Napa Wine Train: Ride High

When my friend Karen asked me if I was interested in taking a trip on the Napa Valley Wine Train, I thought she was joking. She’s a rather sophisticated woman– one who lived in the Napa Valley for ten years. She must know something I don’t. Or someone. That someone turned out to be Ryan Graham, director of the Wine Train’s wine program– an old friend of Karen’s from her time at the infamous Bistro Don Giovanni.

My initial reaction was snobbish. I’d always considered the Wine Train as a gimmicky tourist attraction, upon which the locals would never ride or, at least, openly admit to riding. Sort of like the Disneyland Railroad, but with alcohol.

I thought about it for a moment. What’s so wrong with that? I have always had a soft spot for trains, and I have a great thirst for wine, so I viewed this offer as a blending of two of my favorite things, rather like an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial in which a fellow randomly carrying an open container of peanut butter collides with a guy who has recently exposed his chocolate bar to the elements.

I accepted the invitation.

The Napa Valley Wine Train, brainchild of train buff and Rice-a-Roni inventor Vincent de Domenico, began its run in 1989 on tracks that were originally laid in the 19th Century to bring tourists up to the resorts of Calistoga from Vallejo. The tracks in Calistoga have long been ripped out, but the remaining thirty-six-odd miles enable diners to take a pleasant, 3-hour trip from Napa town to St. Helena and back.

Upon arrival at the train’s reception center, I wandered about the room, observing my fellow guests milling about, talking among themselves, or simply sitting on one the many available couches with the slightly glazed-over look that comes from having been exposed to too much sight-seeing over too short a time. Apart from two little girls racing about the room, shrieking and giggling, the room felt quiet and mildly uncomfortable.

There is a wine bar in a far corner of the room which offers up tastes of local vintages and not-so-local beer: Budweiser, Coors Lite, and Miller Genuine Draft. My initial, San Francisco-style reaction was one of shock. Where were the local brews? I looked around the room again and understood. The beer selection seemed, in a sense, a subtle way of telling its often out-of-their-element visitors, “See, we’re just like you. We’re not snobs, we just happen to live in the most famous wine region in the nation, so relax.”

Before boarding the train, we were treated to a brief orientation by an affable, gravelly-voiced gentleman named Mike. Two wines were passed among the guests to sniff and taste. Well-acquainted with the general sense of intimidation that wine-tasting has upon the general public, Mike wiped away any perceived snobbery of wine enthusiasts in both his manner and his approach to tasting, even going so far as to make fun of people who sniff corks. “Why the hell would anyone sniff a cork? You’re only going to smell cork. Corks are only presented to you at the table so you can tell if the wine has been stored properly.” People laughed, relaxed a lot, and were now primed and ready for their wine-filled, three hour lunch through Wine Country which, in the minutes immediately preceeding Mike’s presentation, might have seemed like slightly hostile, foreign territory.

Once through the reception line, where each group of guests is photographed by a Wine Train photographer, we boarded the train and were shown to our seats in the Vista Dome, a beautifully restored 1940’s rail car. Surrounded by rich, red upholstery, white damask linen, and vintage silver flatware, we were poured glasses of Domaine Chandon Brut. If anything, I was feeling louche.

Our Bulgarian waiter was charming. As he stood at our table describing our luncheon options, I sat and listened, sipping my wine. I nodded a bit as he spoke, but stopped upon remembering that head signals are reversed in his native country. A nod implies disagreement, while a side-to-side shake implies assent. Or so I’ve heard. So, apart from letting my lips meet my champagne glass, I stopped moving my head entirely.

Soon after the train left the station, the stories of my lunchmates began. Off to my right was the restaurant where the Mondavis were told they could not bring their small dog. (The restaurant is, not surprisingly, no longer in existence). Off to the left, where a group of revellers (among whom my table companions counted themselves) mooned the Wine Train years ago, en masse. The Wine Train does, after all, have a reputation for offering breath-taking views.

At the start of the first course, the train stopped for a few minutes. I asked one of the managers who stopped by our table for a visit if people were boarding. “No”, she replied, “just stopping to pick up a few supplies, that’s all.” I looked out the window at the Safeway and understood. I was somehow pleased by the fact that I was sitting in a moving restaurant. One that ran an errand or two as I sat, drinking my wine.

