Finding Appalachia

If you drive North from where we are on I-77 and then some other such direction on another interstate or highway you find yourself crossing three states (North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia) and ending up in Ohio.

Athens, OH is an old college town, a hippy town, an artsy town, just to name a couple of things. All this, and much more I cannot even think to enumerate. Our friend who invited us up has referred to it as a town “nestled at the foot of Appalachia” for years now. I always found this space poetic, sort of unreal, like this might be a mythical place in a fictional book, but not in real life. But Appalachia is real.

I have heard before that this region is usually associated with extreme poverty, but also hardworking and resourceful people, outlaws as much as talented artists. I guess as a passer-by, it is hard to see all of these in just a couple of days. There is certainly a sense of poverty in the poor roads of West Virginia (which we crossed on our way up), and in the leaning, one-pump gas stations of West Virginia and Ohio. But Athens is an old Southern town (I know, Southern!), with lots of charm, and lots of personality.

Street art in Athens, OH

Ohio University sits at its center and it sort of defines its vibe: students, youth, quirky professors, bespectacled and rosy cheeked, mixing with students on a Friday night at the local pubs.

Ohio University campus entry

Our friends took us on a tour and we found some treasures, like fine local beers (pretty much anywhere – this town is made of beer, really), great, very diverse food (my favorites were Thai Paradise, as well as Salaam, both downtown), Artifacts Gallery is a quirky little gift store, where you can buy your patchouli incense, as well as your cheeky gifts for that crazy aunt who is a tad too hard to shop for, otherwise. The homemade chips and the blackening seasoning on the tilapia at Eclipse Company Store were out of this world! The setting of this place was amazing, as well – just an old, tall farmhouse turned into a brewpub, in the heart of an old neighborhood, with hiking trails and forests all around …

The blackened tilapia sandwich at Eclipse Company Store

We strolled the university grounds, and we visited some of the areas of the art and visual design schools. The staff at West End Cider House is bar none the best staff we have experienced in a while: they are friendly without being overbearing, knowledgeable, and very open-minded in trying mixed drinks their drunk customers want to experiment with but which are not on the menu. And drunk people (we) can come up with some cocktail doozies. Like Imperial Stout aged in whiskey barrels mixed with Grand Marnier, or Baileys. They did not even blink and made them for us. Or rather, provided the ingredients for us to mix.

The cucumber ale at West End Cider House is by far much more delicious than it sounds. Perfect for a hot summer evening! 

We were there during Ohio Brew Week, so every bar had a special beer menu to honor that. I have not seen this many craft beer options in my entire life: every bar had many (20 – 40 - 100 - lost count) options for craft beers, and most of them were different from one bar to another. I left thinking that for sure this town is made of beer. Do you remember that song that goes something like this: “And the little streams of alcohol/ Come a-trickling down the rocks.../ And a lake of stew/ And of whiskey, too/ You can paddle all around in a big canoe ...” - well, you might as well paraphrase that song and make it about Athens, OH: “And the little streams of beer/ Come a-trickling down the rocks/ And a lake of stew/ And of beer, too/ You can paddle all around in a big canoe ... ...”. I believe that original song might have been written somewhere in or about the Appalachia, too.

Reminder on our friend's refrigerator

The bars we hopped had pretty much everything else (wine, liquor, cider), but everyone seemed to be enjoying the beer: the festival and the sweltering, humid summer weather probably called for this.

If you want to experience a hippy vibe in one place, have breakfast or lunch at Village Bakery. Our friend kept telling us this is “quintessential Athens”. They lost our order, and after waiting for more than hour and finally asking about it, they admitted to that and started from scratch without much blinking, really … Easy going, and unfrilled is how I would describe that experience. There was no point letting your blood pressure raise at that moment. The kids took care of it in their due time. Like many other mountain towns, time is trickling here, and not flowing nor rushing like in the big cities.

