Wines, Parties, Concerts and Conversations

Wednesday, March 16. Atherton, California

We have been dilatory in our work! We have not written our blog for several days. We should repent our ways, but we can report that we have been enjoying ourselves so immensely that this has not been possible.

First, we thoroughly enjoyed our days in San Simeon. Our wine tasting was profitable in that we tasted 20 wines in two days and enjoyed most of them. We started with five at the Rusack Winery near Los Olivos, suggested by Ben's cousin Karen. The winery makes an excellent pinot noir, one bottle of which we used to start the gift for our Atherton hosts, Peter and Jane. We tasted a a few others at Rusack, enjoying their chardonnay as well. From there we sought lunch in Los Olivos and found a good coffee shop for the XXX dry skim cappuccino with a textured design. The Panino bakery there did good sandwiches, John's being similar to an Italian hoagie. Los Olivos is one of the little California agricultural towns that would have vanished had the wine industry not come along and gone touristy. It's a pretty little village just off the main road, with a dusty 19th century main street and some older but redone buildings for atmosphere. MiniQuaint has been active.

Near Cambria we stayed at our old favorite, the San Simeon Pines where John had first stayed forty years ago in 1969, and we had had three previous nights there. It overlooks the ocean on a bluff and is a beautfiul place to watch the sun go down. It's also close to Cambria for the restaurants and San Simeon State Park for the Hearst Castle. It was also evacuated the day we were there because of the tsunami threat from the huge Japanese earthquake. There was noticeable wave activity as we stood on a higher bluff watching the Pacific, but there was no recognizable tsunami near us. Twenty miles south in Morro Bay, though, the waters were funneled nto the small harbor and did significant damage, as they did further north in Santa Cruz. All of California is abuzz about tsunamis and the affects on nuclear power plants.

We dined at Indigo Moon, Cambria the first night where we tasted another four wines—two reds and two whites. The whites were a sauvignon blanc in the style of the Loire or New Zealand and a moursanne Rhone style that was not to our taste. We also had two reds, one a mix of zinfandel and syrah and the other a Rhone style mix. Excellent. Coupled with the food, the restaurant was a star, made even better by the babbly friendly waitress.

Friday last week was William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon Castle day. We did the upstairs tour of Wm and Marion Davies's scandalously adjacent bedrooms,
and the kitchen as well as his library. The place is overwhelming in its colossal bad taste. There are tons, literally, of wonderful art, but when combined it becomes a castle full of kitsch. Perhaps this is what he wanted, but it is artistically magnificent and gross at the same time. Of course the view is wonderful.

We went back for the evening tour, which included volunteers moving around period 1930s dress acting as if they were guests of the newspaper baron and his actress mistress. Marion Davies was supposed to be sweet, lovable, and though not intellectually bright, very rich through her investments in Palm Springs land. Visitors included Cary Grant, Churchill, the Calvin Coolidges, and David Niven. Katherine Hepburn was invited, declined and was never asked back! At night, with the lights, the place takes on more of a sophisticated look.

Dinner in Cambria at Robyn's---a good meal of local food with another four wines. This time there was another chardonnay, a sauvignon blanc, a pinot and a Rhone mix. All lovely. In the afternoon we had visited a wine shop and tasted another five there, two of which we bought.

Unfortnately we are not carrying wines back to Washington, but we can order them.

We drove north on Saturday along the corniche. Not only is much of the road under construction, some of it has literally crashed into the sea. Just two days after our wheels drove us along the edge, the road was closed due to landslides. I wonder what it feels like to be in a car falling down the 100s of feet of Big Sur on to the Pacific Beach? We will not find out.

Saturday we lunched at Nepenthe after walking the trails at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park which is a cliff paradise overlooking the blue Pacific, a beach with its own waterfall, and the far distant whales spouting off. Very idyllic.

We arrived in Atherton to a very full schedule of events on Saturday. Our hosts Jane and Peter laid on a busy few days. Saturday we dressed up for a dinner of the American Liver Foundation at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Jane had acquired a table in honor of a friend of her's who was being given an award so friends gathered and enjoyed each others' company. The food was dreadful—not at all what one would expect of the magnificent hotel but the speeches on scientific discovery and drugs challenged our intellect in some new ways and made the evening a lot of fun. Of course a table full of interesting people from all over the world helped too.

Sunday afternoon we heard a concert at Stanford of members of the Adler music program that leads singers into the San Francisco Opera. Lovely Russian music, gorgeous voices. Peter is on the Opera's board so it was wonderful to go hear some of the new talent. We followed this with dinner at Abysnthe near the Civic Center in San Francisco and a concert by Yefim Bronfman, a world renowned pianist, who played Haydn, Schumann and 12 Chopin etudes. We have never heard them all before. He was called back for two encores.

