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.