To finish off the trip

September 5, 2012...

We left Boston for Tiverton, Rhode Island to visit with our friends John and Jon from New Orleans who rent a summer place overlooking Tiverton Harbor.  Tiverton is a smallish place, in Rhode Island and quite country.  It's north of rich Little Compton and not pretentious.  The place where the neighbor goes out quahoging and brings back littlenecks for you, where the local center has a lobster roll place, but quaint enough that little New England cruise vessels actually make it into the harbor.  Having a view of Mt Hope and Mt Hope Bridge in the distance helps.  

We were rained in a day by the remnants of hurricane Isaac, but that made for fun, if sometimes damp, porch sitting with a good book and glass of wine.  We enjoyed some Spanish bierzo from Galicia and a lovely French burgundy.  It went with the littlenecks from the owner of the next dock whose boat our host had bailed out after the storm.  Roasted on the grille...mmmm.

We ate lots of corn from the local farmers, lovely tomatoes, and grilled vegetables. Simple.

Lunch one day with friend Elaine as well at the Stone Harbor viewing Mt Hope Bay at the north end of Tiverton was fun.  Sitting outside in the sun, enjoying the New England clam chowder and for John the fish and chips.  Very simple, very good.  And very nice wines to go with.

Then we headed into Bristol, just across the bridge for four nights with Elaine and John's 50th high school reunion from Barrington High School.  Lots of fun with a party at a house he had played in as a child (the owner says the tables for John's old friend's electric trains are still in the attic 55 years later).  The house overlooks the Barrington River with its boats and reed grass, very attractive as the sun goes down.   The following evening we had the big dinner dance at the Rhode Island Country Club on Nayatt Road overlooking Narragansett Bay.  Lovely view and pleasant food.  Of course there was great company, friends of 50 years ago with whom we still correspond.

The end of the trip was a night with brother Andrew and Karen in Fairfield, with an afternoon at Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.  John and Ben found it sparse but fascinating, worth a visit.  John thinks Johnson is not among America's first rank of architects, too much a copyist of the world of Mies van der Rohe, who now seems to be so cold and square for our mellower tastes.  Very fashionable when we were growing up, 50 years ago, but now seems dated and strange.

Archery and then Cambridge

On Sunday, archery for Ben was a hoot.   He enjoyed himself and even hit the target a few times.  John did grandfather duty while Anne and Eric spent two hours hitting bulls-eyes.  The woods out in Carlisle at their friends’ home are that late summer deep green just before the colors begin.  

After that we picked up Stacy and headed to Watertown to our favorite diner, the Town Deluxe Diner, where we enjoyed salads and some Allagash White beer and a lox and bagel for Ben.   Then we headed into Harvard Square to see the students unloading their U-hauls and saying good bye to their parents for another year of school.  The Yard was full of tourists, but Ben had a wonderful time showing our Texas friend Stacy all over the campus and where he had lived as an undergraduate.   We completed the day with a visit to Stacy’s new apartment for the next nine months in Somerville and tour to Fletcher School at Tufts where she is studying as part of her War College program before returning to the VA.

In the evening, we had Anne’s favorite waffles and an early night.

Monday, we had coffee at True Grounds in Somerville, got some wine from the Ball Square Wine Shop, an excellent place, and then had lunch at Blue Shirt Cafe on Davis Square.  The weather was perfect, grandson was in great shape and it was good to be out.   We spent the afternoon at home, having a good visit, John being grandfather with a baby fast asleep on his chest for two hours.  

In the evening we got three deluxe pizzas from Za on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington.  One with sliced zucchini, mozzarella, parmesan and dried tomato sauce, another with tomatoes, portobello mushrooms, and roasted garlic and the third figs and gorgonzola.  Not much left after the four of us enjoyed them.

Another early night.

This morning we leave for Rhode Island, though the weather has turned chilly and wet.  It will pass quickly, we hope.  

Arllington and then to archery

We arrived in Arlington, Massachusetts, about 4 pm on Friday.   We had had a late morning leaving Craryville and so were slowed somewhat even before buying Vermont and Connecticut cheeses as a housewarming present for daughter Anne's mother- and father-in-law at Rubiners deli in downtown Great Barrington.

That stop was worth it to taste a number of local cheeses from the Berkshires and Vermont, as well as purchase adequately prepared coffee at Rubi's cafe in an alley behind the cheese shop.  With coffee in hand we had another glance around Great Barrington, which is a very fashionable upscale resort town full of well-to-do good looking vacationers.  Then to the car and a decision to take a backroad across Western Massachusetts, Route 57.  It's a winding slow road through some gorgeous little historically registered villages.

We arrived at the Connecticut River and found ourselves lunch at Salvatore's Restaurant in Springfield. A red-sauce Italian place full of twangy short New England accents.  A quick jump to the Massachusetts Turnpike and a good deal of slow Labor Day weekend traffic to Boston.

We arrived to meet and find grandson and then enjoyed him for the evening with his other grandparents, Oma and Opa.  He is cute, gurgles and is beginning to be more aware, at eight weeks Tuesday, of his environment.  He follows hands and is beginning to recognize faces.

Oma and Opa left quite early to prepare for a trip to New Hampshire and we collapsed into bed.

Saturday, we enjoyed lunch at a favorite, Madrona Cafe, a sidewalk cafe in the center of Arlington.  Good burgers, outstanding onion rings, and a good tuna salad sandwich for Ben.  Young grandson, tied securely to his mother was quiet during lunch.  Many babies which meant Eric and Anne were chatting amiably with their fellow townspeople.

