House Party

August 31, 2015 – House Party

Last Thursday, I set out for a few days in New York, to give Elliott a little break from my constant ministrations.  And sure enough, as soon as I left, what did Elliott do?  He hosted a multi-day house party! 

Yes, that very afternoon, three very special friends from out of town showed up to party with Elliott during my absence.  A big thank you to Joel, Taylor, and Karen for being such good company.  And special thanks to Karen for making sure the boys behaved.  

Taylor, Elliott and Joel

As you can probably guess, the real reason for my trip was to see my darling new granddaughter again.  Since my son-in-law’s paternity leave ended last Wednesday, Elisa was adjusting to her new role as Miss Sylvie’s sole care provider during the day.  Although she’s gained a few pounds since her birth in mid-July, Sylvie is still quite portable, and we put her high-tech stroller to good use during my visit.  One important outing was Sylvie’s first trip to Trader Joe’s.  Elisa immediately discovered the challenge of doing grocery shopping with Sylvie in tow – it’s not possible to push a shopping cart while pushing a stroller.  The stroller has to serve dual purposes.  The space underneath the baby seat was soon filled to overflowing with grocery items.  Then, at the check out, she had to reach down and pull out all the items without blocking other shoppers.  This is not as easy as you might think since the Brooklyn store is always extremely crowded.  Once everything had been placed in a couple of shopping bags, another challenge presented itself.  You can’t carry bags in both hands while pushing a stroller.  Fortunately, I provided an extra pair of hands.  Miss Sylvie and the groceries arrived home safely.  Later that day, Elisa went online and ordered a set of hooks that fit onto the stroller handle.  I hope that solves the transport problem.  

Miss Sylvie, ready for her trip to Trader Joe's

Elisa and Sylvie in Trader Joe's

Speaking of new experiences, I had my first experience as Grandma the Babysitter.  I thought it would be nice to give Elisa and Christian a chance to go out to dinner by themselves and they readily took me up on my offer.  While they went into “the city” for dinner at a restaurant in Chelsea, Miss Sylvie and I shared an evening that had its ups and downs.  On the up side, I was successful in giving her a bottle.  I also changed her clothes – after I spilled milk all over her during the first attempt at feeding.  She howled!  Even after I fed her, however, she didn’t really settle down.  Episodes of non-stop crying lasted for several minutes, despite my efforts to soothe her.  Then her eyes would close and she’d sleep quietly in my arms, at least until I attempted to put her down, at which point the screams would begin again and the cycle repeated itself.  As a result, I forgot completely about eating dinner.  I hardly ever watch football, but the television was on and a pre-season football game kept me from going crazy until Elisa and Christian came back and rescued me.  We all survived, and I’m sure the pleasure Elisa and Christian got from their date night far outweighed any temporary unhappiness Sylvie may have experienced. 

Grandma Robin and Miss Sylvie

Elisa and Miss Sylvie, enjoying a Thai lunch

All dressed up, and ready for visitors on Saturday

But most of the time, Sylvie is no problem at all.  She was quite content while Elisa and I sat outside and ate lunch at a Thai restaurant on Court Street.  And she was a perfect little lady when my brother and sister-in-law came down from Westchester for brunch on Saturday.  Saying goodbye to Elisa, Christian, and sweet Sylvie gets harder and harder.  If only I could shrink the distance between Fairfax and Brooklyn!

My Summer Restaurant Week

August 21, 2015 – My Summer Restaurant Week

I just wrapped up a week of good eating, prompted by Washington Summer Restaurant Week.  Of the three restaurants I tried, only one was officially participating in Restaurant Week.  That was Jaleo, the Spanish restaurant on Seventh Street in DC.  I usually try unfamiliar restaurants during Restaurant Week, but Jaleo is a long-time favorite of mine and I wanted to introduce my friend Cheri to its glorious array of tapas.  We got off to a spectacular start with the bread and olive oil – the bread so crusty, so olive oil so fragrant – that we asked for seconds.  Counting carbs was forbidden at this meal.  Among the tapas we chose, the Catalan white bean salad and the shrimp with garlic and smoked paprika were standouts.  I didn’t hesitate when it came to dessert.  Jaleo makes one of the best flans I’ve ever tasted, subtly flavored with orange peel and vanilla beans.  

I got drunk on that olive oil!

