Mounds, Wines, and Cheeses

Columbus, Ohio, yes, it's flat, and yes, it has wide, interminably long streets, and yes, it sprawls. It's exterior archictecture, by and large, is not very interesting, and it's downtown, except for the grand theaters, several significant office towers and the state Capitol is just "there."

But at the same time, the Short North is an area of restaurants, upscale shopping, edgy bars and murals. There are huge murals on walls. There are lights that change over High Street in bright colors. The people are very friendly. And, the restaurants seem to be quite good. As one person said, it's a city where you need to go inside to get an idea of what it's like.

We've seen a good bit of Ohio. We went to Coshocton yesterday to wine taste, not bad, but most of the grapes were not grown in Ohio at the Ravenswood Winery. We did taste one local, a chardonel white, which was sweet but pleasant. We visited a local cheese factory, and if we had been coming back to Washington immediately I would have bought several pounds of local cheeses and fresh Amish butter. I think Wally McClain and I will put in an order once the weather turns cold for a couple of two pound packs, if I can talk him into it.

On the return to Columbus we stopped in Heath to visit the remains on the prehistoric Hopewell Indian mounds. They are huge. Just the remaining section in the state park covers over 40 acres. It's a huge circle with a mound in the center. Walking across it, the space and enormity of the earthworks hits you. And this was only a part of the entire grouping. Most of it now is under houses, cut by railroad tracks and roads, and even an old canal. The Ohio State Historical Parks runs it and has just completed a new visitors center with a random access program that allows you to look at any particular segment of the video program and follow your own interests rather than sit through a movie. Very well done. Very inspiring. I think daughter Anne would enjoy this immensely, it has a feeling of great natural power, similar to the tumuli I have visited in Britain.

We completed the day with dinner at a superb French restaurant. Antibes. A little place with a new chef. Matthew Litzinger, a Culinary Institute of America grad. Terry had duck in raspberry sauce as her main, starting with duck pate. We remarked she would become a doctor afterwards, she'd be quacking so much. Ben had swordfish which was lovely, starting with escargots. I began with a salad of beets and mesclun, followed by some lovely veal sweetbreads. The wine, chosen on a whim, was a Victorian syrah,very full, from 2001 from Cliff Edge Winery, Mount Langi Ghiran in the Grampians. We must tell Tim Kane about it.

Today we go to Evanston, eight or so hours, so there will not be much to report till tomorrow.

Dinner at Latitude 41

Never let it be said that Terry doesn't know how to do it right. Not only did we see the theaters yesterday, but she shared with us her winning bid for a chef's table at Restaurant Latitude 41, one of Columbus' premier restaurants. She had submitted and won with her bid during the WOSU fund-raiser.

Dinner began with introductions from the manager, servers, assistant chef and eventually the chef himself. A rose cava Cristalino from Spain, with buckwheat soba noodles and Asian vegetables in a chili oil and soy dressing. The next, a NZ Martinsborough Sauvignon Blanc, Craggy Range, single vineyardm Te Muna Road vineyard, 2005 (imported by Kobrand of NY) with a salad of local mesclun and local fresh soybeans.

This was followed by the chef's special macaroni and cheese--this time an orzo with lobster in a cream and paremsan sauce topped with a wafer of fried parmesan. Exquisite, definitely the best bite of the meal. The accompanying wine was a 2005 Sonoma Hayman Hill Chardonnay Reserve.

Next came a 2006 Valpolicella Masi Brancasta with roasted scallops with fresh corn and truffle relish.

To finish the mean entrees, we had a grilled filet of beef on a bed of kale with a Vidalia onion stuffed with mashed potatoes coupled with a 2004 Ravenswood Sonoma Zinfandel.

Dessert was either beignets done New Orleans style with a coffee pannecotta or a bread pudding with creme anglais, with a 2006 St. Supery Moscato.

What a meal!

Theater, theaters and a museum

It's now after 5pm and we have walked the entirety of downtown Columbus and visited Ohio State.

Never let it be said that modern theaters are magnificent. When you stand on the huge stage of the 1920's Ohio Theater, looking out over 3000 seats and oceans of guilded ceilings and walls, you realize the glamor of the past, particularly the vaudeville and silent movie past. Columbus is magnificently endowed with older theaters, all of which are operating as part of Broadway Across America and regularly host productions.

Janet Rife has been active in the theater for years here in volunteer support and knows each one intimately. We did the green rooms, the orchestra pits, the stages and the decorations. A tour unlike any other. Thanks to her we know a part of Columbus we would never have seen otherwise.

Lunch, at Bettys in the Short North district, was lovely. Brats and iced tea for me, an Asian sandwich for Ben and a huge chicken salad for Terry. From there, a little shopping, and then to Ohio State to the Wexner Gallery.