Ben and I took a bus from Arlington in Somerville's Davis Square for beer--to replenish supplies--and coffee at Diesel Cafe.  Good, beautifully designed artwork.  Somewhat bitter.  Then bus home to an afternoon of feeding, changing and dandling.  Dinner of waffles and an early night.  Very good choke-cherry syrup and heavy maple syrup on the waffles.

Today it's off the archery and the lunch with our friend Stacy, who's up in Massachusetts for a year of War College study at Tufts, Harvard and MIT.

Olana above the Hudson

In the end we didn’t go to the movies last night.  Instead we had a lovely meal at home with our friends and hopped off to bed.   This morning, though, we were awake early and on a tour of Olana, the home of Frederick Church, on a bluff over the Hudson.

Olana was built before the end of the nineteenth century and is a magnificent pile of Middle Eastern style, filled with lovely antiques acquired by the artist and his wife around the world.   Church was one of the leading members of the sublime Hudson River school of painting, with magnificent scenes set against overwhelmingly strong clouds and blue skies.   

The home, now owned by the State of New York, is undergoing continuing preservation--first class all the way.   Its views are fabulous.  Church, of course, died in 1900, but the home was owned by his widow for many years and then by a nephew, who in the end sold it to the state for $470,000.  It’s been a museum since the 1960s.

To complete the day we lunched at le Gamin on Warren Street in Hudson, enjoying the salads from the French kitchen and watching the world go by.  Ben found a new coffee shop, Parlor Coffee and Tea, which was cute but not as good as Nolita or some of our other finds.  

A new trip North...

We’re undertaking a grand swing through the northern states of New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut for the next two weeks, first to meet our new grandson outside Boston, go to John’s 50th High School Reunion in Barrington, Rhode Island, and, too, visit with friends in Upstate New York, Bristol and Tiverton, Rhode Island and John’s brother in Connecticut, where we’ll visit the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan.

Our first stop is the home of our friend’s David and Andy in Craryville.  This is not our first trip here, but the site is grand and the hospitality is even better.   We get to do pooch playing with their dog Cooper, sit with wine in hand and watch the sun go down over the Taconic Mountains, and visit such interesting towns as Hudson and the village of Claverack.

Our trip up from Washington included a new find.   We’ve been searching for properly made and properly crisped spanakopita between Washington and New York.  We think we have exhausted most of the options within ten miles of exits on the New Jersey Turnpike available about the time we want to eat lunch.  This trip because we were not using the turnpike, instead coming a more inland route through Wilmington, Philadelphia and Princeton on our way to upstate New York, John ventured on to the web to find Greek restaurants between Philadelphia and the New York border for a stop for lunch.  Lo and behold, it has been found--the appropriate Greek restaurant with spanakopita made daily and roasted in an oven, not zapped in a microwave.  Mikonos Restaurant, 2.7 miles from I-95 just north of Trenton is the place.  Ben’s spinach pie was superb, John’s lamb and beef souvlaki was a joy top chomp on, and the service was great.  The price was good too.

We had our coffee, of course, at Brew Haha in Wilmington, Delaware, and again at Starbucks later in the afternoon, arriving in Craryville, New york eight hours and ten minutes later to good wines, good conversation and absolutely gorgeous inch-thick steaks.

This morning, we headed out to Hudson, one of the East’s major antique centers.  Wednesday is closed-day, but several places were open, enough to enjoy the ambiance, but without crowds of day-trippers or overnighters from New York City clogging the sidewalks.

We managed not only to walk the length of Warren Street, through its centuries of architecture, stopping for a few minutes to look over the Hudson from the point where sitings would occur of returning whalers in the 1820s.  Hudson, even though it is 100 miles inland, was a major whaling port, like New Bedford.  It fell on hard times after the Second World War and is only now recovering as it turns itself into an antique and artists community.   

We had our coffee at Nolita’s, a lesbian vegetarian coffee shop, which was definitely up to Ben’s demanding extra-extra dry skim textured cappuccino.  Lunch was lovely falafel and baba ganoush at Park Falafel and Pizza, a kosher vegetarian restaurant, where we dined on the sidewalk. 

On the way to Hudson we stopped in Claverack--the area is loaded with Dutch names, from its days as a Dutch colony before 1664--to see the dam and mill there, a site that has always interested John.   On our return, we passed a junkyard with old English cars in it.  John thinks the Austin was a 1953 Austin, and a Rover 2000 dated from about 1958.

Tonight we go see a movie about Marie Antoinette and tomorrow head off to Olana, the site of Church’s magnificent 19th century Hudson Valley school paintings.

     

An Update on Summer

We know, it’s been a few months since we wrote anything on the blog.  We can only say that it’s been a busy summer.

Our trips to the Beach were lovely.  We spent a weekend in July in Asbury Park with friends Pat and Michael, and an old friend from Pittsburgh, Chucky.   We had a great afternoon at the beach with all the eye candy and even did a tea dance at a bar there.   The bodies are great looking except for the the god-awful tattoos everywhere.  What are they thinking inking themselves.  When the flesh begins to sag all those pictures will look more like Dali than David.

In Rehoboth, we enjoyed another weekend with old friend Tom, and had dinner with friends from Washington, now retired to the beach, Kevin and Tim.  A fine evening at Aqua, one of the local watering holes, and dinner at Mixx, both lots of fun.   The eye candy is a bit more restrained at Rehoboth compared to the Jersey shore, but fun anyway.   

