Thanksgiving at Camila and Paul's

Thanksgiving 2009 was a foodie extravaganza. We were invited with all the Chaparro/Cichellos to Camila & Paul's new house on the outskirts of Washington, DC. In case you hadn't noticed the Chaparros are entranced with food of all cultures, and lots of it. But then that's what a feast is about - too much food for anyone to eat.

Here we see Camila with her lovely 25 lb turkey. And, yes, it fit in the oven with plenty of room to spare

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Thanksgiving morning Mitch and I found the ideal time to visit the Smithsonian museums as they are open every day except Christmas (aren't these employees unionized?). We Metro'd to the Museum of American Art for "1934: a New Deal for Artists" with paintings in a range of styles done by WPA artists. Small and very approachable, the exhibit provides a window into Depression times.

Then back to the C&C house for a mammoth Thanksgiving. The 25 pounds of turkey was overshadowed by mac and cheese, parsnips and pears, stuffing, vegetable/cheese bread pudding, green beans, artichoke cheese casserole, etc. etc . and then lots and lots of pies. All delicious and even after we all ate tons the leftovers overwhelmed the refrigerator and all available storage containers.

On Friday we sent an expedition force of 10 to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, one of the (deservedly) most popular museums.

As if organizing our group wasn't bad enough, the museum was hosting a maise festival with lots of activities for kids so it was so busy that we couldn't have lunch at the cafeteria with its samplings of food from lots of Indian tribes. And we were so looking forward to that fry bread

But we did see a wonderful comtemporary art exhibit by Brian Jungen using modern day materials such as golf bags, and lawn chairs and baseballs to create art in a somewhat Indian tradition

That evening was Korean night for dinner with Juan and Mandy creating bi bim bop, a vegetable dish with rice and fried egg, with marinated short ribs on the side. Watch out for that red sauce...it's tasty but very hot.

Did you think we would have given up eating by Saturday???? No way. Mitch & I visited Aunt Harriet and Uncle Charlie and then the Kurlantzick tribe for Sabbath brisket before returning to the lively C&C homestead for ITALIAN night. In case you haven't figured it out from the name Cichello, Paul is Italian...and can his family cook! Sister Mary and her husband and two kids with brother Michael as well as various other friends rounded out the usual guests. Sausage lasagna and two kinds of ravioli and sausage and pasta and salad and more pie...Stop, stop. Oh, forgot to mention all the wine...that and the great company kept us laughing and happy all evening.

Unfortunately real life entervened the following day and we had to drive back to NJ and real life. Needless to say we haven't had to eat since.

Greetings from Mother

Here is a pretty good picture of Mother, although I'm sure she'd disagree.

Southern California in November

Here I am in Fillmore for a laid-back week with Mother. The weather is beautiful, but then the East has had warm days as well.All right ....it's not London, but here are some photos for a flavor of another lifestyle
Not too much happens in Fillmore...

but you might catch a glimpse of a Peregine Falcon.

And there are still roses in bloom.....

And you might find a wonderful momento of your childhood in the neighbor's trash. ..an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!! Good thing someone came by and retrieved it or I would have been tempted to take it home.

How much would Continental charge for the extra baggage?

Saatchi Museum - Old Persons Home

Now that we're home and as caught up as we'll ever be, I'm going to try adding a video to this blog. From the Saatchi Gallery here is an art work called Old Persons Home by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. It consists of 13 lif-sized sculptures and 13 dynamoelectric wheelchairs and is rather fantastic! This is also the first video I've taken with my camera that wasn't an accident.

Home to New Jersey

Tuesday we did a bit of last minute shopping before checking out of the Winrose B&B and paying the bill. My verdict on the Winrose is cheap, respectable and very basic. The location was good for the buses and underground lines, but if I were a woman alone I'd be a bit put off by all the middle eastern men hanging out in Edgware Rd. But that's just a cultural thing. And we enjoyed the two dinners we had on Edgware Rd....lots of ready middle eastern food.

The 53 stairs up to our top floor room (or 68 from the basement breakfast room) certainly developed our leg muscles on this vacation of steps. I was concerned about this for Mitch, but I was unable to stop him from searching out even more stairs to descend.

The worst things about the hotel were the poor wifi connection and the lack of comfortable seating in the room. So, next time, we're not going to economize quite so much. So, remind us, will you when the time comes that $175-200 per night is the best you're going to do in London.

