Culinary Muse

Farewell to Mr. J and Gourmet

Among the many differences between my childhood home and my friend EJ’s home were the magazines.  My living room was scattered with copies of Sunset Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle.  Only one magazine entered EJ’s home. Gourmet. A copy always held pride of place on the side table next to her father’s dark green leather chair. I spent many afternoons sitting in that cool chair, sipping tea and carefully leafing through the latest Gourmet making sure not to bend the pages.  Here was my first glimpse into a world that was sophisticated and cosmopolitan. It was my primary source for learning about places like The Quilted Giraffe, Le Colonial and The Four Seasons. It opened a window for me. I might have been a 14 year-old sitting in a suburb in California but I could imagine myself truffle hunting in France or setting a table with Baccarat crystal and Limoges china - a far cry from my mother’s Franciscan Ware Apple pattern dishes.

I always wondered what Mr. J did with the past copies. I didn’t find out until the day I announced to them that I was planning my first trip to Europe. I could tell that the idea of a 22 year-old going to Europe alone was startling to Mr. J. But he also seemed to want to help.  ‘Come with me’, he said.  E and I followed him into the garage.  He began to open the cabinets that lined the left side of the dark, musty garage.   There they were.  30 years worth.  ‘Borrow whatever you like’ , he offered.  And I did.

Mr. J is gone now.  And so is Gourmet.  I mourn them both.

Meet the Muse's Husband, Dennis Gray!

He will be at the San Francisco Apple Store tonight at 6 pm giving a presentation. Stop by to see beautiful photographs of vintage automobiles, 2009 Reno Air Races and more and to hear how he put together his website using Apple's One-to-One! 

Transitional Cottons

Yesterday was the first full day of fall. It officially began Tuesday afternoon at 2:11 pm. The heat wave that was predicted for San Francisco never happened thanks to our fog.  But the East Bay, where I grew up, will be in the high 80’s today. Not so unusual. We always get a September heat wave.  Usually around the time kids go back to school and about the time that I have flipped my closet.  That’s when the linen pants and sleeve-less blouses and sandals go to the back of the closet and the wool pants and turtle necks and boots rotate forward. Except for the transitional cottons.  Never heard of ‘transitional cottons’? Neither had I until I was in my early 20’s and met my friend Bonnie.  Bonnie was raised in New York City.  Central Park West to be exact. Bonnie explained that in the 50’s one stopped wearing white and other light colored clothing after Labor Day. You know, summery clothing.  White shoes and matching handbags.  White linen pants and blouses.  Seersucker.  Madras. But what do you transition into if it is still 90 degrees outside?  Yes.  You got it.  TRANSITIONAL COTTONS.  Dark prints, plaids.  Still light in weight but heavy in color.  Cool to wear but still respectful of the change of season.

Does all of this sound just a little silly to you?  Who cares if someone wears white shoes after Labor Day?  Does it really matter in the bigger picture of world hunger and peace? No.  But I like the ritual aspect of this change over.  Summer is over.  Fall is here.  Seasons signal the passing of time. And it keeps me from getting bored with my wardrobe. Tim Gunn, of Project Runway fame, says it best in his book ‘A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style’: ‘Life goes by quickly. We often repeat the same thing day after day: Wake up, work, go to sleep. We humans need variety!... Because technology does a fine job of protecting us from the more extreme vagaries of your environment, you might ask, why not wear voile on Thanksgiving? Well, because then life is one long stretch of endless voile-wearing and, really, who wants that? What about the thrill of pulling out a gorgeous coat when the weather becomes crisp?  Or the lovely lightness of a cotton blouse after a long winter of sweaters? … It gives our world a little puff of that all-important variety and – this cannot be overstated – it means you get a break from some of your clothing, so you do not become desperately tired of everything you own.’  Exactly.

Fall is here...

Did you feel the shift?  The sun at 5:30 last night was low and the light yellow.  And when the alarm went off this morning, the first whiff of cool air through the bedroom window carried the scent of tomatoes cooking at a nearby cannery.  Fall has arrived.  When you are raised in the San Francisco Bay Area you learn to recognize the ever so subtle signs of the seasons changing.  We don’t expect bright orange and yellow leaves to appear. We know that when we hear the crunch of just slightly brown leaves under our feet as we walk to school or smell a certain tomato sweetness in the air that Fall has arrived.  

CARMEL AUTO SHOW AND BEYOND

What is it about Carmel-by-the-Sea  that continues to charm me after all these years?  Is it the businesses housed in storybook cottages with names like ‘Tuck Box’  that serve proper tea?  Or the mix of stores selling souvenir sweatshirts, ‘art?!?’ (see below) and $250 men's ties.  All doing a brisk business, might I add.

