Category: Food

“Holiday gatherings – and another one, and yet another one”

Diana’s friend, Amy, joined us in Pacifica on Monday.  I encouraged the girls to get out of the house for a while and they took me up on it.  Champagne at Nick’s and a view of the waves:

You don’t really get the perspective from the video, but those were some large swells – the same ones that washed away the pier in Santa Cruz.  After that the girls shopped at Sirens and then ran some other errands.  Diana always enjoys hanging out with Amy.

Tuesday (Christmas Eve) started with a visit from Campbell, Will, Christine, and Ollie.

Will brought some very yummy Indian food from Redwood City.  I don’t remember the name of the lamb dish, but that and the chicken Tikka were both delicious.  Thanks Will!

We had a fun gift exchange – I’ll have to show you a picture of my fancy purple hat when I wear it for the first time.

One of the more entertaining episodes was Will reminding us of his track and field and cross country activities in high school.  Funny that Campbell and I don’t remember anything about that.  He called his friend, Otter, who verified that they did high jump and long jump.  Hmmm.

I do remember Will skateboarding ALL THE TIME.  Told him to bring his board next time and take advantage of the new half pipe in Adamo’s back garden:

Immediately after that, it was time to start preparing for the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  Do we really need to go to this trouble every year?  Absolutely, apparently!  The seven fishes were:

Petrale Sole with prep by Giancarlo:

Scallops and lobster by Adamo:

Smoked salmon from Diana and Marco.  Regular salmon from Diana.  Anchovy pasta from Diana.  Shrimp wontons from Carolyn.  And it seems like we had a bonus fish that I’m forgetting.  I would ask Diana, but she’s having a well deserved nap.

There were a total of nineteen people for the fishes.  Clorinda had a great time holding court with everyone.

That feast was a lot of work and delicious.  Everyone had a good time.

Next up – Christmas dinner.   We worked on lamb lollipops, baked ham, and scalloped potatoes.  Carlo did a great job with the lamb, Alicia with the potatoes, and Giancarlo with a very healthy salad.  This was a more manageable group – Marco and Julie and family, Giancarlo and Carlo, and the residents of 1 Gypsy Hill road.

We wondered about adding the livestock outside the kitchen window to the feast:

Dinner was followed by a gift exchange.  I should have made a video of the dancing dog singing “We wish you a Merry Xmas” that Marco got his Mom.  She has quite a collection of those silly things now – that she loves.

Boxing Day – we met Sean and Sheri at Buck’s in Woodside for lunch – halfway point between south San Jose and Pacifica.  We hadn’t seen these guys in a while and we had a lengthy catchup on family, jobs and everything else.  A very pleasant few hours.

Friday – time for another group.  A lovely group consisting of Diana’s stepsons John and Joey and their families.  The four kids are so wonderfully interactive and well behaved.  Diana did a great job raising those two boys.

You don’t hear about these guys too often, so from left to right:

Bonna, Joey, Lilly, Ezra, Diana, Clorinda, Lianna, Ben, Alicia, Maddie, and John.  Such a great group of people.

We had leftovers and a gift exchange for the kids.  One of the highlights was a mask for Lianna that Diana got her in the French Quarter after her birthday brunch.

She has a masquerade ball dance coming up and was very excited.  Grammie is sporting a mask that she’s had in her closet forever.

This was such a nice visit and so calm – maybe my favourite of the week.

Saturday – time to pack up and head home.  I couldn’t believe how quiet the airport was.  We left early, expecting a very crowded situation.  There was nobody in front of us in the TSA line and the entire concourse was empty:

Gave us time for a drink and a salad at the Lark Creek Grill – very good.  We had a very friendly flight attendant that made the flight to New Orleans fun.  Fortunately our flight arrived just as the thunder storms moved out of the area – the three flights ahead of us were diverted to Dallas, which would have been a real pain.

