Vacation is about eating well. . . among other things

River Cafe

Our visit to London has been an adventure in dining thus far. We both dismiss the notion that England has bad food. For many years, that may have been the case. These days, Paris needs to go some to beat these London eateries.

The Wolsesley does not disappoint, once again. Calves liver with frizzled sage in a nice red winey sauce for me, though a repeat, was perfect.  Ambiance and great food together make it an outstanding meal on our first night. No pictures allowed in this establishment, because you might upset the rich and famous other diners (though we didn't notice anyone special).

Spinach Tagliatelle with Pork

Another repeat: River Cafe on Tuesday lunch. Our reservation was late at 2:15 p.m., so maybe that counts a super early dinner? The rich and famous are sometimes here, too, but they are more easy going and laid back. Our Irish server seemed to be on one of his first assignments, but he was friendly and eager to please. I chose the spinach tagliatelle with mince pork. Amazing! That was followed by a braised veal shin in a large enough portion to share a good bit with Steve. We were both too full from our two delightful courses to have any dessert.

Veal Shin with Cannellini Beans

Red Mackerel at Tom Aikens

Lunch today was at Tom Aikens and again the 3 course set menu was quite a value.  Plus the very nice waiter wrapped up our uneaten petit fours to take home. He liked us, I think.  

Steve's cheese course at Tom Aikens

Rhubarb compote for dessert

Props to Mom

One of the challenges of my job is to source interesting and unusual props for photographs for our clients. Thankfully the internet has made it somewhat easier, but still isn't always easy. Last week I had to come up with a small treasure chest. Since my mother has to hear about all my travails, she knew I was on the hunt for one. As mothers do, she tried to be helpful.

In fact, she actually owns a treasure chest! It is a small toy box that her grandmother Minnie (Turner) Parvin played with as a child. I can certainly imagine storing doll clothes in it! Since Minnie was a little girl in the mid-19th century, the treasure chest is roughly 150 years old. Anyhow, my brother Rob was in Carmi over the weekend and transported it to St. Louis. Upon seeing it, I was transported to my own childhood via memories evoked by the little box.

Weekend in Washington

Steve H., Emily, Barb at Mt. Vernon

Emily, Sam, Barb

We were reminded how cool our nation's capital is last weekend during our visit with Emily and Steve H.

Our Saturday started off with coffee at nearby Open City. You know things are going right when you bump into one of your favorite former Webster Grovesians. Sam Dryzmala was full of smiles, energy and good karma! We wished him good luck in his new job (politically on the righteous side!) and then took off for the National Zoo. Em's new apartment is just a five minute walk from the zoo, so she'll be able to pop in frequently. We only had about an hour to spare, so we visited the giant pandas and the red pandas. The red pandas were getting a training session with the zookeeper, so we got to see some cute stuff.


Then it was off to lunch at a cool Mexican restaurant that is run by chef Jose Andres called Oyamel. This was my favorite restaurant meal of the weekend. How can you go wrong starting off with fresh guacamole made table side, accompanied by Oyamel's own crispy chips? Several small plates later, we headed straight to the National Portrait Gallery. This was followed by a nap, and then we scooted out to another great restaurant.

Ebelskivers

This is also one of Chef Andres' establishments, and the small plate style of dining is in place, but they are called mezzes, as in Turkish appetizers. Lots of hummus, vegetable dishes, some lamb, some fish - all with Mediterranean accents. Though the service was a bit on the lackadaisical side, we still had a wonderful time. Emily and Steve earned their restaurant credentials in Europe, and we can say they are a reliable source when it comes to dining! One thing Steve A. and I did notice: this was a large restaurant - maybe 300 people crowding the joint when we were there - and I'd say there were only about 20 of us who were over 40 years of age. DC is jam-packed with young professionals.

Emily and Steve showed off their culinary skills Sunday morning, whipping up two batches of ebelskivers, tiny filled pancakes of Danish origin. Yummy!

Sunday afternoon we ventured into Virginia. I had wanted to visit Mt. Vernon for my whole life, and we finally got there. What a gorgeous setting! And the house and outlying buildings have been preserved and maintained extremely well with loads of history. If you go, give the little introductory movie(s) a miss. Pat Sajak is the host of the film, and I need say no more, I hope.

To cap off the weekend, we had a little pizza party with Steve's homemade pizza. Just like old times!

Mt. Vernon

For your amusement - if you're from St. Louis, that is!

This is why people ask "where did you go to high school?" when you're in St. Louis. Stereotypes are irritating, unfair, inaccurate - but always start with some nugget that everything is extrapolated from.  Check it out bigger from this link to the Riverfront Times: LINK - or just double click my pictures below.

What's in that tea they drink?

