Food – Page 28 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – July 8, 2018

At last, a mostly peaceful week at home for both of us. Diana worked hard for four solid days to continue to come up to speed on her new job, her accounts, and the people that she works with. I had a couple of busy days with high impact outages and other annoyances. However, I was able to watch some of the World Cup and particularly enjoyed the Japan vs Belgium and Brazil vs Belgium games. It’s fun to text back and forth with my friend Judy, soccer referee extraordinaire, in California about our predicted outcomes. She chose Brazil to beat Belgium and so lost that game, while I chose Sweden to beat England and lost that one. I’m predicting Belgium wins 2-1 over England in the final.

One of my favourite musical bloggers shared these thoughts about the best footballer ever in his opinion, the Scotsman Alan Gilzean. He was a wee bit before my time, but this video would support the commentary that follows it:

Alan Gilzean was to use a fine Scots term a supremely canny player. He seemed to have an advanced football radar system that allowed him to know exactly where he was in relation to his markers and his team mates.

He insouciantly brought off feats of skill and technique that other fine players could only dream of – leaving opponents admiringly bemused and teammates exhilarated.

But, with Alan Gilzean it’s not the numbers that you remember it’s the breathtaking elegance of his play – the way he could amaze you game after game with the subtlety of his footballing imagination.

Reading about Gilzean had my mind drifting back to Kenny Dalglish, my favourite Scottish footballer, and his goals for Scotland in the World Cup and his amazing performances with Celtic and Liverpool.

On a sad note, I heard of the passing of Henry Butler on Monday, at the young age of 69. Butler was born in New Orleans and lived there for much of his life, moving to Boulder, CO after Hurricane Katrina and finally living in New York where he was an active participant in the jazz scene.

I met Mr. Butler on my very first visit to New Orleans, about a year after Katrina. I was visiting some folks from my State Farm account team and met up with Denny and Anne after dinner. They took me to the original Rock N’ Bowl and then to see Kermit Ruffins at Vaughans. Henry Butler was sitting in on keyboards with Kermit and Anne introduced me to him as she was helping him to a taxi – Butler went blind from glaucoma at a very early age. What an amazing night that was and what a typical kind gesture from Anne.

I like what the New York Times had to say in their obituary:

Mr. Butler’s music was encyclopedic, precise and wild. He was acclaimed as a member of a distinctively New Orleans piano pantheon alongside Jelly Roll Morton, James Booker, Tuts Washington, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint and Dr. John. He was also a forthright, bluesy singer who often used New Orleans standards as springboards for improvisation.

Mr. Butler commanded the syncopated power and splashy filigree of boogie-woogie and gospel and the rolling polyrhythms of Afro-Caribbean music. He could also summon the elegant delicacy of classical piano or hurtle toward the dissonances and atonal clusters of modern jazz. He could play in convincing vintage styles and sustain multileveled counterpoint, then demolish it all in a whirlwind of genre-smashing virtuosity.

Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) once described him as “the pride of New Orleans and a visionistical down-home cat and a hellified piano plunker to boot.”

Ivan Neville, who leads the New Orleans band Dumpstaphunk and recorded with Mr. Butler as part of the all-star group New Orleans Social Club, said by email on Tuesday that Mr. Butler was “an amazingly, truly gifted musician and pianist like no other.” He added, “At times it sounded like he had three or four hands instead of just two.”

My big take away from this is – go and see the great live performers while you can! Make the effort to get out and see live music – you’ll rarely regret it.

Our noisy pool pump got even noisier this week and finally gave up the ghost. An expensive but much, much quieter pump has now been installed and is working very well. The great news is we’ll no longer be awakened by the pump turning on and off during the winter nights. It turns out the pump had been leaking for a while and supporting an outbreak of weeds in the pool equipment area – McD with her weed gun to the rescue!

Patty and Brent joined us for dinner on July 4th. Diana was hungry when she went shopping for dinner and so we had several courses – D’s famous meat and cheese platters, lamb chops on the grill, a selection of sausages with a selection of mustards, caprese, shrimp and veggie fries. There were lots of leftovers for the rest of the week. We decided not to brave the crowds to watch live fireworks and settled for the New York music and fireworks display on television – a sign of aging I’m sure.

We watched the movie “A Song for You” on Friday night. This film gives a behind the scenes look at 40 years of the PBS music show “Austin City Limits”.

I really enjoyed the view into what makes this show special as well as the commentary from musicians and the clips of archive performances – those by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Ray Charles being highlights.

Saturday took us back to the Kessler for perhaps our last concert with Patty and Brent before they move north – I’m sure we’ll try to tempt them to visit in the future with upcoming concerts. They’ve been working through a list of Dallas restaurants that they want to try or revisit before moving and chose North Italia at the new Legacy West development for our pre-concert dinner. The home made pasta dishes were excellent. Patty found a perfect new car for David parked across from the restaurant:

The concert was by the Devon Allman Band with opener Duane Betts. Devon is the son of the late Gregg Allman who started the Allman Brothers Band (one of my very favourites) with his brother Duane Allman and Dickie Betts on guitars. Duane is the son of Dickie and (you guessed it) named after Duane Allman. Both Devon and Duane played sets of their own music and then concluded with a tribute to their fathers and the Allman Brothers.

The opening dual guitar riff from “Blue Sky” always makes us smile:

The music is very much from the Southern Rock genre with a strong blues element. We particularly enjoyed Devon’s cover of “I’ll be Around”, originally recorded by The Spinners.

Devon was very brave when he rambled through the audience playing a guitar solo and stood up on one of the folding chairs beside us.

What a great night of music – right in my sweet spot with the dual guitars.

We stayed at the Joule hotel downtown after the show – a chance for Patty and Brent to treat themselves before moving. A good feature of this hotel is the champagne they serve you as you check in. That might be Diana’s favourite part of the hotel.

I finished “Blue Lightning” by Ann Cleeves this week. This was one of the books I got from my Mum and Dad for my birthday and is set on Fair Isle (located about half way between Shetland and Orkney islands) and a birders paradise. A body is discovered in a bird observatory and detective Jimmy Perez has to solve the murder in the middle of a very strong storm. I enjoyed the insight into the competitive bird spotting world and the twists and turns of the murder mystery plot. Fair Isle is also known for very intricately designed hand knitted sweaters.

Here’s one more song from Devon Allman to finish out the post this week:

Week in Review – July 1, 2018

Back to New York again on Monday for a week of long meetings every day. My flight was delayed by a few hours while a tire was changed and extra fuel was added so I was a bit grumpy by the time it took off. The movie “The Death of Stalin” really cheered me up. I had no idea what to expect and quickly started chuckling at the crazy exploits of the Russian leadership as Stalin dies and they compete for power. The actors include Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi and Michael Palin and all are hilarious. The movie was directed by Armando Ianucci, whom I’d never heard of. Some quick research showed him to be Scottish from Italian descent and a graduate of the University of Glasgow – might explain why I enjoyed the dark, off-kilter humor so much. I also learned that he was a bit part of the creative force behind the HBO series “Veep” – a show that I love and McD doesn’t – it’s just a bit too raunchy and wrong for her and she can’t understand what’s funny. Here’s Ianucci and the cast being interviewed about the movie and drawing some direct comparisons from the Stalin era politics to our current leadership.

On the drive in from the airport I heard this excellent song by Book T and the MGs. It’s rare to hear Booker T on the piano versus the Hammond organ and I love the gospel feel of the guitar by the legendary Steve Cropper. Sunday Sermon was originally the B side to their 1970 cover of “Something” by George Harrison.

