"Alright, hold tight, I'm a highway star."
Highway Star by Deep Purple
Cleveland indeed does rock. It was mausoleum humid on the day my youngest sister Shannon and I went to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, and there were moments when we were walking from the parking lot to the Hall that I thought I may never see it on account of my collapsing in a heap on the sidewalk, but we made it. It is a strange sort of triangular building that juts out over Lake Erie. It is 6 floors of memorabilia and exhibits, so it takes 5 or 6 hours to go through, and even then I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked at each display. I won't go into great detail about everything we saw, but some highlights included John Lennon's 12-string Rickenbacker, handwritten lyrics to several songs ( Joe Strummer had very neat printing, who knew?) and costumes like Grace Slick's very tiny white fringe vest that she wore at Woodstock. It is a truly fascinating place to see, and I intend to go back again to catch what I missed the first time. Any of you who love music should get there at least once in your life.
That night, we went to Chef Michael Symons' Lola Restaurant. Fabulous decor, terrific ambiance and amazing food and wine! Shannon is the most adventurous eater in our very picky family, but for some reason, when I go to these kind of places with great professional chefs, I try to eat something I've never had before and would not usually eat at any other time. We both had the bibb and watercress salad as our appetizer and the white truffle vinaigrette was amazing! Shannon had the salmon as her main course and I swung for the fences by going for the calf's heart( I ate it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, in my best Anthony Hopkins voice) with homemade cream corn, green chiles, habaneros and morel mushrooms. It was thinly sliced and cooked rare and friggin' delicious! Now, those of you who know me well understand that organ meat is not a usual choice of mine, but this was quite exceptional. We washed it all down with a tasty Oregon Shiraz blend and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After a couple of beers at an Irish pub around the corner, we called it a night.
The next afternoon, we went to Progressive Field to witness the second coming of Christ, errr, the second start of the season by rookie phenom Steven Strasburg as his Washington Nationals took on Cleveland's hapless Indians. A sellout crowd was in attendance (perhaps the only one poor Cleveland will see this year) and the Nats prevailed quite handily 9-4. Strasburg was very good, striking out 8 over 6 innings and giving up only 2 hits, one a solo homer by Travis Hafner. He walked 5 though, so he was a little wild, but it was awesome to see him pitch and something to tell the grandkids about. Lots of ballpark food was consumed and a few Leinenkugel's and it was a great day! It was Shannon's first live big-league ball game and she was quite impressed by the stadium and the atmosphere. Now she'll be a pro when she takes my Dad there next time he visits. All in all, it was a fantastic trip and I would like to thank my sister for putting up with me for 4 days and being so hospitable to her much older brother.
No comments:
Post a Comment