Maybe it's in the trough.  From today's NY Times front page story:

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government. He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

Gloves off or on?

Let's say you agree to a fight. You say you want to use the Marquess of Queensberry rules. The other guy wants to use brass knuckles. The referee says to everyone: Brass knuckles are ok. So before you get in the ring, you see the other guy strapping on his brass knuckles.

What do you do? Fight like a gentleman and get beat to a bloody pulp (but you still have your principles even though you lost the fight). Or do you reluctantly say to your trainer, "Get me some brass knuckles before I get in that ring."  Hmmmm??? What do you do?

A restaurant would be hard pressed

Even though we are admittedly "foodies", Steve and I rarely eat at restaurants in St. Louis. And that's not because we think they are no good. There are actually many well-regarded restaurants here with wonderful chefs.

But I am going to go out on a limb here, and say you would be hard-pressed to have eaten in a St. Louis restaurant last Saturday night and get a better meal than the one we cooked at home.

For starters, we had a parsnip and green apple soup made earlier in the day with our homemade chicken stock. Amazing! The slightly salty and sweet nature of this soup hits my taste buds just right.

Steve prepared some turnips by sauteing them in a pan with bacon. That's just one way to fix yummy turnips which are also lovely roasted in the oven with other root vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

I cooked the main course which was  some locally supplied pork chops from the half pig we ordered last fall. They were first dredged in flour, then dipped in egg, then dragged through panko bread crumbs before being plopped into a hot cast-iron skillet. My, my, what  nice juicy pork chops we had Saturday night!

A little bit roguish

photo courtesy of Rick Forrestal

We attended another Rogue dining experience last Saturday. I'd call it uneven at best.



The evening was comprised of two parts. Starting at four o'clock, eight students met under the tutelage of the rogue chefs, and learned to make several pasta dishes.  Then at seven o'clock, an additional thirteen guests arrived to partake of the meal.

Photo by Steve Adams

The highlight of the seven course meal (each of which contained some sort of pasta), was a homemade ravioli. Inside the ravioli was an egg yolk, and when you pierced the ravioli, a lovely runny egg yolk, similar to that of a poached egg, oozed out.

The lowlight was unfortunately the course that Steve participated in making. Through no fault of his - I know this because I've eaten lots of light as air gnocchi that Steve has made by hand by himself - the sweet potato gnocchi was an under-achiever. Far from being melt in your mouth, it sank to the pit of your stomach like a lead pellet.

There you have it, the best and the worst. Just like life, the meal had its ups and downs.

There are no coincidences

Oscar Wilde's Grave - then and now

headstone in 2003, photo by Steve Adams

Recently in the New York Times, we read an article about Oscar Wilde's grave in Pére Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.  During our visit in October, 2011, we noticed that Wilde's grave was shrouded in plastic, and appeared to be undergoing renovation.  We have since learned that the renovation in question includes the installation of a large plate glass box surrounding the headstone, which has been cleaned of all the lipstick kisses.  Apparently Wilde's descendents feel that the marks left by fans are acts of vandalism rather than expressions of admiration. 

Tomas van Houtryve for The New York Times, 2011

Guys Cook Night

Newly dubbed the "Guys Cook Night" by our friend Bruce Lowry, Saturday night's event at our house was a smashing success.  When we, the Carpenters and the Lowrys got together last November, Walt mentioned that he had a special half bottle of 1980 d'Yquem to open sometime soon.  It was determined that in January all six of us could reconvene at Chez Adams and celebrate the new year with this particular after dinner wine.  Which meant that a dinner was in the offing as well!

butternut squash gnocchi, from Bon Appetit Magazine

The men outdid themselves with recipes both old and new and the meal was quite the gourmet accomplishment.  It started off with Walt's warm homemade salt cod brandade spread on Bruce's homemade bread.  Bruce also made homemade sweet potato crisps as well, and all was washed down with a little prosecco.  At the table we sat down to Steve's homemade butternut squash gnocchi in a browned butter and sage sauce.  That was followed by two kinds of Walt's homemade sausages (chicken and pork) in an apple reduction sauce, with homemade pear chutney.  What better on a wintry night than  a rabbit cacciatore with rhubarb chard?  The salad course was a crispy, crunchy delight of sliced Granny Smith apples and celery root with a light dressing.  A cheese course was offered and rejected because we were so stuffed.  But we did have a dessert:  two kinds of oranges sliced with zabaglione. 

My apologies that this photo is not of the dish we actually had, but the resident photographer went off duty that night.

Movie Review time

Four movies in four weeks, or something like that!  We're on a jag. 

First up was The Descendants, with George Clooney.  Nice scenery, interesting story, George Clooney being pretty much George Clooney, have to give it a thumbs up. 

