Yesterday was our 33rd anniversary. Who knew that this adventure would last this long? I hope for another 33 years if it brings as much pleasure and adventure as the last.

Meanwhile, Angela and I spent 10 days in California. First we had a successful trunk show in San Francisco. We breakfasted daily at the big table in the kitchen at Boulette’s Larder on the bay side of the Ferry Building. A big plate of delicious toasts with butter and fresh jam, poached eggs on sauteed greens, thick yogurt with stewed dried fruits, hot cereal with brown sugar and milk and fried rice with vegetables and shrimp were only a few of the delights we consumed along with good coffee, tea and hot chocolate. A view of the bridge, a gorgeous bouquet on the table every morning and a Puli named Boulette under the table.

Dungeness crabs are in season and I had crab 3 times: once in a salad at Chez Panisse upstairs; once, roasted in the wood oven at Camino in Oakland
and once at Niloufer’s house, whole, steamed live with avocado puree and big sections of pomelo on the side. The last was the best and the messiest. Buy your crabs alive in Chinatown for the best and cheapest; but you need a place to cook them.

We drove down Highway 5 to Los Angeles stopping at the fantastic Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture outside Hanford. Our friend Bill Clark has been collecting Japanese art — screens, scrolls, ceramics, baskets — and has a fabulous small museum on the grounds of his beautiful house. It isvery worthwhile to stop there. Besides, it is great to grasp the vastness of the valley and enjoy all those blooming almond trees and beautiful fertile fields and green hills. (We even found an Indian restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Not very good though).

Los Angeles, a culture within itself, was sunnier and lovely. Breakfast daily at Joan’s on Third a refreshingly designed grocery, take-out, eat-in place. Three dinners: the first at Guelaguetza on Olympic, a Oaxacan restaurant with delicious dark mole and a huitlacoche empanada. The best was the mariachi band playing our requests in front of a TV mounted just above their heads playing with subtitles. The second dinner was at Ganda, real Thai food, very hot — real pad thai, a bamboo salad with an unidetified taste, green curry pork. The third night we ate at Osteria Mozza.So very delicious and stylish that I cannot pass up at least one meal there every time.

It is great to eat real ethnic food, but an experienced guide through the menu would be very helpful. It will take several visits to sort through each menu without help.

We are working a new website. It will take a little while; but we are hoping once it is up and running that we will be able to refresh the images more easily. We would like to be able to show current stock in clothing, scarves, jewelry, antiques and other items. Soon.

Meanwhile we are designing and sewing the spring collection. We have some incredibly beautiful fabrics to use since my trips to Japan in June result in a preponderance of linens and summer-weight silks among the kimono available then. My trip to Arimatsu (a town full of tie-dyers) last June — while not as fruitful as I had hoped — did turn up some stitched and folded cotton in 4 lovely pastel colors. The crisp shirts we have made are like nothing else.

Vintage black and whie sheer silk ikats are being stitched together to make gossamer blouses and some wild vests. Today, Kate is also stitching myriad strips of ecru linen small patterned ikats into fabric for a fabulous jacket. This kind of beautiful handwork is what makes us unique.

Something is missing in my last post. I forgot to mention my visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s 2 masterpieces: Falling Water and Kentuck Knob on my drive home from the Fall trunk shows. Thrilling! I had always wanted to go and see and was only vaguely aware of their location. Well, it only takes a minute to find out where they are, plus about a 4-hour drive from Washington. The 2 houses are very different in date, sensibility and style. Kentuck Knob is owned by Lord Peter Palumbo, and Falling Water is owned by a conservancy. Allow enough time for exploration — both require signing up for a tour. All necessary information is on the Falling Water website.

time to go through my stack of restaurant receipts before another meal comes my way. i will go from the top to the bottom beginning with new york city.

Momofuku, on First Avenue made us wait an hour one Saturday night, but we were willing and enjoyed all the second-hand stores in the neighborhood. if only i could lease the place next door and open a bar…then everyone could have a good drink while they waited while on the tv we could project pictures of Asiatica wares. It was truly delicious, with a pared-down menu (we were 4 and ordered 8 dishes plus 3 orders of pork buns and a delicious carafe of cloudy sake called “nigori”). I made a quick run to their Milk Bar a few blocks away, but the cookies were not as good as dinner.

