A Basque Treat...

It's been at least a couple of weeks since I've written about food. Saturday evening, I was given reason to return to the subject. Paul, Camille and I met at Bistro Basque, a rare gem of a restaurant in Milford, Connecticut, just across the Housatonic River from where I'm staying. In the words of their Website, "Just as the Basque region is divided between France and Spain (3 provinces in France, 4 in Spain), a quick glance at the menu confirms that Bistro Basque brings the style of each cuisine with a regional touch: spanish tapas and french bistro." The food was fabulous, served in an intimate setting, complemented by impeccable, friendly service.

We started out with three different Tapas, or appetizers:
Lomo
Toast with marinated pork tenderloin, tetilla cheese, piquillo pepper and black olives

Piquillos rellenos con ensalada mixta de Txanguro
Piquillo peppers stuffed with iberian style crab meat salad

Picodon
Baked goat cheese toasts, grilled tomatoes, provencal herbs

Our main courses were also varied -- Paul had a broiled monkfish in lobster sauce, Camille had Saumon a la provencale; a grilled salmon served with a taragon sauce, and I had the Paella, estilo vasco, a perfectly prepared Paella, with lots of seafood and the perfect touch of saffron. And yes, we did have dessert.

Most highly recommended!

The Dolceola

In September, 1997, I found myself at the Memphis Dulcimer Festival. The program indicated that at 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon, Andy Cohen would be playing the gospel music of Washington Phillips, accompanying himself on the Dolceola. I didn't know who Andy Cohen was, or Washington Phillips, or what a Dolceola was, so I attended this session. I was completely captivated with the music, the instrument, and the musician. We have stayed in touch and become friends through a common love for this marvelous instrument and its music.

Andy is a very talented musician, mostly known for his blues interpretation and his encyclopedic knowledge of blues roots musicians. Andy is married to Larkin Bryant, long recognized as a dulcimer expert and author of the staple instructional “Larkin’s Dulcimer Book.” They have recorded and performed extensively both as a team and individually.

The Dolceola was a piano in miniature manufactured in the early 1900's by the Toledo Symphony Manufacturing Company of Toledo, Ohio. Not very many of these instruments have survived. Andy has catalogued around forty. He has published an article entitled "THE DOLCEOLA, The World's Smallest Grand Piano" in the journal, Experimental Musical Instruments.

Nothing delights me more than bringing old devices back to life. The Dolceola is no exception. Through my relationship with Andy, I was given the opportunity to restore a Dolceola for a client in Montana. It became a very enjoyable job, although one that tested my patience on more than one occasion. I even managed to reproduce the decals that were applied to the originals! Here’s what I started with…

The body of the instrument was badly cracked and had become unglued in a number of areas. The keyboard mechanism had, at some time during its long life, been submerged in water. That caused a lot of rust that had made much of the mechanism inoperable. Moths and mice had taken their toll on the felt parts of the action (but the glue remnants were still there to let me know where the felt had been). Many strings were broken, but I was fortunate enough to find a source of custom-made strings. And here's the result of 2 years' work....
This restoration led to a few others in subsequent years, although I have no desire to see the innards of any more Dolceolas (other than the one I’m restoring for myself).

Twenty years after its last production, a preacher by the name of Washington Phillips made a series of recordings of gospel music. It was incorrectly reported that he accompanied himself on the Dolceola. These wonderful songs have been preserved on at least one CD, "I Was Born to Preach the Gospel," released by Yazoo Records as Yazoo 2003. For many years, music scholars believed that Phillips had indeed been playing the Dolceola. Andy Cohen taught himself to replicate those performances on the Dolceola before it was determined that they had probably been performed on a couple of large zithers played simultaneously! Andy’s accomplishment is even more remarkable, recognizing that he successfully replicated this complex music.

A couple weeks ago, Andy contacted me to let me know he was going to be performing with the Dolceola at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. Mary Ann and I couldn’t attend the show, but I found this video this week on YouTube:

After the concert, we did have the pleasure of an overnight visit from Andy. Isn’t it wonderful how lives become intertwined and the resulting connections and friendships enrichen us?

Returning to the Scene of the Crime...

