Patti Picasso's Pages: OIL, ALMONDS AND GOLDEN HILLS

This was to be our last day in Pacific Grove, so we decided to drive to Carmel again and drink in the beauty of the coast. There are pelicans, cormorants, seals and seagulls everywhere you look.

We love to watch the pelicans as they fly along in formation and then spot fish in the ocean and dive for them.

We won't have this beautiful landscape once we return to Texas, so we needed to take advantage of it.
We drove along 17 Mile Drive for the last time on this trip and then on to Carmel for lunch.

I'm always amazed at the homes along this stretch of road. They are so big and so beautiful.

The architecture along the way varies tremendously but I think I love the old traditional style best (and who wouldn't).

This one was for sale but I seriously doubt that we could work it into our budget ... especially when a hamburger coats $16.00 and that was without the fries! Prices are off the charts all over California. It's almost as pricey as it was in Sweden.

After driving around for a while in Carmel, we finally found a place to park. Parking here is very limited just like it is in Santa Fe. We wanted to have lunch at this charming little Italian Bistro where we had eaten several years before.

I wasn't terribly hungry, so I had a combination pasta and salad dish and it was perfect.

I had forgotten how delicious anchovies are. They never put them on a Caesar Salad in Texas. The salty taste really enhanced the flavor of the dish.
When we had been to Carmel several years ago, we happened upon a place where there were hundreds of pelicans so we decided to return to this fascinating spot. We drove around what seemed to be forever trying to remember where it was to no avail. We finally stopped at the Monastery just outside of Carmel and asked for directions.

We didn't know if this place had a name and also couldn't remember where it was located. The lady in the gift shop at the Monastery was very helpful and told us that it was the called Carmel River Wetlands. She also gave us excellent directions.

The terrain had really changed over the past several years and there was not a pelican in sight. The waterline was much farther out than it had been before so the pelicans had left. We were very disappointed but at least we had a great meal in town.
It was time to head for home and get packed for an early departure and our next destination ... Los Angeles.
We decided not to take Highway 1 as we had done that before and as beautiful as the drive is, it's so very slow and has a lot of traffic.
I had forgotten that the hills are golden this time of year and very beautiful. They look like velvet.

Then suddenly there were trees everywhere! We kept looking at them until we finally figured out they were almond trees. I'd never thought about where almonds came from. Didn't even realize that they grew on trees!

Miles and miles of almond trees.

Then suddenly the trees stopped and the oil fields started.

There were as many oil wells pumping as there were almonds growing. What a surprise. I thought only West Texas and the Middle East had that many oil wells!

It was a pretty amazing and unexpected sight!
We arrived in LA around noon. I had forgotten how horrendous the traffic was there. Franklin lived there for a year and he said that it was dreadful then and I'm sure that it's even worse now. We have friends whom we met on our trip to China that live in LA and they graciously invited us to come and stay with them for a few days.

They have a home in Beverlywood which is a section of LA. Frank and Jack always have a great time visiting and so do Helen and I.

They have 2 dogs, Jimmy the Chihuahua and Jessica (I'm not sure what breed she is)

Jess was such a sweet dog but Jimmy was another story. He doesn't like strangers, so it took Frank 2 days to be able to pet him without him growling at him and he never did take to me. They do love their "Mommy", however.

Their home was lovely ... very Californian. It's an older home, was decorated beautifully and they have recently remodeled it.

Helen makes jewelry so she has turned one corner of the living area into a studio.

The whole family is very talented. Helen's sister and her husband are artists. They do beautiful work. Here is a table that her brother-in-law, Alisha, made. He is from Israel and is a glass artist.

Her sister, Rhonda, is a metal artist and works with bronze and copper. Below is one of the lamps that she designed and made. It's 6 feet tall.

Rhonda also makes beautiful and unusual jewelry as well as her larger works of art. Here is one of her pieces, a pin in the shape of a pomegranate. I love it!

The Volotzkt/Kap Studio, is located in Cornell, CA in the Santa Monica Mountains off Mullholland Highway. We had the privilege of visiting their studio while we were staying with Jack and Helen. The unfortunate thing about our visit there was that it was the hottest day in the history of LA ... they broke a record with a temperature of 116 degrees. That wouldn't have been so bad with the exception of the fact that the air-conditioning in their card wasn't working properly and it took us about an hour and a half with all the traffic to get to Rhonda's and Alisha's home. I thought I was sitting in an oven! We left Texas so we could get out of the heat and as soon as we left our state, a cool front moved in and we had a heat wave in California. Go figure!
Their work is truly amazing. Here are a few shots that were taken in their studio. This is the workplace where Alisha's glass work begins.

and here is where Rhonda gets her inspiration.

The studio and finished pieces of art are upstairs in the showroom. Here are some of their creations. If you double click on any of the photographs in this blog, they will open in another window and will be larger.

Jack and I took a break from the heat and nibbled on grapes and figs that they had grown and the Volotzky's recommended a winery down the road where we could sample the wine and look at the art.

It was a very quaint place and something that I had really not expected to find in California. It looked more like it should have been on the High Road to Taos in New Mexico to me.

It was very nice inside and also nice and cool which we all appreciated! It was a pleasant break from the heat and traffic on the freeways on a Sunday afternoon.

They had a wonderful tasting room that could be used for private parties and large groups. This would be a great place to have a dinner party.

The boys waited for us there while we used the facilities and shopped a little.

The traffic on the way back home wasn't as bad as it was going, and we went to a place like the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The Lassley's like to eat early, so we stopped there for dinner on the way home. In fact, I think the place was owned by the same people who own Cheesecake Factory. I opted to have the crab cakes and they were excellent.

They were on the appetizer menu but it was just the right amount of food.
The night before we had eaten at this Korean restaurant and it was certainly different. When we left this restaurant we went by Helen's mother's home. She lived in Beverly Hills, not too terribly far from Jack and Helen.

I hadn't taken my camera and all I had was my iPhone, so I found this photograph of her on Facebook. I wish I had a better image to post as she is such a beautiful lady. She was a lovely woman and was not only a gracious hostess, but as sweet as she was pretty. And she is so proud of her family. It was our pleasure to get to meet her.

And now back to the Korean story!

We had no idea what to order or what to do when they brought us what we had ordered. You had to cook your own food on this grill that was built into the table. The young man who waited on us turned the fire on, put something that looked like a piece of raw fish on the grill and then put a couple of what looked like pancakes on it and left. I apologize for the quality of the photos but I was using my phone for these shots and it was a very low light situation.

We found out later that the "fish" was actually a piece of fat (ugh!) that we were supposed to use to grease the grill but no one told us that. They then brought us all these little dishes filled with things that we couldn't identify,

a bowl of some sort of white bubbling foaming stuff that I did NOT choose to taste,

and finally the raw meat that we had to cook! It looked like bowls of raw entrails and not very appetizing.

We then started to prepare our meal and needless to say, since we had not greased the grill, all of the meat and chicken stuck!

All in all and nearly $100 later, we finished the meal and I don't ever plan to eat that kind of food again! I've been referred to as a human garbage disposal when it comes to food, but this went way beyond the call of duty. The very least the waiter could have done was tell is what to do since he knew that we were first timers! As far as I was concerned it was the only bad food experience we had on this trip and we all survived it. Live and learn!
We left LA the next morning and were on our way to Newport Beach. We had a lovely time with our friends but house guests are like fish. After 3 days they start to smell, so it was time to move on.