We had a number of birthday parties and visits from friends, so it's been a good but somewhat quiet and hot summer.

New Orleans, a Wedding and the Second Line

We left Washington mid-morning Friday for a quick trip to the Big Easy for our friend Cameron's wedding to her fiancé Alex.  What a wonderful reason to come to this example of America's diversified cityscapes.

US Air did its normal best to speed us here with irritating pseudo-efficiency.  Seats apart, $25 for bag checks, charges for anything but a sweetened soda.  At least everything went on time.  Air travel remains as uncomfy as ever.  Nonetheless we were in town by mid-afternoon and staying at an apartment hotel about three blocks from Jackson Square with a bevy of beauties doing shoots of today's casual fashions for women.   The hotel, The St. Philip's Apartment Hotel, is a collection of ordinary apartments with sporadic hot water and threats to charge cleaning fees if your garbage is not taken downstairs before you leave.  It has no particular glamor, but it has an interesting courtyard of Mardi Gras memorabilia and a very strong air conditioner.  A small kitchen cuts out the need for expensive breakfasts.

After cappuccino at Community Coffee, shortly after arrival, our next stop was a quick evening party, the rehearsal dinner, around a swimming pool at a local hotel, followed by a visit to the bride's dad's favorite watering hole, the Cosimo bar on Burgundy Street.  John, the dad, John's old friend since 1954, lives on the street and uses the bar as his TV den.  His own home is a wonder of old Vieux Carré architecture, decoration and landscape, recently finished and honored by the VC Society.  It makes his wife, Jon, and him both beam at all the work they've completed for the recognition, since it was a termite-infested relic, unused for decades, when they bought about five years ago.  The house was built in 1810 or so.  It has two buildings and two courtyards.

Saturday after a quick breakfast we headed out to the French Market, Jackson Square, the Holocaust Memorial and a ferry ride to Algiers and back.  The ferry ride is one of New Orleans' must-sees, and it is free.  Crossing the Mississippi takes but a few minutes, but when the barge and cargo traffic is heavy, the ferry has to wait for a clear run.  In our case we sat at the dock in Algiers for nearly 15 minutes as huge barges of coal and oil gear passed through the main river channel.

The views from the river give you a different angle on the city.  The old architecture, like the St. Louis Cathedral and the buildings around Jackson Square take on a time-warp back to the 18th century, but modern New Orleans vies with Auckland, New Zealand, for totally nondescript 20th century skyscrapers and convention buildings.

We lunched with our friend Elaine, the bride's aunt, at a small alley restaurant, the Green Goddess, on local shrimp and crawfish with arugula and avocado, and a couple of dreadful beers, Kolsch, which leaves a nasty aftertaste.

Then a nap and getting dressed for the wedding in Louis Armstrong Park.  Despite the nearly 90F (34C) heat, it was a jacket and tie evening and we looked grand.

The site is in a park dedicated to the jazz great, from New Orleans.  Under trees, Alex and Cameron exchanged their vows simply backed up by flute and harp, as a Treme band awaited us to lead our second line procession back to the reception at her dad and his wife's home.  Second lines are parades of celebrants, either from funerals or weddings with a band, bouncing umbrellas.

Walking, dancing, waving hankies, through the streets of the French Quarter is a real trip. Tourists whipped out their cameras and gawked, and the locals with drinks in hand stood on their front steps waving us on.

It was even better to enjoy a reception in an 1810 home, surrounded by banana fronds, orchid trees and jasmine, nibbling on grilled oysters, champagne in hand.  Dancing to another band on the patio.  Lots of fun.

Sunday, we headed out to Buffa's on Esplanade for brunch and jazz.  The group, Some Like It Hot, had played for Jon's son's engagement party, and is a regular at Buffa's.  Seated with the family and friends, enjoying a biscuit with our omelets, and of course, the obligatory New Orleans drink in a plastic cup, to be carried on departure with the city's open container drinking law, was quite unique.

Tonight before leaving tomorrow we ventured to a local restaurant, Sylvain, on Chartres near Jackson Square.   We sat on the patio at the back, and ordered food that was all Southern.  We started with bruschetta with roast beets on top instead of tomatoes, and a platter of local antipasti.  This included Tommes de Thomasville, Georgia, soppressata from a local maker, rabbit and duck pâté, pickled chilli peppers and okra, hummus of sweet potatoes, and sprouts from Maraus, also in Georgia.   We ordered a côtes de Rhone to go with the meal, which then went on to a shellfish stew of littlenecks and shrimp, mixed with chorizo in tomato fennel broth for John, and grouper, on a bed of stewed cherry tomatoes and woodland mushrooms, and angel hair cooked in ham broth.  Lovely Southern style meal.   The waitress had studied in Providence, and the bartender had gone to Moses Brown School in Rhode Island.   Lots of Rhode Island links this weekend.

The Atlas Room: Dinner on H Street

It appears we are making the seven block walk north to the Atlas District on H Street NE with some regularity.   Not only did I bike up there late last week to pick up a rhubarb pie at Dangerously Delicious Pies, but we dined at a new-ish fine dining establishment, which we loved:   The Atlas Room.

We made a 7 pm reservation and were seated immediately in a room that was not too loud to hear each other.   We started with two separate wines by the glass:  a chenin blanc for John and a sauvignon blanc for Ben as we perused the menu.  The menu does have a group of fascinating cocktails, including a sazarac, but we were more in the mood for wine.

