Way of Life Setting the Scene

from Coronado Magazine - December 2020

by Coronado Magazine

Coronado Holiday Gift Guide

Setting the Holiday Scene

by Kadie Chiera Jhill Interiors

The Holidays Are Here! The Holidays Are Here!

Chances are many of us are still spending a lot of time at home which gives us all Chances are many of us are still spending a lot of time at home which gives us all the more reason to go all out with holiday décor this year. the more reason to go all out with holiday décor this year.

Here are some tips to make this the most festive year yet. Here are some tips to make this the most festive year yet.

It’s never a bad idea to bring live flora into your space. The scent of a live tree can’t be replicated and will last much longer than the artificial scent sticks now on the market. It’s also a fun way to kick off the holiday season with the family picking out a Christmas tree together! Add other seasonal greenery in unexpected places, like in the kitchen around the sink and in bathrooms. A sprig of holly or even eucalyptus leaves are great options as well. White or red poinsettias are always a classic, inexpensive way to make a space feel authentically festive. Trader Joe’s and The Home Depot have plenty to choose from during the holiday season. It’s tempting to buy every single thing new each holiday season but take inventory of what you have each year and make some edits. It’s always nice to display those pieces that have been passed down through your family.

Pick three colors and stick with them

This helps keep things from feeling cluttered and disjointed. For some great combinations, consider white, gold and silver for a glittery, classic look; pink, white and champagne for a more feminine glam look; or red, white and green for a more traditional aesthetic.

Add layers of light

Layers of lighting adds dimension to a room. Select warm string lights for the tree and candles for the main gathering areas. Dim the regular lighting and let the tree shine! Remote-control battery-operated fairy lights are great for hurricane vases or wrapped in your garland on the mantle.

Create vignettes

Have some fun and get creative here. A vignette is a scene that focuses on a brief moment in time and can be quite powerful. At a loss for how to create a vignette? We have you covered! Use an existing decorative tray and add your favorite holiday candle on top, along with small, loose tree ornaments, a sprig of holly and some cinnamon sticks and voila! If you don’t have a decorative tray, here’s your chance to do some shopping.

Edit

We can all get carried away with “more is more” when it comes to holiday décor. Doing a final edit is key. If your tree is classic or minimal, go a little heavier with your mantle décor. If your tree is the statement piece, make sure everything else is secondary.

Odds ‘n Ends for the End of a Very Odd Year

by Kris Grant

Charles Dickens’ opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities, published way back in 1859, could easily have been about this year – 2020.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was ” the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the

epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the

season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

First, let me commiserate with you about why this very odd year has been the worst of times for travel:

Last March 15, I was planning to jump on an American Airlines flight to Costa Rica for a 10-day watercolor camp and vacation in paradise. Good thing our group canceled! On March 17, President Trump ordered all Americans to come home immediately. Had we gone, we would have been there one day before we were ordered home posthaste!

Our three Costa Rica hotels agreed to transfer our dates to this December (in March, December sounded very doable). But by the time October rolled around and COVID-19 case numbers began mounting, we again cancelled. Although American Airlines announced resumed flights to Costa Rica, things were tentative and we would have had to do COVID-19 “nostril” tests 72 hours before boarding in each direction! We’re now rescheduled for December 2021.

This year travelers turned to RVing in record numbers. I’m an active RVer and many of my RVing friends reported that their summer travels were tough this year; places they used to go year after year without reservations were often sold out. Friends who manage an RV park in Lake Tahoe each summer turned away hundreds of RVers this year. And the prices to purchase RVs, both new and used, shot way up.

But, strangely and surprisingly, travel in 2020 has also been among my best of times, and for that I thank Zoom.

Via Zoom, I’ve traveled all over the United States and throughout the world. My desktop travels have only served to strengthen something I already knew: What makes travel truly special are the locals you meet and the passions they share about their lives. Those passions come across loud and clear in Zoom sessions. As a result, I have quite a laundry list of places I must visit when I feel safe doing so.

I’ve reconnected with people who walked the Camino de Santiago and met pilgrims who had planned to walk this year by participating in Saturday morning Zoom sessions with authors, including John Brierley, who wrote the definitive

Photo Courtesy Travel Medford

handbook about the Camino, and authors Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray whose book “I’ll Push You,” tells the story of Patrick pushing Justin in a wheelchair along the 500 mile Camino trek, and how the trek, with the help of many friends along the way, pushed them to be better people. Want to join in the “Camino in Place” webinars? Just contact host and film producer Annie O’Neil and her “Pilgrimage in Place” Facebook page.

