Hardwired

duck

Australia 2014: Sydney

The Sydney Opera House

Sunrise in Hobart, and David and I walked the Franklin Wharf, the Castray Esplanade, and the surrounding streets, ending up at the Rendezvous Lounge Cafe in Salamanca Square. The eatery’s ratings were “fair,” but it opened shortly after 7:00 a.m. and we were hungry. Our poached eggs topped with wilted spinach and a side of tomato relish was delicious. I sipped hot tea while David surfed the Net to answer his question of why the square was called Salamanca.

Named after the 1812 victory of the Duke of Wellington in the Battle of Salamanca, in the Spanish province of Salamanca, Salamanca Place was built during the whaling industry boom in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. The area consists of rows of sandstone buildings, which were formerly warehouses for the port of Hobart Town. In the mid-1990s, Salamanca Square was built, and the old warehouses now house shops, galleries, cafés, and restaurants.

Every Saturday the Salamanca Market, a community market popular with locals and tourists, is held between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. at Salamanca Place. There is also a grocery store nearby called Salamanca Fresh. They sell fresh local produce, as well as conventional items found in any grocery store.

We still had several hours before we had to catch the airport bus, so we browsed the art galleries and bought a few souvenirs for family and friends, and a stuffed animal for me—“Diego,” a Tasmanian devil. I really liked the island, but sadly, our Down Under holiday was drawing to a close. That afternoon we caught a flight to Sydney.

Sydney Skyline

Sydney. We checked into the Marriott Circular Quay, grabbed our daypacks, and played tourist, wandering the streets for hours, taking in the sights and shopping. We could have walked to our restaurant that night, but we had already spent hours touring the city and our feet needed a break, so we flagged a cab to the Woolloomooloo Wharf to dine at China Doll. We sat outdoors, the balmy evening inviting, and feasted on crispy shrimp dumplings and pork san choy to start, followed by a sashimi platter and tamarind-crusted duck. Our first evening in Sydney ended with an excellent wine from Australia’s McLaren Vale region.

Day two in Sydney. Now, I could finally strike off my list the second architectural wonder I had longed to see. I had already visited the Guggenheim Bilbao, and today we had arranged for a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House.

In 1954, Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as the director of the New South Wales (NSW) Conservatorium for Music, met with NSW premier Joseph Cahill, and they agreed that Australia needed an opera house.

In December 1955, Mr. Cahill announced an international design competition for the opera house, with Sydney’s Bennelong Point the approved site. The competition required a design for two performance halls—one for opera and the other for symphony concerts.

On January 19, 1957, Danish architect Jørn Utzon was announced as the winner and awarded 5,000 British pounds. Utzon was initially rejected by three judges in the 1956 competition, but his entry was picked by a fourth, renowned Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, who declared it outstanding. Utzon beat 232 other entrants.

Work on the opera house started in 1959, with ten thousand builders employed, and it opened in October 1973. The estimated cost was around £7 million, but the actual cost grew to £102 million. In 1966, Utzon quit the project after a new state Liberal government was elected and problems arose between him and the new works minister. Utzon left Sydney, never seeing his vision for the interior realized, and never seeing his masterpiece completed. He was not invited to the opening ceremony; nor was his name mentioned.

In 1999, the Opera House Trust and NSW government “re-engaged” Utzon as the design consultant for future work on the opera house, and he developed a set of principles as a basis for all future changes to the building. Utzon said his renewed contact with Sydney felt like a “wonderful welcome back to Australia, a hand extended in the spirit of reconciliation, a hand I shake with warmth and gratitude.”

Of the opera house he said, “I like to think the Sydney Opera House is like a musical instrument, and like any fine instrument, it needs a little maintenance and fine tuning from time to time if it is to keep on performing at the highest level.”

The architectural style is Expressionist Modernism, and the building’s site is close to 15 acres. The opera house itself is over 606 feet long and over 410 wide, and rises 220 feet above sea level, around the height of a 22-story building. The roof is made of 2,194 precast concrete sections, weighing up to 15 tons each and held together by 218 miles of tensioned steel cable. The roof is covered in more than 1 million tiles, and has over 20,000 feet of glass, made to order in France and unique to the Sydney Opera House. The largest of the seven venues, the Concert Hall, has 2,679 seats, and the total number of rooms in the opera house is 1,000.

In an earlier post, I wrote about my visit to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. There I discuss the Bilbao Effect. Every struggling post-industrial city has the same idea: hire a star architect (like Frank Gehry) to design a branch of a famous museum (like the Guggenheim), and watch your city blossom with culture. After all, it worked for Bilbao.

The Bilbao Effect pumped millions into the city’s economy with up to a hundred thousand visitors each month patronizing the hotels, restaurants, and shops. And Bilbao generated about $100 million in taxes in the first three years of operation. Today, over a million people visit the museum per year.

Alexandra Gardens, St. Kilda Road

The Sydney Effect? According to a report by Deloitte, the Sydney Opera House is one of Australia’s key assets, contributing $775 million to the Australian economy every year. And it has a cultural and iconic value of $4.6 billion.

 

 

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California Book Settings: Napa

Gardens and lake at Chateau Montelena.

Early the next morning, we made a quick stop at Starbucks for drinks, then strolled Fisherman’s Wharf. The only early risers were runners, cyclists, people making deliveries, someone power washing the sidewalks, a lone skipper loading fishing tackle into his boat, and us saying goodbye to the sea lion colony on our way to Ghirardelli Square to window-shop.

Bright sunlight warmed us as we walked back to the Hyatt to check out. Our destination? Napa for a half day of fact-checking and a full one of fun.

