Is there such a thing as transcultural surgery?

I have never felt like a man trapped in a woman's body. Nor have I ever felt attracted to anything except men.

When it comes to cultures, however, it is a whole different story. I should have been born in Europe. It is written on my face, quite literally. I am not, however, monolithic in that regard. In times past, some have taken me for Irish, others for French. One or two people have taken me for Italian, and one for a Sephardic Jew. It all amuses me, but also indicates that my angst at living where I do is very probably genetic.

Moving malaise

Some guru or another said that the level of one's discomfort equals the size of the lie one is living.

I have spent my entire adult life moving in a futile attempt to escape the lie of my birth in the New World. I moved from New York (eastern Long Island and Binghamton, where I went to university) to Big Pine Key, Florida, back to New York (Binghamton), then to Denver, then to Sapelo Island, Georgia (a very odd move, that one) to Athens, Georgia, to New York City, to Stamford, Connecticut, to New York City again....and then to Newburgh, New York and then Lighthouse Point, Florida and then Delray Beach, Florida...and then New York City again. And then to Boca Raton, Florida, to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, to Arnold, Maryland, to Bristol, Tennessee, to Bristol, Virginia (I made that trek back and forth a few times in ten years, with a year's hiatus in Richmond, Virginia), to Sykesville, Maryland, to Baltimore, Maryland, to New Windsor, Maryland. Which is where I am now. And where my discontent has assumed major proportions.

All the other venues of my life had something European to offer. New York is obvious; it is cosmopolitan, a melting pot, and there are abundant French restaurants, and also--for a time--there were English restaurants. Perhaps there are still, but I have decided to find my British food in Britain. Every spare moment and dime is spent on a trip to Devon and Cornwall; I must begin exploring Dorset, Wiltshire and other points west soon, however. No funds available for relatively unsatisfying trips to Manhattan to eat ersatz bangers and mash.

Devoid, devoid, devoid

South Florida boasted quite a few foreign restaurants, even if it boasted less the Anglican lifestyle flavor of Manhattan's East Side and coastal Connecticut. Of course, some places--notably Athens, Georgia and Denver--are virtually devoid of any sort of meaningful transoceanic enticements, British or otherwise. Some of the other places I've lived in my continual quest to feed the inner Brit (and I forgot a six-month sojourn in Brooklyn!) were too minor in the timeline to matter; my transcultural angst had no time to build in those places, what with moving in and moving out.

But I've been in New Windsor for three years now. Three LONG years. The closest it comes to a transcultural enticement of any sort is K&B Family Restaurant. Note the word Family. In Maryland, this means no booze. I don't think there are any booze-less restaurants in Europe, and certainly not in the England I've seen. It's ludicrous, this shielding of children from the mere sight of alcohol. Frankly, the kids in families that frequent "Family" restaurants in the U.S. usually exhibit behavior that would make the rest of the diners virtually require booze to get by. Needless to say, the proximity of K&B (while its owners are very pleasant people and I'm sure do a fine job on fried chicken and bourbonless sweet potatoes) does nothing to assuage my transcultural desires. Indeed, it simply makes them all the more stringent.

Calcutta on the Chesapeake Bay

They must be fed, these desires. The odd trip to Baltimore to shop (there are no food stores in New Windsor, and none worth frequenting in nearby Westminster) is hardly enough to satisfy my suddenly rapacious appetite for European-ness in general, and Britishness in particular.

Baltimore is, for the uninitiated, an odd combination of Parisian charm (the Mount Vernon section of the city) and the dregs of Calcutta (the rest). It is, oddly enough, a foodie town, and has abundant foreign restaurants, with the Ambassador Dining Room near Johns Hopkins University offering world-class Indian cuisine in an upscale and very European setting. It is on a par with Thariks, the Indian restaurant across the street from my digs in Devon, England.

Aha! And there's the answer to my discontent. I must drive for an hour to get to the Ambassador Dining Room; I merely go out the front door and cross a tiny, 700-year-old street to get to Thariks. Living in the suburban (not to say rural, although it would be more accurate) United States, when one is inhabited by a European consciousness, is all but intolerable.