Balthazar is a great people-watching place, though i do not understand wearing baseball caps (backward, no less) inside and chewing gum. Not appetizing. Also too many screechy young girls drinking too much wine. Otherwise, oysters, duck confit and a pavlova are just about the perfect meal when you need a few calories. Add muscadet and an espresso.

Sushi Yasuda is the best in New York. They are very precise about reservations. Always sit as the sushi bar, have the kani miso and ebi matcha as appetizers (crab roe and green tea dusted shrimp). Order sashimi and then sushi and leave it to the chef. Do not dip the sushi rice in soysauce and do not use chopsticks to eat sushi. Dinner for 2 was close to $200. cheaper than a trip to Tokyo and worth it.

Chicken pot pie at E.A.T. was only so-so, not enough mushrooms. But i was on a mission to find the best chicken-pot-pie. Let me know if you know where it is. (perhaps in a cookbook).

Bar Boulud with Mel was delicious. A beautiful oyster presentation with red peppercorns scattered. The duck confit excellent. Mel was disappointed to have 2 legs in his coq-au-vin since he prefers white meat and a more traditional version, but i would have been delighted to eat his dinner. He passed on dessert, so i did too.

Dhaba at 108 Lexington ave is a new find. Indian street food and more. Tasty and inexpensive with lots of style. We loved the sauteed cashew dish: tale huay caju. Lots of good small courses at the front of the menu.

Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side was unbearably noisy, but the fatty duck was delicious. We were not enough people to order the crab, but i am sure it is at least as good in Chinatown.

also in NYC, we saw the wonderful production of Don Giovanni at City Opera, the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim and some amazing samurai helmets at the Metropolitan.

In September I decided to drive to the East Coast, since we had 4 trunk shows in a row. It was a fine adventure. Kansas City to Columbus, Ohio arriving just in time for a fabulous dinner at Rigsby’s Kitchen. I dashed into the Holiday Inn past the USC alums drinking beer in the bar anticipating the next day’s victory over Ohio State. I rushed to my room with my computer to try and scope out the best dinner. Bingo! Rigsby’s sounded right so I dashed there and was delighted with Sardinian fregola soup with clams, grilled fennel with lemon olive oil and some hand-cut french fries. Since I had driven for 10 hours I felt justified in ordering the affogato of chocolate gelato for dessert (i must have forgotten that i had been sitting down and not jogging for all those hours). I left the cookies which came with for breakfast. I could hardly wait to stop again on my way back a month later.

time for an update. first, we will definitely work to make our website easier to use for ourselves and our visitors. at this point too many steps to add or update any information.

first thing to do today is to try and upload our 2009 holiday mailer.asiaticaholiday2009final

mango juice

The most beautiful things in Japan are the temples/shrines and the food basements of the major department stores.  Here are some photos taken at Misukoshi/Nihombashi.  Temples will have to wait.  The variety and especially the presentation is staggering.

bread as in a cartoon

sweets to accompany bitter green tea

These sweets are only one example of a huge category.  Each maker tries to outdo the next in beaauty.

If you go to Japan allow at least an hour to browse all the sections.  Fish or crackers are as beautifully presented as the sweets.

While there are also restaurants in the department stores, I have a fewfavorite restaurants elsewhere and managed a few photos. The first night and the last in Tokyo I could think of nothing more delicious than a big plate of sashimi, a bowl of cold tofu with ginger and green onion and a some black cod with miso (the last i ate too quickly and just photographed the bones.

The restaurant is called Uokatsu, and is in the little neighborhood of the International House called Azabu Juban.  During the day, they have a fish store.  Very handy.  The cost of these 3 courses was about 50. dollars and included a draught beer.

Another night in Tokyo I went to Union Square Tokyo and had a delicious Japanese plum mojito and a hamburger.

The best snacks in Japan include some delicious greasy “sembe” crackers from Mamagen in the same street as the Uokatsu.  The small bag will do, and you will not be able to eat dinner if you eat the whole bag.  The other snack is “butter peanuts”, nice hard peanuts available at every train station.

In Kyoto, the only new place is a small and delicious Italian restaurant on Kita Shirakawa dori (just north of Donq, the French bakery) called — believe it or not– Bosom.  Gnocchi with a cream and uni sauce was absolutely delicious.  (The owner said the name appealed because it implied warm and cosy which was the feeling she wanted for their restaurant.)

Tastes better than it looks.  More on Japan later.

I am going to Japan tomorrow, but had better catch up on recent travels before I forget. 