Several Zoom “familiarization trips” are available at no charge to the general public, and if you do a little research, you can likely find one on the destination of your choice through local chambers of commerce or visitor bureaus.

I also recommend Amtrak Vacation webinars such as “Cross Country Rail Trips with Amtrak Vacations” or “Five Tips for Traveling by Train in 2021.” Zoom lets you ask questions in chat bars and the hosts will answer live – to you and all webinar participants. The free Amtrak webinars, with rotating topics, are offered several times a month; go to Amtrakvacations.com to sign up.

As a member of the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA), I’ve been privy to several Zoom

Photos Courtesy Travel Medford

webinars over recent months, among them visits to Memphis, Palm Springs and its Preferred Small Hotels Network, Valle de Guadalupe wine country about two hours south in Mexico, and the Rioja wine region in Spain, one of the world’s top wine regions.

On one IFWTWA Zoom session, I learned about The Southern Oregon Wine Region, with input from winemakers in the Rogue Valley Wine region, just 30 miles across the California border, and tourism officials, including Ashley Coats of the Medford Visitors Bureau. Medford, Oregon is “the heart of the Rogue” and is also home to Harry & David and its local pear orchards. Rafting along the Rogue River, which begins at Crater Lake about an hour and half north, is a big draw for the area, as is Ashland, Oregon and its annual Shakespeare Festival.

You’ll find 150 wineries in Southern Oregon and 53 tasting rooms in the Rogue Valley, with four distinct wine trails in the belt that runs 70 miles wide and 60 miles

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TO CALIFORNIA long. I figure with four trails, plus Harry & David, plus a rafting trip, you’ll need a minimum of four days for a great vacation and exploration of the area. Pinot Noir is the most produced grape in the valley but Pinot Grigio, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are also popular.

The Rioja region of Spain lies in northeast Spain, about three hours from France’s Bordeaux region. The region is 70 miles long and 30 miles wide, with the Ebro River and its tributary streams running through it. Rioja is one of the top five wine regions in the world (on my 2019 Camino trip I trekked along Rioja’s southern edge, awed by the undulating beauty of the vineyards). Now I want to plan a driving trip to visit wineries and towns throughout the region where more

than 90 percent of its wines are red, based on the Tempranillo grape and known for wines that can age for decades.

I’ll visit Frank Gehry’s famed “City of Wine,” a modern structure with distinctive curving, whirling walls in the little village of El Ciego - “a beautiful blend of tradition and modernity,” noted our guide Nina Sventitsky, a Certified Rioja Educator and Silver Pin Sommelier. Gehry’s “City” houses a five-star hotel, exclusive restaurant, a spa offering “wine therapy,” a museum of viticulture, shops and luxury gardens. I’ll also visit the Soso and Yuso Monasteries in the Najerilla Valley in Rioja Alta, where the Castilian language developed, along with the first plantings of Tempranillo. I’ll hit the hilltop town of Laguardia, with amazing wineries surrounding it, including Ysios, an extremely long building with a wavy rooftop that mimics the foothills beyond and can be spotted (I’m told) from miles away. And I’ll stop in the proud Basque Country at Haro, at its Museum of Wine Culture and return to Lograño for a late night tapas crawl along Calle del Laurel.

Tranquil Heart wines Bill Shinkle successfully planted ten acres of vineyards on the hillsides below his home in Hemet, California, choosing six varietals that could withstand the region’s high summer temperatures.

Closer to home, Craft Winemakers of America is a fairly new association, established in 2016, that champions small family-owned wineries that produce less than 5,000 cases a year. At an October Zoom webinar, I met three craft winemakers including Rob Lewis of Lewis Station in Wisconsin, William and Jennifer Layton of Layton’s Chance Winery in Maryland and Bill Shinkle of Tranquil Heart Vineyard in Hemet, California. Bill is the first to admit that Hemet is probably the last place you’d expect to find a winery, and that there were more than 10 days of 114+

At an August Zoom webinar on Memphis, Tennessee, I learned not only about the history of blues music, but also about the best restaurants for soul food; The Four-Way was a favorite of Elvis, BB King, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

temperatures this summer. But, Tranquil Heart is actually in the foothills that rise up to the mountain town of Idyllwild, where Bill lived as a teenager, and repeatedly passed by his future home on the way to high school in Hemet. Armed with a horticultural background that includes providing flowers for many Las Vegas hotels, including the Wynn and Encore, he purchased the 15-acre property in 2009 and planted 10 acres of organic, sulfite-free vines, choosing six varietals that could withstand the heat. Sales are through the winery’s membership program which includes shipments of 15 or more bottles a year, plus parties and dinners at Bill’s hilltop home. I tasted the Muscat Canelli vintages from 2016 and 2017; the 2016 was slightly drier, and both had hints of apple and peach; the sweeter 2017 would be a perfect dessert wine, perhaps pairing with Brie or a goat cheese.

Michigan Wines – Who knew that Michigan was one of the country’s top five wine-producing regions, just behind Virginia? Most of the state’s wineries are within 25 miles of Lake Michigan, with picturesque lakeside villages. Traverse City is a recommended, charming destination, according to representatives of the Michigan Wine Collaborative, the industry’s organizing body, which is based there. The lake’s waters provide warmth that help keep the vine’s roots warm and thereby lengthen the growing season, which runs from May to October or November. But here’s a challenge: with the polar vortex (you don’t hear that term very often in California!) temperatures can drop to below –20º for days at a time. But one innovative winery came up with a solution: a V-shaped plow that digs troughs, then deposits snow along the rows of vines for warming insulation. (You’ve got to be kidding me; let’s throw a little snow in my bed when I get cold at night!) Riesling is the dominant varietal here, but there are also plenty of Chardonnay and Concord grape wines. Five major wine trails feature tastings at 70 wineries, including the state’s oldest and largest, St. Julian Winery & Distillery. St. Julian produces 10,000 cases a year of 100 different wines, liquors and ciders, with five tasting rooms throughout the state. As part of the Zoom

webinar, I was provided ahead of time with a bottle of St. Julian’s Riesling, which won the Indy White Wine of the Year in 2018. This semi-dry wine had hints of peach and citrus, which gave it a nice tang, almost like a sparkling wine. Delicious!

Next year is St. Julian’s 100th anniversary, a great time to visit with lots of plans in the works. Consider flying to either Grand Rapids, Michigan or South Bend, Indiana airports and renting a car. And for heaven’s sake, go in the summer! For more information, go to michigan.org/wine-beer-spirit-trails.

Last week on Zoom I became acquainted with a place I’ve always wanted to visit: The Finger Lakes and Corning, New York. It’s now on my short list of “go visit soon” destinations and I’ll share more on the region after I do just that. In addition to crafting some of the nation’s best wines, three of which I sampled in conjunction with the Zoom webinar (they were shipped the week before), I discovered that the town of Hammondsport in the Finger Lakes was the boyhood home of aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, who later lived in Coronado at a home which captured a GEM award from the Coronado Historical Association. (Watch for a feature story next year on the destination and Curtiss in this magazine.) Meanwhile, check out corningfingerlakes.com.

Next week I’ll visit “The Dinner Table of the South,” with members of the Birmingham, Alabama Visitors Bureau, where we will learn about the city’s recent James Beard award-winning chefs via Zoom. I’ll likely be ready to pack my bags. And then I’ll swing by Memphis for some barbecue and soul food (kind of one-in-the-same in this city) including a stop at the Four-Way Soul Food Restaurant, a favorite of Elvis, BB King, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aretha Franklin, among countless others.

By the way, do any of you watch shows on HGTV, the Home and Garden Television network? One that I enjoy is called “Home Town,” about a couple, Ben and Erin Napier, who have been renovating homes in Laurel, Mississippi, an old railroad town about two hours northeast of New Orleans. Homes there sell from $50,000 up to maybe $150,000 and the Napiers usually work with a renovation budget of about $100,000. So, my point is, with stops at Laurel, Mississippi, Birmingham, Alabama, and Memphis, a trip to the Deep South is starting to shape up nicely. I’ll head that way just as soon as the coast is clear!

At press time today, it was announced that Pfizer has come up with a 90% (or better!) effective COVID-19 vaccine. What a great ending for a very odd year!

Three bottles of wine from New York’s Finger Lakes district arrived just before the Zoom webinar, with all the winemakers present to share their personal stories.