Nevada City bon temps

Saturday mornings in Nevada City these days center around the new weekly farmers' market on Union Street from 8 a.m. to noon (until the end of October), which brings in scores of locals for a block-long happening that has a festival atmosphere. There's usually a folk, bluegrass or jazz band playing, drawn from this area's large community of musicians. (When you're in the vicinity tune your radio to KVMR, 89.5 FM, the local community radio station with its fun, quirky programming, including the Tibetan Radio Hour, the Patchouli Haze and lots of world music).

Last Saturday, over the long Fourth of July weekend when hazy, smoke-filled skies from wildfires cast a bit of a pall over festivities, local produce vendors displayed a bounty of fruit and vegetables. Flour Garden, a local bakery, sold some delicious organic breads. After wandering and sampling a bit, I headed to my favorite breakfast spot in town, Ike's Quarter Cafe, up the hill a couple of blocks on Commercial Street. The shady patio, enclosed by a white picket fence, was full on this warm summer morning but a table soon freed up. Ike and Adrienne, the owners, are not from Louisiana but they were inspired by New Orleans to create a restaurant with creole and cajun influences while using naturally raised meats, organic eggs, grains, flour and vegetables. All breads are made in house and, whenever possible, the produce is local. The menu is almost overwhelming, with a large selection of frittatas, egg scrambles, potato boats, flapjacks and biscuits and gravy. There's also something called "gasserhousers" that were new to me: pieces of toast with eggs that are nestled inside two holes and topped with peppers, onions, sausages or a variety of other options. I settled on the roasted corn flaps, flapjacks with roasted corn inside with a side of bacon and got two nicely done pancakes oozing with corn. My traveling companion ordered cornmeal crusted oysters topped with a delicious mild green salsa sauce. The spirit of the place is friendly and fun. As it says on the menu "Laissez le bon temps rouler."
There seems to be no shortage of that attitude in Nevada City, which has a calendar full of events (Wednesday evening Summer Nights Festival of music is one) this summer and beyond.

Bodega Bay in a Chowder Bowl

Up at Bodega Bay on a gorgeous clear day recently, I stumbled across the Spud Point Crab Co. on the road to Bodega Head and the Bodega Marine Laboratory, where I was headed to do research for an article (which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle June 22). There was a line out the door and I wasn't hungry yet, but when I saw the sign warning that crab cakes often sell out by noon I had to wait and order some -- they are one of my favorite foods. Tony and Carol Anello run the place, which is nothing fancy, just a couple of picnic tables outside. He's a crab fisherman and she's the cook. They live in the neat, one-story house next door and take only Wednesdays off. During crab season, the crab cakes and crab sandwiches are made with the catch that Tony hauls in each morning from the waters outside the bay. When I told them I was running out to the lab for hike and a tour (the lab is only open on Fridays 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.) but I didn't want to miss their crab cakes, they said they would set aside a couple for me to have later. I returned just before they closed at 5 p.m. and the scene had quieted. Tony and Carol dished up some of their delicious clam chowder and cooked up a couple of those superb crab cakes -- chunks of fresh crab with a light, crisp crust -- and told me the story of how Carol decided to turn her chowder -- which had always drawn raves from family and friends -- into a business. The Spud Point Crab Co. has only been open since 2004, but it has built a rabid following due to Carol's cooking. On a recent Wednesday morning, Carol woke to find a note on her front door: someone from the Midwest claimed to have driven all the way to Bodega Bay for a bowl of her chowder only to find the doors locked. "They said they would come back and I hope they do," Carol said.

