Elisse & Dan Can!

For the last 12 years that we've had the Elkhorn Inn, Chef Dan and I have been making pickles, cordial, or freezing all the things we make from our garden and wild harvests: I make Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese-style hot peppers & Mexican Gherkin pickles, we make cordial from the wild black berries we pick, and we freeze the wild blackberry sorbet and sauces we make. We also successfully freeze pestos (basil, rosemary, oregano, etc.), tomato sauce, soups, and even our Red Ruby Corn (which freezes great wrapped in newspaper!). But this year we decided to "take the plunge", as it were, and actually CAN! Yes, real Martha Stewartesque canning, with big vats of boiling water, and Ball jars with the little metal tops and screw-on rings! Dan had canned in the past (pre-me) so he had less fear of it than I, and although it's a lot more time-consuming than plopping things into a freezer bag, it turned out to be surprisingly easy! What made us dip our toe into the canning ocean was another huge harvest of Concord Grapes:

This year's grape harvest!

I planted 3 vines- the "Red, White & Blue American Concord Grapes" assortment that I mail-ordered when we first restored the Inn 12 years ago- almost as a joke, but last year they Finally started producing- big-time! With our first real grape harvest I made wine- incredibly sweet wine (which has actually aged quite nicely in Mason Jars, LOL). And as we still haven't finished off the wine, we wanted to do something different with our grapes this year. Having an inn means we always need jam for guest breakfasts, so Concord Grape Jam sounded like the perfect thing to make- and jam needs to be properly canned! The first thing we did was pull up Really Good and Clear Canning Instructions online so we would do it correctly- it is EXTREMELY important that you can correctly if you don't want your food to spoil. Then we bought the Ball jars with their lids and rings, and the tools we needed (a jar tightener and a jar lifter, to get the jars in and out of the boiling water), and pulled our our big canning pots. Then we started pulling recipes: We picked a classic grape jam recipe for the Red & Blue Concord Grapes, and a white Concord Grape jam with Lemon Balm (which grows abundantly in our garden).

Grapes on the vine!

Our Concord Grape Wine!

Our Concord Grape Jams- CANNED!

Between the cooking and the boiling and the boiling and the cooking, we wound up staying up all night, and at 5:30a.m. we finally had bottled up the jam properly and had it cooling on the counter! I have to say we were Really pleased at how it came out... and so the next night Chef Dan then decided to make Apple Butter and can it!

Next on the agenda: freezing the Red Ruby Corn and tomato sauce, making and freezing Chef Dan's Yellow Corn Soup, and making more hot pepper pickles and hot sauce! And then we have to dig to potatoes!

Chef Dan's Apple Butter- CANNED!

Heirloom Tomato Sauce!

Some of our garden's bounty!

Chef Dan with our Red Ruby Corn & Squash!

We Live in the &%$!*&%$! Country...

There are moments, however Grand it is out here in this green & beautiful place, when Living in The Country makes you want to slam you head into a wall until you pass out.
And this was one of those weeks. As readers of this blog know, the FIRST post on this blog was
a photo story about how McDowell County PSD screwed our county out of water for 28 days in the dead of winter. Well, kids, they did it again. As all is well now and we have our water back, and happy guests at the Inn, I will now post an (almost) unabridged diary entry from August 15, 2009:

10a.m.: Day 8 of no water, thanks (again) to the McDowell County PSD. We lost $680 in business this weekend, & I am about to pull my hair out by the roots. ONE of our elected officials finally turned up- Cliff Moore- and he seems to care, but he's basically 5 days late & a dollar short. He turned up just as the Roving Rabbis from Chabad Lubavitch pulled into our driveway. And thank G-d the Roving Rabbis came- I needed their visit very badly. (Tweet them @rovingrabbis).
Yesterday- after 6 days w/out water- the McDowell County PSD finally delivered their promised 250 water tank (which we truly believed would Never happen), but no fittings & no pump (& no water either- their promised water truck Never arrived), so it was useless- a giant "redneck joke" sitting in our parking lot. Dan then drove back & forth from the mountain spring on Route 52 & filled our hot tub w/Another 200 gallons of water (having used up the first tub full to make the water run for weekend guests...), & then we stayed up until 5 am trying to work out how to get that water up to the 2nd floor; our sump pump wasn’t strong enough. Dan eventually wound up carrying over 60 gallons of water up 3 flights of stairs in 5-gallon bucket increments, after first carrying the 45 gallon drum up 3 flights, while I walked behind him with my hand in the small of his back. I couldn't even Lift one of the buckets. He then pumped that water into the system and made the showers run and the toilets flush. I am TRULY married to McGuyver.
The next day, Moore finally got us the only pump available in the Region, but it was too small, too- even when attached to our sump pump- to pressurize the building, so last night Dan Again bucketed over 60 gallons of water up 3 flights of stairs- one 5 gal bucket at a time- to make the showers run & the toilets flush.
NOW McDowell County PSD says we will supposedly have water back by 8p.m.; I'll believe it when I see it flowing. I’ll give Moore credit for actually following up & calling us for “status updates”- it’s more than anyone Else in WV has done. For the last 8 days I’ve been “Tweeting” my 500+ followers; I even Facebooked about it. Our losses from the last 2 years of the PSD's "no water" issues- 28 days, 4 days, 2 days, etc., and now 8 days with no end in sight- are now in the thousands of dollars, & the damage it does to McDowell Co. & WV tourism immeasurable.
The "irony" is that this is NOT normal; when Kimball Water had control of our water for the first 5 years of our lives here we had basically no problems. McDowell County PSD raised our rates 300%, & then screwed us- and everyone else in this area- out of water, for days and sometimes weeks at a time.
We are literally Living a giant Jeff Foxworthy redneck joke that is an utter humiliation to WV Tourism and the State of WV.
I’ve made a number of calls to the Charleston, WV PSC (Pubic Service Commission), & it’s literally like pissing into the wind; the nastiness I get slapped with is like urine. I asked Mr. Bocker, the latest "official" I've dealt with: "what are you doing to get water back to this area?" & his Immediate reply was "actually, nothing". At which point I hung up. He had just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where we were, with NO CLUE about ANYTHING relative to this area or situation. “Shara” at the PSC told me "if you go to Governor Manchin, he'll just send it back to us and I'll tell you the same thing I'm telling you now". Then she called (3 days ago) to leave a message on out answering machine (which I saved), stating that our water would be restored by 8p.m.! While we have the Only business in this area- a nationally & internationally-recognized hospitality business- there is ALSO an entire Community of residents in Kimball, Landgraff, and Eckman, WV, who’ve gone w/out water for 8 days again, too- families with children!- & NO ONE in this state gives a Hoot about them, either. I like to think my Tweeting & Facebooking has helped to get the "Rural Water Commission" people and Charleston poo-bahs down here, & to at least get the McDowell Co. PSD Working on the water lines, but who really knows? I DO know that if we stay silent we can probably forget about having properly running water Ever In Life. As usual, the McDowell Co PSD blamed it all on someone else: this time it's 'a coal company'; they have NEVER taken responsibility for ANY of their water outages. But then Ms. Shara at the Charleston PSC slipped up & told me it was NOT the fault of a coal company... Oops.
Meanwhile, I'm taking reservations hand-over-fist, & so am literally Praying for water restoration: Ultimate Railfan packages, other railfan guests, October Sky/Rocketboys Weekend bookings, Bramwell Oktoberfest bookings, ATV families & couples, Labor Day Weekend & “Romance” packages...
Dan has gone to P’ton to get the bolt he needs for his ATV so maybe we can at least go riding again...
9:03pm: The good news is that the water went on at 5:30p.m. on Day 8. And that the water pressure is excellent.

