Well, it has taken a village, and lots of encouragement from people like you. Over the years, after many travels, my faithful readers have helped me do this little book about my trip to Africa last summer. The title is “African Adventures” with the subtitle, “Addis to Cape Town.”
I certainly do not expect you to buy one, since all of its contents were previously sent to you via email. So, just pull out your archives, and you will have the same thing, since the book is a compilation of the emails while I was on my trip.
Over the years, I appreciate each of you, reading, giving feedback, making suggestions, and writing some of your own stories. It is strictly a labor of love, something that I really enjoy doing, both on the road, and here at home.
* from Amazon
(Unfortunately, the print is rather small)
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All posts for the month October, 2013
Most of you have been to the Monterey Peninsula and quaint Carmel By-the-Sea many times. It is still one of my favorite places in the world, particularly, the Pebble Beach Golf Links and The Lodge. But how do you narrow down the sites and activities when bringing a guest from Africa? An overnight stay, and not quite two days in the area are not enough.
Some activities are mandatory, in my opinion. First, of course, is famous Seventeen Mile Drive, unmatched in the world, for rugged beauty, huge splashing waves, and stunning vistas. And why not stop in the Tap Room at the Lodge for a quick drink, watch the golfers on the 18th green as they complete the round of their life? You can almost feel the ghosts of Jack Lemmon, Tony Lema, and Bing Crosby from the old Clambake days.
Second is a tossup, between strolling Ocean Avenue in downtown Carmel, or heading up Carmel Valley Road for wine tasting. Both ideas are winners, or w(h)iners as they case may be. Maybe we will let Barry decide.
Third, we hope to share some of our favorite restaurants with him. Do you think they know or even like Mexican (Cal-Mex actually) food in Cape Town, South Africa? That is one of the few places where bilingual Spanish signs are rather scarce. But I can see Barry having to choose between the fabulous angel hair/crab pasta on the Monterey Wharf (Abalonetti’s), or some interesting Cal-Mex at Peppers in Pacific Grove. Breakfast on Wednesday morning will be at Toasties in PG, where I am certain he will want to try their famous Monterey breakfast burrito, or their crab cakes eggs Benedict.
In between, there will be some stops, planned and unplanned. He might be a Steinbeck aficionado (either the Steinbeck Center in Salinas or the Monterey Wharf and Cannery Row), or decide that the hippie life in Big Sur would blend with his attorney/standup comedy career. In a huge paradigm shift, perhaps we just visit Doris Day at her famous downtown Carmel hotel, The Cypress Inn.
Cannery Row, the Wharf, the Mission (San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo), tandem quadricycles along the Bay, Monterey Bay Aquarium, what else? And I think we should sneak in some almond croissants at Paris Bakery in Monterey. Maybe I can tire him out with some jet lagged boozing and sightseeing.
As you can tell, there is too much to do, and so little time. However, if he has jet lag, he will end up sleepy in the daytime, and wide awake at night, with the twelve-hour time difference. When I turn him over to Mike on Thursday night, he should be solidly in the party mood. That is, after spending the entire day wine tasting up in the Napa Valley.
Being on vacation is rough. But so is deciding what to do in a short time period. Barry showed us a great time for two weeks last summer in Cape Town. I have only two or three days to return the hospitality. Bring it on, Barry the V!!!!
The countdown has begun, as the state of Kansas is my next to last or 49th state to visit. As I have mentioned before, I may have changed planes here back in the 1980s when I traveled extensively. But I doubt I would have left the airport, which is located in Missouri, nor driven across the border into Kansas.
Here is something startling, almost surreal:
Like so many popular indulgences—beer, cupcakes, coffee—even snow cones can go artisanal, and Kansas City may be on the cutting edge of the foodie-friendly snowball. At Little Freshie’s (811 West 17th Street)—a popular, small-batch-made soda fountain—you can get snow cones in avant-garde flavors such as watermelon basil, blackberry lavender and homemade root beer. I had a grape and orange blossom combination, what tasted more like Welch’s grape fruit juice drink.
Sidebar: Would you believe we use root beer to flavor our liquid oral morphine?
Sidebar #1: Tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America. Within a generation the vast majority was developed and plowed under. Today less than 4% remains, mostly here in the Kansas Flint Hills. The preserve protects a nationally significant remnant of the once vast tallgrass prairie and its cultural resources. Here the tallgrass prairie takes its last stand.
The attempt to revive jazz in KC turned out to be quite a story. Here it is: In the 1970s, Kansas City attempted to resurrect the glory of the jazz era in a sanitized family friendly atmosphere. In the 1970s, an effort to open jazz clubs in the River Quay area of City Market along the Missouri ended in a gangland war in which three of the new clubs were blown up in what ultimately resulted in the removal of Kansas City mob influence in the Las Vegas casinos. Wow, I never knew that. The Jazz Museum focused primarily on Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington. Did you know Duke’s real first name was Edward Kennedy (Ellington)?
