Culinary Muse

CARMEL AUTO SHOW AND BEYOND

What is it about Carmel-by-the-Sea  that continues to charm me after all these years?  Is it the businesses housed in storybook cottages with names like ‘Tuck Box’  that serve proper tea?  Or the mix of stores selling souvenir sweatshirts, ‘art?!?’ (see below) and $250 men's ties.  All doing a brisk business, might I add.

 

Most of my trips to Carmel in the past few years have been for business. But that hasn’t prevented me from enjoying the amenities of my favorite Carmel hotel, Doris Day's Cypress Inn, or driving down to Big Sur for dinner at Nepenthe's .  This time around I came for the day to attend a car show with photographer husband (see 8/10/09 entry above).   

As we coasted down Ocean Avenue toward downtown Carmel, we could hear the cars before we could see them. The deep resonance of their engines idling reverberated through the cypress trees.  We were in the right place. We arrived just as the cars were lining up on a side street.  I was struck by the amount of time and organization that goes into an event like this. It may look easy to put together a car show but a close look reveals the careful attention to detail.  Just getting a car parked takes three people. First, each car is escorted to its parking place by two navy-blue-blazer-Panama-hat-wearing event officials in a golf cart.   Once they have arrived at the correct parking space, one official jumps out of the golf cart, clears away the pedestrians, and guides the car and driver into its space.  Out comes a pair of black director’s chairs for the car owners/handlers to sit in.  Then a large terra cotta flowerpot, filled with flowers, is placed to the side of each car.  This is where a small sign describing the car is posted. I wondered how many of those would get knocked down during the day.

But back to the cars.  How great to see relics of the past so lovingly preserved.  And how interesting to wonder how the car owners came to be paired up with their cars.  Original owners?  Inherited? Investment?

What is it about an XK120 Jaguar that makes me want to sigh? It speaks of an elegance of the past.

 

And what possesses someone to buy and restore a Good Humor truck?  We were all glad he did as evidenced by the round of applause this relic from so many of our childhood’s received as it made its way down Ocean Avenue.  

I may have thought that I was going to spend the morning walking on the beach, sipping a cappuccino, but I was wrong. I didn’t anticipate being spellbound by the beauty of so many amazing cars in a fairytale setting like Carmel. 

After Photographer husband got the shots he needed we headed out of town, with a quick stop at the Carmel Mission. 

 

Then we were off to Nepenthe’s for a late lunch. Now, a lot of people will say that a hamburger is not worth $14, no matter where it is served.  Those people have not been to Nepenthe’s. I have been making the pilgrimage to this oasis since I was 18. There is no other place like it on earth.  I have my favorite table (near the host’s stand).  My favorite drink has changed through the years.  In my lean college years it was a glass or two of the house white wine.  The dot.com days brought out the champagne.  Two years ago I was introduced to their version of a Cosmopolitan.  So pretty and so thirst quenching.

 

Lunch at Nepenthe’s is a lingering affair if you plan it just right.  October is my favorite month to visit, but sometimes you just have to grab an opportunity when it appears. And if it meant that the wait for ‘our table’ would be over an hour, well then, that meant my pre-lunch cocktails would be savored at the bar and not the table. 

Good-bye Junkies, Hello Starbucks

I haven’t been in NYC since 1998. I arrived Friday afternoon and by Sunday I realized what had changed in the past 11 years. New York City has been steam cleaned. Along with the grime that has been swept away is a certain tension that made trips here in the past both exciting and exhausting. By tension I mean the contrast between the best and the worst. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation. New Yorkers must be relieved that everyday life has eased up at least on the surface. However, along with the grime and the junkies a lot of NYC’s uniqueness has disappeared. I was at the Time Warner building Tuesday morning. With so much marble and glass around me I felt what the recent years of great wealth has brought to this city. But will this new economy be able to support what the old economy built? 

