JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 19, 2016

Bob Gandt: “What’s Next?”

Bob Gandt is a remarkable guy. We first met 40 years ago as Pan Am pilots in Berlin. Bob had been based there for a couple of years when I arrived, and we soon discovered a number of shared interests. We had both flown A4’s in the military, were marathon runners who shared an admiration for Ernest Hemingway’s prose, and harbored our own aspirations to be writers. When Bob found out I was from Ketchum, Idaho, Hemingway’s last home, and knew Ernest’s son, Jack, it was clear we were going to have a lot to talk about.

I learned that while based in Hong Kong in the late ‘60’s he had become fascinated by the WWII siege of that city by the Japanese and wrote about it in a series of articles for the South China Morning Post. In 1981 he published his first book, Season of Storms, based on that series, and from then on he was juggling two careers – author and commercial airline pilot. His airline career took a turn when Pan Am sold its Atlantic routes to Delta in 1991 and he had to leave Berlin for Atlanta. He continued there as a Captain and Check Pilot until his retirement in 1999, but in the ‘90’s his writing career took off. Since then he has created a bibliography that includes seven novels, seven non-fiction books and several screen credits. He’s covered a lot of ground since our early days in Berlin.

In March of this year Bob’s latest book, Mastery: A Mission Plan for Reclaiming a Life of Purpose, Fitness, and Achievement was published. I enjoyed his earlier writing and I’m always curious, but I admit to having been a little skeptical about this latest release. It’s a striking departure from the aviation-rooted output of his earlier work and unlike anything else he’s done. In this one he asks his target audience, the Boomer generation at or approaching retirement, to consider the question “what’s next?

Bob’s answer is not golf or crossword puzzles or a platitudinous happiness prescription. He suggests a much more rigorous and thoughtful solution. He and co-author Gary A. Scott set out guidelines for creating a meaningful future – essentially a new life with newly created aspirational goals. For Bob and Gary it’s not about winding down; it’s about winding up and resetting.

You’ve probably figured out that I’m not a fan of self-help books. I’m especially suspicious of Suzanne Somers-like feel good prescriptions for seniors. As a consequence, I read Mastery skeptically until it proved to me that it was different. Mastery is the Cross-Fit of senior planning. It offers suggestions, tools and inspiration but hard work is at its core.

Mastery is not about being a better person, avoiding boredom, or adding quality to your life. It’s not about losing weight, spending more time at the gym, or joining a book club. These are feel good items on the order of New Year’s resolutions. They are not missions in the sense that Bob and Gary view them. They may be side benefits of the effort but they do not meet the criteria for a new mission.

According to the Oxford Dictionary a mission is “an important goal or purpose accompanied by a strong conviction.” Mastery’s core message is directive; find a mission that is meaningful and commit to its achievement.

So what qualifies as a mission? The authors tell us that common choices have included writing a novel, learning a new language, mastering a musical instrument, doing a triathlon, or starting a new business. A mission is serious business and once you’ve found yours you need to do the training, put in the miles, retrain your muscles – mental, physical, and spiritual – and apply yourself to meeting its demands. The authors acknowledge that mastery is not for everyone.

There are chapters in Mastery that offer tools and strategies but the book’s real value resides in the mind shift that prepares the reader to embark on this new adventure. The authors are convincing when they assert that finding a mission and committing to the process leads to increased quality, satisfaction, and life enrichment. Mastery is by their definition a state of being, not a curriculum.

I’ve always been attracted to OCD people, and Bob Gandt is right up there with the best of them. Not only has he achieved as a Navy fighter pilot, a Pan Am and Delta Captain, a successful aviation writer, novelist and TV consultant, but in 1985 he and some friends formed an aerobatic demonstration team that performs at air shows, and he recently completed a triathlon. Mastery has a nice ring to it and he can speak with authority about it.

Years ago I suggested Bob make a pilgrimage to the Hemingway Memorial in Sun Valley. I don’t know if he has, but the inspirational words engraved there provide a reflective coda to a life packed with adventure and accomplishment. I think he would feel a kinship with Hemingway in that regard also.

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Categories : Aviation, Books, Film/Television, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 10, 2016

· 1 Comment

Stanford Denied

Do you ever wonder “what if?” Do you wonder how your life would have turned out if you had taken a different turn at a crucial point in your journey? Who would or would not be in your life now? What if you had done this instead of that? How might your life have changed if you had turned right instead of left at a certain point? Where would it have taken you? Some of these “what if” moments are spontaneous, some are traditional decision points leading into the future. Some are unpredictable and some are beyond our control – illness, accidents, lost jobs – that change the vector of our lives.