We dropped off my library book and made a visit to Martin to stock up for New Year’s Eve.  Interestingly, Jude Law was spotted there this week:

I pulled up to the intersection of Prytania and Washington and it was all blocked off by police vehicles.  After discussion, they allowed us in to park in our drive, just before a second line parade came down the street in front of our house.  This is unusual – they usually turn on St. Charles.

The rest of today will be spent watching football and prepping for New Year’s Eve.

Look at this gorgeous view from my sister and brother in law’s home in Aberdeenshire this week:

I finished up Demon Copperhead this week – finally.  Kelly had recommended this to me with:

“This is a book that is funny, sad and endearing.  5 stars for sure.”

It won the Pulitzer prize and was an Oprah’s book club selection.

All that is well and good, but it really wasn’t a great read for me.  I must have missed the “funny” parts.  It was a slog through all the sad things that happen to disadvantaged children in the midst of the opioid crisis in underprivileged parts of the country.

I think Kingsolver did an amazing job of putting herself into Damon’s mind and writing from his perspective.  Really amazing.

The last quarter of the book held my attention much better than the earlier sections – likely because a bit of optimism crept in.

The last page was maybe my favorite, as it uses an oyster metaphor for the relationship between Demon and Angus:

“I was extremely unclear about where we were headed. Was she still my sister?

She smacked her forehead. “Oh my God. Oysters.”

“What about them.”

“You can only eat them in winter! June, July, August, they’re poison.

You have to wait till the months that have the letter R.”

This sounded highly doubtful. “Why is that?”

“Believe it or not, with my amazingly advanced degree, I don’t know.

It’s one of these things you pick up. I went to New Orleans a few times with friends.”

There he was, the friend. “And you’re saying it’s worth the wait? Because I’m saying Mrs. Peggot used to cook them in soup at Christmas, and I was not a fan.”

“This is nothing like that. At the beach they’re fresh. You crack them open and drink them right off the shell. Raw. Technically I guess still alive.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“You won’t believe how good. It’s like kissing the ocean. Demon.” She leaned forward so I could see her face, and drilled those bad-girl eyes into me with a look that threatened my perfect driving record. “And it’s kissing you back.”

Oh my Lord. The girl has set her cap. Not my sister.

We talked the whole way through the Shenandoah Valley. The end of the day grew long on the hills, then the dark pulled in close around us. Snowflakes looped and glared in the headlights like off-season lightning bugs. Ridiculous nut that I’d been to crack. I drove left-handed with my right arm resting on her seat back, running my thumb over the little hairs on the back of her neck. The trip itself, just the getting there, possibly the best part of my life so far.

That’s where we are. Well past the Christiansburg exit. Past Rich-mond, and still pointed east. Headed for the one big thing I know is not going to swallow me alive.””

I don’t think I agree with all the hype around this book, and really don’t recommend it unless you want a deep view into the tough life of disadvantaged children from many aspects.

I really enjoyed the guitar sound and atmosphere of this new one from T Bone:

This sounds like something modern from the Grateful Dead’s “American Beauty” album:

Kathleen Edward’s voice is so pure on this Springsteen cover:

Another great version of this song:

And finally, Nick Lowe showing all the age in his voice to great effect:

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all!

 

 

 

 

“Xmas parade and Meads visit”

Diana was back out in California to be with her Mom this week until late Thursday.  This is an amazing sunset picture.

 

 

 

I went for a walk in Audubon park on Monday and made a small diversion for brunch at Tartine.  Diana had told me about going there with Kara and it sounded very good.  The baked eggs in brioche was excellent and I look forward to returning soon.  Every plate I saw going past looked tasty.

 

 

I suggested to Kenny and Kara that we might want to attend the free concert by John Boutte in St Louis cathedral.  Kenny drove down, parked us at the fire house and then we had a drink at the Pirates Alley bar by the cathedral.  We got there fifteen minutes before show time and were very surprised to find the place completely full – standing room only.  One can go and see John Boutte at DBA during the week and have five to ten people join you – but a free concert draws thousands of folks?

