The week of Christmas was very busy in Pacifica, CA with lots of cooking, organizing, and family visits.
The fun kicked off on Christmas Eve with the traditional feast of the seven fishes. Never heard of this celebration? I hadn’t either until spending the holiday with the Campagnas. Apparently it’s not well known in Italy either, but is an American tradition popular among Italian Catholics.
Here’s what Eataly’s website has to say about it:
“Every year in the U.S., many people celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Although it is unclear when the dinner became so popular, this celebration is considered one of the most Italian traditions. Typically, the family gathers around a feast of seven different seafood dishes or one or two different types of fish prepared in seven different ways.
The ancient tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic custom of abstinence from meat and dairy products on the eve of certain holidays, including Christmas. The number seven is rooted back in ancient times and it can be connected to multiple Catholic symbols: in fact, the seven seems repeated more than 700 times in the Bible. Also, according to the Roman Catholic Church, seven are the sacraments, the days of the Creation, as well as the deadly sins. Hence seven courses!”
Adamo and family as well as Andy and Jude (Clorinda’s neighbours) joined us for the feast, with Adamo doing much of the cooking. The meal was a big success despite not having exactly the fish selection that the matriarch had expected (no cod). Leftover massive crab claws provided excellent ingredients for omelets the rest of our visit.
Christmas Day started with a visit to Amy and Adamo’s home to observe the chaos of the kids opening presents. Amy made a delicious brunch (as usual whipping it up casually amid the chaos) and Andy and Jude joined again.
We were able to exchange a few gifts with Alicia before the madness became unmanageable and we had to beat a retreat. I enjoyed this gift label and always get a chuckle out of her referring to herself as an “Angel”:
Back at Clorinda’s home, it was time to start the preparation for Christmas dinner. Diana had purchased both rack of lamb and honey ham for dinner and we set about preparing those together. The matriarch didn’t like what we did with the lamb but enjoyed how it tasted at the end, so we’ll let that go (kind of). It was a gorgeous day in Pacifica as evidenced by this picture of the view from the prep kitchen.
Marco, his family, and Alicia were our guests for dinner and everyone enjoyed the meal very much. Diana’s Aunt Sarah passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 104 and the family had arranged a memorial service for December 26th, when most of the family would be in town. The after dinner activity was helping Marco finalize the order of service pamphlets and getting Olivia and Alicia ready with their parts of the service (a reading and flute performance).
I had to work on the morning of the 26th and so didn’t attend the service. The videos I’ve seen of both Marco’s eulogy and the reading/performance by Olivia/Alicia were both beautiful. Boxing Day was another gorgeous day and I worked outside on the deck with this view before heading down to the beach coffee shop for lunch.
Travel home on Thursday was relatively smooth – our flight was 2 hours late, but American let us know before we headed to the airport. We arrived home around 10:30pm and enjoyed the quiet of our house.
We used a coupon at the Tommy Bahama restaurant in Legacy West on Friday night and had a very good meal. This is not a restaurant we would have thought of trying without our $50 off card and we were both very impressed with the food, service and ambiance. These ahi tuna tacos were an excellent appetizer. Then I had Thai curry scallops and shrimp and Diana had a rib-eye steak and shrimp – all very fresh and well cooked. We’ll be back for sure.
After dinner we exchanged the Christmas gifts for each other that we had transported to California and back unopened. That’s an indication of how little downtime McD had during the visit.
Saturday was a quiet day at home catching up on things before heading to New Orleans to ring in the New Year with good friends. We did get workouts in on both days in anticipation of all the good food ahead in New Orleans. I’m at the airport as I finish this up and just watched the Cowboys eke out a win over the New York Giants – a game that didn’t mean anything for playoff spots, but one that both teams played hard to win. A 10-6 record is much better than my prediction of 7-9 for the Cowboys this year and a playoff berth quite a surprise. There’s a good chance that they will play the #1 seeded New Orleans Saints if they win against Seattle next week.
I read two of my “suggested Christmas gift” books this week – the first was “Calypso” by David Sedaris. It’s been 20 years or more since I last read one of his books and it was such a welcome treat to revisit this witty, funny, sometimes disturbing, and often sarcastic author. His descriptions of the antics of his family are insightful, humourous, and heartbreaking – often all at the same time. Not a book for the easily offended or shocked, but one that I enjoyed very much.
