AND A VERY WACKY CHRISTMAS TO ALL...

As the holidays continued to be snowed under we finished dinner then repaired to the sofa to watch that great Christmas classic from 1964 “Santa Claus Conquers The Martians” starring that screen luminary Pia Zadora.

The Martians kidnap Santa and two small earth children in order to bring Christmas joy and happiness to all Martian children (who have been brainwashed by watching television signals emanating from earth). After thwarting the evil, Gestapo-like Martian who is set on stopping this decadent course, Santa sets up a toy shop on the red planet and all is well across the universe leaving him free to make it back to the North Pole (along with the earth children) in time for a Joyous Noel here on our small, blue ball.

A strange tale made all the stranger by the budget production values and over-sized space electronics considered state of the art a scant dozen years before Star Wars…

Whereas that was strange, we also watched the 1969 film “The Littlest Angel” which was more truly disturbing… rather like a Monty Python Christmas on LSD.

It starred Johnny Whitaker (the little boy on the American sitcom Family Affair) as a humble shepard boy who falls off a cliff while chasing a white dove sent by God himself. 

Okay now polish up your memory, tighten up your imagination and hang onto your hat… Johnny goes on to tour heaven with his spirit guide Fred Gwynne (yes, Herman Munster) in a confusing attempt to find meaning for his life (and, I suppose, death).

Along the way he meets, among others, Tony Randall, Connie Stevens and Cab Calloway.

E. G. Marshall is God and did I mention it’s a musical? They don’t make ‘em like that anymore…

TRANSITION

Summer has definitely “left the building” here in The Dalles. Cool nights and days that, although not exactly cold and rainy, are grey with mists… not quite rain but not quite sunny. What the Irish call a fine, soft day. There is a full palette of autumnal leaf litter covering the grass and obscuring the sidewalks. Flame red bushes and bright yellow saplings dot the borders of the yards and parks, a nice counterpoint to the lush, rain-watered greens of lawns and cedars. It makes for a most pleasant afternoon stroll around the neighborhoods and downtown environs while killing time and learning one’s way around. With the tang of fall in the air and a feast for the eyes everywhere around, it is enough to make you slip the memories of summer’s furnace heat and January’s howling, sleet encrusted grip.

STREET RACING IN THE DALLES

     I didn’t even know that the Soap Box Derby still existed and yet there they were blocking off the street just below our house while a bevy of young Danica Patricks hurled down the grade on Court Street, stopping just short of the steady trucking traffic on 3^rd.

     In truth it appears to be some distance from the old derby cars built in one car garages and rolling on stolen baby buggy tires but it is still a simple race run by gravity and against another competitor… good, clean fun on a sunny autumn afternoon (disregarding the occasional scandal involving devious parents and surreptitiously placed electromagnets…)

     Of course there are signs of the times; the aforementioned cheating, races like today’s with girl drivers, an advanced division with adult hands in the construction and drivers up to 20 years old and something called the Portland Adult Soap Box Derby which I will assume means sophisticated engineering and not X rated sexual content.

     Long gone are the days when the derby attendance was in the top five of sporting events in the nation. The one I observed this afternoon had an audience of very few, like myself, not directly involved and was a painfully slowly paced affair with youngsters having a load of fun amongst a contingent of very serious-minded adults who were more interested in times and standings than in keeping the wind in your hair and the bugs off your teeth.

     Oh, and a side parking lot full of motor homes, fancy trailers and very pricey looking soap box accessories.

JESUS, LOOK AT ALL THEM CHURCHES...

So here we are living in The Dalles… and the first thing I noticed is a surfeit of houses of the Lord crammed in, cheek by jowl, all over town. We’re talking about a town of just over 13,000 souls but, it seems, a vast majority of them have a place to go on the Sabbath.

I think I tracked them all down at 25 churches but every couple of days I stumble on yet another one. On our Saturday morning ritual walk of three blocks down to the Farmers’ Market, one block over to the library and three blocks home we can cast a glance on 6 churches.

