hors d’oeuvre myths & essays
The Lemon in Copenhagen Meredith Leigh “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” — Albert Camus I am a nervous person, and so I almost didn’t go. It was my first day in a foreign city, my lodging was canceled as I navigated the airport, and so I wandered the streets of Copenhagen with a huge pack on my back trying to understand the public transportation, standing dopily in the bike lane, which I learned expediently that one does not do in Copenhagen. Five days later, I would be sketching the clever layout of the streets into my journal and texting my 13-year-old stepdaughter about the incredible public transit here, and the autonomy it notably provides to Danish teens. But for the moment, I was sweating, lost, and unglued. When I finally found my last-minute apartment rental after delaying my new hostess dreadfully, I collapsed on the unembellished sofa and thought I might never leave it. Embarrassed, I wondered if my entire stay in Copenhagen would be spent in this small, orderly space that might easily be a bedroom showcase nestled within an IKEA store. It started to rain. But as I trolled the Rejseplanen, the magical Danish transportation app that allows you to type in your location and then shows you the timetables and modes of transit that will allow you to get there expediently, I began to loosen. Looking back, I think what hoisted me into my raincoat and out the door for the dinner reservation I had made almost a year prior was not the promise of food or ambience, but a healthy American skepticism about whether a bus and a train would actually materialize as this mystical app promised, if I just walked the two blocks to the conveniently located corner bus station. Boots on, hood up, I went out into the dusk and the rain. Fifteen minutes later, rattled but amazed at my travel success, I stepped off of the metro at Kongens Nytorv, and wandered about the square trying to gain my above-ground bearings. I called the restaurant 18
to announce my tardiness. Wandering further in the wrong direction, my nervousness and self-doubt mounted. I stupidly circled buildings, in a delirious pattern that I now laugh at with gusto. Literally, when you step off of the metro at Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen, Denmark, you can see the restaurant Geist from the station. My disheveled, wide-open, travel-weary idiocy had gotten the better of me. Eventually I arrived, slightly damp, wearing an odd uniform of strappy silk overalls and rubber boots, and took myself out to dinner. Geist is all grays and slate hues, with scrambled geometry. Round tables, an angular bar with square chairs, cylindrical poles, giant arching windows. My intimidation soared. I sat at the bar, flanked by perfectly comfortable regular people and their regular wellbred companions. As their conversation flowed, I was the silent imposter creature, with bare rain-speckled shoulders and messy hair, opening the menu, my aura of isolation slowly thrilling me. No longer technically lost, as I had been all day, I had no idea where I was. I don’t remember what I ordered, but the “fuck it” came easily with the wine, and the coffee came with cotton candy, huge and cloud-like on the bar before me. I laughed out loud, easily, finally. But the thing that brought me back to earth was a lemon. The lemon is what I will always remember. Dining alone is a game for me. At a Michelin star restaurant it is like a personal tournament, especially for someone who lives within the food industry. Actually, maybe it’s only this way for someone who lives within the food industry who is decidedly non-upper class, who finds herself drawn away from her own profession by many of its airs, and thus is quietly engaged, perennially, in a hopeful search for it’s true heartbeat. Naturally, I became most interested in what was happening in the kitchen, which is open, and serious. A young woman appeared to be staging, her movement— repetitive circles between stations with every move watched by the chef—was like an ice dance. I imagined