The second book was “French Exit” by Patrick DeWitt. Apparently a “French Exit” is when guests sneak out of a party without saying goodbye – have you ever heard that term? I know I haven’t – is it supposed to imply the French are lacking in manners? Weird. The book is quite strange also – an upper East Side New York socialite and her son flee to Paris when their money and social status are lost. Their cat which may embody her deceased husband also makes the trip. The exploits in Paris with a gaggle of entertaining characters are intended to be a farce and certainly come off that way. It reads like a cross between a witty Noel Coward play and a quirky Wes Anderson movie. I’m not a big fan of either (can never understand why Denny thinks the Anderson movies are so hilarious), but did enjoy the book overall as a light and entertaining read – just what’s needed during the holidays.
I’ve been working my way through Quincy Jones recordings after watching the biography a few weeks ago. Here’s one of his early big band recording sessions that I enjoy – “Walkin'”, with a classic walking bass line at the core of the recording.
And here’s a beautiful song from the Band of Heathens that reminded me of their excellent concert a few weeks back:
The film “Bill Evans, Time Remembered” occupied a good chunk of my bus ride to Austin on Monday morning. I’ve listened to a bit of Bill Evans music but didn’t know much about him or his contributions to jazz music prior to the movie. Evans played a major role in the creation of “Kind of Blue” – the classic Miles Davis recording, and one of my top 5 recordings of all time. This was their first experiment with “modal” music, where long passages are played on a single scale. Critics credit Evans with bringing a new elegance and refinement to Davis’ music. It turns out he lived a very tortured life and finally succumbed to his addictions. I’ve been listening to the albums “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” and “Explorations” this week and enjoying both very much – they feature some impressive bass playing.
to before, and a couple of new folks that joined to work on a project with me for a few months. We had a working lunch at the original Chuy’s on Tuesday – really good and different Mexican food. There are a number of “original” restaurant locations on my commute route from the hotel to the office. Restaurants that have gone on to have many locations across Texas over the years.
A delicious Frontera Fundido Portobello taco with the crossword and it was time to start work. A consultant that I’m working with suggested a kebab for lunch and some quick research showed that the Kebabalicious food truck on 2nd Street downtown was our best option. Turned out to be a great find and one that I look forward to visiting again soon. It’s been a long time (probably 1985 in Edinburgh) since I had a kebab on the street.
Diana arrived for her first of I hope many visits on Wednesday evening. We walked over to Swift’s Attic for dinner and McD had just as positive a first impression as I did. She loved the scallops and we also shared the brussel sprouts, squid fries and a new addition to the rotation, hamachi crudo. After dinner, we peeked into the Elephant Room but they were between music sets. We wandered on to The Townsend and again McD enjoyed it as much as I had on my first visit with Gonzalo. Austin is doing a good job of impressing Diana so far.
On Thursday night we planned to attend a tribute show to Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” album at a great local music venue, the Saxon Pub. Before the show we tried Bartala for what are advertised as Catalan tapas with quite mixed results. The service, drinks and several of the tapas were good. However, the ceviche was really disappointing with very tough and rubbery octopus. So bad that it drove me to write my first Yelp review to warn folks away from this dish. I hope this was just some bad product because the place had some good potential and is nicely located close to two good music venues. After dinner, we were both too tired to wait for the music to start – the previous band was finishing and then we would have had to wait on their equipment being hauled out and the new groups’ set up.
For Friday lunch, I took a few coworkers to lunch at Mandola’s Italian. This was their recommendation and it turned out to be an excellent Italian restaurant and grocery/bakery. I had some left over scampi and augmented that with a fresh cannoli to take to Diana for lunch at the hotel, where she had been camped out working all morning. The conversation over lunch was very enlightening as I heard about one gentleman who had gone to Stanford on a volleyball scholarship and another who had been a minor league catcher for the Dodgers. I enjoyed getting to know some of the folks at work better.
On Friday night we let Diana out of the hotel for dinner at Wink – a restaurant recommended by another coworker who seems to know his food and wine. Wink is tucked away in a very quiet location and not easy to find from the street and has both a restaurant side and a wine bar side. We were nervous on arriving to find about 30 University of Texas fraternity looking folks all dressed up in tuxedos and fancy dresses for dinner before a winter dance. They turned out to be very polite and well behaved – must have been the nerdy fraternity.
The food and wine were very good. The fois gras appetizer being a particularly yummy and decadent stand out. I enjoyed grouper with lattkes and dill sauce while Diana had a venison dish with a little langiappe. A piece of a rubber band had crept into her dish. This was handled very nicely by the staff who brought us a quartet of desserts and extra red wine on the house. Everyone had a good chuckle as the kitchen was just through a small window from our table. A couple of the desserts were amazing and we left completed sated.
this was much more efficient than anticipated as I really liked the first place we toured and, on stopping at the second place, realized I shouldn’t waste any more time on places that I wasn’t going to like nearly as much as the first. We drove down Barton Springs road and had to stop at this airstream food truck to take a picture for Patty (the cupcake queen). Then I showed McD the new office and we drove on to the local mall for her to pick up some things she needed for her Christmas party outfit. The mall was a complete zoo and so I dropped Diana, picked up a couple of Space Cowboy tacos (my favourite lunch taco at TacoDeli) and returned to pick her up.