Also, rather surprisingly, KC is home to many famous companies: Hallmark, Applebee’s, American Century Investments, Cerner, H&R Block, Russell Stover Candies, and the VFW. And I may have mentioned that I saw a huge old Western Auto sign above an old abandoned brick building just near the downtown area.
Some of the places I would like to visit are: The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, American Jazz Museum, and the National World War 1 Museum. But I did drive out to
Kansas again, mostly to shop for cycling clothes, and to have a light lunch. Tonight is a music concert, who remembers Brewer and Shipley? Then back home Sunday. Not a bad place here, lots of community pride.
That leaves just one state, which I will combine on a trip to the Windy City, and perhaps a ride on the rails to complete the Big-Five-Oh!!!!
If Zagat says Kansas City barbecue is a must eat, then who am I to go vegetarian? In their quest to reveal the best of America’s culinary scene, KC’s barbecue ribs, brisket, pulled pork, and burnt ends stand out above all. Even the foul-mouthed Tony Bourdain thinks the ribs here are so good that it is on his shortlist of places to eat before you croak.
Here are the top-secret ingredients, stolen off the internet at noon today:
•1/2 cup brown sugar
•1/4 cup paprika
•1 tablespoon black pepper
•1 tablespoon salt
•1 tablespoon chili powder
•1 tablespoon garlic powder
•1 tablespoon onion powder
•1 teaspoon cayenne
Another secret recipe:
•2 cups brown sugar
•1/2 cup dry mustard
•1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
•1 tablespoon smoked paprika
•1 tablespoon garlic powder
•1 tablespoon onion powder
•1 tablespoon salt
•2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Here is the secret barbecue sauce:
•2 tablespoons vegetable oil
•1 (about 2/3 cup)small onion, finely diced
•3 cups water
•1 cup (2 (6-ounce) cans) tomato paste
•1/2 cup brown sugar
•2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
•1/4 cup molasses
•1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
•1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
•1 teaspoon salt
•1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Mostly KC barbecue refers to a slow style of smoked meat from the early 1900s. from the pit of Henry Perry. The meat is slow cooked over a variety of woods, then slathered with a thick molasses and tomato based sauce. The city has well over 100 barbecue joints.
Adding to their rib lore, they also cook up mutton, fish, chicken, turkey, pork, and beef. But slow smoking is the preferred method. Burnt ends, the crusty tips of pork and beef brisket, are a signature of the city. So also are their side dishes of slaw, fries, baked beans, and a variety of soul food items.
Back to Henry Perry, who started this craze, his business started in a trolley barn, where he served his ribs on newsprint for 25 cents. And though he came from a place near Memphis, his ribs were significantly peppery and harsh in comparison. Then along came the Bryant brothers after Perry died. They eventually moved close to Municipal Stadium, home of the KC Athletics (who now reside in Oakland). Too bad the barbecue could not have come along too!
It became so well-known that former US Presidents visited, including Jimmy Carter, Ronnie Reagan, and Harry Truman. Why didn’t Slick Willie make a visit? Though Bryant died in 1982, the place lives on. Leave it to a former employee, Arthur Pinkard to join up with George Gates to form Gates and Sons Bar BQ. Their recipe does not contain molasses. Gates has gone on to a total of six places, including a spot at Kaufman Stadium (for the Kansas City Royals), and Arrowhead Stadium (for the Kansas City Chiefs).
Perhaps the ultimate in barbecue was the formation of the Kansas City Barbecue Society, with over 15,000 members worldwide. Founded in 1985, it is the largest organization for barbecue and grilling enthusiasts. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to “promoting barbecue as America’s cuisine, and having fun doing so.” They sanction over 330 barbecue contests across the U.S. each year.
Here are the top 5 barbecue joints in KC:
Jack Stack Barbecue
Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue (did he get lost?)
BB’s Lawnside Barbecue
Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue
Danny Edward’s Famous Barbecue
I am certain that is more than you ever wanted to know about Kansas City barbecue. I decided, after numerous consultations with locals, that Arthur Bryant’ was the best choice. Plus it was just down the street from the 18th and Vine jazz area and museums. I could only eat half of what you see in the first photo. It has been like a meat pilgrimage. Now, I could use a statin to offset the cholesterol. When in KC, must do the KC Cue.
I have changed planes in Kansas City several times. But uniquely, KC sits, or rather is plopped on the border of Missouri and Kansas. The airport resides in Missouri, so technically, I have not been to the adopted home state of President Dwight Eisenhower. KC is also the largest city in the state, surprisingly larger than St. Louis at the other end of the state. The metro area is 2.1 million people, and sits at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. The area hosted several Civil War battles as well.
