Henry V and Departure

Ashland, Oregon, July 9, 2018, Monday--Yesterday was a day of goodbyes as Andy, Jane, Gee Gee and Ed left for home.  A full five days of theater completed.  Our afternoon performance was a superb way to end the show, Henry V, the Battle of Agincourt and the love scene with Princess Kate of France at the end of the play.  

This was a production unlike any we had seen before.  Very spartan sets, the use of red clothes to indicate the deaths in battle, and the role of the Dauphin of France played to the hilt as a petulant, pushy youth.  

After goodbyes to the others, John, Ben and David spent a couple of hours in the garden.  We had an opportunity to talk at length with Christopher Salazar, one of the Henry V actors, who was enjoying a respite with other cast members before heading off to a dress rehearsal for a new play that opens this week.  

We decided on Mexican food for dinner.  We found a local Main Street place that looked good, La Plancha, and ventured in.  Bottles of water on the table in old Lunazul (Blue Moon) tequila 1.5 liter bottles, spartan decor with Mexican posters on the wall, and a Southern Oregon University student, very pleasant, as our waiter.  We enjoyed lots of chips with an excellent guacamole, molcajetes vegetales (bubbling vegetable stew), with dry heavy wheat tortillas for Ben, a caesar salad and a chicken quesadilla for John and three varied tacos for David.  Well served, and, except for the heavy tortillas, very good.

The mountains near here have been hit by huge fires, which has left the city in a haze at times.  This view of the nearby hills, generally clear, shows the smoke drifting North.

We head today, South into California.  The I-5 is open and we do not expect delays, though it had been closed one night as the firefighters controlled an 8,000 acre (3,300 hectares) fire.

Good and well...OK

Ashland, Oregon, Sunday, July 8, 2018--Yesterday we saw two plays, a rendition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and the Book of Will.   

Sense and Sensibility was silly.  The novel  was turned into a drawing room comedy, which was not what we expected.  It was loud, raucous, and foolish.  Instead of being an early 19th century book of manners, it almost turned into a farce.

The second, though, the Book of Will, was a tour de force.  Well-acted, well-plotted and delightful, perhaps just historical fiction, but good fiction.   We thoroughly enjoyed it, entranced by the word play and actions of Shakespeare's friends in attempting to save his work by publishing it in a complete volume.  Many aspects of the play were quite moving.

In the morning, we had a donor coffee hour with two actors from the company.  One is a newbie, William Thomas Hodgson, who will be playing Romeo when it opens next week.  He was interviewed by a woman we had seen before in the Wiz a couple of years ago, whom we remembered as being target of a hate crime due to race.  Fortunately she is still with the company and doing well.

We had a fine dinner, too, at Amuse, one of our favorite places. Veal sweetbreads, game hens, lightly smoked filet of trout for Ben and a Cowhorn grenache followed by a superb  Meeder cabernet.

We are also returning to Oregon next year, which is something to look forward to.

Three winners!

Sunday, July 7, 2018, Ashland, Oregon--Three winners, well maybe four!   We started the day with a superb tour of the OSF Rehearsal Hall, learning how it manages to put on 11 plays continuously with 92 actors and a huge staff to cope with the work.   This included the backstage of one of the theaters, the newest, the Thomas.  Our guides were an actor, James, and one of the stage managers, Wendy.   

Dinner was a winner at Peerless, one of our favorite restaurants.  This is an Ashland encore every year.  We enjoyed Chinese style buns, duck confit, lobster stuffed potatoes and spicy fries as our appetizers and moved on to such varied main dishes as pork chops (David and Ed), noodle salads (Ben and Jane), roasted vegetables on quinoa with crab cakes (John) and halibut (Andy).   We enjoyed a 2016 Eluoan Pinot Noir which is blended in the Rogue Vogue Valley from grapes from over Oregon.   Ice cream and carrot cake for dessert.  

Now the plays, Othello and Oklahoma!  Both winners.