And now for the Really important stuff: I am up to #40 in the “Huge Lips Skinny Hips” PurpleLabNYC Brickfish contest!
If all our friends from Facebook, Twitter, our website, and this
blog vote for me ever day (and there's only about 10 days left), I may actually have a chance of winning! So Please vote & "share" it with your friends! I'm getting on my entry, too- makes me feel a Whole lot better about turning 50! One of the things I want to prove is that us old "Boomers" know a thing or two about "Social Networking"! The other thing I NEED to prove is that we're still "hot" enough to go 'viral" AND win a beauty/fashion contest!
And while I'm 'personified' by "Red Sole", all of PurpleLab's lipglosses have great
names: Kitty Pole Dancer, Love mY Thighs... check it out! (My entry os on the right, & you can click on that to vote).
And “Lucky”, the black kitten that turned up on our door, waltzed in and Took Over the Elkhorn Inn, is being Loved On by both Tiger (pit bull) & Lady (lab); the two of them are literally fighting over who gets to be "Kitty Mommy"- which is a Royal pain in the neck but pretty hilarious, all the same! Lucky- named such for Obvious reasons- is So overly affectionate & Incredibly Ingratiating that we should have named her “L'il Suckup” or “Baby Brown Nose”! She is curled up behind me in my chair as I write this, & has NO fear: she allows me to hog-tie her, cuddle her like a baby on her back in my arms, dangle her upside down by her feet, etc., & gives both Dan & I a Stupid amount of tiny, raspy “kitty kisses”- all in an almost “dog-like” way…
I am Not a “cat person”- never have been- but this was Way to much affection for for either Dan or I to stand… & so now we Have to come up w/vet $ for shots & such. Watching Tiger gently play with her, lick her like a Mommy Kitty, & slowly ‘chase’ her ‘round the room was a hoot… so I guess “Lucky” gets to stay… Hopefully as an Outdoor ‘mouser’ cat… But I have a sneaking suspicion we will wake up w/her on our head all too soon… @least she's endeavoring to eat dog food! LOL
We went ATVing yesterday, riding up on the mountain in the nice, hot summer sunshine;
we stopped for french fries, found our "secret" waterfall, and had a good afternoon...
And now for a Bath- in one of the Elkhorn Inn's lusciously deep, antique, claw-foot bathtubs...

Thoughts On Spring... dieting, turning 50, & Luis M.

Our group of ATVing guests left the Inn this morning for home, happy w/their 2 days of riding, several armed with hand-made WV coal tchochkas for their wives :-) The daffodils & magnolia are in bloom, as are our 3 fruit trees, & Dan even set up my giant, new 7' tall inflatable birthday cake outside! I would like to be bubbling over with happiness- and should be, truly: happy guests, more bookings, gift shop sales, two great reviews on http://www.tripadvisor.com/ and http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/, and a gorgeous page on http://www.wanderingeducators.com/... But a young friend of ours is apparently dying & I'm broken-hearted.

Luis M., a FEMA co-worker and friend who is in his 40s, is in the hospital in Puerto Rico, apparently dying from prostate cancer. I say "apparently" because I cannot bear to say otherwise; I HAVE to hold out hope for an "extreme miracle", the "Hail Mary Pass" in the big football game of life, as it were.

Not having medical insurance, Luis kept working & put off going to the doctor until it was too late, and now his friends around the country are emailing each other news from our colleagues visiting him in the hospital in Puerto Rico telling us of his sickness during what seem to be the final days of his life. I have been posting "status updates" on my http://www.facebook.com/ page asking my 156 facebook friends to please send him their prayers, hope, love, good karma, healing wishes... because I don't know what else to do. I want to cry, but I can't even do that... But I also can't sleep. For Luis to needlessly die young from an illness that could have been successfully treated had he been able to afford to see a doctor, makes this all so incredibly tragic that I've been walking around pretty much in a haze now for days, & he hasn't left my thoughts for months.

Luis was (is? It is hideous to be talking about him in the past tense when his is alive!), bubbly, funny, smart, talented, good-looking, and full of life and laughter. He was, like me, a FEMA Community Relations Field Specialist and a Reports Tech. The picture I have in my head of him is all of us dancing and laughing one evening during a FEMA training @EMI in Maryland a few years ago... and how he howled and teased me mercilessly for slipping & falling on my way up to the stage to join the gang in singing "We Are Family"... When I heard how ill he was, I sent him an "Easy" button from Staples to cheer him up, hoping & praying that somehow he would get the life-saving treatment he needed...

But he didn't- or whatever he did get didn't work- and he was "sent home to die" several times, each time winding up back in the hospital, where he is again, apparently now being given nothing but pain medication to ease his suffering.

I am "muddling through" as they say, thanking G-d daily for the miracle of my life & going about the minutiae of day-to-day living- "putting a good face on it" as they say. From the emails I'm getting from my FEMA friends, they're apparently doing likewise... I'm striving to enjoy our guests & the antics of our 2 puppies, trying to focus on planning our summer garden & working on promotional writing projects for the Inn, and letting myself be distracted by Facebooking & Tweeting, and, of course, eBay- my "retail therapy" out here in the mountains... But my thoughts keep cycling back to death & dying, and the fears I have of both; & a lot of dwelling on the existence of G-d, & why humans have always needed to create religions, in great measure, I think, to convince ourselves that death is not The End & that there really Is "eternal life"... Yes, I need therapy! But not having a therapist out here In The Country (where every doctor's answer to almost everything is "take anti-depressant pills), I write; hence, this Blog...

Another issue factoring into my "mortality thoughts" is that my 50th birthday is coming up in a few days: 1 a.m. on April Fools Day. I always loved having that birthday as a child, first of all because no one could forget it, & second, because my mother always made it fun w/a gag gift of some sort. The party we are planning to celebrate it with friends isn't until July, so in theory I'll get to celebrate twice, which, again, should be making me happy: I'm alive & seem to be in good health, & I'm gonna be a half century old! :-P When I was turning 38 & depressed to be "pushing 40", (Oh, to be 38 again!), my mother told me it "was better than Not turning 40", which, of course, it was. This time she emailed me that "50 was good, 60 was good, 70 was good, & 80 was good" (she's 86); and so, please G-d, it shall be! But 50 happened so damn FAST!!! It truly feels like my 40th birthday party was about a year ago and I got out of the Army about 3 years ago... A lot of my friends are older than I, and think it's hilarious & ludicrous that I've gotten myself all worked up over turning 50, spring chicken that I am, but to me it feels so Odd to be- all of a sudden!- so damn Old... Yeah, "50 is the new 30", me & Madonna are both the same age as Barbie, etc., etc., but having not had kids I think I'm stuck in a kind of state of arrested development: I still feel- in my head at least- 19... No one's carded me of late (like they do my friend Cindy, the Ageless Beauty of NYC), but I don't think I look Too bad- just Fat. And so I have finally, really, started to diet- the first one I've had to do in decades. :-P

