… in Washington, D.C.

Warmth and wind have knocked the heads off tulip hordes. Tourists shed their layers, stripping down to tank tops and shorts. Fourteen brown, yellow, and black ducklings swirl around their mother in the pool alongside the cafeteria of the National Museum of the American Indian. A worker pounds stakes for a volleyball net on the Mall.

I’m in Washington for little more than a day. Yesterday afternoon I hit four Smithsonian museums: the Freer and the Sackler, both predominantly Asian art museums, the National Museum of African Art, and the National Museum of the American Indian. Visiting Asian art museums feels like coming home. So many familiar sights. The spare black ink landscapes of China, the gold foiled screens of Japan, the subtle celadon of Korea, and the peacock glaze of a modern bowl built by a potter who lives near Mt. Fuji.

Dinner was an unexpected treat at Café Atlantico.  The arugula and jicama salad looked like maki sushi, with the greens wound inside a lotus root-like arrangement of jicama, with raspberries interspersed between the maki, bits of blue cheese in the center, and what looked like miniature Rice Krispies sprinkled around the edge. It didn’t only look nice. It tasted great, which is more than I can say about most fancy-shmancy food. I also enjoyed my more conventional salmon with cauliflower quinoa and papaya.

My coco en dos formas was also delectable. Imagine a shallow soup bowl with a thin layer of coconut sorbet topped by an equally thin layer of lime-vanilla gelee. Those two layers form an orb the size of the sun. Then, there’s the moon of eggless coconut panna cotta with toasted coconut flakes resting on one corner of the sun.

“What kind of cooking is this?” I asked one server. The upstairs – I was downstairs – might be considered molecular gastronomy, she said. Downstairs, the chef likes to have fun. I thought the cuisine might be contemporary Mexican food because the menu included an item using a form of fungus that Iggy and I ate on our vacation in Mexico City.

I would definitely eat here again.

Another highlight of my visit was meeting a bold squirrel on an urban street corner. He caught me staring at him. He stared back, his lips slightly parted by the acorn that prevented him from closing his mouth. I pulled out a bit of my sesame-based protein bar, then threw it toward him. He didn’t flinch. None of the servile cowering I see from even Ready Freddy. He investigated, retreated, and then went back to reconnoitering for more food.