Destination: California (Candyland by book)

Book: See’s Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet Story (2005) by Margaret Moos Pick

Review and Recipe by Brette Sember

One of my family’s favorite vacation activities is to take tours of fun food production facilities. We’ve visited the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA, the Byrd Cookie Company in Savannah and the Charleston Tea Plantation (home to American Classic Tea), among many others. It’s always simply fascinating to see where and how your favorite treats are made (and enjoy some samples while there!).

One food factory tour I would love to take is of See’s Candies. We sampled See’s Candies while in California and they now top my list of favorites. See’s doesn’t offer tours to their Los Angeles or San Francisco factories or to any of their other facilities, sadly. The next best thing is See’s Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet Story by Margaret Moos Pick. This little book is just as delicious as a box of candies and is a journey not only to See’s locations, but through time as well.

Inside the cover you are immediately greeted with a montage of See’s treats, candy for your eyes. See’s is now controlled by Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffet wrote the preface. Diving into the book is like a trip to vintage California, something I find incredibly kitschy and fun, like an old postcard or the Hollywood sign.

I learned so much about See’s that I really do feel as if I took a tour and spent some time in one of their shops, just chatting with employees. There really was a Mary See and See’s still uses her candy recipes. They aren’t kidding when they call them old-fashioned candies. The family photos are fantastic and offer a glimpse into what California used to be like, with flowering trees and quaint homes in the background.

See’s began in L. A. in the Roaring 20’s when Californians had extra income and a feeling of celebration. What better time to start selling delicious candies? One of my favorite photos in the book is of the delivery motorcycle that was used to personally deliver orders during this time period. A tiny little country cottage with white eyelet curtains was built on the back of a motorcycle with the See’s name prominently displayed.

See’s was off to a great start, but then the crash came. The fledging company held on with smart moves when it came to price (reducing it) and quality (never sacrificing it). By the 1940’s See’s quaint country cottage style shops had spread all the way to San Jose and Sacramento. The photos of these shops are simply stunning. With striped awnings, black and white floors, adorable cases, white paneled walls and salesgirls in white nurse-like uniforms with giant black bow ties, See’s had created a look all its own. See’s has now become a company with stores all over the world.

The book goes behind the scenes with photos of the candy-making process in its L. A. facilities. You can walk through the process and see a wide variety of machines and workers. There’s even a “nut room” where nuts are assessed for quality before being shelled for candy making. One of my favorite tidbits from the book is that the famous I Love Lucy candy factory episode was actually filmed in See’s factory in L. A. !

The pages also include fun stories about shop openings (involving a Chinese Lion Dance and firecrackers in Kowloon and a famous jazz band in San Francisco) as well as vignettes about employees and family members. I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you that the book contains lots and lots of photos of amazing candies (honestly, I never even knew what a bonbon was and now I am going to have to order some from See’s).

See’s doesn’t share any of their recipes (a crime!) so to sate your appetite for sweets, I’m share my family recipe for fudge:

Gai’s Fudge

1 cup milk
2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
Dash of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Warm the milk over low heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it is melted and smooth. Stir in sugar, corn syrup and salt. Cook over low to medium heat until it reaches 236 degrees (soft ball stage). Remove from the heat and stir in butter. Cool, stirring until it is lukewarm. Stir in the vanilla and the nuts. Pour into an 8×8 buttered pan and cool completely, then cut into squares.

Do you have a favorite food tour from your travels?

Brette Sember is a regular contributor to A Traveler’s Library, bringing us her expertise on traveling with taste–food that inspires travel.  Brette is a super busy author, and you should check out her latest food books, The Parchment Paper Cookbook (I have been cooking from it since it arrived just before Christmas), The Muffin Tin Cookbook and The Organized Kitchen (Yep! I need that!).

Disclaimer: The links to Amazon in this post are there for your convenience, but they also are affiliate links. Anything you buy when using the links in this post, although it costs you no more, earns a few cents for Brette Sember. She thanks you.

And let me hasten to inform you that although the pictures above do portray See’s chocolates, they do not come from the book being reviewed. Instead we got the pictures from Flickr and use them under the Creative Commons License. You can click on any picture to learn more. The I Love Lucy video is one of several copies on YouTube.

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Old Town San Diego

Destination: California

Book: California: On-the-Road-Histories by Victor Silverman and Laurie Glover

Interlink Books publishes hundreds of books that add depth to our travel.  I have raved here before about their Traveller’s History (eg. this one on Italy) series, which capsulize the entire history of a country. So I looked forward to taking a look at the On-the-Road-Histories, a series that will eventually cover all 50 states.  The publisher sent me a complementary copy of  California: On the Road Histories, their most current volume in this series, for review.

This brick of a book contains a very thorough history of the state that equals the size of many countries. I particularly like that it does not ignore the first people who inhabited California, because although the Spanish history provides a fascinating period and many interesting sites to visit, Europeans were latecomers to the varied landscape of the state. Kudos also for telling the bad along with the good.