 

Most of my trips to Carmel in the past few years have been for business. But that hasn’t prevented me from enjoying the amenities of my favorite Carmel hotel, Doris Day's Cypress Inn, or driving down to Big Sur for dinner at Nepenthe's .  This time around I came for the day to attend a car show with photographer husband (see 8/10/09 entry above).   

As we coasted down Ocean Avenue toward downtown Carmel, we could hear the cars before we could see them. The deep resonance of their engines idling reverberated through the cypress trees.  We were in the right place. We arrived just as the cars were lining up on a side street.  I was struck by the amount of time and organization that goes into an event like this. It may look easy to put together a car show but a close look reveals the careful attention to detail.  Just getting a car parked takes three people. First, each car is escorted to its parking place by two navy-blue-blazer-Panama-hat-wearing event officials in a golf cart.   Once they have arrived at the correct parking space, one official jumps out of the golf cart, clears away the pedestrians, and guides the car and driver into its space.  Out comes a pair of black director’s chairs for the car owners/handlers to sit in.  Then a large terra cotta flowerpot, filled with flowers, is placed to the side of each car.  This is where a small sign describing the car is posted. I wondered how many of those would get knocked down during the day.

But back to the cars.  How great to see relics of the past so lovingly preserved.  And how interesting to wonder how the car owners came to be paired up with their cars.  Original owners?  Inherited? Investment?

What is it about an XK120 Jaguar that makes me want to sigh? It speaks of an elegance of the past.

 

And what possesses someone to buy and restore a Good Humor truck?  We were all glad he did as evidenced by the round of applause this relic from so many of our childhood’s received as it made its way down Ocean Avenue.  

I may have thought that I was going to spend the morning walking on the beach, sipping a cappuccino, but I was wrong. I didn’t anticipate being spellbound by the beauty of so many amazing cars in a fairytale setting like Carmel. 

After Photographer husband got the shots he needed we headed out of town, with a quick stop at the Carmel Mission. 

 

Then we were off to Nepenthe’s for a late lunch. Now, a lot of people will say that a hamburger is not worth $14, no matter where it is served.  Those people have not been to Nepenthe’s. I have been making the pilgrimage to this oasis since I was 18. There is no other place like it on earth.  I have my favorite table (near the host’s stand).  My favorite drink has changed through the years.  In my lean college years it was a glass or two of the house white wine.  The dot.com days brought out the champagne.  Two years ago I was introduced to their version of a Cosmopolitan.  So pretty and so thirst quenching.

 

Lunch at Nepenthe’s is a lingering affair if you plan it just right.  October is my favorite month to visit, but sometimes you just have to grab an opportunity when it appears. And if it meant that the wait for ‘our table’ would be over an hour, well then, that meant my pre-lunch cocktails would be savored at the bar and not the table. 

ON THE ROAD TO MONTEREY, VROOM VROOM

Did you know that August is the hot month on the Monterey peninsula for all things automotive? Neither did I until I married a car photographer 21 years ago. The Monterey Peninsula Vintage Car week, August 10 – 16, includes the events that everyone knows about: the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the 36^th Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca (this year featuring Porsche) and various collector car auctions.  However, what you may not know about is a relatively recent addition to this full week of car events:  The Carmel-by-the-Sea Concours on the Avenue. The main street that runs through the middle of Carmel, Ocean Avenue, is closed to traffic and filled with collector cars and related automobilia. This is my first year attending this event.  We will leave San Francisco at 5 am.  Arrive in Carmel for breakfast at Il Fornaio by 7:30. With cappuccino in hand, I plan to head down to the beach for a walk while photographer husband takes photos of the cars setting up.  More tomorrow…

Paris, San Francisco

It seems a shame to waste a cold gray morning in San Francisco pretending to be in Paris, but that is what I did Sunday. Sometimes we need to leave the place we are in even if it’s just in our head. We need to get away for perspective. Open all the windows in the flat and let a breeze flow through.  Pull back the bedcovers and let the sheets air.  Open the closet doors.  Burn incense.  Vacuum and dust away the old dirt. And then step away.  And take a walk. Go to lunch. Have a glass of champagne and chocolate for dessert. And walk back home.

But back to Sunday morning.  Having just made an extravagant purchase of something very French I felt a little giddy. And I wanted to celebrate.  No better way to keep a shopping high going than with a hot cup of thick, dark chocolate. I headed to Crepe O Chocolat at 75 O’Farrell because they use Belgian dark chocolate.  The thick black potion is served in a clear glass mug.  Isn’t it great that so much happiness can be had for just $3.50 a cup?