Lazy days at Shasta

When you see some of its 370 miles of shoreline, there's no doubt why Lake Shasta is one of the most popular places for houseboating in the U.S. The lake was formed by four rivers -- the Sacramento, McCloud, Squaw and Pit -- whose waters are contained by Shasta Dam. The result is a lake -- the largest in California -- with hundreds of coves, shores of evergreen trees and 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta towering in the distance. On a recent trip up to the area I got the opportunity to view both some of the typical boats available and the most lavish of a new generation of houseboats which have opened up the upscale market to houseboat companies. Seven Crown Resorts is the largest of the companies at Shasta and one of the three largest houseboat firms in the U.S. with fleets also in the Sacramento Delta. Its boats offer some of the lowest rates with one, the Cascade, starting at $750 for a two-night rental. All the boats have air conditioning, a full kitchen, a gas barbecue, large ice chest, bathroom with shower and sundeck and deck chairs. They have always been -- and continue to be -- a popular choice for families and groups of friends who share the costs of a houseboat vacation, making it a good value. The more lavish boats included those from some other companies -- Houseboats.com, Shasta Marina Resort, Holiday Harbor and Silverthorn Resort. These are not the typical houseboats (prices can be up to $17,000 per week) that you may have rented in college or with your family. They have large flat-screen TVs, gleaming kitchens with full-size appliances and granite counter tops, hot tubs, and full bars on sundecks, plush carpeting in bedrooms and decor throughout that looks like it belongs in the pages of a glitzy interior design magazine. One of the oldest tourism groups in the state, the Shasta Cascade Wonderland Association, has a handy site with lots of information and links to the variety of houseboat vacation options.

Redding! Who Knew?

"It's the most expensive trailhead in the world," said Bob Warren, president of the Redding Convention and Visitors Bureau, as he showed me and a group of travel writers the city's Sundial Bridge a couple of weeks ago. Warren is all smiles today about the $23.2 million span that is the southern point of the Sacramento River Recreation Trail.

But he and others here admit there was some apprehension when the city fathers came up with the idea of asking world famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to design a pedestrian span over the Sacramento River. It was a lot of money to spend on a bridge for a relatively small city (pop. 90,000). And, the design was daring, a walking surface of translucent glass with a 21-story pylon on the north bank of the river that supports the bridge. (Town lore has it that Calatrava was taken by the innocence of the Redding official who called his studio one day and happened to reach the busy architect, who was intrigued by the offer of a relatively obscure northern California town wanting him to design a bridge).

Take a walk today day or night on the Sundial Bridge and there's no doubt the success of the span, which has become not only an landmark for Redding but a hugely popular spot for locals. The bridge brings residents out in the evenings, giving them a place to go. Beyond that it's a piece of striking architecture that, some would say, shows what good design can do for a city. (It also has a function. Because of the exact north-south orientation of the span, the pylon is, in effect, the upright element of the sundial, making it the world's tallest). It's a shame that the adjacent riverside cafe closes in the at dusk because on a recent warm evening all that was needed was a light aperitif or a cup of coffee sipped on its patio and you could have mistaken Redding for a European city as you watched couples and families stroll the bridge.

It's the perfect starting point to a hike, bike or Segway ride on the Sacramento River Trail, which follows an old rail line along the river. There are about nine miles of trails today but more are being added all the time. When completed in a couple of years the trail system will reach all the way to Shasta Dam, 13 miles north. Some of the prettiest parts of the trail are from the Sundial Bridge a couple of miles to the Ribbon Bridge and returning on the other side of the river.

There's much more to recreation around Redding, however. A few miles east is Whiskeytown Lake, which is among the towering Klamath Mountains and includes snow-covered 6,199-foot Shasta-Bally. Part of the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area, the lake has forest-covered shoreline, a sandy beach, many campsites, loads of picnic places, hiking trails and water-related activities, including free (yes, something free courtesy of Uncle Sam!) ranger-led kayak trips twice daily.

Surf's Up, Or Not

The heat wave that hit the Bay Area last week spared Santa Cruz. While most of the region was blistering hot (even in San Francisco temperatures shot up to 97 degrees) Santa Cruz was comfortable, in the low 90s with a cool ocean breeze.
But Thursday, the peak of the heat wave, wasn't a great day for surfers at the legendary Steamer Lane surfing spot off of West Cliff Drive. The waters were relatively calm and there were long waits between waves.
On the cliff above Steamer Lane, I poked around the red brick Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse (above), the home of the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum. This is a tiny one-room museum -- the first surfing museum in the world when it opened in 1986 -- but it's packed with fascinating stuff. Particularly interesting are the photographs of Hawaiian royalty who introduced the sport to mainlanders at Santa Cruz and the long wooden surfboards used in the early 1900s.
The big news in Santa Cruz these days is the renovation and re-opening of the Dream Inn, the multi-story hotel on West Cliff Drive overlooking Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Cowell Cove, where thousands of surfers learned the sport. Expect a much-needed stylish boutique hotel, operated by Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the dynamic San Francisco hotel company, to emerge in June, just in time for the peak season.

