The New Norker, Dec. 25, 2014

“Just try saying unique New York five times fast”

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN MIXED MEDIA

LONG WAY ROUND First of all, I must confess to an old lady crush on actor, Ewan McGregor. I’ve loved his work in such films as Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Beginners, and The Men Who Stare at Goats, to name a few. But found him even more charming as himself in this travelogue in which he rode his BMW motorbike from Scotland to NYC – going east.

He was accompanied by his good friend, Charley Boorman, and, of course, a camera crew consisting of a photographer on a third motorcycle and two vans carrying additional equipment.

In addition, the two men were equipped with recording equipment, so they could speak to each as they traveled and share their impressions of the country and the people as they rode. The vans generally left the cyclists alone except at border crossings, so most of the footage is of two men on their motorcycles traveling over varied terrain as they make their way through Europe, Asia, across Russia, then by plane to Alaska, Canada, across the US, ending three months later in New York.

They covered 20,000 miles in 115 days, crossing

twelve countries and nineteen time zones. That in itself was extraordinary, but the real charm of the trip was in viewing the interactions with each other and with people they met along the way. Ewan and Charley like each other – the friendship is clear – and they were open in their affection. They were also interested in meeting people from the countries through which they traveled, and often were invited into homes and to share meals and lively conversation.

There were some funny bits as the exhausted twosome were given unwanted police protection and were sort of herded into town squares to be entertained by local musicians. But there were also poignant scenes as they visited several UNICEF sites, such as an orphanage in Ukraine housing children affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Charley and Ewan are both parents, and you could see by their expressions how moved they were as they worked to bring attention to the humanitarian efforts of UNICEF. There’s a fair amount of footage of struggles – through sand, mud, and over potholes – as they worked to control their heavy, unwieldy bikes. And the trip was often tiring and frustrating, and they expressed their fatigue and discomfort. But that all added to the enjoyment from my perspective (sitting in comfort on my couch!), and all-in-all this was a great armchair adventure. And, who knows, perhaps a blueprint for an adventurous person to plan a similar kind of trip. ~ Sally Perrine

DEATH, SEX AND MONEY— a podcast from WNYC with host Anna Sale 2014 was definitely the year of the podcast. I wore my headphones more this year than ever before and it cut drastically into my TV and movie watching time and my reading time.

Podcasts are kind of in between watching and reading. Listening is a skill in between those two.

I met Anna Sale this year in Portland at a public radio conference. Everyone was talking about her and her new show Death, Sex, and Money.

Really? Her? She seemed so young and so modest, I just couldn’t imagine that the show was any good. But everyone at the conference was tweeting about how they were binging on the show at night in order to be caught up enough the next day to talk to Anna about it, so I had to download them all and do the same – lying in my fluffy, white, king-sized bed at the Portland Hilton, drifting away to the sound of this young woman’s voice.

Anna interviews celebrities and regular people about the topics that we shy away from in polite conversation. And I don’t know if it’s the topics themselves or something about how Anna guides the interview, but it feels like delightfully eavesdropping on wonderfully intimate conversations about things you want to bring up at your next dinner table (maybe after a few glasses of wine). She asks all the right questions – the questions you would ask. In fact, she’s so good she seems to disappear

from the interview entirely and leaves you and her guests there having a chat. She’s like a psychic medium that way. I’ve heard Dan Savage interviewed on the radio probably a half dozen times, for instance, but Anna’s interview with him left me feeling like I’d known the man my whole life.

There’s something of an old-fashioned talk show to it, but everyone says that podcasts are more intimate than radio – something about listening on your own time, lying in bed perhaps, with someone’s voice being piped directly into your head. I try to listen to Death, Sex, and Money as a way to learn to be a better radio host, but I get so sucked in to the conversations that I completely forget to pay attention to what it is Anna’s doing. She’s that good. ~ Jennifer Pemberton BOYHOOD I’ve all but given up on movies. I’m too tired to stay awake, or I get bored, or distracted, or I’m so disappointed because all the pre-hype pretty much guarantees it can’t live up to my expectations. I’m so media saturated I always know the ins and outs of the plot, I’ve heard the actors interviewed on multiple podcasts, I’ve read about the making of the movie and reviews in multiple magazines. By the time I actually see it there is nothing new or fresh and I feel like I’ve already seen it. Box checked.

But nothing could have prepared me for how I felt during and after the movie Boyhood.

Prior to seeing it I’d heard multiple interviews with the

filmmaker Richard Linklater and another couple with actor Ethan Hawke. I’d read the review in the New Yorker and one of the podcasts I listen to, Slate Culture Gabfest, did a 20 minute segment breaking down the acting, the plot, the music, the minutiae of the film.

Boyhood’s claim to fame is that it was filmed over the course of 12 years; it’s a coming of age story about a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) told in short, everyday scenarios.

Mason goes to school, he plays with his friends, he picks on his sister, he gets his first girlfriend, he packs up his things to move, again. Mason’s mother, played

by Patricia Arquette, his father, Hawke, and sister Samantha, round out the main characters.

I’d heard that watching this boy grow, change, even just physically, right before my eyes, would be interesting, and it was. Similar to the Seven Up documentary series, you watch someone become who they are in just a few short hours. But I couldn’t have cared less about the kid. For me, the real story was the story of his mother, Olivia.

When we first meet Olivia she’s in her late 20s, a single mother of two kids, living in a crummy house, working a dead-end job. Her ex-husband, Mason Sr., is a well-meaning but immature and unreliable musician who drifts in and out of their lives. As is so often the case with single mothers, Olivia wants better for her kids but she is going to have to work long and hard to get there. She goes back to school, becomes a professional, gets

better jobs, moves the kids to better apartments with slightly nicer furnishings. Unfortunately, Olivia has bad taste in men.

She becomes involved with an older professor, who also has two kids. They get married and move into his big fancy house and from the outside everything looks picture perfect. You feel relieved for Olivia. Turns out the Prof. is an abusive alcoholic who hates Olivia’s kids. In one of the few heightened dramatic scenes, Olivia has to leave with her kids, in a panic, and goes to stay with a friend. Divorce. Back to a crummy apartment. Then she falls for an ex-Army guy, who is nice to her, and to the kids.

They get married, buy a house, and everything seems better for awhile. Until the new husband becomes an alcoholic meanie, too. PTSD. Divorce. Olivia struggles to keep the house, but it’s too much for her, and when the kids head out to college, she’s back to a small apartment.

Mason grows up, his hair darkens, grows long and floppy.

He gets a little pudgy, then wirey. His voice cracks. He does embarrassing, adolescent things.

You know, boyhood stuff. But Olivia changes, too, and her changes are more heartbreaking.

She makes difficult decisions about her life. She tries really, really hard to do the right thing, to be strong, to be a good, productive member of the world.

And yet, the youthfulness leaves her face, her body gets softer, the tiredness registers in her eyes and around her mouth. Time, stress, worry, they all rob Olivia of her innocence, her vibrance, her appeal.

This movie made me

clausterphobic – Olivia – like the rest of us, is trapped in her life.

She is doing exactly what she should have been doing, and yet the outcome is always less than inspiring. Like Olivia, I’ve made a lot of choices, and the results have never been what I expected, despite my intentions, my hopes, my thoughtful planning.

