REUNION, HEALDSBURG, AND BABY

OCTOBER 16-27, 2013.   It’s been a while since I posted anything.  Sheer sloth.  The latter half of October was pretty busy for us, even without any RVing.  We started things by attending Loni’s 45th (!) reunion at Stanford. 

We've been going to these every five years for the last couple of decades (as well as mine, which falls a year prior each cycle).  It's much the same each time, only more expensive, natch.  Frankly, the price of the Dinner On The Quad (“DOTQ”), which is quite lovely by candlelight, is just getting a little ridiculous.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The reunion ran from Thursday the 17th through Sunday.  As there are morning and early afternoon events on Thursday, we decided to drive up from L.A. on Wednesday.  I thought we'd try something different, so I looked for a B&B in the Gilroy area to stay at Wednesday night, and we'd then leisurely hop up to Palo Alto Thursday morning.  I found a likely prospect, and they had an open room, so we snatched it up.  It turned out to be a great place, the Fitzgerald House.  Now, don't stampede to make reservations -- it's no longer operating.  The owners have decided to focus more on their publishing business, and found it too much to handle running the inn at the same time.  We managed to get into its penultimate week after a decade or so under the current owners.  Too bad, because the house was lovely, the breakfast scrumptious, and the hosts charming.  Plus, it was within easy walking distance of the old-town area, with half-a-dozen choices for dinner.  After settling in and getting some dinner recommendations, we wandered the two blocks or so to the commercial area and did a walkabout, checking out menus posted at the doors.  We found several that would be interesting, but settled on the Old City Hall because it included a number of lighter offerings.  We had pigged out at Harris Ranch along I-5 in the Central Valley for lunch on the way up, so we couldn’t handle another big meat meal. The Old City Hall is lodged in just that -- the former municipal center, with high ceilings, pillars, and nifty turn-of-(last) century details. The menu was California-World-fresh, appealingly varied without being overwhelming. What stood out for us was the seared Ahi salad, loaded with accessory goodies. It was cooked perfectly, and everything on the plate was delicious. All for $14! At dinner! I think they should be charging more, but who am I to tell them how to do it? The night we were there (Wednesday), the crowd seemed to be entirely locals, so they're cooking for repeat business, not just passers-through. 

We spent a quiet night at the B&B, with nary a sound from the other two couples who were there, and only the occasional train whistle wafting faintly in through the open window.  Breakfast was excellent in the beautiful dining room.  I loved this house and would buy it in a heartbeat.  Those are home-made cranberry scones sitting there, as a side to the eggs/sausage/other goodies hash.  It’s really too bad they have shut down, but I can understand that doing this year after year would wear one out.

 

After lazing through breakfast, we repacked the car and took off for the 50 mile drive up to Stanford.  I again bitched and moaned about having to park in the Eucalyptus groves, as the dirt is fine and dry and the car gets absolutely filthy from the dust churned up by later cars passing by to park.  I always keep a jug of water to pour over the windshield in order to leave at the end of the day.  The stream from the wiper nozzles would just make a mud bath.  Anyway, we checked in, got our tickets to the DOTQ and the event calendar, and would have been on our way had Loni not gotten derailed by the baby section of the school gear emporium.  She kept it to one item, and we headed off for our first function, a tour of the new Bing Concert Hall (I cribbed this photo from the internet)and a performance by a string-and-piano quartet.  Both were stunning.  We’ve been to and marveled at the Disney Center here in L.A., and I can say that, on a smaller scale, the Bing is every bit the acoustical stunner.  Not surprising, since Yasuhisa Toyota was the acoustical designer for both.  The clarity and richness of the instruments was ear popping.  I would love to live in the area and be able to take in concerts at this venue.    Full disclosure:  the “critics” are all over the map on whether the Bing is good or not.  I can only report that our ears were very happy indeed. 

Thursday evening was the big event, the DOTQ. 

