Fare Thee Well

Tempatures dipped to 34 last night. We had a roaring fire in one of the most serene settings we've ever camped in. Barely a sound except the rustle of palmetto and the night bird calls. We had a great dinner of leftover white chili, toasted jack cheese, avocado and green chili sandwiches. I finished with hot tea and a chocolate. WFS had a hot shower and I washed the dishes. By the time we got inside, we were both grateful for our cozy little bed & a very warm TinCan.
Yesterday we explored a radius of fifty miles. We hiked two state parks and one federal preserve. Rivers, marshes and estuaries, deep hammocks and golden sandy beaches. This was the land of native people and so pristine. We relived their lives in every hammock and midden. The Timucuan were decimated not by war, but by disease. We stood on the banks of the Tomoka River, just before it flowed into the sea, imagining a world of peace and content under the huge live oak trees.
Our next park was an old sugar plantation. This hidden jewel was so far off the grid we were fearful we were heading to no man's land. After 10 miles on sand roads we found the old ruin. Deep in the hammock, forgotten by time, we walked through the ruins knowing this whole world succeeded on the backs of slaves. A sobering moment in a beautiful setting. As we drove back through the wooded lane, we spoke of how little the world has changed.
Fortunately, we can speak out, reach out and hope.

THE REAL FLORIDA

Clouds were white and billowy as we left sweet Fernandina, Cumberland Island. As we packed our gear, some folks from upstate NY stopped for a chat, then a sweet man from Frankfort, Ky said he had to stop and ask, where in Ky? And why did we have Ky plates on the rear and New Mexico plates on the front.. At that same moment, he spied our duckies and seemed( in a friendly way) to get it! We are kitschy! Finally, we pulled out, stopping briefly for provisions and a Starbucks. We headed down the coastal highway A1A toward a State Park that heralds: The Real Florida. Clouds were thickening as we drove, at a snail's pace, down the coast. We drove off the main road across sand roads and a washed out bridge to soaring long leaf pines and the uncluttered quiet of the hammocks. As WFS set up camp, I quickly made white chili for dinner. It was very, very good about two hours later.
We donned our rain gear, as big raindrops plopped on the sand. We headed into the dense hammocks where the Timucuan Indians dwelled( many, many years ago)along the marshes. We had been hiking about 45 minutes in the rain, when I heard a rustle up ahead. A small herd of young, feral pigs dashed in front of us, scurrying into the palmetto. We could hear the sow calling them in the distance. They were incredibly fat for feral pigs, with rough graphite colored hides. We stood in the drizzle, amazed. We walked on to the salt marshes. It was still, except for birds calling and the rustle of palmetto. We soaked up the feeling of being in a very undisturbed corner of the world. Yes, it does exist, even in overrun Florida.
This morning brought high, blue skies and classical music. We ate our croissants and tupelo honey for breakfast. Between sips of coffee, we planned our wilderness day.
Shall I say, it will be an adventure? Stay tuned.

Cumberland Island

WFS & I boarded the boat around 5:00, Cap't Dave( A REAL SEA GUY)navigated past the Fernandina shrimping fleet, up the St. Mary's River. WFS found Cap't Dave very good company. He guided us through the Narrows, pass Fort Clinch( near our campsite) and around the point. Then, we turned west toward Cumberland Island, just as the sun slipped over the horizon. To say this was magnificent would be an understatement. Cap't Dave took us to the point of
Cumberland Island where the wild horses roam. He explained it isn't often you can SEE them, but he had a good feeling...We hovered the shoreline watching birds wading along the shore, the sun casting unearthly colors against the shore and sky.
suddenly, our captain said, in a near whisper, look, look...just over the dune to your left. Behold, the herd ambled into our view...slowly they ascended the dune and we gasped! Time to break out our split of champagne! We sipped our champagne, wrapped ourselves in polar fleece blankets and moved out far enough to watch the dolphins, gracefully off the prow~
Every picture tells a story, but I am not sure the photos or my words can do this evening justice.

AMELIA ISLAND

We are ensconced in our lovely camping spot under a live oak. WFS can hear the boats passing by. The sunset was absolutely amazing last night. we walked through the live oaks to the river side of the campground, just in time to watch the last shreds of light fill the sky. We stayed out as long as we could...
After dinner we watched a Japanese film, Departures, about a young cellist returning to his rural home in Japan to learn the art of preparing the dead for the last journey( a very beautiful art)...a truly compelling film.
Today is a bit overcast and we were caught in a rain shower walking to Fort Clinch...We took shelter under a canopy of trees... giggling about being caught in the rain without any rain gear..Duckie Express is filled of rain gear. A Very lazy day for WFS and I....