As the train resumed its journey, slowly rocking from side to side on its way, I marvelled at the waitstaff, who managed to make carrying plates of hot food and, even more impressive, trays of drinks, looks effortless. The service was efficient, friendly and wonderfully at-ease. It was even suggested that we take a break between the main course and dessert to stretch our legs and tour the rest of the train. We passed through the early-20th Century Pullman dining cars where three and four-course meals are served, the on-board kitchens, and the Silverado Car, where one has the option of selecting from an à la carte menu, or not at all, to the Tasting Bar, where we sampled a few local dessert wines before making the slow walk back to our table for coffee and dessert. On the journey back to our table, I noticed that many of the people who looked uneasy prior to boarding now looked very. very relaxed.

The food was, sadly, fair-to-middling. For example, the Crêpe Rosettes stuffed with smoked salmon were mostly crêpe, with minimal participation from the salmon.

The Roasted Beef Tenderloin Wrapped in Bacon With Shallots, Leeks and Roasted Garlic in Chimichurri Sauce was well prepared but, as the name might suggest, it was a rather convoluted affair. There was not room enough on the menu to mention the mashed potatoes or the carrots which competed for space on the overcrowded plate.

For dessert, I opted for the Calvados Apple Crisp with Vanilla Gelato. While the flavors were spot on– just the proper hint of Calvados, the presentation destroyed what should have been a wonderful dessert. What arrived at our table merely looked like a cup of vanilla gelato, with no indication of what lay beneath. Crisp topping needs room to breathe. A complete smothering in gelato resulted in a cold mush with a texture approximating that of granola left too long in milk.

My sense is that– and I may be shot for saying this– Chef Kelly MacDonald is playing to a tourist audience, and rightly so. But I was left with the impression that the menu is an interpretation of what might play as “fancy”– as gourmet– to the tourist trade, which is doing no one any favors. The Napa Valley is home to some of the finest produce in the country. As a chef who proudly uses only fresh, local produce, it would do credit to himself and to the people visiting for the first time, to showcase that bounty in the simple, straightforward style of the valley through which the Napa Train takes its ride and from which it takes its name.

My criticism of the food aside, I had a fantastic time. A leisurely three-hour lunch in a beautifully-restored train car travelling at 18 mph through some of the most fantastic, autumn-colored countryside this region has to offer with a bottle or two of excellent, local wine selected from a well-crafted, affordable wine list to be drunk in hilarious company?

Yes, please. And I would do it again.

Whenever I visit a foreign city, I like to be blatantly touristy on my first day out by taking a narrated bus tour around town. I find it an excellent way of getting a general overview, a broad sense of the place. The Napa Wine Train is a great way to introduce visitors to the Valley, or yourself, for that matter, without having to fight the terrible traffic jams, especially in high-season. To borrow a jingle from a depressing and struggling national bus company, leave the driving to them.

Of course, it isn’t driving, it’s conducting or something. However trains work. I don’t really want to know because, to borrow another jingle, there’s something about a train that’s magic. And I should like to leave it at that.

Instead, I suggest you follow the advice of this sign, found on the train:

Ride high, and enjoy.

The Napa Valley Wine Train Station is located at:

1275 McKinstry Street

Napa, California 94559.

For Schedules and reservations, call:

1-800-427-4124

Omnivore Books on Food

Today’s post is short and sweet, but I do mean sweet.

Two weeks ago, Omnivore Books on Food quietly opened its doors in Noe Valley. When I found out about it from a friend of mine who is much hipper than I am, I nearly wet myself with joy. I have been known to lose myself in used bookstores for hours, but I have never been to one dealing exclusively in cookbooks.

Housed, appropriately enough, in a former butcher shop, Omnivore is the dream child of Celia Sack, an antiquarian book dealer with a special passion for cookbooks. Even her name sounds as though it came straight from a novel. Celia Sack. It is, to me, a name that should be attached to a book store.

Omnivore’s fare reaches beyond new, antiquarian, and collectible cookbooks. As its website states, “Omnivore connects the past to the present by offering centuries of knowledge on growing, raising, and cooking food.” There are books on animal husbandry, nut growing, even a whole shelf devoted to organic farming– from the 1940’s and 1950’s. It’s a fascinating browse– a kind of hog heaven for book lovers.

