Books on vacation

Luckily I only brought one Lee Child book with me on vacation, otherwise that's all I would have read. While that might have been okay, there is probably a limit to how much violence one person can take and I had no desire to explore that limit-I'll read them over Thanksgiving and Christmas, when it will annoy my sister because she doesn't like his books and when my relatives will make me want to kill someone.

So, I read Bad Luck and Trouble about old pals of Reacher's being killed him putting the old gang back together to find out who did it. Yes, these are bad guys who do really awful things and Reacher and his pals make them pay. Isn't that the case with all Reacher books? The thing is, Child is a great storyteller and the writing is really good. It's not great (and by that I mean it's not poetic) but it's far more than than just good. And I always want to know what happens next and how Reacher gets he and his friends out of a jam (usually at the last minute) which is why I can't start one now (I have a few left to read) because otherwise I will NEVER finish Anathem, Neal Stephenson's new doorstop of a book. It looks to be twice the size of one the Baroque Trilogy books and I really want to finish before Thanksgiving. We'll see.
I also got caught up on the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books. I read The Beekeeper's Apprentice a few years ago and really liked it but I let the resulting sequels fall by the wayside, thinking they couldn't be as good. but The Game, where they go to India and meet up with the original Kim (you know, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, THAT Kim) was very good, The Moor, in which Holmes returns to The Hound of the Baskervilles (and gets a couple of really good lines off on Russell) and Locked Rooms, about Russell's return to San Francisco and the truth about the car accident that caused the death of parents and younger brother were all captivating.
next up was Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee. This is the story of how Alice started Chez Panisse, the drama and indulgence (I'm looking at you, Jeremiah Tower), the search for good simple food and the delicious revolution. It was fascinating. It was also interesting how Chez Panisse went from All Things French to great local food (I'm still baffled why the wine list has so many French wines, considering the location, but that's me). And don't get me wrong, I LOVE Chez Panisse. Every time I've gone, the food has been good from beginning to end. The people who work there are incredibly nice (and Jean-Pierre signed my menu!) and it's been wonderful each time-I still think about that sour-cherry crisp with vanilla ice cream-it was perfect.
I started Anathem on my way home and truth to tell it was hard to get into in the beginning. But so was Cryptonomicron, which I ended up loving, so I'm persevering. But I can't even start another Reacher book or bring one to work with me to read because if I do, Anathem will fall by the wayside and I'll never finish it. But I have a handful of Reachers to read, a couple more Mary Russelll books and a book about Chinese cooking. I need to finish Anathem soon.

A Great Meal in NYC

I went to NYC last weekend and had a wonderful meal at a great restaurant-but first a word about comic book movies.
I love most comic book movies-and I'll go to almost any one (yes, FF2 and The Hulk remake included. I'm still upset over the Galactus thing). But when I heard Seth Rogen was in The Green Hornet, my heart sank. Why would I want to see it? No thnks, Green Hornet and Bruce Lee love aside, I don't think so. And then I read about Stephen Chow both directing it and playing Kato and I was forced to change my mind. Stephen Chow! From Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, two seriously great movies. I may have to go see it after all.

So, M and I went to Soccarrat, a paella bar in NYC. They eight differnt kinds of paella, pages of tapas and great sangria-one that was not too sweet but full of fruit and a good red wine. There are only two separate tables for groups of four, everyone else sits at one long table, so don't expect privacy. The paella is served from the pan, set on a raised holder in between you and your partner. We had the meat paella with mushrooms and it was tasty. Most paellas I've had have been pretty bland-just rice and lots of seafood and not much spice-but this had garlic and shallots and pepper-it was wonderful. The rice on the edges was crispy and burned, it might have been the best part. And tapas were great too-croquetas filled with cheese and bits of ham, meatballs (M didn't like them and usually loves meatballs) and sauteed vegetables. And at the end, the gave us two small glasses of sherry-unfortunately it was a bit too sweet for both of us.
Overall, a great meal and perhaps the quintessential New York meal. I'm still thinking about it.

A Funny Story

This happened before I went on vacation. I was showing the temp around our offices and I stopped at a spot outside the door leading into the kitchen. I stopped there and "Everyone here is really nice-the people are great".
Immediately, a chorus of voice came from the offices nearby.
"You're lying!"
"We are not!"
"Don't lie to her!"

I just started laughing. It was so funny and typical-it was an appropriate way to welcome her-now she knew what she was in for.