The show was very good – including a version of Ave Maria where Boutte didn’t remember all the words the first time through.  The band was very nuanced and accomplished.  Video was not allowed in the cathedral and so here’s a taste of Boutte’s soulful voice from Jazzfest:

We had a drink at Fives bar after the show.  This is a sister to the Columns and has excellent craft cocktails.

 

 

I took this picture of Kenny and Kara on the walk back to the fire house.  The city has some lights to repair on the riverfront tree.

Diana was scheduled to fly home midday on Thursday.  She let me know there was a tsunami warning in place as she was packing up.  What?  Yes – there was an offshore earthquake north of San Francisco and they were evacuating the kids from the schools down the hill from Clorinda’s house.  The warning was lifted just before McD left for the airport.

Diana made it home safely late on Thursday night.

My friend Mike Mead was in town for the weekend – his wife had a girls trip for a cruise down the Danube (tough life), and Mike and his three boys decided a trip to New Orleans would be fun – they have not visited before.

I invited them to meet me for lunch at the Columns on Friday – we had a very entertaining time catching up and revisiting stories from our past.  Mike’s son, Simon, is very into music and audio equipment.  He asked me if there was any Japanese style jazz playing in town.  What on earth is that?  He described it some more and I called Denny for input.  There was a show at Snug Harbor in the evening that totally met the requirements.

Mike reports that Simon loved it.  And I get ahead of myself yet again.  After the Columns lunch, I invited the crew back to the house to check out my Linn audio setup and listen to some music.  We picked up Diana from her hair appointment on the way.  A walking tour of the Garden District ensued.  And then Diana was quite happy to host the group for oysters at Superior Seafood.  I had a very nice time hanging out with the Mead boys.

I heard the next morning that the boys had played poker at Caesar’s casino by their hotel until 3:30am.  Just nuts!

I talked Diana into going downtown for the Christmas parade on Saturday morning.

This was a two hour long parade – over thirty floats, at least ten marching bands, many marching krewes and balloon floats like Rudolph above.  Diana got quite a haul of throws, including a riding Elvii scarf and a light up ornament necklace.  Here’s one of the marching groups that put a smile on my face:

And of course I’m a fan of the balloon penguin:

Diana was excited to see Santa and his reindeer:

The Meads caught the parade outside their hotel:

I got tired of standing in place and so we walked down to Canal Street to see the end of it.  “We’re almost at the Roosevelt hotel, why not go in and see the lights?”  What a silly idea.  There were oodles of families taking their Christmas card pictures – a complete zoo.  Note to self – don’t do this after the parade next year.

 

 

We got home in time to freshen up for the Happy Hour that Kenny and Kara were hosting for his brother, Andrew, and his partner Todd.  Kenny was an excellent host – he had cooked up some gumbo, muffulettas, potato salad and all kinds of other goodies.  It was fun getting to know Andrew better – such a good sense of humor, and the same curious intelligence in his eyes that Kenny displays.

Diana and Kara were determined to go and listen to music, the rest of us quite happy to relax – so you can guess what we did.  Yep, over to the Bayou bar at the Ponchatrain hotel to listen to music.

The music was really good and the good news is that we were able to walk home.  We should frequent this place more often.

Sunday started with Diana getting her second shingles shot.  We followed that up with a trip to the grocery store, and now the Christmas decorations are going up.  Fun all around!

I received an interesting gift this week.  It’s called Bartesian and is like a Keurig machine, but for cocktails.  You fill up the big bottles with whiskey, vodka, gin and tequila and then insert the pods for various cocktails.  We’re looking forward to trying it out for New Year’s Eve.

I watched “Churchill at War” on Netflix this week.  Very interesting series that tracks his life and decisions before World War II – did he really have such a big opportunity to avert the rise of Hitler?