I had been expecting a grand cartoon show of Jeff Smith's Bone but it was rather small and though interesting enough, not a grabber. An exhibit of Mary Heilman from San Francisco was more to Ben and Terry's taste.

It has been one of those purfikt days, the weather sublime. Tonight a surprise with Lorraine and Terry. We will be on our best behavior.

A Grand Beginning to the Trek

Mountains to 3000 feet, plains, valleys, rivers, fields, national monuments, even the fin of a brand new windmill (the French call them eoliennes), you can find them all on America's roads. Yesterday was one of those gorgeous days, the weather was great, the roads not overwhelmed with traffic, which made the drive easy. We tend to forget that magnificence of the Appalachian Mountains with their rolls of hills, each one higher than the previous until you reach the Eastern Continental Divide.

Without haze we walked to see rocks 340 million years old in one of the cuts made in the 80s at Sideling Hill for the interstate. Bends of rocks, pressed by the pressures of the earth. A few minutes later we saw the unfinished work of a madman building the newest ark to take humanity, and one assumes two of every type of roach, bug, snake, deer, rat and elephant when the floods come.

Yesterdaywas four states and DC, 420 miles and a bit less than eight hourson the road—mainly because we tend to stop every two hours: Coffees at the Queen City Creamery in Cumberland, Maryland, lunch at a picnic table made of leftover smoked chicken, courtesy of Wally McClain with some cottage cheese, and gas at $3.99 a gallon in Ohio.

Ohio is quite different. Instead of mountains, it's plains. Columbus sticks up in the distance, a collection of newer architecture rising like the Emerald City. Broad wide streets, Victorian neighborhoods with brick four-squares, and sprawling suburbs of garden apartments and 60s spilt levels, very low rise.

Our BnB is in the Short North district, about a mile north of downtown and a mile from the Ohio State campus. At night High Street is lighted by arches of chromoscope lights that change color every few seconds to give a changing view of the six lane wide street...almost a boulevard. Clubs and shops that make it an urban scene.
Terry, Ben's sister, outdid herself with dinner last night. Her friends Lorraine Levesque, a retired nurse who travels and cooks extensively, and Janet Rife, volunteers manager for six downtown theaters in the city, and who runs a sex toy business on the side, made for fascinating conversation. Never let it be said you can't have good crab cakes 500 miles from the Chesapeake Bay. You can. And a Volcano Red wine from the Big Island of Hawaii, made from grape juice and jabotica berries in honor of Pele, the Hawaiin goddess of volcanos and fire. www.volcanowinery.com/.

Janet kindly gave us a ride back into town and we learned the ins and outs of her business. Today she is taking us on a tour of the theaters, many of which date back to the 1920s and 1930s. Columbus has six of them, still operating as venues.

We pack!

Ah, yes, the Great Western Trek: With two days to go till departure we are busy packing clothes for five weeks, deciding on cameras, collecting gifts and readying the house for closure for June. Busy, but fun. The fridge is virtually empty. The car is serviced, washed and vacuumed. The maps collected. The big gray book of reservations and schedules complete. And Wednesday at 9AM, we're off to Columbus.

A little theater

Memorial Day weekend: the star of the long weekend was Friday's performance by Chita Rivera, who is appearing at the Signature Theater in a newly staged musical production of Kander and Ebb's The Visit, based on the play by Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt. Rivera plays an old lady returned to the town of her birth where she is feted as the rich old woman who will restore the faded and depressed German burg to its full potential with a massive injection of money. She does offer the money, 10 billion marks, but the quid pro quo is the murder of her teenage lover who spurned her for the daughter of a well-to-do shopkeeper. Rivera, now 75, starred in the original West Side Story in 1957. She dominates The Visit, even though the cast is superb. She actually does dance. It's a good performance, incredibly heavy in its grotesqueness. You hope for a reprieve. There is none.

Ten Days to 6500 Miles

We have ten days to go till we venture out into 22 states and four Canadian provinces on a 6500 mile trek across the plains and prairies to the Rockies and the Great Lakes. We've been planning this trip since December when we made reservations at the lodges in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks to make sure we could stay in the national parks. We've added a few days in Columbus, Ohio, to visit Ben's sister, and a couple of days in Illinois to visit with old Brown University friends Phil and Bobbie Barry--and see a few Frank Lloyd Wright homes too.

We look forward to reporting our finds along the main and back roads of North America. Some days will be long, but others will be delightfully short. We'll go through little known Rocky Mountain passes in the Uintas, we'll boat on two Great Lakes, we'll wine taste in Ohio and Ontario at least, and we'll check out Saskatchewan foods in Regina. Of course we'll attend concerts--at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival, in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and who knows in Toronto.

So come back often. We'll try to post something most nights.