Part Two

On Friday, we did a small hike-just an hour or two and then went wine-tasting at Chateau Montelena (mentioned in Bottle Shock) and sparkling wine at Mumms-which has a beautiful seating area and some great wine-it was really nice. For dinner, it was Go Fish, which was really good. I had new England clam showder (more brothy than thick but tasty) and D had a salad. For dinner I had soup and noodles with tempura prawns and D had bronzino-and both were great. It was only marred by my trying to spill all my water on her and the fact that there was so much of my soup I couldn't finish it. But it was really good.
Saturday we headed back but took a little detour to the touristy town of Sonoma. We agreed that a few years ago it was probably great, although a lot like Mendocino but without the cool art galleries. What it DID have were billions of tourists in their bad clothes, all of them overweight and clogging all the restaurants.
we escaped and went to D favorite plant store and then headed into Palo Alto, where we got our nails done at Gorgeous Nails in -the best place to get it done in the whole area, I swear. It's actually in Mountain View and they have the best mani-pedi ever. When they told they had not won the 2008 poll for best nail salon, I was shocked-all the women that work there are great but Nancy in particular is awesome. How could this be? And then dinner at Fiesta del Mar-great Mexican food and very cool.
And Sunday was the hike. I've done this hike before but it was awhile ago. And I remember the parts that were tricky-rocky and steep but I was fine, eventually. But I never had to actually climb because there was no trail. The trail had gotten washed out and so we had to find handholds and purchases for our feet-it wasn't pretty. And i was first, so I was a little concerned-but it was odd because I wasn't scared. I looked at it and thought for a few seconds about where I needed to go where I could put my hands and feet and then I did it. It wasn't very far and then i saw where others had gone and since they presumably hadn't fallen, that's where I went as well. And after a break to catch our breaths, I felt really good. It's been awhile since I had a workout that I felt good after, so it was nice to know it was still there.
And then went to Whole Foods. I have a love/hate relationship with a Whole Foods in Palo Alto-I always feel like I'm not wearing the right thing-my tevas are either too beat-up or not the right shoe-everyone is wearing something else. Or I wear high-heeled boots and nice clothes and everyone else is in expensive yoga clothes. So it was funny that I was wearing grubby shorts, tevas with dirt all over them (and on me as well) a t-shirt with a dirty hoodie over it and my hair in a pony tail and it was the first time that I felt like I actually fit in there. Maybe it was me and I just didn't care anymore. Maybe the endorphins were still kicking in and I felt good so I didn't care-but it was interesting. And the guys who worked the cheese counter were awesome.
Dinner was at a Spanish/Tapas place in Menlo Park called Iberia-and it was like a little slice of Spain. we sat in a tiny booth, the waiter didn't really speak English, the food tasted wonderful-and not like any part of it came from the United States. It was very cool, although I think next time if we go there, we should just have dinner and an appetizer.
And Monday I came home-there will be more later on the books I read.

Vacation and Surviving a 10-Mile Hike

Actually, I have to say that I did not just survive the hike, I kicked ass on it. Even the part we actually had to climb because the trail had washed out-and as it the trail lead along the side of a hill and there was no place to go (down was 40 feet down to some racks and a small stream) we climbed up. But I'm getting ahead of myself-let's start from the beginning of the trip, which was significantly different, as it started in a city.

The City, as people (and Eddie Izzard in his classic Dressed to Kill) call San Francisco. Actually, I started off in San Jose and let me say that for an airport in the heart of Silicon Valley, home to many extremely wealthy people, this is a crappy airport. You can see that they're improving it (and the new terminal looks to be very cool when it's done) but it's a crappy airport. And that's where I was when D picked me up and we headed north, after we stopped so she could pack.
Once in the city, we got lost. I don't know why this hotel is hard to find-it's right off the Embarcadero, it's pretty central and it's not that small-but the street it's on is small and hard to find (the hotel entrance is NOT on Embarcadero) so we didn't actually get into the room until 10:00 or so-and then went to find something to eat. The meal was good-but really heavy. I had empanadas filled with cheese and squash-the only problem was that they felt like each one weighed two pounds each-so I only ate one.
The next day, it rained pretty hard, which put quite the damper on our plans to walk on the Embarcadero, which is quite a nice walk when it's not pouring. Went ate and went back to the room and napped. But I really wanted to go to Banana Republic (the flagship store is in SF) so we dragged ourselves out into the rain and over to BR, planning on going directly to the restaurant afterwards.
BR was great-I found exactly what I was looking for and then dinner at Chez Panisse. Dinner at Chez Panisse is interesting. When I first went, I didn't know quite what to expect-some fancy place? An expensive SF restaurant? But while it is expensive (although less so in the cafe where we ate) and it's a little fancy, it's just great from beginning to end. The people who work there are really nice, the food is wonderful from beginning to end and it's all great. I had a salad of ricotta and roasted cherry tomatoes, an entree of roasted pork with crispy potatoes and burnt caramel ice cream with bittersweet chocolate sauce for dessert. And it was great from beginning to end. D didn't care too much for her shellfish stew-she said it was good, but I could tell she didn't care for it-but the crisp for dessert was great.
Sunday, we shopped. Not much to tell except that we both got some great deals at the resale stores.
And then we had dinner at SPQR. SPQR took the place of our beloved Chez Nous-and it's just not the same. It's pricier and more hip but is that worth it? I guess for the owners it is, but I still mourn the death of a cool neighborhood place to make way for this hip Roman bistro.
And how was the food? The crispy brussel sprouts (which I have never liked) were great. The chanterelles were great, the meatballs were great-for a place that I can't say I'm planning on going back to, we ate a lot. Our unhappiness at the death of Chez Nous was somewhat mitigated by the conversation we had with the two gay guys at the next table, which was fun. One of them, at least was chatty and funny-it was fun. But it was no Chez Nous.
Back to Palo Alto-not much to say other than it was rainy and cold all day and we had leftovers that I heated up-the leftover carbonara was good. And Tuesday more of the same except we went to Mandarin Gourmet (really good) and watched McCain's concession speech and Obama's speech to his supporters, which was even better.

Wednesday we headed up to Calistoga and we kicked off by wine and cheese and Domaine Carneros. Carneros is beautiful. You have to walk up some steps to get there, but the wide veranda overlooking the vineyard is beautiful-and the sparkling wine (can't call it Champagne) was great.
On to Calistoga, where we checked in and decided to eat in town. Calistoga doesn't have many restaurants, but they're all pretty good. We at at the Four Season's cafe-and we may have been the only ones there, which was odd because her bronzino and my crispy chicken with frites were great-and the creme brulee was one of the best I've ever had.
Thursday was spa and pool day-we had treatments and massages and laid by the pool. It was lazy and relaxing and awesome-and then dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in Yountville.
Cindy's is nice but I can't take the back room. It's prim and fussy and ANNOYING. The food is great though-and my grilled and marinated hangar steak was awesome. No dessert because every time we get a dessert there, it invariably disappoints.

To be continued...