Sunday, January 1, 2012.
Brother-In-Law. Sam Carnegie. Sam Snead.
Everybody staying in The Homestead resort in the Appalachian hills of western Virginia was up late last night saluting the arrival of the new year. The Fitzmorris family certainly had been. Jude continued to party until sometime after one, using his super power of making friends with amazing ease.
Once again, I was the first awake. But that wasn't until nine. Hardly anyone was walking around the halls. I saw no need for a major breakfast, and retrieved a large café au lait from the coffeeshop. I'll put up with the paper cup for that, but I refuse to buy bottled juice. I still can't figure out why this resort has no complimentary coffee anywhere. No coffeemaker in the room, no urns in the lobby.
I got back to writing the novel I was hoping to be well along by this time. The Marys told me of long stretches of free time for me during our five days here. It hasn't played out that way.
I'm still working on two paragraphs about the suspicious character in the streetcar pileup, as I have for the past three days. I thought I was done with them yesterday, but reading them today I still felt that a lot of readers would give up on the book at that point. Only a streetcar buff would stay with it, and he would write me a geeky letter explaining how I got some trivial detail wrong.
After about an hour, I think I finally have it down. The number of words is a third what it was, and the geek minutiae is gone. I could plunge ahead into what the suspicious streetcar driver was doing.
But then Hap Thron found me. He is married to Mary Ann's sister Christine. They live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C., and took us in after Katrina.
That welcome had tremendous repercussions for our family. Jude began what would be three years at Georgetown Prep, from which he graduated. He never came home long-term after that. The Marys stayed with the Throns for a couple of months, then got an apartment so ML could keep going to Stone Ridge Academy. There was no room left for me at the Throns (they have five children), so Hap found me a bedroom in his mother's basement. I lived there for about a month, and finished my cookbook there.
Today, the Throns were staying in a timeshare not far from The Homestead. Mary Ann thought it would be fun if they came over and spent the day with us. Most of both our gangs went up the slopes for a day of snowboarding. Hap remained to give me company.
In a lot of ways, Hap and I are the same guy. We can finish each other's sentences, and we have the same appreciation for semi-goofy humor. A lot of this is because--sort of--we are married to the same woman. Mary Ann and her sister Christine are three years apart in age, but largely share a personality. Same beautiful face, too. And they drive us nuts in many of the same ways. That's what we talked about for a couple of hours in the coffeeshop, and during a sandwich lunch in the Casino.
None of that is worth rehashing. I do recall this exchange with Hap, though:
"Isn't it terrible the way us old guys can't remember people's names?" I said. "It's driving me crazy!"
"I know. Me too," Hap said. "But you can fix that. You need to take that Sam Carnegie class on how to remember names."
He had to repeat it before I caught it. So my sharpness of mind is going down the tubes, too. Think I'll just blame it on New Year's Day.
Our families reconvened for afternoon tea. Then Hap and I invaded the bar. I would have to get something other than a martini. Last time I saw Hap was on Lundi Gras at the Windsor Court. I was having the first of the three martinis that led to my breaking my ankle. So, one Perfect Rob Roy, and that's all for me today.
After the Throns left (so they could drive the mountain road before dark), we went to Mass in a little chapel within walking distance of The Homestead. It's administered by an old-time Irish priest whose sermon was a delightful ramble about the New Year, why his parish will never go into debt even though the roof needs some repair (we chucked in a twenty to that end), how priests don't really know anything about marriage, on and on in his brogue.
Our final dinner at The Homestead was at Sam Snead's. It's part of the resort, but in an old building with low ceilings a little bit down the road. We could have walked it, but it was windy and cold and drizzling, so we took the hotel's free (!) shuttle.
Sam Snead was the biggest star in golf before Arnold Palmer's day. Snead was before my time, but I know all about him--his trademark fedora, his very long, well-aimed drives, and his pioneering of the sand wedge. My father--an avid golfer and golf fan--thought that Sam Snead was everything a real man should be.
Sam Snead was born right here in Hot Springs, the little town that The Homestead brought into existence two centuries ago. The Homestead had serious golf courses in the early years of the sport in America, and it's where Snead got into the profession.
How he got into the restaurant business I don't know. His namesake place is jammed with artifacts of his career. I have not had good luck with restaurants whose specialness hangs on the name of a sports star. I had such low hopes that I left my camera back in the room. Sam Snead's broke out of that curse with the best food we had during our time at The Homestead. I had to photograph it with my iPhone.
I began with a big bowl of steamed mussels. Plump beauties, none overcooked. I had some trepidations about the sauce, made with boursin cheese and cream. Rich as it sounds, but so good that I lapped all the sauce up with a spoon.
The entree was even better. The rivers and reservoirs in this part of Virginia are famous for their freshwater trout. Some of it is farm-raised, so it can show up in restaurants. The waitress said that either the steaks or the trout was the way to go. The trout was $34, but I got it anyway. Out came a thick, wide fillet with crisp skin on the bottom, in a butter sauce with toasted almonds and white grapes. In every particular, this was twice the dish I was hoping for.
Elsewhere on the table was a filet (Mary Leigh noted that this was the sixth consecutive night on which she'd eaten steak) and grilled chicken with fettuccine (soon to be renamed "poulet a la Jude"). Mary Ann got an empty plate and made raids on all the others, as is her habit. We finished up with a unique pecan cobbler, baked and served in a little black iron skillet.
Sam Snead's brought a happy culinary end to our stay at The Homestead. I also felt my dad's eyes upon me, approving my eating in a restaurant properly oriented toward the important things in life.
Back at the hotel, I delivered good news to Mary Ann. On a lark, I checked Amtrak to see whether by some stroke of luck there was a sleeper open on the Crescent, on any day that would get me home for my first back-from-vacation radio show. Not only was there a roomette for the Tuesday land sailing, but the price was about third what it had been when I looked a few weeks ago. About the same as what the extra nights in hotels would be if we did the show from the road home.
Mary Ann didn't hesitate a second to approve--except to make sure that I knew this wasn't because she would be getting rid of me and all my maddening peccadilloes (like wanting coffee in the morning, and getting nervous when we're going eighty-five on the tail of a mammoth truck). I assured her that any time I spend on a train is happy time.
Sam Snead's at The Homestead. Hot Springs, VA: 7696 Sam Snead Highway. 540-839-1766.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