Boyhood should have been called Adulthood because that’s where the real story is. It is not the story of how we all grow up and that our future is full of possibility. It’s the story of how we all get old and that life is hard and unfair and often disappointing and depressing. I’d recommend you see something else, instead. ~ Jocelyn Robertson THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL There was a strange detachment accentuated by an exotic setting in the past and a thematic decentrality to this film. Take the opening scene: an unfinished room abuts the narrator’s fully furnished office.

The author, in the act of writing, is consistenly interrupted by a rambunctious child who shoots him with toy darts despite effusive protests. Funny. The child joins him as he finishes reading from index cards, shuffling them so rapidly that the viewer understands there to be only one, two, or three words per card. Funny. He recounts a story told to him by one of the characters in the story, very soon playing his part in the story, eventually, at the end, is he the Cartoons throughout – Will Fernandes

narrator again? The boy is…?

He fades, they fade, just as in the beginning, the theme and purpose of writing the story, diffuses.

The fairy tale tone, or as in a play of marionettes, the story is there, but the emotional content, disjointed and stereotyped, separates the viewer. When Zero, the old man, tells his story over dinner, he can’t continue because he must bring up his sweetheart, but only one tear falls, we think, or two, then he reclaims his dinner, says he kept on at the hotel for her sake, but the action fails to communicate this emotional link. His sweetheart plays her part, but eventually, her story – that she died gruesomely in the war – imparts little tragedy. The thuggish warrior soldiers that twice beat-up the concierge and his servant Zero, are charicatures and the sequence reminded me of early silent pictures with their jerky movements but lacked the dramatic faces of early silent actors. Here the good guy/

bad guy faces and postures and the comic result of beating up, showy fighting, was emotionally silly and unreal. Not comic like Punch and Judy. The theme of war or discrimination against homosexuals or foreigners, or women, while presented with a stylish and comic approach, created a distant, non-judgemental fading of feeling. Even when Mr. Concierge throws a couple of temper tantrums, the formula for comedy harkens back to 19101919 era with no improvements to drawing in the audience and suspending disbelief. The cliffhanger scene has a fake background and moves through fantasy dioramas, where themes such as family greed at the reading of the will are treated as a side-story, a vignette, which eventually, despite the time and drama invested, decentralizes the theme and seems to have made little difference to the story as a whole. It becomes a slap-stick interlude.

I liked a lot about the film,

“I see that you’re really embracing the Paleo diet.”

especially the interiors, the charicatures of characters, and the voluminous music which I noticed mostly at the end. The Grand Budapest was a puzzle of a movie, where assigning the parts, placing them into the picture like a jigsaw was more fun to watch than the final whole which appears stiff, and trite and in the end a little disappointing. ~ Leslie Robertson THE HUNDRED FOOT JOURNEY This is a “foodie” movie, definitely. The plot involves two restaurants situated 100 feet apart in a small town in southern France, one, Le Saule Pleureur, has a Michelin star and a stiff and snotty owner, Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), and the other, Maison Mumbai, is lit up like a Christmas tree, serves highly spiced Indian food and is presided over by a recently arrived family including Papa (Om Puri), head chef Hassan (Manish Dayal) and four other family members (including Papa’s dead wife, who consults and advises frequently).

Needless to say, that 100 feet is a long, long way, culturally.

And needless to say, the food from both resto’s looks terrific, and is prepared with everything fresh and lots of love. All gaps – cultural, culinary, and romantic – are predictably crossed and closed. But there are two moments in this movie that say, “OMG this tastes incredible,” – without saying anything. In the opening scene, Hassan, as a young boy, is at an open air market in Mumbai with his family, shopping for ingredients for the restaurant’s menu of the

day. A vendor hands Hassan a cooked sea urchin, all spiney and glistening. He turns it over and takes a bit of the meat on one finger and puts it in his mouth.

His eyes close, a smile takes over his face – absolute heaven.

A “yum” like you’ve never seen.

The scene takes just seconds and not a word is spoken, but you know right then he will become a gourmet chef. The other memorable moment, also just seconds long and with no words spoken, happens after Hassan has become chef of Maison Mumbai.

But he longs to be trained as a French chef, and is informed by Mme. Mallory’s assistant that the way she decides whether to hire a trainee is by having that person make her an omelette.

She takes only one bite and makes her decision. Of course Hassan contrives to cook her an omelette. The look on her face one can only imagine, as she is filmed from the back taking her bite. But you can feel it, really feel it, as her head drops back slightly and nothing else moves.

I wanted the rest of the omelette!

(But not the sea urchin!) ~ Marty Greer KEN BURNS: THE WEST This year, I realized I have been living in the west for almost half my life, and have invested in a career in western land management. Yet, most of my knowledge was focused on casual observations from my time spent in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. To truly immerse myself in western culture, I figured there was no better way than to move to Cody, Wyoming, pull on some Ariats and Levi’s (more fashionable than

Wranglers), sit on some fence posts with ranchers, and conduct some serious social science research.

Part of my education included the 1996 documentary, Ken Burns: The West. I found myself drawn into the complex history Ken Burns’ presents in his documentary, particularly as I explore the culture and landscapes around Wyoming.

Ken Burns tackles tough subjects in this documentary, focusing not only on the hopes and dreams of westward expansion, but the costs and plagues it brought with it. Much of this history took place over the length of Wyoming, where the Oregon, California, Utah, and Pony Express trails pass. The West describes the richness of Native American cultures and the changes that passed over these people and their landscapes as French fur trappers, English sailors, Spanish conquistadors, and American pioneers journeyed into the unknown.

These adventurers sought new homes, freedoms, and a desire to conquer the wilderness and tame it to their needs. Great herds of bison fell before them, veins of gold were gleaned from the earth, and towns sprung in the high desert as beacons of hope for a new beginning. Every day exploring the land of the Bighorn Basin, I see the impact of our forebears’ pioneer history and understand the depth of its connection to the landscape thanks to this documentary. Even as Ken Burns described steam locomotion, a train whistles by filled with coal. Ranchers changing fences to enhance safe pronghorn migration remind

me of how barbed wire altered western landscapes. A man walks by in Wranglers, and the innovation of pioneers comes screaming out generations later. Signs for the Nez Perce Historic Trail and the Wind River Reservation weep with the persecution of native peoples.

The West brings out a personal appeal to understand the complex history and scrappy nature of western people. It has helped me make sense of a landscape of buttes, deserts, mountains, and Badlands. It clarifies how wild mustangs came to symbolize the freedom of the west. It connects with all those people, past and present, who have loved, lived, and died on the frontier. And, it has taught me empathy as I look into faces filled with longing for adventure, shake hands rough with calluses, and smell whiskey and chew on people’s breaths as they lean in to tell me their story. And, when those hardworking people stare back at me, a newcomer to this land, and ask what brought me here, I can respond with heartfelt compassion that I understand where the west comes from and I, too, am committed to creating a better sense home in this wild, western frontier. ~ Nancy Patterson DIRTY DANCING After a recent viewing of the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, for the first time in years, I thought, this movie deserves a review!

Dirty Dancing is an iconic 80s film, starring Jennifer Grey as Baby and Patrick Swayze as Johnny. The movie soundtrack alone is worth watching it. Many days of my childhood were

spent roller-skating to the music of Dirty Dancing, popular hits including “She’s like the Wind,”

by Patrick Swayze and of course the song that is played during the climax of the movie, “(I’ve Had) The time of my life.” Upon further research it turns out both Swayze and Grey were raised by a parent who was a dancer/ choreographer. The dancing in the movie is very earthy and laced with rebellion but is also playful and showy.

Baby is on vacation with her family and is of the age and attitude that the clientele and entertainment the resort camp offers is underwhelming and stale. She finds the staff parties much more to her liking.

Baby starts exploring the staff quarters and ends up at a dance party where she witnesses the high-energy dance duo Johnny and Penny Johnson (played by Cynthia Rhodes). Johnny, is the bad-boy lead dance teacher and performer at the resort. Baby learns that Penny, due to some

taboo circumstances, will not be able to perform with Johnny and may lose her job over it. This turn of events leads Baby to be the recipient of dance lessons from Johnny, so she can perform “incognito” in Penny’s place.

Although Baby has always been daddy’s little girl she begins to come into her own as she spends time learning about life and dance with Johnny. They both develop more confidence and she helps Johnny to have more respect for himself; as he’s always been thought of as the resort’s playboy. Baby proves to herself that she can stand up to her father, dance like a pro and be in love with a so-called ‘bad boy.’

See Dirty Dancing again for the sing-along soundtrack, the eye-candy of a young Swayze and nostalgia for one of the great movies of the 1980s. There’s some good dancing along the way! ~ Hadley Robertson

“I see that you’re really embracing the Paleo diet.”

BOOKS, BRIEFLY NOTED

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt The Goldfinch was recommended to me by, frankly, two people I don’t usually trust to pick out my books. It sounded really book clubby and book club selections usually just make me angry. But The Goldfinch was much grittier than the ladies who recommended it to me. It’s about a boy who survives an explosion in an art gallery who inadvertently steals a famous

Dutch painting and spends the rest of his life figuring out what to do with it. It’s a little like the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but with a stolen painting on the raft and more sex and drugs and run-ins with European mafia thugs on the river bank. Probably not a good one for parents of current or former teenage boys, but a titillating adventure for any current or former teenage girl with a thing for male foreign exchange students. And it’s massive – at over 700 pages – which is great for readers like me who don’t want a good book to end. ~Jennifer Pemberton THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt I finished reading The Goldfinch, which is to say something because it’s 771 pages. Not only that, but it’s only a 14-day checkout allowing

for NO renewals. Now, as some of you may know, I have my own personal librarian (married to him), so I may have just decided – after the first two week mark passed – to go ahead and pay the fines and continue reading. Getting into the book was hard. The descriptions were long and the excitement long coming. Once I got passed the initial wordiness and started to get to know the main character, Theodore Decker, I was hooked.

This book is never uplifting.

It is not inspiring. It is gritty, and depressing and surprising.

It is difficult to relate to the character(s) Decker and his good friend Boris and their dysfunctional, if practically nonexistent, families who are self destructive and emotionally troubled. Decker survives an explosion in a museum as a young man and never fully recovers from this traumatic

“Honey, you don’t recognize Ed from next door? The Bola’s have been living there for 3 years now....!?”

event. He stumbles though life making poor choices and having few role models or disciplinarians. Through one very uncanny connection Decker meets an older furniture restorer and antiquarian, Hobie, who becomes a father figure to Decker. Even with the positive association with Hobie, Theo continues to struggle with life’s greater questions and selfdestructive behavior. He has a secret that causes him great anxiety and he is never truly able to trust that he will not be discovered and the consequences would be great. The Goldfinch has many sudden plot twists and Decker leads a dark but colorful life. The novel is interesting in its complexity but not so complicated to be exasperating.

The writing is really good and now, after finishing the large book I want to go back to the beginning and refresh how it all began. Only then will I be able to appreciate the whole story.

This book is worth the length because it’s a great adventure but not a conventional story, not a fluffy ‘happy ending’ novel. The Goldfinch is a story with depth and excitement and intrigue and all through the eyes of a not even very likable character.

Maybe that’s why it was so different and interesting. The book was a page-turner because it was unexpected and thought provoking. ~ Hadley Robertson THE SECRET HISTORY OF LAS VEGAS by Chris Abani Great Halloween read. I was alone with the shivers in a hotel room with stormy skies and rainy wind rattling at the

window. The door was locked for that brave voyeurism, that peak at the freaks security, occasionally looking up from the page to check outside for a Frankenstein. From silent maniacal shriek to secret nervous giggle, the story has a spooky quality. You turn the pages with an uncomfortable feeling: just like lifting a damp rock and seeing a big centipede squirm and swiggle away with his many quick zip legs. But, the story’s characters, fascinatingly flawed, are so believable because of their connections to Las Vegas and South Africa; the spiritual energy of African culture with shamans and apartheid separation juxtaposed with the science, pseudopsych, ungrounded frontier of the agnostic west was extremely effective in keeping the reader off-balance and setting up the desire to break through the mysteries of the story. A week or so later The Cabin hosted the author, Chris Abani, at the Egyptian Theatre. He told stories about his upbringing in Nigeria, education in England,

and teaching at Northwestern.

You may not be able to repeat the experience I’ve had with this excellent read, but I recommend a try. ~ Leslie Robertson UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY by Nancy Horan When I first started painting watercolors along the canals of France, I came across a wonderful travel journal called, An Inland Voyage, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The journal recounts a journey in canoes (one named ‘Cigarette’ and one ‘Arethusa’, by the way) from Antwerp to Paris in 1876 by Stevenson and a friend, and is illustrated with very beautiful, but simple, watercolor sketches.

I have thumbed through this book many times over the years, longing to paint in that style, and to be able to describe a journey as exquisitely. Was this the same Robert Louis Stevenson of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Of Kidnapped? Of Treasure Island? When Nancy Horan’s book, Under the Wide and Starry

“Well Doc, it’s hard work being a winery cat. They only let me sleep 22 hours a day...”

Sky, came out, I snatched it up, sat myself down, and didn’t get back up until I had read the whole story (albeit fictionalized) of RLS and his wife, nurse, and muse, Fanny Osborne. I had read Horan’s other fictionalized biography of Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright (Loving Frank) and was amazed at how entwined and enthralled I became in their two lives. The same happened to me with RLS and Fanny and their marvelously adventurous life. The two meet in a bohemian artists’ colony in the French countryside where Fanny and her two children were recovering from various illnesses with plein air painting.

There Louis, as he prefers to be called, first appears, having just finished his “inland voyage” canoe journey, and, of course, it’s love at first sight. Louis was a chronic invalid, nursed back from the edge of death many

times by Fanny. They lived all over the globe, setting up house in France, Switzerland, America, Scotland, England and, his final resting place, Samoa. The drama between these two “artists” makes exciting reading – as does Stevenson’s journal. ~ Marty Greer BLOOD MERIDIAN OR THE EVENING REDNESS IN THE WEST by Cormac McCarthy A dark and twisted tale of westward expansion in the 1840s and 1850s, Blood Meridian follows the kid as he leaves unknown troubles in the east and falls in with ruthless vigilantes along the Mexican-American border. Roughly based on the historical Glanton gang, the book chronicles their violent suppression and massacring of Native Americans, Mexicans, and other luckless souls of the borderland. The gang is driven

“That was a great trick making your mother disappear. Can you conjure me up another martini now?”

by greed, passion, and eventually pure habitual obligation as they search the desert for their unfortunate prey. McCarthy’s stark writing pulls you into the uncomfortable, violent and lonely frontier and spits you out dog-tired and beaten.