We added the fare to Heathrow onto our Travelcards and took the Circle Line to Glouster where we changed to the Picadilly line to Heathrow (note for next time: room on the Picadilly line?) We had allowed plenty of time so weren't rushed as we walked the 17 miles of corridors to our gate at Heathrow. Lunch at Pret a Manger and my favorite crayfish and rocket sandwich.

Flight home on American Airlines was uneventful. No frills and $6 drinks, but enough movies and TV selections to keep us busy. I watched PBS' 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles." Depressing! So then I watched Nia Vardalos' "I Hate Valentine's Day." Now that's a contrast!

So we are home and it's rained all night. And we only got 3 drops in London, so I guess we did something right.

Trip Highlights: Southbank Centre with all the free and state-subsidized culture - concerts, theater, etc. Saatch Museum and Duke of York outdoor market. Trip to Oxford and the Cotswold. Travelling all over by bus. Walking across the Thames again and again.

A Beauiful Monday in London

Monday, October 26, 2009
On our last full day in London we had a full schedule beginning with the Imperial War Museum which I thought Mitch would enjoy as he watches all those WWII TV shows. Another beautiful day so each day we leave another layer at the B&B. No more coats for us. We scanned our 7 day Olyster Travelcards and boarded the Bakerloo line directly to Lambeth .

I think Mitch likes this particular station because he insists on walking down 125 + steps. I take the lift.






“The Imperial War Museum is the national museum of the experiences of people who have lived, fought and died in conflicts involving Britain and the Commonwealth since 1914.



It tells everyone’s story: the history of Modern war and people’s experience of war and wartime life in Britain. “ There is a wonderful collection of planes – Sopwith Camels, Spitfires, Messersmidts, ; bombs, tanks, etc., as well as artifacts of everyday life, a simulated blitz experience, and special exhibits. It does not glorify war in any way, and I have to admit we skipped the more horrific Holocaust and conflicts since 1945 section. History from our parents' time is bad enough.






















The museum was getting quite crowded and we were hungry so we ate at the snackbar in the park next door before hopping on bus 360 to the Tate Britain. No way were we going to be able to do both Tates. So the Tate Modern will have to wait until next time for a revisit. We admired the Turners and took a gander at the modern stuff before we got too tired. Sorry, no photos says the guard so you’ll have to check out the Turners online.
Tonight we have tickets at the National Theatre for John Lithgow’s “Stories by Heart.”

Stay tuned







Mitch even insists on walking down the escalator. I've only lost him once or twice, but, as he leaves the navigating to me, most times he waits for me at the bottom.

Sunday in Brighton

Sunday, Oct. 25. London was slightly less bustling and populated at 9 am on Sunday morning as we took a 12 minute bus ride to Victoria Station to catch the Southern RR to Brighton. One of Mitch’s ski organizer friends had set us up with a Brit ski writer, Arnie Wilson, who lives outside of Brighton. And Arnie was going to show us the seaside resort. After a tussle with the quick ticket machine we purchased our tickets at the counter and explored carved-up, fast foodized Victoria Station while we waited for the 10:02 to Brighton.

The trip south was uneventful through suburbs, past Gatwick airport, and a few patches of lovely rolling countryside and took about an hour-and-a-half. Arnie was waiting for us at Brighton’s RR station and off we went, at a very fast clip, following him through the streets of Brighton.

We dashed down North Laine full of retro boutiques and zipped through the more upscale winding Lanes full of little shops including some intriguing antique jewelry shops.

Then a spin round the Royal Pavilion admissions room and gift shop. The Royal Pavilion was originally a simple farmhouse in a fishing village that George, Prince of Wales (later George IV), transformed, with the help of the notable architects of the day, into a very large pseudo Indian, Chinese folly. Now it’s being restored and sports scaffolding and plastic tarps.

A quick sprint took us down to the Promenade which stretches miles along the beachfront. There is no sand, but large pebbles called shingle. Although the sun was warm enough there was a good wind and the sea was so rough it was hard to envision fishermen at any time getting boats launched. There is a small two room museum to fishing and Brighton’s early days under the roadway.