Catalan white bean salad; Endive, orange and goat cheese

Shrimp with garlic and smoked paprika

Two different kinds of flan

Elliott was my dining partner at the beginning of the week.  We enjoyed an excellent lunch at Mazadar, an Afghan restaurant in the unlikeliest of locations.  Once you step through the doorway, you forget that you’re in a strip mall in suburban Virginia.  The calming décor, a seamless blend of the traditional (abundant tile, splashing fountain) and the modern, creates a sense of escape from the outside world.  The restaurant prides itself on using the highest quality ingredients and preparing everything from scratch, including the tangy yogurt.  I wasn’t sure how Elliott would like the food, but our meal got off to a great start.  For our shared appetizer, I ordered something he would recognize, i.e. falafel.  The chickpea fritters were crispy on the outside and wondrously light inside.  Elliott approved, and showed real enthusiasm as he tore off pieces of piping hot naan to scoop up the accompanying hummus. 

The staff at Mazadar is very attentive and eager to make helpful suggestions.  When Elliott found that he had trouble chewing his grilled lamb kebab, our server volunteered to bring out a complimentary dish of meltingly tender braised lamb shanks for him.  While the menu favors meat dishes, there are also satisfying choices for veggie-lovers.  I ordered a platter consisting of three separate vegetable dishes – eggplant, spinach, and squash – served alongside by a heaping mound of basmati rice adorned with sweetened carrot strips and raisins, and seasoned with cardamom.  Each dish had distinctive and delicious flavors.  The only downside to eating at Mazadar was the couple of extra pounds that the scale showed the following morning.  

The lovely décor at Mazadar

Elliott with his lamb kebab

Wonderful vegetables at Mazadar

I invited Matt to help me wrap up my week of gustatory indulgence.  Since he’s a pizza lover, we headed over to the Clarendon area in Arlington for Pete’s New Haven StyleAPizza.  My two slices (white clam and veggie) and antipasto salad were more than filling, but I was determined to make room for ice cream at the nearby Nicecream Factory.  I was intrigued by an article in The Washington Post that described the Nicecream Factory’s method of making ice cream by freezing it with liquid nitrogen right before the customers’ eyes.  It sounded like fun, and it turned out to be delicious.  I was impressed when Matt, who wasn’t an adventurous eater as a child, ordered a sundae made with strawberry-basil ice cream.  I was delighted with a simple scoop of August’s flavor of the month, peachy keen.  

New Haven style pizza at Pete's

Making ice cream at the Nicecream Factory

Matt's strawberry-basil sundae

Eating out was great, but eating at home this past week wasn’t too bad either.  All the wonderful summer produce from the Fairfax Farmers’ Market made it easy.   

A Portrait of the Artist as a Not So Young Man

August 19, 2015 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Not-So-Young Man

The Elliott Art Legacy Project continues.  Next on the schedule – photo ops for the dozen or so paintings that are currently on display in the house.  This involves taking them off the walls, bringing them downstairs to photograph, and then rehanging them.  At least we won’t have to unwrap and re-wrap them, so the work should go relatively quickly. 

The process of examining the paintings one by one has rekindled Elliott’s latent creativity.  After being suppressed for so long, his inner artist is about to be released.  He’s been pouring over drawings, correspondence, receipts, teaching notes, exhibition brochures – anything related to his career as an artist.  He’s most interested in the sketches he made five or six years ago for a new series of paintings.  At that point, his vision had already deteriorated so much that he was unable to transfer the ideas to canvas.  But he’s now mentioning the possibility of working with an assistant to produce paintings under his direction. 

In case you’re not familiar with Elliott’s artistic output, he is best known for the geometric abstract paintings he produced from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.  His approach is very analytical and mathematical, and it’s fascinating to hear him explain the patterns in his paintings.  However, while going through Elliott’s papers, we rediscovered some interesting works on paper from an earlier period that are in a totally different style.  These are ink drawings, both still life and landscape, that show a Cubist influence.  Elliott did these works while living in France in the mid-1950s.  Somehow, he managed to study at an art academy at the same time he was working for the U.S. government in Paris.  

It’s deeply satisfying to see Elliott showing passion again about something that played such an important role in his life.  I can’t imagine the frustration he felt for the past couple of decades – an artist whose mind is filled with images that he can’t express in his chosen medium.  Now that he’s ready to resume work on his art, I’ve readily agreed to share my studio space with him.  

Elliott, busy at work in our shared studio

Since Marshall is nearly finished photographing Elliott’s work, I’ve asked him to take on a new project, i.e. photographing all of my fused glass pieces.  Speaking of which, a new post featuring my work from this summer is coming soon. 

Home Work

August 14, 2015 – Home Work

A temporary halt in travel has allowed me to get a lot of work done at home.  One of the most ambitious projects is producing an annotated photo inventory of Elliott’s artistic output, at least those paintings currently stored in our house.  (There are several works in private and museum collections that won’t be included.)  Over the years, we’ve shipped dozens of his paintings back and forth across the Atlantic.  They’ve been wrapped in heavy brown paper, wrapped in thick plastic sheeting, unwrapped, and re-wrapped on several occasions.  Since we can’t display all of them in our home, the majority of the canvases have remained in storage, under conditions that range from ideal, i.e. temperature-controlled facilities, to the decidedly less than ideal.  In fact, we found that moisture had irreparably damaged a number of paintings a few years ago, and Elliott chose to destroy them.  It was a sad, sad day when he sliced the canvas off the stretchers.  