It is rare to read a history that is as entertaining as it is informative. The writers refuse to take themselves–or their subject–too seriously.  Anyone who has driven through the desert community of Barstow, on the old Route 66, will chuckle at the following excerpt, although I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce is clamoring for an equal-time response. In a discussion of archaeological debates about the date of first residence in California, the book says:

” (Ruth) Simpson vigorously advocated the view that the stone chips were indeed tools created by people,  but most other anthropologists disagreed, rejecting the idea that people came to Barstow so long ago.  Why anyone would go there now is another story.”

Endless road

I have no doubt that historians everywhere are throwing their hats in the air, celebrating the freedom these writers have taken to express their unvarnished opinion. Because although history is always, in the long run, personal opinion, the serious historian must disguise her facts as neutral and uphold the myth that what they are writing is fact.

The book includes small featurettes, set aside in colored blocks, on interesting people who might not otherwise make it into the main narrative, contemporary quotations, song lyrics, and other snippets of information.  The authors have included fascinating historic pictures and reproductions of ads, articles, etc. to bring an immediacy to each of the periods they discuss.

Mural at Twenty-Nine Palms, CA of historic mining camp

What they do not include, however, are aids for someone who is actually ON the road, to put this knowledge of history to use.  One road map in the beginning of the book provides only an overview of the state–a fold out map indicating historic sites would have been nice. I wished for more of an indication of where one might travel to visit historic sites woven into the narrative, or closely associated with particular chapters, rather than a brief list of museums, Native American sites, fairs and festivals and history web sites. Why did they choose to list five pages of Native American sites, and none of Spanish missions and other sites from that and other periods? Why did they choose not to include some indication of how to find the sites they do mention? The book lists information by county rather than by nearby highway (Ahem, this is an on the ROAD book, after all.) In essence, the impression is that the series (I assume all the books follow the same format) simply points the traveler at the web rather than providing useful travel information in the book.

San Diego today

Granted, this is meant as background reading rather than a guide book. Then, please, do not call in “On-the-Road.”  I’m sorry that Interlink Books (whom I love dearly–and not just for contributing to Passports With Purpose) did not choose to include these books in their “Traveller’s History” series instead of implying there is something particularly suitable for road trips about the newer series.

Bottom line:  If you are taking a trip to one of the states covered by On-The-Road-Histories (listed below), by all means visit Interlink Books and add that state’s history to your travel library. It will enhance your understanding of the state and amuse you in the bargain. Just don’t expect it to help when you are actually on the road.

Other On-the-Road Histories:

• Alaska
• Hawaii
• Kentucky
• Minnesota
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Wisconsin

Which of the Interlink On-the-Road Historiy states will be on your road-trip agenda for next year? We’re hoping for Alaska.

Note: All these pictures belong to me, some scanned from old print photos. If you would like to use any of these photos, please ask permission first.

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Destination: Central coast, California

Book: What the Heart Knows by Mara Purl

I am reading What the Heart Knows in a pdf copy that was supplied to reviewers by the publisher. It is a combination mystery/romance/contemporary novel set in California, and a delightful read. Fascinated with the author’s background (as a writer, actor on Days of Our Lives soap opera, and a musician), I decided to ask her a few questions. Sorry, this is a very long post. I reluctantly cut quite a bit, but Mara Purl loves words and has interesting stories to tell!

A Traveler’s Library: In What the Heart Knows, you write about several real locations and one fictional town on the California coast. What led to locate your story on the central California coast? And why did you borrow a Welsh name for the town?

Author Mara Purl

Mara Purl: To begin by answering the last question first, I discovered, rather than created the connection. “Cambria” was the ancient Roman name for Wales. I have a dear friend…who grew up in a tiny California town called Cambria…It sounded like a dream and I kept wondering when and how I’d ever find the time to get there. I was in LA working as a freelance writer but mostly focusing on the acting chapter of my career, I fell in love with the play “Sea Marks” by Gardner McKay. It’s…about a woman from Wales and man from Ireland…I began to look for a way to produce or co-produce it. I found a theatre, but the co-star I found wasn’t free when the theatre was; there were various other stumbling blocks. I let it go . . .My manager, who did not know about my interest in this play, called one day… When the title was half out of his mouth, I shouted “I’ll do it!” “But,” he remarked, “you haven’t even heard where the production will be done or who the co-star is!” I didn’t care. I’d have done anything to do that play.

As it turned out, the play would be done in a small town called Cambria right in the middle of the California coast, halfway between L.A. (my home) and San Francisco. So I finally got my first trip to Cambria…I had a strange series of deja-vu moments during that first weekend of rehearsal. And during the long summer’s run of the play, I found myself intrigued by Life In A Small Town.