About 2 years ago my metabolism seemed to come to a grinding, screeching halt while I was working on a FEMA disaster operation in Kansas. I remember having to go to the Sallies to get new size 8 khaki slacks, after I'd "grown out of" all the size 4s and 6s that filled my suitcase. Having put on weight on FEMA ops before (the 3-meal-a-day-thing really packs the lbs. on me), only to have it come off w/in a few months of being home & "eating normally" (one meal & a lot of coffee, basically), I wasn't worried. But this time No dice. By the time we left on our honeymoon trip I was so fat I couldn't fit into any of the cute clothes I'd bought for it; I gained still more weight in Vietnam, to the point where I had 2 chins & had to have clothes Made for me there... And then last week I went to the doctor for a check-up & learned I'm almost 140 lbs., & nearly gagged. I am 4' 9 1/2" tall & should be 100 lbs. 110 is fine, even 114. But I have NO BUSINESS being Anywhere Near 140. Last year I tracked my food intake on www.Glamour.com, & discovered that I rarely go over 1000 calories/day- but that I was GAINING WEIGHT on 1000 calories/day! And so The Diet has begun: I'm on Day 4 & haven't cone over 650 calories/day- including my nightly 100 calorie 4 oz. glass of red wine! :-) I figure if I can keep this up for a month I should be back into my 4s & 6s before July4th... I found a sparkly little Bob Mackie spaghetti-strap mini number on eBay for a song- a veritable festival of sequins it is!- and assuming I can get it zipped & not look like a sausage in a casing, I intend to wear it- with suitably sparkly stilettos- on July 4th... I also have my Slendertone belt & a batch of new pads, & tonight I will start using that again. What I Should be doing, of course, is exercise, but I'm a sloth... & between mistressing the website & online gift shop, taking bookings, blogging, email, professional assignments, LinkedIn, eBay, facebook, & twitter, I'm almost literally chained to the computer! I'm Hoping once it warms up a bit more we'll be out there playing golf, ATVing, & gardening...

In looking for a way to 'treat myself' for my b'day (and focus on something really silly & thus distracting), I did a Lot of internet research & eBaying, & finally decided to get myself a few help-the-birthday-diet purchases: an order of my fave AminoGenesis anti-aging skin care products to both restock our Gift Shop & my vanity table, a pair of LG-XL (UGH!) ShapeFX Lytess leggings that promise to take off 2 inches if I wear them for 28 days straight, & a bottle of Ageless Fantasy, the perfume with clinical trials proving people think you're 8 years younger when you wear it. As expensive as it is (but I scored another eBay deal...), I want to test it; if it really Does work (I'll have to ask the check-out clerks in the Kimball WalMart how old they think I am...) I want to give samples of it to all my girlfriends in July! Does shopping ease depression? I don't know yet for certain, but I'm giving it the best shot I can...