While I expected it to be a time consuming project, I didn’t realize how physically demanding it would be.  Most of the paintings are quite large and the wooden stretchers, which Elliott built himself, are extremely heavy.  It takes two people to handle the labor.  Marshall and I have to haul the paintings from various locations around the house to my studio, where we unwrap, measure, set up for photos, record information for our spreadsheet, discard old paper wrappings, rewrap in plastic, label and finally move them to a new downstairs storage location.  Marshall is in charge of photography and photo editing and I’m in charge of updating the spreadsheet. 

Of course, even though Elliott can’t participate in the physical activities, he is very involved in this project.  Seated in his chair, Elliott provides Marshall and me with vigilant supervision and vocal direction, except when he dozes off.  I anticipate completing the inventory within the coming week.  However, this is just phase one of a much more comprehensive project, i.e. finding homes for all of his art.  Elliott has already contacted people in the arts world who may be interested in donations of his work, most of which was done from the late 1960s through the late 1970s. 

It was quite an experience seeing the paintings again after they’d been hidden from view for decades, and I’m hopeful that others will have an opportunity to enjoy them soon.  

Elliott explains the mathematical naming scheme for his paintings.  This is Two 28, one of his smaller works. 

More Adventuring

August 7, 2015 – More Adventuring

It’s good to be home again, after another trip up to New York.  Actually, this was a very quick trip, less than 48 hours on the ground, but I packed in visits with multiple friends and family members.  Of course, I also squeezed in some good eating, starting with a cone of Shake Shack frozen custard (blueberry sweet corn – the delicious flavor of the week) before I even checked into the hotel.  That’s right - no camping out on Elisa and Christian’s sofa in Brooklyn this time!  When I found out that my friend Gale was flying up from Florida to see a couple of Broadway shows, I offered to share a hotel room with her.  Like a real tourist, I stayed in the theater district, in the Row Hotel, which was a new experience for me.  We stayed in that neighborhood for dinner, checking out the offerings during a stroll down Restaurant Row – another first for me.  Since it was one of those rare summer evenings when the temperature and humidity were bearable, we dined al fresco at a Brazilian restaurant – sangria, salad, and shrimp and mushrooms in a light coconut milk sauce served in coconut shells.  Touristy, perhaps, but fun nevertheless. We saved a little room for a slice of cheesecake from Junior’s on our way back to the hotel.  Really, it was Gale’s idea.  I only had a few nibbles, to help her out.  

With Gale on Restaurant Row (W. 46th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues)

The good eating continued the next morning.  Continental breakfast was included in hotel rate.  I don’t normally eat pastries, especially early in the morning, but the selection, from some of the city’s top bakeries (François Payard, Balthazar) was irresistible.  After careful consideration, I selected a brioche sprinkled with slivered almonds.  The first bite into the rich dough subtly flavored with orange peel was pure ecstasy. 

While the morning got off to a great start, not long after breakfast, I got a rude shock.  I was at Penn Station, purchasing a rail ticket for a ride out to Long Island for a mini-family reunion with my brother and sister-in-law (driving down from Westchester County), my aunt (in from Florida) and my cousin (in from New Hampshire).  When I inquired about the fare, the young ticket seller’s query, “Senior?” caught me totally off guard.  Was my advanced age that obvious?  I'd taken care to draw on eyebrows and freshen my lipstick, and I certainly wasn’t flashing my new Medicare card.  Hmmm. 

As for Long Island, I no longer have a sense of connection with the place although I grew up there.  I stayed only long enough for lunch with the family at a Greek diner.  Then it was back on the Long Island Railroad, this time traveling to Brooklyn for a visit with Elisa, Christian and Sylvie.  My new granddaughter has grown quite a bit and she’s much more alert and aware of her surroundings.  In addition, Elisa is feeling much better now and has more energy.  She and Christian are thrilled to be little Sylvie’s parents.  And Miss Sylvie has it all figured out:  Mommy supplies the yummy milk, available 24 hours a day, and Daddy provides the perfect perch for snuggling and sleeping (see photo below).  

That evening, we celebrated Sylvie’s 3-week birthday with a take-out dinner from Karloff, a Russian restaurant on Court Street.  Karloff is a food lover’s paradise.  We feasted on potato varenikis (dumplings) in a creamy mushroom sauce, arugula salad with Bosc pears and goat cheese, a salmon-herb burger on brioche bun with rosemary fries, Scottish salmon with white bean/plum tomato/baby arugula succotash, pan-seared trout with caramelized cauliflower and buckwheat kasha risotto, and cheese blintzes with wild berry jam.  I could barely stagger to the subway station on the corner after the sumptuous meal. 