I have three grown children. One is a fixed-earth planner who likes things settled and certain. One of her brothers is self-directed, hard to pin down, and doesn’t plan ahead. The other one is a scientist/athlete with a stable job who yearns for a more adventurous one. None of them sought my advice as they were making their life choices.

If they had asked me, I would have told them “be positive, stay flexible, say yes to invitations, keep your eyes and ears open for unexpected opportunities, set high expectations for yourself but don’t be too disappointed if your plans don’t work out. If you do these things they probably will work out.”

When I think about my “what if” moments, the ones I think about most often happened just as I was about to graduate from high school. Three years earlier, an admissions officer from Phillips Exeter Academy, the New Hampshire boarding school, stopped by my Seattle high school hoping to recruit students that would broaden the geographic diversity of that East Coast institution. My school counselor told me it was a great opportunity and suggested I apply. I didn’t know much about boarding schools, but it sounded exotic to a middle class boy who had never been east of Montana. When I enthusiastically told my parents about the opportunity and added that there was a scholarship attached, I thought they would share my enthusiasm. They said no. I don’t remember what else they said, but they shut that train down before it left the station.

At 15, I was trying to assert my independence and it was disappointing to be summarily dismissed. I may have been testing them then, but after their rejection I was reluctant to share other hopes with them for fear they would be put down too. When college application time rolled around in my senior year the Exeter experience was still a fresh wound, so I didn’t tell them I was sending an application to Stanford as well as the University of Washington. If I got accepted I would figure out how to get there.

When the return letter from Stanford arrived I stared at the envelope for a long time. I was an above average student but Stanford was a stretch and I thought this might be the gate I couldn’t open. I stared at the envelope imagining myself in that beautiful setting far from home and the changes it would bring if I could go there. When I finally opened it, the letter congratulated me on my acceptance, but threw me into an emotional blender. I was relieved and excited but depressed and fearful at the same time. I kept the news to myself for awhile, but eventually confronted my fear and told my parents. The fantasy ended when they told me, “There’s a perfectly good university just down the street and that’s where you’re going. End of conversation.” Despite the fact that Stanford tuition was only $250 per quarter then and I was prepared to work, save, and contribute, it wasn’t going to happen. That fall I enrolled at the UW.

I think of the Phillips Exeter opportunity and the Stanford acceptance as important “what if” moments. It’s clear that either one would have radically altered the direction of my life. All the people, places, and events in my life would have been different – friends, marriages, children, fields of study, career paths, geography, and military service. My life would have been wholly other than the one that followed.

From this distance, I understand my parents’ decision though it seemed harsh at the time. Their lives were lived within the boundaries of their limited experience. Education was important but a free university within walking distance of home blocked out the value of other choices. They weren’t able to see added value in the Stanford experience. My own children went East to boarding schools and to universities far from home, but our world was a different one from the one my parents inhabited.

Today, parents mortgage their retirement to send children to expensive, selective universities hoping they will give them an edge in an increasingly competitive world. I understand their motivation but question the underlying cost/benefit. My parents had confidence in the local system and assumed I would succeed. They were right. The UW did an excellent job in providing the building blocks for my future. My parents world didn’t extend much beyond the geographical region they inhabited. Stanford was out of their wheelhouse. It would have provided me with a different educational and geographic experience but it was a luxury that didn’t make sense to them.

I still think about Exeter and Stanford and wonder where they would have taken me. Most of all, in moments of reflection, I think about my parents and how they must have thought about my future at the time. My children are making those decisions now for their children. They’re not interested in what I think. I would love to have gone to Stanford, but I’m convinced that my education at the UW was as good as the one I would have received at Stanford. I hope my children and grandchildren make good choices that don’t saddle either of them with significant debt. If they are serious about education they can get it at almost any university – public, private, or even online.

I’m proud of the people my children have become. They don’t want my counsel but I stand by the advice I would have given them earlier: be positive, stay flexible, say yes to invitations, keep your eyes and ears open for unexpected opportunities, and set high expectations for yourself but don’t be too disappointed if your plans don’t work out. You never know when the next “What if” moment will come your way. Be alert. Don’t miss it.

