October 13, 2016 Woodstock to NYC Lunch – Olea’s Dinner – La Vara

October 13, 2016 Woodstock to NYC Lunch – Olea’s  Dinner – La Vara

I awakened at 6:15 at the diurnal shift again and showered, packed and dressed by 7:30.  Luke ran the clothes washer and dryer until 8:00 when we left for Woodstock.  We arrived at 8:30 for the 8:57 bus to NYC.

  Luke's house

Suzette and Luke went to Bread Alone for breakfast sandwiches.  They bought egg sandwiches with ham or sausage and bought me an everything bagel with cream cheese and lax. 

  Luke and an egg sandwich 

They ate their sandwiches as we waited for the bus.  I ate 1/2 of mine on the way into NYC.  We went through the Linchpin on Tunnel, which is always exciting for me and arrived at Port Authority around 11:50. 

Suzette and I don’t oak a taxi to Luke’s apartment and washed up and walked to The Brooklyn Art a museum by way of Olea’s Restaurant where I had an end of summer salad with sautéed corn kernels with grilled Merguez sausage and a side of arugula dressed with a light vinaigrette.  Then I ate the other ½ of my bagel with lax.  I then had enough energy to walk the mile to the Brooklyn Museum.  We saw the American collection and European collections.  The American collection is wonderful.  It includes three great paintings; a full length portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart painted while he was alive in 1796,  an Eastman Johnson “A Ride to Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves” from 1862, and my favorite Edward Hicks “The Peaceful Kingdom”.

There were several great European paintings including one of the best a Claude Monet’s I have ever seen of the Doge’s Palace.

After we saw the two floors of art we walked to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which wraps around two sides of the Brooklyn Art Museum and is 55 acres.  We walked through the conservatories and saw the amazing Bonsai collection and the beautiful Japanese garden.  

We taxied back to Luke’s apartment for a short nap.  We got ready by 7:00 to go to dinner and said hello to Jennifer, Luke’s landlord.

I woke up with a thought at 2:00 am.  Joseph Campbell and Jung were interested in cultural anthropological commonalities in sacred icons and myths.

Is there also common myths and imagery in astrology common todifferentcultures?  For example,the Mayans and the Muslims, or Hawaiians.  Has anyone done anthropological studies of cosmology or astrology across different cultures and what did they find?

In other words looked at astrology from a cultural anthropological perspective?

We met Rebecca at La Vara and soon Mickie joined us.

We had a wonderful Spanish waiter from Barcelona who was either gay or one of the most effusive persons I have ever met or both.  Luke said that he had just spent the day with someone exactly like our waiter who was going to handle the bar for Luke’s party next week, so perhaps it is a more common person than I suspect is out there and I have simply not run into them.

I was having trouble reading the wine list and menu in the low light, so I finally told the waiter that I wanted a Verdejo white from Rueda and a Tempranillo red blend from Rioja.  I also suggested that we did not want to spend a lot of money and he suggested a $44.00 white named Menade’ that was very fresh tasting and fruity.  I loved it.

For the red the waiter suggested a 2013 La Antigua Classico Reserva at $52.00.  I ordered a bottle of it and everyone loved its smoothness and lightness.

I did the same thing with the food. I told the waiter we wanted to try mostly Judeo-Iberian dishes and let him suggest a tasting menu

We started with a white gazpacho with an almond milk base poured over a mound of shredded calamari and bay scallops for which the waiter poured glasses of white wine.  The combination was fabulous.  Then in quick succession we were served two duck sliced breasts with poached figs that was fabulous,  a flat bread drizzled with blue cheese and an onion compote, then a really yummie Migas made with bread, sausage, herbs and spices and halved white grapes and a quail egg yolk floating on the top, then a pressed rectangle of braised lamb, a very interesting cucumber and sprout salad, a very interesting piece of bread spread with a spreadable sausage and then covered with a honey foam, and finally 1/2 roasted chicken in a heavy combination of herbs and spices in an onion compote.

We had had some much exciting food, we could not finish the chicken,but that did not stop us from trying a dessert.  We all agreed on the natilla, even though Mickie could not eat any because he is lactose intolerant.  It's dry interesting, a blended light custard filling about ½ of a shot glass with most of the rest of the glass filled with a clear liquid that tasted like a dry sherry mixed with a clear Spanish Brandy or eat d vie. It was very alcoholic and quite tasty.

We talked a bit longer but by 10:00 we said goodnight.

Bon Appetit