Cormac McCarthy lures the reader down a frightful trail of dried-up arrollos and deserted pueblos and into the festering violence driven by fringe characters seeking escape in the west. He uses little punctuation, which seems to emphasize the long, tiresome, and endless journey of these obsessed, corrupt gang members. As you sink into his words, you feel the length of time spiraling inward and ever outward in front of these desperados as they seek trophies in the form of scalps. On and on the gang travels, growing ever darker, ever bastardized, ever more self-destructive.

Occasionally, but irreparably, the kid recognizes his own corruption echoed in the faces of these other disreputable men, “I know your kind, he said. What’s wrong with you is wrong all the way through you.” It seems the world runs away from them as they lose whatever scraps of integrity and self-respect they had. The great sadness of the story is the depressing truth behind the words. While manifest destiny brought expansive land and greatness to pioneering adventurers, it also destroyed the people and cultures originally found there. As the Glanton gang scalps person after person and destroys pueblo after pueblo, you can feel the hope of the native people and rich southwestern culture leaking

away from the world, leaving behind a shell of its original glory.

While terrible and desperate, McCarthy’s story also highlights the beauty of stark western landscapes and the driven people who conquered it. He eloquently captures the freedom and loneliness of the West as he describes the kid’s journey stating “they saw wild horses racing on the plain, pounding their shadows down the night and leaving in the moonlight a vaporous dust like the palest stain of their passing.” His carefully crafted sentences form clear images in the reader’s mind of nights in the cold desert spent traveling as, “the rind of a moon that had been in the sky all day was gone and they followed the trail through the desert by starlight, the Pleiades straight overhead and very small and the Great Bear walking the mountains to the north.”

Blood Meridian weaves a complex journey through time and space, calling you to question the costs of westward expansion as you lose yourself into these terribly lost men. All innocence about the romance of the west is destroyed for, “when the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf.” ~Nancy Patterson ANGELMAKER, THE GONEAWAY WORLD, TIGERMAN

by Nick Harkaway I have a current favorite author. Nick Harkaway is the son of John LeCarre – also writing under a pseudonym – and the writing style and topic choices

are clearly similar. Harkaway, however, uses more humor than his famous dad does and sets his novels in the future, so they include elements of fantasy and magic. The first one I read, Angelmaker, I described at the time as a perfect summer read.

I particularly enjoyed the lush language, intriguing characters and character development (Joe Spork’s transformation from mild-mannered apologetic clock maker to fierce avenger is great fun!), and the story, leisurely at first, picked up midway and romped off to a galloping finish. From the flyleaf, “blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destruction.”

This was a real “Harry Potter for adults” and great fun. I followed that up with The gone-away World. This book was about the end of the world (well, most of it, anyway), ninjas, true love, coming of age. Harkaway’s parentage is evident here – as le Carre’s son, he grew up with story; he knows how to write.

Most of the joy of this book is the language; most of the frustrations of this book are the many, lengthy digressions. It took me until halfway through this book to get into it, and I stayed with it because of the really appealing characters. From the Guardian: “Hits exactly a note of dazed and comic awesomeness.” Carve out some time for this one!

And then this fall I read Tigerman. This is his latest, and

as he ages (and became a dad as well), his topics deepen and darken. This one encapsulated so much of what we routinely talk about at the peace vigils – what to do when things go completely to shit. In this case, it’s the aftermath of an environmental catastrophe, and the beginning of a violent response – all thwarted by one man’s brave, creative, crazy action. It’s a love response, and that’s really all that can give us hope.

I’ll be very interested to see what this young author comes up with next. There’s genius here -and heart and a kind of brave, creative prescience. ~ Sally Perrine ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr In April Anthony Doerr held the book release for his new book, All The Light We Cannot See, at the Linen Building in Boise, and donated the proceeds from the event to The Cabin.

I helped arrange the event and several times met with Tony and his wife Shauna to talk about details. Sitting across from Tony, who is the sweetest most genuine guy, I had a pang of guilt: I knew I was not going to like his new book. And frankly, I didn’t even want to read it. You see, I’d read a few on Tony’s short stories and found them so flowery and overwrought that I really disliked

them.

At the book launch, Tony gave the “hard sell,” actually, he discussed so beautifully the work (10 years of it) that had gone into the research and writing, that he made it sound like the final product couldn’t be anything but incredibly rich and rewarding to read. I wasn’t convinced. I bought a single copy of the book and had it signed (that’s what you do at a book launch) and tucked it up on my bookshelf.

Maybe I’d get around to it.

In June, the New Yorker gave it a good review, and it became a New York Times bestseller. And stayed there. I still didn’t read it.

In July we went on our family rafting trip. I was going to need something to read! So, I threw in Doerr’s giant tome, along with a couple of New Yorkers into the bottom of my dry bag. Everyday when I grabbed my hat and scarf and put away my headlamp, I spied the book. I watched the edges wear down slightly. But, it wasn’t from reading it. I never took it out of the bag. Not once.

I can’t tell you what finally convinced me to read the first page. But, once I picked it up sometime in early September I couldn’t put it down. I’ve gotten increasingly picky about books as I’ve gotten older and only about once a year do I find something that is so satisfying that I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to get in the shower, I don’t even want to cook anything, I just want to read, one more sentence, one more chapter.

That’s how good this book was.

I’m not going to bother you with a synopsis; you’ve probably read a number of them. I’m just going to say, don’t wait, just

read it. You’ll like it. And if my endorsement doesn’t convince you just remember it’s been 30 weeks on the bestseller list, it was short listed for the National Book award, recommended for Christmas gifts by President Obama, and recognized as a literary triumph by the Wall Street Journal. Also, Tony is a really nice guy, and he put a lot of work into it. ~ Jocelyn Robertson

AMERICAN BUFFALO by Steven Rinella Remember Brian from the children’s book The Hatchet?

The boy whose bush plane crashes into an Alaskan swamp, which kills the pilot and leaves him with only the clothes on his back, a hatchet he manages to retrieve from the plane, and his own resourcefulness to survive in an unforgiving wilderness?

Well, Steven Rinella is the kind of guy you imagine Brian might have grown up to become. Clever, self-sufficient and ambitiously adventurous, Steven appeals to the reader of The Hatchet who envied Brian’s predicament. He hunts Dahl sheep and caribou in Alaska’s remote Brooks Range. He paddles a canoe down the upper Missouri River in winter, at one point dragging the boat across the ice when the river freezes over completely. Mothers of those same readers may find him less appealing (he got giardia and poison ivy at the same time, he also contracted trichinosis from eating undercooked bear meat, and he was charged in close quarters by an enraged moose…. all in the past year).

His adventures are entertainingly

documented in his blog “the meat eater,” and in a book and television program of the same name.

