself to a few French touches and added something I had once had in the Maryland Tidewater country on the Eastern Shore.
Take six pairs of frogs' legs with the backs left on. Heat the legs in olive oil in a heavy skillet, add half a pint of chopped mushrooms, a little chopped chive, a garlic clove sliced thin, and two cloves. Sauté on a good steady flame. Add a cup of soup stock, season with salt and pepper, cover and cook until tender. Now mix a half cup of dry white wine and a little flour to a smooth paste. Pour this over the frogs' legs. After you remove the legs, beat up two egg yolks and a half cup of cream with what remains in the pan for a very fine sauce.
Texas, you don't know what you missed… unless Egon's father really did find something like it there.
Egon and his mother ate it and wiped up the remains with good white bread, and said they loved Texas, and loved the frogs' legs, and it was more fun than anything they had ever done. The owner of the place, of course, at once placed the dish on his menu, but I never met anyone who remembers it in Rome…
A week later I got a long letter from Father Panin. I will not give it all… just the part that matters. I still have it, that letter. It's a document no one could write the story of my life without…
Dear son (it says in part), You are twice blessed. You have done an old man a great service and you have, I hope, learned some wisdom. Matters of natural human understanding have little in common with professional philosophy, as you can now see. You took a trip and you must now be asking yourself… where is the great story I was promised? Where indeed? The theorists and the dogmatists have led us so long by the nose that we see only what they want. Your great story you wrote the nights you waited to get to Rome. What did you think you would find? What did you imagine waited for you in Rome? Nothing? Then you will never be a writer, and the trip proved it for you. You thought of many mad things, my son? Write one down… dress it up, make it charming, you have written your first book. I am no critic (where is there any place a statue to a critic?) but if you dreamed deep enough you have a good story. To grow is easy, except inwardly; in time you will dream better and write better stories. Forgive a poor old man who needed some money quickly and used you; after all you used me too… You tried your ideas on me. Juvante Deo. Frustra laborat qui omnibus placere studet…
Father Panin
I was very angry for a month. Then Egon's mother needed a warm winter coat, and I sat down and wrote a detective story about the famous Medici mask made by the great Cellini. If you were unlucky enough to read it, you read my first published work, under the pen name of Paul Haggard. The last time I saw Egon he was learning to write his name in the snow…
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