Catchup

Eastside Road, September 5, 2012—

EATING EVERY DAY, or almost, but not Blogging Every Day, as you see. It was an unusual long weekend of eating and not eating, and the only photo I have to show you is this — but it was in many ways the most satisfying meal of the lot of them, not to detract from the others.

September 1, Saturday: Lunch was not very good, nor very wise for that matter: I'd asked someone in town where I might get a decent ham and cheese sandwich, and was told to get a great ham quesadilla across the street. Everything on the extensive menu seemed confused, like the menu itself: sandwiches, salads all cluttered with sauces and dressings detracting from (or maybe concealing) the flavors and textures of the ingredients. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, I guess, but the lasting impression was of some sort of Russian dressing. I can't recommend this.

• Yaks, 333 N Mount Shasta Blvd., Mount Shasta, California

Dinner was even weirder, though a lot more fun: freeze-dried rice and beans reconstituted in boiling water from Clear Creek Springs, about 8,400 feet above sea level, where we camped for the night.

September 2: We spent Sunday climbing, up five thousand feet, down six thousand feet. (Pavel and Simon added another couple thousand.) Breakfast was oatmeal with raisins and a can of Trader Joe's mocha. Along the way, Clif bars, almonds, dates, that sort of thing. Dinner, back at the motel after an eighteen-hour day, was chips and salsa, crackers and cheese, and a couple of very welcome beers.

September 3, Labor Day Monday: See that steak in the photo? Steak and eggs — two of them, over easy — and breakfast potatoes, and plenty of American coffee, and a glass of orange juice, and things began to come back into perspective. Dinner was crackers and cheese and beers in the motel again; and I had a huge delicatessen-made Caesar salad, light on the anchovies of course but otherwise very refreshing…

• Lily's, 1013 South Mount Shasta Boulevard, Mount Shasta; 530-926-3372

Then dinner at a nostalgic family Italian joint — what fun! A friendly Aunt-Ida type waitress, a decent Martini, good minestrone, a nice chopped-romaine salad, vitello piccata (how I was craving capers, salt, and lemon!), and Spumoni for dessert — you'd have though you were back in the 1940s. I don't think we'll ever visit this town again without eating here.

• Mike and Tony's, 501 S. Mt. Shasta Blvd., Mount Shasta; (530)926-4792

Pinot grigio, Ruffino; vintage? Clean and welcome.

September 4: Another American breakfast at Lily's: a short stack of buttermilk pancakes and a couple of fried eggs; then the long drive home, where we supped — at least I did — on some leftover short ribs from Lindsey's dinner at Maddalena Saturday night, when she ate better than did I…

Cheap French red, La Caumette, "L'Authentique" (their quotes): generous and fruity

And now I've caught up, and I think we'll fast today.