The Joy of Camping

Yesterday we drove into Savannah. We planned our day around brunch. Meriwether McClorey, a recent Savannah School of Design graduate, sent me her insider guide to Savannah. Our brunch at the Firefly Cafe was so good. Offbeat and funky....fresh, original food. Yummy.
We drove out to Tybee Island to find the freshest seafood available. I found grouper, light pink flesh and smelling of the salty sea. We were excited about returning to our camp, building a big roaring fire and sharing the bottle of champagne Robert gave WFS for his birthday. I should insert here, I love to gather wood. Skidaway Island was a bonanza for wood gathering! WFS protested, I have enough wood for tonight...nonetheless, I wandered off to gather wood~~~the sun was setting, the birds were gathering in the trees and the air soft and warm. How bad can that be? As the fire sparked, WFS poured a tiny plastic glass of champagne. Umum. Good. Just at that moment, a couple meandered into our campsite. John and Mary, from Milford, Connecticut, were camping nearby in their indentical airstream, Tumbleweed! WFS hastened to find two more plastic glasses and find our extra campstools. We exchanged camping and airstream tales. They checked ours out, we checked out theirs. After the champagne was consumed, they left with a promise to meet for coffee the next morning.
Hastily, I started roasting fingerling potatoes and young vidalia onions purchased at the farmer's market. While they roasted over the hot coals, I made a salad of butter lettuce and cukes. I prepared the fish for grilling, including, fresh dill butter for finishing. This meal, I must say, was a perfect example of fresh, simple food bursting with flavor. We cleaned up by the last flickers of the fire. Our warm beds were going to feel so good. And, they did.
WFS was up quite early, and in 7x11 space,,that translates to me being up quite early, as well. I bury under the covers as long as possible,
but, after WFS walks with Chloe, showers and fumbles to find coffee filters, I reluctantly greet the day. I walked down for my shower in blissfully warm morning air..
When I returned, Mary and John were walking toward our picnic table carrying hot, whole wheat pancakes and Vermont maple syrup. We had the hot coffee.
Camping is about the best of the best.... When morning brings handmade pancakes and new friends, I would speculate, it doesn't get much better.

Chattanooga

Warm night air and brilliant stars on Lookout Mountain last night. We drove into Chattanooga to meet a dear friend, Mia...she suggested a lovely Italian restaurant near the museums, overlooking the Tennessee River. We had enough time to take the river walk before dinner. Tony's was a very efficient, cozy family style restaurant. Mia brought Clyde, her ten year old and his best buddy, Ethan. Mia is an artist and a fun spirit. We hadn't seen each other in years. I ordered homemade pasta with marinara. Simple but just the way I like fresh made pasta. Mia had ravioli with gorgonzola sauce. WFS chose spinach fettucine with Italian sausage. Little guys went with penne and butter. Winners, all.
We made a short evening of it, needing to be back in the cozy nest of the TinCan.
We've traveled in dappled sunlight in shirt sleeves. Savannah is on the horizon..
Firelight, the sea and stars.

Flyte, Nashville

Getting out of Louisville yesterday was an exciting! We finally turned south and left the snow behind around Bowling Green. Nashville is chilly but a fine 15 degrees warmer than our frigid tempatures.
After a spin through Target and Toys r Us with Jaxon, a big box of legos and a cuddle, we were off to WFS's birthday dinner at Flyte. Flyte is all the buzz in Nashville. Industrial, hip and warm, all in one package. Perfectly appointed tables and the cozy, pillowed, corner banquette made a great first impression. We ordered a fantastic inexpensive South African white wine. I decided to go to the small bites portion of the menu. I really wanted to sample the flytes.
I started with a pork belly, prawn, sweet potato and mole appetizer. Generous enough to make a full course and every bite exquisite. My next course was the soup flyte. Three small tureens were a little hit and miss. The parsnip soup was silky, flavorful and left me wanting more. The wild mushroom was tepid and uninspired. The celery root silken soup burst my taste buds into a full swoon. Each soup would have benefited from heat. Note: on chilly evenings, warm those bowls and bring the soup hot!!! My final course was a salad of arugula and beets with borscht in a small tureen. This was beyond fabulous. The borscht was pure beet with undertones of a lovely homecooked beef stock. Lovely. WFS had an Asian inspired Steelhead trout, cooked to a perfect medium rare. A small pot of dashi was drizzled over the trout tableside. Jason had poussin with fresh veggies. A success of pure natural flavors standing alone.
We passed on desserts... Something about avocado pudding did not appeal to me~~
The service was impeccable and the tab was in keeping with the attention to detail and natural, organic ingredients.
If you are in Naahville, near the old red light district on Division St., fly in.