I’d grown up in Tokyo; then moved to New York; then to Los Angeles. What did I know about a small town? Virtually nothing. I read the local paper, befriended folks who came backstage after the show, and eavesdropped in local eateries. Since I look at life through the lens of story, I placed my magnifier upon the tapestry of Cambria.

[She produced A Christmas Carol for a Cambria radio station and they liked it and told her she could come back any time.] [Meanwhile]…I’d been hired as a regular actor on the soap opera “Days Of Our Lives.” This was my first brush with what I call the long form of story-telling, where choices and consequences play out for weeks at a time… I hadn’t taken the form seriously until then, but now I became intrigued with it. [She decided to write a serial play based in a small town like Cambria for the radio station in Cambria.] … Researching Cambria, I discovered the connection to Wales, and found on the map of Wales, on its western coast, a town called Milford Haven that seemed to ring a bell. Then, in a moment of synergy that I experienced as both instant intuition and certain direction, I happened to audition for Shakespeare’s “Cymbelline.” Speaking the lines of the protagonist Imogen, I found myself reading a letter from her beloved that said, “Meet me in Cambria, in Milford Haven.” I just knew that was the name for my fictitious town, and for my show. [The radio serial based in Cambria was a big hit in Cambria, so she produced it several other cities, including in England on the BBC, where it was also a striking success.]

ATL: Is it easier in a novel to describe a real place or a fictional place?

MP: Good question! On the face of things, it may seem easier to describe a real place. After all, you can go sit at the very table in the very café in the very city . . . and track each and every detail before your eyes… However, as a story begins to progress, if you’re using a real place, you’re then also “stuck” with its real details. You can’t say it’s 80 degrees if it’s really 110 in the shade; you can’t say the population is 100,000 if it’s really 10,000; you can’t turn right on Parchment Street if it’s a one-way boulevard.

And it continues to get more and more and more complicated as you try to blend your fictional characters with a real place. You can to some extent fictionalize a real place if you use is a kind of stationery tableau that holds steady behind your moving characters. Dan Brown does this in The Davinci Code with Rome; Rex Pickett did the same with California central wine country his novel Sideways. .. But if your place is more intimate, and if it’s to be as much a character as your people, living and moving and breathing and evolving, it really has to be a fictional place, or a heavily fictionalized place (such as when Santa Barbara becomes Santa Theresa in Sue Grafton’s books) so as to be flexible enough to be true. Don’t you love it! Something must be fictional in order to be true!

ATL: This is the first in a series. Will the action in all the subsequent books stay in Milford-Haven?

MP: Yes . . . and no. Each novel does take place in Milford-Haven, and we will come to know the town and its people better and better… However, my protagonist Miranda Jones goes someplace different in each novel. She stays put in book one, What the Heart Knows, because this anchors both her and the series. But in book two, Where the Heart Lives,she goes a little farther afield—to Santa Barbara and to Los Angeles. Then in book three she goes to Oregon; and in book four she has a truly grand adventure in Alaska. In future books she’ll travel to Milford-Haven, Virginia, and even to Milford Haven, Wales, by the way, so travel is a theme for Miranda, just as it is for me.

ATL: What’s your favorite destination for travel?

MP: My favorite destination is the Central Coast [of California]. It’s my soul’s home, and always always speaks to me. I have the curious sensation both of arriving home, and of journeying into an adventure. There’s both a comfort and a charge every time I point my car toward the Central Coast, or even when I fly over it. If the Central Coast is a magnet for me, then all my innards like up like iron filings and form a perfect pattern of joy the closer I get to this particular region.

My second-favorite destinations are those that resonate with the California Central Coast, and I’ve found several: Milford Haven, Wales touches me profoundly; parts of the Japanese coastline draw me; parts of the various Hawaiian coastlines inspire me very much. One I haven’t visited yet that’s been on my list for years is the Milford Sound in New Zealand.

ATL: Any favorite books or movies that have inspired you to travel somewhere? MP: I’d say Louis L’Amour’s books inspired me to travel in Colorado and New Mexico. Louis, whom I met while writing a screenplay with a writer-director who’d directed one of Louis’ films, became a great friend and mentor. He  had such a well-developed sense of place that the Old West comes alive through his pages.

ATL: Thanks so much, Mara. I urge readers to take a look at your web site and learn more about your many talents, and particularly more about your books set in Cambria. Although I’ve been through Cambria, I’ve never stayed for long. You’ve made me rethink that!

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1. A Capitol Fourth, The Mall, Washington D.C.

What’s Special? You’re kidding, right? It is THE place to be–the seat of government, with an all-American entertainment program featuring John Philip Sousa marches and thousands of red, white and blue clad celebrants gathered on the grassy lawn in the middle of all those imposing marble buildings. Right there where the laws are made and administered and judged. And watching fireworks arc over the Washington Monument would give any patriot a thrill.

Although I’ve never been in Washington in person for July 4th, we never miss watching this celebration on PBS. The people in the audience can be as much fun as the show on stage. Jimmy Smits and Steve Martin headline this year.