The menu has three different sizes of dishes:   the taste, which is really a starter size, the small plate, which is big enough to be half a course, and the full size meal.  They are arranged as three different sizes of three different substances, by type of basic material, such as fish, mean, vegetable, etc.

Ben began with the signature beef ravioli, which were superb while John had a pulled dark-meat chicken on pan bread with arugula and parmesan.  The main courses were a cobia fish for Ben, which he thoroughly enjoyed and stuffed red capsicum pepper with quinoa inside for John.   We had a Napa valley Charbono from Tofanelli Winery in Napa, a rich dark red that went well with the substantial fish for Ben and John's red pepper.

Dessert was an excellent cake, sans chocolate.  The bill was not outrageous for the quality and the uniqueness of the wine.   The wine list is short but has a variety of wineries seldom if ever seen in Washington (which has no shortage of wines).  

We give the restaurant our top ranking and will go there again.

ANight on H Street NE, Washington

We don't often go out to dinner on a Saturday night.  Too many people, and often a long wait for a table.  But this past Saturday our friend Stacy suggested a night out for dinner, so we agreed to enjoy the evening and picked an area near home, within walking distance.   Our choice for dinner:  The Queen  Vic gastropup in the 1200 block of H Street, NE.   It lived up to positive expectations.

First, and very important, even though it is a soccer sports bar, in love with Liverpool (for that they can be forgiven from a Mancunian, like John) Football Club, it has a medium sound level.   You can actually hear people talk!

And it has a wonderful selection of English ales and bitters.  We enjoyed three Newcastle  Brown Ales with dinner as we talked about Stacy's upcoming 'round the world trip and a year's leave at Tuft's Fletcher School and her new abode in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The menu itself is quite small, but the specials are what you go to eat.   The chef, English, makes lovely gastropup dinners.   We started with excellent welsh rarebit, basically an open face grilled cheese sandwich but with the bread dunked in beer.  Better than the description.   Then we decided on the mains: Ben had hake with a spelt risotto, John had duck breast on puréed cauliflower and beets, and Stacy went for the roast pork belly on fingerling potatoes.  Not a peep of disappointment from any of us.  In fact, Stacy probably picked the best main course of us all, but that's not saying we didn't enjoy the total experience.

Our waiter, a sports fanatic, had a wonderfully broad Pittsburgh accent, recognizable immediately for his pronunciation of the vowel "a".   It turns out that his dad and John knew many of the same sports figures and steelworker union leaders--his dad had been involved with the USW thirty years ago when John had covered the steel industry for WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh.  He and Ben and mutual friends from Ben's days at Gateway High in Monroeville.  Poor Texan Stacy got left out of that conversation.

When we'd had enough of the sports pub, we headed up the street to a new pastry and pie shop Dangerously Deliciously Pies, the DC outpost of a Baltimore pie shop.  Now, Charm City is not one of our more favorite places, but this pie shop is wonderful, and thank you Baltimore for giving them their start.   We enjoyed three different kinds, chocolate, pecan and lemon.  John's lemon pie was more like English lemon curd, so it fit his Brit evening nicely.  Stacy and Ben's pies were excellent.  A good place to finish off a Saturday evening, and very busy at 11 PM at night!

An easy walk home.

Jakuchu at the National Gallery

Where to start with this beautiful presentation? The show, on loan from the Japanese Imperial Household to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Japanese gift of cherry trees to Washington in 1912, is magnificent. Set in one room, the show is a collection of 30 scrolls of animals and birds painted in the 18th century. This is one of them from the National Gallery's website.

Itō Jakuchū Peonies and Butterflies (J. Shakuyaku gunchō zu), c. 1757 (Hōreki 7) ink and color on silk, from Colorful Realm of Living Beings (J. Dōshoku sai-e), set of 30 vertical hanging scrolls, c. 1757–1766 Sannomaru Shōzōkan (The Museum of the Imperial Collections), The Imperial Household Agency

Each of them is about eight feet high and two feet wide and the subject matter varies from subjects like schools of local fish, phoenixes, and cockatoos, to beautiful blooming flowers and trees such as peonies, and peach, apple, and cherry trees.

The scrolls are lined up on either side of the room whose far wall houses a triptych of the Buddha and two boddhisattvas. These are easily missable, being copies of Chinese scrolls and painfully ordinary compared to the brilliance of the scrolls.

A warning for those who want to see these beautiful scrolls: The show closes in about ten days (April 29). Another warning: Be prepared for crowds. We went early on a Wednesday morning as the museum opened. By the time we left, at 11, the room was very busy. On a weekend, I would expect it to be very difficult to enjoy Jakuchu's wonders.

Lamb at Lamb's

Actually, it was lamb and fish--and pâté and sea urchin and chorizo and puréed veges and French vintage wine at Lambs Club, an elegant, to the point of being posh, restaurant in the theater district off Times Square. We were guests of Lamar and Robert; Lamar who came up with us and Robert who was in from Toronto on business.

Lambs Club is near Times Square. It's set with an art deco entrance and then a huge paneled dining room with fireplace that is elegant, as noted, with comfortably spaced tables and a very low sound level. That's superb for folk like John and Lamar who have trouble distinguishing sounds at high decibel levels.

Lamar is a retired lobbyist and former Senate committee economist, Robert is involved with high tech and the uses of social media--he recently sold a company to EA of California that was involved in gaming, John and Ben of course have varied backgrounds so the conversation was off to a full and continuing pace reflecting our interests.