Othello, one of Shakespeare's 400-year-old masterpiece tragedies, was given a fitting masterpiece performance here.  OSF's version is  set in contemporary Venice and Cypress and completely resonates today in our world full of racism, misogyny, religious extremism and xenophobia.  Iago, who is evil incarnate infects Othello into raging, murderous and suicidal jealousy.  One interesting note:  Iago is portrayed as a deeply closeted homosexual.

Oklahoma! is a 75th anniversary performance of Rogers and Hammerstein's musical.  This terrific production is gay-themed and  has won plaudits from Ted Chapin, the chairman of the Rogers and Hammerstein Foundation and Todd Purdum, author of a recent biography of them. The choreography (credited to Agnes de Mille) and dancing were superb.  Ado Andy (not Ado Annie) is so well-acted by Jonathan Luke Stevens and both Tatiana Wechsler's Curly and Jordan Barbour's Will are superb renditions.  

Theater and friends

Ashland, Oregon, July 6, 2018--Yesterday began our theater days.   We enjoyed our normal filling breakfast at the Winchester Inn, the first class hotel about 300 yards from the Shakespeare Theater, and then headed off early in the afternoon to the first of the two plays we saw at the Shakespeare Festival.  Manahatta.  

This play is about the Lenape Indians, home, high finance and Indian sorrow.   The plot, set in two times--Dutch colonization of Manhattan and the 2008 meltdown of Lehman Brothers.  We felt it was an absorbing high class soap opera.  The acting of course was superb but the play itself needs some rework to become as important as the Cherokee author, Mary Kathryn Nagl would like it to be. 

We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Alchemy Restaurant here in the hotel:  John had exquiste breast of duck with a starter of asparagus and pancetta. Ben enjoyed halibut with a cantaloup soup starter.  The wine was a local Weisinger Winery from Ashland...a Cabernet Sauvignon.

The second play was one of the Shakespeare's comedies, Love's Labour's Lost.  (Note the possessives--important).  We had never seen LLL before.  It's very funny in the Elizabethan sense, but the comedic lines are difficult for 21st century playgoers to understand.  To cope with this the director, Amanda Dehnert, decided to set the play with rock music, body painting, color intervals and water hoses.  The body of the play is difficult to follow because there are so many interacting Elizabethan plots combined, but if you go with the flow, it's a lot of fun.  The last ten minutes are the heart of the play, where love's labor is lost when the play turns deadly serious over death and perjury, as the Elilzabethans called the breaking of oaths.

Travels

Ashland, Oregon, July 5, 2018--Two days of quiet and travel.  We enjoyed our last day in Healdsburg on Tuesday, doing some cooking, nearly burning up the grille and patio, and venturing around the town for coffee, groceries and bits and pieces.   It was good to sit and read a bit and rest after the hectic-ness of the past few days. 

Yesterday, July 4, we spent on the road.   It's a distance from Healdsburg to Ashland, about six hours of driving, which comes to more than seven when you add in stops for lunch and coffee.

The first few hours are on the back roads of Sonoma, Napa and Lake Counties.  We stopped first for coffee Calistoga, which we had feared burned in last year's fires.  Fortunately the fires stopped at the edge of town and the coffee shops were still in order.  Ben, of course, had his bone dry skim cappuccino with art from the barista celebrating the Fourth.  Calistoga was about to have its parade so many a small child was patriotically dressed.

Once on I-5, the drive becomes harrowing when someone wants to play European driver at 85mph in a 70 mph zone.   Fortunately David was happy to help.








Along the way we saw many billboards for the Black Bear Diner, of which there are several in many towns.  We stopped for an excellent lunch in Redding at the local Black Bear.  Good sandwiches, good soups, and tunafish  for Ben.   

Then through the mountains to Ashland, our regular accommodations at the Winchester Inn, and a fine dinner last night at the Lark Restaurant in the Ashland Hotel.   Jane, Ed, Gee Gee, David,  Ben and John.  Peter not joining us this year and Andy arriving later.  We enjoyed cream of sweet potato soup, John had mussels, Ben enjoyed tempura.  A fine bottle of Chahalem district pinot noir from the Willamette Valley, and then to bed.