Thanksgiving... Home from FEMA 1791-TX

Dan & I have just had a very pleasant Thanksgiving Dinner @DB's X-clusive in Welch, WV (No dishes to wash! No kitchen to clean!), where the bar actually boasts Glen Morangie, not to mention Tallisker, & The Mac! This is such a wonderful & totally amazing concept to me that I HAD to mention it! Not that we often get there, or much of anywhere, as if we go out, Dan has to drive home, & therefore can't drink, & what's the fun in that?! And so our bar, not to mention Chef Dan's rather amazing kitchen, usually wins, the stuff he cooks up making just about anywhere else pale by comparison, but BD's was nice for a relaxing change, esp. as I'd just arrived from Texas, we didn't get to sleep until after 4a.m. this morning, & neither of us felt like going anywhere Near the kitchen today!
I am Deeply thankful to be home with Dan (& our puppies) this Thanksgiving, for Dan is Truly what I'm most thankful for- today & every day!
Got home around midnight from Houston, Texas, after being deployed the past month on FEMA 1791-TX in response to Hurricane Ike. I spent the last month working in Houston & Beaumont, TX doing Applicant Assistance for FEMA Human Services, which means basically just that: helping people who'd registered with FEMA for assistance following Hurricane Ike trouble-shoot their applications, answering questions about disaster assistance programs, steering people to programs that may be able to help them, and trying to help people not "fall through the cracks". It feels great when you're actually able to help someone, it's a great job, I work with great people, & I'm deeply lucky to be able to do it. Something else to be thankful for!
While I was gallivanting about TX, making the world safe for bureaucracy, Dan was warming his buns in front of the Elkhorn Inn fireplace, working on a gazillion projects, dealing with holiday Gift Shop orders for coal tchatchkas, & setting up our bevy of holiday inflatable decorations and lights! (And now, while I suffer, acclimatizing to the FREEZING COLD of a WV winter & cuddling the dogs for warmth, he gets to go hunting with The Guys @The Cabin, & do Dan's Famous French Squirrel Stew from the 14 squirrels they've got saved for him in the freezer!)
This past month I got to learn a new computer program (whee!), & on our Sunday days off, my coworkers David & Bob & I also got to see a bit of Texas & Louisiana, which was grand! We first went to NASA Space Center Houston, where we spent a really cool day seeing EVERY exhibit & partaking of EVERY attraction! I must say that, all of 49, I felt Really Old @NASA, remembering vividly the amazing summer of 1969 when the Mets won the World Series & men walked on the moon for the very first time... which is now Ancient History to kids for whom shuttle launches are normal... So normal, in fact, that they don't even make the news anymore... That fact saddened us all deeply & we so hope that somehow NASA will again ignite the dreams & wonder of a new generation to the endless possibilities of space exploration... I was enthralled by the incredibly tiny Mercury capsule, vainly trying to imagine spending a week in space curled into a fetal ball inside what looks like a metal ice-cream cone...
We got to eat fried crab & dance at Larry's French Market & Cajun Restaurant in Groves, TX, & go to Tabasco World on Avery Island, Louisiana so I could bring Chef Dan an entire suitcase full of really cool Tabasco products, including seeds for the garden, hot pepper chocolate (yum!), & 4 bags of wood chips for Smokin' Dan's smoker made from the Jack Daniels barrels that Tabasco uses to age their sauce! One of my True Skills is that I can successfully pack breakables in a soft suitcase, & this time I truly outdid myself, coming home with more than 14 full-size glass jars of everything from hot sauces to mayonnaise to chili to pepper jam (not to mention a bottle of Jack Daniels Egg Nog), & not only did everything arrive intact, none of my clothes even smell faintly of hot sauce! I also got to taste everything (more yum!), esp. the jalapeno ice cream, which was truly delicious! (It starts out as a creamy vanilla, & then sneaks up on you with a nice little Zing!) We found a kewl roadside restaurant on the way back from Avery Island, & stuffed ourselves w/crab topped with etoufee & sweet potato fries (& my Maine co-worker got to eat gator for the first time), & I there & then gave up any hope of losing weight on this trip! Whoever said travel isn't broadening never went to Louisiana!
One Sunday we drove to Galveston, & got to see it rebounding after the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Ike, which was great. Galveston is Totally Gorgeous on the beach, & if Dan had been with me I would have insisted we join the folks horseback riding through the surf! My co-workers & I even got to help reopen a really neat biker bar on the coast, enjoying the band while I sipped my Jack Daniels "brunch"! (Elisse's Rule: Carpool whenever possible w/folks who actually Like to drive...)
One of the things I get to do a lot of when I'm deployed is Drive, & in Texas I found myself a couple of Classic Country & Oldie radio stations to make it fun. I got to see a lot of land, some cattle, & a Whole Mess of oil refineries, which I also got to Smell... & it is, uh, Uniquely Texas. The refineries are eerily beautiful in a futuristic-industrial way, esp. at night, when they're lit up with a million lights like George Jetson's idea of Progress, plumes of opaque, grey-blue smoke cascading across the inky sky, dotted by torch-like flames leaping into the night... If you can suspend disbelief, & enjoy it all aesthetically as an artist, without thinking too much (at all, actually...) about what you're breathing, it's actually pretty gorgeous... On this trip I also learned what "skunk" smells like... Relying on www.mapquest.com and Post-It notes stuck to the dashboard of my rental car (a.k.a. "the ashtray on wheels"), I have become a figure of fun amongst my co-workers, to the point where I often defensively brag about how "directionally challenged" I am, being a NYer by birth who got her driver's license at the age of 42... But I do get where I'm going! (I also start off each & every trip with a prayer...) On this trip I got to enjoy my co-worker's GPS systems, often driving behind them while they played follow-the-Garmin. This Usually worked, but not always, & while I really do want one, on this trip I learned that I also want a Really Accurate One...When I deployed to TX I flew into Austin, & I was All Excited, as the Food Network had prepped me for Austin's great dining & club scene, & I thought, happily, I might be stationed there! I had visions of gourmet dining, getting into the Texas Hill country to the "wine trail", & hearing great music on my days off... Maybe next time! Off I was sent to Houston, & I wound up staying at the Pasadena, TX Holiday Inn Express. While there was no place nearby to eat, & I lived on Cup Noodles & PX wine for a week, I Did find one of THE best Thrift Shops (open 'til 9 p.m.!), right next to the hotel! Brand new pink-&-white Timberland boots w/the tag still on for $6.40! A Vittadini dress, new-with-tag from Neiman Marcus, for $4.50! A DK velvet evening sheath dress for $4.50! New Prada slacks for $4.50! And Khakis for FEMA for $2.50 each! For a NYer who twitches at the very Thought of paying retail for anything, there is nothing quite so grand as scoring a Real Bargain; by now somewhat of a "thrift shop connoisseur", I give this place 5 Stars!
Coming from Landgraff, WV- a place with NO shopping- to Beaumont & Houston, was a Trip, &
one night after work, armed with my http://www.mapquest.com/ directions, I set out on a "driving adventure" to find the Beaumont Mall on Dowlen Road & have a little Retail Therapy in the lingerie dept. of Dillards. I got me a Spanx, the hip, modern version of the one-piece Grandma Girdle of my childhood nightmares, some seamed stockings to make me feel sexy & NOT like a woman who just bought herself a Spanx, & a bra that for once actually fits me, & which, to my horror, was now a 36D. Apres shopping I happily stumbled into a Great Japanese restaurant right across the street: Tokyo Steakhouse & Sushi Bar, & had what turned out to be a fabulous dinner of luscious, melt-in-your mouth sushi, created by a battery of Mexican sushi chefs! I love Texas!
The staff of the Hilton Gardens Inn, Beaumont, TX was SO good to all of us, & if we are ever lucky enough to work again in Beaumont, that is Definitely where we'll all want to stay! They really made us welcome! Thank you all for a great place to come "home" to after work- especially Ralph & Napoleon!
My other find was a great little day spa in Houston: Bella Nova. Feeling "fat & ugly" when I arrived in Texas, I was determined to go home better looking (or at least Feeling better looking) than I was when I left, & so at the end of my deployment, after I checked out & was officially on my way home, I made a beeline to the Uruku Aveda Salon (which was nice enough to give me an evening appointment) & got my hair cut cute & colored w/really kewl blond highlights & red lowlights, & woke up early enough to have a bit of a "spa day" at Bella Nova before high-tailing it to the airport to catch my flight home! I got to have an Ionithermie body treatment, which I'd wanted to try for years, & thought it was super! Based on more science than any other slimming treatment I'm aware of, Ionithermie uses electrodes to stimulate muscles to contract, similar, I believe, to medical treatments both Dan & I have had on our back & legs. The Ionithermie electrodes were targeted on my butt & belly, with the delightful result of measurable inch loss as well as the really cool "buzzy" sensation of a powerful electrical "workout"! (My IBEW dad would have howled at this!) If I get lucky enough to get deployed to Houston again I'll definitely do a series of Ionithermie treatments! I also had a great & relaxing microdermabrasion facial, something else I'd been promising myself for a long time, as well as an excellent pedicure with a glorious foot scrub, & I Did go home feeling a helluvalot prettier! No, this stuff ain't cheap, & I'm sure there are folks out there that will gasp in horror @all this wanton indulgence, but screw 'em! I could get defensive & tell you again how I ate Cup Noodles for a week in Pasadena so I could afford to get my hair done, but instead I'll tell you that I feel rather like the corny embodiment of a L'Oreal commercial: damnit, I AM worth it! And so are you!
Following my wallow in the lap of luxury, I got to partake in, for the first time in my life, that oft-ballyhooed American ritual known as Flying Home For The Holidays, & it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd envisaged! Imagining scenes of utter hysteria, delays, cancellations, misery, & total chaos in the airports, I'd even steeled myself (& Dan) for the prospect of getting bumped off a flight, being stranded, & spending the night in an airport somewhere. But the traffic in Houston was almost non-existent, both the Houston & Dulles airports were calm & staffed with the usual obnoxious & snarky "Meter Maid Mentality" airport personnel seemingly determined to make flying as unpleasant & humiliating as possible, & the planes not even totally full. Perhaps all this was due to our current "recession" (politically correct as I am, I mustn't tell it like it is & use the "D" word...), but the Thanksgiving-eve chaos I'd read about for years was totally non-existent... To make the "travel experience" perfect, I first had to beg & plead with a sarcastic, unhelpful United Airlines clerk to get him to deign to check me in, & pay to send my suitcase as is now the norm, after which I had the excellent experience of having a bottle of nice Aveda hairspray I'd inadvertently packed in my briefcase confiscated by a 400 lb. "security" woman, who, determined to "enforce the law" & get the rush these pillars of society seem to get from making someone's life miserable for 10 minutes, can now congratulate herself on being a jerk. I hope she enjoyed the hairspray. Sorry, but that's what I think of that sort of pin-headed, brainless crap. And crap it is, for it serves no purpose other than to make passengers miserable & feed the egos of the bullies & pin-heads charged with "enforcing" it. It does NOTHING to protect our security in any way, shape, or form, & everyone knows it. If our lives are truly dependant on the so-called "security personnel" confiscating toiletries in our airports, we are in DEEP doo-doo, kids. I've watched these lovelies wrest shampoo from people with smirks of glee on their faces, & I lost my late father's gift Swiss Army pocket knife to one such gem; this time, as usual, I bit my tongue & kept my mouth shut, lest I get thrown out of the airport, but safely home I can now I can vent on my Blog, because I'm blessed to live in a free country... I will say that, on the whole, the United Airlines personnel I encountered were very good, & most were quite pleasant, & that all the flights were delightfully uneventful. I will also say that some of the aircraft had seen better days, as on one plane lights didn't work & cold air whistled in on me through cracks in the walls... But I was pleased that they gave me US Air frequent flier miles, as they've now taken over the Beckley, WV-Dulles route that US Air used to fly. Like most "road warriors", I'm a bit of a "points slut", & try to accrue as many hotel points & frequent flier miles as I can, ever saving & planning for "that next big trip" when Dan & I will get away somewhere TOGETHER! Happy Turkey Day!

Autumn in Landgraff...

Ah, autumn in Landgraff, WV... the air gets crisp, the leaves change colors, and people steal your political signs off your property...
I start this post with the unhappy news that our McCain-Palin sign was stolen from our side lawn the other day.


Either a desperate McCain supporter, unable to find ANY PLACE IN WEST VIRGINIA to buy such a sign, felt they had no choice but to swipe ours, or a disgruntled Obama supporter decided they had to personally "change" reality, but in any event it's gone- & I am NOT a happy camper. Here is photo of what it looked like Before it was stolen, and if anyone has a Great Big "Veterans for McCain-Palin" sign they can get us PDQ, Please send it to: Elisse Clark, P.O. Box 100, Eckman ,WV 24829.
No kidding- you really Can't buy one in WV.

