Recently, Rinella narrowed his focus to research and write a book about the American bison called American Buffalo. The work is a thoroughly engaging description of the iconic animal, how it came to populate almost the entire continent before being driven nearly to extinction by both indigenous and more recent human immigrants to North America, and its slow, modest recovery to the populations we may see today. A skilled reporter, Rinella also excels in storytelling. The book is filled with interesting tales of robe hunters (the men who killed bison for their hides), pioneers crossing rivers on the backs of bison, and one particularly great story about African-American amateur archaeologist who, during the Reconstruction, discovered one of the oldest and richest archaeological sites found to this day. The book challenges some of the assumptions commonly held about bison and their interactions with man. He asserts, for instance, that the idea that Native-Americans used all parts of the bison is myth, and that often far more bison were killed than could be consumed.

This was particularly true of buffalo jump hunts when so many animals might be killed or mortally wounded that only the most desirable parts of each bison would be taken. He also contends that the real reason that the bison were hunted to the brink of extinction by skinners, both recent arrivals to the continent and Native American,

was the massive market for hides and tongues, and not a plot to subdue the remaining Indians who were living off the land by killing off their food source.

But despite our better efforts, bison do not exist only in our history. Due to the efforts of conservationists, herds of thousands are present in parks and wildlands of the west. Even more live on private ranches, some of which offer “hunts” in which a person may pay to shoot a bison from the enclosure in which it lives. Rinella, whose disposition is incapable of just observing and reporting, signs up for a bison hunt. His hunt is not one of the canned ranch packages, though. He draws a bison tag deep in the Alaska wilderness along the Copper River. He floats into the area in an inflatable raft where he is dropped off on the riverbank with his tent and hunting gear.

His companions continue down the river leaving him alone until their planned return the following week. The account of the events of that week, as the long dark Alaska winter takes hold of the landscape is outdoor adventure writing at its finest. American Buffalo is a curious hybrid of a book that is a wonderful reflection of its creator, an adventurer and historian and gifted storyteller. ~ Alex Hartman

TABLES FOR TWO, OR MORE

MKT TANGLETOWN Seattle, WA Ethan Stowell has mastered the neighborhood restaurant concept: opening tiny busy restaurants in neighborhoods all over Seattle. His restaurants have always been some of our favorites, so last year when we heard MKT was opening in our neighborhood we were very excited. With only 24 seats you will overhear tales of how hard it is to get in so you need to plan ahead and make reservations. Since we know everyone at the restaurant and because we only live 5 minutes away we have gotten to eat there regularly, filling in the chefs table or just being available for a cancellation. The food at MKT focuses on local and Joe likes to visit purveyors at the farmers market and find the perfect ingredients to highlight his dishes. Joe, the chef, is very talented and no matter how busy they are he will be cooking your food.

Everything is good on the menu, from the fried quail with plum sauce to the hamachi with cucumber ice; you really can’t go wrong. Recently we had excellent porcini ravioli and discovered that Joe had gone out with Jeremy Faber from Found and Foraged to hunt for porcini.

Duck is one of those menu items that I am always debating about whether to or not to

order. In France you can never go wrong ordering duck and I have been known to easily triple duck on a day in Paris. In the US duck is almost always a disappointment. Usually the disappointment has to do with an obsession for medium rare duck; an unfortunate preparation that leaves the meat practically raw, nearly always bloody and tough.

No matter what it is served with, it is practically impossible to chew as the un-rendered fat springs like bubble gum between your teeth. But at MKT the duck is perfectly cooked –just slightly pink, juicy, tender, flavorful and the sauce and accompaniments will balance the richness and enhance the duck. It doesn’t matter if you have duck breast with cherries or crispy duck leg with treviso-bacon salad, thyme, juniper, parsnip puree and huckleberry vinaigrette like on the current menu. When you finish your first plate no matter how many dishes you have had you will seriously consider how your waiter will feel if you order more duck for dessert. ~ Bijou Robertson LOTUS OF SIAM Las Vegas, NV Recently we made a tour of Idaho wineries in the Sunnyslope area, where Hells Canyon and Zhoo Zhoo wines find comparison among visitors. The Wine Bar staff (yes!) headed out to experience our neighbor’s offerings – the presentation, the ambience, the level of knowledge of their wines, their selection of wines – and overall it was a rewarding day. I was pleased to discover riesling’s among the offerings and made a point to try this great grape

which ranks with chardonnay, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon as capable of greatness, strong character, and ageing ability.

But, not a one could offer the taste profile of a chardonnay or even the Idaho viognier. The reislings lacked nose, their fruit, insipid, made little impression.

Of course, I worried my palette had become less discerning and dumbed down. German riesling, the standard bearers, have been unavailable, unnoticeable to me for years. The “tasting” experience never lives up to the full potential of a dining experience, either, so I shrugged and moved on.

The opportunity for wine to shine came on our road trip a few weeks later.

Steve and I arrived at this “recommended” spot in Las Vegas after a long tiring drive from our adventure driving California’s Highway 1. We’d sampled good local food and wines surrounded by gorgeous scenery; which was followed by an anxious search for numbers and signs in the speedy darkness

of Sahara Ave. When we cruised into a broken down parking area, the green sign above the single glass door entry, (plastered with posters) said Lotus of Siam.

Few other signs were lit in this sad mini mall, a down-and-out fellow mumbled past, but closing time approached, so we beat our way past the door sized plant at the entrance. The bustling staff, the noisy crowded tables helped restore our confidence somewhat. How’d they get all these folks in here? We were seated in a busy though blank room at a bare table on hard wooden chairs and left with a thick folder of wine lists and a tome of a Thai menu! Attitude adjustment was required so I called “the source!” Will, how did you find this place? Huh? What should we order? They’re famous for their duck and the curries are good. Drink riesling!

We had five minutes before the kitchen closed; I flipped through the pages of food and Steve tackled the wine list. An Asian restaurant with a wine steward was our next surprise.

“The tests show that your leg humping is way below normal.

I’ve decided to write you a prescription for Viagra.”

We ordered Salt and Pepper Shrimp, a Green Garlic Chicken, Crispy Duck with Sao Bo (something), a curry, and Graacher Himmelreich, Kabinett, Mosel. The first sip of this riesling put us in the moment.

Suddenly there was a sense of well-being, suddenly a calm and delightful relish of where we were, what we were eating, oh sooo good, and who we were with (each other and a nice Thai-ish family at the next table) all returned. Riesling with a big R. returned to startle my palette and alert my senses. Memorable.

Unforget-table. That’s the power of a really good wine. Should we plant riesling? ~ Leslie Robertson DECEMBER RESTAURANT ITINERARY I wanted to start like I have for years, at the beginning, but I’ll do a Ken Kesey and start at the end – the end of our very recent road trip down the coast of California which was sparked by an invitation to visit Elizabeth and John Stevenson at Rancho Sisquoc north of Santa Barbara.

I’ll take myself back by meals.