Then the drinks: our waiter was superb in designing the proper heavily junipered G&T for John, the proper V&T for Lamar and a vodka and black pepper for Robert. Ben abstained from cocktails.

Our choices of starters and mains reflected our differing tastes. John started with a Hudson River pâté made of locally grown swine, while Ben had a light penne with a sauce of sea urchin and tomato cream. We tasted Robert and Lamar's starters which were superb. Lamar had a salad of hearts of palm from California. Ben ordered a Savannières from the Loire to go with our appetizers. Robert who is not a big white wine drinker applauded the choice after the first sip.

For our mains, Robert and Ben both had fish: Robert's was a red snapper crusted and served over a purée of root vegetables. Ben had a cod steak over a similar but not exactly the same purée with a lobster sofrito. Both fish dishes were served after being cooked sous vide.

John and Lamar both had a lamb filet served with cubes of lightly peppered chorizo over a purée of eggplant with a piperade. Since all of us are big red wine drinkers, Ben ordered a burgundy from Beaune that lived up to the various dishes.

Dessert was a variety. John had a cheese platter including some gruyère, Humboldt blue, and a local blue. Lamar had a lemon meringue. The cheeses were served with country toast, and the meringue with spoons for all.

We left conversing as we walked out---having enjoyed every minute of the food and the evening. We loved the Lambs Club...now, is there a Piglets Club? Or a Calves Club--perhaps that's a Gams Club? But then that would not necessary be legs like the wine had, it could be gams of whales or porpoises.

We love NY

A long weekend in NY in February, chilly, not really, rainy, not really, lots of good fun, sure!

We came up for a weekend to visit with our friends Nid and Pat from Thailand, who are visiting family and friends in the States. We've known them for a long time, visited them at home, and hosted them in Washington and other cities over the years, so it has been a reunion of long-time dear friends, to be repeated as often as possible.

We also drove up with our friend Lamar who was coming to the city to see a new friend, and shared the drive with us from Washington on Friday. It's a long drive, made longer by a medical appointment in Chevy Chase that lasted over an hour, so it didn't end in New York, Friday night till 7:00 PM!

The drive: We were late leaving Washington so had lunch at what was an old favorite, the Double T Diner on Route 40, not far from Whitemarsh Center in north suburban Baltimore. We had enjoyed stopping here as part of our search for the perfect spinach pie at Greek diners between DC and NY, which we have undertaken for several years. Once upon a time, Double T had such. Not any more. A true disappointment. Ben and Lamar had what appeared to be a microwaved slice of pie, warm but with droopy phyllo pastry. What a downer. On top of that John ordered a Reuben with corned beef, which came as a slice of rye bread, untoasted, with four slices of corned beet and microwave melted Swiss cheese on top. Oh, sadness, what a ruin! No matter that the clam chowder was up to standard and the French fries excellent, and even the Greek salad acceptable. The Double T is off our list.

But the stop at Brew-Ha-Ha in Wilmington revived our spirits. We enjoyed their excellent lattes and Ben had is normal XX-dry skim textured cappuccino, always good here. It's our standard stop on the trek between DC and NY, so all was better for coffee.

In the evening, we settled at our host's home in Washington Hts and took the elevator up to Ft. Tryon Park from his street to the New Leaf. This is a restaurant in an old stone building in the park that surrounds the Cloisters, overlooking the north end of Manhattan, with the Hudson below. The restaurant is eclectic and served us three fine meals. We had acceptable gin and vodka drinks to begin and a fine Marlborough Giesen Sauv Blanc to go with the meals: A beef stew with stout for me and host David, that was truly hearty; Ben and David both began with oysters from Prince Edward Island, while Ben had risotto cake and then avocado and artichoke heart salad in place of his main dish. We moved graciously to the elevator and home. The restaurant was established as part of Bette Midler's philanthropic work with NY parks. She has apparently taken a significant interest in Ft. Tryon Park, and it shows in the pleasant restaurant, its good service, and even its combo playing jazz with a female vocalist.

John awoke in the middle of the night to the sensation of skunk! It turns out that the rocky incline behind the apartment building is home not only to a family of skunks but also several ornery feral cats, who do battle with the skunks each evening. Unbeknownst to him, a skunk had not entered through the open window as he feared, as he listened cautiously for the patter little black and white feet, but the odor was drifting off the rocky precipice behind the apartment and into the bedroom. A bit sickening, yes, but a relief to know there wasn't an anxious skunk raising his or her tail in the bedroom!

Saturday was our day to see our friends Nid and Pat. We met and headed out for lunch at the Han Gawi Korean vegetarian restaurant on 32nd Street. We'd been here before and had hoped to get reservations that evening, but the restaurant was hosting a private party so we headed out for a lunch of kimchi, vegetarian seaweed rice casserole, mushrooms in several different guises, many different types of omelets and dumplings, and some fragrant Korean teas. John had a citron paste tea with sesame nuts, sweet but refreshing. Ben and Pat had green tea and Nid enjoyed a ginger tea. We sat on the floor with our feet dangling into a small pit beneath the table--a fop to poor non-Koreans or non-Japanese who do not find it comfy to sit on our ankles. Lovely meal, followed by equally good coffee at Stumptown on 29th Street.