After the disappointment of “Bee Sting”, I moved on to Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver.  This is a modern take on Dickens’ David Copperfield and is off to a good start.  Much more to come.

 

 

 

I’m listening to a podcast, “The Wonder of Stevie”, that I love.  It covers his five classic albums from the early seventies and is very well done.

I watched a short documentary, “Only Girl in the Orchestra”, about the first lady to play in the New York Philharmonic – so well done.  It featured the second movement from Beethoven’s symphony number seven – amazing.

 

 

Finally, I found a new band this week called The Stews that I like very much:

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all!

 

 

 

“Friends and New Relatives”

Diana made a last minute trip to California to take care of her Mom.  It’s hard for her with the sciatica and long plane trips, but she’s a trooper and muscles through it.  The good news is that Clorinda was released from hospital after a few days and was happy to be home again.

We had an exciting new addition to the family this week.  Heather and Michael’s baby, Hamish, arrived at 8lbs 1oz and “very long.”  Everyone is doing well as evidenced by these pictures.  Not sure the dog, Milo, knows what to make of it all.

Neffie and Shaun and kids arrived on Thursday night late, on their way to New York to support another kid dancing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.  They are nuts to drive!

Kenny came over on Friday and we hung out for a while before lunch at Shaya.  Always so amazing – the lamb ragu hummus is still the best I’ve had.

We stopped at Mignon Faget on the way to lunch so that I could do some early shopping for the holidays. That ended up taking way longer than it should have – you know how patient I am with shopping expeditions.

Saturday was an excellent music day for me, thanks to Kenny, Kara, and Colleen.  Kenny got us on the guest list for his cousin, Tim Laughlin’s, concert with Tom McDermott at Tom’s house.  Here they perform my favourite Scott Joplin rag (Pineapple):

It was a bit unusual being in an artist’s home with bedroom and kitchen all open plan to the group attending the show – at the same time very intimate and welcoming.  I think Tim is a huge talent.

We followed that with a visit to the Kingpin to see the Iguanas perform.  These guys were a huge local band about twenty years ago.  Our friend, Derek, was a member back in the day.

I gave up on “The Bee Sting” this week.  I just can’t deal with the complete lack of punctuation for hundreds of pages – no periods, commas, or quotation marks.  Why?  What’s the point the author is trying to make?  I can parse it and read it, and I persevered for a while.  But no more.  This is the first book that I’ve given up on in several years.  Disappointing.  All of you reviewers that raved about this book need to rethink your opinions!

An interesting new take on a classic that I first heard done by David Coverdale and Whitesnake over forty years ago:

I know the Robert Palmer version of this, but had not heard this classic take:

A great sound:

Coexist peacefully, with patience and kindness for all!

“Sick Week”

I picked up a virus this week that shut me down for several days.  The symptoms were shortness of breath, bad cough, and high blood pressure.  It started to break on Thursday and I feel good now.  Whew!  Several friends report having similar symptoms – seems to be going around.

My oldest son turned thirty-six on Thursday, reinforcing how old I’m getting.  I asked him what he was doing for his birthday and came away exhausted – are you ready for it?  Here you go:

“I am going to get a shoulder workout in this morning and haircut, then take Ollie up to his groomer in South SF and go to my favorite sandwich shop Deli Board that won top #10 sandwiches in the nation! Then home for some meetings and then back to the gym again for a back and bicep lift before dinner with a big friend crew at Doppio Zero in San Carlos (certified Neapolitan pizza like Terun).”

I like to relax and not do too much on my birthday – apparently not passed on to the next generation.

It wasn’t until Friday that I started to feel like a human again.  Let’s try and put a Happy Hour together.   We had read in the paper that the new Saint John location had a “generous” Happy Hour.

The drinks and food were indeed generous for the price.  We worked our way through several, with the help of Thom and Kenny.  It took Thom a little bit of time to relax after the trauma of election day – much of his infectious disease research at Tulane is funded by government grants.