In late May, we spent a very fine weekend in Phildelphia.  We went to see the beautiful Cezanne exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  That was a great plkeasure with lots of wonderful pictures, interesting comparisons to make and opportunities to explore new ideas.  The musuem is huge, full and daunting.  Only we would spend every waking hour there. 

We had 2 delicious dinners at Osteria on 640 N.Broad Street.  The rhubarb sorbet and the pistachio ice cream were memorable (I remember since we had them twice). A bonus was having some time with Michael Olczewski, our artist friend who teaches at Moore College. 

He introduced me to Michelle Liao and her stylishly arranged loft-gallery (310 North 11th Street) where we will have a trunk show in early October. 

An irreverent family wedding in Chico California was the next trip.  The excellent cake had flames decorating it; the bride was whistled to the “altar” and a wonderful time was had by all.

Sporing trunk shows have been completed — except for Kansas City which is this week.  Last week Angela and i were in Boston.  We had a free day on Tuesday.  She went to Providence to visit her son and I to Gloucester with my friend Lee.  I had not been to G. since about 1958 and found it a bit disorienting at first.  But once I got my bearings while searching for an old family friends lovely house between the moors and Bass Rocks it became nostalgically familiar.  The old house was there, but the property had been divided and diminished.  The old Moorhead Hotel was gone — where I had once been King Neptune while my girlfriends were all mermaids.  The culinary highlight was the box of freshly fried clams Lee and I shared at about 5 in the afternoon at The Lobster Pool.  Totally fulfilled my fond memories.  Next time i hope to see Bellport . 

The best thing in Boston is the exhibition of Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto at the MFA.  Do not miss it.  It is on until August 15th and contains as many juicy pictures as you are ever likely to see in one exhibition.  Follow that with a fried oyster appetizer, a lobster roll and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc at  B and G Oysters and call it a banner day. 

Stop also at Louis in their glorious building and enjoy the lovingly displayed and selected accessories, dishes, clothes etc.  Too few customers appreciating all the efforts they have made.   I encourage everyone to buy something beautiful, lasting and of the best quality wherever you see it.  Life-enhancing.

My file is filling up, so it must be time to share some notes. 

 The collection of receipts and invitations from New York City in March is on the top of the pile.    There were lots of dinner parties on the coccasion of Asian Art Week.  One of the best was at Matsuri, in the Maritime Hotel (363 west 16th street.)  The party was late, lively and entertaining.  the hosts were charming, and the food was delicious — served “family style”:   Japanese food, slightly revised, but to good effect.  Big trays of real sushi, bowls of cool, pickled lotus root, excellent skewers etc.  The place is festive in its decor, but still within reason. 

Another evening — two subsequent ones, in fact — were spent at Union Square Cafe.  Always dependable and totally pleasant.  They had the delicious Totten Inlet oysters (total of 20 eaten by me on the 2 nights), garlic potato chips, orange salad, gin martinis, risotto; banana tart etc.  Danny Meyer is the best. 

This was proven once again at The Modern a few evenings later.  I had eaten at the Bar previously with great pleasure, but this was the real thing on the other side of the wall, looking into the sculpture garden.  What I would call “fancy” food, lovingly prepared and served with no pretension, just professional style. 

 This contrasted with a dinner at Nougatine (I had a hamburger).  The waiter there told us we had all made “excellent choices” and then proceeded to describe what was on each of our plates when he served us.  Why is that necessary?   We had made our choices from a menu which described everything already.  I did not complain — someone trained the waiter to do that — it was not his fault.  But it was ridiculous. 

Cynde and I had a dinner at The Source in Washington, Wolfgang Puck with some of his standard favorites:  stir-fried lamb, calamari salad, siu-mai dumplings and a cucumber martini.  He always does a good job with tasty Chinesey things.  We also ate once more at Central Michel Richard .  Oysters, steak tartare and a tuna burger. 

Chicago is becoming a problem.  We like Avec too much, so we ate there 2 nights out of 3.  We need to stay longer and expand our horizons. But the flatbread, maccheroni with mint and lamb, artichoke crostini, roasted whole dorade (the waitress said the skeleton I left looked like a Tom and Jerry cartoon), shredded brussel sprouts were as tasty as one can imagine.  It is noisy but you cannot have everything.

I am hoping to add some pictures and expand this beyond food.  Any minute now it will happen.  Meanwhile I have Boston to look forward to.  More later.

I found this great site: artexpresstravel.com

e.