Except for the architecture and better museum collections, I could be in San Francisco or Los Angeles. I look out the window of the bus and see familiar Big Box American stores along stretches of avenues that at one time were desolate and foreboding.  I walked home from Times Square one night after seeing ‘West Side Story’ and only saw people that looked like they could have been transported from Any Mall, USA.  That was not the case in 1979.  Starbucks is a clear indicator of neighborhood gentrification. Between the theater and my hotel I passed four of them. While I am grateful to be able to get a decent cup of coffee (something that was once impossible to find in NYC), I wonder what happens to a place that has been polished to such a high shine.  The NYC that I knew was a tough place. You had to be strong, crazy or rich to survive.  Now it seems to be a blander, more expensive version of the rest of America.

Now that I got that observation off my chest here is a list of what I love about NYC this time around:

Dinner at Cookshop on Tenth Avenue. I have never tasted scallops so sweet.  Was it the Bombay Martini up with a twist that put me in the mood for dessert?  Some crazy concoction that included peanut butter, chocolate, sea salt, and a variety of textures that only someone with the munchies could truly understand.  Thanks, Chef.

James Beard Media Awards Dinner. Sat with fellow judges. The food was great.  The company even better.  Ran into an old cooking school friend, sat next to a man who raises goats, and behind an old school cookbook editor who kept yelling at the waiter for ‘stealing’ her glass. 

Spending time with David Leite of Leite's Culinaria .  David really pulled through for this San Francisco gal with a media event at Per Se  and a private tour of the kitchen by Chef Keller.  

I haven’t eaten dinner at Per Se yet.  But I did manage to embarrass myself as we were leaving by attempting to push open the faux blue doors.  As I kept pushing against the very tasteful brass doorknob I looked over to my left to discover that the real door is a sliding pane of clear glass. Am I the first to assume that the doors are doors? And to think I only had two espressos.  I can only imagine what happens there on a Saturday night.

A day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the chance to see this amazing sculpture on the roof. 

 

Pastrami sandwich at Carnegie Deli

PACKING

I pack the suitcase for practice. I zip up the side zipper. And then I pick it up. Hmmm, not too bad. Could I run for a train with this on my shoulder? Sure. Now I get cocky. Can I travel with even less? Out goes the extra just-in-case pair of shoes. With a vow to hand wash nightly, I toss out the extra underwear. I call the hotel to see if they provide bathrobes. Yes, they do. Out goes the bathrobe. Can I part with my slippers? If I want to take the new red dress sandals I must. Good bye slippers. Something still doesn’t seem right. I re-read the article about packing. It suggests choosing just one or two colors for wardrobe. I am staring at a suitcase with three colors. I eliminate one of the colors. And then I remember my Aunt Mary’s European packing advice circa 1974. ‘Take just two colors. But not red and blue. You will look dumpy and everyone will know you are an American’. She would surely approve of my black and white wardrobe. I am comforted by the simplicity of my choice. They aren’t colors at all. They are as plain as a blank page. A good way to begin a trip.

ON THE ROAD TO JAMES BEARD AND THE GREENBRIER

It’s countdown time.  In one week the Muse sets off for food adventures of a magnificent and metropolitan sort.  The James Beard Media Awards and The Food Writer’s Symposium at The Greenbrier, via D.C., are our May destinations.  Planes, trains and taxis (no subways, thank you).  Tickets have been purchased, hotel reservations made (thank you for great deals, Orbitz and Hotels dot com) and we are forcing ourselves to stop the pre-planning there.  We need to leave some room for serendipity. Oh, yes, a letter to our senator has secured a tour of the Capitol.  A White House invitation is in the works.

Every trip needs road songs.  Here is the playlist so far:

‘So little time, so much to do’, Catherine Russell

‘Nigerian Marketplace’, Oscar Peterson Trio

‘Gonna take a miracle’ Laura Nyro

‘Back on the Block’ Quincy Jones

‘You must believe in spring’ Bill Evans

‘Hindustan’ Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby

Let the packing begin!!!