This starts out with hors-d’oeuvres and drinks in the Rodin Sculpture courtyard adjacent to the quad.  Class-year tentpoles are thrown up so those of similar age and decrepitude can locate each other and mingle discretely.  We found a number of souls whom we remembered, although didn’t necessarily recognize at first blush.  Thank goodness for name badges which most everyone had on.  After sufficient lubrication and knoshing, darkness fell and it was time to find our class tables on the quad and settle in under the heat lamps.  They almost weren’t needed, as the weather was unseasonably warm.  This event is a visual feast and, unlike my reunion last year, the food was served hot, was cooked properly, and we had no complaints.  Maybe they changed caterers?  Also unlike last year, one didn’t have to tackle a server in order to get another round of wine.  They kept it flowing.  Of course, in my present mostly-teetotaler status these days, it was only an observed boon.  We did have a good time, despite the price, and had a lively table. 

Thursday we took in an exhibition and lecture about the five organs found in Memorial Church.  This was a fascinating look behind the curtain at just what all an organist has to do to get that magnificent sound pumped out.  The mystery of all those stops and pedals was revealed, and the blood definitely was pumping along with with the sound when the organist played something or other that showed off the full effect. The organ shown in my photo is the Harris Organ, built in 1901, sporting 3,702 pipes.  The jewel of the five, however is the more recent Fisk-Nanney Baroque organ.  Using a combination of elements from historic East German, North German, and French organs, this organ is the first instrument in the history of organ building that is capable of reproducing nearly all organ music written from the 16th through the 18th centuries with the proper sounds.  It’s action is fully mechanical – no electricity – and the 4422 pipes emit directly into the chamber.  It’s located in a loft above this one, so we couldn’t photograph it, but the organist climbed up and gave us a demonstration.  The sound is brighter and harder than the Harris, which is of the more traditional Romantic style.  This was fascinating stuff, even for musical dolts like me.

We also attended some “classes without quizzes,” which are dozens of one-hour-plus lectures by various current and former faculty.  I chose “How To Live The Good Life:  Lessons From The Greeks.”  It sounded a little weighty in the description:   “Participants will learn about and discuss the core ethical beliefs of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and consider how those schools confront fundamental human issues of justice, absolute versus relative morality, fear of death, fate versus free will, and the relationship between humans and the divine.”  Okayyyy.  It’s summaries like that which kept me away from the classics when I was an undergrad, but I really wanted the chance to hear one of Stanford’s teaching legends, Prof. Marsh McCall.  He arrived in 1976, well after I graduated, so I never had the opportunity.  He didn’t disappoint.  He’s now a professor emeritus, having won just about every teaching award they have, but he hasn’t lost a whit of enthusiasm or showmanship.  I was riveted, when I wasn’t laughing.  I actually learned some things!  Just goes to show what a difference a great teacher can make.  I only wish Loni hadn’t abandoned me for some biology presentation, but she said hers was excellent as well.

Friday night was the class party, held this year at a country club just up the road adjacent to the campus.  Very nice venue, not at all snooty, and the organizers took to heart the complaints from previous years about excessive amplification of the “background” music.  This year you could actually have conversations and not have to cringe in aural pain.  Food was Mexican themed and gringo produced, but was OK.  Lots of opportunity for gabbing with long-lost classmates, and Loni had a ball.

