Left is Right, Right is a Head-On Collision Waiting to Happen

I was never excited by the idea of driving in Ireland, but after researching the public transportation options for the places I wanted to go, the time and trouble it would take to get trains and buses made renting a car a necessity. Even though they drive on the left. While sitting on the right. Both seemingly ridiculous notions after decades of right-lane/left-sitting driving. But how hard could it be? So this morning I went back to the airport and picked up my rental car. It's a tiny thing, easy to maneuver, and the driving on the left wasn't so bad - I just kept chanting "keep left, keep left, keep left" every time I came to an intersection or went through the approximately 8,000 roundabouts it took to drive the 150 miles (I refuse to think in kilometers) down Ireland's most winding roads to Doolin. Or near Doolin. I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere, but delightfully so.

The driving itself -- and sitting on the right wouldn't have helped -- was not so delightful. Once I got off the main highway, the roads were so narrow that whenever a car was coming in the other direction, it seemed like a miracle that I didn't smash right into it. For some reason, while sitting on the right, the tendency is to overcompensate when there's oncoming traffic by moving too far to the left, and since there is no shoulder on most of the roads I was on, that means coming precariously close to the stone walls which are inches from the passenger side door. I got used to the rat-a-tat-tat of the lane-edge markers on the left telling me to stop veering that way, and managed to get where I was going relatively unscathed. It helped that the views of the hills and the distant coastline were lovely (when I dared taking my eyes of the center divider), and I finally ended up here:

That is Matt and Julie's house and they couldn't be nicer. My room looks out onto a grassy field and green pastures dotted with farm houses; there are even a few sheep strolling around nearby. The town of Doolin is right up the road, but I'm not going anywhere this evening. My hands have finally unclenched and I'm going to sit up in bed and read - because when I look up from my screen, book, notes for tomorrow's adventure, this is what I see:

From the Emerald City to the Emerald Isle

Arrived in Dublin yesterday, very, very tired after about 15 hours of traveling (Seattle, Vancouver, London, Dublin), but determined to stay awake long enough to keep the jetlag at bay. I checked in with Richard, at whose house I'm staying in the suburb of Blanchardstown, had a much needed shower, and took a long walk through the neighborhood to a gigantic mall for something to eat and a little shopping. I packed light (even for me) on this trip so felt fully justified picking up a cool pair of lounge pants at the mall, and as much as I wanted to eat at Milano which was clearly Pizza Express which I know and love from England (I recognized the signage even though the name was different), I opted instead for a grilled chicken salad at Nando's next door -- again, fighting jet lag by eating clean(ish) and sticking to water.

Joe, my Dublin ambassador
next to a statue of James Joyce

can't think of a nicer place for coffee than the Merrion Hotel.

And it seems to be working because I got about 8 hours of sleep last night, and after breakfast with Christine, Shepard, Judy, and another lady whose name I never got - other American visitors staying at Richard's, I hopped a bus into central Dublin to meet a Dubliner. I had signed up with a program called City of a Thousand Welcomes to meet a local ambassador for a chat. The service is free and it's a delightful way to meet a local person who wants nothing more than to buy you a coffee (or juice or pint -- the ambassadors are reimbursed by the City) and tell you about his or her home. The Dubliner I met was Joe, who is retired from the textile business and has lived in Dublin his whole life. We chatted about things to do in Dublin, places to go around the country, and most importantly, I got some reassurance that driving on the left is going to be a breeze, all while sipping an exceptionally delicious cappuccino at the Merrion Hotel.

After coffee, Joe helped me find a shop that sells iPhones and accessories as a rather troubling development had occurred during my journey in that my phone was completely dead and refused to be charged. At the shop, they ran a diagnostic on my phone and determined that the battery was dead and resuscitation was not an option. It was around 2pm and I was instructed to leave my phone and return at 6. I walked around Grafton Street for a while, picked up some things I definitely didn't need but certainly wanted at a lovely shop called Avoca (my neighbor who had been to Ireland last year just said, "you're going there"), went to the Hugh Lane Gallery and the Garden of Remembrance, and got lunch at Crackbird (all manner of fried chicken), before picking up my phone, now working, and hopping back on the bus back to the 'burbs. Nice day in Dublin but looking forward to getting out of the city and into the countryside tomorrow.

stained glass by Harry Clarke, circa 1930 at the Hugh Lane

I didn't go into this pub, but it looked like a place
where everybody knows your name

