Away – But Where Are We Going To EAT?

Finding My Morning Run in Tacoma Washington

September 8, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

I don’t know if it’s always this quiet. Or if it was just a Saturday morning mid-August in downtown Tacoma. Quiet streets make good streets for running, though, and I ran Pacific Avenue to the Pacific Brewing and Malting Co., ducking down smaller roads trying to glimpse any water along the way. But this part of Tacoma is blocks of businesses and highways across from container ports and waterways. As the helpful hotel concierge said when I asked about a waterfront running path, you’ll just keep running into obstacles if you try to get close to water. Back up Pacific Avenue I ran to the Chihuly Bridge of Glass and perfectly-situated Anthem Coffee & Tea for my planned post-run latté.

Along the Foss Waterway
Chihuly Bridge of Glass

Multi-colored glass flowed in the ceiling above the pedestrian bridge, and glass artworks lined the two sides of the Bridge of Glass. It was overcast, and while the shapes and colors were beautiful, I imagine they would have been spectacular under a bright sun. Crossing the bridge, I connected to the Museum of Glass, distinguished by the angled cone structure shooting upward marking its glass blowing “hot shop.” At the bottom of the museum’s spiraling stairs, I ran a short path along the Foss Waterway, passing new condos (or apartments) on one side and the waterway and marina on the other, the pretty cabled East 21^stStreet Bridge spanning the waterway ahead of me as I ran back.

Sitting at one of the scattered outdoor patio tables on the backside of Anthem, I drank my latté in peace, facing the glass bridge and soft red brick of the Beaux-Arts domed US District Courthouse next door. Leaving, I could hear music and voices marking the finish line of The Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon, just past an entrance to the University of Washington Tacoma and a dotting of storefronts and restaurants, joyfully breaking the otherwise quiet of that morning.

US District Courthouse Museum of Glass

Away, Eat Here, Go Here, Where to Wine

Finding Oysters and Seeking Water Views in Virginia’s Northern Neck

August 31, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

*Rappahannock River view at Merroir, Topping VA*

You don’t have to go far outside the DC area for an un-urban experience. But you will not escape the traffic trying to get there. So brace yourself until you’re past Fredericksburg and can break free of I-95. J and I, and our senior-dog-resigned-to-her-fate, spent a summer weekend in Virginia’s Northern Neck. It’s an area dotted with tiny towns; of low-lying farms and fields of corn and soybeans where the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay. J and I were there to kayak and eat what we could manage of Rappahannock oysters. We stayed in a small house in Irvington down the street from the Steamboat Era Museum and the grassy commons set up for the Irvington Crab Festival, at the town’s main commercial intersection. There was a Methodist church on one corner, Baptist on the other.

We passed by both on our unhurried morning walks to The Local, the local coffee shop, where we sat on the street-front patio behind the white picket fence and watched grandparents and grandkids leisurely cycle by on pastel bikes. A few doors down we ate dinner at The Dredge (named for the fishing dredge used to harvest oysters), which was nicely full of year-long residents and regular summer visitors. Lily Pulitzer was on full display. And then sipped port at the softly lit The Vine (wine shop and wine bar) comfortably situated next to the Baptist church.

Down the road in Weems we stopped by one of the best-preserved colonial era churches, set off in a tree-shaded grassy enclave. An Anglican parish church built in the 1730s and funded by wealthy landowner Robert “King” Carter, we read the inscriptions on the tombs outside Historic Christ Church of King Carter himself and his first and second wives. Both wives died in their 30s…after birthing a combined 15 children (Carter died in his 60s).

Although surrounded by water on the map, we had to deliberately seek it out. From Weems we followed a quiet road ending miles away at the beach and marina of Windmill Point, jutting out where the Rappahannock River falls into the Chesapeake Bay.

We rented kayaks and paddled out on a quiet creek at Menokin, the house and plantation of Francis Lightfoot Lee, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The house, now in ruins, is coming back under a preservation plan that will re-build the lost remains of the outer structure in glass. It’s set off in a field and had terraced gardens in the back that in its day preserved a view of the creek beyond.

Menokin, near Warsaw VA
Plexiglass piece previewing permanent glass structure, Menokin

Driving back to Irvington, we stopped for sandwiches at the civil war finds cum all-day-breakfast diner at the alliterative Callao Coffee Café in Callao, with signs for casino parking in back (although we didn’t see a casino). We browsed what was for sale while waiting for our paninis. Continuing east before turning south I found homemade ice cream (peanut butter Oreo) at T & Js Dairy Barn in Burgess.