We had a bit of spare time at the apartment and then headed out to Gente on East 45th Street behind Grand Central Station for dinner. This is a smallish restaurant, which in the evening takes on the guise of a local neighborhood place, but probably caters to a significant lunchtime crowd as well. The menu is not intriguing and the first reaction is that the meal will be somewhat banal. Instead the meals arrived almost to perfection. The ingredients were fresh, the tastes full, and the end result a table of satisfied diners, except perhaps for a pesto and pasta that wasn't perfectly satisfying. Our starters were a salad of arugula, prosciutto and white beans for John, antipasti for our friends and a soup for Ben. Then we proceeded on to pasta for Nid and Pat, pesto for Nid and ravioli for Pat, chicken stuffed with mozzarella, mushrooms and prosciutto for John and a mushroom risotto for Ben. Pat had so enjoyed the sautéed spinach in her antipasto that we ordered a side of it--done with garlic and fine olive oil. The wine, a Nero de Avalo from Sicily went well with the meal--it was a fruity, not heavy red. We finished with a small cappuccino ball divided between the four of us. A very lovely, simple, excellently prepared meal.

This morning we had brunch with Nid and Pat in the dining room of the Thai Residence they had had when they lived in NY, now hosting them, with fine omelets, toast and coffee. Then we headed out with the hope of seeing the Renoir show at the Frick, but the line was too long so we punted and headed off to Nespresso on Madison Avenue for coffees and conversation. We said our goodbyes and headed to Russ and Daughters on Houston Street to buy much Gaspé lox to take back, packed in dry ice, to Washington.

One of the things we have found in NY this trip is that as over 65 or disabled people we travel for half fare on the busses and subways. It's $1.10, though in coin that requires purchasing the new golden colored dollar coins--which we had never seen before! It's amazing how that adds up instead of $2.25 a ride. You can't use a fare card, but even going with the hassles of getting the cash or buying a special ticket each time you use the subway, it's worth it.

Tonight we are heading out to Lambs Club for dinner and expect a lovely meal.

A rainy day in Sydney

Wednesday, January 25

Our last full day in Australia and the heavens decided to turn the place into London. It’s been warm and muggy, but rainy all day long. We walked from Oxford Street through Sydney’s Paddington district, a neighborhood terrace houses, probably ranging from 1830 to 1900. We ended up in Kings Cross, just as the rain began, eating Thai and Hokkien noodles and then taking a train back to Strathfield. We did our minimal shopping for products not available States-side and now await our dinner with Jeannie, James’ mother and the girls’ grandmother.

Last night we had dinner at La Cucinetta, a formal-ish Italian restaurant on a hilltop in Woolwich, one of Sydney’s very lovely older suburbs with houses on large estates. The restaurant lived up to expectations with yabbies in oil and spices as our starters (entrées in this country), and then Ben had John Dory and John had a veal shank. James and Priscilla had invited her sister, Denise, and her husband Trent to join us. Very good conversation. Denise is expecting number 3 in April, and can hardly wait

The wines ranged from a pinot grigio , that was excellent, a pinot noir from Tasmania, and a shiraz from Margaret River in Western Australia.

The site is above a World War II drydock, now turned into a yacht basin, cut into the side of the

hill. Quite an installation.

The city glimmered in the distance as the sun went down.

Tonight we dine with Jeannie at home and then it’s off to our home tomorrow afternoon.

Sydney, Botany, Manly and Meals

January 24, Tuesday

We’ve been a bit busy so there have been no entries since we arrived in Sydney. The Currans have kept us very very occupied.

The bus ride from Canberra was uneventful, though the stop of Goulburne, to get coffee (acceptable) at the local award-winning bakery, and two sausage rolls, was interesting in that a huge ram is stationed near the Hume Highway interchange, about 50 feet tall. It had been moved from downtown when the freeway was built and now sits over a 7-11 and a Shell station in a typical plot of urban sprawl.

We arrived at Strathfield, a huge suburban railway station, reminiscent of Clapham Junction or Secaucus to meet James and a quick run to their home in Burwood Heights, an established Sydney suburb. Strathfield itself is Koreatown, with streets of Korean grocery stores and restaurants. The smell of kimchee was quite exciting.

The first night we just spent the evening talking. Priscilla is starting a new job so she was a little worried about it, but it has gone well. She started yesterday. And Ella and Pia are growing up. Ella is six next week and Pia is eight. Both of course are delightful young ladies.

James cooked an exquisite piece of lamb and started us with a lovely shrimp dish with mild chili peppers on toast. A De Julia sauvignon blanc from Hunter Valley for the first course, and a Calambar Seppelt Shiraz from Victoria’s Grampians, mountains in the center of the state. Much more conversation and to bed.

Sunday we headed off to Manly. This is quite a trek because Sydney sprawls like most Australian cities over many hills and valleys away from the the Harbor. We took a suburban train to Circular Quay downtown. While Australians complain about their transit systems, Sydney’s trains are excellent. From Strathfield, the trains to downtown Sydney run no more than ten minutes apart, even on Sunday! We got off at Circular Quay to find the ferry to Manly almost ready to board, so we made our way through the crowd of Sunday beachgoers to get seats aboard outside.

The run across the Harbor is grand. Soaring over one side of Circular Quay behind the Rocks is the huge Harbor Bridge. Atop it stand two huge Australian flags, and along the walkway, cresting the arch, were dozens of people who walk over it, up to the very top, Not for us, but they look to be having a fine time. On the other side leaving the Quay, was Sydney Opera House. It’s beginning to show that it’s many years old, but it is still a very interesting structure. A titan of a cruise ship, the Rhapsody of the Seas was readying for a cruise at the Quay too. Those ships are gigantic and the Rhapsody is not one of the largest. It’s only 70,000 tons and only 300 meters long. It only holds 2400 passengers on its Australia-Alaska cruises. Only....