On Monday we went to the California Museum of Science in Golden Gate Park where we enjoyed the living roof, the rain forest, full of butterflies, and the planetarium show of what's needed for the beginning of life both here on earth and on other planets and moons both in and out of the solar system. We lunched with friend Ruth at the Boulangerie at Cole and Parnassus in the Haight and then had dinner with her and godson John and his wife Noriko at Chez Papa on Potrero Hill. An excellent red burgundy to go with fine food at this gem of a French restaurant.

Tuesday Jane and Peter invited friends from the Canal Cruise last fall to a tasting menu that they had bought at a fund raising auction given by a firm that has catered events at their home. Melons is the name of the firm. We went to South San Francisco to the firm's kitchens and dined on delicacies like beet meringue, pate de fois, crème fraiche, roast salmon, and roast beef. Wines to go with included champagne from Napa, chardonnay, petite syrah, pinot noir and Portuguese port. A fabulous evening with friends Peggy and Chris, and Gigi and Ed.

Wednesday, we drove into the city with the thought of going to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which unfortunately was closed, so we took the ancient F trolley up to the Castro, walked around and came home to pack. Wednesday night we ate lots of tapas with Peter with a Spanish white verdejo at a local Spanish restaurant and on Thursday boarded a mid-morning flight back to Washington.

What a great time.

Tsumanis and Palaces

Imagine waking to the sound of the local sheriff announcing that you must evacuate your cozy motel room, forego breakfast and head to higher ground. That was the start of the day. Seems a 7.9 earthquake in Japan had caused a massive tsumani that was heading straight for the California coast by way of Hawaii. Not knowing how high the wave would rise, the constabulary moved us out of the way. We sat on a knoll overlooking the ocean with nary a tsumani in sight for about an hour. Fortunately it was a lovely day.

Our drive up yesterday was rather pleasant with no heavy traffic. Of course we had the lovely romantic walk along the cliffs amidst the pines and ice plant as the sun sank into the Pacific.








We tasted a number of lovely local wines over the day, though the Eberly mix of Zin and Tempranillo stood out, as did a couple of chardonnays. We will likely try more tonight at Robin's Restaurant when John promises to eat one of his favorite dishes, pork osso buco.

Saturday morning, off to the north along the coast on route 1.

Hills, Mountains, Friends and Relations

I suppose we've been too busy to add to the blog since Sunday, but it's true. Of course, we have not had internet access from our laptop either, but that could have been solved. Let's just say we've been busy.

We came to Los Angeles to see friends and family, and that is what we've done. Our hosts, Tim and Denny, whom we have known now for 18 years, have been their normal excellent company at their Richard Neutra house on Mt Olympus in the Hollywood Hills. One is a psychologist, the other an emergency room physician, and lead busy lives. The conversation, of course, flows without end or pause, from politics to business to retirement to whatever.

We managed visits with cousins Behney and Elyse, including their two daughters and four grandchildren, in Westlake near 1000 Oaks, Barbara and Steve at Greenblatts Deli on Sunset, Bill from days with Senator McIntyre, and the hills and the ocean.

Los Angeles' weather has been perfect. Today is in the mid 80s. There has been no rain to dampen our spirits. The food has been definitely up to spec. The first night, Monday, we went to one of the local gay bistros, Basix on Santa Monica. Excellent turkey meatloaf and endive-spinach salad. The wine, a Rhone style from Paso Robles, was excellent. Monday morning we went to the Getty Villa for a tour of the reconstruction of a Herculaneum villa with an excellent docent.
Then we lunched at Moonshadows on the PCH in Malibu, eating a cobb salad for John and tuna tartare for Ben, followed by dinner of home-made tortillas at Behney and Elyse's with their daughters, Laurie and Michelle and their grandchildren. A long lovely afternoon.

Tuesday, after cappucino with Ben's old classmate Tom and his husband Juan, we headed downtown to see the Disney Music Center. We had had a late lunch at Soot Bull Jeeep, our first time with Korean style barbecued large marinated squid and freshly sliced tongue. Just excellent, cooked on an open grille in the center of the table, and served with several different types of kim chee and salads. The Gehry designed Music Center is an extravagant group of circles and planes intersecting to create his signature style. Completely different from the disappointing Roman Catholic cathedral which reminded John of an overgrown Baptist church in its rugged simplicity.