Eventually we found a deck with water views by heading straight down historic Urbanna‘s Virginia Street and taking a gravel road to the seafood market and dockside restaurant of Urbanna Seafood and Raw Bar. At stools lining the small covered outdoor bar we looked out at Robinson Creek while diners ordered baskets of oysters and crabs and calamari at multi-colored benches and picnic tables on the shaded deck. Passing through White Stone on our way back from Urbanna (over the Norris Bridge across the Rappahannock) we stopped for dinner at the lovely unassuming Adrift, which shares the block with the town post office. Sitting at the small bar we hung out eating oysters delicately fried and flavorful over a spinach salad, and baked and ramp-buttered in a hot dish with toast.

Our last chance at oysters was back over the Norris Bridge and an immediate left (at Hummel Field airfield) to the shore of the Rappahannock for brunch at Merroir, the birthplace of the Rappahannock Oyster Company. We arrived not long after opening time, which got us an umbrella shaded table on the dog friendly patio of softly crushed bleached-white oyster shells. BBQ bourbon chipotle grilled oysters, accompanied by a jumbo lump crab cake and a glass of rosé, enhanced a sprawling river view. It felt quiet and there was a slight breeze. And we lingered.

Away, Go Here, Stay Here, Where to Caffeinate

Latte Harbourside in Camogli, Italy

July 5, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

Coffee harborside at a tiny bistro table on the sidewalk right in front of our hotel, I Tre Merli, and just a few feet from the water’s edge. Movements only from that cheeky seagull eyeing me and my breakfast onion focaccia, and from the small dogs trotting beside their owners. There were the harbor pilots sipping espresso in their flip flops and board shorts and reading the morning’s paper, the day-trippers consulting the water-taxi schedule to San Frutuosso and glancing at the dock, where no water-taxi is anchored (the sea’s probably too rough and the taxi won’t run today).

Coffee was brought out in a white carafe with a side pitcher of frothy milk. I could sit for hours here, absent-mindedly pouring more coffee and milk into my cup and gazing out and across the harbor of Camogli, watching the cliffside town slowly, ever so slowly wake up. J and I were easing into our day, too. Making the most of our mornings meant sitting at this very table for as long as it took, and then wandering back upstairs to our room to gather water bottles, sunblock and head out for a day of hiking over the hills and coastline stretching south of Genoa, the Riviera di Levante of Italy’s Ligurian coast.

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The Sensibility of the Italian Aperitivo

June 26, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeat1 Comment

I was wistfully reminded of northern Italy’s aperitivo one night in DC’s Maxwell Park. It was early evening on a Saturday and every bar seat was comfortably filled by people like me and J who were there for a pre-dinner drink. But as I glanced around, I noticed amongst the wine and water glasses that there wasn’t a small plate or bowl of snacks in front of anyone. In contrast, my pre-dinner experience in northern Italy was “aperitivo,” a civilized few hours around sunset enjoyed with a selection of meats and cheeses, crusty bread, olives or other bites, served alongside your cocktail or wine.

Aperitivo purportedly got its start in the capital of Italy’s Piedmont’s region, Turin, where Antonio Benedetto Carpano concocted vermouth. (And where J and I had two lovely pizzas sitting outdoors at a café, excited but fighting off the beginnings of jet lag – having just landed from the U.S. – and before catching our train to coastal Liguria.)

And there we were the next day, at an open-air seaside bar in Camogli, on the Ligurian coast, where aperitivo included an eclectic mix of potato chips, bite size sandwiches, pickled vegetables, and hummus. All of this came unbidden with a glass of sparkling wine and the server insisting, yes, snacks come with your drinks, and yes, they are included in the very reasonable price. How have I not known about this sensible tradition? Google translates “aperitivo” to “appetizer.” Which doesn’t do it justice. Italy’s aperitivo was a revelation; a truly smart way to enjoy your early evening.

At Home, Away, Go Here

A Little Limoncello is Good for the Memory

June 24, 2019June 26, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

On an early summer evening we made dinner for friends, who brought dessert. They were flying in a few days to visit some of the very same parts of northern Italy J and I did a few years ago. Just hearing “Piemonte,” “Alba,” “Barolo,” “Liguria,” filled my heart. I started talking in that enthusiastic tone of someone who has just gotten back from a trip and still feels close enough to touch it. That experience was essentially the force behind this blog.

She’s Italian and grew up in Turin (widely-claimed home of aperitivo); keeps a place on the Ligurian coast in Sanremo (or San Remo). Fly into Nice and it’s a short drive across the French-Italian border, on the Riviera di Ponente, Coast of the Sunset. (I stayed on the other side of Genoa, the Riviera di Levante, Coast of the Sunrise.) We had homemade tiramisu for dessert and homemade limoncello for our digestivo. A drink of grain alcohol, lemon rinds, and sugar, it burned the back of my throat. The limoncello was poured mercifully into tiny shot glasses. The rest is now hanging out in our freezer. I admit to being a little afraid to bring it out.

So, I’m going back to Italy with maybe a few new posts and have split my very first post – written just over a year ago – into two. I’m finally heeding (somewhat) my teenage niece’s comment that my blog posts can be too long.