After Saint John, Thom drove us over to the Milan Lounge for a Jeopardy session, we didn’t keep official score but I think I won handily.

Kenny, Kara, Greg, Tyler and Oliver met us for the Laurel Street music on Saturday afternoon.  These neighbors do such a good job of presenting excellent music.  This time was the New Orleans Nightcrawlers (one of my favourites) and Peter Harris and the Allstars doing the music of James Black.

These concerts started during the pandemic to provide musicians with a place to play and have continued since.  Always excellent.

Here’s a snippet of the Nightcrawlers:

The Allstars were amazing – David Torkanowsky on piano, who I think is the best piano player in a city with many amazing pianists:

There was a new feature as the bands swapped out – a magician and juggler:

That guy was great and the kids of all ages were well entertained.  Here’s Greg’s grandson, Oliver, with some balloon art:

On the drive back home, we passed La Cocinita, a restaurant scheduled to open soon with arepas and empanadas (two of my go to foods).  “Slow down so I can see when it opens.”  “It just opened a few minutes ago – let’s go.”  “Sure!”

The food was excellent, particularly for a first night.  Diana had the Venezuelan sampler and I had an empanada and arepas – everything very tasty.  A great addition to the Prytania strip, that should do very well given the constant stream of customers on Saturday night.

Kenny and Kara invited us to experience the Prospect 6 art festival on Sunday.  We picked them up around 11am and set off for parts unknown.

Kenny took an interesting route across town to avoid the Saints game traffic.  We found ourselves by St Roch market and decided to stop in for a snack.  This is a converted old fish market that has about a dozen different food stalls.  We enjoyed some loaded hummus (very good) and a drink.

Next stop was an old Ford factory that housed several interesting exhibits.

Sometimes the descriptions of the art are as entertaining as the exhibit.  This one of a moving luggage carousel represented various aspects of human migration:

That was followed by an office chair chandelier:

Upstairs there were some interesting sculpture pieces – basketball goals?

Then there was the long tube of shipping barrels with chairs to talk from.  It was really amazing how much the tube amplified speech.  Kenny serenaded Kara:

We’re running a caption contest for this one:

We had a pleasant lunch at the Sneaky Pickle and then drove by a couple of outdoor exhibits on the way back home.

The Cowboys are currently losing badly to the Eagles, as could have been predicted.

My book this week was “Sonny Boy”, autobiography of Al Pacino.  The writing wasn’t great but the story was excellent.  How does a poor kid from the South Bronx get so addicted to the theater and literature, and then become such a massive movie star.  Just a great journey.

 

 

 

Here he talks about his early influences:

“It had started with Brando. He was the influence. The force. The originator. What he had created, together with collaborators like Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan, was more visceral. It was threatening. Brando had become part of a triumvirate of actors, along with Montgomery Clift and James Dean. Clift had the beauty and the soul, the vulnerability. Dean was like a sonnet, compact and economical, able to do so much with the merest gesture or nuance. And if Dean was a sonnet, then Brando was an epic poem. He had the looks. He had the charisma. He had the talent.”

And about his admiration for Hoffman:

“And then Mike Nichols got hold of him, all of him, for The Graduate. The Graduate was contemporary and of the moment, a commentary on the world we were living in, and it fit him perfectly. It came along at the right time, right when we were ready for it. And its success made Dustin a movie star supreme. I was working up in Boston when The Graduate opened, and I said, this is it, man—it’s over. He’s broken the sound barrier. The excitement for me was in seeing an artist doing something so well, something original, that you recognized had never been done before.”

How it all started with Coppola:

“My relationship with the director who would change my life began oddly. Francis Ford Coppola had seen me onstage, when I did Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? on Broadway, but I didn’t meet him at the time. He was a young up-and-comer who had already directed a couple of films. Out of the blue, he sent me an original script that he had written, a wonderful love story about a young college professor with a wife and children who has a love affair with one of his students. It was mythical and a bit surreal but beautifully written. Francis wanted to meet with me about playing the role of the professor. That meant I had to get on a plane and go to San Francisco, which is something I would have difficulty doing. I didn’t like to fly. I thought, Is there any other way to get there?”