Local woodworking and homemade goods for sale at Village Bakery

We visited the Kennedy Museum of Art which is housed in a former lunatic asylum. I am sure this is not PC anymore, but this is what they told us in there. Today's museum is not very good, but the grounds are beautiful, albeit haunting. I wished they would have done something with just sharing the grounds, the history of the place itself, the stories, the history of medicine through a place like that with the visitors. But maybe some other day …

The Kennedy Museum of Art

Athens is a happening city which comes alive at night. Even during the day, the pubs are not empty. The town is small and comfortable, with one way streets, brick roads, and historic buildings bordering the sidewalks. The mountains are right there, behind every hotel, home, store … you can almost touch them.

Old wooden floors and brick walls that could tell a story, in a beer store in Athens, OH

I would love to go back in the fall when hopefully the heat might let up and I could take in some trails for a hike or twelve. The leaves would be gorgeous, I bet.

If I were to pick just one word to describe Athens, it would be artistic. The craft beer, and craft pretty much anything, the banjo playing, the homemade brewing, the people experimenting with canning and commercializing little known fruits, like paw-paw, the art school, the old buildings left untouched, the old brick walls and streets tell an artful story of pure Americana. I think in the middle of all this I might have found that that mythical Appalachia is alive, well, and surprisingly real, after all.

More street art in Athens, OH. Click the image to see the full album from this trip. 

We Stopped to Smell … the Lavender

So, essential oils. That's a thing nowadays, if you didn't know it. I have friends selling them, and till recently I have worked in a building where one full floor was taken by a billion dollar company that sold them. Their floor smelled like someone intentionally broke about a million bottles of perfume and the ceilings and the floors and the walls were coated with it.

Me?! They're too strong for my taste. I cannot see how you can be around even one little bottle of the smelly stuff and not be high. And, as you know, control freaks like me do not do “high”. Anyway … this billion dollar company around here harvests their lavender for their oils on this farm, just South of where we live.

I don't do essential oils, but lavender has always fascinated me. Since high school, reading French novels about sachets of lavender being stuck in ladies' purses and in between sheets, I have thought of lavender as the equivalent of pure gold in the aromatic and herbal industries – rare and coveted by anyone who knows style. Since then, it's always symbolized the very essence of femininity and grace.

I am picky about my lavender “products”, but I love the plant pretty much unconditionally – the smell, the look (it's purple, for crying out loud!), the said French history (in my head), the frail, gorgeous wreaths it yields, everything.

This past weekend, the said company celebrated Lavender Days on their farm, an event that I have been wanting to go to since we moved here, over 6 years ago. The whole experience, though, left much to be desired.

The grounds were beautiful – pristine landscaping, peaceful setting, a stream running through it, tall trees lining up the trails. The lavender fields were gorgeous, too, as I expected – with lavender bushes mathematically laid out equidistant from one another, gently swaying in the prairie wind, like a huge sheet. The air smelled like lavender and chamomile, and by the time you got into the middle of the grounds you could almost feel the smell enwrapping you, like a magic aura. 

 

The well manicured grounds at the foot of our mountains. 

Since it was announced as a festival, I thought local artists and merchants will be present, too, or maybe their own folks would show us the art and the craft of making things out of lavender, as a celebration of the plant. But almost no one was there. For food, they had just a couple of booths with food (one with watermelon, one with burgers and one with lavender ice-cream and lemonade), but I was expecting something savory cooked with lavender – which I know exists. The lavender lemonade that I had was a very weird mixture of very sweet and very bitter. My jaws hurt from too much flavor.

They had a jousting competition with actors dressed up in Queen Elizabeth I era costumes which played on a backdrop of 90's disco music. Connection?! I could not find one, other than maybe lavender being an age old herb?! They had a buggy ride around the farm, which I guess could have been entertaining, had it not been for the 10 kids to 1 adult ratio inside the buggy. 