After checking into my new favourite Wall Street area hotel, the Downtown Association, I headed out for a quick dinner and found a new Mediterranean place around the corner named Zeytin. The food was very good with lamb-beef doner meat that reminded me of the late night kebab shops that Andy Bull loved so much in our Edinburgh university days. The beet hummus was also very nice. A good new place for a quick and casual lunch or dinner.

When I made it back to the hotel room the Jools Holland show was on TV and a very unique looking musician named Seasick Steve was performing. He was born in Oakland, CA and is now 78 and has had a very interesting life. He lived as a hobo for many years – jumping trains and working short term jobs. He played in blues bands and as a session musician and producer. In the 1990s he produced albums by Modest Mouse and in 2006 he received his big musical break appearing on the Jools Holland show in the UK for the first time. He went on to perform at many large festivals and won several awards. Seasick Steve makes many of his unique guitars and other instruments.

Here are some pictures of Heather preparing to attend her graduation ceremony on Tuesday to receive her first class Honors law and languages degree. Everyone is exceptionally proud of her accomplishment.

On Tuesday night I decided to try out a new jazz club I had read about in Tribeca – 75 Club. It advertised a speakeasy style basement jazz club. One of the great features of New York is that you can take the subway to any neighborhood and stumble across a very good restaurant. I was drawn to Serafina at West Broadway and Chambers Street and had a delicious dish of scallops with celery root puree and shaved black truffles.

Now it was time to try out the 75 Club which lived up to its advertising very nicely. As I approached the club I was surprised to find a large collection of semi trucks full of movie gear and catering stations set up all along Murray Street. The film crew was eating in the first floor of the Bogardus mansion that houses the 75 Crew. A quick bit of research revealed that they were filling a scene for an episode of the show “Ray Donovan” starring Liev Schreiber. I’m amazed at how many people it takes to put a show like that together.

Named after its builder, James Bogardus, the originator of cast-iron architecture, the building was built in 1850 and features a 5-story facade replicating the late 15th century Palazzo Veladramini in Venice. It now serves as a very popular space for wedding and special events.

The pianist and bass player, Tardo Hammer and John Webber, were sitting at the bar telling stories when I arrived in the basement of the mansion. This was equally good entertainment to the music that they performed to a very small Monday night crowd.

I would like to return to this venue on a weekend night and enjoy their nice club table seating and acoustics.

I snapped a couple of pictures of the Oculus rail terminal and Freedom Tower on my walk to and from the club.

Meanwhile, in Arroyo Grande/Pismo Beach, California, Momma D was busy babysitting Lily and Ben. She seemed to do a good job of swinging Ben and had a good visit with Alicia to her new home at Cuesta college. I think McD worked much harder than I did this week – and I know I was pretty tired by the end of the week.

Wednesday night took me to the Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village to see the band Lettuce. This is a New Orleans style funk jam band featuring a stellar group of very in demand musicians – Adam Deitch on drums, Adam Smirnoff on guitar, Erick Coomes on bass, Nigel Hall on keyboards, Ryan Zoidis on saxophone, and Eric Bloom on trumpet.

Alicia and I saw Lettuce at the Granada theater in Dallas about 9 months ago and so I was excited to see them on the line up this week. I enjoyed the diverse crowd as compared to typical Blue Note shows – the lady at the table next to me introduced me to her eighty year old parents who were looking forward to the show.

After Lettuce I met up with my old boss who was in town for the night. We wandered down the street to a music club called Groove that had another great band playing and had a good chat for a while.

My flight back on Thursday was delayed by lightning and we ended up sitting on the plane for over 2 hours at La Guardia before take off – delays both ways on this trip which hasn’t happened to me in a while. Diana was flying back from California and we had arranged to meet in Dallas and share a car home. Fortunately, her flight was delayed almost as much as mine and everything worked out well, albeit a few hours late.

On Friday we had Rachel and her boyfriend Rich over for dinner. Neither of us remembered until Thursday night and didn’t have anything in the house for dinner so ordered pizza and arancini from Cavalis. We were both tired but had a very nice visit and enjoyed meeting Rich- we approve.

Saturday took us to Poor David’s Pub for the first time in a couple of years to see Sawyer Fredericks. We had dinner before the show at a restaurant in Deep Ellum called Local that Diana chose. Local is housed in what was once the Boyd hotel and is very modern and minimalist inside. The Boyd hotel was built in 1911 and is one of the last remaining building in Dallas with a cast iron front. I didn’t know there was such a thing until earlier this week when I read about the Bogardus mansion that houses the 75 Club and learned that Bogardus invented the technique. The hotel was a hub for jazz and blues musicians in the 1920s with Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson (the father of Texas blues) both staying there. It’s also well known as having been a hangout for Bonnie and Clyde. We enjoyed the restaurant very much with Diana opting for the filet while I had a very tasty sea bass.

D’s champagne cocktail with house made sorbet

We checked into the Nylo hotel after dinner and then made the short walk to Poor David’s Pub. The owner of the club, David Card, is celebrating his 41st year of presenting music in Dallas and we had a very nice visit with him prior to the show starting. He used Diana’s comment about how young Sawyer is (19) in his opening as he had thought he was ten years older. I enjoyed David telling me about his top 10 list of shows he’s presented.

View of Reunion Tower from the Nylo hotel

This poster inside Poor David’s shows what must have been an excellent show before Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen became so popular. I also enjoyed a new plaque that’s in the walkway in front of the club.

Sawyer won the TV singing competition “The Voice” a couple of years ago and we both loved the tone and quality of his voice.

Here’s a video of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” – one of the songs we really enjoyed on the Voice.

The show was very good with Sawyer’s songs very mellow and deep for a 19 year old.

Patty and Brent stayed downtown on Saturday night as well to celebrate Brent’s birthday and we were able to meet up with them on Sunday morning for a birthday brunch at Saint Ann.

I finished up “Emerald City” by Jennifer Egan during my travels and really enjoyed this collection of short stories. The theme connecting the various stories seemed to be using travel to escape financial or family traumas. I’ve enjoyed all of Egans books that I’ve read this year very much.

This song by St Paul and the Broken Bones came on a Spotify radio channel that I created based on Anderson East and I don’t remember enjoying a song this much on a first listen in a while.

Week in Review – June 17, 2018

Diana and I officially became “empty nesters” (not a term that I love especially after hearing it so much in the last week) at 7:08am (precision timing provided by Diana) on Wednesday morning as Alicia drove off to start her long drive to Cuesta college in California. She picked up John at the Dallas airport and they made it all the way to Santa Fe on their first day. From there they spent the night in Sedona and Las Vegas, arriving in Arroyo Grande on Saturday afternoon. It was very strange to go from a totally full house to just the two of us over the course of a few days.

Patty and I took turns keeping Diana busy on Wednesday and Thursday and then we flew to San Francisco on Friday for the triple threat of Fathers’ Day, Finn’s birthday, and our first anniversary.

I met the boys for an early combination Finn’s birthday and Father’s Day celebration at Terun in Palo Alto. This is a Neapolitan style Italian restaurant with the official Italian government approval on the pizza style. The food was delicious – Brussel sprouts, beet gnocchi, and mushroom pizza all amazing.

After lunch we made a quick stop at Will’s apartment so that I could give Finn his birthday gift. It’s a painting that I saw in a McKinney coffee shop and thought Finn would enjoy – a panda done with pastels on suede. Finn has always loved pandas.