Second movie not the same as the first.  The scary and violent story of The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo should bring award nominations to its female star, Ronney Mara . We've read the book, seen the Swedish movie version, and were prepared to think the American version would not live up to either one.  But it did! And surpassed!  The story was even slightly improved, the cinematography was gorgeous, the violence there but not gratuitous. 

The third movie we saw was totally up our alley:  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  What's not to like?  Set in 1970's London, a thoroughly engrossing mystery, incredible acting from a lot of well known British actors, but especially Gary Oldman who disappears into John Smiley, it's everything a quiet thriller should be.  There's no going to the bathroom during this movie.  It's not that the action is so fast, it's that the clues are coming so stealthily that you have to watch and listen carefully.  Loved it!

Lastly, and most surprisingly, was a small French film called The Artist.  It's a silent black and white movie set in the late 1920's just when film was turning to the "talkies."  You won't believe how charming this actually rather simple story is.  As they say in Sunset Boulevard, it's all about the faces.  Plus a cute little dog almost steals every scene (even I thought he was adorable). 

Christmas past and present

Lots of changes happened in the last year, and so we changed up Christmas.  But in point of fact, it was not so much a change as a reversion to Christmases past, but with a twist.

We had not spent Christmas Day in Carmi since Max was
one year old, which puts it at 1981.  When Emily arrived in 1983, we declared that our family would have Christmas at home, and whomever wished to join us were warmly invited.  That meant two sets of grandparents were automatically on board from then on.

This year, though, Emily was in Gettysburg, PA, with Steve H.'s family.  Mary Lou is sadly not with us, and my mom and dad did not feel like making the trek to Webster Grove having just been here for Thanksgiving.  So we packed up and went over the river and through the woods to their house, with Papaw Jack in tow.  He also felt the circling of life, as he and Steve A. went to church in his  hometown, Galatia, with his old friend Buddy Peyton in the pulpit giving the message. Max and his girlfriend, Jen, were the "youngsters" and it was jolly time with my two brothers, Bill and Rob.  Bill's family including Aric and April made our table complete.

Christmas Eve dinner was an homage to all the Christmas Eves of my childhood spent at Big Mimi's house.  Cheeses, tuna salad, a nice pork pate, gingersnap cookies - all reminders of lovely past Christmases.

Temples and tombs

I think the look on my face in the picture at left captures all the awe and delight that I felt on our recent trip to Egypt.

The temples at Luxor and Karnak, Edfu and Abu Simbel were all simply amazing and breath-taking.  One of my most vivid memories, though, is of this crypt in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.  To reach this crypt, you had to climb down a very steep stairway, and then double yourself over at the bottom of the stairs to half crawl, half wiggle through a small opening to emerge in a dimly lit space.  The hieroglyphics on the walls are spectacularly detailed.  On many of them the original colors are still visible.  This is the closest I came to feeling like Howard Carter discovering King Tut's long-lost tomb.

King Tutankhamen

Speaking of which, we did indeed get to view King Tuttankhamen's treasures at the Cairo Egyptian Museum.  We were also able to view King Tut's tomb and mummy at the Valley of the Kings.  When you see the treasures and think of the fact that King Tut was really only a minor Pharaoah, you can only imagine what treasures were stored in the Great Pyramids that were ultimately plundered and robbed.

An Egyptologist that rocked our trip!

Hesham Abdulla was our guide and Egyptologist during our entire trip to Egypt.  I can say without equivocation that Hesham made our trip the spectacular experience that it was.

Hesham is a consummate scholar of Egyptian history.  He is enthusiastic about his subject.  He is personable and charming.  And he is incredibly patient with his group of 24 tourists.  Some of us asked tiresome questions.  Some of us got lost from the group at times.  Some of us were slow walkers.  All of us mispronounced his name frequently, some up till the very last day of our eight days of togetherness!  Always Hesham was perfectly calm and imperturbable. 

Hesham Abdulla on Lake Nasser, near Aswan

We had two particularly memorable experiences with Hesham.  One was our felluca ride around Kitchener Island in the Nile near Aswan.  Originally scheduled to be a one-hour tour, it lasted about three hours because we became becalmed near the end of our sail.  Hesham used that time to answer any and all questions about Egypt and its history, the revolution, the current election and other recent events.  The time passed by and we were all entertained and informed at the same time.

The other was our visit to the mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo on the last day of our tour.  Hesham gave a mini lecture about the Muslim religion, its history and its beliefs, and made us feel perfectly comfortable to ask anything we liked about this subject.

Inside the mosque of Sultan Hassan

All this, and everything you ever wanted to know about Pharaohs and temples and tombs!