There are classics like the Gothic Revival brick pile (1) of a Catholic church… St. Pete’s with a six foot copper cock atop its spire (tee hee). That, however, proved to be too small so it is now a museum of some sort and the new Catholic complex is on the edge of town (2) and looks ever so like a DMV office. There is a smattering of Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists (and yes, them pesky Mormons) and then a plethora of the lesser forms of worship including a half dozen arcane versions of Lutheranism; Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical, American Lutheran, American Evangelical Lutheran and so on. And then come the Pentacostals, Christian Science, Baptists many and varied and an odd lot jumble of Four Square Gospel (3) (a small, unassuming building that except for a small sign stating “Sanctuary” would appear to be a storage unit), Assembly Of God and something called The Church Of God-Anderson, Indiana.

Far and away our favorite is (4) which has transubstantiated into a sandwich and coffee shop (oddly, not open on Sundays…)

Lest you think this is all a recent turn of events in the town’s history, two blocks from our house, behind the local High School, right in the middle of 12^th street is a round about that features a towering basaltic upthrust (5) known as Pulpit Rock where early day frock coaters first attempted to banish the belief systems of the local indigenous population by instilling in them the notions of a fearful old testament God.

To date, I must admit, our pagan Sunday morning lie-in has been disturbed by neither an incessant carillon call to worship nor the invasion of well meaning, bible-toting proselytites cluttering up our doorstep. Thank God for small mercies, eh?

I AM NOT SO FOND OF CHANGE

We got back to Sammy Cruz just in time to dump the suitcase contents into the washer and then back into the suitcases before departing for a three day conference (for Tama & her subaltern, Masina…) deep, dead center in the bowels of beautiful downtown San Francisco… 4^th and Market, a complex, over-crowded jumble of bus lanes, street repair closures and crazed drivers all overlaid with a one way grid and no left turn signs. I stayed with friends in the outer Richmond, above Golden Gate park so my hardest task was deciphering out how to get to the very small handful of streets that will actually let you across Market Street.  Since the conference attendees were wined and dined on Monday, I was off the hook for finding a restaurant until Tuesday.  Since we were in San Francisco there wasn’t much room for debate. Roosevelt’s Tamale Parlor… my favorite since 1976.

When I mentioned this intent to my friends, you can imagine my abject horror when they announced that “…it had recently changed hands.”  Well my fears were palliated some but far from quelled completely when they said that the food was actually better than ever.  Steeling myself I gathered up the gals and off we went to face this new demon.

It looked the same as we drove by looking for a parking spot.  The interior changes were slight but a little uncomfortable-ish.  They had crowded in a few more tables and the homey, framed newspaper articles and bull fight posters had been replaced by (very nice) expensively framed large, vintage Tamale Parlor calendar pages.  But, then, at some point they had taken out the bug zapper lights that lined the walls above the tables in the 70’s and I survived that…

Our waiter came by with menus and a wine list… What? A fucking wine list?

The menu was still good, even though they had dropped a few of the more obscure favorites like crepas con huitlacoche, and so we ordered. When the food arrived it was truly delicious. I mean GOOD… just no longer really authentic.

I chatted up our waiter/owner, complimented him on the food and learned that he had hoped to re-open serving his specialty, Italian/California fusion food. Apparently the neighborhood suggested this might be a mistake and so he ratcheted up the ingredients  to local and organic food sources but kept Maria in charge of the stove as she has been for more than a few decades.

Like all neighborhoods in the urban landscape, 24^th Street is changing, getting more gentrified and losing something tangible but hard to pin down. Like I said, the food was great but like the customers and the restaurant itself it lacks a fine degree of authenticity that is steeped into the walls of a place that has been around since 1919. You can maybe capture the look, but not the feeling… and that’s what I loved about the old Roosevelt’s Tamale Parlor.

And don’t even get me started on the greedy corporate bastards who yanked the 16 foot long Maxfield Parrish painting from the backbar of the Pied Piper Bar in the Palace Hotel on Market Street and sent it to be auctioned off in New York.

Man I hate being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st Century…

SITTIN' RIGHT UNDER THE X IN TEXAS

And off we went to Austin (the other Texas…) to gather for the April 7th wedding of the eldest child.  Travel was complicated only because we chose to hop and skip about some in order to connect along the way with middle child who was traveling by air for the first time alone with her five month old kinder.  But all went reasonably smoothly, we all landed safely in Texas, snagged our rental car and car seat and, before you know it we were rolling down the Texas macadam, headed for our lovely south Austin rental house.

