More Horses

This weekend I got to do one of my favorite things, which is to watch horses run very fast in a big circle. We went to the Breeders Cup which was held this year at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, most famous for being the home of the Kentucky Derby.

We went with some terrific friends. Here we are in our fancy outfits.

And here are the pretty horses, running.

I’m not much of a bettor, but did put $20 on Bernardini to Show, so got back $12 on top of my $20 bet when he was beaten by Argentinian horse Invasor. At the Belmont Stakes in June we had seen Jazil win — who is also owned by Shadwell Stable and trained by Kiaran McLaughlin.

And the only sad part of the day was that a 3 year old filly, Pine Island, fell during the Breeder’s Cup Distaff, dislocated her left fetlock in a compound fracture and had to be euthanized.

Brunch at the Oak Room

Our last, and perhaps most memorable meal in Louisville was Sunday Brunch at our hotel, the Seelbach Hilton. I love a huge Sunday brunch with omelet stations and desserts before noon. Brad and I were heading downstairs from our room and he said he thought he had something in his shoe, maybe a piece of paper or a bug. We were running late to meet our friends, so I told him there wasn’t anything in his shoe, meaning there’s nothing in your shoe, you idiot. We got to the elegant brunch room and joined our already seated friends. Brad was still feeling this phantom piece of paper in his shoe, so he slipped it off and dumped out an enormous cockroach onto the floor. Neither of us screamed, which was good. I said big bug, big bug, big bug and put my napkin over it. Brad excused himself either to go take a shower in bleach or put on socks made of depleted uranium. He did return, and we all did enjoy a beautiful brunch, especially after the nice waiter scooped up the dead (?) bug and made it go far away. At the end of our meal we signaled for the check, and the nice waiter said that our meal was complimentary because of the big bug, big bug, big bug. (Maybe I’m paraphrasing slightly here.) We happily took our free meal, even though the bug was imported from our hotel room upstairs and not a resident of the actual brunch room. And our friends agreed that the next time we dine together we should bring a big plastic bug and see what happens.

Seviche

One of the other nice meals we had in Louisville came after the races on Saturday at Seviche. The Latin / Mexican flavors tasted extra fresh and interesting and somehow unexpected in Kentucky. The lively atmosphere and friendly service and the second mojito were all very nice. We ate a sampler of ceviches, which were all delicious, and I had a tuna entree. Definitely worth a visit..

610 Magnolia

While we were in Kentucky for the Breeders’ Cup horse races the first weekend of November, we had a couple of terrific meals. On Friday night we ate at 610 Magnolia, which was lovely.

Here are some photos of the place and a sample menu from their website.

Since we had all traveled to Louisville on Friday and had not gone to the races, we were literally the first people to show up at the restaurant, which was a little strange. We had drinks standing at the bar and some fun appetizers before being seated at a table by the window.

Bourbon seemed like the right thing to drink when in Kentucky, although I don’t know whether there is an analogous drink to the mint julep for the Kentucky Derby. The food was fresh, and the portions weren’t overly large, which is a good thing for people like us who eat out so frequently.

A couple of quibbles about the place: Our waitress wasn’t especially knowledgeable about the menu. She had to keep going to ask about things like which cheeses were on the artisanal cheese plate, which didn’t seem like a tricky question. The other thing was that there was a $1,000 cancellation fee. I understand that the race weekend is a big revenue moment, but that seemed like a crazy cancellation policy.

And then the challenging part of the evening was that I hadn’t really thought through the travel logistics back to our hotel. We ended up waiting over an hour for a taxi, which certainly put a damper on the celebratory feeling of the evening, and made me glad that I had arranged for all day transportation for the day of the races.

The next time I’m in Louisville, I’m definitely going back to 610 Magnolia..

Ski Bunny

I’ve been loving living in Colorado while skiing at Bachelor Gulch in Beaver Creek for the past few days. Brad, Seth, Chris, and any number of Mobius entrepreneurs were at the Venture Capital in the Rockies conference and I took the opportunity to play while they worked (actually had great fun skiing with Chris on Friday, and with Seth, too). Every time I get out on the slopes I have a great time — it just doesn’t happen very often, which is kind of ridiculous since Vail is 100 miles away. I end up in these looping conversations with myself about buying a ski place, or at least renting one for a long stretch in the winter, and then I remember that I’m married to a person who doesn’t ski or snowboard. I still think that next winter might be about Amy being a ski bunny..

Miami Bound

I’m off to South Beach now that football season is over. Brad is running the Miami marathon next weekend, and we’re going down early for him to acclimate to the heat, humidity and reverse altitude effects (Too much oxygen! Too much air pressure on the skull!). I missed a fun weekend already. I had made reservations at The Setai and Wish and missed out on both of those plus a Jewish Deli Food Orgy — but I’m certain Brad and I will make our own fun.

Tablet Hotels

Just had to cancel a trip to New York with my sister Wendy at the last minute because her fiance is back in the hospital with a neutropenic fever following his chemotherapy. We had reservations at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo, which I was excited about, as well as the chance to connect with our friends Jenny, Scott, and Theresa. And this is just a great time of year in New York with all the Christmas decorations and great department store window displays and the tree at Rockefeller Center. I had made our hotel reservation through Tablet Hotels, which we’ve had good experiences with in the past (The Clift in San Francisco, Chambers and the SoHo Grand in New York, Hotel Aleph in Rome, etc.). Their website wasn’t happy with my attempt to cancel, even though I was within the “before noon the day before check in” window on the cancellation policy. I sent an email to customer service explaining the situation and received a quick, helpful, and friendly email response taking care of the cancellation. Another positive experience with Tablet Hotels. I highly recommend using them.