In 1962, I was assigned to my first active duty Navy assignment. I reported aboard the USS Hugh Purvis (DD-709), a destroyer homeported in Newport, Rhode Island. I left that ship in 1964 and rarely returned to Newport in the years that followed. I think my last visit was in 1965. So it was a no-brainer when Paul (my fearless leader) and Camille asked if I'd like to visit Newport with them this weekend. We drove up Saturday morning and drove straight to The Breakers. The Preservation Society of Newport County describes it this way,

"The Breakers is the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages" and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family's social and financial preeminence in turn of the century America. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) established the family fortune in steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad, which was a pivotal development in the industrial growth of the nation during the late 19th century. The Commodore's grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, became Chairman and President of the New York Central Railroad system in 1885, and purchased a wooden house called The Breakers in Newport during that same year. In 1893, he commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a villa to replace the earlier wood-framed house which was destroyed by fire the previous year. Hunt directed an international team of craftsmen and artisans to create a 70 room Italian Renaissance- style palazzo inspired by the 16th century palaces of Genoa and Turin. Allard and Sons of Paris assisted Hunt with furnishings and fixtures, Austro-American sculptor Karl Bitter designed relief sculpture, and Boston architect Ogden Codman decorated the family quarters. "

It did not disappoint. We then proceeded to Marble House, another one of the remarkable summer mansions. Again, in the words of the Preservation Society, "Alva Vanderbilt was a leading hostess in Newport society, and envisioned Marble House as her "temple to the arts" in America. It was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt, inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The cost of the house was reported in contemporary press accounts to be $11 million, of which $7 million was spent on 500,000 cubic feet of marble. Upon its completion, Mr. Vanderbilt gave the house to his wife as a 39th birthday present. "

After these two tours, we enjoyed lunch at the historic White Horse Tavern, housed in a building built in 1652! And the food was wonderful. The proprietor recommended a restaurant that we might enjoy for dinner. After we had gotten checked into the hotel, Paul and I hiked a couple of miles along the Newport waterfront in search of the restaurant. We found it and made reservations for dinner.

Dinner was incredible! The restaurant is called "Restaurant Bouchard," an unassuming place that has won the the DiRona Award from the Distinguished Restaurants of North America from 1999 through 2007. Chef Albert Bouchard is a genius!

Sunday morning we took our time getting up and assembled for breakfast around 9:00 AM. We went to a place that Camille had wanted to go to on an earlier trip to no avail because of crowds. This time of year there are far fewer crowds and we were seated at the Corner Cafe immediately.

After a great breakfast in a room warmed by a cast iron stove, we headed for Rosecliff, the third on our tour of mansions. What a delight! This one is described as follows: "Commissioned by Nevada silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs in 1899, architect Stanford White modeled Rosecliff after the Grand Trianon, the garden retreat of French kings at Versailles. After the house was completed in 1902, at a reported cost of $2.5 million, Mrs. Oelrichs hosted fabulous entertainments here, including a fairy tale dinner and a party featuring famed magician Harry Houdini.

"Tessie", as she was known to her friends, was born in Virginia City, Nevada. Her father, James Graham Fair, was an Irish immigrant who made an enormous fortune from Nevada's Comstock silver lode, one of the richest silver finds in history. During a summer in Newport, Theresa met Hermann Oelrichs playing tennis at the Newport Casino. They were married in 1890. A year later, they purchased the property known as Rosecliff from the estate of historian and diplomat George Bancroft. An amateur horticulturist, it was Bancroft who developed the American Beauty Rose. The Oelrichs later bought additional property along Bellevue Avenue and commissioned Stanford White to replace the original house with the mansion that became the setting for many of Newport's most lavish parties."

This home was not as huge as the Breakers, but it was beautifully designed and the designers were clearly focused on entertaining when they laid it out. Our guide was superb, which added to our enjoyment of the tour.

As we headed back toward Stratford, Paul mentioned the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, often called the "Home of American Impressionism." We stopped there and enjoyed a beautifully presented collection.
We then dined at the Old Lyme Inn (I'm titling my new book Eating my Way Through New England) and then proceeded home.

I've added these places to my list of places that I've got to bring Mary Ann to (in better weather).

The New Ebabe Building Rises!!!

Mary Ann's eBay business has taken over the house! What started out modestly has grown into a serious enterprise. We finally decided we had no choice but to put up a building to accommodate the business. While we're putting up the building, there are a few other projects that needed doing -- new driveway, patio, retaining wall, lawn grading, etc.

I thought you might enjoy a few pictures of the progress...

I Couldn't Make this Stuff Up!!!

My Sincere Wish for You...

The Great Lincoln-Buying Expedition

In 1965 I was sent by the Navy to Naval ROTC instructor duty in Norman, Oklahoma. One of my faculty colleagues at the University of Oklahoma was Major Gene Basden, USAF, who taught in the Air Force ROTC. One day as we were having coffee, Gene found out that I had an interest in antique and classic cars. He mentioned that in 1957 he had bought a 1948 Lincoln Continental convertible that he hoped someday to restore. He invited me to join him and his wife Jo for dinner and to look the car over. He wanted advice as to whether to restore the car and how to proceed.