Away, Eat Here, Get This Wine, Go Here, Where to Caffeinate

Finding Oysters (and other good stuff) at the Beach on Hilton Head Island

January 26, 2019January 26, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

Winter on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, is low key. Its wide-open beaches and fewer people. It means oysters are in season and we can still get fresh shrimp. Last year, J and I experimented with poached oysters dotted with caviar and wisps of pickled cucumber. It was decadent and delicious. This year, to save J’s hands and manage to eat before midnight AND be able to enjoy more oysters with family, we stuck to roasting them on the grill to dip in cocktail sauce, a gingery cilantro sauce, and melted butter. Sauces that also shared nicely with a large bowl of peel-and-eat shrimp.

And then there was that blind baguette taste-off, which completed the night’s vibrant meal. (Some of the family had pre-determined favorites, but it was a tie – really – because each chewy baguette had its own strength – from a hint of butter in one to a perfectly browned crust in the other. See the culpable bakeries below.)

Sharing table space with the shrimp and oysters were bottles (carted down I-95 in the car with Russ & Daughters‘ smoked salmon, pickled lox, and a chocolate babka for good measure), of sparkling smoky na Punta extra brut and an exceptionally dry Argyle Extended Tirage Brut sipped from unassuming (maybe mismatched and unbreakable?) house wine glasses. We could bring them down to the beach for a sunset in soft shades of pink, behind the oyster shell-decorated “tree” that shows up every year at Christmas. Or during a pitch-black night, to see the moon, like J, with his camera, tripod, and headlamp.

Besides the beach at sunset, get to these places on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton, SC, to make the most out of Winter –

Bluffton Oyster Company, for bushels of local oysters. Be sure to call and place an order ahead of time during the holidays.
Benny Hudson Seafood, another favorite for shrimp and fish like grouper and black drum.
The butcher at Scotts Market, for your meat needs. I’ve had a sirloin roast and bavette (one of my favorite cuts).
Hilton Head Social Bakery, for the perfectly crusty and chewy baguette.
Twisted European Bakery, for the perfectly golden and slightly buttery baguette.
New York City Pizza, where the take-out veggie pizza is piled high with mushrooms, green peppers and onions, and they’re open late-ish if you hit traffic and arrive on the island after dark.
Fish Camp on Broad Creek, to sit at the heated outside bar twinkling in strings of soft white lights, eating ahi tuna nachos and calamari with crunchy/spicy fried pickles, a Westover One-Claw and a glass of malbec, listening to the guy in the corner playing guitar.

*Fish Camp on Broad Creek…Summer view from the outdoor bar*

Away, Eat Here, Go Here, Where to Caffeinate

If you’re not sucked in by Foxy Loxy’s Boombox Brunch…

January 5, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

If you find yourself in Savannah, Georgia, and not sucked in by Foxy Loxy Café’s Boombox Brunch, head to the Historic District and check out —

Chocolat by Adam Turoni– even if just to see for yourself a chocolate shop with an Astroturf floor.
On the way, stop by ShopSCAD for 3-D printed nylon earrings (among other things).
And at a SCAD (The Savannah College of Art and Design) alum’s Satchel, for very soft leather.
Speaking of SCAD…there’s an actual red double-decker London bus inside Art’s Café, across the street from ShopSCAD.
Be astounded at the lengths the wealthy went through to showcase, well, that wealth, at the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters.
Next time…I want to try the sandwiches and sweet stuff at Back in the Day Bakery and maybe make it through the wait for brunch at The Collins Quarter. Does anyone know the best days and times to avoid a line?

Away, Eat Here, Where to Caffeinate

Finding More than the perfect latté in Savannah

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019by butwherearewegoingtoeat1 Comment

Here‘s how I felt about Savannah, Georgia, in the Summer – miserably sweaty. The same Savannah in Winter – happily comfortable. J and I spent a cool December day with family walking a city backdropped by sharp blue sky and bright sun. Savannah’s ubiquitous squares were richly green, the massive branches of ancient trees gracefully arching above us. Delicate lamp posts were punctuated by rich red garlands in the days before Christmas. Blocks past the far end of the green carpet that is Forsyth Park, we made our way to Foxy Loxy Café. Searching for great latté (of course) got me there.

The Boombox Brunch – in the outdoor courtyard – and the cheesy grits in the Foxy Haystack – kept me. Get the Horchata latté, too, which was the right amount of sweet and cinnamon. To top it off, I discovered a new favorite sinus clearing hot sauce! While the DJ pulled out vinyl records, the garden tables and picnic benches were gradually filling up, to the classic sound of The Cars‘ Who’s Gonna Drive You Home.