Dan & I went ATV leaf-peeping the other day, and had a great afternoon riding through the gorgeous mountains, thru Ashland and past the infamous "Stair-Steps", all the way to "ATV Paradise" for hamburgers and fries. We then got help fixing a flat on our ATV from a Great Guy at the Wagon Wheel, just down the road, where we got hot coffee to warm us up (3 layers is NOT enough once the sun goes behind the mountains!), and then rode home- Really Cold!
Yes, it's Fall... it may be 77 in the sunshine, but it's Damn Cold in the shade! The down quilts and our Korean "mink" blanket is back on the bed, the heaters are on, there's a fire burning in the fireplace almost All the time, and I'm layering... Ugh! I know this is "four seasons" country, but I could live nicely without 7 months of winter!
Other signs of fall: We just harvested the last of our watermelons, and have a pumpkin to go pick & corn stalks to cut down and do fall decorating with... Our "Grim Reaper" Halloween inflatable arch is up, and the dining room tables are decorated with Martha-esque centerpieces of mini-pumpkins, gourds, cider-scented potpourri, and out little pumpkin breakfast plates... And I'm watching the Weather Channel for frost warnings, lest we lose our herbs- I'm determined to "winter them over" inside on the windowsills, so I can harvest herbs all winter for Chef Dan!

Our other Gourmet News is that Dan has started making real, crusty Italian bread (the likes of which you literally Can Not get here) in our Great Bargain Of the Year: the "$200 50-cent bread machine"! Dan came home a couple of months ago with one of his flea-market finds at which I rolled my eyes: a never-used West Bend bread machine- no box or instructions, of course- for 50 cents. While trying to find the instructions on the internet I found that it had been recalled, and duly called it in. West Bend, while rather surprised we had a new bread machine they hadn't made for 5 years, did send us the UPS return label, and we returned it. And last week we were rewarded with our brand new, AbFab digital bread machine- and this baby does Everything except sing "I'm a little muffin"! It is SO great to find another company that stands behind their products! It is such a great machine that even I can make bread with it! (I am determined to make Italian Herb Bread with rosemary and other fresh herbs from our garden, and to try my hand at the Prosciutto Bread I remember with great fondness from Balducci's in NYC...) Even the Easy Bread that comes out of it is totally wonderful: crusty on the outside, warm & soft on the inside... SO good, in fact, that I couldn't help myself: I ordered a selection of Italian cheeses (plus some truffles and anchovies and saffron...) from www.igourmet.com, and now we'll have THE bread for them!!!!! All we need is some of that Montefiorelle Chianti Classico...
This past Friday (Oct. 18) we went to an opening at Gary Bowling's House of Art in Bluefield, WV, and I was VERY impressed. Gary, his wife, and their artist friends, have done Amazing things with the space, and created a truly professional gallery and special event space in Bluefield! The opening, for Richard Shrewsbury, a West Virginia-born artist, was great, with an artsy, upscale crowd enjoying wine, yummy hors d'ouevres, and a band, and best of all, the work was selling, which bodes Really well for the future of art in our neck of the woods! The gallery has a cafe, as well, so you can have lunch or a snack, surrounded by some really fun artwork; I especially liked Gary's work, much of which is made with "found" items; I loved his hand-painted chairs, and the dragonfly (with fan-blade wings) hanging from the ceiling!
After the opening, Dan & I went to my Absolutely Favorite Restaurant in West Virginia, the excellent Kimono in Princeton, and had a bang-up sushi-saki feast! Oh, those luscious, buttery scallops!!! Dinner at Kimono always cheers me up!
On another happy note, the Sweepstakes Queen of Landgraff, WV just won another contest: the www.Brickfish.com "Shoe" contest, to which I submitted a photo of & story about the fur high-heels I bought in 1985 with an entire month of my IDF salary- and which I still have! I posted my entry on our www.facebook.com page in the hopes that friends would vote for it, and today found out I've won a Marshall's Shoe Shopping Gift Certificate! And I am WAY excited about that! We've got happy guests at the Elkhorn Inn tonight, including 2 journalists from Virginia; the puppies are curled up in their little beds and snoring, and the Inn is toasty warm and smells great from the logs burning in the fireplace... And so, to bed! :-)

On Dan's Demi-Glace & other wonderful (mostly edible) things...

This post is mostly about FOOD - in all it's summer glory!

For starters, my husband, Chef Dan, recently made the most amazing French demi-glace I have ever eaten in my life. A truly sublime thing of such delicious, rich intensity, it turned every mundane thing it touched into the most delectable gourmet dish imaginable- I kid you not! This was the Real Demi-Glace Deal- a two-day marathon of roasting & cooking down beef bones into a rich stock, making the "Espagnole Sauce", & then, finally, the demi-glace... and this stuff has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING you can buy in a bottle or a jar, even from a fancy "gourmet" store... It is truly & totally "essence of cow", & for a carnivore, an orgasmic revelation: this is what eating meat is supposed to be about!

Our Demi-Galce Days started with a gift I'd given Dan: the gourmet Cassoulet Kit from D'ARTAGNAN, which I found on a Father's Day gift website while searching for a suitable gift the puppies could get The Dogfather- a man who LOVES beans & stews made with beans- for Father's Day. The kit was totally excellent, & I will be ordering from them as often as I can afford to! The kit came with more than enough Coco Tarbais beans, ventreche, duck confit legs, Armagnac sausages, garlic sausages, & even a tub of duck & veal demi-glace, & created a Truly luscious stew that was positively THE best stew I've EVER eaten, bar none. I've never been terribly fond of beans (or slow-cooked stews, for that matter), I guess because I'd never had this! After eating it up (with me literally licking the pan), we realized the sad fact that none of the wonderful ingredients are available locally... and so I began pulling recipes off the internet & Dan started roasting bones! And the resulting Demi-Glace was, if you'll pardon my French, Ooh, la, la! Some foods are almost as sexy as, well, sex- and this is one of those foods!

As if things couldn't get better, Dan periodically comes home from Food City in Bluefield with sushi-quality tuna & scallops- my other sexy food- & we get to have a true Japanese feast, with sashimi, pickled ginger, soy sauce, and wasabi (yes, you can get these things (periodically) in southern WV!), and rice in our little Vietnamese lacquer rice bowls, eating with our Japanese lacquer chop sticks! I've been making my "garden tomato" sauce with our 5 different tomatoes (see below) and fresh herbs; the one culinary thing Dan will give me credit for, is that, as his designated "Pastas Queen", I do make really good pasta sauces!

Dan & I have been out ATVing in the mountains near the Elkhorn Inn to pick wild berries- which, for a "City Girl" is still one of the great joys of life! There is truly something magical about finding zillions of wild blackberries and raspberries free for the picking- so many that the birds, deer, & bears don't bother with them, and you can pick & eat berries until you're sick of 'em all July! We've come home with cans and bags of them, and made sauces & chutney & pie... My "point of reference" for raspberries was heretofore a $10 box of tasteless berries (some 15 years ago- heaven knows what they cost now...) at Balducci's in Manhattan, so Free Vine-Ripened Berries has a kind of magic allure! One of the first things Dan & I did when we were still playing "tourist" in WV, was pull over on the side of the highways so I could pick wild berries- and Dan could roll his eyes! We even have them growing on our property- down by the creek- and every time we get down there on that slope to pick them I get a terrific case of poison ivy!

It's August now, and we've been harvesting the bounty of our garden for awhile: white and (gorgeous, oh-so-sweet) red corn, hot peppers (which I planted throughout the flower gardens- along with broccoli & tomatoes!), squash, yellow "ball" cucumbers, okra, beans (which again, I planted all over the place- we really do have to come up with more bean recipes...), peas, broccoli, onions, garlic, eggplant, all sorts of herbs, & 5 different kinds of tomatoes! The grape tomatoes are the best- literally as sweet as candy! There is NOTHING like a vine-ripened tomato! I can't eat WalMart tomatoes any more- great, big, photo-perfect red spheres that have have a mealy texture and taste like sour cardboard! Dan has been making us wonderful batches of his rich, creamy fresh-from-the-garden broccoli bisque; it tastes so lusciously "green" that I call it "essence of summer"! I've been drying branches of oregano (which is one of the few things that does REALLY well here...), and freezing batches of basil in preparation for our annual fall "Pesto Processing Party"! The sunflowers are in bloom, their giant bright yellow faces waving happily in front of our patio & about the corn... I LOVE sunflowers,. and one of my dreams since we moved here has been to plant a whole field of sunflowers across from the Inn in that big, vacant weedy space, turning it into a mini Holland... It would be SO gorgeous! Maybe next spring we'll get some help tilling it up & we can do that...