Categories : Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· May 3, 2016

· 4 Comments

The Missing Man…

“In youth it seems one’s concerns are everyone’s. Later on it is clear they are not. Finally, they again become the same. We are all poor in the end. The lines have been spoken. The stage is empty and bare. Before that however, is the performance. The curtain rises.” And then the curtain falls…

James Salter – Burning the Days

The curtain has fallen. John Hubner has given his final performance. Like James Salter, John was a gentleman, a husband, a father, a student, a scholar… and a fighter pilot. He died on January 4, 2016 at his home in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife, Julie, at his side. He was the most accomplished and complete aviator I have ever known.

Captain John Hubner, USMC, had just completed a 3-year tour at NAS Patuxent River, the Navy’s test pilot facility, when I met him. I was a newly minted Marine fighter pilot assigned to VMF-323 (Marine Fighter Squadron 323) at MCAS El Toro, in Southern California. John was assigned to the squadron as the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) and responsible for getting the squadron carrier qualified. VMF-323 was reforming and preparing for a Westpac cruise aboard the carrier USS Lexington the following spring.

I was 23. John was 5 years older. It seemed an enormous difference at the time. It wasn’t. What was enormous was the difference in skill, judgment and maturity. John had it. The young lieutenants, me included, did not.

At that time the squadron was flying Chance Vought’s F8 Crusader, the hottest aircraft in the fleet, an air superiority combat fighter designed to fly over 1000mph. Three years earlier Major John Glenn had set a cross-country speed record in it, crossing the country from Long Beach, California to Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn New York, in 3 hours 23 minutes, an average speed of 725.55 mph. The F8 was later made the subject of a History Channel documentary called “The Last of the Gunfighters.”

The Crusader was a joy to fly but unforgiving. It was especially difficult to take aboard ship and the cadre of young pilots John needed to train were full of testosterone and needed a steady hand to guide them. He had a mandate to instill good judgment in us to go along with our embrace of this new adventure. A good fighter pilot has to be fearless but never to the point of recklessness. Earlier that year we had lost a young lieutenant showing off to some ground troops at Camp Pendleton trying to execute a low level aileron roll but flying into the ground. The Marine Corps could not have found a better man for the new job than John Hubner.

“A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skills.”

Frank Borman – Air Force fighter pilot and Apollo 8 astronaut

John did his job with professionalism and good humor, signature traits that stayed with him until the end. He would stand on the end of Runway 25L at El Toro while we ground around the landing pattern at 500’ making simulated carrier landings. “Add power. You’re a little low. Bring it up. Keep the meatball centered,” John would say when we needed coaching. “Nice work,” he would tell us when our skills improved and we refined our technique to make small adjustments to power and angle of attack. It was hot, dusty work standing there. John would much rather have been in the pattern with us, but his job was to get us ready.

We were 25 pilots strong when the process began and the squadron could only take 16 on the deployment. It was a judgment call and the task was mostly left to John. Many of us were first tour pilots who had just earned our wings. Nine of us had to be cut. I was one of them and though it was disappointing I knew I was among the least experienced. John was diplomatic, telling us that we were all capable but he had to pare the roster and select the pilots with the most experience. It wasn’t easy to be left out. It wasn’t that we weren’t qualified. It was all about time in the aircraft. It was up to John to select the most seasoned pilots. It’s never easy to be cut. Fighter pilots have big egos, but John was able to do it in a way that made us better pilots going forward.

During this same period America was moving swiftly to catch up to the Russians in the “space race.” The Russians had put a man in orbit in April of 1961 and I remember crowding into the 323 Ready Room less than a month later to watch Alan Shepard make America’s first space flight on the first Mercury launch. I have no doubt that John Hubner could have been an astronaut. He was as smart and understood the complexity and details of the underlying science as well as any of the astronaut candidates, but he was a group leader and astronauts were more singular. He loved flying and would have been a standout astronaut. He was a cool head… as cool as any aviator I’ve ever known… but the men he led would have missed out on something special if he had become an astronaut.

After 323 pared down I moved to another F8 squadron at El Toro and 323 left for the Far East. I didn’t see John again for 50 years. That’s right. 50 years. But, John was one of those people you don’t lose track of and I followed his career with fascination from a distance. After a successful Westpac tour during which the squadron returned intact (it was the only squadron on the Lexington that didn’t lose a pilot), Vietnam was beginning to be a factor and by the time the war really heated up in the mid-sixties John was a major and took command of VMF(AW)513, an F4 Phantom squadron, based at DaNang. As the CO of 513 he flew 275 sorties, mostly dangerous low level missions in support of Marines on the ground, manifesting the characteristics of a true leader.