That invitation started a long friendship. I visited the Basdens and was very impressed with the overall condition of their car. I volunteered to help Gene and for the next couple of years I spent many evenings at their home, often working on the car until late at night. We also made excursions on weekends looking for unsold parts for the car at Oklahoma Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury dealerships. Gene and Jo were devout Presbyterians, averse to accepting charity, and often offered to pay me for my time, an offer which I steadfastly rejected. After all, these were friends, not employers.

While this was going on, my brother Bill coincidentally had purchased a 1948 Lincoln Continental coupe from a gentleman named Les Parisek in New Haven, Connecticut. One evening in late March, 1969, my brother called me to let me know that Mr. Parisek was selling his entire collection of Lincolns and Packards. He had sold his house and the cars (all 37 of them) needed to be gone by the following Friday. Bill said that if I ever hoped to own one of the classic Lincolns, this might be the perfect opportunity. This took place just as I had gone back to school. I really didn't have either the time or spare money to buy a car, but as a car guy, I did the natural thing -- I called Mr. Parisek.

After a couple days of haggling, Mr. Parisek and I agreed on a price for two cars -- a very unrestored 1948 Lincoln Continental Convertible (properly described as a "cabriolet"), and a very used and very tired 1947 Lincoln sedan. My idea was to fly to Connecticut carrying a bumper-mount tow bar. Once there, I would hook up the Continental (which had no installed engine or transmission) behind the sedan. I would drive the sedan, towing the convertible, from Connecticut to Oklahoma. There were a couple of minor issues -- my savings were tied up in investments that would take several days to access and I needed to find someone to go to Connecticut with me to bring the cars back. I called Gene Basden. Somehow, I convinced him to loan me the money for the deal and to go to Connecticut with me to bring the cars back. It was perfect -- I had the help that I needed and Gene and his wife felt good that they were repaying me for the help I had been giving them.

I was in the Naval Reserve and Gene was still on active duty in the Air Force, so we were both entitled to space-available military transport flights. Thus it was that on the morning of Thursday, April 3, 1969, Gene and I entered the operations building at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City to begin the adventure of a lifetime.

We waited several hours but eventually got a ride on a KC-135 tanker going to McGuire Air Force Base near Trenton, New Jersey. We probably looked strange dressed in our uniforms but carrying a large toolbox and an automobile towbar. Once in New Jersey, we got a taxi ride to the bus station and took a bus to New Haven. Les picked us up at the bus station around 10:00 PM and took us to his home. He had assured me that the Continental would be ready to start rolling as soon as we got there, but none of the preparation had been done. We mounted the fenders on the car, loaded the engine into the interior of the car, stacked the seats, top mechanism and other parts around the engine. We cut a large piece of plywood to straddle the frame rails under the hood and loaded it with spare parts (I had agreed with Mr. Parisek that we could take any Lincoln parts that were in his shop). The underside of the hood covered a cache of starters, generators, fuel pumps, and distributors. The trunk was full of cylinder heads.

We filled the back seat and the trunk of the tow car with parts as well. We had one good spare tire - the exposed spare on the Continental. This whole operation - assembling the Continental, loading tons of parts, and hooking up the towbar - took until about 2:00 AM. As we were about to leave, Gene spotted a spare Continental cabriolet door hanging on the wall. We took the time to load it on top of everything else, rising like a sail running lengthwise and strapped to each side of the Continental. We looked like a travelling Gypsy car-dealing operation as we pulled out of Les's driveway at 3:00 AM on Good Friday.

Within ten minutes we were pulled over by a man in blue on Interstate 95. A little background is in order. Before I left Oklahoma, I had gotten a license plate for the Lincoln Sedan. Under Oklahoma law, I didn't need a tag for the Continental. It was neither a car (it had no installed engine) nor was it considered a trailer. The tag agent in Norman had told me that I didn't need to get any tag for the Continental until I planned to drive it.

I explained this to the officer who had stopped us. He radioed his barracks, who called Oklahoma. My story was confirmed, but this episode took about 45 minutes. Then we were on our way again. This same thing happened to us again on the Cross-Bronx Expressway - another 45-minute delay. We then crossed the George Washington Bridge, planning to travel down the Garden State Parkway and to cross Pennsylvania on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This was not to be.