Sunday began with workouts and then a late brunch at Swift’s Attic. A very enjoyable meal again – I enjoyed a different take on shrimp ‘n grits. Then it was time to find somewhere to watch the Cowboys and Eagles game – a key decider in which team will make it to the playoffs. We started at the Driskill bar and saw the beginning of the game there. The TVs were small and dark and so we walked around downtown for a while. I picked up some useful information on vinyl record stores in Austin during a quick stop into Antone’s record store beside the music club.
It was back down to Austin again early on Monday morning. I found a new podcast, “My Favorite Album” with Jeremy Dylan, that made a good portion of the trip pass quickly. Dylan interviews folks from all walks of life about their most treasured albums. I started with Brian Koppelman, creator of the TV show “Billions”. I’ve commmented a few times to Diana about how impressed I am with the music selections on this show and enjoyed Koppelman talking about how they were selected and why. See the bottom of this posting for several examples. The next episode was the drummer from Australian band Augie March talking about Dire Straits first album (also one of my favourites). I really enjoyed his thoughts on Pick Withers nuanced drumming on this album and his views on Mark Knopfler’s guitar work. The first half of my bus ride finished up with Amanda Shires (wife of Jason Isbell) talking about Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate”. Amanda had quite different views about Cohen’s music than Jeremy (the interviewer) which made for an interesting listen. She’s clearly spent a lot of time thinking about Cohen’s songs.
The “revealer” clue from the New York Times crossword on Tuesday gave me a chuckle. “Parting words” from Fried Egg, Candidate, Computer Program, and Editorial -“Gotta Run”.
Can you believe my baby turned 30 this week? He does seem to be doing quite well and I’m proud of the man he’s become and all that he’s accomplished in his first 30 years. Will has always been a car nut – BMWs in particular – solidified when he visited the factory in Germany during his internship. He treated himself to an early birthday present which you can see here. I think it looks pretty fierce and here is Will’s update on the engine:
This week was a heavy one of work and travel for both of us. Diana dropped me at the Dallas airport very early on Monday and I had plenty of time to make my flight, which arrived early even though it was foggy in Austin. I enjoyed a breakfast taco at the airport (as promised last week) and then headed to the office. That’s another one of the cards that McD spoils me with on the table – found it as I was getting something out of my briefcase. The Cowboys pretended to play football on Monday night and I watched the game at the hotel until I got disgusted and fell asleep before the game was over. Diana traveled out to St Petersburg, Florida again Tuesday through Thursday for a big client presentation that went well.
around the corner to the Saxon Pub, where Dave Grissom plays a free early show at 6pm most Tuesdays. I didn’t get there until 7pm and so all seats were taken and the place was packed. I stayed for a couple of songs (both excellent) and then left. I wasn’t able to identify the folks who rode their horses to the show – maybe it was the performers? I will be back in a future week to catch a full show. Dave Grissom is an excellent guitar player who started in Joe Ely’s band, played in John Mellencamp’s band, and has gone on to become a much in demand session musician (particularly in Nashville). I suspect that his show covers multiple styles and varieties of music – I’ll let you know when I get there on time in the future.
From the Saxon, I dropped the car at the hotel and wandered over to Antone’s in downtown Austin to see about their free Blues show. In contrast to the Saxon, this was a very quietly attended show. I settled in for 20 minutes or so but wasn’t drawn in by the music – too much old school blues and harmonica. And so it was off to find the next musical opportunity.
Hoping the third venue would be the charm, I walked around the corner to the Elephant Room on Congress Avenue. This is a basement jazz club that turned out to be very pleasant and a highlight of the evening for me. The sound was excellent with plenty of comfortable seating. Sarah Sharp and band were performing – I forgot to note the guitar player’s name but he was outstanding. I enjoyed Sarah’s voice and here are some quick snippets of the performance:
cocktails were both excellent and I look forward to walking back to this place again soon. My cocktail was a “Newgroni” – the normal negroni recipe with rhubarb bitters added – and it’s available on tap. I’m going to have to add some of these bitters to my barrel aging negroni because they really enhance the flavour very nicely. The scallops were fresh, perfectly cooked and paired with delicious sauces and carrots.
