huevos con vino

I am in Chesapeake, Virginia, at the home of my wife’s maid of honor from our wedding last year.  The past few days have been interesting and fun, to say the least, although without too much wine.  So far I have had a 2006 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Sauvignon Blanc with fresh Maine lobster, and a 2005 Georges DuBoeuf Merlot Reserve (which ended up smelling like freshly buttered bread).  The Sauvignon Blanc was definitely the better wine of these two.

In terms of setting, I drank each of these wines in very different places.  The Merlot was part of a mini dinner party at my wife’s friend’s grandmother’s house.  The four of us had an elaborate, multi-course meal put on by one of the nicest people I have ever met.  I think I am beginning to develop a taste for sweet tea after having some homemade sweet tea at this particular grandmother’s house.  The food was outstanding, too: bacon-wrapped grilled scallops, breaded chicken stuffed with prosciutto and served with an amazing rice dish, and homemade profiteroles that would make your arteries beg for mercy.  Delicious all around.  The company was great too!

The previous night, I had an epic dinner with my wife and her maid of honor at a Virginia Beach restaurant called Catch 31.  This is where I ordered the SLWC Sauvignon Blanc, which turned out to be a delicious wine that went well with our deep-fried calamari and my lobster tail.  But the dinner was more notable for me because of the storm and the conversation.  We sat by the window looking out past the outdoor dining patio toward the Atlantic Ocean.  Just as we sat down to dinner inside the restaurant, a massive thunderstorm took over the beach, sending fat people in horrible shirts scattering like really slow, wet tourists.  People who had rented bikes suddenly ditched them in favor of getting less drenched.  Little children wept.  Dogs in handbags howled.  It was pretty amusing to watch from where I was sitting, especially once the rain flooded the outdoor dining patio and the poor sods who chose to sit out there tried to hurry inside before too many raindrops fell in their $10 mojitos.

One of my enduring memories from that meal, aside from the astoundingly deep and interesting conversation, was something simple.  As we sat there talking, with thunder sounding up and down the beach for miles, I noticed hundreds of white sea birds flying in circles over the shallow water near the shore.  I hesitate to say I saw a flock of seagulls, but that’s what it was.  Their white bodies seemed luminescent against the black storm clouds.  As each lightning bolt struck the sea beyond, the birds vanished for a split second before reappearing, looking momentarily charged with phosphor.  Even our host seemed amazed by this preternatural display as we sat and ate our dinners.  It was a good evening.

My next stop will be Doumar’s in Norfolk for some barbecue and ice cream cones.  Depending on who you believe, the good people at Doumar’s served the first ice cream cones at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.  Whether this is true makes no difference to me since lunchtime is too early for ice cream in my book.  Unless, maybe, it’s in the form of a malted milkshake, in which case no cones are involved.  I look forward to Doumar’s Cones and BBQ regardless.

As I was driving down the Jericho Turnpike on Long Island yesterday, I saw a quintessential Long Island scene.  Two cars were pulled over on the side of the Turnpike because one of them, a Nissan, had rammed the back of the other, a late-model truck.  The damage to the truck looked minimal.  The damage to the Nissan looked a little more serious: The hood was a little crumpled, but it wasn’t terribly messy. 

As we drove by, I saw a middle-aged man pressing his hand down onto the hood of the Nissan.  The only other thing I saw was the man’s face.  It was pure rage, in a way that seemed a little comical to me because this man either smashed into the back of the truck (in which case it may have been his fault), or he was the driver of the truck and he was somehow trying to tell the Nissan drivers that their car’s damage was minimal.  I think the latter is a stretch, so I assume the man rear-ended the truck but was angry because the truck stopped short.  Maybe. 

Anyway, the quintessential Long Island part, for me, was the way this man looked despite the fact that he was probably at fault.  So far, the quintessential scene at the Baltimore Airport is the amount of urine deposited onto the toilet seats.  It’s impressive, really.  The first bathroom I found smelled like the great ape exhibit at the zoo.  The second bathroom I located, which was in an entirely different terminal, smelled better but had the aforementioned urine everywhere.  I was afraid to walk beyond the entrance.  The third bathroom, coincidentally near Vino Volo, seemed the least dirty.  It’s a good thing my flight is so incredibly delayed, I have my pick of the disgusting facilities here at BWI.

