“Drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life’s most civilized pleasures.”
—Michale Broadbent
Boy, have times changed. There used to be a time when we invited friends to our home for an intimate dinner and we would welcome them at the front door. But in this Brave New World, we find ourselves in, where the pandemic still poses an existential threat, like many we have resorted to welcoming our friends through the back gate of our outdoor terrace. Unless it is a small family gathering, we limit the number of guests to one couple. We take turns ordering and picking up take-out food. Studies show due to the dilutional effect of large amounts of open space transmitting the novel coronavirus outside is very low. The ground rules are we cancel if anyone is feeling ill, no shaking hands or hugs (missing that immensely), and arranging our chairs in such a way to honor the guidelines of social distancing. It is no guarantee, but so far “knock on wood,” we are faring pretty well.
Last week, we were Susan and Nelson Bye’s guest for dinner in their back yard patio. They live a quarter-mile up the walking trail in the upper level of our gated-community. This time they were “our" guests and based on pre-arranged plans we each ordered from "The Hero Ranch Kitchen," in downtown Saratoga. Oddly enough we had always talked about making plans to dine at this relatively new establishment, that is until the pandemic shut that idea down. As John Lennon once said, “Life happens when you’re busy making other plans.” But, hey! We have no complaints. We are doing a lot of things differently these days. Whoever thought I would swim and bike ride everyday? It has been a wonderful unexpected change in routine.
Hero Ranch Kitchen is a farm-to-fork restaurant across from the Basin Restaurant and near the Plumed Horse. The owner, Angelo Heropoulos, supplies much of produce from his Almaden Valley ranch. Cecile and I ordered three lamp chops, gnocchi with corn, and three fried chicken sliders. The Byes shared Crusted prawns, stuffed mushrooms, corn, hamburger, clam chowder, and truffle fries. It was delish.
There is a photo of Nelson, telling us about the "Chaos Theory.” Not the mathematical theory by Edward Lorenz who discovered that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, and, repetitions that may not be random at all. No, no, Nelson was telling us about the bottle of "Chaos Theory" wine he brought for us to share from the Brown Estate Vineyard in Napa Valley. One glass relaxes you and was a nice complement to the food from Hero Ranch Kitchen; the second glass gives you a little buzz and the third glass makes you think: What virus?:-)
For dessert, we offered Good Humor Creamsicles and/or Klondike dark chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bars. As the sun was beginning to set, showing off pink hues on the horizon, we said our goodbyes to the Byes, Cecile and I took a walk around the ponds and waterfalls and called it a night. All was well with the world.
Postscript: The Brown family of Napa Valley has employed the scarab beetle, an ancient Egyptian agricultural totem as part of their visual branding on their wine labels through the years, a symbol of good luck and long life.