Among my favorite curiosities on the store were a collection of miniature liqueur bottles once owned by Hal B. Wallis, Oscar-winning producer of a little-known film entitled Casablanca. They were rescued by Sack (a friend of the family) when Wallis’ gold-digging last wife was stealing him, well, blind, as his eyesight began to fail.

Omnivore will soon be hosting book-related events. In December, the store will host such guests as Cindy Mushet, author of The Art and Soul of Baking, and Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses. To find out about more events, visit Omnivore’s event calendar online. Or, hell, go into the store and pick one up yourself.

In an era where books are gradually losing ground to the likes of the Internet and Kindle, and in a global economy that is causing people to curtail their expenditures, Omnivore’s debut is a brave one. But a necessary one, I think. There is a certain comfort in reading about food, certainly, but that comfort is often served cold when reading about it on a computer screen. It cannot compare to the heft of a good book in one’s hands, the smell of its musty pages, or the knowledge that it has been loved and used and read by others. Beyond what’s written in its pages, there is a story behind every book. And I think Celia and Omnivore understand that. Perfectly.

Omnivore is located at:

3885a Cesar Chavez Street

San Francisco, CA 94131

Tel: 415-282-4712

omnivorebooks.com

Rally, I do.

There is so much to say about this rally and what it signified for me that I can’t possibly fit it all into a blog post. This is one for my therapist, certainly, but it’s something I had to write about, too.

Just to get my head around it.

It is not about food. It is not a rant. It is more of a ramble, really. No neat opening or closing. I just feel the need to put it out there, that’s all.

I went to my first rally in ages yesterday morning. This is no small thing. I don’t like crowds. Especially large crowds of the same mind. The threat of a stampede dangles an elephant foot somewhere north of my rib cage, making each breath I take measured, if not labored.

I have never felt comfortable moving in sync with thousands of others. When crowds shout and cheer, I stand among them, quietly, nodding my assent rather than shouting it.

Small wonder I didn’t last long as high school mascot. While the cheerleaders chanted and flailed their arms and legs more or less in unison, I stood on the sidelines in my coordinating sweater with arms folded, pouting and observing, but not participating. I sensed that I did not belong. My father sat in the stands, his head buried in a book of crossword puzzles, trying to mask the disappointment that his son preferred a viking helmet to one of the football variety. I was happy, however, to know he was there, that I somehow had his support.

Well, that was then. Things change, and I found myself sufficiently motivated to swallow my little phobias and actually become part of a large group to show a bit of unity with my gay brothers and sisters. And my straight ones, too.

I stood near the front of the crowd at City Hall on Saturday morning, with a “No on 8″ sign shielding my head from the sun. I hadn’t thought to make my own sign until that morning and, for some reason, the slogan that popped into my head was “God Si Love”.

At first I thought it would just be some clever, E.M. Forrester reference that, hopefully, one or two well-read people might get. And then I thought about it a little more. In the novel A Passage to India, those words were scrawled on the wall of a temple by someone who lacked a good, working knowledge of the English alphabet. Of course, it should have read, “God Is Love”, but they got it wrong. It suddenly seemed entirely appropriate, given the rally’s theme. In the name of passing this proposition, people have taken God’s words– His love– and twisted them around, rendering them, if not meaningless, absurd.

They got it all wrong.

As the speeches began, I ran down my personal casualty list for Autumn 2008. The right to marry? Check. My father’s support by virtue of his voting in favor of the proposition? Check. The man with whom I had convinced myself I wanted to build a future? Check. Not as a direct result of the election but, in a real sense, as a result of the self-loathing and feelings of unworthiness that creep into our gay DNA– those wonderful little cancers that develop over a lifetime of living with just this kind of homophobia, now so wonderfully institutionalized.

That’s what really, really makes me angry.

I will spare you details of my relationship, beyond the fact that I loved him. And that he loved me. I was certain of it. After three years of developing a relationship with several dramatic twists and turns, he told me he loved me, that he supposed he always had, but wasn’t ready before. Now he was. He was certain of it.