Manly is 40 minutes ride aboard a fast-moving ferry. Unlike Auckland, these ferries are not catamarans, but they are double-ended so they don’t need to turn around. They just arrive at the dock and then the skipper moves to the other wheelhouse. Debarking and embarking takes about 10 minutes.

Manly was a crush of people, though not overwhelmingly pressured. We walked the mile from the ferry to the beach where the local radio station was running a series of sports-events for the subteens. There were surf boat games in the distance and the waves were rolling in strong enough to surf on them with boards. The streets were decorated in preparation for Thursday’s Australia Day celebrations and there was a large amount of eye-candy around. Even a few speedos.

John had an Australian Burger, which comes with a slice of beet(root) and chips, Ben had a poppy-seed bagel with grilled chicken and vegetables. A good sandwich, but not a true bagel. John had a James Squire ale to go with his.

We walked back through the town, the girls got ice-cream and then off to the boat. Coming back across the harbor many groups of sloops were taking part in Sunday’s regatta. One of a group of spinnaker-powered sloops actually capsized in the harbor, but the two-man crew managed to right it.

We crossed paths with three tall ships too, coming to Sydney, we guess, for Australia Day. The first was coming into the harbor from the Pacific. We’d seen it from Manly beach, with all its sails full. The second was in the harbor and the third was moving under motor power with only its jibs up near Luna Park under the bridge.

A quick railway trip home from the Quay and then off to the Elms’ for dinner. Elwyn and Silvana, Priscilla’s parents, live in a huge bungalow with an Italianate garden designed by Silvana, who was born Italian.

They had been to Washington and we had enjoyed their company then. Silvana did a lovely Italian meal of olives to begin and then shrimp followed by Italian style eye round of beef and a huge Pavlova for dessert. We could get addicted to Pavlova, a sweet meringue topped with fruit and whipped cream--and a battlefield over possession between Ozzies and Kiwis.

Yesterday, Monday, Priscilla had to work, and the girls went to Silvana and Elwyn’s for the day, so James took us to see the University on its hill overlooking the city. We met the former premier of Western Australia, Jeff Gallop, as we crossed the quadrangle. He’s now professor of government at the University. A close friend of Kim Beasley, who’s Australian ambassador to the US. A very interested discussion of American politics with him.

The University was founded in the 1850s and is very grand. Its quads are more reminiscent of Princeton than Brown or Harvard, very gothic. Yesterday was registration day for the pharmacy school so there lots of students in lines, but not the hurry of students going to class.

The museum had a fascinating exhibit on the Etruscans, about whom little is really known, but it appears their language was not Indo-European and no one knows how its grammar worked. It has been written in Greek letters, so we have a rough approximation of how it might of sounded. Only about 400 words are known, though.

We had coffee, which met all specifications, at Toby’s with sandwiches and then walked through the Glebe section of town, passing an old closed-up department store, now student housing, called Grace Brothers! Are you being served?

Glebe is a very old neighborhood of colonial-era terrace houses, many very small. It’s clearly gentrifying but also quite ethnic and houses lots of students. The streets are narrow with the major ones lined with cafés, bookstores, upscale shops and, according to James, an occasional brothel.

Dinner last night started with Tasmanian camembert, which was superb with its fig jam spread. Then we moved on to the best Italian sausage from Summerhill with pasta and a Sangiovese. Dessert was ice cream. We also had a lovely Martinborough pinot noir too.

Priscilla’s dad, Elwyn, had volunteered to take us to Botany Bay. We took him up on it this morning to see where Captain Cook had landed and Captain Arthur Phillips brought the first of the convicts to settle New South Wales. Botany Bay today is a container ship port with hug vessels going in an out daily. But the area where Cook and Phillips visited and had the first fatal encounter with aborigines today is a national park.

It honors both the aborigines who saw their land taken by the Europeans and the Europeans who built the modern state.

Cook came to Botany Bay in 1770 and Phillips returned in 1788. The vessel did not stay, in fact moved up to Sydney where the first colony was built. Botany Bay, to Cook, appeared to have meadows and water, but the area he thought were meadows were marsh grass and the water supplies were insufficient.

We drove out to the headlands and looked out for whales, none to be seen today.

We also visited Laperouse, a town today, but originally the site where Capt. Lapérouse landed a few days after Phillips and left to be never heard of again. It’s believed his flotilla of ships went down in the Pacific in 1788. There is a monument in French to him, and a grave for the first European to die in Eastern Australia, a priest. Père Receveur.

We returned to Elwyn and Silvana’s home, came back with Priscilla and James and are readying ourselves for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Woolwich, the Cucinetta.

Melburnians and Canberrans, Trains and Trams

January 20, Friday

John says he takes back whatever he said about Canberra being dull.

We had a fine day today exploring the monuments and edifices of Australian democracy in this planned capital. Now, remember, this is a government town. It’s a metro of about 350,000, which means that it’s a company town, dedicated to government, and the educational establishment at the Australian National University. But in its own way it’s got charm. Lake Burley Griffin, named after the American architect who designed the capital, the series of circles and broad boulevards, which feel lik

e broad boulevards, the shrubbery and forestry, the distant hills and the grand buildings, all make it an imposing city.