Turkish word meaning “olive oil”) at the Star in Frisco. It’s a mezze restaurant specializing in small plates like a Greek tapas place. We had tried Zaytinya once before and enjoyed the small plates and cocktails very much. This visit was equally positive – I had an ultimate G&T (Hendrick’s gin, Fever Tree Indian tonic water, lemon, lime, juniper berries) that took the bar tender some work to assemble, Baba Ghannouge (great presentation with pomegranate seeds), and a falafel wrap. Diana tried the lamb chops – delicious once the bartender supervised them being cooked properly and not overdone.
You might remember me raving about a brunch we had there about a month ago. I opted for the smoky mushroom toast and Diana had the omelette. The first mushroom toast was delicious with a perfectly cooked poached egg. The second toast featured a hard boiled egg trying to masquerade as a poached egg – very disappointing for a restaurant of such repute. Even worse was the attitude when I brought it to the attention of the staff. They did pay for our entire meal – I would have much preferred they just apologized appropriately and brought me another toast.
We made it from Boulevardier over to the Twilite Lounge in Deep Ellum just in time to see the end of the New Orleans Saints game – they beat up on the Cincinnati Bengals 51-14. The Twilite is an “official Saints watching destination” and has a jukebox with lots of great New Orleans music. One of Tim’s favourites, Bonerama, was playing today – it’s a band with 4 trombones that cover rock ‘n roll songs and Tim really doesn’t enjoy them.
This was a big work week for both of us – I started my new job and Diana had her big project in downtown Dallas to spin off a new company go live on Thursday – what we’ve been calling “D Day”. The project went much better than anyone had expected with the CEOs of both companies saying nice words to the team. Diana did a great job of keeping everyone organized and motivated to make this happen so smoothly.
Our hotel was just across the river from downtown Austin and I was happy to see turntable and guitar art above the bed. You can see how high the river is from all the recent torrential rain. My boss and I walked to downtown and had a delicious Italian meal at Red Ash – my welcome aboard dinner.
On Halloween night I was able to catch my first concert. Doyle Bramhall II was playing at Antone’s. Doyle has been a favourite for many years – I saw him with the Arc Angels in San Antonio more than 20 years ago and have seen him a few times in Eric Clapton’s band. He is an amazing guitar player and songwriter. I visited Antone’s from San Antonio in their previous location but hadn’t been to the downtown, 5th street location.
On Friday morning I tried another one of the local coffee shops – this one is close to my hotel and open 24 hours a day -very good coffee and food and lots of seating. I made it back to Dallas around 4pm and met Diana close to her office downtown for a drink and a snack before we headed over to Oak Cliff for dinner and a concert.
As usual, the band was excellent. Here’s a song that showcases Mike Schermer, the guitar player in Marcia’s band for many years.
After workout, coffee and crossword on Saturday morning, we drove by Patty and Brent’s to check on the moving truck progress. Things were moving along quickly with an extra long truck almost fully packed. They leave early Monday for the long drive to Corning, New York.
My first book this week was “Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult. The title is from a Martin Luther King quote, “If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way”.
My second book was “Baby, You’re Gonna be Mine” by Kevin Wilson. This is a short story collection that was highly recommended recently by Anne Patchett (one of my favourite authors) and her staff at Parnassus books in Nashville.
I enjoyed the collection and the creativity in each of the stories but wouldn’t rate this book as highly as the Parnassus bookstore staff. I think I’m discovering that I’m not as huge a fan of the short story format as many of the reviewers that I follow. I do, however, still count “Walking Wounded” by William McIlvanney, a Scottish based short story collection, as one of my all time favourites.
For Saturday lunch we tried the Food Hall at Legacy West (right next to Haywire restaurant). The hall has about 20 very varied food vendors and lots of outdoor seating options to let us enjoy the first sunny, dry day in weeks. I really enjoyed my chicken tikka masala naan wrap and some samosas.
We thought the ladies were off for some shopping after lunch, until we received this picture. They decided that a nice bottle of half price rose champagne and steak tartare from Toulouse restaurant was a much better value than the workout attire they were looking at.
Our friend Jens was having a 60th birthday party on Saturday evening and we were able to stop in for a bit on our way home from the concert. It was nice to see his son again – probably close to 20 years since I last saw him in San Jose. Glenda did a lovely job organizing food and decorating for the party.
I finished a couple of books this week – a feature of my time off that I’m really enjoying. The first, “Less”, by Andrew Sean Greer, I found to be a very entertaining read. I liked these two descriptions of the Pulitzer prize winning book.