But he wasn’t ready. He ran. And he ran fast. The only reason he shared that made any real sense to me was a mumbled comment about his own sense of inadequacy, and never once looked me in the eye. And then some other things happened that just screamed self-defeat. Of course, I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think I am. He had once told me that I was someone who “really got him.” That I understood him. I don’t know if he knows how much.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen that kind of behavior before– cheifly in myself. I’ve done the same thing, though at a much younger age. Everything was lollipops and kittens until the man I was with told me he loved me. Then I squirmed, I ran, and I was very cold, very cruel. I cast a shell of lead around me that his kryptonite, as powerful as it was, could never pierce. I understood later that I was in love with him, too. I spent years self-flagellating as a result, and have since spent my time trying to wriggle out of that toxic armor.

As I stood among the crowd thinking about him, I tried to keep myself from getting sucked down into that emotional Charybdis and focus instead on the important issues at hand, like the bizarre Conestoga-themed speech by Carole Migden and the shouts from the back of the crowd of “Louder! Louder!” that I heard as “Chowder! Chowder!”, thanks to the boys blowing horns in my ears off my left shoulder. I was cheered by the resulting comment my friend Scott made that all this sun and talk of marriage was making him crave a hot, milk-based soup. That was all I needed to pull me back. I was there supporting a cause I believe in among friends I care about. I was looking forward with hope that someday this whole nightmare of homophobic legislation would be just that, a bad dream.

Well, that lasted about two minutes.

I did physically what I had just promised myself I would not do metaphorically. I looked backward. There were a lot of clever signs about and I decided to turn around to get a different view.

And there he was, not ten yards behind me– the man who would have understood my sign, had I made it.

From a quick scan of the crowd, I had caught his forehead, the unmistakable shape of his ears, his glasses. I had been thinking about him so deeply just a few minutes before, I thought I may have conjured him, but he was there. No mistake about it.

His last communication was a cold, hard, three sentence email telling me to never contact him again. My response was an angry, dire prediction of how his life was going to fall apart.

I faced forward again, making no mention of his presence to my friends, trying very hard to act as though nothing had happened.

But something did. My anger had melted or, at least, refocused. The man with whom I have felt my deepest connection, the man who had pierced my own armor, was there with me, but entirely out of reach. At a gay marriage rally. Oh, irony. Sweet, sweet, capital “i” irony.

In the revised, film version of my life, the Rally scene would play something like this:

Long shot of crowd in front of the City Hall in San Francisco. Close up of Michael smiling under his sign with the words “God Si Love”. Michael turns around in the crowd, sees Mr. X, and turns forward again. Slight, sad shift in his smile as he hopes no one sees.

Close up of hand being place on Michael’s shoulder. Michael turns around to see Mr. X. standing behind him.

No dialogue would be necessary. The look of love tinged with sorrow over absence, things said, and life-lessons learned would be enough. Arms entwine. Camera pulls away to long shot of the crowd. The Voices of Walter Schumann hum hopefully.

Roll credits.

Of course, that didn’t happen. I turned around a few minutes later and he was still there. A few minutes more, he was gone.

When he broke things off, Mr. X, an avid reader, was immersing himself in the works of Henry James– a man who explored such cheerful themes as jilting and betrayal. At our last meeting, he shared with me that James was getting a bit too depressing, that he was moving onto E.M.Forrester. Howard’s End, to be exact.The opening words of that novel? “Only connect.” Forrester spent his writing life exploring the complexities and ironies of relationships as, more or less, an observer–another gay man on the sidelines. He never had a lasting, meaningful, loving relationship with another man. Just with his mother.

At the rally,of course, Mr. X and I did not connect. I saw him. He must have seen me. Neither of us made a move and an opportunity was lost.

At that moment, I would have told him that I was sorry for the things I said, that I hoped to God what I had cruelly predicted for him does not come true, and that, perhaps, as gay men, there was already enough hostility against us that for two people who once loved each other to feed into it and direct it at each other was too much to bear. And I would have told him I understand– no matter how difficult it is for me to accept the situation, I understand. I’ve been there, too.

But I didn’t say those things. My pride was hurt.

In a sense, isn’t that why we were all at the rally? Our Pride has been hurt. And we’re angry.

We’ll I’m still angry, but I’m angry at the people who created this frightening piece of legislation we all gathered together to protest, I’m angry with those people who chose to vote for transparent discrimination, and I am angry about how this sort of evil has infected all of our lives, both physcially and– more damaging– emotionally. But I can’t be angry with him. I just don’t have the heart for it. Rally, I don’t.