A Quiet-ish Day

July 2, 2018, Monday, Healdsburg, California--Yesterday was busy, but not so busy.  In fact, even though it is the week of July 4, Healdsburg's lovely center seemed relatively quiet.  We drove into town, made the final arrangements on getting David on the car rental agreement so we can split driving to Ashland on Wednesday, decided on dinner at home and the menu and then had lunch at the Shed.

The Shed is a new shopping experience for various foods, spices and utensils you don't find in many places, along with a garage style restaurant doing interesting cheeses, fish dishes and salads.   We enjoyed two salads, one of mixed beets and fruits and another of various greens, both colorfully gorgeous andexcellent.  We followed these with a fish board of various salmons, herrings, anchovies, and spreads.  All served with an excellent oiled and toasted bread.

After grocery shopping we returned home to start dinner--lamb burgers, brioche buns, tomato caprese with buffalo mozzarella and balsamic vinegar, grilled zucchini strips and then a peach and cherry pie for dessert.  This was served with a variety of wines, including an Acorn supertuscan, a local Merlot, and several others to taste. 

The conversation was, of course, lots of fun and it was an early night.  Dixon and JR depart this morning for San Francisco, we leave tomorrow for Oregon.

Healdsburg is a lovely little town.  Its zoning and building regulations make sure that it stays well-to-do--a permit to build can run to $100,000, so this is not a place likely to build much affordable housing.  Fortunately, Sonoma County seems to run a real bus system between the valley towns north of Santa Rosa so transport into Healdsburg is available.   A new light-rail service is schedule to start in two or three years to connect with the Larkspur ferries to San Francisco from Marin County to the south.  However, last year's fires burned a lot of the housing Santa Rosa and who knows when the permitting system will allow significant reconstruction in this valley.

Tomorrow as we drive to Ashland across the nearby mountains, we expect to see more fire damage.  It appears, though, that the area is getting back to normal quickly and where we have been we have seen nothing of the damage so far.

Wine Wine Wine and Food Food Food

Monday, July 2, 2018, Healdsburg, California--From 102F (39C) the temperature dropped yesterday to 60F (12C) by breakfast.   We enjoyed the cool weather and then headed off to Russian River valley Acorn Winery to meet up with Dixon and JR, old friends from Washington, who are really into wine.

Acorn is a small winery run by Betsy Nachbaur and her husband, Bill.  Dixon and JR are part of their wine club and have visited before.  We, of course, were the only tasters, their having made an appointment for Sunday.    They only use their own grapes and served a collection of their vintages.  The range from a rosato combination of zin, cab franc, sangiovese, syrah, petite syrah and drops of others to a full cabernet franc, sangiovese, dolcetto, super Tuscan mix, zin mixed with several other wines, and their "medley" which they put together every year from the wines they make, drawn into a mixture a pipette at a time.  The 2013 we tasted was combination of virtually all the grapes they grow.  

Dixon and JR have studied and learned far more than Ben and John.  The discussion included how Betsy's husband was out trimming leaves off the wines to encourage ripeness in the grapes, to the various mixes, to current events.  In all, a very full morning.

David left us to return home to work on dinner while we headed of J Winery, an upscale, larger place, with a crowd of very well-dressed tasters, particularly well-coiffed and enjoying the day.  We tasted six different wines ranging from a sparkling rosé  and two other sparklers (including a demi-sec), a lovely pinot noir, a pinot gris, and a chardonnay that John particularly liked with a lingering taste of caramel fudge!  

By that time we were ready for lunch.  Heading back on the Old Redwood Highway to Healdsburg, we aimed for Willi's, a seafood and small plate restaurant with a fine outdoor seating area.  Lunch ranged from seafood ceviche (Peru), to pork pot stickers (China) to scallops in bacon (cocktail party), to Ipswich fried clams (Massachusetts) to French fries (international).   

After lunch we went across the street to the tasting room of Hawley Winery where we tasted a range from zinfandel and various whites to a superb 2015 Oehlman Vineyard Russian River Valley pinot noir that JR bought for dinner.