Saturday brought the football game against UCLA.  I had tried to get tickets through the alumni/athletics site, but they were all sold out well before the reunion.  Not particularly good planning on the Alumni Association’s part.  They clearly needed to reserve more.  So, I went on to the Stubhub site and cruised for something reasonable.  There were plenty of choices at all price ranges, but I found two that looked like a bargain.  Stubhub emails your ticket to you for printing out, which I did.  Of course, less than two hours before the game, we’re yucking it up in the class tent when a cold hand gripped my stomach.  Yup, I suddenly realized I’d left the tickets in the motel room.  There was no going back to get them.  Traffic was at a gridlock throughout the area.  It would be halftime before I could get back, and I’d be in heart attack mode if I tried to navigate.  I resigned us to missing the game and instead going to another class-without-quiz.  But, aha!  I admit to being technologically impaired, but not hopeless.  I went on to Stubhub and found that Stanford also allows scanning the ticket barcode on your phone at the gate as an alternative to paper.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember my password, which I had only recently created to buy the tickets in the first place, and it took me nearly an hour of trying to figure out how to re-access my tickets, input a new password (twice), and then try to locate where I had “saved” them on my phone.  I never could find them.  What happens when you hit save on an iPhone?  The last resort was to simply take the phone to the gate, use it there via Verizon to access my Stubhub account, display my ticket in real time(had to do this twice for both) , and get the gatetenders reader machines to scan and acknowledge each.  You think this is easy with thousands of fans trying to get through the same gate?  The first three readers wouldn’t recognize the bar code, but they got a supervisor with a super-reader, which finally worked.  I have to figure out how to save such things on my phone and then be able to retrieve them.  Anyway, the game was a success with the proper team winning, and the Band was better than usual (well, bigger anyway, as it was the 50th anniversary of its re-formation as a student-run operation, and there were a lot of alums squeezed into old uniforms that joined the current members on the field).  Still couldn’t fathom their formations, but what the hey.  My pic above is a pre-game shot;  the place was sold out for the game.  We sat in a mixed section of Stanford and UCLA fans and the latter were surprisingly mellow, even when things didn’t go well.  Not like attending a Stanford-USC game, where civility is a foreign language.

Reunion over, we headed on Sunday over to Mike & Alia’s house in Oakland for the day and night, and had a nice family day with good eats and talk.  Poor Alia had to jet off to L.A. and Chicago for work that afternoon.  Life in the fast lane! 

SONOMA.  We left Monday morning for three days in Healdsburg, up in Sonoma County, one of the three big wine areas north of San Francisco.  We had never stopped over in Napa or Sonoma, always driving through on our way north or south, so we were looking forward to getting a taste of the wine country.  I had booked us for the duration at the Irish Rose B&B, and it turned out again to be a great call.  It’s located in an externally nondescript farm house about 3 miles north of downtown Healdsburg, and situated in the middle of vineyards which, in late October, were beginning to blaze with Fall color. We were greeted first by the two horses corralled along the driveway, then by one of the resident chickens (there are 15 or so) scratching in the front yard grass for bugs. On the porch was the house cat lounging in one of the chairs, who loved to be chuckled under the chin (and just about everywhere else for that matter). The downstairs was comfortable and homey, with lots of mementos of Chris & Lanny's family and their prior lives as active horse folk (Morgans, I believe). This was not your Martha Stewart, antique-filled cutsey parlor, but a room where folks actually lived.  The interior architecture is craftsmany, with a great dining-room table that held all eight of us guests quite nicely for Lanny's excellent (and filling) breakfasts, something different each morning. We especially liked his superb bread pudding with maple syrup. Oh, yes.  Our room’s bathroom was big enough to be a locker room for a fair-sized team, complete with a jetted soaking tub and separate shower stall, big enough to actually wash without banging your elbows on the walls, or for two to share.  But that's another story. This is a G-rated blog.  Our room had a canopied bed (above), and was dead quiet all night, so we enjoyed a good sleep. Our evening view was of the sun setting over the vineyard, and the morning sight was of fog crouching over everything. Peace.

    

The drive into town took only minutes, and is beautiful. There are other B&B's right in town, and we passed by one we recognized that was booked up when we tried to make reservations. I'm glad it was. It was right on the main road, and still a fair walk to the town square. We so much more enjoyed being a short drive from the village, out in the vineyards, walking distance to several wineries, as well as to the "famed" country store just up the road.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to peruse this place, but being so close, we had to drop in.  Mostly kitschy stuff, but Loni found a cookbook with a “farmers’ market” theme that has some great recipes that she’s been trying out since we got home.  Well, OK to the General Store!