2. Charles River,  Boston

Boston Fireworks on the Charles River

What’s Special? Mostly the magnificent Boston Pops Orchestra, but also the serene setting by the historic Charles River. The music is a tad classier, and so is the crowd, compared to Washington D.C., but it is still a heck of a show.

Now in its 38th year, Boston presents the famous Boston Pops orchestra on July 3 and July 4 and fireworks over the Charles River on the Fourth. For a real thrill, see the Boston July 4th show from the Charles River. I’ll be stopping over in Boston briefly in August, and loved our visit there a couple of years ago.

3. Macy’s Fireworks Celebration, Hudson River, New York City

New York City Fireworks on the Hudson River

Setting off fireworks from barges on the Hudson River is a long time tradition in New York City, perhaps remembering the fireworks of revolutionary battles with the British fought in this area. Back then New York City was a rural village with cobblestone streets, and you can still see the cobblestones on the very southern tip of Manhattan in front of the Fraunces  Tavern where George Washington gave his farewell address to the troops.  In 1976, the bi-centennial of the Declaration of Independence, one of the grandest celebrations in the land took place here, and the tradition continues.

Fireworks have been cut from a lot of city budgets, but Macy’s, who in the past have been firmly associated with Thanksgiving, because of the Thanksgiving parade, now own July 4th in NYC as well. Thank you Macy’s for one of the best events in New York, a city I love to visit.

4. Navy Pier, Chicago

What’s Special: Well, to tell the truth, I love Chicago, but the city is not funding any big fireworks shows this summer. Instead, people can trot on out to Navy Pier and see there usual 15 minute show. When I say usual–they do this fireworks display every night during the summer. It is a crowd pleaser, there will be live music, and the Pier’s  a cool place to be on a hot summer night, but it doesn’t hold a Roman candle to the extravaganzas in the other cities.

5. Big Bay
Big Bay Boom, San Diego

San Diego Fireworks on the Bay

What’s Special?San Diego has a gorgeous bay and the night views looking back toward the city or out across the lighted Coronado Bridge always take my breath away. Now add tons of exploding color being fired off from barges circling the bay–sounds incredible. View them from outdoors at Shelter Island or Seaport Village or grab a 9:00 p.m. reservation window seat at one of the hundreds of restaurants with views on the bay. Yum!

(If budgetary woes weren’t enough to slow down the fireworks shows, in California a judge questioned whether San Diego’s fireworks are environmentally safe. Only in California!The  latest ruling allows the big show to go forward in San Diego, so you can safely book your trip.)

Can you afford to get out of town for the long weekend?

Air fare just keeps going up-up-up and away as gas prices stay stratospheric, but CheapO Air lists special deals to four of these five cities. As you do your trip planning, check out the CheapOAir July 4th  flight/hotel combos for New York, San Diego, Boston and Chicago.

Finally, my favorite provider of travel bargains, Travel Zoo, sends a weekly newsletter with their bargains and on June 17 they listed a BUNCH of July 4th bargains.  If you don’t subscribe to Travel Zoo, do.

Don’t dispair if you can’t get out of town, the D.C. Capitol Fourth will be covered on Public Television, and you can curl up with one of the books we have recommended in the past.

True to their name, CheapOAir did NOT pay me to include this generous mention of them in this post. However, I will give them credit. Those are their fireworks photos above. The video comes from the folks at the Capitol Fourth, though. Travel Zoo and Peter Greenberg were mentioned without incentive, too. I just happen to like them.

Where will you be on July 4th? Do you have any special family traditions?

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Original 1943 paper back cover

Destination: Los Angeles, California

Book: Farewell My Lovely (1939) by Raymond Chandler

I had not read the hard boiled detective stories for quite a while, and I had forgotten what fun Raymond Chandler can be.  I had also forgotten how openly racist and sexist was the society that he wrote about.

Some people will take offense at the terms his characters use and the assumptions they make about–for example–African Americans, American Indians, Japanese gardeners and blond millionairesses.

Although most people still accept those sexist descriptions of blonds– “Dames lie about anything. Just for practice,” says an L.A. cop– the other prejudices are out of bounds these days.

If the language upsets you, read about P.I. Philip Marlowe’s adventures in a bowdlerized edition–there are plenty–instead of the Library of America edition that I read. Me, I take this novel as an anthropology lesson.  It reflects the way a certain class of people in L.A. thought and talked in 1939.

Interestingly, detective Philip Marlowe talks in standard English and seems to know his way around classic literature.  If he had not wound up as a tough private eye–a shamus–a dick–he would fit nicely behind a podium at a small liberal arts college.

I am drawn to Chandler more by the language than the twisty plots.  There are plenty of 72-year-old slang words that I don’t understand, but Marlowe/Chandler’s quips keep me laughing.

