Visitors from California

ML, R, Arlo, and Lyle came to visit last week. They were on their way to Virginia Beach for a big family reunion and birthday celebration. Returning here, they had 2 more days before flying back to CA.

Spring Rites

Last weekend was both Passover and Easter which means it was very busy here. On Saturday we were with the Duberman tribe at his son's house. There were 14 of us. I was responsible for the matzoh ball soup and farfel kugel. I also made chocolate covered matzoh and asparagus salad. Sim made the potato kugel. It was great seeing his children, grandchildren, and great grand children.

Ellie found the afikomen

On Sunday, I went to church and returned to our Charlotte visitors coming over for an impromptu brunch. We took out food from The Goat, but it wasn't very good and they messed up the order for 7 dishes pretty badly. Later that afternoon, my new friend Mario and his visiting daughter, Miriam Lucia, came over for dinner. This was planned. They are from Mexico City so I planned a Mexican dinner with enchiladas with queso fresca , refried black beans, and a cured beef (la cecina de res); all smothered in a salsa verde made from tomatillos.  It was a lovely day so we ate in the courtyard.  Miriam does not speak English and my Spanish is pretty bad. It was a good thing Sim and Mario could translate for us.  She told us about her plans for her upcoming wedding in Palermo and a tour of Italy to follow.

Meanwhile, the Bilek-Burts had a great day in California.

Cathy, Mario y Miriam Lucia

Enchilada Hausteca con cecina de res, frijoles negros y salsa verde

Lyle

Also, Mason, and Lyle hunting for eggs

Below is a pic of some of the clay fruit I made showing the beautiful glazes I put on them at the pottery studio. I intend to make some more!

Atlanta road trip

I drove 6+ hours to Atlanta to spend a few evenings with Mary Laurel. She was on a business trip to the RH there for several days.  We ate in 3 wonderful restaurants that I will pass on to you next time you are in the Buckhead section of Atlanta: Sushi Bar Yu-Ka, Cafe Agora, and Gypsy Kitchen. The latter is a Spanish/Moroccan tapas place. Our hotel was the Hyatt Place in Buckhead and it had free parking!

The RH store in Atlanta is 6 stories tall and very beautiful. I spent the afternoon going from one room set to another enjoying the ambiance and deciding how I would spend a $25k windfall - wouldn't that be nice!  The exterior rooms high up on the large terraces were fabulous. Even the elevators were well decorated.

Happy to see you....

What is this picture?  The happiest folks I ever saw...Mary Laurel face timing from So. California to her family in Fairfax.

A Portrait of Life on a Shtetl

Sim's father wrote down his memories of his early life on a shtetl in the Pale of Settlement in the Ukraine.  John put it in HTML format for easy reading online.  If you'd like to read this very interesting document click here.

Caribbean Cruise

Sim and I just returned from a Silversea cruise in and out of San Juan. Much of the original itinerary was altered due to those hurricanes last Fall.  First stop was Basseterre, St. Kitts where we took a tour of a sugar plantation and drove around the island. Second stop was Fort-de-France, Martinique where we visited the sugar plantation where Josephine Bonaparte was raised. We also toured a rum distillery. Since I  was reading a book about Josephine, it dovetailed very nicely with the tour. The third stop was St. George's, Grenada where we had a tour of a nutmeg processing plant and a tour of a chocolate plant. We then went to Bequia in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The fifth stop was Castries, St. Lucia and the last stop before returning to San Juan was St. John's, Antigua where we took a catamaran sail, beach, and snorkel excursion. It was the most fun.  All together we sailed 1175 nautical miles.