Fortunately, Will F., one of my new son-in-laws, articulated where to eat as we blew through Las Vegas, Lotus of Siam. If you find it and stay married, you deserve to eat there. It’s a dump of a location replete with pan– handlers; luckily, the blue Jaguar was showing its 2,500 mile grime and was unrecognizable as a luxury car. Lotus’ motto is “no reservations,” wait, be seated, pour over the wine list and, gods honor, I didn’t see the food menu, an absolute first for me. Yes, I was starved, very

tired from a grueling rainy car trip from Santa Barbara. But! I know, good, fine, great food and my way around a wine list.

It’s a long haul, but I will be going again. Overnighting in Cambria, (close to Hearst Castle, San Simion) a classy combo wine retail and restaurant named Madeline’s offered a five course prix fixe menu with local wines for $75 bucks. First a small taste of abalone, a generous serving of sea bass, a filet substituted for the sold out wild boar, all paired with Paso Robles Pinot Gris, Cabernet, Viognier, and a white port, a red port with a lime torte and a fabulous chocolate dessert.

Though we traveled south, we’ll follow the meal trail north to a lovely dining room in Carmel by the Sea. In San Francisco, we were treated to dining at the St. Francis Yacht Club, the wines were middle of the road, but a nice serving of petrale sole. We’d enjoyed a Honig Sauvignon Blanc first thing in the morning at Snows Oyster Bar, with lox on toast, a dozen oysters and clam chowder! Then, we rode the trolley to Tadich Grill for rex sole and sand dabs with creamed spinach and shoestring potatoes.

Always a favorite of mine, glad to see our familiar waiter John still there, but we got the new guy. Crescent City was a fiasco, the restaurant we had researched was closed and we ended up in a small Chinese place in a mini

mall, cheapest dinner of the trip $22 for two including tip.

Dwight and Peggy Collins had started the trip for us with our most memorable meal, at their new palatial home, a trip to the fisherman’s market to find the rare 3 lb. crabs that we cooked ourselves. I’d stretched my stomach out with plates of fried yearling oysters, fish and chips, and chowder at Newman’s Fish Market, (we both started out in the fish trade in 1974). ~ Steve Robertson CONFLICT KITCHEN Pittsburgh, PA One of the joys of visiting Maggie and Mark has been to go the various cafes, restaurants, museums, etc. that this city has to offer. Pittsburgh has been a surprise to me, as I expected to find a dirty, dingy industrial wasteland, and was pleased to experience an east coast Portland – a city of rolling hills, rivers (three!), lots of green stuff, and some amazingly beautiful city parks.

Anyway, I had heard of this restaurant, so was pleased to get a chance to visit. Conflict Kitchen is tiny, and is perched on the edge of one of Pittsburgh’s biggest city parks. It’s take-out only. The basic premise of this place is that they serve food and drinks from countries with which the US has been or is currently in conflict. It is staffed by students from Carnegie Mellon University, each one of whom has been trained by a chef to prepare the ethnic foods, but also trained to answer questions about the country that is currently featured. Each country is presented for approximately

five months, and when we were there we had food from Iran. The menus are small, so with four of us we were able to try each entrée: ground beef kebabs, a vegetarian stew with fresh herbs served on steamed rice, Persian lamb stew with zucchini and tomatoes, and pomegranate and walnut chicken. For drinks, a choice of orange and rosewater, mint and vinegar, or rhubarb and lime was on offer. Everything was fresh and delicious.

The most interesting part of the whole experience was to speak to the young people about the featured country. In addition, each meal comes wrapped in a flier that characterizes viewpoints and cultural awareness about the people of those nations. It’s a way to humanize the people that are often represented and viewed as enemies of the United States.

Other countries featured have been Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Venezuela, and, most recently, Palestine. In fact, this fall the restaurant got some national publicity when the country was Palestine.

The Kitchen even got death threats and had to close for a couple of days in response to perceived anti-Israel focus. But the response from the Kitchen was that this was about food and community, and was just an attempt to humanize the other without making political statements.

All in all, I found it to be a very satisfactory experience, and a great example of a peaceful way to learn about the culture of one of these conflict countries and a way to symbolically break bread with our “enemies.” ~ Sally Perrine

THE FIELD & FEATHER BALL October 3-5th, 2014 The whole food experience during the Field & Feather Ball was wonderful. The weekend wedding food festivities began with a much-anticipated bratwurst feed presented by Gourmet Mountain Dogs. The Mountain Dog crew pulled in and with a flourish they installed a pop-up restaurant.

Personalized menu a la Hadley and Alex, lights and a pennant banner reading “Congrats Had & Al” decorated a well-appointed tent. The grill was fired up and quickly aromas of the wursts filled the air: buffalo, elk, pork/ veal and fish. Alex and I were able to customize our menu, changing the brat and topping items to combinations with names like The Snake Riveter, The Angler and The Dog Pile.

I opted for the Angler. A fish sausage served with coleslaw on a 460 bun made fresh that morning from a bakery in Jackson Hole. The Gourmet Dog crew was cheerful, speedily putting together buffalo bratwursts smothered in grilled onions and chimichurri sauce and calling out orders for more dogs to grill. I saw Steve haggling with Carin – the head weenie roaster – back at the barbeque at least ½ dozen times.

Really though, how could you choose just one, and with the medley of toppings? Grilled bell peppers, banana peppers, slaw, cream cheese (who knew?), jalapenos, raw or crispy onions, relish, pickles, tomatoes, chipotle sauce, blackberry sauce, and chimichurri! Spirits were high, both inside and outside of the weenie tent. The crew had

prepared delicious side salads, beet/kale, and potato salad. The feast was followed by dessert of pies from local restaurant, The Orchard House. Per special request, we had two Marionberry pies, as well as pecan and pear pie. Although I didn’t actually have a slice of pie I heard they were delicious. There were many dogs to spare at the end of the night but only because I had to practice great restraint not to eat many more. And we know Steve practiced no restraint and therefore saved us a bit of freezer space. Gourmet Mountain Dogs is an appropriate name; a seemingly simple meal made eclectic and festive with such a selection of meats and toppings and hot off the grill! Perfect comfort food for a pre-ball feast.

The morning of the big day, breakfast came and went without much pomp and circumstance for the bride and groom. Too many things to think about, too many people to see! I had lunch by myself, up in my room, where I was getting ready. I hadn’t planned to eat, but the groom brought me lunch and I scarfed down the best corned-beef sandwich I’ve ever had. Moist rye bread made by Leslie, sliced thin, flecked with caraway seeds, perfectly corned beef brisket – brined by Steve – tender yet chewy and salty, breaking off in dry segments of meat with just small morsels of fat holding it together. The sandwich was served with a red cabbage slaw, spiked with vinegar, making for an umami bomb comfort meal.

The wedding feast, by James Kelly, was a wonderful blend of country and sophistication; with delicacies fit for a ball and also

fresh simple foods, too. I can’t say I remember seeing the food, although I know from looking at pictures that there were beautiful platters of local Rollingstone Chevre, adorned with edible flowers, piles of fresh greens from Purple Sage in big salad bowls, braised lamb (slaughtered by the groom, Alex) steaming with gremolata alongside.