We were informed by the attendant at the Garden State tollbooth that we couldn't proceed. There was a restriction on towed vehicles that were incapable of being moved under their own power. Our options were very limited. Interstate 80 was under construction and went in the direction we wanted to go. We decided to take that option, accepting the fact that about half of the mileage across Pennsylvania would be on secondary roads. It was getting much colder and we needed to keep moving west.

To complicate the comfort issues, we had a few "special features" in the Lincoln we were driving. These cars had hydraulic power window mechanisms. There were two rubber hoses that entered each door to carry the hydraulic fluid that drove a piston to raise or lower the window. In our car, on the driver's side, one of those hoses had burst. Not only wouldn't the window stay up, but the hose had sprayed its fluid all over the rug on the driver's floor. The fumes from that fluid made our eyes water and the window couldn't be raised. Another feature was the noise. There was a hole in the muffler. We heard every possible noise that the little V-12 could produce. And then there was the heater -- it didn't work. Discomfort reigned. The windshield wipers were of the old vacuum-driven type that stop when you are accelerating or going up hill. We ran into cold steady rain about halfway across Pennsylvania, so this feature became a real safety issue.

Mechanically, the car seemed sound enough, but our entourage probably weighed close to 9,000 pounds. Neither the drive train nor the brakes on the Lincoln were designed for that kind of load. We had to be very cautious in our driving. And about every fifty miles we stopped to add oil to the engine, alternating between SAE fifty weight oil and straight STP.

We were stopped a couple more times by Pennsylvania troopers because of the lack of a license plate on the Continental. After the second trooper had contacted his barracks and confirmed that we were street legal (not sane, just legal) he wrote us a note verifying our story on an official Pennsylvania State Trooper form. That form saved us untold inconvenience as we used it three or four times later in the trip after being stopped.

By the time we got into western Pennsylvania, the rain had turned to wet, heavy snow. We kept driving. We got to Columbus, Ohio, at about 10:00 PM and our teeth were chattering so badly that we couldn't talk to the service station attendant who waited on us. He made us go inside to warm up and he made a cardboard insert for our driver's side window to keep the wind out. The cardboard had a tiny clear plastic window so we could look at the rear view mirror.

Unknown to us, there had been a drama unfolding on the Pennsylvania Turnpike as we were crossing the northern part of the state. A sniper, shooting from his car, started firing randomly at motorists on the turnpike. He had killed 4 and injured 15 people before being killed by police. Jo Basden, Gene's wife, knew that we were planning to cross the state on the turnpike. When she hadn't heard from us all day (remember, there were no cellphones), she had convinced herself that we were among the victims of this sniper. When Gene called her from Columbus, she was absolutely hysterical. It took several minutes for her to calm down enough to explain what had taken place on the turnpike.

We pressed on, alternating sleeping and driving. We had bought some blankets and more oil and STP. We crossed Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. At one point, who knows where, I was driving through a small town at 2:00 AM. I saw the red flashing lights reflecting off the buildings of the abandoned street on which I was driving (we had practically no rearward visibility). I pulled over and gave the policeman the well-rehearsed explanation, "The car has no engine and under Oklahoma law..." The policeman cut me off and walked back to shine his flashlight into the gaping mouth of the Continental. "For a car with no engine, it sure has a lot of starters and generators! Get on outta here!"

At one stop in Missouri, Gene and I commented that we had both noticed how mothers grabbed their children when we walked by. We looked and probably smelled great.

On Easter Sunday morning, as Gene was driving, we made a left turn into a service station. Gene didn't see the oncoming car that skidded to a halt barely missing the Continental (Remember, this whole "rig" was over forty feet long!). The driver, in his best Sunday finery, jumped out, ran over to Gene's side of the car, and started to read him the riot act. Gene, looking totally bedraggled, with a three-day growth of beard, simply said, "I'm sorry. I didn't see you." The man was totally taken back by this meek response. He wandered back to his waiting family and drove off.

At 1:00 AM on Monday, we crossed a bridge on Interstate 35 with a sign saying "Welcome to Cleveland County." We cried with relief. We were still shedding tears of joy when we parked at Gene's and Jo's.

A few days later, I sold the Lincoln sedan to my brother, who drove it to his home in Louisiana and used it as a second car. His twin boys called it the "Zipper." They had trouble saying "Zephyr." Within a few days I paid the Basdens the money I owed them, but I never could repay Gene for the trials and tribulations of that trip. I still have the Continental, still unrestored (these things take time), and I still have the door that Gene didn't want to leave behind.