Garden of Remembrance, DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO GAVE
THEIR LIVES IN THE CAUSE OF IRISH FREEDOM

Food & Wine, but Mostly Food

Today I drove to the Del Dotto Winery in St. Helena, Napa County, for the Delicacies tasting. People come from all over the world to drink the wine in Napa, but I went for the food. I had a few sips of wine during the tour of the caves, and the tour guide was knowledgeable and interesting -- there was much talk about French oak barrels versus American oak barrels and how each affects taste, and other people in the group ruminated and debated over tannins and finishes and I pretended to care... it was the 5-course lunch that was the draw for me, and it would have been just as fantastic with a glass of water.

Tsar Nicoulai caviar, sweet corn egg mousse,
green tomato relish

this lobster roll was nothing like this lobster roll

 

Hudson Valley foie gras, raspberries, caramelized white chocolate,
black truffle sformatto.

Wagyu beef and bacon slider

vanilla bean semifreddo, peaches, almond crumble

 

This month in California has been filled with food and wine and friends and family - a huge success!

Farm Dinner

This post is about a spectacular day, filled with beautiful food, which concluded with a situation which felt like a punch to the gut, but ended better than I could have imagined.
Last Sunday I went to a farm dinner in Petaluma, CA, which is about 40 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge (for those you not familiar with Winona Ryder's hometown). It was a beautiful warm day, the hills were glowing gold as they do in these parts every summer, and the evening started with a lovely drinks reception and passed hors d'oeuvres, mixing, mingling, chatting with the farmers, ranchers,
mushroom growers, etc., who had produced all the ingredients for the evening's meal, then touring some of the fields that had produced our food, until we finally progressed to dinner. I met two delightful couples who were celebrating a birthday (that day), and a marriage (that week), who so graciously insisted I join them, and we settled in for a six-course dining extravaganza. I spent the whole evening, as I often do in such a setting, snapping away with my camera. Every angle of the space, every setting on my camera, capturing the outdoor kitchen, the beautiful long

table, the big picture, the details, and of course, all the food. It was when I was snapping what would have been one of the last photos of the evening, the backdrop of glowing hills as the sun began to set, that I saw the note on my camera screen which casually mentioned that I was shooting with no memory card. I nearly threw up. Seriously, I felt my face get hot, and my knees get weak (that's really a thing), and I sat down in my chair, stunned. What was I going to post??? Even I get tired of these stupid ramblings, what I want are pictures! But I had none. So after agonizing over this for a few days, I was able to track down the official photographer for the event, and she graciously allowed me to use her beautiful photos!! All the photos here were taken by Neringa Greiciute of Slow Sunday Photography and they are so much better than anything I could have captured that day.

Dinner was as follows:

*deviled Dungeness crab Red Hill Ranch eggs
Dolcini Ranch steak tartare flambé
Far West Fungi porcini & burrata cannelloni

*County Line Harvest (the farm host) crudité with burnt eggplant hummus (third photo, left side); the veggies were nestled in those bowls in a layer of black hummus which looked exactly like mud - this was one of the best dishes of the night) and Devil's Gulch Ranch rabbit & carrot terrine with Tenbrink Farms mostarda (second photo; I had to break my 'I don't eat bunnies' rule for this one)

*County Line Harvest little gems & marinated melons with crispy speck (this tied with the veggies for the best dish of the night)

*summer minestrone pistou & saffron pasta with tomato & lobster broth

*smoked Dolcini Ranch beef brisket with blackened County Line Harvest eggplant & shishito peppers, couscous, pine nuts & harissa yogurt

*brown sugar pound cake with macerated Tenbrink Farms pluots, strawberry jam & lemon verbena cream (fourth photo)

Everything about this day and dinner was wonderful - and power of the internet even saved me from myself and my empty camera!

A View of the Bridge

Yesterday I went back to the Bay Area, through San Francisco and into Marin County to be specific, with the single goal of doing the hike I skipped last weekend in order to preserve my leftover lobster sandwich. I made the right call because we're having another beautiful weekend in Northern California, it was a lovely day for a hike, and getting to eat that sandwich twice made me so happy! 

In case you don't know how to get to the Golden Gate Bridge,
it's on U.S. Highway 101.