In 1973 John retired from the Marine Corps – sort of. As an accomplished test pilot and expert on the needs and mission of Marine aviation, John took a position with the Department of Defense and was sent to England to act as a liaison with Rolls Royce and the AV-8B Harrier vertical/STOL manufacturer as that aircraft was being introduced into the Marine Corps air arsenal.

It was in England that John met his wife, Julie, an accomplished aviatrix herself, and the rest is history. When John retired again, he and Julie moved to Bellingham, Washington, and began the next phase of their life together. They discovered a small regional airport in the Skagit Valley and threw themselves into their new life with the same passion and enthusiasm that their earlier lives exemplified. They bought a hanger, restored classic aircraft, involved themselves in the community and flew their own planes – his restored Stearman bi-plane in Navy colors and her Piper Cub.

In 2014, at the urging of Carl Vogt, another 323 squadron mate, I attended a VMF-323 reunion in Pensacola. John and Julie were regular attendees at earlier reunions and suitably recognized for their celebrity. My wife, Marilynn, and I truly enjoyed the reunion and our time with John and Julie. We planned to get together when we returned home since we were relative neighbors in the State of Washington. We exchanged emails but both couples were busy and it didn’t happen. We were devastated to hear that John had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He died not long after the diagnosis.

Last Saturday there was a memorial celebration for John at the Heritage Flight Museum on the grounds of the Skagit Regional Airport. It was a large gathering with a ceremonial band and a Marine honor guard to present a folded flag to Julie. I was surprised at the turnout. I shouldn’t have been. He was a role model, a hero, a community activist, an aviation enthusiast, a father, a husband, and a solid, decent human being. His son, Bill, read from letters they had exchanged when John was in England. John had copied all the letters from both sides of the correspondence and sent them to Bill to memorialize their exchanges. They were touchingly formal, and he always signed off as “Father.” Some of the handwritten letters were more than 15 pages in length and included everything from paternal advice to world affairs. Another speaker at the event, a childhood friend, told stories about John’s leadership at boarding school and how, rather than attending college as expected by his upper class family, he confounded them by enlisting in the Marines. TR Moore, another 323 squadron mate, flew up from Arizona for the event and told stories about the Lexington cruise and their lifelong friendship.

At the end of the ceremony the audience walked to the edge of the runway to watch John’s Stearman cut the ribbon on a new grass runway – one more of his projects – and then look up to see four of his friends fly overhead in the “missing man” formation, a ritual goodbye that honors a beloved airman. It was a suitable goodbye to a fully realized and complete aviator. Like James Salter who died last year, John has given his final performance, but those of us who knew him will always remember how exceptional he was and how he marked our lives.

RIP John

Categories : Aviation, Fashion/Lifestyle, Personal/Family, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· April 26, 2016

· 2 Comments

How Chernobyl Changed My Life

Thirty years ago today, April 26, 1986, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, melted down creating a 2000-ton radioactive blob that blew the roof off the reactor and released 10 tons of radioactive debris into the air. It is the worst nuclear accident in history. Today there is an “exclusion zone” 30km in radius and almost 1000 square miles in area surrounding the reactor site. It is uninhabitable although the London Daily Mail reports that 7000 workers are still employed in the clean up effort. These are people who lived in the area before the disaster. None are safe, and all are tested daily as they exit the exclusion zone. Estimates vary from 3000 to 20,000 years before the area will be safe for human habitation.

I wasn’t there, but my life was forever changed by it. I was a Pan Am pilot stationed in Berlin when the reactor blew. The following day I flew the inaugural flight from Frankfurt to Stockholm. Chernobyl was all over the papers. Berlin is only 720 miles away and authorities, including the airlines, were tracking a cloud of radioactive material released to the atmosphere. Everyone was talking about the accident but none of the airlines were cancelling flights. It’s fair to say no one knew what to do about it.

Dispatch in Frankfurt told us about the Chernobyl cloud and that our flight path might take us close to or even through it. There was no plan to deviate around it but we weren’t particularly worried. If we flew through it, we had no reason to to think it would cause a problem in the cabin. The Captain and I were taking our wives along on the flight. We were scheduled overnight in Stockholm then the following day back to Frankfurt and on to Athens for another layover. Two great cities with afternoons and evenings free to enjoy them.