Healdsburg itself was a delight, and we spent a couple of days just walking about the many shops and restaurants arrayed around the square, which was just beginning to come out in Fall color. I won’t give a blow-by-blow of the eateries, but we were so happy we’d saved the best for last.  Bistro Ralph is an institution here, having been in business for over ten years. They are NOT on auto-pilot, and this was right up there with the best of meals we've had anywhere. The menu, while not extensive, certainly had something for everyone, and perhaps its reasonable length contributes to the quality they pour into the dishes. Having had multiple meat/fish nights already on this trip, we were looking for something more vegetarian. We started with a Caesar salad for Loni, which I nibbled on. Whole spears of heart-of romaine that I swear had been pulled from a local garden that afternoon. I've never tasted lettuce that fresh. The dressing was superb. I opted for the heirloom tomato soup. Wow! Again, the local gardens must be working overtime, assisted by the chef's addition of herbs and spices. This was a memorable soup and perfect for a crisp Fall evening. For mains, we both opted for the fricassee of chanterelle mushrooms over house-made wide noodle pasta. This had such an earthy, rich flavor that you'd swear it was meat-based, but it was a masterful reduction of wine and fungus that was heavenly. We sopped up every last drop with the excellent sourdough bread. I had the classic creme brulee (noted on the menu as "the best") while Loni wisely chose the chocolate marquise taillevent with hazelnut creme anglaise. Now, that latter is a mouthful to pronounce, but it was the star. Not to cast aspersions on the creme brulee -- it was indeed delicious ("the best" is a little over-the-top), but that taillevent was to purr for. The wine list was reasonably priced by anyone's standards, with loads of local wineries to choose from. We (yes, me too) killed a bottle of sauvignon blanc without busting the budget. At the end of the meal, we told our server that this was a "giggle meal." She was puzzled until we explained that was a meal where we kept looking at each other and giggling with delight throughout.

We also drove around to the Armida winery so Loni could indulge in a bit of tasting.  She had one of their Chards at dinner the night before and liked it.  Felt odd being the designated driver while she boozed it up, but it was a beautiful setting, just south of Healdsburg, and perched on a hill with a lovely view.  We ended up buying a Chard and a Pinot Noir which we’ll haul up north for Thanksgiving with the kids.

Thursday we drove back to Mike and Alia’s in Oakland, but rather than retracing our steps we went over the hill to the Napa Valley and drove down SR29 to Yountville.  We stopped there to take in the only thing of Thomas Keller’s that we’re able to afford, his Bouchon Bakery, adjacent to his fancy restaurant of the same name.  It was easy to spot the bakery from the line extending out the door and down the pavement.  I first had Keller’s food before he became famous and was cooking at a restaurant in a boutique hotel across from the Main Library in downtown L.A.  It was eye-opening back then (early 90’s).  I’ve long wanted to try the French Laundry, but (a) it’s w-a-a-y too expensive and (b) he doesn’t cook there any more.  Why pay those prices for sous-chefs working from a formula?  Current tasting menu runs $270 per person, without wine.  Yikes!  Anyway, we bought a couple of pastries, which were quite good but not extraordinary, and went on our way.

Baby Shower      John and Meghan are expecting in early December with our first grandchild, a girl.  Not at liberty yet to divulge the beautiful name, but it’s not one I’ve ever heard before.  Loni, of course, has been going nutso the last few months, knitting and crocheting up a storm.  Blankets, booties, caps, sweaters, snugglies, a farm!  Here’s but a few:

 

The shower was set for Saturday, at John & Meghan’s, so we spent Friday just helping out with the preparations or staying out of the way.  The cats (M&A have two) have finally gotten used to us, and I am now merely a warm lap.

The weather continued to cooperate, and the day was warm and sunny – in San Francisco, in October!  Mom-to-be was glowing, the gifts were flowing, the food (mostly by Meghan’s mom, Janet) was abundant and delicious, and a lot of newer and old (even high school) friends showed up.  A good time had by all.  Welcome, baby name (oops).