We joined a another journalist friend of Arnie’s for a fish and chips (with mushy peas of a remarkable green color) at the Regency, a very pleasant seaside restaurant full of families having Sunday lunch.
The afternoon involved a another sprint up the beachwalk to see some Regency apartment crescents in Hove and then back down and out on the Brighton Pier – a crowded and noisy amusement park full of arcade games and carney rides and booths. It makes the Jersey shore look pretty upscale.

After a dash back to the station we joined all the returning weekenders in a packed train back to London, rather exhausted, and fell into bed. So that’s why this posting is a bit late.

Saatchi Museum and more Brahms

Now Saturday in London. It started off with a slight drizzle (which never materialized into anything more) as we made our way to the half-price ticket booth in Leischester Square for tickets, but we didn't find anything good so we continued on to the Saatchi Museum at its new location in Chelsea in the Duke of York's Headquarters.

American Art of course, as most art and theater here seems to be American, but a great selection with a fine sense of humor in a beautifully renovated building.

And to make it even better, there was a outdoor food market right there with all sorts of wonderful cheeses and lovely sweets and lots of ethnic food,,,just in time for lunch. I had a quiche and Mitch had a lovely lamb and mint pie from the pieman with a luscious custard tart for his dessert.





Then his refrain for the rest of the day was "I'm never going to eat again."

Back on our trusty double-decker bus and in the "terror seat," we rode back to the Embankment and walked over the Jubilee Bridge

(Mother, I think this replaced the swaying one you remember) to the Southbank Center where they were having yet another food festival - wine and cheese this time- and a free string quartet at 4 p.m. Quatuor Ebene and Brahms’ Piano Quintet.

Southbank is wonderful people watching, and remarkably family friendly with tots and small children running all over the place, and adults chatting and free wi-fi! We considered moving in!

After the concert wewtalked back across the Thames and mounted our trustee double decker again back to Edgward Road and dinner (gyro and falafel) at one of the many, many Lebanese restaurants lining the roads - all with hookah smokers out in front. ..I'll try to get a picture later.

Meat pie with mash

Update to Friday, Oct. 23, entry

We took a good long rest at our minimalist B&B to build up steam again. But dinner, we need dinner even after my breakfast English fry-up, and large prawn sandwich in the crypt at St. Martin in the Field (it's no longer a crypt but a restaurant). And I wanted to photograph at least one of the amusing/intriguing signs we'd seen. Tried to research good pubs for more true Brit food, but the Internet was totally gone, so out we went....unprepared!

We found one of the signs and here it is!

And we were equally successful with the pub. Pubs are not threatened by the fast food invasion and there are still pubs on just about every corner....perhaps not as ornate as they once were and many serving sophisticated food (the maligned "gastro-pub"). So we wandered around looking for the appropriate one serving British food (many offer Thai), and just right for the sedate middle-aged couple we are). We settled on the Monkey Puzzle and had a very delightful evening....first relaxing with beers on the leather couch (beats our B&B hands down), and then progressing to baked camembert with honey and pecans for starters, then pork pie and mash served with 2 perfectly done vegs (besides the potatoes) and a side salad (too much). With just one order we wondered if it would be enough. What do you think? Here is a picture of Mitch's half. And it was delicious!

Cabinet War Room

Today we went to the Cabinet War Rooms, the top destination on Mitch's must-see list, and it was quite good. Supposedly everything was left just as it was at the end of WWII. I'm sending you the link http://cwr.iwm.org.uk/ because I know your Internet connection is better than ours. And of course there is technology to supplement the artifacts - listen to recordings of people talking about working with Churchill, living in the bunker, etc. I don't think one really gets the feeling of too many people in too little space, all smoking like chimneys with no natural light and no flush toilets. And right in the middle of the war rooms is the new Churchill Museum - sort of like a 300 page Churchill multimedia biography. Very well done, but much too much to absorb.

Then we walked up to Trafalgar Square and had lunch in the crypt and a concert at St. Martin in the Field. Young pianist, Beth Chen, played Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Prokofiev. St. Martin in the Field has been renovated and is looking all prosperous and freshly painted, and there was a full house for the concert. I've never seen that before.

We are tired today, so took the bus home through the remarkably congested streets (people and buses)....it's a slow trip, but great views sitting at the front on top of a double decker (Mitch calls the one closest to the side the "terror seat") Don't think we'll do much else today for fear of tiring Mitch too much.