The following morning, there wasn’t time for much more than breakfast (yes, another brioche) and a quick walk down Broadway where Seward Johnson’s life-like sculptures fill the pedestrian plaza between 41^st Street and 36^th Street.  Included in the temporary installation of 18 painted bronze sculptures are some based on Impressionist paintings.   

Can you tell which figures are the sculptures and which ones are real?

Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the High Line or the new Whitney Museum on this abbreviated trip, but I’ve already put them on the agenda for my next trip later in August.  

I covered a lot of territory during my short stay in New York.  The only downside was that I ran out of reading material.  I had brought along a library book, a murder mystery set in early 20^th century Vienna, that I started on the trip up.  It was over 450 pages and I was sure it would take me several days to get through it.  However, the novel was so riveting that I couldn’t stop reading it.  I forced myself to save the last hundred pages or so for the bus ride home.  As soon as I sat down in my seat, I resumed reading and finished the book three hours before the bus reached Virginia.  If you’re looking for a book that’s extremely well-written and entertaining on several different levels, I highly recommend A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis. 

And how about Elliott?  Well, Elliott is getting used to my vagabonding ways.  Since he doesn’t want anyone staying in the house while I’m away, he makes his own breakfast (without using the stove) and goes out for lunch or dinner with one of the boys.  He fills his waking hours with reading the newspaper (minimum 1 hour), watching daytime television (local news, Let’s Make a Deal, etc.) and taking a long afternoon nap.  Post-dinner, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy round out the evening.  By 8 o’clock p.m., he’s getting ready for bed.  And to make sure he didn’t starve while I was out of town, I presented him with a bag of giant marshmallows – one of his favorite treats – prior to my departure. 

Elliott eats a marshmallow. 

Adventuring Close to Home

August 1, 2015 – Adventuring Close to Home

I didn’t have to go far from home for my recent adventures.  On Friday, I abandoned all my cares and responsibilities for a few fun-filled hours with friends Kathy and Michelle.  Our girls’ day out started with a visit to the Textile Museum, recently relocated to a beautiful new building on the campus of George Washington University.  Their current exhibition is called Unraveling Identity and includes a wide range of textiles, some dating back over a thousand years and others created in the 21^st century.  It’s a fascinating exhibit that focuses on the role of textiles in establishing personal, cosmopolitan, religious, spiritual and political identity.  The exhibit is on view through August 24.  

One of the many gorgeous textiles we saw at The Textile Museum.

We also saw GWU's Washingtoniana Collection, housed in the same building.  It's a small exhibit about the founding of the District of Columbia, complete with maps and documents and some interesting historical tidbits.  Did you know that the Residence Act of 1790 provided for a federal district and that George Washington chose the location, which lay at the precise geographic center of the United States, from north to south, at the time?   

This Gilbert Stuart portrait of our first President is in the GWU Washingtoniana Collection.

Since we were already in the Foggy Bottom area, we had lunch at Beefsteak, the new José Andres quick, veggie-centric, locally sourced, cooked-to-order eatery.  The beefsteak “burger” was the perfect summer sandwich – a thick slice of ripe beefsteak tomato, fresh mozzarella, pickled red onions, sprouts, and caper mayo on an olive oil brioche bun.  It was gloriously messy and absolutely delicious.   

Nothing says summer like a juicy beefsteak tomato burger from Beefsteak.

Such a wonderful main course deserved an equally wonderful dessert, so we set out on a quest for gelato that brought us back across the Potomac to The Italian Store in Arlington, Virginia.  First, we browsed through the aisles of Italian cheeses, cookies, sauces, pastas, and wines; inhaled the aroma of pizza fresh out of the oven; and gazed longingly at the cannoli and sfogliatelle in the bakery display cases.  Then it was decision time, choosing our gelato flavors even as Michelle bemoaned the pounds she’d put on during her recent trip to Florence and Rome.  

Michelle and Kathy perusing the delectable goodies at The Italian Store.

I tried to console Michelle by reminding her that the protein in the gelato balanced the negative effects of the calories.  And truthfully, a scoop of gelato is a much healthier choice than something like a Krispy Kreme donut.  I refused to let guilt interfere with my enjoyment.  Rather, I remembered my mother’s words, spoken many years ago in a Texas ice cream parlor.  She looked up from her hot fudge sundae, paused with spoon in hand, and said, “Ice cream is good for the soul.”  Great-grandma Katie is a very wise woman.