Tarantula, without cake

Chandler excels at drawing word portraits. Here’s part of his first page description of a key character in Farewell My Lovely, Moose Malloy, who “..looked about as inconspicious as a tarantula on a piece of angel food.”

(Chandler likes to use negative metaphors. Later in the story he describes a house as not very impressive. No bigger than Buckingham Palace and with fewer windows than the Chrysler Building. For more about his use of metaphors, and a plot summary of Farewell My Lovely, see this article by one of Chandler’s biographers.)

He goes on about Moose Malloy:

“He was a big man, but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck…” “His skin was pale and he needed a shave.  He would always need a shave.  He had curly black hair and heavy eyebrows that almost met over his thick nose. His ears were small and neat for a man of that size and his eyes had a shine close to tears that gray eyes often seem to have.”

Not only has Chandler presented a case study in how to write a description, he has accomplished a secondary aim by letting us see how observant Phillip Marlowe is.  Neither Chandler nor Marlowe miss a trick.  And this is just the first page.

Once you have read Chandler, you will have a sense of deja vu when you take a road trip to Los Angeles. Not the freeways, but the streets and neighborhoods beneath and around the network of high speed. Piling up details of place, Chandler’s usually clipped sentences become an urban sprawl leading us into the heart of the city and its suburbs. You’ll have to read those for yourself, because one paragraph would use up this entire post.

Handy for marking your favorite lines

Here are a few more choice bits I marked with my Book Darts (a discovery my books, my library and I are most grateful for. And they are not paying me to say that):

She fell softly across my lap and I bent down over her face and began to browse on it.

A run-down room:

A couple of frayed lamps with once gaudy shades that were now as gray as superannuated streetwalkers.

And in a very different house:

It was the kind of a room where people sit with their feet in their lap and sip absinthe through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and sometimes just squeak.

Marlowe’s erudition shows when he gets a call from a potential client and the detective asks if the job is honest:

The voice grew icicles. “I should not have called you, if it were not.’” [On hearing that, Marlowe thinks] Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck.

Take heart, baby boomers, although Chandler wrote for a living most of his life, and cranked out dozens and dozens of pulp magazine mysteries, Farewell My Lovely was his first novel and he was 50 years old when it was published.

Hollywood liked Chandler, who along with Dashiell Hammett fueled the film noir explosion in the 40s and 50s.  I watched the remake of Farewell My Lovely (1974)starring Robert Mitchum with a brief appearance by a young studly Sylvester Stallone. I’m here to warn you. Don’t bother. Mitchum should have been right for the role, but the script is so bad that he can’t escape sinking with the rest. The credits and the background music are attractive and it’s downhill from there on, mostly because the movie dropped not just scenes, but key intentions and key characters from Chandler’s novel.

Just one example. A phony psychic in the film (male) becomes a tough dyke Madame in the film–probably to give the film makers a chance to have a lot of full frontal nudity parading around. And although they don’t shy away form using “shine” and the more offensive “n” word to refer to blacks, the movie changes the hilarious Hollywood Indian character of the novel into…a cowboy. Huh?? And Marlowe doesn’t even figure out the crime. Sorry, that’s three examples, but I could talk forever about how bad this movie is. So I’d better move on and go look for a copy of the 1944 version starring Dick Powell and called Murder My Sweet. Synopses seem to indicate it sticks closer to the novel.

Trivia: William Faulkner adapted Chandler’s The Big Sleep for the screen, and allegedly didn’t understand the novel. It was saved by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

I wish I were in L.A. April 23. I’d take the Esotouric Tour of Raymond Chandler’s L.A. I keep getting the company emails and they have a brilliant collection of off beat bus tours. (And they are not paying me to say that. Darn!)

By the way, Roger Ebert really, really liked the Mitchum movie, as did the general run of the mill reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.  I have the feeling none of them had read Chandler.

And I should mention that Kerry Dexter of Music Road, my faithful companion on this road trip has popped a CD of a singer with bluegrass roots– who uses a bit of jazz and Celtic music as well–into the player. I’m sure its nice, but I’ll be ejecting it when Kerry stops for a burger. I’d prefer Cool Jazz for my Noir mood L.A.

Have detective novels and film noir shaped your view of L.A.? Have you seen or read Farewell My Lovely?

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Destination: Northern California (Monterey)

Book: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Monterey Bay

In Cannery Row, John Steinbeck makes poetry of an once ordinary place, Monterey California, and makes mythological figures of working men and women. (A little trick that he specialized in).  In the introduction to Cannery Row, he asks: “How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise–the quality of light, the tone, the habit, and the dream–be set down alive?’

And comparing writing to his other passion, marine biology and the capture of sea creatures, he answers, “…open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”

Cannery Row stacks up as a light weight compared to other Steinbeck novels like East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, or Grapes of Wrath, but it still tells a story about fascinating characters and shines a sharp clear light on a particular place.