New Places to Recommend in Pittsburgh

A weekend with family and friends, May 1-4

There's a lot to be said for a long weekend away visiting old friends and family. We had not been to Pittsburgh, where Ben is from and I lived for several years, in almost a year. Our friends Tom Czekai and John Fasanini probably were beginning to wonder if we were avoiding them; the family certainly looks forward to our visit and we enjoy seeing them. Considering we used to go monthly either on business or to take care of ailing parents, it seems we seldom trek up the Turnpike through the mountains watching the seasons change as we go higher.

This trip we tried two new restaurants and did a little shopping. My friend Tom and I also attended the dedication of a newly-restored 1917 Pittsburgh streetcar at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum on May 1.

First the restaurants: Both are in the East End of Pittsburgh. They show the continuing Renaissance of the city as it becomes a center of gerontological research and high tech universities. Squirrel Hill now abounds in restaurants and they are now spreading into nearby neighborhoods like Regent Square, part of which is in the City of Pittsburgh. Of course, we still maintain soft spots for our cousins' restaurants, 11, Soba Lounge and Casbah in the Strip District and Shadyside.

Our first venture out was to Legume on Braddock Avenue in Regent Square. It's a small place run by a young couple (30s) who moved back to Pittsburgh from Ohio after working in and around Cleveland. They had got interested in food when at Oberlin. We estimate the restaurant has about 18 tables inside and half a dozen on the sidewalk outside.

While it has no specific specialities as far as we could tell, the seafood was delicious, our friend John enjoyed his duck immensely and our friend Tom had a pork cutlet that looked and he said was very tasty. We started with mussels and fingerling potatoes, leek and goat cheese tarte, and bistro salads. The mussels were tiny and blended with the potato pieces in a light oil and vinegar dressing easily. They easily passed for a Spanish tapa. There were more mussels than potatoes by far. Ben's goat cheese tarte was light, a good variation on a quiche.

Our mains were scallops seared and then served with juliennes of Jerusalem artichokes and red capsicum peppers. John's duck was sauced with a fruit sauce and the pork cutlet was grilled nicely. We finished off with pannecotta with rhubarb or chocolate cake.

What makes this restaurant endearing, besides the excellent cooking, is its reservation and seating policy. If you call in advance you can't make a reservation for less than a table of six, but if you call leave your name you will get the next table when you arrive...it's sort of a maitre D's list, but more advanced. The restaurant does not have a wine list so we arrived with a 2004 Linden Vineyards Virginia Chardonnay and a 2005 French Rhone: a Chateau-neuf-du-pape. Expensive wines but not at restaurant prices.

Our next night with cousin Joyce Diamondstone was at Ma Provence, Murray Avenue, Squirrel Hill. Owned by a Provençale whose chef once cooked at the famous Le Bec Fin in Center City Philadelphia (a restaurant we visited more than 20 years ago but still going strong). Bec Fin has been long famous for its crab cakes. The chef at Ma Provence provides an exact copy! We pigged out on the creamy crab mixed with chopped shrimp in cakes two inches across and an inch high (5 cm and 2.5 cm for our metric readers). Additionally the fish, according to Ben was fine and the duckling for Joyce very good. I began with a full plate of charcuterie. The portions are substantial.

The wine list is fine. Our 2004 red burgundy was lovely. Interestingly the French now list the cépage on the label of wines they export. Our French friend Marcel Leclerc remarks on the internationalization of the French wineries. French people generally do not see it necessary to print the varietal on the label. The creme brulée for dessert is very good with its brittle sugary finish.

Two excellent choices.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, once known as the Arden Trolley Museum, continues to expand. My friend Jack Samuels, a board member, explains that the executive director has aggressively courted grants and governments to grow the place. It now has 25,000 visitors per year and runs trolleys most days on several miles of track during the Spring, Summer and Fall months.

We enjoyed the political speeches and hobnobbing with friends as the museum dedicated a 1917 Pittsburgh trolley, shown here with friend Tom. These cars were the mainstay of the Pittsburgh system from the 1920s to the 1940s. Two remain in existence, both at the museum.


What was interesting was running into old friend Bill Flanagan, a consumer reporter with KDKA-TV when I was covering business for WPXI-TV in the early 1980s. He still retains a place on local TV but is involved as executive vice president of the Allegheny Conference, a business development group for the region. He gave one of the keynote speeches--by far the most interesting--putting Pittsburgh's transportation into perspective as part of his role in promoting the 250th anniversary of the city's founding in 1758 after the British took over from the French at Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian Wars that preceded the Revolution.


The rest of our trip was a delight of visiting friends: Cousins Milton and Sarita Eisner, and Jodi and Ken Eisner, their daughters Jamie and Carley, as well as Ben's law school chum, Leone Paradise. We all had a good chunner.

Even Samantha, John and Tom's corgi joined in on their front porch.

John