I headed a couple of miles north of the Dream Inn, along cliff-hugging West Cliff Drive, to Natural Bridges State Park. The park (photo above) is always full of schoolchildren on field trips to learn about the migration of the 100,000 plus Monarch butterflies that spend the winter clustered on the eucalyptus trees here. I've never made it for butterfly season but the exhibits at the visitors center inspired me to mark my calendar for a visit sometime next November or December.
That's months away. Until then, there's lots of summer to enjoy.

Skyline-to-the-Sea Sunday

Castle Rock State Park is well-known to rock climbers and hikers who live in the Santa Clara Valley but, to most of us, it's one of a somewhat confusing string of parks and open space preserves with overwhelming hiking options along Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35) in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Last weekend, a friend and I headed up there on a sunny, warm Sunday morning. We walked the Saratoga Gap Trail, a lovely 5.2-mile loop (connect to the Ridge Trail on the return from the Castle Rock campground or it will be a 7-mile plus hike).
The ranger at the park entrance warned us it would be hot and it was, particularly on the hill-hugging exposed sections of the trail facing west, where there are some fine views of the Pacific ocean and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most times of the year, a cool breeze would blow from the west but, on this day, the air was still and the sun scorching. There's no water along the trail, (except at the campground which is about half way along the route and one-tenth of a mile off the trail) so bring at least two quarts per person if you get a day such as this, when the temperatures reached the mid 80s. However, much of the trail is in lovely cool shade of redwoods, firs, oaks and madrones. We came across several kinds of wildflowers, including a meadow of lupine. Sandstone rock formations, hollowed from the wind, were awesome. The walk was a good work out with some steep spots and a little bit of scrambling up and down some rocky paths.
Back at the Castle Rock park entrance, we got in the car and drove north on Skyline Boulevard made a left on Alpine Road and slowly drove the green hills and hairpin turns, past cattle ranches and farms until we reached Highway 84 heading toward San Gregorio, a route which has to be the prettiest springtime drive in San Mateo County. The weather was spectacular, even at the coast. We poked around the old San Gregorio Store but had just missed the afternoon's live music. Continuing north to Half Moon Bay we stopped at the Flying Fish Grill, where the halibut fish and chips and the fish tacos are quite good and the friendly service and bright tropical setting make a fun stop for a quick bite.
I kicked myself for forgetting my camera on such a gorgeous day, but above is my favorite photo of Half Moon Bay and environs: a crab fisherman at the Princeton harbor.

Old, Old Vines

You see it on wine labels: "Old Vines." The term typically implies an intense, robust wine, probably from a winery with a history as old as California. In Sonoma County's Alexander Valley the other day, I joined a tour at Sausal Winery, which makes wine from vines from the 1870s. Acres of vines radiate out from the tasting room but there's no mistaking which are the old ones: bare in the spring, they are thicker and more gnarled than Sausal's other vines. The winery is owned by the Demostene family, whose first crush under the Sausal name was in the fall of 1973. The winery is small, producing 10,000 cases a year. The Family Zinfandel is made from vines that average 50 years of age; Private Reserve Zinfandel is from vines that average 90 years of age. The grandaddy of them all is Century Vines Zinfandel, produced from those old vines, documented to be more than 130 years old. We were shown through the winery grounds by Mark Housar, vineyard manager at Alexander Valley Vineyards, a friendly competitor and Sausal neighbor. When vines get this old, Housar explained, they have a bigger trunk and better root system. They produce grapes with a greater concentration of flavor, which translates into a more intense wine. Housar led us on foot through Sausal's vineyards and a couple of miles further to Alexander Valley Vineyards, a lovely walk that took us past a restored 1868 former one-room schoolhouse that was also the original home of Cyrus Alexander, one of the pioneers of the area. You normally can't tromp through California vineyards like this. But a tour company, Zephyr Adventures, has come up with a unique way of seeing the Sonoma wine country: multi-day walking tours from vineyard to vineyard, led by a local winemaker or owner. At a couple of scenic spots along the route, tables will be set up where walkers will sample the finished product. It's designed to be a more intense and intimate winery experience than sipping in a tasting room. As Housar said as he wound up his talk on a hilltop overlooking acres of vineyards (while enjoying a picnic lunch of Alexander Valley wines and sandwiches from the locals' favorite deli, the Jimtown Store): for wine lovers, there isn't a better place to be.