Bowling was our next stop at a classic old bowling alley in San Mateo. We had a lot of fun and Will’s crazy spin technique took him to victory in the first frame. Campbell did give him a good challenge.

It was a real treat to spend the afternoon with all three boys and I especially appreciated Campbell making the trip up from San Diego.

Meanwhile back in Pacifica Auntie D was enjoying some time with her nephews, Massimo and Luciano.

We’re amazed at how well coordinated Massimo is for his age. It has to be rare for an eighteen month old to be that adept on a scooter. I found this picture of Diana and her brothers and enjoy it very much. What a lot of work Clorinda had dealing with that gang. I think Amy and Adamo certainly have their hands full with two very active boys. I laughed when Luciano called me Auntie Keith. He’s used to Auntie D and assumed that’s the right title for me too.

On Sunday we celebrated our first wedding anniversary at Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos. The restaurant burned a few years ago and re-opened in 2016 with only a chef driven (i.e. no choices) tasting menu and has received 3 Michelin stars each of the last three years.

We had an amazing four hour dinner with 12 small courses. The menu wasn’t presented until the end of the meal and we enjoyed the surprise of each new plate. The presentation with different plates, glasses and cutlery for each offering was just as impressive as the food itself. The service was so good that it was almost comical – just as you took the last sip of wine from a glass it was scooped up to prepare for the next course. It didn’t seem that waiters were hovering but they just appeared table side at all the right times. The iced oyster with radish and the caviar tart were my two favourites while Diana loved the roasted squab which tasted like a perfectly seared foie gras. The most amazing presentation was the “into the vegetable garden” course which must have taken a huge amount of work to assemble – each vegetable, leaf, and flower seemed to be exactly placed with tweezers.

Our reservation was at 8pm and we didn’t get back to the hotel (a 10 minute walk that we needed) until after midnight. The company was so good that it didn’t feel anything like a four hour meal. It’s good fun to reminisce about what we were doing on this day last year with our family and friends on the beach in Cozumel. We have Diana’s amazing albums to help remember the beautiful day.

Here’s some interesting new music from a band called Gogo Penguin. They are based in Manchester, England and combine jazz, rock, classical and electronic influences in their music. Good relaxing, background music that’s quite different from the norm.

Week in Review – June 10, 2018

The big highlights this week were Alicia’s graduation ceremony on Friday morning and the celebration on Saturday night. More to come on both as the week plays out in this posting.

I had work meetings in New York early on Monday and so did something that I hate to do – flew for work on a Sunday! That used to be a regular occurrence and the good news is that it’s very rare these days. Another rare event these days is me wearing cufflinks and so the penguins were happy to get out and about and to enjoy the view from our fancy conference center looking out on the Brooklyn bridge.

I took my boss to one of our favorite New York restaurants, Batard in Tribeca (a great discovery by McD a few months ago), for dinner. He used to be a professional chef and so has pretty high expectations for food quality and service – he loved everything about Batard.

I started with the mushrooms and cauliflower which was served with raisins, shallots and black sesame. Perhaps the tastiest cauliflower and mushrooms that I’ve had – it’s amazing how good simply prepared, fresh vegetables can taste. That was followed with an excellent rabbit cassoulet. I’m looking forward to eating here again soon.

On Tuesday I went on a walk up to Greenwich village after being cooped up in conference rooms all day. I liked these views of the Freedom Tower and the Oculus. The Oculus is a new $4billion facility that acts as a rail hub for various lines coming together in the financial district and 9/11 memorial area. It’s a very modern juxtaposition with the older buildings in the Wall Street district. I also came across this church of some kind in Greenwich village and liked the lighting as the sun began to set.

It turns out the meal at Batard was my last with my boss as my boss – he and most of my peers left the company unexpectedly on Wednesday. This was a very disconcerting day and it was really tough to concentrate on what needed to be done for the rest of the afternoon. Some of us met up with him after work to say our goodbyes. Just when you have a good team going, everything has to change again.

I arrived home around 8pm on Thursday night after enjoying the movie “The 15:17 to Paris”. This was a good distraction after the work week. I’m not sure Clint Eastwood’s decision to use the real heroes of the train attack worked too well, but it passed the time well.

The graduation fiesta soon began with Kris and Cat arriving after midnight and John, Maddi, Lily and Ben showing up around 3am. After a few hours of sleep, it was time to head over to the Allen Event Center for Alicia’s high school graduation.

The ceremony was very well orchestrated and 600 plus kids graduated in around 2 hours. Poor Lily and Ben were very tired with short attention spans and fortunately graduation was in alphabetical order so that they could leave before getting too grumpy.

Diana organized a graduation get together on Friday night at Zin Zen for family, Kris, Cat, Patty and Brent. We enjoyed the walk to and from Zin Zen although it’s already starting to get very hot all day long. Here are Diana and Brent in a serious strategy session about who knows what while Patty relaxes.

Most of Saturday was spent working through D’s action lists to prepare for the party. If you didn’t keep moving and looking busy you very quickly got another task from the list. Fortunately, John was a workhorse and handled all the big jobs like cooking three kinds of pasta sauce from scratch. You can see the flowers that had to be distributed to just the right location – wait a minute, that might look better over here. With so many helpers, everything was ready in plenty of time for the 7pm start. I forgot to mention that Clorinda and Adamo arrived in the middle of the afternoon to add to the excitement.

The party was a big success with a pretty full house of both adults and graduates. The graduates seemed quieter than normal – maybe they’re growing up or more likely just worn out. Various airport trips started on Sunday while the remaining crew cleaned up, relaxed, and enjoyed my special pulled pork Benedict.

We had organized a trip to the Kessler with John and Maddi a few months ago when we knew they would be visiting. We thought Alicia could babysit and it would be a nice night out. Sunday evening rolled around and everyone was pretty tired but decided to go for it. We started with a lovely dinner at Bolsa and then saw the Bacon Brothers in concert. This is the actor Kevin Bacon and his older brother Michael. I anticipated the two of them strumming acoustic guitars and was pleasantly surprised by a very talented full band.

McD was just a few feet from the stage and had direct line of sight to Kevin – she had that same look on her face that she gets when Hugh Jackman shows up on our TV screen. Here are a couple of clips from the show.

A late night but very enjoyable company, food, and music.

Whew – I’m almost exhausted recapping the week as I was living it.

Throughout the week, the Ogans were taunting us with pictures from their visits to France, Portugal and Spain. Here’s D’s station in Portugal.

Here’s a relaxing song that I enjoyed this week to finish up.

Week in Review – June 3, 2018

Both birthdays are behind us and now it’s time for a Memorial Day celebration! We started with a late afternoon snack at The Keeper, one of our favourite local restaurants with the best calamari we think we’ve tasted. I chuckled at the mermaid handles on the door as one of my funny birthday gifts from the Ogans involved a picture of Diana’s head on top of a mermaid body purchased on Denny’s birthday trip to San Miguel de Allende. The lobster sliders are quite yummy as well.

Later in the evening, Diana and I walked up to the charity concert at Adriatica that happens every year and stayed to watch the fireworks after the show. The concert was held in an open piece of land behind the new developments that is shaped like an amphitheater. The sound was not very amphitheater like and McD commented that the sound crew needed to go and take lessons from the folks at the New Orleans jazzfest. Very true.