A Steinbeck fan on a road trip to Cannery Row in Monterey today,  will notice mostly how it no longer resembles the smelly, working fishing business of Steinbeck’s novel.  Artists and sellers of cyrstals and fried clams fill Monterey’s docks instead of prostitutes, Chinese grocers, and semi-literate roustabouts.  There is a Cannery Row, but it is not the hard-working, gritty place of Steinbeck’s novel. See the happy tourists spending money!

red starfish

On the other hand, you can find a tribute of sorts to Doc, the main character of Cannery Row, at the grand Monterey Bay Aquarium. Doc’s business consisted of harvesting sea animals and selling them to laboratories. Doc is based on Steinbeck’s real life marine biologist friend, Ed Ricketts. They went tide pool exploring together and took a well know trip: The Log from the Sea of Cortez .

If you take a road trip along the northern California coast, you will find Pacific Grove (butterfly migration), Monterey, and then Carmel (the quaint upscale village we visited last summer) all clustered along the shore along with Pebble Beach golf course and the Seventeen-Mile Drive.  A road trip down California’s Route 1 and a stop over at the Monterey Peninsula cannot be beat, whether you are looking for a romantic getaway, a girlfriends’ weekend or a family trip.

We took our young boys many years ago and stayed in a modest cabin in Pacific Grove. Steinbeck himself lived in a modest cabin in Pacific Grove once upon a time. Nowadays you’ll have to stay farther away from the ocean to find “modest.” Nevertheless, it is a great area for beaches, golf, hiking, shopping for artsy items, eating seafood, and driving through some stunning scenery with rocky seascapes and centuries-old Monterey pines. While you are in the neighborhood, you may want to pop inland to Salinas to see the National Steinbeck Center.

The eternity of sea and impermanence of primitive sea life in tide pools permeates the story and the characters of Cannery Row.  One of the attractions for me is that Steinbeck gives his full attention and sympathy to characters that other writers would turn away from as unworthy or repulsive.

For instance, you have to love Dora Flood, the madame with “flaming orange hair”, who runs a down-at-the-heels, but clean whorehouse. She has, Steinbeck says, “through the exercise of special gifts of tact and honesty, charity and a certain realism, made herself respected…”

Nothing much happens in this novel. The story, such as it is, has to do with five not-too-bright  young thugs who decide to “do something nice for Doc.” Their good deeds go astray in every possible way. People in Cannery Row just make the best of life, going with the flow so to speak, like the sea creatures who exist in the ebb and flow of the tidepool.

Carmel Beach Sunset

You might also like to read:

• Steinbeck’s California
• Top Five American Road Trip Books
• Steinbeck and McMurtry

And check out Joan Baez at Music Road–Kerry Dexter’s contribution to the Great American Road Trip stop in Northern California. After Steinbeck wrote about the working person, many musicians in the sixties turned to folk music, singing of the ordinary person.

Two more stops on the Great American Road Trip. Are we there yet??

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Hollywood Stories

Book: Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes about the Stars and Legends of the Movies! by Stephen Schochet

I’m breaking some new ground here. First, I haven’t posted on a Saturday for a long time. But when I returned from France, I realized that I would never be able to cover all the very good books that are being published in September and October within my usual four days a week. So I invented the Saturday Matinee.

That happens to be an appropriate name today because I  will talk about Hollywood Stories.

But what am I doing talking about a collection of short anecdotes?  Here at A Traveler’s Library, we generally prefer beautifully written narrative–fiction or non, focused on a single place–not a random collection of tidbits.

And third–did you notice the exclamation mark at the end of the sub-title? Short, Entertaining Anecdotes about the Stars and Legends of the Movies! Now there’s a sign that I would turn up my nose at this book for sure.  If  writers should limit themselves to three exclamation marks a year, they should limit themselves to ZERO in titles and subtitles, for Heavens Sake. But it does certainly have the authentic over-the-top publicity seeking aura of Hollywood, doesn’t it?

However, all that said, I dipped into Hollywood Stories and found that Stephen Schochet managed to make me shove aside my literary snobbishness and get replaced by  my oh-so-common curiosity about the gods and goddesses of the silver screen. The book was fun. And intriguing. A guilty pleasure like a box of chocolates hidden in the desk drawer (do you watch The Closer?), and I just kept snacking and snacking.

So much for pretensions of elitism. I’m enjoying tales of old movie makers like Groucho Marx and Clark Gable and John Wayne and Mae West and newer ones like Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep and Quentin Tarantino. Have a favorite? Look in the index. Gene Hackman–6 mentions; Julie Andrews– 3; Clark Gable--11.

Stephen Schockhet

And where do all these stories come from?  Well, Schockhet is a Hollywood tour guide and these come from the material he gathered for his spiels to tourists, or things he observed as he drove the tour bus. He also hosts a one-minute radio feature called Hollywood Stories, and has written two audio books: Fascinating Walt Disney and Tales of Hollywod.