Babbo

Babbo is a special place. Brad and I got to have dinner there tonight courtesy of the last minute reservation powers of Fred Wilson, who is a gentleman and a scholar. After our surprisingly rapid tour of the MoMA we took a taxi down to Greenwich Village. After some language difficulties with the cabbie, who I thought was saying Beverly Place instead of Waverly Place, we managed to get there. Babbo is quite small and intimate, with soft lighting and the comfortable service that happens at restaurants confident in their excellence.

Although it is white truffle season and they offered a beautiful white truffle tasting menu, we exercised some restraint. We both started with a beautiful beet salad with steamed spinach, and then Brad had the maccheroni alla chitarra as his entree. I had the spaghettini with lots of roasted garlic cloves and the meat of a one pound lobster. The lobster meat got a little overpowered by the sweetness of the red sauce. Both of our pastas were cooked perfectly, with some firmess left to bite into. For dessert, we shared a delicious pistachio and chocolate semifreddo, which I’m used to having served in a parfait glass. This looked more like a panna cotta and was a perfect combination of sweet and chilled and chewy. Very nice.

I’d definitely like to eat here again, as soon as possible, really. Thanks, Fred..

And where did September go?

The last month just simply disappeared while I was jaunting about seeing a bunch of different airports. I was in Rome for a week, home for 4 days, then in Dallas for a long weekend, home for 3 days, and am now in New York and will be in Boston soon. I didn’t bring my laptop on either the Rome or Dallas trips, and just fell out of the blogging routine. I’m definitely a creature of habit, and am getting back in the blog practice again now.

I did finally manage to post some of the photos that I took in Rome. I struggled with Picassa and my home network and ended up renaming each individual photo file so I could have them display in the order I wanted them. It was a laborious (and probably unnecessary) process. I can outsmart the TypePad display algorithm, dammit. I’m having fun with my digital camera and am starting to play with simple digital editing effects.

I had a tremendous time in Rome celebrating my sister Martha’s 40th birthday, and my 39th. It’s a great city. I find that 2,000 year old buildings make me feel quite youthful, still.

I bought myself shiny new Tumi luggage as a birthday gift to myself, which has already been a useful and appropriate gift. My black rolling carry on bag split its zipper in Hong Kong in July 2000 and has been barely hanging in ever since, and the blue Kiva rolling duffle bag I bought to go to Africa in March 2000 has just about given up on me. Loving my silvery luggage so far — certainly easy to spot on a luggage carousel.

While fruitlessly hunting through SoHo today for jeans that don’t give me plumber’s butt (what IS it with jeans these days?), I went into Bloomingdales and saw this orange Tumi laptop case, which I almost bought, but didn’t. It’s good to practice self-restraint once in awhile.

Other fun things in September were:

celebrating Cecelia’s birthday with the Feld family in Dallas, and not getting hit by Rita
getting to go to a real live Broncos game, courtesy of my friend, Howard Diamond
taking my 16 year-old niece, Morgan, homecoming dance dress shopping
spa day at the St. Julien with Mollie Fager
lunch at Mi Cocina in Highland Park with Lara Peirce
being back in Boulder after the summer in Alaska and sharing time with friends and family

Additional neglected habits I’d like to restore in October are exercise and reading books. I’m still flossing daily..

Trashy Detective Books

The Starbucks across the street from the W Hotel here in Seattle feels like an actual cafe and not just a coffee delivery factory. It is large and has wi-fi internet connection and nice music and there are a couple of comfy lounge chairs in the corner by the floor-to-ceiling windows. I have spent the greater part of two days sitting there reading trashy detective books, which is one of my very favorite things to do. I’ve read Cold Service and Widow’s Walk by Robert Parker, (two more in the very long series of Spenser mysteries which are set in Boston), One Shot by Lee Child, (a Jack Reacher mystery), The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais (an Elvis Cole mystery), Ten Hot Ones by Janet Evanovich, (a Stephanie Plum mystery), and am making my way through The Bourne Legacy, which is written by Eric van Lustbader but is copyright 2004 by the Estate of Robert Ludlum. I’ve had a lot of grande decaf nonfat lattes and Earl Grey tea with milk while hanging out at the Starbucks, and I’ll confess to at least a couple of delicious glazed donuts. Yum. Indulging all around. I’ve also been watching West Wing Monday marathons on Bravo and The Closer on TNT and renting silly movies (Hitch, Hostage (which was actually a Robert Crais non-Elvis Cole book)) and basically soaking up a bunch of indulgences that aren’t available to me in Homer, especially television. I did buy several first novels and have read Osprey Island by Thisbe Nissen and started The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw. Knitting, a first novel by Anne Bartlett, and Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life will go in my carry on, but I suspect I’ll find another mystery to entertain me on the plane tonight. I think John Sanford has a new Lucas Davenport book out…

Brad will fly across the country from Boston and we’ll meet at the airport to take our flight to Anchorage together, arriving late. We’ll stay at the downtown Marriott and have breakfast at the Snow City Cafe and take a de Havilland Beaver puddle jumper down to Homer and our summer can officially begin.