Spring has Sprung

Since spending a couple of days in Amador County last April to research Great Escapes: Northern California, I've been looking forward to another spring trip there. (It's also the Great Escape of the Month on my Web site). On a recent weekday morning, a friend and I drove up to Jackson, Sutter Creek, Amador City and the tiny burg of Volcano. Without traffic, this trip is easily accomplished as a day trip from San Francisco. Antique hunters already know this. The towns have some of the best antique shops in the state. It's possible to head out in the morning, stop at Water Street Antiques in Jackson or Miner's Pick in Amador City and be home by sundown with a 19th century dresser, Gold Rush-era bottle or rusty wrought iron plant stand at prices well below those in the Bay Area.
But our goal was Daffodil Hill, the pioneer settlement from 1887 just above Volcano where four generations of the McLaughlin family have planted thousands of daffodil bulbs. The slim green reeds and accompanying yellow and white blossoms emerge sometime between mid-March and mid-April, an event that is anticipated for weeks (to find out if the place is open, which means the daffodils are still blooming, call the Daffodil Hill telephone hotline at 209-296-7048). Entrance to the six-acre hillside, with postcard-perfect historic barn and outbuildings, is free. The family accepts donations, collected in old yellow tea kettles. The money goes toward the purchase of between 7,000 and 8,000 bulbs each year that are added to those already in the ground -- a total of 300 varieties and 500,000 blooms. When the flowers wilt and die, it's over for another year. Last winter was a cold one so the daffodil show isn't as spectacular as some years, one of the volunteers manning the entrance said. But for first-timers with nothing to compare it to, it was quite a sight (see photo above).
From there, it was a beautiful drive down the mountain along Shake Ridge Road to Sutter City, the Gold Rush town named the prettiest in the state in this month's Sunset magazine. Our aim was lunch at Andrae's Bakery and Cheese Shop in Amador City, where sandwiches made from freshly baked bread and a slice of the melt-in-your-mouth Basque cake are worth a long drive.
Our other aim was to get a good bottle of wine. We took the sandwiches and drove north to Plymouth, the gateway to Amador County's wine country of rolling hills that during the spring are a lush green. The area is called the Shenandoah Valley, a name pioneers gave because (in the California spring) it reminded them of Virginia's Blue Ridge Valley.
East on Shenandoah Road past several wineries and about seven miles from Plymouth is Sobon Estate, which was founded in 1856 by the Uhlinger family from Switzerland. After a quick tasting to find a good match for our turkey and ham sandwiches, we settled on Hillside Zinfandel, a good value at $10 a bottle.
Sobon is a terrific place to get a sense of Amador County history. The winery is a California Historical Landmark, having been in continuous operation since before the Civil War (it even kept going through Prohibition when it made limited amounts of wine for sacramental use, which was allowed). A barn-like museum contains displays, including casks, crushers, kitchen tools and old appliances (a butter press, lard press, sausage stuffer, cabbage cutter and butter mold, among them).
You'll never complain about doing laundry again after reading late 19th century instructions from a mother to a daughter describing the best way to do "the wash."
1. Build a fire in the backyard to heat a kettle of rainwater.
2. Set tub so smoke will not blow in your eyes if wind is present.
3. Shave a whole cake of lye soap in the boiling water.
4. Sort clothes in three piles -- one of whites, one of coloreds and one of rags and britches.
5. Stir flour in cold water until smooth, then thin down with boiling water to make starch.
6. Rub dirty spots on the board, then boil them. Rub colored clothes, but do not boil. Take white things out of kettle with broom handle, then rinse, blue and starch.
7. Hang clothes on line except tea towels, which should be spread on the grass. Hang old rags on the fence.
8. Pour rinse water in flower beds.
9. Scrub privy seat and floor with soapy water.
10. Turn tubs upside down. Put on a clean dress, comb hair. make a cup of tea to drink while you sit and rest a spell, and count your blessings.