There were candied hazelnuts and stacks of fresh baguettes to spread with dove pate or smoked sturgeon mousse. There was a beautiful fresh honeycomb and apricot jam accompanied by some tasty Spanish cheeses. The food was good, really good and as many people commented, so many times, wedding food is not very good. The meal wasn’t just memorable in that it tasted good, because honestly, my mind was not on the food, but memorable in that it was exactly what we wanted. Local food gathered from friends, the menu curated and cooked by a good friend and food that was made utilizing interesting ingredients, and ingredients that define this place. When you have a food culture like we do in our family, that doesn’t come with a name, specific ingredient or definition so it was so rewarding to have a menu and food that was us.

And then there was cake.

The much anticipated cake. The beautiful cream-colored 4-tiered wedding cake with artfully piped feathers and adorned with brilliant purple, blue and yellow gladiolas. I knew that the cake would taste good and be pretty because Lisa was making it, but it was so picturesque and regal, way more than I ever expected. Lisa was in the kitchen

perfecting the tiers, frosting with care each layer of buttercream and transforming cake rounds from a cooler into a towering masterpiece. The cake was made in sections, frozen and flown down with Lisa, all the way from Alaska. She built, frosted and decorated the cake with 16 pounds of butter, 6 dozen eggs, 12 pounds of sugar and 1 gallon of raspberries. The layers alternated between fresh raspberry puree – from Jocelyn and Faith’s gardens – and a tangy lemon curd. The vanilla buttercream frosting and the moist white chardonnay cake were all smooth as silk and sweet but not cloyingly so. We had cake left over and it got even better with age. All the time and care that went into that cake came through in the heavenly

flavors and texture and the picture perfect wedding cake.

Wait, wait! The feasting was not yet over. For the late night dancers – delicious oven-warmed croquettas for a midnight snack AND then, the next morning was an amazing bagel spread!

Prepared by Babette, baked goods galore including: sesame bagels, everything bagels, plain bagels and not one but many types of scones available to be topped with butter, cream cheese or pesto and a generous helping of lox. It was lucky there were fresh warm bagels because the coffee situation was a calamity.

The sun was shining overhead, the bagels were warm, the coffee was ready, eventually; wonderful memories of the previous night were just beginning to sink in. ~ Hadley Robertson

DOVE PATE ¾ cup diced shallot 1 ½ cups sliced mushrooms 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, divided ¾ cup Madeira, divided 1 lb. liver coarsely chopped 2 lbs. dove breasts ¾ cups chopped pistachios ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg Salt and pepper to taste Heavy cream, to taste

Over very low heat melt 1 stick of butter. Skim foam from top, then pour clarified butter off of milky solids (these can be added to sautéing mushrooms later). Over medium-low heat melt 1 tablespoon of butter and sauté shallot until soft, and slightly browned. Remove shallot from pan and set aside. Add mushrooms to pan and increase heat to medium. Stir occasionally until mushrooms have given up their water. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons butter and sprinkle with salt.

Continue to sauté mushrooms stirring occasionally until they brown slightly. Add 1 cup Madeira and scrape bottom of pan. Simmer until liquid has nearly completely evaporated. Remove mushrooms from pan and reserve. Melt 1 tablespoon butter and add livers. Cook, turning livers until they are lightly browned and just cooked through.

Sprinkle with salt and grated nutmeg, remove from pan and reserve.

Melt 1 Tablespoon butter, add dove breasts and turn occasionally until lightly browned and just cooked through. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and remove from pan and reserve. Add remaining ¼ cup Madeira and scrape pan. Pour liquid over cooked dove breasts. Allow hot ingredients to cool then add everything but cream, pistachios and remaining butter to food processor. Pulse until smooth, adding cream to soften pate to desired consistency. Add pistachios and pulse a few times to incorporate. Spoon pate into nonreactive container. Lightly tap container on countertop to remove any air pockets, and smooth top flat. Pour clarified butter over top to seal. Refrigerate. ~ Alex Hartman

But the feasting continued!

After working up an appetite with a canyon hike into the Owyhees, an all-star team of cooks collaborated in the kitchen to whip up a sumptuous seafood dinner of flash sautéed scallops, breaded and pan fried oysters, fried shrimp, and crisp shoestring potatoes. A lovely BienvenuesBatard Montrachet accompanied the meal, it was the essence of white Burgundy (a double magnum, and yes, we finished it). You could almost smell the ocean on the breeze that blew in off of the vineyard.

So much time, thought, preparation and execution were devoted to make all of the wedding meals come together.

Thank you to all for your vision and creations. ~ Alex Hartman

CASSIE’S SUPPER CLUB Cody, WY Cowboys, dressed in their finest Wranglers, ten-gallon hats, Ariat boots, and silk scarves, pulled their ladies onto the dance floor to two-step to Western cover bands. The ladies sashayed with their leads, one dressed as a Christmas elf in a too-short red dress and Santa hat. Another’s tight black leather pants strained at the seams as her partner embraced her low across the back and spun her rapidly around the floor. The louder the band, the bigger the hat, the taller the cowboy, the fancier the step – all factored into the elaborate courtship, dinner and dancing, sponsored by Cassie’s Supper Club, in Cody, Wyoming.

Cassie’s is a Cody institution; a classic western restaurant serving up delicacies like prime rib, potatoes, and vats of sour cream and ranch. With such a reputation, it was the logical destination for our work holiday party. I walked in, knowing full well I’d be out of place dressed like a city-slicker in designer black pumps, herringbone tights, and pencil skirt. In true Wyoming fashion, people appraised my style, gave me a nod, and welcomed me in. They seemed to know I was alright and even seemed to respect that I wasn’t wearing the appropriate western attire.

Impressive elk and deer mounts loomed down from the walls, neighboring fine collections of cast iron pans.

Tinsel and Christmas lights twinkled overhead. Low ceilings, three elaborate stained-glassed bars, a big dance floor branded with the supper club’s name

all created a cozy, yet edgy feel. This is the kind of place you could imagine bandidos, vaqueros, and hard pioneer women coming to celebrate the end of a long week. Actually, blinking my eyes, I realized that’s still the clientele, along with kids from the local community college and a few other greenhorn transplants like me. Everyone was laughing.

Everyone was dancing. Everyone was welcoming.

The bar-tendresses stayed busy, popping the tops off of Bud, PBR, Miller High Life, and Coors Light, and filling the occasional shot glass with well whiskey or Fireball. Empties became spittoons as cowboys took a dip of their chew and nursed their vices. If you go to Cassie’s you better show up with strong convictions, a reputation to stand behind, and the ability to hold your liquor. This is not the place to go looking for microbrews or fine wine. But if you seek classic western, Cassie’s defines it.

As a supper club, the best option is Cassie’s fixed menu of prime rib, half a chicken, or salmon (the vegetarian option), $25 each. They recommend their steaks served up medium rare.

Paper napkins folded accordionstyle and table settings for several courses greeted us as we sat to sup. The rapid and friendly service came out first with salad served up with ranch, Italian, or blue cheese dressings and pillowy rolls slathered in butter.

Then, out came trays groaning with heavily laden plates: 18 ounce slabs of prime rib served baked potatoes and salmon filets nestled on a bed of rice pilaf with steamed broccoli and… baked potatoes. While slightly over-cooked, the salmon course was well-seasoned. The prime rib was juicy and perfect for meat-lovers. Cassie’s knows how to do steak. Around the many sequestered dining tables in the Supper Club, people tucked in contentedly to this classic western fare. Then, tables pushed away, and cowpokes, dancing

“Did we all get pardoned?”

fiends, dudes and ladies crowded the dance floor in an elaborate display of two-step, ten-step, line dancing, and country swing.