Our departure out of Frankfurt was normal and since it was an inaugural flight the crew was excited. Ingemar Johansson, the former world heavyweight champion and a mega-celebrity in Sweden was traveling with us as was Floyd Patterson, the man Johansson knocked out for the title and the one who knocked him out to regain it. New York’s mayor, John Lindsey, was also aboard, and when we arrived in Stockholm we were met by a contingent of government officials and press celebrating Johansson and Patterson’s arrival as well as Pan Am’s inaugural service. They gave us gifts and welcomed us graciously.

That night Al and his wife and Abby and I ate dinner at a charming small restaurant and the following day flew back to Frankfurt. This time there was no question; we flew through the Chernobyl cloud and were met at the Frankfurt airport by authorities with Geiger counters. They swept the airplane inside and out and noted that there was some evidence of radioactivity but not an amount that set off alarms. Soon, we were off to Athens where it was Easter Week on the Greek Orthodox calendar.

Athens is a blend of the ancient, exotic, and modern, and our late afternoon arrival gave us time to explore before dinner. We headed directly to the Plaka, the oldest neighborhood in Athens, full of small shops and authentic Greek restaurants. I knew from prior visits that it offered colorful shops and sidewalk cafes where we could sip retsina and watch the people come and go.

After dinner we strolled back through the Plaka and noticed a crowd in front of a beautiful small Orthodox church. Greek Easter is akin to Tet in Asia. It’s a giant celebration. This particular church, Panagia Kapnikarea, is a classic 11^th century Byzantine structure, and that night there were throngs going in and out. In the Orthodox tradition there are no seats in the nave so everyone was standing clustered in groups around black robed and mitre-hatted priests chanting and praying. The interior was lit with candles and the air was thick with incense. It was enchanting and one of many unique experiences I enjoyed during my 19 years as a Pan Am pilot. It turned out to be the last one – although I have had many since as a private traveler.

Abby flew to Idaho the day after our return to Berlin and I followed a week later. My first morning at home I woke up with double vision. I was almost certain I knew what it was. A similar episode 16 years earlier had kept me grounded for two years but that diagnosis was not definitive. This time the symptoms were more severe and the diagnosis certain. I had myasthenia gravis, a neuro-muscular disease related to multiple sclerosis and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) – the same disease that killed Aristotle Onassis.

My story has a happier ending than Mr. Onassis’. Two years after its onset, the symptoms were remitting and I was well enough to start working again – though my days as a pilot were over. I wore an eye patch for 3 ½ years to deal with double vision and there was some weakness in my leg, but other than that I was feeling good again. When I told a friend who practices Chinese medicine about the Chernobyl cloud, she prescribed Korean ginseng because it has a reputation for diminishing the effects of radiation. I still take it, 30 years later. I don’t know if it played a role in the myasthenia’s reversal but it doesn’t matter. I take it – placebo effect or not. After 3 ½ years of double vision I was finally able to get rid of the eye patch. When I showed up at work without the patch, a friend told me to put it back on – he thought I was much more interesting with it. I’m sure he was right.

The people of Chernobyl were not so fortunate. In addition to 28 deaths attributed to Acute Radiation Sickness at the time of the accident, the World Health Organization reports that over 5000 cases of thyroid cancer have been diagnosed among those who were between infancy and 18 years at the time of the accident. This is due to milk consumption from radioactive dust that fell on pastures where dairy cows grazed. There was also an increase in the incidence of leukemia, non-thyroid cancer, pediatric cancer, cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and high levels of mental illness related to the stress of relocation, job loss, and fear of radiation sickness.

Today is the 30^th anniversary of that singular catastrophe. It changed my life but it ruined the lives of thousands of Ukrainians. Like the Fukushima tidal wave and the earthquake in Ecuador, it reminds us of how fragile we are and how unforeseen events can crush, take, or change our lives. Today I’m giving thanks for my good fortune and praying for those less fortunate.

Categories : Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· April 19, 2016

· No Comments

Feed the Spirit Too

“Pairings” are turning up on menus everywhere. They’ve become common currency in the culinary world. Small plate pairings. Three course pairings – appetizer, entrée and dessert. Prix fixe meals. Tasting menus. Wines paired to match prix fixe and tasting menus.

