Travel | Tag Sale Tastes

Last year we had a spring break trip planned to Palm Springs, which didn’t happen due to Covid-19. We were fortunately able to rebook the rental house for this spring break, and looked forward to this first travel adventure in more than a year.

We rented Sun Haven Escape through Acme House Company, an immaculate, cheery, comfortable, midcentury-style home that sleeps 8 and was perfect for our gang:

The Palm Springs Mod Squad driving tour — a 90-minute midcentury architecture tour led by the entertaining and extremely knowledgeable Kurt Cyr — should be required on the first day of any vacation in Palm Springs. After all, Palm Springs is “a modernism mecca for mid-century architecture and design.”

Pre-Covid, Kurt would drive you around the city in his van. In the Covid era, however, you follow behind the van in the safety of your own car, connected by cell phones. It worked surprisingly well. And off we go!

Here are a few examples of brise soleil we learned about:

And desert stonework:

And wonderful midcentury homes:

The tour began and ended at the eye-popping Saguaro Hotel:

Another activity our family really enjoyed was the San Andreas Fault Bones of the Earth tour with Red Jeep Tours, with our awesome tour guide Greg:

The approximately 4-hour tour takes place on the private Metate Ranch. The first stop was a palm oasis:

We learned a lot about palms that afternoon. Did you know that palms are not trees, but are actually a type of grass? Did you know that there are more than 2500 different types of palms? (Actually, I knew this.) We now know that palm trunks are composed of something akin to thousands of straws, and do not have rings by which you can count growth:

We also learned that the very resourceful Cahuilla Indians used the fibers from the palm fronds as thread:

So much palm knowledge. But wait — there’s more! We had so much fun bouncing around the desert in the jeep, learning about tectonic plates, the San Andreas fault, and all sorts of geological facts (so many steps closer to being Cliff Clavin):

Everyone got a little creeped out seeing the home of rock-boring bees:

Climbing through a slit canyon was a highlight of the desert tour:

Next up was the fabulous gardens at Sunnylands and a tour of the historic Annenberg estate.

We all enjoyed the 45-minute golf cart tour around the beautiful estate, led by our delightful guide Dan:

No historic estate would be complete without a totem pole

After the tour we strolled around the spectacular gardens filled with cacti and succulents, admission to which is free:

Bonus points for all the hummingbirds flitting about the gardens:

Sunnylands is definitely worth a visit — go in the morning, when the sun is not so strong and you can get great photos.

We wrapped up our trip with a day at Joshua Tree National Park.

The park’s landscape, with its Joshua Trees and huge rocks, is surreal, vaguely prehistoric feeling.

The trail to Barker Dam (which unfortunately was dry due to drought conditions) is easy (trust me) and interesting, with lots of great photo opportunities. In fact, the whole park is pretty much one giant photo opportunity.

Along the trail to Barker Dam

Cap rock

Skull rock

Sweeping views of the Coachella Valley and Salton Sea

The Cholla Cactus Garden was fascinating:

The kids spotted an Influencer in the Wild among the cholla cacti, which was entertaining to say the least, and begged the question “Is she wearing underwear?” (It had been a long day):

After a year of Covid-19 restrictions, it was great to travel (although I declare airport security a superspreader event), and this was thankfully a trip that everyone enjoyed and won’t soon forget. Check back for Part II, which will feature some of the restaurants we enjoyed in Palm Springs (this is a food blog, after all).

Last month I was able to get away for two weekend trips in a row, a rarity for me. The first trip was to visit my dad, sister, and nephew in Boca Raton. I generally don’t look forward to travel to Florida — for me, it’s just going from one hot, humid place to another. But just as you can’t pick your relatives, you also can’t pick where they live, so off to Boca Raton we headed for an overdue family visit.

Most of the visit consisted of eating with my family. In between meals we had a little time to kill, and spent an hour or so strolling the grounds at the Morikami Japanese Gardens in nearby Delray Beach. The gardens were a nice respite:

Fat and happy

Purple leaf shooting star plant

Tillandsia

Saturday night my sister invited us to the club at her community for its “Seafood Extravaganza,” a buffet the likes of which we’d never seen. Extravaganza was an understatement — we were overwhelmed by the seafood selections — giant boiled shrimp, clams and oysters on the half shell, gigantic stone crab claws, sushi, smoked fish, and the star of the buffet . . . 2-lb. lobsters:

Driving around downtown Boca Raton, we passed a tree growing in the middle of a parking lot that was covered in pink flowers and was so pretty I thought it was fake:
I made my husband stop for a closer look, and found that not only was the tree real, it was spectacular:

Cassia javanica

Before we left we met up for brunch at Bagel City South. Here, I discovered “flagels” — flat bagels. The bagel dough is shaped, rolled flat, boiled, and then baked, resulting in a flagel roughly the size of a 45 rpm record, with lots of surface area for schmears:

The whitefish salad platter, which I can’t ever seem to pass up, was fresh and tasty, and a nice ending to my weekend in Boca Raton:

Where’s my flagel?

I spent the following weekend in San Antonio with my daughter. San Antonio is an easy getaway from Houston, and I love visiting there. Tired after a long week at work, we went quick, casual, and tasty for dinner at Demo’s, 2501 N. St. Mary’s St. (there are three locations), which has been serving excellent Greek food for 41 years:

The generous chicken and gyro plate came with Greek salad, stuffed grape leaf, pita, onions, and tzatziki:

Pro tip: pick up a container of tzatziki with pita to enjoy at home.

Before heading out for some shopping the next day, we stopped at Bird Bakery for coffee and a perfectly crumbly chocolate chip scone.

I love this charming shop — it’s the kind of place I used to dream about owning:

We spent a few hours shopping at The Shops at La Cantera, which was really nice on this pretty day, but I think might be brutal in the summer:

We had a wonderful dinner at Clementine, 2195 NW Military Highway. The bright and congenial restaurant has one of the most open kitchens I’ve seen, and the owners/chefs John and Elise Russ are highly visible:

We started with the hush puppies with herb laden labneh, honey, and sumac, which were very good but filling, and if there are less than four in your party, I might suggest skipping these and saving room for dessert:

A side order of sweet potatoes with black garlic was a different and delicious twist:We flipped over the Ricotta Cavatelli with broccoli-top pesto, Sichuan peppercorns, toasted pecans, Parmesan — seriously, don’t skip this:

For our main course we chose the Brick Chicken, chamomile brined with chimichurri. Chef John came by and told us that he knows it can be hard to get excited about chicken in a restaurant, but that their chicken was brined for 4 hours and then cooked under a weight so that the skin got crispy, and he promised it was delicious. Say no more — he was right:

I really really wanted to order the Pink Peppercorn Donuts with pineapple and pink peppercorn ice cream that the party next to us was having, but it was just too much for the two of us. We were happy to learn, though, that we could order just a small scoop of the pink peppercorn ice cream, which was perfect. We plan to return to Clementine with a bigger group and trust Chef John to create a tasting menu for the table.

Sunday morning we went to the farmers market at the Pearl Brewery, one of my favorite places in San Antonio. In addition to shops, restaurants, and the beautiful Hotel Emma, there’s also a large grassy area where children and dogs scamper about. It’s a fun, happy place: