If You Build It, They Will Come

For everyone thrilled about the fall-like weather, don't look to me for reinforcement.

I'm frickin' cold.

Just to walk the four blocks to ADA Gallery tonight, I needed to put on a blazer.

Three nights ago, I wore a sundress to a wine tasting. I'm so not ready for this.

But walk I did to see the opening of "Our Yasu," a joint show by Rachel Hayes and Jiha Moon at ADA.

Hayes' large-scale installation "Chutes and Tears" was part paper, part fabric, part acrylic and lots of denim.

When it had originally been installed in NYC, it had been in a window, making it more of a caged presentation.

At the time, the Japanese tsunami had just happened and many viewers interpreted the piece as representing a make-shift shelter.

To many people, the strips of denim represented people, jean-clad people.

But tonight's installation, with the ability to walk through and around it, felt more like a glorious canopy, brightly colored and whimsical.

It's all about the moment in time.

In the next gallery, Moon's collage-like pieces hung as individual units on the wall.

Unlike Western art with traditional rectangular canvases, hers were irregularly shaped pastiches of fabric, paper, paint, vinyl, and, yes, lots of denim.

Moon said she liked denim for its ability to change from almost white to the deepest blue.

She saw the stonewashed pieces as evocative of the 70s and 80s, a time before she was born.

I loved how lyrical her pieces were with the most beautiful combinations of off-colors, delicate  painting, swatches and pockets of denim and calligraphy.

ADA Gallery was packed with art lovers eager to spend a Saturday evening seeing fresh work, including the Man-About-Town with whom I happily discussed "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" since he'd seen it, too.

Then he was off to a party and I to Selba to meet a friend.

I was charmed walking in to hear a guy playing piano, especially since the last time I'd been in the instrument had been no more than an empty glass receptacle.

The live music didn't mitigate the buzz-kill effect of the two TVs at the bar (nothing could) but I knew about them going in.

Unfortunately, the pianist stopped playing within moments of me walking in. Was it something I said?

There were only a few people at the long bar so I took a middle stool to wait for my friend with a glass of Vinho Verde.

Once she arrived, chiding me for always choosing poorly marked restaurants, we got down to the amuse bouche, a chilled melon soup with roasted cherry tomato.

She started with the wild mushroom tart (oyster, shitake and white mushies with puff pastry and sherry caramel), her only complaint being the scarcity of puff pastry.

I was more than satisfied with the richness of the mushroom saute.

I couldn't resist the Tri-tip steak, seared rare with red wine caper vinaigrette, Stilton cheese and chopped hard boiled egg over butter lettuce.

It turned out to be a generous amount of thinly sliced tri-tip, a cut you rarely see on restaurant menus.

Our server told us that many people see the word "tip" and expect beef tips, so he has to warn them of what they'll get to avoid surprise or disappointment.

I was neither and quite enjoyed the flavorful slices with the Stilton.

When the piano player stood up, I asked if he was going to play again, which he was.

Tonight was a new gig for him after losing one at Maggiano's. As he said, you take whatever jobs you can find.

We fell into conversation about eking out a living, whether by playing music or writing and then he was off to play.

Next my friend and I had the vegetarian spring rolls, which I remembered as the best thing I'd had on my first visit to Selba.

Mid-roll, we were unexpectedly joined by a man who walked up and said to me, "My son says you're the blogger."

As I explained to him, his article was all wrong. While I am a blogger, I am hardly the blogger.

He gave me enough of a running start for me to recall exactly when and where I'd met his son who, by some weird coincidence, was also having dinner at Selba tonight.

But not with his father.

At least he came over to say hello, expressing as much surprise that I remembered him as I had that he remembered me.

I was flattered to learn that they're both regular readers, a huge compliment since I'd only met the son once and the father never.

Turns out the father not only reads me, but takes dining suggestions from a stranger.

He's discovered Ettamae's because of my posts, which gave us an excuse to verbally drool about the corned beef hash and stellar ever-changing dinner menu.

He reads me well enough to ask, "Where exactly is the Camel? And why do you go there?"

And naturally he asked me why I blog.

And I answered truthfully, but I might well have asked him a question myself.

Why do you read me?