The musical headliner was Joe Nichols, a country artist that I’m not familiar with but Diana knew a couple of his songs. Pleasant background music for enjoying a nice early summer evening but nothing memorable at all. The fireworks after the show were set up on a raft in the middle of the manmade lake beside Harry’s restaurant and were quite impressive. In previous years, we’ve watched from Alicia’s balcony while she attended the festivities – this was the first year we’d been up close and Alicia decided to stay at home.

The magnolia trees in our back garden seem to be quite happy this year and celebrating Memorial Day in style with larger flowers than we remember and some good new growth.

It was back to New York again for me on Tuesday and an opportunity to meet up with my boss on Tuesday evening. We were headed to Barbounia at 20th and Park for dinner (a place that caught my eye on a walk back to the subway from the Jazz Standard) but made a quick stop at the “Library of Distilled Spirits” beforehand. This was a lovely new find with a great cocktail list and beautiful surroundings.

Barbounia is a Mediterranean restaurant with an Israeli/Middle Eastern concentration. We liked everything about it – the appetizers and mains were delicious with great ambience. So many things sounded good that it was really hard to choose. I ended up having duck “Shawarma” which was served over black rice, wild mushrooms, pearl onions, tahini and pine nuts – I loved the dish! My boss had short ribs Tajine that I sampled and they were equally delicious. I’m looking forward to visiting Barbounia again the next time Diana is with me.

It wasn’t too late when we finished dinner and so I suggested a stop at the Jazz Standard which is just a few blocks from the restaurant. We saw the Sachal Vasandani quintet. Sachal is a young jazz singer and a favourite of Wynton Marsalis. His voice and style have a little bit too much of the Michael Franks smooth approach for me but the band was excellent. James Francies was the stand out on piano – his sound, touch and improvisation were beautiful. Francies grew up in Houston and moved to New York in 2013. He’s in his early twenties, has won numerous awards and appears regularly on the Tonight Show playing with the Roots. He has composed music and movie soundtracks with Questlove. I had a brief chat with James after the show and found him to be very humble and charming. Here’s a video from the show. Obed Calvaire on the drums was also excellent and another up and coming young New York based jazz musician.

I met up with my friend Andrew (used to work with me at EDS/HP as a sales executive) on Wednesday night for dinner. He had suggested one of the fancy Wall Street steak houses but I was easily able to divert him to the Jazz Standard for barbecue and music. We enjoyed the same band and James Francies was even more impressive on the piano the second time around. Here’s a video of Francies with his own band and composition.

A pleasant schedule change at work allowed me to get back to Dallas in the early afternoon rather than close to midnight. Patty and Brent were planning to bring over Thai food to celebrate Diana’s employment before I got home and so I was able to crash that party and enjoy some yummy food.

I enjoyed the movie “Lucky”, starring Harry Dean Stanton as Lucky, on the flight to New York. Another quiet, unassuming movie about a retired man who lives alone in a very rural desert town. Much of the movie follows Lucky as he goes about his daily routine in a somewhat lackadaisical manner. About half way through he meets a new friend and the movie very cleverly shows his mood improving through subtle changes in his routine. I’m hoping for some new movies on the American Airlines system in June as I’ve now definitely watched everything that interests me at all.

The music channel on the plane surprised me with Blue Spirits by the jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard as a “new release”. This music was recorded in 1967 and has been re-mastered and released a few more times since. One of the interesting aspects of the recording is that there are three different pianists on the various tracks – Harold Mabern, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. The rhythm piano playing on the first song, Soul Surge, caught my attention (it’s Harold Mabern) and I was surprised when the style changed a lot on the next track – now I understand why.

Friday evening and a portion of Saturday were spent working my way through my “Honey Do List” which has become a bit lengthy with the upcoming visitors and graduation party. I’m happy to report that the bed relocation project has been completed since this picture was snapped. “Fix up misters” is the only remaining task and is awaiting some mounting hardware. Patty wondered if this was some fixing up I was doing on myself – Mister Robertson. The “feels like” temperature (adjusted for humidity impact) was 104 degrees on Friday which made for an ideal time to replace the filters in the attic – good exercise.

I finally finished John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany” this week and don’t remember a book that took quite as long to complete. I enjoyed the book but wasn’t dragged back into it whenever I had some spare time. This is apparently Irving’s novel that is most often referred to as “an American classic”, ahead of his better know novels “The World According to Garp” and “The Cider House Rules”. The story portrays the enduring friendship between the narrator and Owen Meany during the time when the Vietnam War was having its most divisive effect on the United States. English teachers apparently often reference the first sentence of this book as one of the best – mainly because it contains the essence of the entire story. Here it is: “I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.”

As I write this post the Miles Davis recording of “It Never Entered My Mind” is playing and I think this may be the best and fullest trumpet sound I’ve heard on any of his recordings.

Week in Review – May 27, 2018

My Birthday Week started with a quick trip to New York on Monday and Tuesday – being sure to be back in time for the big day on Wednesday. Diana has often commented on how heavy my suitcase is when I travel with an extra pair of shoes and keep the shoe trees in them. She attempted to remedy that with my first gift on Sunday night – lightweight shoe trees and a start of the week card.

When I opened my work bag on the plane on Monday morning I found that an interloper had snuck another card and gift inside. A perfect snack was nicely wrapped – caramel filled M&Ms.

On the flight I watched the movie “Breathe” and really enjoyed it. The story is of Robin Cavendish (played by Andrew Garfield) and his wife Diana (played by Claire Foy of “The Queen” fame) and their refusal to give up in the face of Robin being stricken with polio at the age of 28. Robin is confined to a wheel chair and given months to live and not permitted to leave the hospital ward. With the help of an inventor friend they develop a wheelchair with a portable breathing apparatus and spend many happy years traveling abroad, raising their child, and helping other patients.

The work dinner that I had arranged for Monday evening was canceled and so I made a trip up to the Jazz Standard where the Mingus Orchestra was playing. As I was walking from the subway stop to the club, I noticed that I was close to the Flatiron building. This is a well known New York landmark that I hadn’t seen yet – so a quick detour seemed in order.

Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city at 20 floors high. The building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd Street. The name “Flatiron” comes from its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.

The Mingus Big Band has won several Grammy awards for their live recordings at the Standard and so I had high hopes for the sister orchestra. Unfortunately, the show was very disappointing. The sound was great as usual but the musicians appeared to have come together minutes before the show and seemed to be sight reading music for the first time. There were clearly several very talented musicians in the orchestra – particularly the guitar player and French horn player – but the overall effect was very underwhelming. Oh well, it passed the time on a Monday evening just fine.

I was staying at a new hotel this time called the Downtown Association. This is an old private club in the Wall Street area that recently added 20 guest rooms. The bar/clubhouse is like walking into an old style, private club and I enjoyed it very much. I was entertained to find a picture of the Flatiron building on the wall just outside my hotel room.

Tuesday was a full work day – breakfast meeting, long sessions, and a late flight that got me home just in time to celebrate my birthday and find some nice treats waiting beside the bed.

I had work meetings most of my birthday but did hear a lot of early morning activity in the kitchen and then caught sight of the start of a pavlova in the oven.

After work finished, I was relaxing on the couch and listening to music when some surprise guests showed up for dinner – Patty and Brent. They brought one of their typically humorous cards.

McD, with an assist from Brent, put together a delicious birthday dinner – steak, scallops, mushroom medley (featuring an array of very interesting varieties), and Wahba risotto. All followed by the delicious pavlova birthday cake.