The city itself is known for its contributions to jazz and blues, and most remarkably, a contribution to cuisine in the form of Kansas City barbecue. Forbes magazine actually named the city as one of America’s best downtowns, for its rich culture, upscale shopping, and local cuisine, mostly barbecue. Could KC be a better place than St. Louis?
The city is nicknamed the City of Fountains, and with over 200 fountains, is second only to Rome! In fact, the fountains at Kaufman Stadium, home of the Royals MLB team, are the largest privately funded fountains in the world. The city also has more boulevards than any city in the world, except for Paris. Rightly so, it has earned the nickname, “Paris of the Plains.”
Skipping, or rather fast forwarding to now, KC is host to the American Jazz Museum, which I look forward to visiting. And surprisingly, the area is home to about 250,000 people of irish descent. The most famous steakhouse in America, the Golden Ox, is located in the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange. But there are more than 90 barbecue restaurants in KC, with the city hosting the world’s largest barbecue contest each fall.
Besides the Royals baseball team, the city is also home to the Alex Smith led, and undefeated Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL. The demographics of the city are 59% white, 29% Black, 10% Latino, and only 2.5% Asian. But KC has the second largest Sudanese population in the U.S. KC is also home to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the National World War I Museum, and the aforementioned American Jazz Museum.
Some notables Kansans, besides Ike are: Ed Asner, Count Basie, rapper Eminem, Walt Disney, Joan Crawford, William Least Heat-Moon, Kate Spade (wow), golfer Tom Watson, President Harry Truman, Satchel Paige, Charlie Parker, Lamar Hunt, Robert Altman, former Senator Robert Dole, George Washington Carver, Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Jim Lehrer, John Cameron Swayze, Gayle Sayers, Barry Sanders, Vivian Vance, Buster Keaton, Kirstie Alley, and Annette Bening. And do not forget Dorothy and Toto!
Former President Dwight Eisenhower, though born in Texas, always considered himself a Kansan, and is buried in Abilene, KS. Many people forget he was the first term limited President as a result of the 22nd Amendment. Few remember he played football at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), and once tackled the great Jim Thorpe.
This from Yahoo travel:
Kansas City, 250 miles due west of St Louis, straddles the state line between Kansas and Missouri. Virtually all its main points of interest are on the Missouri side, where the fountains, boulevards, Art Deco and Mediterranean-style buildings, and the encouraging revitalization of downtown, are welcome features in a Midwestern city.
Kansas City was a convenient staging post for 1830s wagon trains heading west. Its consequent prosperity – and rough-and-tumble “sin city” image – was brought to an abrupt end by the Civil War. However, its fortunes revived in the 1870s, when the railroads brought the boom in meatpacking that was responsible for the development of the huge stockyards, which finally closed down in 1992.
Thanks to political boss Tom Pendergast, an outrageous figure with whom the city had a love-hate relationship, Kansas City’s many jazz clubs continued to sell alcohol during Prohibition. As in Chicago and New Orleans, speakeasies, brothels, and gambling dens went hand in hand with superlative jazz – and, to a lesser extent, blues – spawning the careers of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and, in the Fifties, Charlie Parker. KC’s resurgent jazz scene, fine restaurants, professional football and baseball teams, and theme parks help make it a popular short-break destination.
Interestingly, Walter Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Corporation, and current Ford CEO Alan Mulaly are both Kansans. There is a fairly large Ford plant here in the KC area. Can you imagine Mulaly becoming CEO of Microsoft and asking for a bailout? But for me, some KC “cue”, the Jazz museum, and a short jaunt across the border to Kansas. News flash, I hear fried chicken is also “king” here, along with KC Cue. And then there is but one state left to visit!
Many artists have tried to make a living from glass blowing. Few have succeeded or even prospered, until Dale Chihuly of Seattle. Dale Chihuly looks much like Tom Douglas to me, was born in 1941 in Tacoma. He has become the quintessential American glass blower and entrepreneur. He studied glass in Venice on a Fulbright Scholarship (sound familiar, Dirty Pat?), among other academic endeavors.
But the ironic part about his profession in glass blowing is an auto accident in 1976 that sent him flying through a glass windshield in England. It blinded his left eye. As he continued to blow glass, he dislocated his right shoulder while body surfing in 1979. He now hires others to hold the glass blowing pipe, enabling him to see his work from more perspectives.
Despite this, he has become enormously popular and successful, with an estimated $29 million in sales based on a Seattle Times report in 2004. He and his team of artists have been part of a PBS documentary, starting on November 1, 2008.