I have never actually been to Baltimore, or Washington, DC, and I can only assume the toilets are cleaner in town than they are at the airport.

My last full day on Long Island was great, although a little stressful since I saw one set of grandparents (my mother’s side) at their new assisted living home.  I hadn’t seen them in five years and it was depressing to see how little short-term memory capability my grandmother has left.  She kept thinking I was someone else, or that my wife was my mother, or that my mother wasn’t my mother, and so on.  Luckily, my grandfather (actually my step-grandfather, but I don’t think of him that way) is still with it, mentally at least.  Physically, he has some trouble getting around, but he hasn’t lost his appetite judging by the way he plowed through his porkchops during Sunday dinner.

After driving my wife past my grandparents’ old house, and calling my mom to assure her the house had not burned down, we went back to a terrific Italian restaurant where we had eaten the night before.  Now, as far as I am concerned, pizza only exists on Long Island, in other pockets of New York State, and in a select few cities worldwide.  But outside of New York State, pizza is different and only occasionally good.  Sicilian is my preference, which makes it hard to get good pizza anywhere other than on Long Island.  Last night, I had two slices of Sicilian, and they were damn good.

This entire trip is tempered a little by my interaction with my mom’s parents, and also by the fact that a coworker and friend passed away the day before I left Seattle.  I’m sure if I had not left for vacation, I would have taken this week off and done something other than show up at work.  I probably would have consumed some wine in his honor.  But I think I’ll still enjoy my vacation despite such bad news and depressing family circumstances.  There’s always something positive to take from every situation, and in this particular situation I think one positive thing to bear in mind is that I am not the type of man who urinates on toilet seats.  That’s got to count for something this week.

I ate a canoli today.  A canoli, and some chicken Parmigiana.  And a brownie.  And I think I also had two bagels, but probably just one.  I definitely had some garlic bread.  I almost ate some Sicilian-style pizza, my favorite, but I didn’t want to spoil my appetite.  I love being on vacation.

I can also safely report that Target stores on Long Island are almost identical to the Target stores in the Seattle area.  The only exception seems to be the people inside the two stores: In Seattle, you don’t see too many three cart pile-ups with women screaming at one another over merchandise, or their place in line, or whatever seems to be at hand and up for argument.  I think I prefer Long Island for its scenery and esprit de corps, which is how a Frenchman might describe the sense of righteous indignation that seems to be on display at Long Island supermarkets and outlet malls.  The way many people here strut around reminds me of the feathers of a male peacock, but with more of the shrill peacock noises to go with the plumage.

Speaking of peacocks, I wore one of my favorite T-shirts today.  It’s a drawing of Richard Nixon with the word “dick” spelled out below it.  I like this shirt because it’s so literal in one way, and so accurate in another way.  Both of my grandparents loved it; I think it took them by surprise, actually.  They quickly caught on to the joke, adding their own ribald humor whenever I walked into the room (”Well, well, looks like you’ve got your dick on!”).  I wonder if their children realize this bawdy tendency simmers below the surface of their completely demure, grandparently exteriors.  In this regard, they are more like peahens: unassuming, quiet, but clearly more intelligent than the peacocks.

On two occasions, my rental GPS unit has steered me wildly wrong as I have tried to locate a hotel and a wine store on Long Island.  Both times, I ended up in residential areas that clearly lack hotels and wine stores, but that have no shortage of New Yorkers who enjoy staring angrily at rental cars with New Jersey license plates.  Such plates come in handy when I need to cut people off while driving down the parkway, but they do nothing to help me slip into the Smithtown beaches undetected.  I was at one of those beaches just long enough today to hold the skeletal remains of a raccoon or opossum before I had to leave.  It was an interesting day.

Actually, it was a very peaceful, uneventful day, and that’s exactly what I look for when I’m on vacation.  I am also trying to decide on a wine for Wine Blogging Wednesday #37, for which the theme is “indigenous grape varieties.”  The idea is to find a wine made in the location where the grape was first discovered, or where the grape varietal calls home from an ancestral perspective, and that is, I assume, made only from that type of grape.  For example, the Symphony grape was developed at UC Davis for the Central Valley in California, so if I can find a Central Valley winery that makes a Symphony wine, I’m on the right track.  It would be ideal to try said Symphony wine in the Central Valley, especially if I can find another Symphony wine as a point of comparison.  Since there do not appear to be any Seattle native grapes, I’m probably out of luck on the location element of this challenge.