Add dinner to complete the day at Cafe La Boheme with old friend Bill last night—excellent lobster crepe and a lovely caesar's salad and more Rhone style red. Despite being in the middle of West Hollywood the restaurant was surprisingly straight. Lunch today of excellent pastrami for John and lox for Ben with cousin Barbara and Steve on Sunset Boulevard, served by waitress Emily, shiksa number 1. John of course is shagutz number 1.

We finished the day with dinner at Pace half way up Laurel Canyon, a lovely little Italian restaurant where John had pizza and Ben had pasta. It's also a place to ogle the stars who come there to eat. Denny was our star-gazer and found Zach Braff for us...he was the lead resident doctor in Scrubs. Fun. Can we promise a congressman or two when they come to DC. Thursday it's off north to San Simeon.

Palm Springs in Spring

Saturday, March 5.

Eduardo and I are discussing the relative merits of sweet martinis compared to real martinis made with gin and dry vermouth. Fortunately we do not have to drink something made with vodka, blue curaçao, pineapple juice and soda made for a visiting middle-ager to this shangri-la in the desert.

We arrived last night at our friend Lamar's after a day long flight across the country aboard a packed United plane and then three hours of rush-hour Angeleno traffic to the dark hills of southern California. His home is wonderfully decorated with a collection of antiques from his folks' homes in Texas, then resident in his home in Woodley Park, Washington, with touches of his late love George. Eduardo adds the touch of elegance, making drinks one enjoys and allowing the use of his computer when mine refused to connect to the local network.

Life here seems to revolve around visits with friends and trips to rather nice restaurants. Last night about 9 we rolled into Wangs in the Desert, a Chinese restaurant where we happily killed two bottles of Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay (one each) ordered to match first a collection of pork, vegetable and seafood dim sum dumplings and then the dishes we ordered: beef with bok choy, twice cooked pork with smoked dried to-fu, kung-pao shrimp, and chicken with a garlic sauce. We went through it all and closed the restaurant. A lovely evening.

Arising this morning, we headed off to Shermans Kosher-style deli for a fish breakfast of bagels, coffee, juice and herrings. We introduced Lamar and Eduardo to gefilte fish (not peppery enough, but good). The lox smoked salmon was low-salt which made for a good taste and the egg-white omelette met every expectation. The decaf coffee was excellent and the waitress had a lovely wry wit to go with it.

From there it was off to the Indian Canyons in the Agua Caliente Reservation. The mile long Andreas Canyon walk was gentle, but not excessively easy. The green-ness of the site is not what you expect in the desert, but at this time of year after a wet winter, the California hills are more green than brown (read golden). The small flowers are in bloom in the crevices of the massively upthrusting rock formations and the occasional cactus present their yellow and magenta flowers. In the distance, the snow-capped mountains made for an afternoon of views.

We finished up mid-day with lunch at Spencers, with salads and beer...though Ben was more into his extra dry cappucino. Lamar and I headed for Stella Artois and Corona respectively. Eduardo enjoyed his asparagus soup and an ordinary Caesar's salad--chopped too finely, but with fried blackened shrimp, which tended to make up for fine chopping. Ben enjoyed his portobello sandwich and the same soup, while Lamar scarfed down his blackened ahi tuna salad and I my Asian chicken salad. We all helped Eduardo finish his sherbets--mango, lemon and raspberry.

Along the way we stopped by to see Gary and Bob whom we had not seen since a trip to Paris many years ago.

Fortunately shorts will be in order in this casual town. And even at dinner. We ate at Tropicale Restaurant, a recently reopened restaurant on the main strip. Regrettably we can only give the place a C+. While the ambient sound level was fine--we could hear each other--the courses were generally mediocre. While Eduardo was very satisfied with his goal cheese pizza, Ben and Lamar were disappointed with their dry halibut steaks, and I found my Moroccan meatball appetizer a bit industrial. We felt that most of the dishes could have been produced anywhere. Costco's might have been better; there was not a taste of lamb left. My pizza, chicken and maple syrup, which I chose because I thought it might be an interesting taste, not for a great love of maple, was ordinary. Bob seemed to enjoy his meatball piazza, and Gary made a good effort to eat an entirely overwhelming Cobb salad and some sauteed collard greens. The wine Ben chose, an unoaked Iron Horse chardonnay, was also disappointing.

All in all the company made up for it, but Tropicale does not get a recommendation.

We passed by the local Indian casino on the way home. It's not as impressive as the grand Morongo Casino we passed on the way from LA--no tower with lights flashing for its nightly specials--but it showed how much of the lands around here are owned by Indian tribes. We hope they make money from them.