Another turn of the wheel
2016. Time keeps marching on, and dragging us along.
WordPress sends me an annual report, and this year there were 22,000 visits to this blog, from a total of 104 nations. Why one person in Ghana wanted to read my rambling I cannot envisage, but thanks whoever you are.
Last night started off quietly. Kate and Brad came over, I cooked dinner and a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle broke out. I have no skill at jig saw puzzles. Gail says I can’t even turn the pieces over correctly. This did not make for an exciting evening.
Along about 10, when the grown ups were ready to go to bed, I put on my Vessi waterproof sneakers and headed up to Napa to drop in on the annual New Years bash at Green Valley Ranch, where our friend Mike Patton lives.
This party always has a theme; this year it was a wedding.
Okay, everyone at the ranch is gay, so of course it was 2 women getting (mock) married. The women do live together in real life, but in a menage a trois. With a guy named LG.
Everyone was wearing something interesting. There was good food, champagne and fizzy water for the non-drinkers. That’s a big deal–I’m often amazed at the parties we attend where the host makes certain to have fancy wines he can brag about for the drinkers, and a single can of diet Coke that expired 8 months previously for me.
There was a woman named Laura who came up from San Diego to visit her friends Rob and Dave. I don’t know what she does for a living, but she sure had fun rocking a tiny dress and singing with the music.
Yes, that’s a spotlight, and other first class theatrical lighting. Green Valley is the only working cattle ranch in the universe with a follow spot. They take videos of the party on professional equipment, because Rob and Dave are filmmakers, Mike is director and producer, Tom is a director, another guy has Oscars for lighting design and there is more theatrical talent at the ranch than in half of Hollywood.
This blog rarely features photos of me, but I’m going to leave you with one of the few selfies I have taken. That’s what happens when you get me to a great party. Happy New Year.
- Mostly, I like the glasses
The Old is New
When we moved to Orinda in 1962, the cool people bought their groceries at Blacks Market, 65 Moraga Way, next to the 76 Station. It was an old fashioned market, where the butcher shop was a concession owned by Vasco Giannini and there were still house accounts–we were account #357.
In time, Mr. Black died or retired and Vasco bought the whole store. Eventually he moved the the store around the corner, where BevMo is now.
Then began a string of restaurants. Anthony Bourdain, in Kitchen Confidential, writes that some locations are just jinxed and nothing can survive in them. I’ve often thought that 65 Moraga Way may well just be one of those sites.
The first victim was the Square Rigger, a bar I tried to hang out in until some clown told them I was only 19.
There followed a string of losers too long to count. I remember one, possibly Mediterranean, establishment with excellent duck where I took Linda Blaney on my 35th birthday, wearing my Armani sportcoat and driving my brand new Ford Fiesta. That was a good night.
There were any number of Italian and Mexican incarnations. all of them unable to overcome the jinx of the location.
Now there is one more contender, the Taverna Pellegrini. This place may have a slightly better chance since it is an offshoot of a successful San Francisco eatery of the same name.
We ate there tonight with Mike and Gretchen. I made a reservation, as always, but it wasn’t needed. The Monday after a holiday weekend is bound to be slow, so I wasn’t surprised to see a largely empty dining room.
The facility is pleasant, with the same footprint it has had for years and the same orange walls the last Mexican place painted. There is still a full bar if you just want to have a drink and socialize. Italian decorations change the culture of the building, mostly.
The menu is your basic Italian. Pizzas, pastas, entrees. A variety of very reasonably priced salads, an excellent antipasto plate. Specials are on a hand written sheet, which also contains the wine list.
This isn’t a fancy 4 star place, it’s a decent local Italian joint. Service is friendly and mostly efficient. The bus boy/runner needs some more training, but time will take care of that.
Taverna Pellegrini passes the most important test, barely. They serve decent iced tea and have sweetener–although not Splenda (the yellow stuff), only Equal (the blue stuff) On the other hand, they provided me with a proper ice tea spoon, a definite plus.
I had a tasty but un-photogenic dish of linguini pesto with chicken. It was just fine–nothing to write poetry about, but solidly well prepared.
Mike had the very photogenic osso buco:
A well braised veal shank
Gail ordered the lasagna
There was nothing wrong with this dish, Gail is just spoiled by the lasagna at Chow in Lafayette and never finds any other lasagna to be as good.
Prices are reasonable, maybe a bit cheaper than usual in pricey Orinda.
There are a goodly number of decent Italian restaurants around here, and Taverna Pellegrini is another one. I don’t have a single complaint about dinner, nor did anything strike me as special, unique or a particular reason to choose them over any of the others. Let’s say it’s a reasonable choice if you are in Orinda, but not a reason to go to Orinda.