This tour was sponsored by the Colonial Dames so we got 4 lectures on the colonial history of the West Indies. It was pleasant that Bethe Moore H. and her husband, Robert, were also on the tour so we had a few dinners with them. The Silversea is a smaller ship with about 240 guests of which nearly 200 were Dames and their friends. There was sushi on the luncheon buffet but it was the same every day. We spent a good deal of time at the pool lazing in the sun and reading. We did not wish to spend a lot of money on excursions. We had a walking tour of Old San Juan on both the first and last days of the cruise. We played trivia everyday and almost always won. Our team included an elderly couple where he was a Brit and she was a Finn. They have been living in Switzerland for 40 years.  They couldn't hear too well, but did provide us a few answers that we did not know. We also answered a written quiz of 20 items on 3 days and won that contest twice. The ship had 6 singers who gave various concerts. One of the sopranos was excellent and she is wasting her talent on this boat.

Our hotel in Old San Juan was used as the convent in the "Flying Nun".
 This is where Sallie Fields' headdress caught wind.

Cute little monkeys in St. Kitts - they were wearing premie pampers with a tail hole.

Plaza in Old San Juan

'El Morro'  fort in Old San Juan guarded the first deep water harbor
that the sailing vessels from Europe could stop after their multi-month voyage

Sim at a point on St. Kitts --on left is Atlantic Ocean, on right is the Caribbean Sea.
Nevis is off in the distance.

View of Atlantic Ocean on St. Kitts

Silver sky and silver sea view from our stateroom aboard the Silver Wind

Empress Josephine Bonaparte portrait at the museum on her family's plantation, La Pagerie

Our guide, Robert and Bethe touring the sugar cane fields

Our Silversea ship - Silver Wind

Cocoa beans in their gourd-like shell  

The cacao beans are left to ferment,
then they are dried in the sun before being ground into powder or smashed into a paste

Our guide in Grenada in her dancing costume

The San Cristobol fort in Old San Juan

Soldiers' quarters at fort, all the clothes were same size,
and all the shoes were same size (neither left or right)
so when you had to dress in a hurry, you just picked up any clothes and any 2 shoes

View from San Cristobal fort

So, what did I learn?

America won the Revolutionary War in part because the British Navy was very busy in the Caribbean fighting pirates, French, and Spanish. Sugar & rum was very big business but made its profits on the backs of African slaves.  While the French were having their own revolution, there were slave revolts all over the West Indies.  The Dutch originated the slave trade.  They sold the sugar and rum distilling equipment real cheap and made their money selling the slaves to the plantations.  Because there were so many slaves available, the planters treated them like a disposable asset - worked them to death and bought new ones. After the revolutions, the plantations stopped making a profit. The French wanted the Louisiana Territory to be the bread basket for feeding slaves, but when business went bad in Haiti, Napolean sold the land to Jefferson for pennies on the dollar. Some of these islands, like St. Lucia, traded hands 14 times within a span of 40 years.  In 1834, the British banned slavery on ethical grounds not only in English territories but by any European country. Most of the islands we visited are now independent. Martinique is still part of France, however.

In reading about Josephine Bonaparte, I was struck by some of the absurdities of the French Revolution. I guess I did not know that they outlawed religion, changed the names of the days of the week, months, seasons, etc. That lasted about 12 years. Josephine went by the name Rose until she married Napoleon. Her first husband (Alexandre de Beauharnais, also born in Martinique) was a revolutionary who was president of the French Assembly. He also was a general in charge of the French army against the Austrians. He was decapitated during the Reign of Terror as a traitor because he lost a battle. Josephine was imprisoned herself for 5 months before being freed. Her 2 children by him spawned many European royalty.

And it is acceptable to pronounce Caribbean with the accent either up front or on the second syllable. For currency, most of the Islands use the East Caribbean Dollar (ECD).  Martinique uses the Euro.

Early February

Been busy buying a new car.  Don't ask... I traded my lovely Lexus for a RAV4 Hybrid because I wanted the bells and whistles to help me drive a night.  I can see better at night with the new car compared to my CT200h which Lexus no longer makes.  But I got used to those nice folks at Lexus, and the Toyota dealership is not remarkable and further away.  Below are some pics from last few weeks.  We're off on a Caribbean cruise soon.

Afternoon tea reception after a house recital of my friend