After a short nap, we enjoyed a barbera that we acquired in Amador County from Fate Winery, then moved on the County Mayo cold cream of pea soup with crème fraîche with a Davis white blend wine, cold roast of pork loin in a sherry and soy marinade, potato salad, and steaming corn on the cob.  This coupled with JR's purchase and finished with a galette from the local Downtown Bakery, made for a full meal.  

After much conversation of current events we were off to bed.

This morning, we enjoyed a breakfast of strata of cheddar and bacon, fruit and coffee.  We even managed a shot of all of us at the table.

Hot, Hot, Hot and Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

Sunday, July 1, 2018--We left Sacramento yesterday mid-morning, heading to our next stop with David at his home in Healdsburg.  It's about 110 miles.    We awoke Saturday morning morning to aroma of quiche aux asperges et fruits de mer.  Baguette from the local specialty bakery to compare of the length of sourdough imported from San Francisco that morning, and the presiding presence of Andres and Richard's Siamese, Lilly.  We quaffed down the coffee, munched on the bread, savored the quiche and then said our au revoirs or adioses, depending on which language we spoke at the moment.  (Richard speaks French, Andres is Chilean.)

Off to Healdsburg, It took about three hours!  We drive the East Coast freeways regularly from Washington to Boston, or to Pittsburgh, or upstate New York, but traffic on the Saturday before July 4 along I-80 between Sacramento and Vallejo was moving at maybe 25 mph (40 kmh).  Places, such as a two-lane causeway through San Pablo Bay had delays of almost 30 minutes.  No wonder folks say California is crowded. 

But the end result is arriving at David (and husband Andy--who was in Rome on business) at the lovely hillside home outside Healdsburg where we spent the afternoon and evening catching up, making tuna salad with fresh tomatoes and enjoying Davis Winery white wines.   All in all a busy, but good day.  It was also between 100-102F (39C) in Healdsburg yesterday.  But as they say here, it's a dry heat.  The century plant (also known as an agave) loves its site off the patio!

Pilgrimage to Plymouth

Friday, June 29, 2018--We made a pilgrimage to Plymouth, California, in Amador County for cigars, wine and hamburgers.  It sounds strange, but the restaurant for lunch, Taste, is in Plymouth, about an hour from Sacramento, in Amador County, the site of many wineries.  One of the dishes they serve for lunch is a mushroom cigar, a stuffed Chinese style roll, standing on a small patty of mashed potatoes.  Absolutely exquisite.  Wines that never leave Amador County, made in small amounts, predominate on the menu and are available at the local tasting room about a mile away, Amador 360.  

Taste is an upscale restaurant in a downscale town.  In fact, except for a few buildings, Plymouth is hardscrabble, fighting to regain some of its lure from its Gold Rush days.  But it's on the way.  We enjoyed the visit a lot:  when was the last time your hamburger was made of trimmings from New York strip steaks?   Ben enjoyed carrot and ginger soup, Richard enjoyed steak tartare followed by an open faced steak sandwich with an egg, and John enjoyed that house hamburger, served only on Fridays.  We all had a flight of wines--Ben and Richard enjoyed local reds while John enjoyed local rosés--some very dry rosé of zinfandel.  Very pleasant.

Along the way we stopped at a roadside farm for vegetables.  It has obviously been around for quite a while, with its old tractors and farm machinery and ancient shipping labels plastered on the barn walls.  The local vegetables are straight from the fields, but the imported, non-local, veggies seemed very pricey.   We loved the garden ornaments in the shape of animals and, yes, even a dragon.




We returned to Sacramento to prepare for another lovely meal out.  This time at Allora, a restaurant that has been open for three months east of Sacramento.  Ben enjoyed three different types of Pacific oysters, John an insalata di friuti di mari.  Richard had a fine anchovy laden salad and Andres a mixed salad.  We moved on to short rib for Richard, bucatini with sea urchins and sea scallops for Andres.  John enjoyed cavatelli with veal sweetbreads, while Ben had a reprise of the seafood salad.    Andres and Richard know the maitre-d.  That made the evening more fun. We introduced Richard and Andres to one of our favorite wines:  aglianico, an Italian wine, but this one was made from the aglianico grapes grown by Italians in  Paso Robles.