1313 is a lucky number
Don’t listen to the people who think San Francisco or New York or Chicago is the center of great food–I’m sold on Napa. We love Morimoto,Angele and Torq, and last night Sigrid introduced us to 1313 Main, which may be my new favorite.
Situated right at 1313 Main Street with all the other palaces of haute cuisine, 1313 Main is open, modern, casual and very quiet. Not having to fight a ton of ambient noise is a pleasure; the mark of a restaurant for adults not cash heavy hipsters.
The online menu indicates a $70 tasting 4 course tasting menu. Last night they were offering a $250, 9 course, 3 hour tasting menu. Not what we had in mind.
The a la carte menu is varied; hardly the standard fare. Each dish is clearly thought out and carefully developed. You never get the feeling that they decided to have a steak and a fish and a chicken and just filled out the menu by rote.
The night started off on a note of insanity. I wanted iced tea, as usual. Silly me. They offered me an $8 bottle of sweetened tea, already “very sweet”, sweetened with cane sugar. No, I just want iced tea. How about hot tea and ice. Well, they have a “tea service” with a variety of teas including Matcha Powder. OK, how about just a pot of black tea and sweetener. Nope, we don’t have any sweetener.
I had water. Imagine the management decisions that lead to me being unable to get a simple glass of iced tea and a yellow packet of sweetener. Some places are just too hip, slick and cool to be reasonable.
The amuse bouche is a tiny gift from the chef, a miniature bite to “amuse the mouth”. Chefs work to make these into tiny works of art, a bit of culinary genius to begin the show.
An itty bitty cheese ball, perfect in every way.
My starter was one of the most amazing things I have ever enjoyed:
Truffled Egg
This is a poached egg, with black truffle. It is sitting in potato mousseline, which mostly reminded me of a jar of marshmallow cream. It was fantastic, superb, magnificent, subtle and unique. This dish alone is worth a trip to Napa. Do not miss it.
Potato Latke with Salmon caviar
What’s Hanukkah without latkes? 1313 Main ups the ante with a bit of smoked caviar. It’s to die for.
The tree huggers managed to get foie gras outlawed in California for a while, but sanity prevailed and this incredible French death food is once again available. That was my second course
Seared foie gras, served on a carmelized red onion tart with elderberry glaze. The little white dabs are parsnip puree topped with dandelions. Yes, I ate the flowers too.
My entreé was the loser of the evening. I ordered the herbed gnocchi, and asked that they hold the forest mushrooms. Sigrid piped up and said she’d like the mushrooms. I got a tiny plate of pretty plain gnocchi, and a side bowl of the mushrooms with all the other goodies the dish should have had–cured egg yolk and pea shoot salad. That just didn’t work out very well for me, but Sigrid loved her share of my dinner.
Non-wonderful gnocchi
Sigrid won two ways–she not only had the good stuff (and the mushrooms) from my meal, she ordered the Bavette Steak and loved every bite. Bavette is the $37 way to say flank steak.
Bavette Steak with Bone Marrow Croquette ,Whipped Yukon Golds , Baby Carrots , Young Leeks and Chantrelle Mushrooms
Each dish is a work of art. Presentation is immensely important in fine dining, and 1313 Main does a brilliant job of it. Gail chose the Amish lamb saddle for her main course:
No, I have no idea what makes this dish “Amish”. As is often the case, there seems to be an inverse relationship between tenderness and tastiness. Gail had difficulty cutting and eating the meat, but the flavor was exceptional. It was accompanied by lamb back, which is milder and less salty than pork.
You can’t just have a meal like this without a proper finish, and we chose the pound cake churros, accompanied by chocolate mousse and some rich liquid chocolate for ‘sipping or dipping’. We chose dipping.
Although Gail usually abjures dessert, she had her full share of this one. Little logs of pound cake are deep fried and sugar/cinnamon coated. Yes, it’s sinful. I’ll give it up for Lent. Maybe.
Service is first rate, without being the overdone, obsequious fawning you find at some ultra-fancy establishments. Prices are high, not outrageous. Except for the gnocchi, portions are quite decent.
So now I’ve got another favorite Napa eatery. I wonder if they will charge me corkage if I bring my own iced tea?
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
Petty Officer Third Class Jeremy Massiello kissing his wife, Brittany. Photo by John Gibbons, San Diego Union-Tribune
When a Navy ship come home from a tour of duty, the sailors hold a raffle to see who gets to be the first one off the ship and into the arms of his family.