On a non-edible note, our Swallow Family launched their babies from their front-porch nest, & have taken off, but Squeaky, our resident Front Porch Bat, & his kids, are still swooping around (no skeeters!), the doves & finches are still cleaning out our seed feeders, & masses of hummingbirds are cleaning out our 3 hummer feeders every day! We've got several duck families who return annually to our part of Elkhorn Creek, and Mommy White Duck came by with her darling ducklings the other day, while we were outside...

And then there's Snakey... who's now left (we hope), the Inn...

Yes, that is a snake - curled up on top of a box in the window, & oh, so small that I thought he was a piece of garden hose, & must have walked past him for weeks...

But then Dan realized it was a Snake, and poked at him with a broom, & Snakey unfurled himself... & we found that he could move pretty damn fast... After we chased him around the room, we finally managed to shoo him out the door, whereupon he scooted under the fence into the back "puppy" yard...

Bye bye, Snakey!

The last we saw of him, the dogs had barked at him so much that he slithered himself over the retaining wall & down into the creek...

And last, but not least, here are a couple of pix of Dan spoiling Tiger rotten (Tiger likes lemonade...), and "banging to fit & painting to match" the newest addition to the Elkhorn Inn's growing collection of eBay bargain vehicles: our "new" trailer, and, just out of camera-range, our "new" riding mower! So I can now mow the "farm"! I've always secretly wanted a riding mower- instead of a car, actually- because they looked like such Fun!- & because I took Roseanne's joke (that she'd start vacuuming when they make one you can ride on) to heart... if only it'd fit thru the door of the Inn, climb stairs, & do carpets...

Honeymoon Part II - Japan!

Four nights in Japan: Geisha Goldstein & Samurai Dan eat sushi!

















We came back from Lowe's this evening with a cherry tree, to plant at the Elkhorn Inn. After seeing the cherry and plum trees in flower in Kyoto I totally HAD to have a cherry tree at the Inn! The other thing we Have to have- & Dan is in agreement on this- is a "poodle tree"- one of the wonderous little Korean pine trees that look, well, like Poodles! I am about to start an Internet hunt for a Korean Poodle Pine, so if anyone knows what I'm taking about and where we can get one, let us know!

We flew from Seoul to Tokyo w/Korean Air (always a great experience), changed money (& discovered we were in La-La Land, as far as the US dollar was concerned...), & took the $32/per person shuttle bus (as opposed to the $320 taxi- & no, I am Not kidding) to the Tokyo Bay Intercontinental (& Yes, this was on our Priority Club Points!), We were given a gorgeous

room with a view of the Bay, another fabulous array of miniature spa toiletries (I am a Total Fool for tiny little bottles of herb-scented shampoo...), & thanks, again, to a Great Concierge, had a Truly Fabulous sushi dinner of THE most mouthwatering array of sushi imaginable at an amazing restaurant in the Ginza (that has nothing in English on its business card...), followed by a great evening of jazz at a wonderful little club... These were the "little things" that weren't so little- the things that made our trip SO great! When you have ONE night in a city like Tokyo, without some Truly Good Advice from someone with Last-Minute Top Restaurant Reservation Capability, you would Never have such an extraordinary evening. What was so amazing about the sushi was, in a word, the squid. Squid isn't something I usually jump to order in the USA, even at Fine sushi restaurants, because it is invariably not only non-descript taste-wise, but Chewy, & often Way Too Chewy. The squid we ate that night in Japan was like velvet- literally. At first bite it was delicate, delicious, and pleasingly firm, but then it immediately became a luscious velvet in your mouth. There is no other way to describe it, save to say that it was THE most amazingly delicious thing I've ever eaten, I will NEVER forget it, & I ate it in Japan as often as I could!

I had joked w/Dan that the whole purpose of our going to Japan (more my thing than his) was for me to be able to eat Really Good Sushi until I fell over, & there was an element of truth to the joke! The other reason was because I'd read enough books to want to spend a Year in Japan, not only eating, but studying, & experiencing the art & culture of the country, & I had a million things I wanted to see & do- but only 4 days! Dan, bless his heart, humored me, & did all the crazy things I had my heart set on- and even enjoyed it! I know that Jazz is a Japanese passion, & had high hopes for the club, & we weren't disappointed. Taxiing to Roppongi, a trendy neighborhood of boutiques & galleries that I only wish we'd had time to explore (gotta go back!), the "hidden" upstairs club (that we Never would have found on our own) that our genius concierge sent us to was Great: the pianist was obviously a concert pianist, the bassist passionate & into his music, & the drummer a "hipster" w/a grand sense of humor... We sat w/our drinks & cigarettes, enjoyed the great music, & had a fabulous, romantic evening... I left my precious camera in the taxi, & because I (fortunately) had the receipt, the manager was able to get in touch with the driver & he brought my camera back to the club! How's THAT for a great evening?! Taxiing back to our hotel near the Ginza, we wandered around people-watching & window-shopping, bathed in that famous Tokyo neon, & (now fearless about venturing into 'cute' little places where the menu is but an artistic mystery), ducking into a little wine bar to ,join the salarymen for a nightcap...

After our first fabulous night in Tokyo, we (blissfully) left our suitcases at the Intercon & went to the Tokyo Train Station to get our Bullet Train tickets for Kyoto. Ate some more sushi (hey- a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!), & did some more people-watching, trying to put a finger on exactly what it is that makes the women's sense of style so Quintessentially Japanese. Invariably, it's a version of what I call the Sexy Parochial School Girl or Lolita Look, which includes a thigh-high, pleated, plaid skirt, thigh-high stockings, & high heels. Sometimes it also includes a lot of Hello Kitty, an acid-yellow filmy, nylon negligee top, a (real) designer purse, and/or a short fur jacket, but it's Always worn with socks of some sort & high heels! Part of me wanted SO badly to try to pull that look off, but lacking the money & time to figure out how to really Do It Right, I chickened out!

"West Virginia Railfans" by profession, we absolutely Had to do the Bullet Train!

The Bullet Train really is a pretty fabulous thing, with a pointed nose like an F-14, & it literally sails, riding above the ground (on giant magnets!) at mega-speed, making for a totally smooth & jar-less ride. (AMTRAK, are you listening?!) We got to see the Japanese countryside, mountains, & farms sail by over splits of wine & smokes. I can't BEGIN tell you how delightful, civilized, & utterly relaxing it is to sit on a train w/one's bottle of wine & a cigarette, watching the world go by! It took me happily back to my student backpacking days riding the rails through Europe in the mid 1970s, only now I was doing it elegantly, w/my wonderful husband! It was a TOTAL JOY to find in Asia that we smokers are not pariahs of society! AMTRAK, are you listening?!

We checked into the Ana (Intercontinental) Hotel Kyoto (yes, using more Priority Club points!), where we were attended to by their charming & beautiful kimono-clad staff, & that evening we headed for the fabled Gion district to do The Must-Do Tourist Thing: attend the Kyoto Cultural Presentation of Japanese arts at Gion Corner: Gagaku Court Music & Koto, Bunraku puppet theatre, & Kyogen comic plays, Kado flower arranging... I was entranced by the puppet theatre- something I've always enjoyed, and have tried to see in places where it's truly an art-form: Prague, & England, for example. And on this trip, I also got to see the Water Puppets in Hanoi :-)

I leapt into the air & volunteered myself into Chado, the tea ceremony...