Looking for the Sun

After a long absence, I have returned to blogging our adventures. We are a chilly 25 degrees and snow is banked around the Tin Can. We will make Nashville tonight and celebrate WFS's birthday with family...We are going to a new, hip restaurant. Tomorrow, I will review the results of our dinner.
The past few months haven't been easy for me to write but I am going to dust of my keyboard and fire up my synapsis

The Three Tendedors

When I think about different foods, a location usually comes to mind, like pasta and Italy, or foie gras and the Hudson Valley, or truffles and France. When I think of meat I think of Argentina- and that vast swath of the chlorophyll filled pampas- the grassy plains in the interior of the country that provide the flavor to beef that has the rest of the world looking on in envy. Don't get me wrong, USDA beef is spectacular and is a very close second, but let's recognize Argentine beef for what it is- the best on earth. So being that I am a big fan of beef, I was drawn to Buenos Aires and the legendary steakhouses, or parillas, that pleasure the local portenos. I had only two nights, and there were three establishments that I wanted to dine in, so lunch was going to have to suffice for one spot. The three were in reverse chronological order were: La Estancia, La Brigada, and Cabana Las Lilas. I put them in this order, because I figured I knew which one I was going to like best, and made sure to go there first in case we were not able to be go to all of them.

La Estancia is a very large, one room parilla on a street named Lavalle, which is a pedestrian only street (most of the time) in the heart of Buenos Aires. From the street one can see the many cuts of meats grilling on a pit or a grill, and as I opened the doors I was consumed by the smell of burning wood and greeted by a very old door man that was enlightened by my daughter's smile. We were shown to a table in the rear of the restaurant, and took our seats. This was the day we were flying home and was going to be our last meal in South America. We started with a large Quilmes beer, which is served in a bucket of ice like a fine wine would be. I must say I really wanted to compare the three restaurants apple for apple, so I ordered the same three items at each of the stops, and tried bites of my family's plates for any variety I needed. The three items were chorizo sausage, sweetbreads, and lomo- or filet mignon to the northern latitude dwellers. Except for this spot, where I finished off with a skirt steak. The sweetbreads here were very large, about the size of a hamburger at McDonalds, but thicker. The waiter showered the treats with a lemon and we served ourself off of the grill that had been placed on the table. the texture provided enough resistance so that my fork alone would not quite penetrate the piece. The flavor was well-rounded and a house-made chimichurri was spicy hot, but not up to what I was hoping for. deeming lemon enough for the rest that I ate. The chorizo sausages were very nice, loosely ground and seared perfectly to seal in the natural juices. the flavor was excellent. The table ordered a mixed grill of chicken, pork, and beef, and the skirt steak was only decent, which proved to make this the number 3 spot in BA. It was tied together in a circle and was dry and tasted like roast from Applebee's. No juice or flavor. But the decor of the restaurant made it look like we were outside in those pampas with tree-like pillars and murals on the wall of cattle and clouds. **1/2

On the second night in BA, we tried La Brigada, which is in the San Telmo district. This place is famous as being a hang out of the Argentina National Football team, and the walls are adorned with jerseys of the game's legends and has the feel of a very masculine place. There are three stories and a large wine cellar in the basement which can be seen through an acrylic floor by the piano. Servers wait for you at the door and escort you to your table like one would escort wedding guest. Once seated we were presented with menus bound in cow hides and ordered some white wine to start with. An article I had read suggested the tail of sirloin, but to keep with comparing I ordered the lomo which proved to be a slight miscue. The rest of the table ordered the tail of sirloin and they proved to be cut-with-a-spoon tender. My filet was good, and the sweetbreads and chorizo were very very good. La Brigada ***