When the USS Essex returned to port in San Diego yesterday, the winner of the raffle was Jeremy Masiello. Brad’s son. We’re just a bit excited. Brad and Kate went down to see the ship land and visit with Jeremy.
That’s sure one way to have a merry Christmas.
Advocating for better food in the Elmwood District
We enjoy the moden Mexican food at Comal, on Shattuck in Berkeley, so I have been wanting to try out The Advocate, the new operation by the same managing partners on Ashby, near College. We stopped in for lunch today.
The Advocate is a large restaurant in an old building. The decor is casual modern/rustic, with exposed rafters and ducting, kitchen towel napkins, no uniforms for the staff and a color scheme Gail doesn’t approve of.
The food is completely different from Comal. The menu displays a
“range of influences, but more specifically an “emphasis on the nexus of southern Mediterranean and Moroccan/North African cooking, all viewed through a Northern Californian lens.”
(I copied that, because I couldn’t make it up”
The menu changes daily, according to the market and the whims of Chef John Griffiths. Saturday and Sunday feature a brunch menu. Gail had the flatbread with soft-scrambled eggs:
You might think of this as an upscale breakfast pizza, but there isn’t enough cheese to be pizza as far as I’m concerned. It’s pretty bland–the hot sauce helped immeasurably. And it doesn’t stay warm–Gail tried to tell that to the waitress, who said it is supposed to be tepid, but took it off the bill. I think this is a clever dish that fails.
My brunch was the Mantecato of Tuna, which is a very interesting and upscale version of tuna hash.
Tuna, potatoes, capers, aioli, chili and an egg.
I liked this dish quite a bit. The egg is broken gently over the potatoes and fish and then cooked in the Salamander, a restaurant broiler you don’t have. The stone plate keeps everything warm (maybe they should try this for the flatbread). Even the bread is toasted perfectly–warm but not hard and stiff.
Just like Comal, their idea of iced tea is to charge $5 for a $1.17 bottle of TeJava, and only have that weird turbinado sugar or Stevia to sweeten it with. I was definitely not impressed with that.
Prices are what I’ve come to expect from upscale dining. Not cheap, not dreadful. Service should be good–in the footsteps of Comal, they include a 20% service charge with the meal and don’t take tips. It’s the coming thing, whether I like it or not. (mostly not)
I think we will give The Advocate a try for dinner. The menu isn’t very deep, but if it changes daily you’ll never be bored with the food, and I certainly like the lineage of the place.
Just one of the girls
Linda, Lauren, Pam, Gail, Lisa and Barbara. Former mayor Sue Rainey behind Gail, cheerfully ignoring us.
Gail had a girls cocktail hour planned Friday, and then we were going to see a magic show across the street at the Lesher. I tried to get a table for the two of us at Massimo, but they were booked solid. The girls couldn’t get a table, either, but then wheedled their way into the outside seating that was presumably closed. Lacking other options, we joined them and I became one of the girls for the evening.
There are outdoor heaters, and we all had coats, and everyone but me was slugging down anti-freeze, so nobody was cold. I had an entree, everyone else just shared a ton of appetizers, washed them down with the aforementioned firewater and enjoyed themselves. The food and the service were the usual Massimo excellence.
Then we all trooped across Locust Street to see the annual Alex Ramon New Magic show. We saw this last year and enjoyed it enough to be back.
Ramon is a young man with an excellent magic show, except that it is too damn loud at the start. Insanely, ridiculously, unnecessarily, deafeningly, painfully loud. Bring ear plugs. Last year I was ready to leave after 2 minutes, but fortunately the sonic attack didn’t last.
After the noise of the first illusion dies down, the show is fun, clean, amusing and amazing. That’s why they call it magic.
Ramon’s act needs a better director–he stops the show and blathers on for 10 minutes just before the finale and completely breaks the rhythm.
The last illusion is impressive, but not very magical. Still, the crowd roars, everyone is impressed and he runs out of the theater to be in the lobby selling CD’s. A good time was had by all. I recommend it.
Done with Denver doings
I’m home.
Friday we started the North American Swiss Teams, and ended it, too. We just needed to win the last match of the day to qualify, but that didn’t happen. We weren’t thrilled with the idea of hanging around watching other people win, so we agreed to play a compact KO on Saturday, change our flights and go home a day early. Save a few bucks and make Gail and Linda happy (one hopes).
Because it seems wrong to spend a week in a hotel in a strange city without seeing anything new, Saturday morning I took an Uber to the center of the Denver Arts district, just to walk around.
I started at the Denver Photo Art Gallery, which displays a wide selection of outdoor animal and landscape photographers. The modern trend is to very large prints, from 4 to 7 feet wide, single photos which will dominate a wall or a room. This gallery had plenty of them, some very beautiful, some overworked, oversaturated, overbright and just plain garish.
