Food culture of Bakersfield

Many good things about Bakersfield never change - stuffing one's face with food followed by ice cream made the old fashioned way is one of them.

This town may be off the radar screen of most food reviewers, but I love the good old honest downhome vibe of these places :)

Noriega's

Noriega's Restaurant is the oldest Basque boardinghouse and restaurant in the world; it has just been honored as an American classic by the James Beard Foundation.

A Place to Bask in Basque Culture covers the Noriega experience beautifully.

Luigi's

Another Bakersfield classic, always busy, noisy, friendly and happy to see you again. Their BBQ beef sandwich is as good as I remembered it to be. Luigi's just celebrated their 100th anniversary with 5000 happy hungry Bakersfield residents :)

Buck Owen's Crystal Palace

It's at once a stage, show venue, dance hall, restaurant, museum, country store. And much much more. Like it says in the video, even if you are not a fan of anything country and western, you should still come see for yourself at least once. I will have you know cowboy food done well is a culinary experience in a league on it's own.

Dewar's

And finally, like Huell Howser says, "No trip to Bakersfield is complete without a visit to Dewar's".

Mahjong and Satay

They tell me when I left town, I left two "foreign" experiences to remember me by.

The first is mahjong, which they continue to play one afternoon a week. They tell me the weekly game cemented their friendship over the years.

The other is satay which I made for them before there were Singapore/Malaysian/Indonesian restaurants in California; before pre-mixes for satay marinade and peanut sauce were available in Asian grocery stores. They tell me they have not tasted satay that come close to what I make.

Now that I was in town, could I do satay dinner one night? And this time, one of them was tasked to learn the recipe.

Mahjong, with satay on the side. That's my contribution to this group of friends in this town.

I am proud of that :)

Special People

My visit to the US is all about seeing the special people again who played a role as friend and mentor, shaping me into who I am today: someone I like.

I hope to be able to visit often, and look forward to many home dinners, just like the old days.

Goodbye #2003

The storage unit measured 10x15 ft. Crates and boxes stayed stacked from floor to ceiling in #2003 for 10 years. I tried to clear and close down the facility a year ago, but there was just too many details that could not be worked out.

It would have been the same again this time, if not for the immeasurable amount of help extended to me by a very special couple.

With their generous help in the form of physical labour, local knowledge and unquestioning willingness to accommodate every request I asked of them, I finally and certainly put this 10 year burden behind me.

I ended up with a shipment of 5 small cartons containing a lifetime of bittersweet memories coming with me.

Everything else have found loving new homes and owners.

One of the most difficult items I had to leave behind is this piece of serious toy, made all the more difficult because I know I will never own another again.

It is now in the hands of a really good and responsible man, the only person I wanted to be its new owner.
And so, I start making and storing memories again. In another place. With another man.

Seattle-Singapore

The month long visit to North America finally comes to an end. I leave tomorrow morning 11am from Seattle (2am Friday SG time) for the long flight home.

I am always happy to be in the US.

The biggest event was I managed to finally clear out and close down the storage facility I had kept for the last 10 years. With the help of a very good friend, its contents are now suitably re-situated in ways that does justice to the happy memories they have given me.

I spent equal time in Bakersfield, Vancouver and Seattle. There are many things I love in each place, but if I ever lived again in this continent, I would still return to Bakersfield, and visit every place and every one from there.

More on my thoughts and feelings about this place when I am back...

...the wind sure blows cold...

I've always heard it rains a lot in the Pacific North West. I now can attest to that fact.

We left Bakersfield April 30. That was the last we saw the sun.

We've been in Seattle and then Vancouver and Calgary-Banff. We are now back in Vancouver, and will leave on Friday for Seattle again.

I exaggerate not, but it has been rain and gray skies 80% of the time we are here. There has been even a day of snow in Banff! In May!! It isn't miserably cold, but having to be bundled up all the time is getting to me. I want to see myself in pretty skinny clothes once in a way, alright?

But that will have to wait till I get back to Singapore in 10 days' time. For the next week and half, I will live in my pile of clothes.

Like they say in a song, "... the wind sure blows cold way out there ..."

ps I think I need only post one picture of me for this entire trip since I have my leather jacket on every time.

On the road

Short update on my whereabouts:

The man and I were in Seattle after Bakersfield. We then left for Vancouver (more accurately, Burnaby). Four days of being around overseas Chinese was enough to make me grateful for a break away in Banff Alberta.

Banff is beautiful in an almost-alpine way. And as if to prove I am right, it is snowing (yes, SNOWING) this morning, in May!

I don't know that we are up to doing the Lake Louise drive, or take the gondola up Sulphur Mountain in the snow. And staying indoors in a log cabin styled hotel room isn't a bad idea.

I can decide all that in a while more. For now, I am happy to check on email and news snippets online.

More to come.

April

was the month
I went back to Bakersfield at the right time.

All the friends were home. Even the ones who now live outside of Bakersfield came home for the week.

The days were a crisp 20C. Wisps of cloud softened the bright sunny skies with pillowy patterns.

I accomplished two important tasks this time in Bakersfield.

1. I met up with the two special women. The 15 or 16 years melted away as we asked after each other and about the significant people in each others' lives. I am just grateful to manage this start to reacquainting with friends I left behind.

2. I cleared and closed the storage unit! (more of this later).

Believe it or not, I actually hated to leave this town that I once couldn't wait to flee.

Either time does indeed heal all wounds, or time distorts history. It doesn't matter; I have my reasons for loving the place now.

Anjelica with the smiley "c"

We never give housekeeping staff any thought.

We check into the hotel, get into our impeccably tidy room, sleep off the fatigue, and after pulling ourselves together the next day, leave the room to do the tourist thing in town. At day's end, we drag our weary bodies back into the tidied and picked up room and start the whole process again.

We never see the housekeeper whose job it is to make the bed, vacuum the carpet, replace the used bath towels, replenish the toiletries so that we always come back to a room that's spick and span.

So it was recently, with the invisible housekeeper tidying up my room unfailingly, turning a well appointed room into a perfect comfortable retreat at the end of the day.

Then, on the third day, I noticed a folded note propped up against the table lamp. The words, "Have a good day. Housekeeper Anjelica" were carefully written in a childish scrawl, and the letter "c" was stylised into a smiley emoticon. It brought a smile to my face and a cheer to my spirit.

I scribbled on the back of her note, "Thank you. You have a great day too. (my name)" and left it in the same spot for her.

I came back and found her new note: "Thank you. Housekeeper Anjelica" with the letter "c" smiley.

As I readied to check out the next day, I walked down the corridor looking for Anjelica. A housekeeper told me Anjelica had the day off. I did the next best thing I could to reach out to her. I wrote on the reverse side of her note, "Anjelica, thank you for making my stay special. (my name)" and dropped it off with a tip in a sealed envelope at the front desk.

I hope I will meet her someday, somewhere - Anjelica with the smiley "c".

Reawakening the past

It seemed like the right time to close the chapter of my life in Bakersfield. It is time to give up the self-storage unit after all these years.

Everything has a place to go now: the furniture have a new home, the clothes go to Goodwill, and I will bring home what will always be a part of me. The rest can be junked.

Everything was as I left them - in cartons and suitcases- when I fled the town. Now, two inches of desert sand covered all flat surfaces. I could just about hear a whisper of reproach for abandonment carried on the cool breeze of this quiet winter morning.

I started to sort out the inventory. By the third day, I knew I underestimated what has been kept in storage all this time.

These are not just things. These are everything of my life up to when I left Bakersfield. And it was a full life, complete with good and bad times.

There were the pictures: of friends, of my number one and number two dogs, of a much younger me with my sports car, my home, my garden that I had lovingly tended. The crochet afghan throw made by a very special woman. The love letters. The certificates of commendation for civic work done for the local government. So many memories, long suppressed and almost forgotten, stared me in the face, daring me to damn them to oblivion.

I did the only thing I could do. I cleared what I could in the short few days I gave myself in Bakersfield. The rest will stay until my next visit. I know I will be back. Again and again. This place too, was home, for a big part of my life.

Now that the past has been reawakened, it will join me in the present.

Eating orgy

One of the great adventures in travel is to eat at places that one has heard about, or read rave reviews, or seen on food and travel channels.

We did our research on New York City and was looking forward to a marathon of eating orgy such as we have never experienced before.

Unfortunately, we never made any of them because of uncooperative weather. We even braved the pelting snow one night to get to this quirky restaurant only to find its doors tightly shut against the relentless weather.

But still we ate well. Too well in fact. Because the fallback was to duck into any diner that was conveniently close by.

I got reacquainted with the comfort food of Middle America - the burger, the reuben sandwich, the patty melt. The man happily tucked into steaks and barbeque babyback ribs. Always accompanied with a generous side of fries. And when we had enough of the oh-so-good greasy stuff at the greasy spoons, we did the Asian restaurants for Chinese dim sum, Korean BBQ, Vietnamese pho, Indian tandoori, Middle-Eastern shawarma.

And of course, the week in Bakersfield, the friends treated us to the best of all dining experience - home cooked fare.

We had our eating orgy after all in the good old USA...

The Cowboy Store in Microsoft Country

Redmond, Washington. Home to Microsoft Corporation which employs 39,000 of the small city's population of 50,000.

It is nestled between the Cascade mountain range to the east and Puget Sound to the west. It boasts 34 parks and more than 25 miles of trails and is known as the Bicycle Capital of the Pacific North West.

So the last thing I expect to find in this quiet, hilly, wooded enclave of smart business and green ecological haven is a Country and Western store. Walk through its doors, and one is transported to a whole other world, a whole different time.

I spent an afternoon poking around the shop, totally rapt in the array of cowboy necessities and accessories while songs lamenting unrequited love and cheating hearts played.

Out in the west we wear our hats
for a whole lot of different reasons
Some for work, and some for show
but mostly we follow the seasons

Rusty Calhoun

New York New York

There is much to do and more to see in New York City. And we would have loved to do and see them all in the city that never sleeps.

Unfortunately, we were in the right place at the wrong time. The snow blizzard made every attempt to get anywhere too daunting an expedition.

We were parked in midtown Manhattan. We restricted ourselves to places that were either within walking or short cabbing distance.

And happily for us, it was still plenty to take in:

Main picture above: Times Square
Pictures starting from top left:
1. Broadway 2.somewhere in Koreatown 3.Chinatown @ Canal 4.a street fruit stall in Chinatown 5.Macy's on Broadway 6.another view of Times Square.

Main picture above: Central park at dusk.
Pictures starting from top right:
1. Lincoln Center 2.yours truly post performance Rogers and Hammerstein South Pacific 3.street hot dog stand 4.soul brothers acapella 5.Metropolitan Museum of Art 6.yours truly enjoying Met Museum

Snow, snow everywhere

New York in late January/early February can only be described as c-o-l-d. Bitterly, relentlessly, mercilessly cold.

I have been known to say I'd sooner freeze than wear puffy puffy coats and beanies. I had to compromise this time: I wore the beanie (with desperate but futile effort to glam it up with a fashionable scarf), and pulled on a decidedly unglam poncho to protect my trench coat from the wind-driven snow.

Two more days and a couple of degrees colder, and I would probably eat my words and bundle up in a puffy puffy coat.