Exploring and Eating Our Way through Sacramento

Our hosts agreed that Sacramento is not a place where there is lots to do--but we managed to keep very busy.  One of the points Richard noted is that many of the chefs who wanted to open in the Bay Area found it too expensive moved up river to Sacramento.  The end result is that the capital of California has an excellent restaurant scene.  With wineries not far away in the lower heights of the Sierra Nevada, it has an excellent wine scene too.



Our first stop was the State Capitol.  It's a huge place, built nearly 150 years ago, centered in a large park, surrounded by palm trees and looking over the city.  In the 1970s it was taken down to make it eathquake-proof and rebuilt with the same material put back in their original places (including the tiles).  Our tour guide, Isabelle, took us around the building and enjoyed telling stories about the place.   It was not crowded, no collections of fourth graders from school, and the Senate and the Assembly were both in session.  For political junkies like us it was a good time--listening to how dreadful the soft drink industry is in subverting taxes on sugared drinks!  We also noted that the Rotunda is the site of large statements defining various LBTQ people.




We lunched at a salad restaurant, Jack's, where your salad is assembled in front of your eyes.   John had a chicken achiote salad, a combination of quinoa, black rice, chicken and some other veggies, like roasted corn.  Very spicy.  Richard and Ben had assembled salads with lots of lettuce.  We found Ben's coffee (see earlier blogs from detailed descriptions) at a cafe in an alley.

We moved from there to the excellent Crocker Museum, built by one of the Big Four who constructed the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s.  They took a trip to Europe about 1870 and came back with a collection that forms the basis of the museum.   Our interest was to see the well-reviewed exhibit of women at work from the 18th century, mostly French.   An excellent show, though heavy of drawings and prints, with fewer oils.  It's well put together and was worth the visit.  


At the same time we saw an exhibit by Cyrus Tilton, called The Cycle, about the growth of locusts, including two fully grown locusts, apparently going at it.  The smaller pieces in the exhibit were slices of earth with locust eggs in them. 




Dinner last night at home, which Andres put together.  We had previously headed to the Cortis Bros. grocery story for wine and came back with a Haarmeyer Chenin Blanc from local Calaveras County.  It was superb.  Dinner was a feast of zucchini soup, poached salmon, Chilean tomato and hearts of palm salad, potato salad and dessert of glazed pound cake with peaches, nectarines and cream.  Great night.  Even Lily the cat enjoyed the evening, being given a special treat of chicken.

Our first trip in a while: Sacramento, Sonoma County and Ashland, Oregon

Sacramento, California, July 28, 2018--Well, it was a first for John:  With his sciatica, Ben decided it was time to get wheel chairs for the long distances in airports.   It works!  Southwest is to be thanked for arranging the wheels in Washington National, St Louis and Sacramento.   It made life a lot easier, and the added advantage is boarding first--and getting the A row with all its leg room.  Yeh!


We took a picnic lunch to enjoy during the plane change, so a slight 20 minute delay in St. Louis was of no consequence and the flight across the country from there was smooth and mostly clear.  

The Sierra Nevada were lovely with their snow-tops and seemingly full reservoirs. 

We made it to friends Richard and Andres by late afternoon, a lovely glass of chardonnay or so, and then to a local restaurant for dinner on their patio.   The food was very good at Hook and Ladder, in their neighborhood.   We enjoyed a Luna Pinot Noir, cold asparagus soup, roasted octopus and for Richard and me hamburgers, for Ben an artichoke white pizza and for Andres a nicely done pork chop.  Huge portions.  The staff was very helpful and when they didn't have a bottle of wine in the cellar that we asked for comped us with an extra appetizer--three stuffed poblano peppers that we enjoyed splitting.  The place is attractive--and has attractive bartenders, too.

 
Early to bed (by Calfornia time) and today off to the Calfornia State Capitol for a tour and then this afternoon to the Crocker Museum for what is reviewed as an excellent showing of paintings from the 18th and 19th century of women at work.   More to come.