Would you like a real tour instead of just a book tour? Contact Schockhet for a personalized tour of Hollywood. Now I have become just another Hollywood flack, I think I’ll go out to the snack stand and get a bag of popcorn.

West Hollywood Vacations

This book was furnished by the publisher for review purposes. For more about movies, see Paris Movie Walks, Perfect French Movie, and for more about California see On the Road to California, Rushed Road Trip Parts I and II.

Have you ever taken one of those “Homes of the Hollywood Stars” tours? How about a tour of the Hollywood Cemetery or Forest Lawn?  Or have you done the studio tours?

All this talk about Hollywood has me itching to spend some time in L.A. How about you?

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Book: Kiss the Sunset Pig (2006) by Laurie Gough

A GUEST POST by Claire Algarme

It is a smooth ride along California Interstate-5 while I gaze out at the beautiful landscape before me. I am on a thruway bus going to Bakersfield where I will ride the Amtrak. My friends think I am out of my mind by taking the train to San Francisco — all by myself — when it was only my first time in California, let alone in the United States.

Travel Tips

I wanted to see the American countryside and explore the state beyond the big cities, like L.A. and San Francisco. Which leads me to the book Kiss the Sunset Pig, wherein the author, Laurie Gough, drove all the way from Canada across the US towards the Golden State, her dream hometown.

The words Kiss the Sunset Pig were part of the lyrics of the song California by Joni Mitchell that had caught the attention of our author.

I got hooked by Gough’s stories  of  surviving the American roads with her car Marcia as her constant companion and heading to that peaceful place inside the cave along a Californian beach where she retreated and found herself. Along the way, she sidetracked on her travels around the world to places like Greece, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand.

Her first chapter was dated June 20, 1998, the day she left Guelph, Ontario, Canada for California. It was my birthday. I, on the other hand, had left the Philippines and headed to California on June 20, 2009, eleven years after.

But I wanted the parallelism not just to end there. Something within me yearned to imitate the adventures of Gough, but with my limited time, area, and resources, I was content to have my own American road experience within the boundaries of California.

What piqued my interest was when she wrote at the beginning of her book, “Most of the California coast is rugged and undeveloped. People don’t realize that. They associate California with L.A. But so much of the state is wilderness. It’s full of scenic beauty.”

And when she finally arrived at her destination, Gough’s words were,

Just the name California inspires amazement around the world. The name sizzles, holds magic, makes people think this is where my life should be taking place. I want to see all of this thousand-mile empire’s wildly disparate sites: the mountains, the desert, the small coastal and valley towns, the sea pounding the ocher sandstone cliffs, the fog floating through redwood rifts, the lonely twisting Joshua trees, the artichoke farmers in their fields, the Chamber of Horror rides at beach amusement parks, the movie stars wandering aisles of gourmet food stores, the crazy people, the creative people, the extraterrestrial and regular people – the many worlds within California. California, where the intensity of the environment matches that of the people.

From the picturesque scene outside the window, I focused myself on the ladies seated across from my train seat. They chatted animatedly, including me in their conversation. We were all strangers that happened to share a train table. They were Californians and their enthusiasm affected me. I understood why Gough was attracted to California, the place and the people.

Claire Algarme keeps a blog First-time Travels which features her first-time visits and travel experiences in various places, including destinations around her own country, the Philippines. If she’s not working or traveling, she spends her time reading books and magazines.

Thank you Claire for telling us about Kiss the Sunset Pig. You let us see the excitement of the first time in a new place!

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Famous Roads. From Palmdale our route ducked around Santa Clarita, then headed to the coast on California 128. We drove up the coast a bit on the 101/1 and when the two roads split, we stayed on 101.While we had followed old Route 66 on part of our way over here, we were now following the route of Spanish/Basque explorer Juan Batista de Anza. He led a band of soldiers and families from the Presidio in Tubac south of Tucson to the coast and north to San Francisco bay, and here we were taking some of the same route.

Juan Batista DeAnza did not have such a nice rest area when he camped near here.

Solveng CA

Solvang, where we stopped for lunch. I had always wanted to take a look at this lovely Danish village. I was glad we got to make a brief stop, and hope that some day we can stay a day or two and follow the scents of Danish baked goods into the half-timbered buildings that also house craft shops and hotels.

Art in the Fields As we zipped north on 101 (after a short stretch on U.S. 5) we passed miles and miles of vineyards, fields of leafy vegetables and trucks loaded with garlic.  Approaching Salinas, we saw farm workers gathering around their dented red pick-up truck–but wait–those people are too big to be real.  And sure enough, they were lifelike, but two-dimensional.  As we drove north we saw at least ten more of these depictions of farmers doing various chores. Never found out from whence came this delightful art project.

Ken and Doris Day

Carmel Besides the wind-sculpted cypress trees, the cool morning mist,dramatic cliffs above a sandy beach, we found many reasons to love Carmel. We saw the house that poet Robinson Jeffers built and Ken looked forward to “meeting” Doris Day. Although she still lives there, the closest he got was a movie poster in the lounge of the Cypress Inn, a dog-friendly hotel that Ms. Day owns.