 

The old time-y castle and the horse drawn buggy/ cart  

The Visitor's Center had some interesting artifacts, which showed the old distiller barrels, and they run documentaries about the industry of harvesting lavender and distilling the oils, but the building could only host 20 people at one time, so there was a long line to get in. The line also deterred one from watching the documentaries, as we had to rush in and out of there.

I wanted to buy some 'products', you know, just to support a local business, but it took two cashiers about 20 minutes to figure out what the prices were – they only knew the prices for the members of this multi level marketing business that was running the show, there were no retail prices easily available for us, mortals. 

 

Artifacts in the Visitors' Center 

Probably the most disappointing bit was that no one was giving anyone a tour of the grounds or the distillery. The latter was all but abandoned, with not a soul in sight, when we went to visit it. I do thank them for leaving it wide open and accessible so I can see the huge distillers up close. They smelled like soup. 

 

The lonely distillery. I loved the pile of harvested lavender spread out to dry in front of it. Reminded me of my childhood, when my sister and I made hay in the mountains. This smelled the best, out of everything else.  

 

The bottom of the huge distiller. This is what smelled like an herb-y soup.

  

 

The old way they did the distilling, back in France.

 

The only thing that explained how everything is done. 

 

It was a gorgeous day, hot, but windy – which helped make it very pleasant. I got as close as I ever wanted to be to lavender, and I am glad we went, for this reason. If you took the practical out of it (lack of explanations, lack of easy access to 'product', poor organization and disconnected activities), it could have been a beautifully quiet and natural experience. The  loud people and the disco music contributed to ruin that, too.

I am in no rush to go back. Maybe try another farm like this, but not this one. Not for a while. I will still buy their products at the Farmer's Market downtown, just to bring home a token of that femininity and age-old gold. For some reason, the people they send there seem to know the prices on everything. 

 

 

Gorgeous fields of purple. 

And because I am not good enough to say it better myself, I am quoting The Bard: "Forgiveness is the smell that lavender gives out when you step on it". (Mark Twain)

A City Alive - Postcards from Seattle

Greetings from Seattle! I am not sure if all of the people who read here remember postcards. But I do. Even as a child, I was the only one in my family who always sent them to our friends from our family trips. Everyone could count on me letting them know where the family went that summer. I still browse the postcards stands in gift stores, and I dream about the days when I would pick just the best ones that would summarize the vacation spot just perfectly.

Nowadays, of course, we have Facebook. And phones with cameras and web connections, to post that telling shot of where we are and what it’s like to be there to let all of our friends know. Nowadays, I have my own camera, too. And instead of one postcard, I come home with 1000+ shots of the place. I send the link to my friends, and boom!, they are there, too: they can even feel the heat or the cold, they can almost taste the food, and hear the street noises or the quiet of the surrounding areas.

The recent trip we took to Seattle over Thanksgiving was no exception. Looking back through the pictures, I see just what my first trip to Seattle means. It means gray, of course. When we got there, there was a misty rain in the air, for which an umbrella would do little. We were told by one of our guides that umbrellas are not popular in Seattle. The rain never pours, but it usually feels more like that mist the hair dresser uses to spray your hair before she cuts it: “poof-poof” and you’re wet! The sky was gray and the roads were shiny. It was cold – bitter cold and wet. After all, this is the Pacific North West, right?!

Another snapshot in my mind is Seattle inside Pike Place Market on Black Friday. I know, sounds suicidal, but it’s actually pretty fun. So much life. Everyone’s coming or going. You feel the pulse of a big city and it’s pounding! For the most part, Seattle has a slower pace than most large cities I have seen, except for its Market. Despite the fact that the vendors are there year round and the market is probably hopping year round, too, they are always friendly and actively selling their stuff. They talk to everyone who stops by, and describe their products in detail. They are nice and never look bored, tired, or just indifferent, like most trinket sellers in touristy places. Their active involvement is really an attractive marketing tool.