The observant amongst you may have noticed the “Keith’s Spirit Concoctions” barrel lurking in a few of these pictures – that was one of my excellent gifts from Diana. It was accompanied by a book of recipes for barrel aging cocktails. I’m priming the barrel now before experimenting with my first recipe – thinking that’ll be barrel aged negroni.

On Thursday I finished watching a movie on Netflix that had caught my attention. “The King of New Orleans” follows a taxi driver, Larry Shirt, whose passengers are the city’s tourists, socialites, musicians, housekeepers, bizarre characters and reporters. One of those passengers is Bobby Cohn, a Harvard student home from school and in the midst of a personal crisis. Larry and Bobby develop a bond that ultimately survives Hurricane Katrina and is strongly based on a love for the city that they both call home. This was one of those quiet and unassuming movies with a big heart that I enjoy.

The other big news this week arrived on Thursday. Diana is most likely going back to work – the details are all being finalized.

McD had a great idea on Friday afternoon – why don’t we go up to Adriatica and try out the happy hour at Gregory’s restaurant (there are only a few more Fridays before she’ll be back to work)? Who could argue with that suggestion? Gregory was relaxing when we arrived and we quickly put him to work cooking up some of his excellent mussels and a side of lobster risotto. Joe (our waiter at Gregory’s for years) took great care of us and we learned that Lydia (Gregory’s wife) shares the same birthday as I do.

I loaded my birthday CDs (an excellent annual tradition by McD) into Penelope for the drive to our workout on Saturday morning. Diana did a fabulous job of selecting songs to remind us of the concerts we enjoyed in the last year. Check out the retro vinyl record looking CD.

Apparently my 54 year old brain hasn’t deteriorated too much yet as I was able to set a new crossword record at our coffee break after our workouts – much to Diana’s frustration.

I transitioned birthday week privileges over to Alicia on Friday evening. She’s 18 this Sunday! Diana took us to dinner at Perry’s steak house on Saturday evening to celebrate since there are plans to attend the local McKinney Memorial Day concert on Sunday night. Alicia enjoyed being pampered with a candle and rose petals, tuna tartare, a special steak and desert trio.

Poor Diana has been very busy this week trying to accommodate all the birthday plans and as usual she rose beautifully to the challenge.

Here’s a Ray Charles instrumental that I found this week when looking for Humble Pie’s “Black Coffee” and enjoyed:

And here’s some excellent John Coltrane to round out the birthday week post:

Week in Review – May 13, 2018

This week started in Nashville and finished up with Campbell’s graduation in San Diego – a very busy and proud week indeed.

From Monday through Thursday our global work team met in Nashville for a series of meetings. The days and nights were fully occupied.

On Monday, I took some colleagues to a couple of my favourite places in East Nashville (a rapidly gentrifying but still unique area). We started with drinks at Rosemary (a speakeasy with a great patio in a regular house) and everyone seemed to enjoy the different setting and the great outside weather.

For dinner I chose Butcher and Bee which is a great Mediterranean restaurant. We had a lot of vegetarian dishes (a theme for this week) and my boss loved his grilled eggplant. The whipped feta and chickpea humus are stand outs on the menu. As dinner was winding up, one of my colleagues let me know that he had been able to make plans for a couple of us to visit a well known recording studio.

The studio was in a fancy gated community where a number of the country stars live and was located in the basement of a mansion owned by the producer Keith Thomas. A song writers’ workshop was finishing up when we arrived and it was very interesting to listen in. Then we got to experiment with the studio equipment and I was able to play an amazing sounding grand piano.

Keith was a gracious host and showed us a large collection of gold records that were presented to him for producing. He’s done a number of Amy Grant albums and one of D’s favourites, “Tapestry Revisited”. Diana noticed that Curtis Stigers (the singer we enjoyed so much at Birdland in NY a few weeks ago) sang one of the Carole King tributes on the album.

The group activity on Tuesday night was a pool tournament in a hall just off the main Broadway strip. My partner and I won our first two games and were in good position for the playoffs but quickly lost to some real hustlers.

Wednesday evening took us to Pinewood Social, a retro style bar and bowling alley in downtown Nashville. We divided up into groups and kept score for awards. My team won trophies for the best team score – none of us was great but we were all consistently non-horrible bowlers.

After bowling we had a wander down Broadway (the main downtown strip of music clubs which is similar to 6th street in Austin) with our first stop the Acme Feed and Seed Store beside the river. The building was first opened in 1890 and ran as a feed business, unloading supplies from the river for many years.

There was a good band playing and we listened for 30 minutes or so. I found a couple of signs in the store that appealed to me.

After Acme we stopped into Bootleggers where there was a great band playing. They treated me to one of my favourite songs:

We planned poorly for our Uber ride back to the hotel as the Justin Timberlake concert was letting out just as we tried to call up transportation. We went for a snack and got back a little later than anticipated.

Nashville is a great city – compact, walk-able, safe, and with a huge appreciation for all things musical. Even the room numbers at the hotel had guitar chord tabs and I enjoyed the reading material in the lounge.

I arrived home late on Thursday with just enough time to unpack, pack again for San Diego and get a little sleep.

We landed in San Diego in the early afternoon, checked into the hotel, freshened up and headed out for dinner. I chose a place called the Wine Vault and Bistro on India St from some online research and we were both very happy with the choice. The restaurant is only open Thursday through Sunday and has a very inexpensively priced three course dinner and wine pairings on Thursdays. I started with a sausage and black lentil appetizer, then a roasted cauliflower dish (keeping the vegetarian theme going), and finished with a mille-feuille dessert. Each of the nine choices had a separate wine pairing and so we selected based as much on the wine as the dishes. We learned that most of the regular customers were on a wine tour of Italy and so signed up for the tour mailing list.

We added a side of the most delicious brussel sprouts I’ve tasted – heavily charred on the outside and very tender on the inside.

After dinner we stopped by a party that Molly was having with her family and friends to celebrate her graduation to pick up our graduation tickets. We were lucky enough to meet her Mum, Dad and identical twin sister. Then we called it an early night since festivities started at 8am on Saturday morning.

Graduation was in the 12,000 seat Viejas arena where the San Diego State University Aztecs basketball team plays and the place was close to full as around 3,000 kids from the Fowler business school graduated. Here’s a video clip of Alexa (Campbell’s neighbour and business school classmate), Eric (Campbell’s roommate and friend since the age of 4) and Campbell walking across the stage:

We arranged to meet at Campbell’s house after graduation for pictures and were fortunate to run into him walking in the same direction as we traversed the campus. He was about to lose his tassels and drapes on his walk but Diana got him all fixed up. Some great pictures were taken and we got to say hello to Campbell’s roommates (including Grady and Grady’s dog). I’m so proud of Campbell for graduating in 4 years (not easy to do these days) and already having a job lined up.

Campbell, Eric and their Mums had organized a celebration lunch at the La Jolla Shores hotel. We sat on a patio looking out on the beach and had a lovely lunch. Finn, Will and Christine joined us at our table and we had a nice visit. I gave a speech about some memories of Campbell’s life so far that seemed to be well received. It was all fine until the end when I was trying to say that I hoped he continued to live his life with the same kindness and grace that he had shown so far and got a bit emotional.

After all that excitement we relaxed at the hotel for a while and then had a light, late dinner at the Starlite lounge. We found out later that Campbell and Molly had been there for Valentine’s day.

Starlite had great cocktails and food in a beautifully designed retro atmosphere. I enjoyed a buratta and ratatouille dish to keep the veggie theme going.