So this leaves us with one restaurant to redeem Argentina as THE spot for carne. In 2006 I read an article in the New York Times food section titled: Meals worth the price of a plane ticket, and after El Bulli in Spain the writer listed Cabana Las Lilas. in his very short list of 6 restaurants. I was intrigued, what could be done to beef differently to make an overnight flight to BA worthwhile. I wanted to find out what was so special about this place in the Puerto Madera district, sitting right on the water way near the Puenta de la mujer. Upon arrival I checked in with the hostess and stated I had made a reservation some time back to dine there (8 months to be exact). As I waited for the second cab to deliver my fellow diners I saw a tour bus pull up and unload a mass of tourists in very non-South American garb. I started to shutter and wonder what I had gotten into. surely they were not about to dine in the glorious Cabana Las Lilas dressed as they were. Sure enough they were herded into the restaurant, which my eyes that had not yet seen the expansive dining rooms that enveloped the entrance, and I wondered where they were going to put them. A few moments later another bus pulled up, same result. I was starting to wonder if I was either in the wrong spot or if I had made a mistake. When the remainder of my party arrived, I stepped back to the hostess and told her we were ready to be seated. Past the grill, through the first dining room, through the second large dining room with doors open to the fast approaching night, and into the third very large dining room that must have seated 110 people. There must have been 250 people dining at the restaurant as we were seated. The waiters were clad in tuxedos and brought out two platters for the table before our waters were even filled. They consisted of roasted peppers, spanish ham, mushrooms, and a semi-hard cheese. We later learned this was part of the 8 peso seating charge applied to each adult diner. As we settled in for our first dinner in BA, I read over the wine list and ordered a nice pinot noir for the table. I know what I was going to dine on, but looked over the menu to get a feel for the choices of such a large churrascaria. They had all the bases covered as far as meat goes. there were cuts that I knew, some I had forgotten, and some I had not run across before. As the head waiter came to our table (we had a wait staff of 4 for our 8 top table) we started to give our preferences. when my mother ordered her steak well-done the waiter said "we might have a problem there, the chef is quite picky and may not cook to that temperature." I did not know whether to say congratulations to the chef or what the hell is he thinking. After a quick trip to the kitchen and apparently an approval from the chef, the order was confirmed and we all followed with our orders of steaks medio-crudo, or medium rare. I also ordered the sweetbreads and chorizo bonbones as they were billed. An appetizer here is assumed to be for the table when ordered, so these two dishes were brought first to my place setting and served with two forks in the ultra-classy manner, and then offered to the rest of the settings, although there were only two takers on the sweetbreads and 1 on the chorizos since there were so few. The chorizos were succulent and made my mouth sing in joy of the wonderfully juicy array of flavor that had been presented to my taste buds. just enough spice with the excellent red chimichurri to put a bead of sweat on my forehead, the way I like it. And then the sweetbreads, ohhh the sweetbreads. I have liked sweetbreads for some time now, but in Louisville the only spot that always has them on the menu is Palermo Viejo, and they keep my cravings in check when I am at my home base. So I have not seen them prepared too many ways. When I put the fork, or tendedor, to the first bite, I heard it crunch and saw it split. I was taken back as I was not expecting a crunchy sweetbread. I rushed the bite to my lips and was awarded with pure heaven. There are but a few things that can make me smile in utter amazement from years of exploring this great earth. And at times the most simple things can accomplish this feat, such as a crunchy sweetbread served in Beunos Aires, Argentina. The full flavored morsels had been charred to the point where there was no black grill marks, but the outer edges were crispy and the middle was semi-tough in a good way. this is what that gent at the new york times was talking about. After the starters, the main courses were hand delivered to the table by the chef himself, who seemed to have demigod status amongst the waiters as they hurried to set up his easel to place his masterpieces upon. He placed the tray on the stand and looked at our table, smiled and vanished back to the kitchen. The head waiter then passed out our steaks and baked potatoes. Before I go any further, let me tell you abot the service. My water glass was never empty, one of the waiters seemed to be on guard at all times as we dined, and when I would place an empty bottle or dish near the edge of the table, it was whisked away within 30 seconds. As I cut into my steak my lip turned up a bit. it was medium, not medium rare. I asked the opinion of the third waiter in command and he conversed with the second in command and seemed to be very hesitant in agreeing with my claim of an overcooked steak. As we were inspecting the steak, out of nowhere the head waiter came up from behind me and as if he had been in on the whole conversation scooped the meat up and said that steak is medium. within 20 seconds, that's right. 20 seconds I had a perfectly cooked steak in front of me. the master server asked me to cut into the steak and check its heat. ahhh, perfection. The steak was as flavorful as anticipated, the owner serves only beef from his personal ranch in the pampas. A slighlty different flavor than US beef, the Argentine beef seems a bit more complex than the US counterpart. A baked potato which had been requested with sour cream on the side showed up sans sour cream, and when I asked the waiter for a side of crema, he brought a new potato with sour cream slathered all over it in 15 seconds. Now as busy as this place was it was impossible to leave the room in 15 seconds, much less go to the kitchen, get a potato, and apply butter, sour cream, and chives. where did the potato come from, under the waiter's hat?, from another diner's table? I had never seen two mistakes corrected with more speed. I was amazed at the level of service and professionalism being displayed. For dessert I had a cream brulee which was very good, although I swear I almost ordered sweetbreads for dessert. And so it goes.... Cabana Las Lilas ***** worth every penny of that plane ticket!

AE