Chick With A View

On a recent road trip to the great State of California, food was the defining factor, in fact it was imperative. I mean what else will you do while traveling? Exercise? I think not. At least not when one of your companions is your mother, a relatively active woman of a certain age. I was hoping for more wine tasting when we were in Sonoma, but alas the roads were under construction during what seemed to me to be a very inconvenient time of the year–a week before Labor Day.

In Sonoma, we dined at the girl & the fig, which was scrumptious. The owner Sondra, whom I don’t know, goes by the Tweet name of ‘Figgirl’, was sweet enough to send us some tasty fig treats we had not ordered. This occurred because my mother’s maiden name is actually Figg. My production company is Figgleaf, and my daughters middle name is…you guessed it. We–my mother, aunt, sister and cousins –are known to the world (small as it is) as the Figg-girls, despite our actual surnames. So you see there is a connection of sorts.

The following night we went to Sondra’s other great spot that has more Italian leanings, Estate. (www.estate-sonoma.com).

Edie, Julie, Cynthia and Dana at Estate.

Another fine stop along the way was in Carmel, one of my favorite towns in California due to the fact that it was literally the first place in California I ever visited. That was many moons ago over a three-week period. I have never gotten over the smells, the vegetation, the look of the Pacific, and the wild, awesomeness of Big Sur. Here, my mother and I stayed with old family friends and one day had lunch at the Market Cafe at the Highland Inn, (http://highlandsinn.hyatt.com), which rests high in the hills looking out at the ocean.

Aunt Kay was very specific about our lunch: “crab cakes and ice tea overlooking the Pacific. ” Mother wasn’t pleased. “I don’t like crab cakes or drink ice tea.” she said to me, icily. ” Hmph. (Another Edie-ism on food.) Nevertheless, the view was astounding, her quesadilla delicious and the crab cakes….well!

YUM

From Carmel we headed off across the middle of California. For some reason it seemed to go on forever. Route 1 to 156 to something else, cross the  Pacheco Pass, head north on Route 5, which scarily went right through the town of Stockton where I once made the mistake of attending college.  Then across through the agriculture flats to the lovely town of Lodi. Ha. Stop laughing now. There happens to be a lovely bit of paradise right on the outskirts called Wine & Roses Inn and Restaurant.

Our well-appointed and charming room opened onto the lush gardens in the middle of a compound that includes a spa, pool, a restaurant and bar with live piano music, and a wine tasting room, among other amenities. (www.winerose.com).

The spa, where Edie was massaged and I spent a couple of hours being scrubbed and hydrated, is high end, and has hot and cold small dunking pools, in a lovely resting garden.  The restaurant with wonderful outdoor seating has a new chef. We had more figs, naturally, though the dish was semi-ruined by a slab of thick, fatty bacon wrapped around one of the figs. Otherwise, I had a dreamy risotto with wild mushrooms.

The next day we rose into the Sierra Nevadas on Highway 88 heading to a valley in Nevada where once we lived. In the Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest, after passing Kirkwood Ski Area and the turn off to Tahoe, Ma announced there was a place to eat up somewhere nearby. I slammed on the brakes. Ahead, or the place we just passed, Sorenson’s? Ahead, she announced. Indeed, no more than 300 yards farther was the Hope Valley Cafe and Market. (www.hopevalleyresort.com).

Sitting cockeyed to the road, the place has a rugged charm giving it a timeless feel, like a diner from the 1950s but without the kitsch. A few middle aged bikers and their women order from one gal while in the kitchen somebody was making magic with the smells. On the  chalkboard menu was something called the Fire Chief Special: a fried egg with bacon, lettuce, tomato. The bikers went for it, and as a sucker for anything with a fried egg on it, I too had to have one. It did not disappoint.

The Fire Chief Special at Hope Valley Cafe

Let’s just say I fell in love. With the food, the place, the isolation, the California high Sierra funkiness of it all but most especially with the owner Leesa Lopanzanski, a pie-baking, gypsy-haired gal.

Hope Valley Cafe proprietress

She is as much reason as the food and ambiance to give this place a try next time you find yourself hungry in Hope Valley. It’s all you could hope for.

After the hearty and  tasty lunch we headed east into Nevada and dipped down into Smith Valley only a couple hours later.

My family lived here from 1975 to about 1992. I had forgotten how pretty the valley was. It is a quiet area, 75 miles south of Reno, where pure ranching and farming are the only industries.

In California, we had had very warm weather but the warmth in Smith Valley was more of a glow. Everything was touched with sunlight and smelled of hay and garlic, the two main crops grown in the valley.

I went to the John Deere dealership that is housed in a building where I once worked in a now defunct cafe. I wasn’t as beautiful as cool or as mysterious (I was only 18 after all) as Leesa of the curls and hope but I had had my admirers. They were mostly young ranch hands who chewed tobacco and thought nothing of inviting one to a date on a swather (it cuts alfalfa). One of my old pals works at the John Deere now. We arranged to met that afternoon for a beer and a chin-wag. Sitting at a picnic table in the shade of a market we faced a long  stretch of empty road and the sagebrush beyond. Bikers growled up in search of their own frosty ones and Dale chatted them up as we chugged with a thirst that comes with a day such as this. He had put a slice of lime in my Corona and then a shot of Tabasco.

Dale in a ragged truck. Same as it ever was.

“You’ll never have a beer any other way after this,” he said laughing. And he’s right. I never will have that again. I don’t even drink beer, sadly. Oh, okay, A Corona. Once in a while when the sky is particularly blue, the sun is blazing and my thirst is unquenchable by anything else. But no Tabasco, thanks.

We still have a family of friends there. For years we had holidays together, traveled together, even in one case lived together. The brothers have stayed in close touch.

Having seen one of them in Sonoma (Cynthia, who joined us Estate) we were now welcomed by the other three and their children. That night, we gathered at Steve’s ranch where we dined while batting away mosquitoes going postal.

Steve barbecued steak from his own cattle, while sister Annette arrived bearing fresh produce from her garden. Mother and the elder parents chatted about old friends while we ‘youngsters’ talked and chopped and cooked in the kitchen.

Moments such as these bring us full circle and take us spinning into new areas as we reunite and separate once again. There was barely time  to finish a conversation, or to truly catch up. Who knows how long this time?

Fresh home grown steak and greens from the garden. Fresh roasted garlic too.

I can’t help but wonder, as I know my saintly mother does as well: How would we be if we had never left here? She has recently become a widow and this is where Bill was happiest, she said, as we drove stealthily up the drive of our former ranch. Here, he was happy, far from the cities he’d always lived in, with his ranching buddies, his Longhorn cattle and the acres of alfalfa, blown by the winds, greening up the desert. For him this was home.

Smith Valley

I know in my bones

I’ve been here before

The ground feels the same

though the land’s been torn

I’ve a long way to go

The stars tell me so

On this road that will take me home.

–Mary Fahl