Traffic on the bridge on a sunny Saturday was quite heavy, and the walkways on either side were packed with pedestrians, but I wasn't interested in joining the mob. I crossed the span, exited Highway 101 after the viewpoint parking area (which was totally backed up), zig-zagged up a steep hill, parked in a dirt lot, and ended up with this view:

But that wasn't my end point either. I took off down an unmarked trail, through the brush, across the road, and up, up, up.

No one else was on the trail...

and this was the payoff:

After the first few minutes of snapping photos and being amazed that I seemed to be the only one at this spot, I noticed a family who had been picnicking a few feet down in a clearing in the brush, two young kids playing while parents were semi-snoozing -- we were the only ones up there. After snapping a bunch of pictures, I headed back down the trail and passed the only other people who seemed to be making their way up that day, a father with two teenaged daughters. The girls were scampering up and didn't look too strained, but the dad was red in the face, dripping with sweat, and very clearly wishing he was sitting by a pool with a cold beer. I knew exactly what he was going to say to me when we passed each other, and when he predictably asked me, "is it worth it?" I said to him, "I knew you were going to ask me that and I have my answer prepared, it's absolutely worth it and you're very close to the top." I'm sure he made it, I hope he agreed.

CALIFORNIA

I've never done a post title in all caps before, but this one deserves it. Living in Seattle, it's easy to forget that there are other places in the country besides the Pacific Northwest which are awesome, and California is definitely one of them. This month, I'm rediscovering Northern California from the home base of my parents' house in my hometown of Sacramento. So far I've been to Oakland twice, visited friends in Portola Valley, driven through San Francisco twice (haven't had time to stop yet), and meandered along miles of gorgeous coastline on Highway 1.

The Pacific Ocean was my main destination last Sunday. I left the home of friends in Portola Valley (northeast of Mountain View), traveled north, then west, until finally a ribbon of blue was in my sights; I was on a mission. Well, two missions - the first was just to see the open ocean, which we don't really see from Seattle since we're looking at the estuary that is Puget Sound; the second was to go to Sam's Chowder House and eat a lobster roll.

My friend Jeremy, who used to surf these parts when he was a Californian, gave me a tip on this place and told me to splurge on the lobster roll, the ordering of which begs the question, when is a sandwich worth $26.50? The answer is, when it's the lobster roll from Sam's Chowder House. When I first arrived at the joint on Sunday, it was just before 11am, and being Father's Day, there was a huge line out the door -- about 50 people were standing there waiting to get a table. It was hot and I wasn't actually that hungry, having eaten a late breakfast before leaving my friends' house in Portola Valley, so I decided to drive to the beach access down the road a little further and walk back along the coast to the restaurant. I ended up going for a really long walk, then walking back to the restaurant, at which point I was finally a little peckish, the line was gone, and I was shown directly to a table facing right out the windows. I barely glanced at the menu, gave my order, and was served this:

There was enough succulent lobster on that thing to choke a dolphin. It was huge and delicious and I managed to eat half of it, and was pretty excited about having the other half at some later point, but I had to make a [not-so-difficult] decision. See, I had planned on going for a hike after lunch - I had a trailhead mapped out, it was part of my master plan for the weekend, and I was looking forward to this particular hike. But it was hot out, and there was no way I could leave my leftover lobster sandwich in a hot car for a couple of hours and risk it spoiling. It was an easy decision. I'll be here all month and I can go back and do the hike; I'm not going to be able to get another lobster sandwich like that for a long time. Later that evening when I was enjoying my leftovers, I knew I'd made the right choice.

 

Memorial Day: Duluth, Minnesota

a house in a clearing at the end of the road surrounded by woods

Duluth, Minnesota, scene of some of my earliest memories. 3901 Graysolon Road is an address burned into my brain, it's the first address I ever knew, and one I will always remember. It was the home of my Auntie Charlotte and Uncle Bob, and their kids, Kathy, and Bobby. They became our family in the U.S. when I arrived here with my mother and my brother at the ripe old age of 2 1/2, and they remain our family still; the fact that they are of no blood relation is completely irrelevant. My uncle Bob passed away 7 years ago, and since he was a veteran, it was special for me to be here for Memorial Day this year. Auntie Charlotte still lives here, as I know she will for as long as she's on this earth; she loves this place, and it's easy to see why.

the stomping ground of my childhood

some meaningful things from childhood just can't be explained

There weren't eagles nesting right by the house when we were kids,
but they've been on the property for the last ten years.

Lake Superior -- people who are not from the Midwest
just don't understand how big the Great Lakes are.

Duluth