Then we wandered around the enchanting Gion district- something I'd dreamed of doing for Years, having read Way too many novels and collections of short stories about Japanese Inns, feudal Japan, Geishas, Maikos, and such... We actually ran into two real Maiko while stroling thru Gion; perfect, elusive butterflies, they dart out of a doorway & flit down the cobblestone streets faster than one would believe it's possible to flit on platform sandals... invariably pursued by a fast-moving horde of camera-wielding paparazzi & fans... One startled Maiko came right towards me as we came out of a shop, & I stood there transfixed, too stunned to even Think about going for my camera, as she veered around me & sped, in an artful zigzag, down the darkening street, a bevy of fans & journalists in her wake, before slipping into a doorway & vanishing... Apparently "Maiko Sightings" are rare, even in Gion, & several people asked if we'd been lucky enough to see even one...

We took our shoes off & had a great meal at Oishinbo, a traditional Japanese restaurant in Gion (sushi & lots of other delicious things- way too many, but there were so many new things to try!), washed down with lots of excellent saki...

Having "closed down Gion", we then walked back over the lovely, "Ponte Vecchio-ish" bridge, & wandered about Kyoto until we were too tired to walk anymore!

The next morning, while we were strolling thru the grounds of the 1603 Nijo Castle (Nijo-jo) opposite our hotel room, Dan discovered something absolutely magical: the cherry & plum blossoms were in bloom! I had thought we would be several weeks- if not a month- too early for this, so when Dan found a garden filled with blossoming cherry & plum trees it literally took my breath away. The Festival wasn't to be for another several weeks, but the days had been warm, & the trees had flowered early, and for us it was a perfect, glorious joy! Some of the trees had both pink and white flowers, and these "combination" trees were the most exquisite things you can imagine... This was where we started taking goofy "honeymoon" pictures of ourselves, with "Long-Armed Dan" holding our camera out as far as possible!

We toured the Ninomaru Palace, and the moated gardens, and then went for the Maiko Dress-Up Experience I'd long planned since reading articles about it on the internet: Geisha Goldstein got her photo op with Samurai Dan! After we checked in at Studio Shiki, I first spent a good hour having the Maiko (student Geisha) makeup done: my face totally whitened down to the (sexy) nape of my neck, and then the blood-red lipstick, pink eye makeup, & black liner; & then being dressed in the padding (like I need padding...), & many opulent layers of under & outer kimonos & obi sashes & ties, & donning the full black wig with the dangling ornaments, before putting on my tabi socks & platform sandals, & having my professional photo shoot w/sword-wielding Samurai Dan!

I chose to be a Maiko, as most do, for Maikos wear brighter-colored kimonos than fully-fledged Geisha, & I figured that if you're gonna do it, Really Do It! (I probably should have opted for Courtesan, as they wear Really oppulent kimono & outrageously high platform sandals, but for once in my life Propriety won the day!) I was dying to take photos of the whole "process" of turning me from plebian non-entity into Maiko, but the studio wouldn't let me: the magic of Kyoto stays in Kyoto! It was fascinating to actually experience what goes into just Dressing the part of a Maiko- & no, this is Not something one can do without Help- much less the years of training it takes to become a Geisha, & a lot of fun, too, as playing dress-up is wont to be, but the most amazing thing for me was that we were the ONLY foreigners at the studio! This experience is patently Not for tourists- the place was filled only with Japanese couples & groups of giggling Japanese teen-aged girls, all getting in touch w/their Inner Maiko! The porcellain-faced girls in the dressing room (who Really looked the part, as opposed to me, with my Polish nose & Ukrainian cheekbones...) melted into a mass of giggles when Wanna-be Geisha Goldstein walked in, & happily tried out their 3 words of English on me! The Real giggles started apres-Maiko, when we were all back in the dressing room oiling up our faces & cleaning off the white makeup: one of the girls decided to first rub the crimson lipstick all over her perfectly exquisite china-white face, and all of us burst into spontaneous laughter... Laughter truly trumps language... What made me Really happy was that Samurai Dan actually got "into" it as I had hoped! When the camera was set & the lights went on, he grabbed that sword & gave it everything he had! The pix of him are truly fabulous, & if he doesn't turn up in that studio's next ad campaign (or on the cover of a reissue of Tai Pan) I'll be very surprised! I especially love the hilarious photo of the two of us (see above): Dan looks Truly ready to go to war, & I look Incredibly smug to have snagged him! Art imitating Life!

By the time Cinderella had come back to earth & we left the studio, the rain had started coming down hard, & they gifted us w/an umbrella so I could go explore the area while Dan had a coffee in a nearby cafe. The salon is in Kodai-ji Temple Minami-mon, Higashiyama-ku, and there are tons of cute little boutiques, as well as the shrine at the top of the cobblestone steps... I stumbled into a truly lovely incense shop-which turned out to be the lisn Shoyeido, shop! Shoyeido is a 300 year old Hata family firm making some of the finest insence in the world, & I'd seen this store written up recently in the NY Times, but never thought I'd actually have time to get there! Bought wonderful (cheap!) incense, such as the special, seasonal cherry blossom incense, a beautiful, locally-made incense burner which now decorates the Elkhorn Inn, & purifying perfume incense for Miguel & myself- you know, for those Purification Rituals we do back at the Elkhorn Inn.... The salesladies were totally charming, & each small thing I purchased was wrapped, origami-like, as a precious jewel. This ritual of care slows the pace of purchasing, & becomes part of the whole "shopping experience", turning the mundane (oh, just throw it in a plastic bag and get on with the next customer...) into somthing lovely & special... (Are you listening, Walmart?!) Kyoto is famous for its fine textiles, & while I bought only tabi socks & block-printed shorts for Dan, we then found a wonderful gallery, & the owner graciously let me photograph a series of gorgeous, graphic Katsuhiko paintings I loved but couldn't afford to even Think about buying... I looked at kimonos, too, but everything was upwards of $350...

Then we grabbed a cab (in the pouring rain), & began one of THE highlights of our entire trip, our stay at the Hiiragiya Bekkan, a Traditional Ryokan (Japanese Inn). I had dreamed of staying at a Kyoto Ryokan for decades, since reading a book about the 400-year history of one such Inn... The internet is a Wonderful place- for without it I Never would have found the Japanese Guest Houses website, or the individual websites for almost every Ryokan in Japan! The Guest House website is in Excellent English, & has an in-depth, illustrated guide to staying in a Ryokan for clueless Westerners, & my emails to Hiiragiya Bekkan were answered immediately; based on everything I could learn on the web (thank you so much, Al Gore!), I took an expensive stab in the dark and booked our stay directly with the Inn; we were truly rewarded with what was absolutely one of the highlights of our entire trip. We checked in around 3 p.m., exchanged our shoes at the door for slippers, & were ushered to our lovely, classically-designed tatami-mat-floored room: a central shoji-screened room, w/a small alcove for a painting & a flower arrangement, encircled by a glass-walled foyer opening out onto a classicaly landscaped Japanese garden! A true oasis in the middle of Kyoto, crossing the threshold was stepping back into the refined, gracious, storybook Japan of one's sensual fantasies... We were served the traditional & fabulous "Kaiseki" dinner of many special, seasonal dishes in our room, seated at the low table in our kimonos, relaxing on our red, lacquered arm rests like a king & queen (or a Maiko & her Samurai!). Beautiful & delicious, each small dish was a true jewel, & the lady attending us was charming & delightful. This was not "toy food" by any means; tho' each dish seemed small & delicate, at the end of every meal we were truly stuffed!