My favorite thing in The Market, was not the fish throwing, as everyone would think. It was not even the overcrowded original Starbucks store, either – although that one did make my heart stop for a minute: it was that feeling of “wow! This is where everything started”. But my favorite market place was this corner stand where a woman was selling things made of lavender. The place smelled beautifully, and she had a “culinary wreath”, made of all sorts (I think 10) of herbs, that you just hang in your kitchen and peel from year round, to use in your foods. The wreath was as gorgeous as it was practical and for some reason it spelled "Seattle" to me: green, fresh, clean, delicious, unique and hippie-sh.

On the second day we were there, there was not a cloud in the sky! I thought I died and woke up in Atlanta! Blue skies and blinding light – perfect for pictures, and a boat ride. The view from Elliott Bay towards Seattle is much similar to all the skyline views you’re familiar with. Of course, not two skylines are alike. They each have their trademark that makes them recognizable – whether tall or interesting in architecture, these one building compounds put them on the map: New York has the Empire State building. San Francisco has the TransAmerica Pyramid. Toronto, the CN Tower, and Seattle – the shipyard and … the Space Needle.

The Space Needle is not the tallest, but it definitely is one of the strangest buildings I have climbed (along with Montreal’s Olympic Stadium leaning tower) to get a bird’s eye view of the city. It looks like a flying saucer landed on a skinny pole and it’s balancing just so. It’s one of those miracles of human dreaming and ingenuity.

The architecture of the town is a mix of old and new. I was shocked of how old Seattle really feels, although it’s a very few years over 100 years old! There are skyscrapers and cobble stone streets right next to each other. Horse drawn carriages and the airlifted Monorail train, side by side. The trip in the Underground will make you feel like it’s thousands years old. It’s a clean city, and although it feels like a metropolis, it’s not crushing you under its fastness, or clutter. It’s busy, but with breathing room. Not as oppressive as NYC, nor even Boston, for instance.

I think the most unexpected thing about the Seattle landscape for me was the fact that all the streets are incredibly steep! OK, they are not quite San Francisco steep, but they are a breath stopper, after you have climbed about 10 of them in a row! And that’s the good thing – you can really walk or take public transport to pretty much anywhere. I don’t think you must have a car to live in Seattle!

Another thing that will stay with me from this trip is all the restaurants – great, fresh food, incredible service, and good beer and wine! It’s a miracle to find a Riesling on most of the restaurants I visit, anywhere in the country. Seattle always had a Riesling and a moscato at all times! Even moscato champagne! The beers might not be as diverse, I suppose, as Portland’s, but they surely are plenty of choices and they are tasty! I am not a microbrew fan, but I did find some microbrews that were not too offending at all for my very soft palate. The foods are always fresh and just enough with a twist to make them unforgettable, but not too strange.

The town feels like a river of coffee flows through it. There is a fast food restaurant at every street corner in America, but not in Seattle. There is a coffee shop at every street corner here! Tully’s, Seattle’s Best and of course lots of Starbucks. Also, stand alone, independent ones, too. And when you are finished with your meal, you’re asked: “would you like a cup of hot latte to go, by chance? I’ll double cup it for you. It’s really hot!” They have invented their own language for coffee drinks here. A language that everyone speaks, of course. People walking down the street and holding cups of hot drinks from 7 AM to midnight! It might be what keeps them smiling?!

One thing that blew my mind was the fact that all the wait staff everywhere was so helpful, fast and so polite and just happy. Yes, Seattle has happy people, I would say! I have always thought that with that much rain, you must be a nature prone to depression to be able to live in Seattle. And yet, I have never seen so many smiley and cordial people and just plain content as Seattle folks! It was always a treat to sit down for a meal or just drinks. Just like visiting with old friends, we felt totally welcome.

The ultra-modern hotel. The picture book would not be complete if I didn’t talk about our very unique hotel room! We stayed at Hotel 1000, about two blocks from Pike Place Market and one block from Pier 56. Our suspended, flat screen tv was turned on when we entered the room, and there was a welcome message on the screen in our names. We had a fixture free (well, except for the drain) tub that had the downspout mounted in the ceiling above it. Instead of a solid wall between the bedroom and bath, you had an all glass wall, with a shade operated by three buttons in the wall – like a light switch. You could sit in the tub, and have a view to the harbor, across the room. The toilet and shower were in their separate all glass enclosures. The sink and fixtures were Kohler and counters solid granite. For those of you that think that granite is so overrated, I disagree! It’s clean and elegant. Period.

The décor of the room was modern minimalist, but intricate, too, without being uncomfortable. Some pieces looked like they were chosen from an art gallery from the Seattle Museum of Art, down the street. Molton Brown smellies gave the air a lavish and fresh aroma. Nothing was random. Everything was pieced together just so, to make it classy and comfortable at the same time. We also had a light switch by the entrance door, that we turned on – this put a “do not disturb” light on on the other side of the wall, next to our doorbell. Very discreet.

And because Seattle is Microsoft, our hotel lounge had a virtual game room, with Microsoft game tables. Chess, checkers and many other virtual boards were the centerpiece of many seating areas in our lounge.

The Boka Restaurant downstairs kept in line with this feeling of modern and chic. We ate on burl tables and sat near towers of sculpted glass. The food, again, was good without being too pretentious.

Yeah, we ate and drank a lot on this trip! I have not done this since probably my last trip to New Orleans, another feasting town!

The feeling that people are environmentally conscious in this town meets you at every pace. There are typically anywhere between three and five trashcans in every public establishment. You need about 10 minutes of deliberation of where your waste needs to go before you (hopefully not!) give up and just chuck it in the one that’s fullest, labeled “trash”. You can order almost everything free of … whatever… milk free, fat free, gluten free, meat free – you name it. I think even without our cameras in hand, we would still have stood out to restaurant staff as out-of-town-ers, for always ordering the “real” things.

That’s Seattle for you: fresh salmon, good coffee, sweet wine, steep streets (bring good, comfy shoes), full body beers, health conscious freakishness, history, rushed people that smile a lot, wine and coffee shops in one, sometimes with a bookstore thrown in, clean and safe-feeling, calm waters, gorgeous mountain ranges, tasteful art, all spinning around the Space Needle, under a mostly gray sky with occasional rays of sunshine. It has a heart, a mind and a style all its own.

Till next time, Seattle, I greet you ‘stay awesome’!

A deconstructed image of Seattle, from the Monorail - courtesy of my husband.
Click on it to experience the whole adventure. I hope you can see, feel, touch, breathe and taste Seattle, even if just virtually.

My Drinking Problem

“Hi, my name is Alina, and I … don’t believe I am an alcoholic. Not quite. Really.”

I grew up with dad making wine every fall, my mountain relatives making beer every summer and my uncle making tzuika (close to “moonshine”) every year. And I can never remember a New Year’s at my parents' house, when even us kids didn’t have a sip of real champagne. Or a summer barbecue where we, as kids, didn’t sip mom’s “foam” from the top of her beer.

Alcohol had been part of our daily “diets”, if you would, forever. And just like we’re not all gourmands for eating every day, I don’t think I’m an alcoholic because I have, or even crave, a glass of wine every now and then.

I have never seriously thought about having a drinking problem before (well, not in my adult years, anyway) until it’s become a chase to “where do I get the next good bottle”, when I moved to Utah.
What used to be an every day passing thought is now very much a conscious, deliberate, much planned project, since here, alcohol comes at a price. And I am not just strictly talking about money.

My parents were once again right: the more you forbid one from doing something, the more they’ll yearn to do it. And I find 100% truth in that statement since I have moved here: because they make it so hard and rare to get “good stuff” here, we want it more.

Every day, I am trying to discover a new store that “sells good beer and wine”, or a new store “with a better selection” of both, or a new bar that sells “my beer”, or … It’s my obsession now, it seems. Mine, and a few other friends’ too who come from other parts and are used to drinks-a-plenty. Every time I find “something good”, I want to do a little happy dance – it’s like Christmas has come. Or my birthday. Or both in one day! I screech with pleasure when I see alcohol anymore! Just like Adam and Eve must have done it when they saw “the fruit”.

Now, don’t get me wrong: compared to 10 years ago, when I first visited the Beehive State, the drinking rules are much, much, much more lax! Kudos to the Utah folks who fought to change some of the old laws, and to the Utah government who approved them. You can buy (weak) beer in any grocery and convenience store, and you can even buy it on Sundays. All Sunday long. Now, that’s even better than The Carolinas, right?! You can find any kind (wine, liquors, liqueurs, mixed drinks, etc) of alcoholic drink in the State Liquor Stores, but these are closed on Sundays. Also, you never need a membership for a pub to be able to order liquor, like you did 10 years ago.

But alcohol is still relatively “hard” to find, and the selection is way low in stores. I am saying “hard to find”, because the state stores are very few and far between, for one. There is no liquor store in our town. We just got a new one in the town adjacent to ours, which is about 7 miles away from our house. Before this store was opened, this past Christmas (and my husband was the very first customer, thank you very much!), the closest store to our house was a couple of towns over, about 11 miles away.

Grocery stores only sell beer that has an alcohol content of 3.2% by weight; in other words, you drink 10 beers and you’re still waiting for a buzz! If you want “regular strength” beer, you will need to visit the liquor store. There, you have a broader selection of import beers, wines and such. But you’ll have to plan for the trip – make a point out of visiting the neighboring town, and remember that Sundays these stores are closed. Also, as of recent times, they open at 11 AM. So if you have a lunch party on a Saturday – stock up on Friday. And since you have to drive so long to get there, you can’t buy just one bottle. You need to make it worth your gas money, right?! Planning. Planning. And more planning.

Buying drinks is never on the grocery list when you live here. It’s always a special trip.

Today, I visited our new (and closer) liquor store. And once again, I was like a kid in the candy store, jumping up and down with joy. I think it’s because they are new and they are trying to still test this market, and see what people would buy, but they had EVERYTHING! I have seen things in this new store that I have never seen in a wine store – here or elsewhere in America.

I could seldom find my most favorite wine in whole world, Moscato. I always have to “settle” for Riesling, or Pinot Grigio instead. And when I do find it, it’s usually from only the same two wine makers (Gallo and Sutter Home). I have said this before, but I believe most Americans have sharper palates that Eastern Europeans. So Moscatos are not very popular in The States.

Well, the new store has not one but TWO separate sections for Moscatos. I would have taken a picture if I were not the only customer in the store and the cashier was not eyeing me like a hawk. Usually, you find the rare two Moscato wines under the aisle heading “other whites”, or “Riesling”, or even “Sauvignon Blanc”. But in this store, they are their OWN wine, as they should be, of course. They have not only several Moscatos from California that I have never heard about, but also another one from Australia, and even an Italian one!

I once asked a wine store bar tender in Greensboro for Australian Moscato, and they promised me Australians don’t export such things. That they are famous for their dryer varieties. Well, when I saw this today, you can imagine my surprise – right here, in the wine forbidden Utah state, discovery of all times: my “candy” does exist and from Australia, nonetheless! Still no Kilkenny beer , however, but this is a start!

I browsed aisle after aisle (the place is huge and they are still stocking up, with plenty of aisles still empty and awaiting varieties), and I marveled at the diversity of the inventory and at the very affordable prices. It felt good! And thus, I caught myself: I am feeling good, happy even, about drinks! About alcoholic drinks, at that! So, you see, that prompted me to ponder upon my possible addiction.

I also feel sort of an embarrassing kind of guilt when I enter a liquor store around here. Especially in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day! I feel like even the cashier wonders what my problem is to be there that early. Even if they don’t really give me “the looks”, I still feel like they do. I should just come out and say it – “I am not an alcoholic, lady. I am just Romanian. Now point me to the sweet wines, please”.