Regina Hackett, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer art critic, provided a chronology of his work during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s:
•1975: Navajo Blanket Series, in which patterns of Navajo blankets were painted onto glass
•1977: Northwest Coast Basket Series, baskets inspired by Northwest coast Indian baskets he’d seen as a child
•1980: Seaform Series, transparent sculptures of thin glass, strengthened by ribbed strands of color
•1981: Macchia Series, featuring every color available in the studio
•1986: Persian Series, inspired by Middle East glass from the 12th- to 14th-century, featuring more restrained color and room-sized installations
•1988: Venetian Series, improvisations based on Italian Art Deco
•1989: Ikebana Series, glass flower arrangements inspired by ikebana
•1990: Venetian Series returns, this time in a more eccentric form
•1991: Niijima Floats, six-foot spheres of intricate color inspired by Japanese glass fishing floats from the island of Niijima[7] from Chihuly’s website
•1992: Chandeliers, starting modestly but by the middle of the decade involving a ton of glass orbs and shapes that in some works look like flowers, others like breasts, and still others like snakes Chihuly has also produced a sizable volume of “Irish cylinders”,[8] which are more modest in conception than his blown glass works.
I have seen his exhibits in San Francisco, as well as Seattle. But his largest exhibit is actually located in Oklahoma City Museum of Art. I did not know they new art in Oklahoma. He also has a retail store in the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and another at the MGM Grand Casino in Macau. Now, he has taken over the former Fun Forest at Seattle Center to become the Chihuly Garden and Glass. Just take the Seattle Monorail out there and you cannot miss it. It sits in close proximity to Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project (EMP).
The Garden contains eight galleries and three drawing wells. Perhaps the glass forest below provides insight into how Chihuly has pushed the art form to its current status.
The glasshouse is forty feet tall, covering 4500 square feet of light-filled space. The fire orange baskets below are among the largest sculptures he has created. It shows his continual push of the boundaries of scale with his glass work.
He wants people to feel they are coming upon his work as if arriving in nature. I would say it is nature on steroids. There is nothing subtle about his works. This quote from Mr. Chihuly sums it all: “If I had not been a sculptor or an artist, I would love to have been a film director or an architect.” Sounds good to me.
More from sunny Seattle later. They actually do not care since their Seahawks are unbeaten!
Seattle is the most literate city in the United States, probably the entire world. The Seattle Public Library, which I love, has issued the highest percentage of library cards. Of course, Seattle has the original Skid Row (Yesler Way) of any city. It is still pretty seedy down there, with lots of homeless.
Seattle is the northernmost U.S. city with a population of over half a million. Seattleites buy more sunglasses per capita than any city in the U.S. Could it be the unbridled enthusiasm, ala’ Billy Mumphrey?
Columbia Center is Seattle’s tallest building at 76 stories, and 937 feet. It is the twelfth tallest building in the U.S. Is that where Frasier Crane lived? Seattle was the first city in the U.S. to play a Beatles song on the radio. Does anyone know the song? My guess is “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”
In 1907, Seattle opened the world’s first gas station on East Marginal Way. Little did they know of price wars, then oil embargoes. Seattle was the first city to put policemen on bicycles. Was it because the gas station on East Marginal Way was too far away? Seattle also has the largest percentage of people riding bicycles to work. Seattle’s houseboat population is the largest in the country, and second only to SE Asia, of course. Remember the famous scenes from “Sleepless?” That houseboat is still there, as I recall. But Meg and Tom are not!
The Farmer’s Market at Pike Place Market is the longest continuously operating farmer’s market in the U.S. (1907). The city wants to modernize Pike, much to the dismay of current tenants, tourists, and citizens. Pike has to be one of the best and most colorful marketplaces in the U.S. Foreign markets, of course, are much bigger, more diverse, and so much more interesting. The merchants at Pike seem a little “tired” but I love the vibe and the rustic setting.
The biggest company based in Seattle is not Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, or Microsoft. It is Costco. Two famous TV shows set in Seattle were Frasier and Grey’s Anatomy. And I have cruised the Sound several times, even passing by the famous Gates compound.
Annual rainfall in Seattle is only 37 inches. Boston, Miami, DC, Houston, and NYC all have more annual rainfall! But I always bring an umbrella, in fact, a really nice umbrella. Nobody who lives here uses one. That is how they distinguish tourists from locals. But I did see a You-Dub game on TV Saturday, with many students using umbrellas and ponchos!
Washington is the only state to be named after a President. However, they may change the name of Arkansas to Clintonville if Hillary becomes President in 2016. After all, two Presidents named Clinton? Lewis and Clark came here in 1805. Poor Sacagawea, the caffeine in the coffee must have driven her crazy.
Moving on, our Seattle friends are just the best. Maybe we should just move up here for a few years. Of course, we would gain so much weight from the great food. But I could ride my bicycle all over Puget Sound and beyond. In fact, there are so many places that would be a great place to live: Seattle, San Diego, Kauai, Bigfork, Great Falls, Westlake Village, Monterey Peninsula, did I leave anyone out?
So, we are on our way, our fourth trip to Seattle this year. We must like it here!