My hope for him is that he finds the strength to finally slay that terrible demon he carries inside him– that many of us carry inside ourselves– that tells him he is somehow inadequate and undeserving of the love he has historically kept at such a distance. I am working on that one myself. I once hoped we could slay our demons together. I hope, even if it is not with me, that he can find someone with whom he can one day connect. Really, truly connect.

Rally, I do.

Black Napkins: In the Lap of Luxury?

A few months back, I was buzzing around my restaurant, busy as usual, when I was stopped by one of my managers.

“Hey, I need you to get me a black napkin for Angie,” was all he said.

“A what?”

“A blaaaack naaaapkinnnn.” He had slowed he speech down as though speaking to one of his small children. “We’ve got some downstairs with the rest of the linen.”

In the eight years I’d worked at the restaurant, I’d neither seen nor heard tell of such a thing. Why on earth would Angie want a black napkin? To match her outfit? She never wears black. And it is highly doubtful that she was engaging in any sort of bizarre culinary mourning ritual. My thoughts were that, if one of the owners of this restaurant wants a damned black napkin, I’ll get her a black napkin. Besides, she’s one of the nicest, least demanding people I’ve ever worked for, so I’m happy to indulge this rare little whim of hers. Indulging people is what I do for a living.

When the pace of the evening’s work had slowed down enough to engage in real conversation, I decided to bugged my manager about them. “What’s with those napkins?” I asked.

“She likes them because they don’t get lint all over her outfit.” I was about to argue that our normal, cream-colored linen is made out of the same if-you-burn-them-they-will-melt unnatural fibers as the black and both are equally incapable of shedding lint, but I decided to let it drop and go home. I satisfied myself with the thought that perhaps the true upshot to using a black napkin is their ability to hide lipstick stains. Or wine stains.

Owing to what I saw as an over-supply of these dark squares of polyester versus the one-woman demand for them, the wait staff took to using them for wine service– using one black serviette to catch the drips from each pour of red wine made much more eco-sense, in both the -nomic and -logical meaning. The practice has worked so well and saved our restaurant so much money on linen-laundering, that it is now required of us to use them.

But more and more people are asking for them. The other day, an ostensibly straight man (My assumption, since he was talking, with food in his mouth, about his wife) requested one for his dark blue worsted suit. It surprised me that a man who doesn’t know which fork to use and chews with his mouth open would request such a thing. But he did and he got it.

Based solely on the unscientific fact that straight guys have started asking for black napkins, and straight guys are typically about two years behind women and gay men in terms of trend-setting, I concluded that this was some arcane little fashion that I had somehow missed.

I was wondering aloud to a co-worker the other day about this napkin mini-trend. “I think it’s an L.A. thing. Lots of restaurants in L.A. have them,” was all she said.

It’s been a while since I’ve dined or waited tables in Los Angeles. I don’t think that city has contributed anything as meaningful to our cultural landscape since Botox. When I left, the biggest restaurant trend was for having everything on the side, not in one’s lap, though the idea of dropping hot food items in that general area was a constant temptation.

Have these dining accessories been spotted elsewhere in the area? I would very much like to know if this is happening in other restaurants where the effete meet to eat. I’d also love to hear some pro- and anti- black napkin feedback because I feel that this issue could serve as the tinder which ignites the greatest Culture War of our time. Personally, I don’t agree with them, but I acknowledge their right to an equal and dignified life alongside other, more culturally approved of napkins and, therefore, will fight for them. Perhaps you’ll see me at the black napkin rally this Saturday.

Cheers.

Chicken-fried Steak: There is comfort.

Chicken-fried steak courtesy of Serpentine

Well, now I’ve seen everything. As it was pointed out to me recently, voting Californians care more for the rights of chickens than they do for those of gay men and women. In my bubble-wrapped bio-degradable peanut-wrapped little world of well-educated, thoughtful, and admittedly left-leaning friends and co-workers, I had previously thought this was all but impossible.