On Sunday morning we had a workout and then headed over to the Pacific Beach area for brunch. We had tried to go to World Famous for brunch on a previous trip but they had a power outage. All was good this time and we thoroughly enjoyed a lobster benedict.

After brunch we had a pleasant walk along the beach boardwalk which affords great people watching and envious inspection of the fancy beach houses. We then spent a little over an hour doing the New York Times Sunday crossword together at the Amplified Ale House.

Campbell and Molly met us for dinner at Craft and Commerce in Little Italy – just across the street from Harbor where we had met them for brunch on our previous visit with Kris and Cat. We sat outside and were warmed up by a small fire pit in the center of the table which seemed like a bit of a liability. Again the food and cocktails were very good. I had a mushroom and buratta tart to finish out my vegetarian weekend. My Dad would not have appreciated the very crispy carrots and other vegetables.

What a lovely weekend! I’m so proud of the young man that Campbell has become.

This poignant song from Peter Gabriel was on my mind a couple of times during the weekend as I watched Campbell enjoying his success. I particularly like the addition of the brass band:

Week in Review – May 6th, 2018

Back to New York this week to participate in the heatwave. This picture of a sunbather on the front page of the New York Times reminded me of the headlines in Scotland when we were there during 80 degree temperatures a few years ago warning the public to stay well hydrated and avoid the midday sun. It was hot but a pleasant change from the snow and wind a few visits ago.

On Wednesday night I tried out a new jazz club that I heard about from a gentleman at the table next to me at Dizzy’s a few weeks ago for the Christian McBride Big Band show. The Jazz Standard is located at 28th and Park Avenue and an easy subway ride from the Wall Street area. It’s in the basement beneath the Blue Smoke barbeque restaurant and is structured as a supper club similar to Birdland. They had a number of my favourite whiskey drinks on the menu and I paired that with a yummy shrimp etoufee.

Here are some pictures of the club both facing the stage and from the stage looking back towards the bar. I’d guess the capacity is around 150 guests and the seating is comfortable and not too packed.

I enjoyed browsing the pictures on the stairs down to the club. Here are Louis Armstrong and Ben Webster (my current favourite tenor saxophone sound). I just watched a documentary about Ben Webster titled “Brute and Beautiful” – apparently a tough man who made a beautiful emotional sound.

I enjoyed the drink coasters and agree with the message. There’s also a nice mural by the entrance.

The entertainment was by the Kenny Barron quintet. Barron has appeared on hundreds of recordings and is considered one of the most influential pianists since the bebop era. He taught piano and keyboard harmony at Rutgers University for over 25 years and now teaches at Juilliard. Some of his best albums were recorded with Stan Getz in the late 1980s and I highly recommend “Bossas and Ballads – The Lost Sessions”. I was very fortunate to have decided to investigate the Jazz Standard on the week when Barron was playing. Here’s a Brazilian themed song he played – I really wasn’t in that bad a seat but recording is highly discouraged and I needed to be stealthy with my phone resting on the table.

I loved the drumming by Jonathan Blake – some of the most innovative, creative, and musical since I heard Joey Baron for the first time. It was interesting that his cymbals were much lower than you normally see – almost at the same height as the snare and tom toms.

I chuckled at this billboard outside an Italian restaurant right next to the jazz club – Italian bubbles and $1 oysters – right up McD alley.

I had a pleasant post concert walk down Park Avenue to the 14th street subway station. The good weather had a lot of folks out eating later and I made a particular note of a restaurant named Barbounia for my next visit with Diana. A very fun looking Mediterranean place on Park and 20th in the Gramercy area.

After a long and successful work day on Thursday, I headed up to the Chelsea Market to search out something that Anne wanted but didn’t buy on her trip there with us. This was a funny experience – after two complete tours around the store and asking artists manning booths about the stand Anne had been at and getting no help at all I caught sight of one of the items in a display case with a name on it. Consulting the website told me that the stall had been a one week only “pop-up” store. I was able to order online – what a lot of detective work for what I thought would be a simple purchase.

I had dinner at a French Bistro in the market, a nice pate de campagne, and then headed back to the 14th street subway station. On the way I passed the Village Vanguard jazz club and couldn’t help but stop in right as the 8:30pm show was starting. I got one of the last seats at the bar in the back of the club – actually one of the more comfortable seats in there and one that always reminds me of Diana sharing her champagne with Joshua Redman on another impromptu visit we made.

The band was the Eric Reed quintet and I enjoyed them very much. The music was quite similar to Kenny Barron the night before but with more slower, lyrical and emotional content. I really enjoyed one of Reed’s compositions named “Wish” that he wrote after the death of his father about all the things he wished he could still discuss with him.

Here’s a more up tempo composition:

I narrowly avoided a trip to Brooklyn on the subway – apparently the number 2 train runs on the number 1 line later at night and I noticed the Rector Street stop just in time to hop off before the train headed under the East river to Brooklyn. On the different than usual walk back to the hotel I took this picture of the New York Stock Exchange with colorful illumination.

On Friday morning I headed out for a leisurely breakfast (trying to follow the Jazz Standard coaster advice) and was amazed at the backwardness of the trash bags stacked up on the sidewalks – apparently Friday is trash day in the Wall Street area. It’s also interesting that it’s acceptable to dispose of small appliances with regular trash.

The first weekend of my birthday month got off to a great start as D and I headed down to Deep Ellum for brunch at IdleRye. This was a new place I found online after finding that the Lebanese place I was hoping to visit for brunch wasn’t open for Saturday lunch. We sat at the bar and enjoyed amazing tater tots and eggs benedict with pork belly along with some nicely mixed brunch cocktails. We both look forward to visiting again soon.

Our post brunch crossword stop was a short walk down Elm Street to our favorite Deep Ellum spot – the Twilite Lounge. As usual the patio was a perfect oasis and the jukebox was playing great New Orleans music – “Exactly Like You” by the Rebirth Brass Band.

Now we were ready for a coffee and found a new place, Drugstore Cowboy, just around the corner that had good coffee, a full bar, and a stage that hosts performances and movies in the evenings. There was a mariachi band playing just outside the stage for Cinco de Mayo.

After coffee we made the quick drive to Oak Cliff for a visit to the Wild Detectives bookstore. All of the books that we picked up seemed either a bit too out there or too depressing. The only one I found that sounded appealing was one that Diana reminded me we had bought on our last visit and I haven’t read yet. We moseyed across the street to Boulevardier and watched the Kentucky Derby (neither of our picks won) and enjoyed their amazing tartare (complete with quail egg).

Sunday was a lazy day of workout, crossword, and pool time. I put a new tablet stand that Amazon had just delivered to good use in watching the New Orleans Pelicans versus Golden State Warriors basketball playoff game by the pool.

The busy week didn’t afford me too much time for reading but I did make some progress through John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany”. One section describing the two main characters participation in a church Nativity play had me laughing. It reminded me a lot of my experience at St Columbas church in Stewarton and the classic tale of my wise man outfit completed by socks with holes in the toes to horrify my Mum.

St Columbas church in Stewarton, Scotland

When I was doing some research on Eric Reed, I found a few albums that he recorded with the trombone player Wycliffe Gordon that sound great. Gordon has recorded a number of albums of New Orleans style brass music that sound excellent. Gordon plays trombone, trumpet, tuba an didgeridoo (a good spelling bee word).

I also heard a new release from the Scottish electronic band Mogwai. I first heard of this band in the acknowledgments section of an Ian Rankin novel and decided to give them a listen. It’s great background music when I’m trying to focus on something.