Away, Eat Here, Stay Here

Skiing to Eat at the Matterhorn

December 5, 2018by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

My mind holds childhood memories of skiing in Switzerland as long winding treks down the mountain – mogul hills in some spots and narrow passages in others. There were brief stops along the way for family to catch up. Some nervous contemplation at the crest of a steep hill. A few spectacular falls. But the overarching theme is day-long journeys broken up by leisurely stops at tidy sloped roof chalets for plates of French fries and late afternoon hot chocolates – before ending up sore, windblown, and spent, the afternoon sun sinking, at the bottom of the mountain.

And so it was with J – who I convinced (pretty easily) to go and relive my selective Swiss skiing memories – on a Christmas week in Zermatt (in the Pennine Alps of Switzerland). With a few necessary advance reservations (and help from a high school friend), we ate well and stayed well in car-free Zermatt, an easy train ride up from Geneva. Sharp air and clear skies brought the glorious Matterhorn to maximum view – everywhere – in the village and on the slopes. And took our breath away, spectacularly, on our first jet-lagged day, when we opened the window shutters in our room and came face-to-face with that peak. We stayed in a chalet apartment of the Hotel Zurbriggen (run by champion 1980s Swiss Alpine skier Pirmin Zurbriggen and his family), a convenient five-minute walk from the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise ski lift, and apres ski-ed in the heated outdoor pool facing that spectacular mountain peak.

Restaurant Findlerhoff

The first day of skiing, we stopped for lunch at the Restaurant Findlerhoff, reservations in hand, down a narrow path in the tiny mountainside village of Findeln. We stumbled in ski boots into the cozy dark wood chalet and hung our helmets from rods overhead. Fellow skiers sat sweater-to-sweater, hair askew from hats removed, the outline of ski goggles pressed into cold pink cheeks. A few dogs were on the patio and beers were being drunk (by the people, not the dogs) while sitting in the bright winter sun.

On the next, J and I gazed out over endless white slopes and blue sky at The Igloo, having just skied our way over the ridge into Cervinia, Italy – spending Euros and not Swiss francs. Sharing a Weissbier on the patio, blankets draped over our knees and backs against the chalet wall, giddy from having skied across a border for lunch. A mid-ski stop at Restaurant Alphitta near Riffelalp had us on the wide terrace soaking up sun with a basket of baguette, quiche, and frisée salad, the Matterhorn in full view over our shoulders.

Then we got lost. Not skiing, but hiking. On Christmas Day. Trying to mix it up. We were hiking our way up to a leisurely lunch at elegant Chez Vrony. But it was snowing, and we made a wrong turn on the trail, eventually finding our way to Findelbach, a stop along the Gornergrat rail line, and caught the train back into Zermatt to take the Sunnegga-Rothorn funicular up to Sunnegga. From Sunnega, it was a short snowy hike downhill to the warmth of Chez Vrony. Outside, the day’s palate was soft greys and whites in the clouds and lightly falling snow.

Inside, Chez Vrony was warm colors and light wood, stemmed wine glasses and etched carafes, sausage and rösti potatoes, and delicate desserts on the side of a mountain. Forgoing all the unplanned modes of transportation that got us to Vrony, we stuck to our original plan, and hiked back through Findeln down the mountain following (successfully this time) a trail through the pine trees and back into Zermatt. A glass of champagne at the outdoor Veuve Clicquot ice bar and a steaming chocolate crêpe to-go from Stefanie’s crêperie across the way would end our day – sore, windblown, and spent but reveling in snowy winter joy.

Away, Get This Wine, Where to Wine

A Little Bit of Italy in Virginia

October 8, 2018by butwherearewegoingtoeatLeave a Comment

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We went south to head north; to stop by a few wineries on a rainy Sunday, on our way back to the Washington, DC, area. J and I had been hiking in Shenandoah National Park and “camping” in a tiny house trailer at getaway. After a morning stop for cappuccino at the Mudhouse in Crozet, we turned left at the winery sign – hanging off a piece of construction equipment at the side of the road – and pulled in to Gabriele Rausse (just outside of Charlottesville, Virginia). Gabriele Rausse is the namesake winery of Gabriele Rausse who moved from Italy to Virginia in the late 1970s to help start Barboursville Vineyards.

The modern glass and wood framed tasting room was tucked into the trees at the end of a short gravel lane – windows facing out on at least two sides of the small open space. At mid-day, a couple was sitting in the back booth and several were standing at the tasting bar. The Beatles were playing; a wilted hardcover book about Italy’s big Barolo wines on the shelf. The winery’s lumberingly sweet yellow lab mix greeted everyone and then plopped down to rest against the window.

Gabriele Rausse’s son was pouring the wine, family was around, and fresh pasta was being rolled through a pasta maker. We tasted whites to reds accompanied by small bites of speck with arugula, soft and crunchy sourdough baguettes with pungent olive oil for dipping, fresh linguine with pesto, and a bite of warm baklava at the end.

Category: Away