Absinthe for Modern Masters

You go to the VMFA with a person in 1992 and next thing you know, they're expecting you to go again in 2012.

And yet, it's hard to know where to start when showing someone the museum  for the first time since pre-renovation.

It seemed easier to start with the present and work back, so Mocha Dick got our attention first before heading into the 21st Century galleries.

With only two days left to see it, I made sure we checked out "Modern Masters: Sean Scully and John Walker," an exhibit of monumental paintings and a dozen colorful photographs.

It was interesting because Scully was born in Ireland and Walker in England, despite the fact that both are now long-time U.S. residents.

Walker embraces his English past with enormous paintings of the Maine coast, evoking a sense of wind and water and even including local mud on the canvas.

Scully, on the other hand, goes for the opposite of his homeland, preferring to paint the colors of Moroccan tents and photograph Santa Domingo's bright, sunny colors.

From there we moved on to the 20th-century American galleries to fawn over Thomas Hart Benton's Colonial brides and swoon over a color poet's depiction of bohemians.

We lingered in front of "The Underworld," a painting of the occupants of NYC's early subway: a showgirl and her protector, an immigrant family, a messenger boy.

Once we reached the art saturation point, it seemed only logical to go upstairs to Amuse and see how we could be amused there.

Greeting me on the corner of the bar was the absinthe drip, long absent since the Picasso exhibit left last year much to my disappointment.

I couldn't have been more pleased to see it returned to its rightful place and full of iced water, awaiting a call to the green fairy.

But first things first. We found an Italian wine on the menu that was irresistible. Tormaresco Neprica, a blend of Negroamaro, Primitivo and Cab Sauvignon, was intensely colored and softly balanced.

I'm finding a lot to like about Italian wines lately.

There was only one other person at the bar, a guy with whom we chatted about the weather (a weather wimp, he'd wanted to ride his motorcycle but the rain had put him off) and he was followed by another lone wolf, this one with a tiny diamond earring and Chuck Taylors.

Both regulars, the bartender told us after they left.

I was glad to hear that Chef Greg was back in the kitchen after being gone to help with the birth of his little one.

Since every first time visitor to Amuse is required to get the mussels and Surry sausage dish, we did so for my friend's sake, but augmented it with a cheese plate that had some spectacular Humbolt Fog on it.

A friend who works at Amuse shared a story about a girl he'd been dating, someone I'd seen him with at Balliceaux last month.

Apparently he had lost interest in her once she put him in a headlock.

Oh, well, easy come, easy go.

Dessert arrived in the form of a lovely sticky toffee pudding but the real treat was the arrival of the green fairy.

There was never any doubt that I was having a drip, but my dining companion decide to give it a shot, too, convinced that the appeal was the process of watching the water drip through the sugar cube.

Not so, I explained. The attraction is the unique effect that absinthe has on one's mood and the sweet level of contentment it brings.

Sipping our absinthe in the manner of 19th century artists like van Gogh, Hemingway and Toulouse-Lautrec led to a discussion of Pernod, which, while similar, is not made with wormwood.

To be scientific about it, we ordered a Pernod (which came with a carafe of iced water) and proceeded to sip it in an attempt to compare it to absinthe.

Not even close.

The nose was far more delicate, the effect less unique. And, to be honest, I missed the little bit of sweetness that the sugar cube had imparted.

The bartender had a ready solution, dispensing a packet f raw sugar into the Pernod and stirring it in.

Okay, it was better that way, but still couldn't hold a candle to the absinthe.

And so we were back to the traditional absinthe drip, the only one in a Richmond restaurant and as integral a pleasure of the VMFA as the Golden Hare.

After all, it's not enough to just visually experience the art. One must imbibe like the artists in order to fully appreciate the mindset from which they came.

In a parallel world, we would have then gone down to "The Underworld" and joined the late night people for a ride home on the subway.

Absinthe on our breath, yes, but with a pleasing contentment about the hours spent at the museum.