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.