It was close to lunchtime when we drove into St. Helena, and we had our sights set on Gillwoods Cafe for lunch. After we ate I set to work on my to-do list.

Hilltop Cellars, the fictitious winery in Genocide, is a combination of wineries in the Napa and Sonoma valleys. The main house at Hilltop Cellars is constructed from memories of a Calistoga bed and breakfast I discovered years ago, but the Mediterranean-style house sold to a private party before I could book a reservation. The wine-aging cave at Hilltop Cellars was inspired by the hillside aging cave at the Kunde Family Winery in Sonoma Valley.

I returned to the location where the Mediterranean bed and breakfast had once stood, hoping to glimpse the house from the quiet lane that stretched in front of the residence, but no such structure was anywhere to be found along the dead-end road. I assumed it had been razed. Disappointed, I cruised the highways and byways of the valley, verifying facts, but there was little to update in regards to Genocide.

The sun was low on the horizon by the time we checked into our hotel, but as soon as we changed clothes we went in search of Ninebark. Again, don’t get excited about this restaurant. According to the news, it closed temporarily in July 2016 but is now permanently closed. Ninebark opened in late 2015 in the space formerly occupied by Fagiani’s Bar, the scene of an infamous murder.

We arrived early at the restaurant and made our way to the rooftop bar to enjoy drinks, the view, and the warm evening, cooled by a soft breeze drifting off the Napa River. Within the hour we were seated downstairs in a quiet corner near the windows, and our server was prompt and friendly.

The menu headings at Ninebark were interesting: Provisions, Market, Appetizers, Plates, and Etcetera. For starters, we ordered salt cod beignets with garlic aioli and honey; meatballs of beef, pork, and lamb with goat cheese and a three-day red sauce; and Dungeness crab toast with Sichuan chili, pickled rose, and grilled citrus dashi. The portions were small and we shared. When eating out I will rarely pass up duck, and that night was no exception. It was charcoal roasted and served with lavender honey, heirloom spinach, and grilled lovage sabayon. Dave ordered the flatiron steak with fresh Napa chimichurri, koji barbecue sauce, and grilled baby scallions. For dessert I had a tawny port, and Dave, Calvados.

For the record, the best duck I’ve ever eaten was at the Black Cat Bistro in Cambria, California. Another dish I love is risotto, and by far the best was at the Boscolo Milano hotel in Milan, Italy. A close second was the seafood risotto at Artisan in Paso Robles, California.

We had another full day ahead of us with more fun was on the agenda, and while the reader may not find these wineries or restaurants in Genocide, look for them in future Darcy McClain and Bullet thrillers.

Chateau Montelena was the first winery we toured on our honeymoon and has remained a favorite—not to mention it produces excellent vintages. The Franks, who once owned the property, had emigrated from Hong Kong, which accounts for the Chinese gardens and Jade Lake, home to wildlife and weeping willows and a sanctuary for all, including people.

In the early 1970s, Jim Barrett bought the land, and under his leadership the vineyard was replanted, the chateau outfitted with modern winemaking equipment, and wine made for the first time. Today Barrett’s son Bo is at the helm of the family-owned business.

We didn’t have time to visit another of our favorites, Grgich Hills, but a stop at Chateau Montelena always reminds me of Grgich’s success as a winemaster and his impact on the wines of Chateau Montelena. In 1976, at a blind tasting held in Paris, a small number of Napa Valley chardonnays were included in the sampling. When the scores were tallied, the French judges were shocked to learn they had chosen a 1973 Chateau Montelena chardonnay crafted by Mike Grgich as the finest white wine in the world. Mike emigrated to the US from Croatia. You can read more about him in my blog post titled: EUROPE 2011: Dubrovnik to Split, Croatia.

Our next stop Clos Pegase, designed by architect Michael Graves, who passed away in 2015. Construction of the winery was completed in 1987, months prior to our first visit in the same year. The architectural design is postmodern with a touch of ancient Mediterranean: dramatic shapes and bold coloration, and the gardens are xeriscape. According to House and Garden magazine, Clos Pegase “has raised two ancient arts—architecture and winemaking—to a height that resonates with echoes of the ages.” While Dave joined the wine tasters, I shot photos. From Clos Pegase we drove to Rombauer to sit on the deck and savor a glass of wine while we took in the view. Koerner Rombauer was once a commercial pilot for Dallas-based Braniff International Airways, an airline I flew on many times from Miami to South America en route to Africa. Braniff went bankrupt in 1982. Our next destination was Sterling Vineyards. The starkly white hilltop estate was designed by Martin Waterfield and is a Mediterranean-style stucco structure inspired by the dwellings on the Greek island of Mykonos, where the winery’s expatriate owner once lived. Since its opening, Sterling has been sold several times and is now owned by Treasury Wine Estates, an Australian firm.

Famished, and with ten minutes to spare, we entered Morimoto. As the name implies, the restaurant serves Japanese fare. Our table had an unobstructed view of the Napa River. We sipped cold sake while we waited for our sushi and sashimi to be prepared and laughed about our experiences with San Francisco taxi drivers.

On the first night in the city, our cabbie had no idea where Volta was located and ended up dropping us off eight blocks from the restaurant. The next night we got wise and located Benu on our iPhone in case we had to give the cab driver directions. Good thing, because he had never heard of Benu. Politely, I asked, “Are you new to the city?” He replied, “No. I’ve lived here for fifteen years and I’ve always been a cabbie.”

As our last day in northern California drew to an end, we strolled along the riverfront to our parked rental and then retired to our hotel, for we had an early flight out of San Francisco back into DFW International.

 

 

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