Since there were five of us out-o-towners, it was much more fun and cheaper by far to rent a house than sign up for a string of motel rooms for nearly a week. Cute little bungalow in the middle of South Austin, all vintage 50’s décor and a cold six-pack of Lone star in the fridge.

Beautiful weather, beautiful bride and a beautiful wedding, but you know me… I’m here to talk about the food & drink…

Travel being what it was we arrived very late at night and hungry. Hey, look, right down the block is a late night taqueria with a drive-thru.  We bought a whole bag full, took ‘em home, scarfed ‘em down and hit the pillows.

Up at a reasonable hour the next morning began the age old “where do you wanna eat breakfast?” debate.  Our local faction handed out a couple of favorites and we settled on The Magnolia Café where they serve, among many other things, breakfast all day.  Gingerbread pancakes, Migas and breakfast tacos with eggs, cheese, black beans and thick, diced chunks of smoked bacon. We dined outside with birds and dogs and children scurrying underfoot and felt like we were back in Costa Rica.

Since we ate late, as it were, we just nibbled on bits and pieces until dinner time when we headed off to Green Mesquite BBQ, an old time favorite in south of the river Austin.  By now we had added the last of the out-of-town contingent – the youngest child and his girl friend so we all sat out on the patio, ordered big plates of all kinds of BBQ and beers by the pitcher.  Sausages, brisket, ribs, pulled pork, chicken, a multiplicity of sides, piles of spongy, white bread and more pitchers of beer.  Well, we wound up staying for three hours, a band started playing texas swing and we ordered more beer. As we were handing our car keys over to the designated drivers someone mentioned having the munchies… well, as it happens, right across the parking lot from the BBQ joint was a P Terry’s, a long time local burger drive-in.  Cash was pooled and a team was sent off to acquire a sack-o-burgers and some fries to carry back to the house.  Although several members of the dinner party had pooh-poohed the burger run, they were soon hovering around whining that there were none left because those of us with a penchant for such delicacies and hoovered them all up without hesitation.

Saturday was the wedding rehearsal and its associated rehearsal diner.  We had paid a caterer to bring in Mexican food for 20 and I guess they were covering their bases in case the 20 people were all a football team of giants… everything came in 9 x 13 pans – one each of barbacoa, beans, rice, pico-de-gallo, chicken tamales, pork tamales, vegetarian tamales, onion & jalapeno topping, a double pan of al pastor, a double pan of fresh tortillas, a pillowcase-sized bag of chips, a gallon of really good salsa and a 2 gallon bucket of that strange, semi-runny nacho cheese stuff.  We did our best, ate like troopers and washed it all down with more Lone Star, but it was a losing battle. Since we had a house and a fridge we took the mountain of leftovers back to our place… which meant homemade huevos rancheros for breakfast.

Sunday was the wedding and the reception.  More Lone Star and the food was all about texas BBQ.  Baked beans, gumbo, rice, cole slaw, sausage, brisket, chicken, pulled pork and ribs with the ubiquitous white bread for sopping and chin wiping. I hear that there were three different wedding cakes but I only had room for a small bite off someone else’s plate…

Monday morning was just feeding off scraps from the fridge… and lunch was Japanese food for a bit of a switch-up for the old taste buds… Kirin instead of Lone Star and shrimp instead of ribs.

We went light on dinner so we would fit in our plane seats the next day… another patio evening at a bar called Gourmand’s Pub.  Sandwiches and soup in bread bowls and a nice selection of local beers.

We did not eat again until we were safely out of Texas…

CHRISTMAS BY THE SALT, SALT SEA...

Well, as you may well know by now, Tama got what she wanted for Christmas with the arrival of the golden grandchild... come all the way from Ideeho on the iron horse.

Since we were hosting inlanders here by the seaside we opted for an oceanic food theme for our holiday repast. A late afternoon visit to our neighborhood fishmonger yesterday got us the raw ingredients and this afternoon we "got to it" in earnest.

The four of us Talia & Rich and we'uns did some serious and nearly terminal damage to the following...

We came damn close to all being members of the clean plate club with just enough left over to make a nice seafood gumbo to go with tomorrow night's boneless country pork ribs in a chocolate BBQ sauce...

 We stuffed ourselves silly on the bounty of the sea and the bottled hint-o-heaven from Russian River Brewing Co. while the wee one slept near by.

Good food, good times and family close to hand... pretty much a tried and true formula for a Merrie Christmas.