Week in Review – April 29, 2018

Oopsy, it happened again. Another year when we were definitely taking a break from the New Orleans Jazzfest only to be unable to resist at the last minute. We had so much fun with Denny and Anne in New York that we booked flights to New Orleans sitting at the airport for our flight home on Sunday afternoon.

The visit started on Wednesday afternoon with the girls making their regular happy hour visit to Pascal’s Manale for oysters and bubbly. This restaurant has been open for over 100 years and is the originator of barbecue shrimp. I heard the comedian Amy Shumer interviewed recently and when asked about her favorite place to eat she said that if she ever had a couple of days free she flew to New Orleans and had barbecue shrimp and bread pudding at Pascal’s.

Meanwhile, the boys dropped off kids for soccer practice and then visited a new place for me, Vessel NOLA. This is an old church converted into a beautiful restaurant and cocktail bar. A very nicely done place with great drinks afforded me the perfect opportunity to catch up with Denny, Thom and Alex.

After our respective Happy Hours we met up at Marjie’s for dinner. We had tried to visit once before on a strong recommendation from the New York Times food critic and Denny but hadn’t made it. Thom and Alex joined the foursome and we sat on the patio to share wonderful smoked meat dishes. Marjie’s combines smoked meats with Southeast Asian flavors for great results. We enjoyed cornmeal crusted yardbird and charred pork shoulder steak among other treats.

The evening concluded with some good story telling at Dos Jefes cigar bar on Tchoupitoulas Street (I double checked to make sure I spelled that correctly).

Thursday began with a visit to the new car wash that Denny and Anne are opening in Algiers. It’s the prettiest of the empire so far and we enjoyed exploring and taking pictures while Denny conducted some business.

After the car wash excitement we picked up Denny’s Mum, Diane, and had a lovely lunch at the Red Maple in Gretna. This was an old school New Orleans restaurant with delicious pecan crusted catfish. It was a treat to catch up with Diane whose social calendar has been too packed to squeeze us in on the last couple of visits.

Effervescence, a new “bubble and bites” restaurant on Rampart Street was our destination for Happy Hour. Denny and Diana both ordered tasting flights of bubbles from the menu of over 40 choices by the glass and we sampled some superb small plates. Anne joined us in time to enjoy a glass of the champagne that Denny had selected for her from his samples. We sat in the courtyard and agreed that this was McD heaven.

It was a pleasant saunter through the French Quarter on Ursuline Street from Effervescence to our dinner destination, Trinity on Decatur Street. This was another new place for us that Denny and Anne had really enjoyed on a recent visit. The food, decor, open kitchen and service were all outstanding. I can’t wait to return.

octopus carpaccio and oyster deviled eggs appetizers

Can you tell we all loved our meals?

From Trinity Denny led us to Gasa Gasa music club on Freret Street to listen to the Rayo Brothers band. I really enjoyed this club – great sound and space. The band was a cross between the Avett Brothers and the Band of Heathens and we all enjoyed them very much. They play at Jazzfest next weekend.

Some very creative art on the Gasa Gasa patio wall:

Friday was Jazzfest day and we got a nice early start to get set up at the Gentilly stage for the day. The stage has a new logo on top since this is Fats Domino year. After an opening set from The Deslondes, a local Americana band, we enjoyed a strong set from Eric Lindell. The initial 30 minutes were a bit sleepy but picked up with a cover of Cinnamon Girl and several more strong songs.

The musical highlight of the day came next – Jon Cleary with a great set of New Orleans piano and funk. He really irritated me by playing some great guitar in addition to his normal outstanding piano – some people are just too multi-talented. Here he is with a great Meters cover (Just Kissed My Baby). At some point around here Alex and Thom and Libby showed up to join the party.

After Jon Cleary, Diana and I went for a wander around the festival grounds. We got our usual frozen cafe au laits and sauntered through the art and jewelry tents. The most interesting to me were custom made turntables with beautiful wood bases:

The Rythmporium where they sell LPs and CDs had a great sign celebrating New Orleans’ 300th anniversary and an interesting stage.

I heard some great music coming from a small tent that I hadn’t been in before and went to investigate – turned out it was the kids tent where the next generation was doing a great job:

As we continued round the racetrack we came across great performances from the New Orleans Nightcrawlers on the Jazz and Heritage stage and an emotional dirge for Charles Neville by the Dixie Dozen Brass Band on the Congo Square stage. Neville died the day before the festival started. He was the saxophone player with the Neville Brothers and well loved throughout the New Orleans and world music communities.

We returned to Gentilly to see Lukas Nelson (Willie’s son) and the Promise of the Real band. I was anticipating this to be a highlight of the day but was underwhelmed – the music was fine but just didn’t interest me as much as I’d hoped. My spirits were lifted when Denny returned with a meat pie for me.

The day finished out with Sturgill Simpson who entertained the crowd with a set that spanned many musical genres – straight ahead country, Americana, blues and some jam band influence. He won everybody over by having the 610 stompers (a local group of men who do silly dances in the Mardi Gras and other parades) take the stage to start the show.

We had hoped for a full brass section similar to the one that joined him for his Saturday Night Live performances but had to settle for a much smaller one – great show nonetheless.

We waited for the crowd to clear out and watched the sun set on another amazing Jazzfest day.

Denny had to drive the boys to a soccer tournament on Saturday early. The rest of us got to sleep in and then enjoy a great brunch at the Canal Street Bistro. The lobster crepe and particularly the sauce was delicious.

From there we Ubered down to the French Quarter for an afternoon ramble that started on Frenchman Street with a visit to the Louisiana Music Factory to check out the latest music releases.

From there we wandered down Royal Street with a stop at Amelie which has a beautiful courtyard and at the Michalopoulos (checked the spelling on that one too) gallery to see if there were any new paintings that D had to have. We finished up at a new place named Curio which had delicious small bar snacks. Now it was time to head back to Webster Street to relax before heading to the airport for our flight back home. I got this picture of the sun setting over the Mississippi which seemed like an appropriate closing picture for another amazing New Orleans visit.

Sunday was spent relaxing and assembling a new patio rocking chair. While we were enjoying New Orleans Will was with his friends in Bali. I haven’t heard much of an update but did get some interesting photos.

Diana just alerted me to a new Marcia Ball album and I’ve been listening while writing this update. Here’s a great new song.

I’m closing with this tribute to Charles Neville which features some of his signature sax work.

Week in Review – April 22, 2018

Spring has officially sprung in New York – finally. It’s been a long and harsh winter for New Yorkers. Work had me back in New York on Tuesday for all day meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully Diana was able to join me on Thursday evening and then Denny and Anne joined us both on Friday.

On Tuesday evening I undertook some scouting for the weekend visitors. My first stop was at a speakeasy style bar and restaurant, Employees Only, in the West Village area. The craft cocktail movement first started here in the early 2000s, with bar-tending care not seen since the roaring ’20s. The bar, and more particularly the highly skilled bartenders, feature in the documentary “Hey, Bartender” that details the rebirth of craft cocktails. The name comes from the owner’s desire to create a place that was welcoming and catered to folks working in the bar-tending and restaurant business.

I arrived a few minutes before the 6pm opening and there was already a short line – on a Tuesday night? Very popular and small place. I was fortunate to get a seat at the bar and enjoyed steak tartare (custom mixed for me) and a wonderful Manhattan. The verdict – put it high on the list for the visitors – I think they’ll really like it.