Our lovely attendant came back to let us know that the bath was ready for us, & the bath- for just the two of us!- was fabulous! A wall of showers, w/wooden seats by each one, at which to cleanse oneself, & traditional wooden buckets for rinsing, after which one has a gloriously relaxing, sexy soak in the giant, steaming hot tub! (Samurai Dan even let me take photos!)

When we got back to our room, our attendants laid out our futons in the main room, topping each with down comforters, & cushy, buckwheat-filled pillows. In no mood to go Anywhere, we spent a wonderful, romantic evening sitting at our little table by the garden, clad in our airy, cotton kimono, talking & drinking plum wine & saki, & then sleeping like lambs on our futons!

In the morning we wandered about the lovely garden, gazing at the flowering plum tree & sculptures, & dipping water from the stone urn flanked by lanterns & a "good luck" turtle like we have in back of the Elkhorn Inn! I asked the Inn staff the purpose of the ubiquitous water pots and dippers, and was told that they were essentially "for pretty"- to wet the cobblestones and make them shine... We were then served a fabulous Kaiseki breakfast of a dozen delicious & beautiful little dishes, & Dan took photos of me as a Mary Cassatt pastel, sitting on the mat at the dressing table combing my hair...

We had another, glorious hot tub bathing experience, & then (reluctantly) went on our way! To our surprise, the Ryokan gifted us with a gorgeous set of His & Hers chopsticks as we left! This was a True honeymoon night, & my only regret is that we only had one night to spend there! When we win the Lotto, you know where we're going!

We left our bags at the Inn, & wandered around downtown Kyoto, window-shopping & stopping @a Japanese fast-food place so Dan could have his hamburger fix (to counterbalance all the sushi!) And yes, you could smoke! YAY! We found the Japanese version of the Dollar Store, where everything is 100 Yen, & stunned by the fact that that there are actually things in Japan that only cost a dollar, bought some fun kitchen tools, incluidng a tiny, little blender that Chef Dan has fallen in love with! Strolled through some of the famous Kyoto shrines, finding koi ponds and dipping wells tucked away amidst shopping malls; at the Head Temple Seiganji (the Fukakusa Seizan Sect in Jyodosyu, and the first Training Hall for Buddhist women), we got to watch a multi-generational family ceremony taking place...

& bought small good luck charms for us & for Cindy... The temple is some 1300 years old, and focuses on Seishounagon, a talented writer and the first female Buddhist priest, and Sakuden Anrakuan, a literary Buddhist priest and founder of Rakugo (Japanese comic stories)... Maybe us FEMA Reports Writers can attain nirvana, too!

Strolling thru a pristine outdoor mall we found a stamp shop selling elaborate, Japanese-graphic stamps, cheek-by-jowl with others selling only vintage USA clothing, such as BDUs & FD rescue gear... We also found THE cutest car in the universe, parked on a sidewalk:

As we walked out of "BDU World", Dan noticed a kimono @the shop above, & suggested we take a peek... (This was the first happy sign that Dan was finally hopping on the Shopaholic wagon...) Samurai-Shopper Dan had inadvertantly found us one of THE bargain shopping highlights of our trip, but I didn't realize it until after we left, & have been kicking myself ever since! The kimonos were Amazing, & the magnificent brocade obis were what-to-die-for- & only $10-$20 each! I couldn't figure out why the prices were so ridiculously cheap, esp. as the place was full of Japanese women stocking up on the magnificent obis... Wedding kimono! Outer Kimono! Under Kimono! This place was Kimono Central! I bought an "under kimono" & a magnificent pink and silver brocade obi for me, & another set as a gift (all of which were, again, elaborately wrapped like precious jewels), & then we left- @which point I looked at their card & realized that Dan had found "Harajuku Chicago", THE vintage kimono shop of Kyoto! We never had a chance to go back, or to get to any of their Tokyo shops, & I am still kicking myself for not buying a stack of the gorgeous obis!

Armed with splits of wine, Excellent take-out sushi, & cigs, we caught the Bullet Train back to Tokyo, watching Japan whizz by @2000 mph, & checked back into the Intercon for our last night in Japan...

I got to wear my beautiful kimono as a formal evening wrap (Dan thought it odd, but hey- I might have been wearing a plaid mini, stockings, kitten heels, a nylon camisole, & a fur jacket...), & we had a romantic & lovely, elegant meal (sushi! At least for me!) at the Intercon, overlooking neon-lit Tokyo...

We wandered around the Ginza again, and had G&Ts at HUB, The English Pub (!), & at one point found ourselves in a Pachinko pinball parlour, full of fun-looking games boasting an intriguing frenzy of seizure-inducing flashing lights... Alluring as they were, not having a Clue as to how to play any of them (or if you could really win any money, which would have been Extremely tempting...), we were afraid to start feeding 1000 Yen notes into the machines...

In the morning we took a cab to the Tokyo Fish Market & had an amazing sushi lunch at Sushi Dai. Talk about Fresh Fish!!

This place had been written up in the NY Times as having THE best & freshest sushi, & for being (for Japan) a veritable Bargain, @$45/per person. The Intercon Concierge backed that review up & sent us on our way, & when we got there we found that Sushi Dai, along with 2 other market sushi restaurants, are now THE hot Tokyo tickets! Lines of Japanese (and a few tourists) snaked back & forth 4 rows deep in front, & a fish-wife packed us in, admonishing us to stay in line! Everyone was in a jovial, sushi-anticipating mood, & the wait was truly worth it: the sushi was excellent, & the squid- again- luscious, velvety, & fabulous. And more wonderful, buttery baby scallops, too! We wandered about the market after lunch, & I talked Chef Dan into getting himself THE carbon steel professional Chef's Knife... a Honyaki, at Aritsugu, from Kazuo Nozaki, one of the market's 2 Knife Artisans! This is no joke; after discussion & the selection of his knife, the blade was honed & finished to order, & the resultant knife- truly a work of art- was boxed & wrapped for him like the treasure it is, in special knife-maker's block-print paper- which I have saved, as it is truly worth framing...

What I most loved about the little bit of Japan I experienced was the art & thought & care & time that goes into every, single thing, large & small- but Especially the small. And that this highly cultivated sense of aesthetics isn't a rarified experience enjoyed by only the rich, or so-called 'cultured'- it permeates all levels of Japanese society, from the fish market to the Dollar Store to the Geisha-world of Gion, & affects everything- from the creation & presentation of an appetizer, to the placement of a flower in a vase; from the way a cup of tea is created & poured, or the wrapping of a stick of incense, to the fashioning of a knife blade, or the way a bit of peach-colored skin is left to just barely peek out from the neckline of a kimono. That everything one does, however subtle, has Meaning. This care makes everything it touches beautiful & precious...

At the airport, while waiting for our flight to Vietnam, we then got to have the Ultimate Japanese Experience : two cups of coffee for $25! (But hey- the coffee was great, & beautifully presented, each perfect china saucer adorned with a lovely little cookie, perfectly placed...)

I had a last, mad sushi feast (bring on the squid!), & Dan his requisite Meal O' Meat (all suprisingly excellent, Japan having truly superb airport food), & we got ourselves a couple of pints of Weizenbeer & took them to the smoking lounge...

And then, as if it couldn't get any better, with an hour to kill before boarding, we found a Reflexology Massage Spa right across from our gate, and, with scented towels laid across our eyes, treated ourselves to jaw-droppingly wonderful foot massages!

Is this living, or what?!

Stay tuned for "Part III: Vietnam"!