Good-bye Junkies, Hello Starbucks

I haven’t been in NYC since 1998. I arrived Friday afternoon and by Sunday I realized what had changed in the past 11 years. New York City has been steam cleaned. Along with the grime that has been swept away is a certain tension that made trips here in the past both exciting and exhausting. By tension I mean the contrast between the best and the worst. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation. New Yorkers must be relieved that everyday life has eased up at least on the surface. However, along with the grime and the junkies a lot of NYC’s uniqueness has disappeared. I was at the Time Warner building Tuesday morning. With so much marble and glass around me I felt what the recent years of great wealth has brought to this city. But will this new economy be able to support what the old economy built? 

Except for the architecture and better museum collections, I could be in San Francisco or Los Angeles. I look out the window of the bus and see familiar Big Box American stores along stretches of avenues that at one time were desolate and foreboding.  I walked home from Times Square one night after seeing ‘West Side Story’ and only saw people that looked like they could have been transported from Any Mall, USA.  That was not the case in 1979.  Starbucks is a clear indicator of neighborhood gentrification. Between the theater and my hotel I passed four of them. While I am grateful to be able to get a decent cup of coffee (something that was once impossible to find in NYC), I wonder what happens to a place that has been polished to such a high shine.  The NYC that I knew was a tough place. You had to be strong, crazy or rich to survive.  Now it seems to be a blander, more expensive version of the rest of America.

Now that I got that observation off my chest here is a list of what I love about NYC this time around:

Dinner at Cookshop on Tenth Avenue. I have never tasted scallops so sweet.  Was it the Bombay Martini up with a twist that put me in the mood for dessert?  Some crazy concoction that included peanut butter, chocolate, sea salt, and a variety of textures that only someone with the munchies could truly understand.  Thanks, Chef.

James Beard Media Awards Dinner. Sat with fellow judges. The food was great.  The company even better.  Ran into an old cooking school friend, sat next to a man who raises goats, and behind an old school cookbook editor who kept yelling at the waiter for ‘stealing’ her glass. 

Spending time with David Leite of Leite's Culinaria .  David really pulled through for this San Francisco gal with a media event at Per Se  and a private tour of the kitchen by Chef Keller.  

I haven’t eaten dinner at Per Se yet.  But I did manage to embarrass myself as we were leaving by attempting to push open the faux blue doors.  As I kept pushing against the very tasteful brass doorknob I looked over to my left to discover that the real door is a sliding pane of clear glass. Am I the first to assume that the doors are doors? And to think I only had two espressos.  I can only imagine what happens there on a Saturday night.

A day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the chance to see this amazing sculpture on the roof. 

 

Pastrami sandwich at Carnegie Deli

PACKING

I pack the suitcase for practice. I zip up the side zipper. And then I pick it up. Hmmm, not too bad. Could I run for a train with this on my shoulder? Sure. Now I get cocky. Can I travel with even less? Out goes the extra just-in-case pair of shoes. With a vow to hand wash nightly, I toss out the extra underwear. I call the hotel to see if they provide bathrobes. Yes, they do. Out goes the bathrobe. Can I part with my slippers? If I want to take the new red dress sandals I must. Good bye slippers. Something still doesn’t seem right. I re-read the article about packing. It suggests choosing just one or two colors for wardrobe. I am staring at a suitcase with three colors. I eliminate one of the colors. And then I remember my Aunt Mary’s European packing advice circa 1974. ‘Take just two colors. But not red and blue. You will look dumpy and everyone will know you are an American’. She would surely approve of my black and white wardrobe. I am comforted by the simplicity of my choice. They aren’t colors at all. They are as plain as a blank page. A good way to begin a trip.

ON THE ROAD TO JAMES BEARD AND THE GREENBRIER

It’s countdown time.  In one week the Muse sets off for food adventures of a magnificent and metropolitan sort.  The James Beard Media Awards and The Food Writer’s Symposium at The Greenbrier, via D.C., are our May destinations.  Planes, trains and taxis (no subways, thank you).  Tickets have been purchased, hotel reservations made (thank you for great deals, Orbitz and Hotels dot com) and we are forcing ourselves to stop the pre-planning there.  We need to leave some room for serendipity. Oh, yes, a letter to our senator has secured a tour of the Capitol.  A White House invitation is in the works.

Every trip needs road songs.  Here is the playlist so far:

‘So little time, so much to do’, Catherine Russell

‘Nigerian Marketplace’, Oscar Peterson Trio

‘Gonna take a miracle’ Laura Nyro

‘Back on the Block’ Quincy Jones

‘You must believe in spring’ Bill Evans

‘Hindustan’ Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby

Let the packing begin!!!