Eating Authors: Sharon Lee

Monday has come around again, and to my astonishment we’re already on our way out of January. How this happened I can’t say. Nor do I trust my own suspicions on the subject, as my wife has been forcing me to watch three seasons of Sherlock at a fiercesome pace. It’s all cheekbones and far too many floating typefaces.

Fortunately, we have a new visitor here today to distract all of us. Sharon Lee is of course a novelist in her own right, crafting a Maine-based mysteries (her Jennifer Pierce series) as well as a Maine-based fantasy (Her Carousel Tides fantasy series latest book, Carousel Seas, came out earlier this month from Baen). But she’s perhaps best known as the co-creator (with her husband, Steve Miller) of the popular Liaden Universe and its vast, multi-generational cast of characters. I confess, I’m a huge fan of the books (and have already pre-ordered the next one, though it won’t be released until June).

This past November, Sharon and Steve were the Guests of Honor at Philcon, basically in my backyard. The convention organizers asked me to write an appreciation of them for the program book, which was a great pleasure to do. And too, it gave me an opportunity to invite Sharon to drop by the blog and muse on meals past.

LMS: Welcome, Sharon. So, what’ll be? What was your most memorable meal?

SL: Most memorable meal?

Oh, let me see…

It was Montreal, August 2009. The 67th World Science Fiction Convention, code-name Anticipation.

Steve and I had decided to drive, naturally enough, since we live in Maine, and Montreal was bare hours away. We had also decided to play a game with our new toy — a GPS. Rather than drive the route we knew, we programmed in the address of our hotel in Montreal, hit GO, and committed ourselves to driving the route the machine-mind set us.

It worked out amazingly well, all things considered, and we certainly did see towns, state parks, and strip malls that we would not otherwise have seen.

We switched off drivers a couple of times, and it just happened that I was driving as we approached the City of Montreal itself.

So far, now, the instructions from the machine had been… pretty good, and we were impressed.

Until, that is, we came onto the high-speed highway surrounding the city. Seventy miles an hour, cars to the left of us, cars to the right of us, cars ahead, and to the rear of us. The GPS announces that I will be taking a ramp on the right in however-many-milliseconds. I slip over into the right lane, ease into the approach for the ramp — and suddenly realize that —

The ramp is gone.

Gone as in completely missing, and only three brave torches standing between us and a tragic leap into empty air.

I jerked the car back into traffic, to the… considerable amusement of the drivers all around us. There were horns involved; the international sign of peace was displayed, in solidarity; brakes screeched, and rubber was laid down.

It was really very exciting for a few minutes, but! No one got hit, and – more importantly, from our point of view — we did not exit the highway into empty space.

Well, there was nothing to do but drive on, though my nerves were pretty well shot. The GPS finally worked us around to the hotel by a route that did not include flying, and we gave the car into the care of the valet.

After we checked in to the hotel, we asked if there was someplace nearby to get a drink. The concierge pointed us to a bar on the next corner, and we took ourselves there — only to find that the bar wasn’t open yet.

“I’m so sorry,” said the waitress, “come back in two hours, yes?”

“I was hoping for a glass of wine,” I said. “We nearly drove off of the exit ramp that’s not there.”

She gasped.

“That place!” she said. “My brother, the same thing almost happens to him! Come in!”

She grabbed my arm, and brought me into the bar, saw us both seated, poured two generous glasses of chardonnay, and left us.

Steve and I sipped, and sighed, and watched the Three Stooges, dubbed in French, on the television over the bar, and sipped — and here was our waitress coming back, bearing a tray of assorted cheeses, and fruits, and small breads.

“Eat!” she said, putting the tray down in front of us. “That place! You must be hungry!”

And, y’know? She was right. We were hungry.

And I’m calling that one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

#SFWApro