In it are fine places to visit for historians and government junkies, like us. The aboriginal art exhibit at the National Gallery of Australia is magnificent. It is so intense that it is overwhel

ming, from the collection of coffins standing like digeridoos on the first floor to commemorate the Aborigines loss of their lands and lives to the settling Europeans to the paintings from the Patunya times that we recognized by style and content from our visit to the exhibit in Melbourne. Coupled with the settler Australian art that is a time-line from discovery to modern days, particularly Russell Drysdale’s magnificent work The Drover’s Wife, the museum gave us a fine overview of Australian culture. The Drover’s Wife, incidentally, was given to the gallery by Benno Schmidt, once president of Columbia University.

From there we walked across one of the city’s many parks, to the Old Parliament Building that dates from the 1920s when Canberra became the capital city. The building is done in 1920s basic style and truly isn’t very charming. There is nothing magnificent about it. The Senate and House chambers lack vitality and it is merely an historical site. Our host shared with us that it may have been done so simply because the rich cities of Melbourne and Sydney had both lost out to the upstart new capital and were not pleased and not interested in making it at all glamorous.

After lunch at The Pork Barrel (the same words we use for the same acts) we walked to the new Parliament Building up the hill. This is a very strong 1980s statement about Australia, almost strident in its strength from the building’s growth out of hill on which it sits, overlooking the whole city, to its aluminum four-part tower on which flies the Australian flag. It is, unlike our own Capitol (even before 9/11) completely approachable by the public. Though our host says it is considered a bit on the small side now, for all the work that goes on inside, it has an interior grandeur, with a lightness of touch, that meets with Australia’s place in the world today. The House is done in light blues and tans, while the Senate is more formal in shades of dusty rose. And its roof commands a 360 degree view of the entire basin where Canberra sits.

We are staying with our friend Tim, who lived in Washington when he worked at the Australian Embassy and was a constant and well-liked visitor in our home for nearly three years. We had promised to visit him in Canberra and he is making us very welcome. We had a good dinner at home with lovely Tazzy champagne last night, and a superb McLaren merlot and a roast beef loin. MMMM...

Our night before with Andrew and Angie and their sons Hugo and Angus was a hoot. Their home in Hawthorn was a train ride from the city--all ten minutes of it. We quaffed several wines, including a Saint Clair NZ sauvignon blanc we’d picked up at the liquor store, a Geelong Bellarine chardonnay, and then two lovely red wines and a sauterne like dessert wine. This was coupled with conversation that ranged from finance to education to American and Australian politics. They walked us to the tram to get home and we were in bed by midnight. Although Melburnians disparage their transport system, it is superb until after midnight when it virtually stops.

Andrew and Angie have visited us in Washington with their sons, ten years ago, and we saw them at their place in Fairhaven, down on the coast, our last visit. We enjoy their company. Wonderful, too,to see how the boyts had grown up.

The following morning we arose, said our goodbyes to our excellent host Ian at 169 Drummond BnB, and headed off to Southern Cross Station. The train ride to Cootamundra was excellent. The countryside is mostly ranches and fields as the train travels through small towns, stopping at only a few. Unfortunately we did not have a train all the way from Melbourne to Canberra because there are none, so we had the last three hours on two lane roads through small villages on a bus.

Pretty but uncomfy to say the least.

Tim met us when we arrived and immediately showed us the town. Then we went searching for kangaroos, which we found eating the grass and flowers at one of the cemeteries. They are truly a strange animal. Generally not afraid of humans. The joeys were a bit too big to fit in their mothers’ pouches, but they were trying. These ‘roos were not large, unlike those we had seen on previous visits, but John still wouldn’t want to be jumped on by the legs on a roo standing a meter high.

Tonight we are off to a restaurant for dinner. More to come. Tomorrow it’s to Sydney, our last stop before our return to the States, to see the Currans who lived up the street from us in Washington for six months.

Saturday, January 21

Last night’s meal was at an aerie of a restaurant named OnRed, perched on Red Hill overlooking the glittering city. It was an elegant place to sit and talk and even more fascinating when the night-time thunder storm rolled through the valley with fiery lightening and sheeting rains. It’s a circular restaurant with views in all directions. The food was small plates, excellent tidbits. We started with a Victorian BWE Pyrenees champagne , then moved on to the tapas with each of the six of us having three each. They ranged from goat cheese, the spinach filled ravioli with ricotta to duck, sweetbreads and even pork belly crisped up. The wines to go with were a Bourke chardonnay from the Canberra region, which was excellent, and a Locan Pinot Noir, also from Canberra, from Bunengdor.

What made the evening so enjoyable though was the company. The guests included Jennifer, whom we’d known in Washington when she had been the ambassador’s private secretary. She had returned to Canberra from Washington to retire, but changed her mind, has been working for the Australian official assigned to ASEAN and is now going to Tokyo for two years. A far cry listening to her on her prospective move compared to the Thanksgiving dinner we had with her about five years ago.

The second guest was David, a friend of Tim’s who is leaving for London to work in the High Commissioner’s office with his wife and kids. David had just been honored by the Peruvian government for his work, and the other guest was the Ambassador from Peru to Australia, Luis, who was wonderful to talk to, and whom we will hope to see again. All of the guests had been to Washington, and we had been to Lima, as had Tim and David, so it was a international interchange of conversation and interests. It was an evening of discussions of American politics and the presidential elections as well as Australia and its history.

We arrived home well after midnight and today we head off to Sydney. Tim, shortly after hosting us and leaving us at the bus terminal, heads off to Wellington, New Zealand for a week with a friend who is going to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia.