Jack, Willie, and us...

We’re readying to be “on the road”. Tomorrow we’ll start our road trip to Michigan to join up for our 50th(!!) high school class reunion. How can this happen? - where does that time go? We are not that old. Our path to Michigan is via Wisconsin, through the upper peninsula of Michigan before arriving in East Lansing. I have done some research on the restaurant scene and I hope to have good reports. I have many boyhood memories of the upper edge of Michigan. I hope to re-visit (bearing in mind what Tom Wolfe says) some of those haunts, and maybe have some good meals along the way. Perch, whitefish, and walleye are calling.

Meanwhile, the “best” monster is alive and well. The latest issue of the St. Louis Magazine (hey, we keep in touch) is headlining “the Best new restaurants in St. Louis”, all 15 of them. While some are new, some have faded. The old Blue Water Grill shuttered. The new Washingtonian has the “Best of Annapolis”. I can’t make a dent. What the hell is “best”? Who says what's “best”? for who? Anyway, I will give them credit; they also highlight the “restaurant of the year” in St. Louis. I was pleased to see that it was the humble “Harvest”, tucked on Big Bend Boulevard in Richmond Heights. There are many more glitzy, high end, fusion, places in STL, but the little Harvest that’s next to Hank’s Cheese cakes has been there a good long time. I have dined there infrequently, but I don’t recall a single bad experience. They based their award on consistency. Good for them. It is, after all, about consistency. You can exist on the fad for a couple of years with cute stuff, but to stay in business for 14 years, you have to do something right. Good for them. The chef there is the brother of a kid I coached on the Clayton hockey team…

Well open suitcases await contents, camera and computer gear need to be rounded up and carefully packed, mail stopped, paper pickup arranged for and all those million little details that need to be taken care of before hitting the road.

If we were here this weekend, we’d have to choose between the Wine Fest at Sotterley, the Blessing of the Fleet down at Colton’s point and all the million other things there is nothing to do here in St. Mary’s County.

Will try to stay in cyberspace and update all the thrilling adventures that a road trip always provides. And you can be sure that our packing included the necessities for

DFD

PS: Happy Birthday MFO, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and HoGo