The second book, “The Reminders”, by Val Emmich, was an equally enjoyable read. I wasn’t sure about the story premise – thinking it might be a bit of a stretch and not something I would typically enjoy, but the folks at Interabang books were so positive about it that I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did. Here’s a synopsis of the story from an online review:
I arrived in New Orleans on Tuesday evening. Denny picked me up at the airport and we met Anne for some excellent Vietnamese food at a place close to the soccer practice location by City Park.
Wednesday began with lunch at Manolito in the French Quarter. This is a small Cuban restaurant with great food and daiquiris. I love croquettes and they had the best that I’ve tasted. That was followed with an excellent Cuban sandwich.
Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed this panoramic view of New Orleans from the “Hot Tin Roof” bar atop the Ponchatrain hotel. This is a recently restored hotel and apparently is where Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar named Desire”. The music oscillated between very enjoyable brass band songs and horrible hip hop nonsense. We joked that the rap music was inserted to stop slow drinking old folks from staying too long.
Anne left to go and take care of the boys, and Denny started taking me to all of my favourite places one after another. We enjoyed the patio at Bacchanal, an excellent dinner at the Bywater American Bistro that included country pate, an excellent middle eastern style curry, and bottled Negroni (that sadly is only available at the restaurant).
The late night music was at the Bon Temps bar with the Thursday night standard Soul Rebels Brass Band. The back room was the most packed I’ve seen it and included a lot of Georgia fans in for the LSU game on Saturday and avoiding the hurricane.
Friday was another beautiful day in New Orleans with very low humidity. I enjoyed some yummy breakfast tacos a la Denny and then made my way to the airport. What a lovely couple of days!
Brent and I celebrated National Taco Day on Thursday in style at the Velvet Taco in Dallas. The shrimp and grits taco and the margarita were both excellent. After lunch, I took Brent across the street to Audio Concepts, where Diana purchased the Linn turntable that became the heart of my office sound system that I enjoy every day. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours auditioning speakers for Brent’s new office in Corning. The slight challenge is that Patty is requesting bookshelf speakers for flexibility of placement in a future retirement home. Landon did a great job of demonstrating various digital streaming player and speaker combinations for us and we’ll see what Brent decides. “Private Investigations” by Dire Straits was the track used most to compare and what a great piece of music that is. I remember being amazed by the quality of the recording when first hearing it back in my University days.
On Friday afternoon we flew to San Francisco for the much anticipated Good Shepherd 8th grade 40th anniversary reunion event on Saturday evening. We decided to take Clorinda (Diana’s Mom) for dinner at the local Peruvian restaurant, Puerto 27, but changed our minds when greeted by extremely heavy traffic on Highway 1 South. Clorinda suggested we make a quick adjustment and try dinner at the local golf club – “Kevin’s a good cook”. Turns out Kevin is a really good cook – my Dover sole, Diana’s beef medallions, and Clorinda’s lamb shank were all delicious. Left overs were used in several breakfast omelets over the remainder of the weekend. Here’s a write up on Sharp Park gold course which was designed by a very famous Scottish architect and a video that adds some more details.
Sunday was a nice sunny day – always seems that the fog leaves right as we depart Pacifica. Our flight was delayed a few hours for unknown reason, and so we were able to enjoy some of the lobster that Adamo had just caught before leaving.
There was plenty of time for reading this week and I finished a couple of books with some similarities. The first, “Little Fires Everywhere”, by Celeste Ng takes place in the suburban town of Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she grew up. The lives of several families become intertwined through their children and Ng’s tale of what happens behind perfectly manicured suburban lawns takes off. The characters and the story telling are excellent with just enough believable twists to keep me hooked. While reading, I wondered if a movie version was planned as the story and characters seem ideal. I just read that Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington are planning a TV series.
The second book, “Ordinary Grace” by William Kent Krueger, is based in New Bremen, Minnesota in 1961 and is narrated by Frank Drum. He recounts the story of his teenage years from the perspective of a 40 year older version of himself. 40th anniversaries are a theme this week!
We had brunch at “Boulevardier” restaurant in Oak Cliff and it was one of our most surprisingly great meals in a while. I had the “Legs and Eggs” – duck confit with sunny side up eggs served over stone cut grit cakes – yummy! Diana might have had an even better brunch – lox benedict over an amazingly light brioche. The hollandaise sauce and the brioche were the best I’ve tasted.
And to finish out the post this week, here’s a picture of my oldest child resplendent in the kilt and accessories he purchased on his trip to Scotland last week. Apparently this was the outfit he planned to wear to see “The Phantom of the Opera” in San Francisco this weekend.