View from Tickled Pink room

We also visited the Tickle Pink Inn, named for a Senator Tickle. Of the many luxurious digs in Carmel, this must have the most amazing views–from every room’s balcony.

After trying Katy’s Place where the tough choices include 16 kinds of Eggs Benedict, we went the next day to The Little Swiss Cafe, with simpler food, but amazing art by André Balyon. André paints gorgeous sky-filled landscapes and realist art, but here he lets his sense of humor out to play.

Spring, by Andre Balyon

Detail of "Spring"

Now, at first glance that is a pretty picture, but play “what is wrong with this picture?” Isn’t that the couple from American Gothic? And its small in this image, but that’s Puss in Boots fishing in the canal. Here’s a closeup to show the grandest joke.

Our Carmel stay was over, but we had one more stop–The Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.

John Steinbeck and Charlie

Carmel Beach Sunset

Photos of Balyon paintings by Andre Balyon. Please go to his gallery to see his “serious” works, although the humorous ones at Little Swiss Cafe are seriously good. Vera Marie Badertscher took all other photos and I reserve all rights. Ask before you use.

Now, you know how the kids always want to know what you brought them when you come home from a trip? Well we brought you something. Persuade me that you should have a t-shirt from the John Steinbeck Center that says, “There are never enough books.” Runner up gets a bookmark listing all Steinbeck’s books. Hurry! You have only until this coming Friday midnight. Good luck. (Check general contest rules here.)

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We drove two days to get there, stayed two days and drove two days back home. Roughly 1800 miles, Ken says. Definitely not the ideal vacation and certainly not the classic wandering road trip–but a mini reunion with beloved relatives made it worthwhile. And even on a short trip, we make discoveries.

Here’s what we managed to see and do on our trip from Tucson AZ to Carmel CA and back.

The Kofa Cafe, an “Undiscovered Gem of Arizona”. Despite the fact it sits on a little-traveled byway, the Kofa draws visitors from around the world, which is why “undiscovered” is in quotation marks. See more in this little slide show. (From Tucson,to avoid Phoenix, we take 85 north from Gila Bend to US 10. Then we go north from Rt. 10 toward Vicksburg, and then take 72 toward Parker to continue west.)

Blue Highways Despite all the times we have driven between AZ and CA, we drove on roads we had never been on.

Along California Route 62 heading for Joshua Tree National Monument

We avoided driving the freeways through the northern edge of Los Angles, instead taking desolate desert roads that connected just enough of civilization that we could find food. Vegetation changed from creosote to ocotillo and mesquite to the eerie Joshua trees.

Historic Town Murals Twenty Nine Palms stretches for miles and miles and miles. At least ramshackle homes and official looking street signs (Sandy Claws Lane) sit just off the highway. But the town itself proclaims “The Town of Murals.” And the murals in the business district show scenes from the town’s history–like this one of the Dirty Sock Camp. The legend explains that when the Miners had nothing else they would strain the mud through an old sock to find the tiny flakes of gold.

Dirty Sock Camp Mural

We followed Rt. 62 from Parker to where it intersected with Rt. 247 going north and curving West again toward Victorville on Rt. 18. Then we took a wrong turn which took us to our next discovery.

Apple Valley.  Ken flashed back to his boyhood and informed me that this had been the home of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Sure enough, we were driving on Happy Trails road and crossed Dale Evans Parkway.  We  thought there might be a museum, however the museum was in Victorville, then moved to Branson Missouri and recently closed for lack of funds. How sad.

Comfort Suites, Victorville We decided to stick with one chain of motels on this trip, and at Victorville, a town that marks the divide between the desert and the inland farming valleys of California, we stayed at the 3rd-ranked lodging on Trip Advisor. The Comfort Suites had very friendly employees, a large room and a great shower head. Although it is just off the freeway, we didn’t hear a sound. We walked across the street to a Marie Callendar’s restaurant where we had a mediocre dinner.

Designer McDonald’s. Ronald McDonald would never recognize this place. Besides serving fancy coffee concoctions–which most McDonald’s now do–the interior design shouted sophistication. Indeed this McDonald’s in Palmdale  looked more like a high class lounge than a hamburger joint. It featured 21st century  orange square stools at a molded white bar, overstuffed black easy chairs, and asymmetrical arrangements of booths and tables.   All that was missing was the bouncer guarding the velvet rope that kept out the hoi-polloi. (The New York Times recently wrote about design in a London McDonald’s and this article talks about some new design in New York City Micky D’s.)

All pictures by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved. This trip was all on our own dime, so those establishments mentioned are not sponsors.

More to come on this road trip next Tuesday.

What’s the quickest road trip for the longest distance that you ever took? And I’m now on a hunt for these designer McDonald’s. Have you spotted one?

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