Matching food and wine is definitely the easy way. The restaurant selects a few food courses and matches them with complimentary wines. It’s good marketing for them and eliminates that sometimes awkward moment when you’re looking for a $30 bottle of wine on a list with Tiffany-like prices. Easy does it, and beware that while wine pairings may provide a good match they might also be a way for the restaurant to inflate the check.

Recently I’ve been working on my own different set of pairings – combining food and drink with art, music, and theater. Combine dinner with something cultural. It’s a tasty way to enhance the art experience – Happy Hour before a play or dinner after the museum or gallery walk. Incorporate a culinary adventure. It’s date night revisited, and it doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive, just creative.

For example…

If you live anywhere near Seattle you don’t want to miss the current exhibit of paintings by Kehinde Wiley at the Seattle Art Museum. It’s a smackdown experience and you won’t have another chance after the show closes on May 8, 2016.

I didn’t know anything about Wiley when the SAM show opened in February, but I should have. You’ll see why if you see the show. The most simplistic explanation of his work is that he recruits his models from African-American street people he encounters in his neighborhood. He asks them to pose and photographs them in their own clothing then paints them into pictures based on old masters and historical works.

The finished paintings are an odd juxtaposition of street art and old masters. Wiley uses vivid primary colors to paint his models in a photo-realistic style inserting them into old masters or against floral tapestry backgrounds (like the painting at the top of this article). Most of the models sport hip-hop fashions. The one exception is Michael Jackson, who commissioned Wiley to paint him into the 17^th Century painting of Phillip II of Spain by Peter Paul Rubens.

Wiley was born in LA 39 years ago but after completing his studies at Yale he moved to New York to began his remarkable career. Several years ago he opened a studio in Beijing, where he now spends a portion of each year. There is a lengthy video about his life and work included in the SAM exhibit, and an app called Layar (AR) that can be downloaded and used as an audio aid in conjunction with selected paintings.

Don’t miss it!

So, what did we pair with the Wiley show? We wanted a restaurant that was an easy walk from SAM. Coincidentally, it was Restaurant Week in Seattle, so there were many choices. Restaurant Week is a collaboration between the Seattle Restaurant Cooperative and the Seattle Times. Twice a year, in April and October, they collaborate on a promotion that enlists 165 restaurants to offer 3 course meals for $30.

M and I use Restaurant Week to try new places, ones we’ve read about but never visited. With drinks and tip it ends up costing about the same as any night out – somewhere around $100 for two, but it’s a chance to sample some appetizers, entrees, and desserts and vet places for future nights out.

From my tenure in the restaurant business I can tell you that if you you’re looking for a place to eat in a city you find out where the restaurant people go. Generally, there are a couple of places where they gather to eat, drink, and hang out after their shifts. When we started planning for RW a couple of weeks ago we heard Lecosho, a relatively new spot near SAM, was that kind of place.

Finding the right “pairing” also depends on the event. If it’s a play or music we try to find a good Happy Hour for small plates and a drink. On the other hand SAM stays open until 9 p.m. on Thursday and once a month presents a music program called The Art of Jazz with local and nationally recognized musicians. We planned our early evening visit last week to catch the Wiley exhibit and The Art of Jazz. It worked out perfectly and it was easy for us to make our 8 o’clock reservation at Lecosho, just a block away.

Dinner was exceptional; my seared scallops with purple asparagus were delicious and M’s pork chop was so big and plump that she took half home for lunch the next day. Our server, Jennifer aka JJ, was friendly and helpful without the “Hi, I’m JJ your server” routine. Her service was so good that I asked her name. She was attentive without trying to be our newest best friend. All in all it was a very full and enjoyable day – from Kehinde Wiley to The Art of Jazz to dinner at Lecosho. We’ll do it again and in the next few weeks I plan to share some other “pairings” that we think are perfect for nights out at the symphony, theater, or listening to an author read from his or her new book.

Seattle is one of the most literate cities in the country and in the forefront of innovative cuisine. The combination offers a lot of satisfying options to feed the spirit. I hope this gives you some ideas of how to find a good pairing the next time you go to the museum or a play. It’s all about creating a memorable experience.

But first… don’t miss the Wiley show at SAM if you’re anywhere near Seattle in the next three weeks.

Categories : Art, Fashion/Lifestyle, Food/Restaurants, Theater, Travel, Uncategorized