His thoughts on the next generation of film directors:

“I thought Francis had been touched by genius. He had this excitement in him. He was a leader, a doer, and a risk-taker. He brought me to his company, American Zoetrope, in a big building—basically an above-ground bunker where he worked surrounded by a mixed crowd. If my memory is correct, I think I saw George Lucas and Steven Spielberg there. Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma were also part of the group. I had no idea who they were at the time, but I knew they weren’t actors. They were a band of young radicals who came from the sixties and were about to bring moviemaking into the seventies. They were alive to bigger changes in the film culture.”

A few passages about Pacino’s life changing movie – “The Godfather”:

“First he told me he was going to be directing The Godfather. I thought he might be fantasizing. What was he talking about? How did they give him The Godfather? I had read Mario Puzo’s novel, which had become a big hit; it was a huge deal for anyone to be involved with it. But when you’re a young actor you don’t even put your eyes on those things. Just getting any part in a film is a miracle. Opportunities like those don’t exist for you. It just seemed so outrageous. And then I thought, Hey—maybe this is possible. I had spent time with Francis. I saw that he carried himself with confidence, and that gave me faith in him.”

“Paramount didn’t want me to play Michael Corleone. They wanted Jack Nicholson. They wanted Robert Redford. They wanted Warren Beatty or Ryan O’Neal. In the book, Puzo had Michael calling himself “the sissy of the Corleone family.” He was supposed to be small, dark-haired, handsome in a delicate way, no visible threat to anybody. That didn’t sound like the guys that the studio wanted. But that didn’t mean it had to be me.”

“But here’s the secret: Francis wanted me. He wanted me and I knew that. And there’s nothing like when a director wants you. It’s the best thing an actor could have, really. He also gave me a gift in the form of Diane Keaton. He had a few actresses he was auditioning for the role of Kay, but the fact that he wanted to pair me up with Diane suggested she had an edge in the process. I knew she was doing well in her career and had been appearing on Broadway in shows like Hair, and Play It Again, Sam with Woody Allen. A few days before the screen test, I met Diane in Lincoln Center at a bar, and we just hit it off. She was easy to talk to and funny, and she thought I was funny too. I felt like I had a friend and an ally right away.”

I enjoyed this story of the classic phrase from “Scent of a Woman”:

“When I was preparing for the role, I would sometimes get handed these gifts as an actor, and I knew that I had to make use of them. This was one: A military officer was teaching me how to disassemble and reassemble a .45 while blind, the way a person without sight would do it. Try it sometime. I kept doing it, over and over, and on those rare occasions when I’d do it well, when I’d finally get all those pieces to fit together just right, he’d go, “Hoooooo-ah.” And I looked at him and said, “What’s that?” He said, “Oh, when the troops do something that works, we give it a little hoooooo-ah.” It was like a bit of punctuation. I said to myself, That’s going into the picture. It was like Attica all over again.”

Finally, here’s the online summary:

“To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force.

But Pacino was in his midthirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe. 

Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.”

The touch and feel of Brad Mehldau on the piano are second to none.  Here are a couple of songs that I enjoyed this week:

There’s a new Tears for Fears album out, with all the usual perfect musicianship and wonderful melodies:

Sneaking in a little bit of classic New Orleans funk:

Midge Ure, of Ultravox fame, picked his five favourite albums this week and it was like a trip back to high school for me:

https://www.spin.com/2024/11/5-albums-i-cant-live-without-midge-ure-of-ultravox-visage/

Some great albums in those top five!

Here’s one of Midge’s big hits live from the Albert Hall:

And finally, after a long music section (that’s what happens when I’m sick with nothing else to do), here’s a really interesting version of the Emperor concerto.  Much slower than usual but I find it quite compelling:

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all!