About half of the gallery is dedicated to a local artist, John Fielder. A spectacularly talented photographer, he has phenomenal photos of his native Colorado and brilliant work from Africa.
Across the street, I walked into a small crafts gallery and learned something. Apparently, there are many trees killed by beetles, and it is considered ecologically sound to only use the wood from those infested trees, not felling healthy trees for artistic purposes. The wood of these trees has a strong blue tint, which is considered desirable in the furniture created therefrom.
A table showing the characteristic blue color of beetle-kill wood.
It was cold and I was hungry, so I stopped into an old fashioned breakfast place.
How can it be the “special” if you have a printed sign?
The food was classic–copious portions of American standards. I didn’t even need to open the menu, this was on the cover:
Eggs, spuds, sausage and a plate of biscuits and gravy. They think this is normal.
Yes, that is more food than anyone needs. Yes, it was delicious.
In the age of computer ordering systems in every restaurant, it was fun to get an old fashioned check. Especially one so reasonable.
Not many galleries were open, so I just kept walking in the direction of downtown–it was only a mile or so to the hotel and I was in no hurry, which gave me a chance to enjoy the scenery and notice the many murals (and one interesting door) decorating the area.
Friday night we ate a an Irish restaurant on the first floor of the hotel tower I was ensconced in. The food was mediocre, but it was fun noticing Mike was having some kind of sissy martini:
Is this the drink of a manly man?
We almost won the Saturday KO–on the last board of the last round, our teammates bid a slam that should make 80% of the time, and we would win the match. This was the day for the other 20%, and we were second. C’est la vie.
The cab from the airport to the hotel was $57 plus tip. The return trip via Uber, the fare was $39.47, no tipping allowed. That’s why Uber will rule the transportation world soon.
Denver was great. I liked the playing site, had some decent food, saw my friends and enjoyed the Arts District. Prices are much lower than California, the downtown mall is an excellent design and I won a couple of points. Life is good.
Classing up the joint
Bridge used to be a high class affair, with players in their good clothes and directors in tuxedos. Those days have sadly gone, but there was a flash of old fashioned glamour today when this caddy went to work.
Stacy is one of the “professional” caddy staff, the cadre who travel around the country to caddy at all the NABC’s and large regionals. At 24, she has been caddying since her grandmother hired her 14 years ago to pick up slips at her local sectional in Ohio.
She and her cohorts like to drag out the formal clothes for the second Friday of each national, and today we were lucky enough to have her in the North American Swiss. Besides being gorgeous and classy, she is an excellent caddy and the boards were moving swiftly and smoothly all day.
This may be her last national, I hate to report. After we close up shop here in Denver she is going back to Ohio to a real job in the post office. Real life won’t be as much interesting as being part of the travelling road show that is bridge, but but maybe she’ll class up the post office for us.
Grant and Terry are National Champs!!!
Our club manager Grant Robinson and his blonde sweetie Terry Boyd won the 0-10,000 Blue Ribbon Pairs!
From the ACBL Bulletin:
Winners of the 0-10K Mini Blue Ribbons Pairs: Grant Robinson and Teresa Boyd. Californians eke out Mini Blues victory Teresa Boyd and Grant Robinson of Dublin CA, trailing the leaders by 27.68 matchpoints with one session to go, rallied with a 57.73% game to win the 0-10K Mini-Blue Ribbon pairs by .61 matchpoints. The winners were just ahead of Om Chokriwala, Sherman Oaks CA, and Joan Rubin, Encinco CA, who were leading the event after the semifinal session but had dropped to seventh after the first final. They rebounded with a 60.02% game, but it
Never give up.
I’m in Denver, for the fall Nationals. Mike and I are going to play the Blue Ribbon Pairs and the North American Swiss.
We started today with the Blue Ribbon. 141 1/2 tables of the best players in the world, and us.
First session, we played very well. Tight, careful, attentive, not making mistakes. We had a 47% game.
Mike was pretty devastated. We can’t really play any better, and should have scored higher. But you have to have a bit of luck, and we weren’t getting much. One champion player and his client made a big mistake against us, but that wasn’t enough when people were finding all the right leads.
Still, it isn’t our nature to give up, so we came back after dinner, buckled down and kept trying. Truthfully, we didn’t play as well in the second session as we did in the first, but we got luckier and managed a 53%, to finish 3 points over average (and average was 1796, so 3 points isn’t much).
It was, however, enough. There is a Q next to our names and we get to play with the big kids tomorrow. Winston Churchill was right: never, never, never, never give up.
Totally Unauthorized 