I believed I didn’t know a single person– especially anyone close to me– who would, by touching a button or drawing a little black line to connect an arrow in a voting booth, actively raise a finger to institutionalize discrimination against me, or my sister, or my brother who, in a very real sense, died from internalizing all the hate and ignorance, both spoken and unspoken, that surrounds gay men and women and tells us we are not as deserving of happiness as everyone else. The electorate has demanded that a chicken be allowed the freedom to fully spread its wings and, in the same breath, has seen to it that I am not allowed to fully stretch mine.

It’s nothing personal against chickens. Honest.

I have been chafing at the logic that homosexuals should somehow be satisfied with domestic partnerships and not get hung up on the word “marriage”. And my blood is boiling over the 1,400,000 million-vote difference between those who voted for Barak Obama and those who voted No on Proposition 8. The stench of this hypocritical difference has settled in my nostrils and killed my appetite for the past couple of days. And that’s saying something.

Does anyone remember a cute little Supreme Court decision handed down in 1896? No? Well, I’ve got three words for you. Since those words are unprintable, I shall give you another three:

Plessy versus Ferguson.

Oh, and here are three more words that came out of that historically painful and embarrassing decision:

Separate but equal.

*image courtesy of Jay Floyd

Yes we can? Not in California, we didn’t. Not so much.

Well, I’m getting hungry again. And I need a little bit of comforting. It does help that all my straight friends have been actively giving their support, but I need a little more. I need to fill my belly with something other than burning bile. I will resist the urge to drink the blood of all the innocent children I had planned to corrupt by getting married and go for something a little more low key to satisfy my hunger. Something fried. Something bad for my arteries, but tonic for my soul.

I want Chicken-fried steak.

It strikes me as odd that I should crave something that is the unofficial dish of Texas. Or that, given the chicken’s newly-found superior status over me, that I would crave something so transparently pro-poultry-life. It’s not as though I’d ever encountered it in my childhood. Of course, that may very well be what makes it such a comfort. It is a dish I discovered in college– a time when I was busy forging my own identity as an adult.

I first encountered Chicken-fried steak at (foodies, look away) Denny’s. A photograph of the dish caught my attention, popping off the image-bloated and ketchup-sticky pages of the menu more dramatically than the competing Moons over My Hammy. It was too late to be up, I’d most likely been out either drinking or dancing or depressed over my not-quite-out-of-the-closet status or some combination of all three, and my body called out for something fried to soak up both my sorrow and my alcohol intake.

I sat there, staring at the menu, trying to make sense of the dish. Chicken-fried Steak. On the one hand, I immediately got it– pounded beef, served up as one would serve fried chicken. Basically, it’s a more aged version of Wienerschnitzel, but served up with biscuits and anemic-looking gravy. On the other, I was caught up in the phrasing. Chicken-fried. The immediate mental image was that of a cartoonish hen, complete with pearls and frilly apron, frying up a piece of beaten-to-death cow. The evil, self-satisfied smile on her face convinced me that this dish was somehow subversive– that there was some clever, morbid joke behind the creation of this dish. So I ordered it, naturally.

And, oddly, I felt much better for it. And it continues to have this mystifying effect on me. It may be its ability to fill my stomach, thereby draining as much blood as possible from my over-worked brain to aid digestion. It could be the fat and cholesterol that coats and calms me into some false sense of protection. I really don’t know. All I know is that, for whatever reason, it works for me and I refuse to give into too much analysis. That would ruin everything.

Chicken-fried steak has lifted me up in some of my lowest of moments. It has comforted me on my journeys home from bank-breaking college trips to Las Vegas when the only money I had left in the world was spent on gas and this menu item. It has been consumed through endless, supportive conversations with friends in times of disease and unavoidable death, and recently it has been there to help salve a mopey, broken heart.

And now, I am calling on it to fortify me through this mess.

I never intend to make it myself. I don’t even want to know exactly how it is made, so I will not give a recipe, let alone look at one. It is a dish best served to me, rather than by me. Preferably by a waitress whose shoulders have been slightly hunched by the weight of trouble and too many years of taking the brutal insensitivity and orders of strangers. I need this not to feel superior to someone else in my moment of gloom. I need it because I want to look her straight in the eye as if to say, “Girl, I know exactly how you feel.” But I won’t say it. She may not want that kind of empathy. Or me calling her “Girl”. So instead, I’ll just give her everything I have in my wallet and go home, bloated and tired, but somehow fortified enough to carry on.

Until the next time.