The supper at Cassie’s is good, but the atmosphere is what makes it great. Come on in and stay for awhile. Let these friendly Wyomingites welcome you in. And, when you walk out the door, stilettos and all, know that when they drawl, “thanks for comin’ and come back soon,” they mean it. ~ Nancy Patterson

THE OLDEST TACO IN THE WORLD Chiapas, Mexico The best meal I had all year was in a dirt-floor kitchen in the back of an embroidery workshop in Chiapas, Mexico. It was an unplanned pit stop. We had exactly 15 minutes to take in a backstrap loom demonstration, buy whatever gorgeous handwoven or embroidered cloth we could decide on and have a snack. There was an open fire in the back room and three indigenous women in gloriously

embroidered blouses were slapping thick tortillas down on a hot stone. The tacos were the size and shape of the palm of your hand and felt like a supplication when you held it open for a woman to spoon in fresh avocado, a gritty stoneground paste of pepitas and fresh cotija-style cheese crumbles.

These ancient Mayan ingredients were warm and simple and earthy and comforting. It was like eating something out of an anthropological museum. It felt so sacred and tasted so good, I know I will never have another taco like it as long as I live (though I imagine that is all I will be eating in the afterlife). ~ Jennifer Pemberton

THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT Reprinted from The Big Book of Bad Dates

I recently took a vacation, a family vacation, down the Salmon River (also known as The River of No Return). Seven days, five boats, nineteen people and one dog. Sleeping on the beach, sunburns and bee stings, white water, cooking over a fire, pooping in a bucket: it may not sound like the most deluxe vacation – but the way my family does it – it really, really is. We don’t use an outfitter – gear is cobbled together from friends and family – the tents, the coolers, countless cases of beer, the inflatable kayaks, the sleeping bags – we collaborate on food and drink responsibilities – plan games, assign teams and duties – and take off down the river – away from all responsibility, no phones, no computers, no wallets – to tread as lightly as possible in the land of osprey, bald eagle, bighorn sheep, rattlesnake and bear.

We walk a fine line between camping and glamping. Everyone is still in charge of setting up his or her own tent (if they want to use a tent), helping with the dishes and taking a turn setting up the toilet.

But, three nights out of six there is French champagne, hand-whipped cream with dessert, and at least two evenings I ordered, from our favorite bartender, a Manhattan, with two maraschino cherries. The food is excellent - high quality meats grilled to juicy perfection, pineapples, avocados, grapes (two colors), baguettes with brie and arugula for lunch, chocolate cake perfectly cooked in a Dutch oven over hot coals.

There is a party team, costumes required, to organize bocce ball tournaments and glow-in-the-dark Frisbee, assemble the water slide out of paco pads, and referee the leg wrestling competition. Should you need a tarot card reading, I am happy to oblige.

It is difficult to convey exactly how complicated planning and executing a trip like this is, and how important the role of each and every person. I have three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Each of them has a long term (10+ years) partner who is as crucial to the clockworks as those that share my blood.

Months in advance, responsibilities are assigned, list after list is made, things must be gathered, sorted, coordinated, distributed, and then packed appropriately for fragility, accessibility, temperature. Prior to launch, boats have to be inflated and rigged to hold all of the gear, plus passengers, to safely transport them down the lazy river that regularly conjures up Class 4 rapids. Once we’re on the way, each lunchtime and again at camp for the night, a fire line is formed to pass the gear, dry bags, tables, chairs, the grill, tents,

coolers, paco pads, up onto the beach, to be unpacked and sorted to the appropriate location. Who will set up the bar? Who will cook the steaks? Who will open the wine? Who will entertain with funny stories and participate in camp site antics? Jokes must be told, songs must be sung, and someone should hunt and whittle the sticks for toasting marshmallows.

Now, if you are not a friendly, cooperative, patient person with a easy going sense of humor, you will not enjoy, nor survive, this intimate cohabitation. Lucky for me, and my family, the partners (and frankly, the friends) that my siblings have chosen all bring immense talent and goodwill to each and every travel endeavor. They all have skills and personalities that greatly enhance and elaborate on our family dynamic. Which brings me to my point. I am not just describing to you this super fun amazing vacation, to make you jealous, although, should you have any sense at all, you should be jealous. Instead, it’s because I had a realization, on this trip, about just how important a partner is, and who that partner is, not just for me as an individual, but for an entire family. Very simply, the wrong person could ruin everything: the collective experience, the vacations, the dinners, the events, the day-to-day lives. While this isn’t exactly something new that I’ve started thinking about, when I think about a partner for myself, choosing someone in regards to my family has often been pretty low on my considerations. Taking this rafting trip made it crystal clear: my siblings have made amazing choices with their partners, and next time I think about dating someone, I need to think seriously about how they fit in my family dynamic. I will ask myself: what does this man bring to the table? What can he do? How does he contribute?

Is he enthusiastic for an adventure? Is he willing to share his adventure with many and more? Does he own his own raft? A good pair of boots? How about a beater truck to haul gear and dogs? Will he put others before himself? Is he handy? Can he jimmy-rig something with bits of rope, a knife, an old bucket?

Can he cook over a campfire; does he know how to smoke the salmon or shuck the corn? Does he know the words to at least a couple good sing-a-long songs? Does he play the ukulele or can he recite one of Shakespeare’s sonnets? Does he hunt or fish or ski or have an in on the best wilderness yurt? Is he willing to cliff jump and swim the rapids? Does he know what poison ivy looks like? Or a wild raspberry bush?

Morels? Can he make a mean martini? Know the rules to a drinking game? A card game? Can he lift 40 lbs. or more? Is he willing to get in the thick of it - deep down in the thick of my crazy kooky family? And other duties as assigned? ~ Jocelyn Robertson RIP TO SAILOR GIRL January 8th, 2004 – December 10th, 2014 Daughter of Turbo Jaguar and granddaughter of Savannah Beloved pet and loyal hunting companion Food hungry, love hungry, ball hungry SAVANNAH’S SAILOR She left us too soon but luckily with so many fond It helps to flow down memories.

A river of tears ~ Hadley Robertson And replay the eager faithful retrieves The big-chested plunge into heavy bush Or cold waters. The snack snatch.

We have sad hearts during the holidays as we The enthusiastic gobble inhale remember our lovely trio of black labradors: Sailor Of dinner, the paw for petting Girl, Jaguar, and Savannah. The kept us passionate for Any spare moment. Watching nature the field and streams. We will remember them every On Channel 4 too, time we sit in a duck boat, climb a mountain, or drop a The barking with movie dogs. planned piece of bacon on the kitchen floor. Uncle Paul Return to those times has them now, and I’m sure is putting them to work as As gone as she is we miss their cold wet shoulder leaning on ours on the And find joy wagging Snake River.

A strong current. ~ Steve Robertson ~ Leslie Robertson

WRONG NUMBER As you may remember, it is very important that I answer wrong numbers. Fortunately, I get a lot of calls from wrong numbers. What follows is collection of texts from my responses to wrong numbers. ~ Peter Robertson