After the enjoyable stop at EO I was ready for a coffee before heading to a jazz show at the Village Vanguard. Fortunately, New York has a locally owned coffee shop on every corner – something I really miss in the Dallas area – that and being able to walk to so many great spots.

The show at the Vanguard was by Linda Oh and her quintet. Oh was raised by Chinese immigrants in Australia and was taught classical piano from the age of four. When she was 11, she started to play the clarinet and at the age of 13 bassoon. As a bass guitarist she started in a high school band; and in 2002 she attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where she picked up the upright bass. Her thesis was on the classical Indian music rhythms in Dave Holland’s solos. She moved to New York in 2008 and released her debut album “Entry” with her own compositions and a cover version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers “Oztrax”.

I enjoyed the show which had a pretty modern edge but was strongly rooted in classical jazz styles. The saxophone of Ben Wendel was a highlight. My favorite pieces were “Lucid Lullaby”, “Fire Dancer”, and “Speech Impediment”(the most modern/avant garde of the group) and Linda’s descriptions of the inspiration behind each (in a strong Australian accent) really increased the enjoyment.

After a full day of meetings with 200 of my IT friends on Wednesday, I took my boss and buddy Mike to Bobo in Greenwich Village to try some more of the menu before the trio arrived for the weekend. We did a good job of sampling the dinner menu and I chose scallops on a bed of pureed celery root as my entree – there’s something very delicious about that combination. I was able to make a Saturday brunch reservation and a plan was coming together.

I texted a picture of the dessert menu to McD to see if she could pick what I would like – she didn’t have to think about it – rhubarb or bread pudding in the description and I’m sold.

After dinner, we caught about 30 minutes of the show at Mezzrow basement jazz club across the street. Uri Caine was on the piano and Mark Helios on upright bass. We sat right next to Uri which offered a great view of what he was up playing. Mike studied a year of classical piano at Texas Tech and so really enjoyed the view. The music was very improvisational and we were amazed when the two would join each other in perfect unison out of what seemed to be a completely free form improvisational journey. Caine is a classically trained pianist and has released 16 relatively well known classical recordings. I would not have guessed this from the free form abandon he brought to his jazz playing.

Another day with my 200 IT friends culminated with a nice team building activity – we assembled bikes for foster children. A representative from the organization “Together We Rise” gave a quick talk on the challenges of foster care before we began building. The statistics he quoted were pretty staggering – only 3% of foster children attend college and it gets more disturbing from there. The usual amazing view from our office is being encroached upon by the continuing explosion in new construction. Speaking of construction – I was impressed by the quality of the graphics as I tracked Diana’s arrival at La Guardia airport which is severely under construction just now and for the next 3 years.

I changed hotels and met up with Diana to attend a performance by Curtis Stigers at Birdland (conveniently directly across the street from our hotel). Stigers is an American jazz vocalist, saxophonist, guitarist, and songwriter. He achieved a number of hits in the early 1990s, most notably international 1991 hit, “I Wonder Why”, which reached No. 5 in the UK and No. 9 in the US. Diana and I both commented that this was probably the best show that we’ve seen this year. The first song he played was Randy Newman’s “I’ll be Home” and he had us hooked in the first few bars.

Later was another fantastic Newman song, “I think it’s going to rain today”.

We enjoyed the show so much that we opted to stay for the late show which featured quite a different selection of music and finished up with the song that captured us at the start, “I’ll be Home”. Diana had a good chat with Curtis after the show.

Denny and Anne arrived in time for lunch on Friday after an early start in New Orleans. Oops – I forgot to mention earlier that this trip was another part of Denny’s extended milestone birthday experience. We had lunch at BXL – the Belgian mussel restaurant that I discovered a few weeks ago. $20 got us an appetizer, 1lb of mussels with choice from 10 sauces, and a drink – amazing value for New York.

Anne “Stinger” posing next to her namesake bar

After lunch we rented bikes and made the circle through Central Park. The weather was perfect for riding and the course not too challenging – just one extended uphill section. The spring blooms and blossoms on the trees provided a great backdrop.

Blurry picture of Denny and D with Robert Burns

After all the exercise we stopped at Tavern on the Green for refreshment. Then it was back to the hotel to freshen up for a light dinner before our evening shows.

Dinner was at Bar Centrale, another speakeasy style establishment hidden in a brownstone with no sign or indication it’s not a residence.

We saw the musical “Waitress” while Denny and Anne went to the Highline Ballroom to see a funk music show by “The Mummies”. Waitress was very well done in a classic Broadway musical style. The music is by Sara Bareilles who initially played the lead role (the Kerri Russel part in the movie). Kathryn McPhee of American Idol fame is now the lead and did a great job. The comedy acting was excellent and I did laugh out loud on several occasions.

“Denny where are we on the map?” at Bobo

Saturday began with brunch at Bobo in the West Village. My scouting wasn’t off target as we ordered a second helping of the steak tartare and all enjoyed our brunches.

After brunch we began what ended up being an extended walking tour of the area. We walked a short part of the Highline path and then had a brief stop at “Fig and Olive” which served delicious spring cocktails. It also has a crostini and martini special on Wednesday nights that I’ll need to try on a future visit.

From Fig and Olive we walked to the Chelsea Market where the ladies did some quick shopping while we enjoyed coffees. Then more walking through the village – down Bleeker Street, through Washington Square park and ultimately back over to Employees Only for dinner (with a brief stop in a sports bar to see how the New Orleans Pelicans were doing in the NBA playoffs). Along the way we snapped a picture of the birthday boy at Cafe Wha? where Bob Dylan played his first concert and tried to recreate the classic Bob Dylan album cover – we needed some vintage cars to finish it off correctly.

Dinner at Employees Only was a highlight of the trip for me. The cocktails and everything we ate were delicious. The chicken liver mousse on the charcuterie plate was an early favorite, then the octopus with squid ink risotto and then the absolute highlight – Butterscotch & Mascarpone Cheesecake with Sea Salt & Nut Brittle. I’ll be back just to have a cocktail and that yummy dessert.

In my excitement about that dessert I forgot to mention the bone-marrow pastry dish that reminded me of vol-au-vents that my Mum makes – a very unique dish.

Another quick freshen up at the hotel and then up to Jazz at Lincoln Center to finish out the trip (we thought) with the Christian McBride Big Band at

Anne compliments Melissa Walker on her shoes

Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. Christian Lee McBride is an American jazz bassist and record producer. He is considered a virtuoso, and is one of the most recorded musicians of his generation; he has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman. He studied at the Philadelphia High School for the Performing Arts and then Julliard. His wife is the singer Melissa Walker and she performed a couple of songs with the Big Band – thankfully Denny didn’t leave at that point (he’s not a fan of jazz singing in general). We all enjoyed the show and the gorgeous venue with the view out to Columbus Circle. I enjoyed the upright bass solos very much.

On the walk back to the hotel (subway wait was too long) we experienced a classic Denny and Anne occurrence – Denny looks into the window of an establishment and they both agree they have to go in. In this case it was a Cuban restaurant, Guantanamera NYC, with live music. The music was excellent and we had a good late night snack while the ladies danced. Nicely done Denny! I first heard this song on the excellent “Buena Vista Social Club” recording by Ry Cooder – highly recommended listening.

A quick stop at the Rum House to say hello to Vincente and Jay at the door and the trip was winding down. Thankfully our flights weren’t too early on Sunday.

Whew – what a very busy few days – I’m worn out just writing about it.