So, quite soon I will be seeing my other set of grandparents for dinner, and then my wife and I will be heading down to Virginia Beach for a week of sun, sand, and Sauvignon Blanc.  Or, more likely, thunderstorms, tar, and tobacco smoke.  Either way, VA Beach is our next big stop during Summer Vacation 2007.

In 1963, my grandparents on my father’s side moved into a house on Long Island, which any New Yorker will tell you is the largest island in the contiguous 48 states, an achievement akin to having the largest nose in Ireland.  Speaking of Ireland, more people live on Long Island than in Ireland.  At almost 7.6 million residents, Long Island is so crammed with people I saw some of them falling off the sandy beaches and into the water today, possibly trying to swim to Ireland where the population isn’t quite so densely packed.

As I said, 44 years ago the house in which I am currently typing this blog entry was purchased by my grandparents on my father’s side.  My father himself moved in too, although he spent significantly less time at this house compared to his younger siblings.  It’s quite strange to be back in this house because I came here frequently as a child; I remember crawling up the front steps and sticking my head in between the metal slats of the banister.  It’s also a little strange being here with my wife; the last time I was here (in 2002), I hadn’t met my wife yet.  And, of course, it’s hard for me to forget the birthday I spent in this house back when I turned 4 years old.  The chocolate cake had tiny fingerprints on one corner by the time we were supposed to sit down and celebrate.  I was framed, I swear.

So it is upon this backdrop that Vacation 2007 begins.  I spent the first day catching up with my grandparents, eating a lot of home-cooked food, and looking around Costco to see how the Long Island version compares to the Costco locations in and around Seattle (the ancestral home of Costco).  The biggest difference?  You can buy beer, but not wine, at the Long Island Costco.  New York’s liquor laws are interesting to me.  For example, did you know that if you own a liquor store within the state of New York, you must be the sole owner of the store and live within a set distance from said store?  It’s all true, if you believe Wikipedia.  I’m heading to Virginia next, where any wine over 14% alcohol by volume (ABV) is sold in state “ABC” stores only, apparently.  Perhaps I’ll go for that nice, mild white wine rather than the 16% ABV Zinfandel, eh?

In terms of strange stuff that has happened so far during the trip, the list is fairly short:

• When I asked the stewardess on our flight whether she could take my wife’s food tray away, she said “NOW?!”  This was in first class.
• At least several extremely tan people asked me at the airport whether the luggage being disgorged into the baggage claim was from their Fort Lauderdale flight, and whether I worked for the airline.  I guess I was flattered that, with long hair and a beard, I looked like an airline employee.
• When we were at a store today, a female senior citizen body-checked my wife into a display of pretzels without noticing. Bill Laimbeer would have been proud.
• I had my first real bagel in about five years…very nice.
• Cantaloupe is a type of “musk” melon, which is what they seemingly call cantaloupes here.  Huh.
• I watched a man in an SUV plow his massive vehicle into a shopping cart, which was already touching a parked car.  No serious damage seemed to be done.  The driver took the cart into the store after dislodging his bumper from it.
• In the same parking lot, at about the same time, I watched a car try to pass another car on the left…within the parking lot…with pedestrians everywhere…while a car was trying to back out of a spot.  Nice.
• And finally, my grandmother’s tomatoes outshine anything from the store.  Impressive!  We also had Long Island sweet corn with dinner.  Wow…very impressive.

Tomorrow the plan is to find a replacement for my wife’s carry-on bag, the zipper on which has rendered the bag useless.  And with that, it’s time to go to sleep and pretend it isn’t 3 hours earlier than it is now.

I just got back from a business trip to Chicago, and I have some good restaurant tales to report.  But that will need to wait until after I get some sleep.  I do love Chicago from a cuisine perspective, and this trip outdid even the trip I took last year.  This time, though, it was more business oriented, as I was in town for a conference.
Here’s a quick list to whet your appetite for detailed reviews:

• Food:

• Good - Spring Restaurant

• Better - Blackbird

• Best - Avenues

• Good - Blackbird
• Better - Avenues
• Best - Spring

• Good - Spring
• Better - Blackbird
• Best (by far!) - Avenues

I’m going to write up some details about each of these places; I wound up getting the tasting menu at Spring and Avenues because of the people I dined with, so I have a lot to say.  More to come soon!