Page 3 :: Beverley Jackson

In a Lovely Old Fashioned Way

by Beverley

February 16th, 2012

When I moved to Santa Barbara in 1963 I was honored to be befriended by two of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known, Adele and Leighton Wilkie. What fabulous parties they gave! What glorious times I had traveling with them on occasion. How marvelous it was to become great friends with their children. Then sadly in the way life goes, they were gone……..

But fortunately their lovely daughter Bonnie and her Australian Olympic gold medal swimming winner husband Jon Henricks have carried on in the same gracious generous style of Adele and Leighton. This was proven on Valentines Day when Bonnie hosted a ladies luncheon for a very large group of their Santa Barbara friends and from the moment I entered the grand old estate they inherited from Adele and Leighton a song was going through my head — a favorite song. Charles Aznavour was serenading me with Dance in the Old Fashioned Way. This song I love has always reminded me of a world now past, a gracious world where attention was paid to detail, where guests didn’t arrive in their exercise suits, where beauty and delicious were the theme.

Jon was at the door greeting guests as they arrived and led them into the beautiful living room that is totally unchanged from the first time I entered long ago. Many guests were out on the terrace and in the vast gardens but I never got that far. The floral arrangements were beautiful. A collection of Victorian Valentines decorated the grand piano. The fine wood paneling shone with a special light that only age and care can produce. As I looked around I thought, old can be better. And Charles sang on in my head.

A collection of Victorian Valentines were displayed on the grand piano.

One of the antique Valentine’s on display

Before we went in to luncheon everyone was assembled in the living room where Jon stood behind a chair in which Bonnie sat and with special music playing he sang a song he’d written about love. And Valentines Day is about love. About loving Bonnie when she was young and loving her even more now. Old fashioned? Maybe. But a rapper couldn’t capture the warmth of that tribute I can tell you. And I quite like some rappers.

A table of every type of Valentine candy. All this romantic stuff unfortunately made my iPhone camera go a little fuzzy on me.

Memories of parties past flowed when our group who were dining inside entered the dining room. There was no question of what holiday this was. Red flowers, old lace, red Valentines everywhere. The marvelous dining table with a fountain in the center was where it has always been, making musical water flowing sounds as background for our luncheon chatter – reminding me of so many great parties from the past.

The fountain with water nymph statue in the center of the large round dining room table.

The first course of fabulous lobster bisque filled with chunks of fresh lobster was served in antique demitasse cups on floral china that shouted spring time. I have a collection of those cups I remembered! Beautiful little cups hidden away forgotten as I too have fallen into a safe in the dishwasher state of thinking. “Dance in the old fashioned way,” Charles was humming in my head.

Delicious lobster bisque was served in antique demitasse cups.

Even the strawberries got into Valentine mode for the Strawberry Shortcake

Guiltily I thought of all this beauty and graciousness about which I’ve grown so careless. Things have to get done the easiest way because I have to spend hours on the computer. Do it quickly and get back to the computer. And I console myself with the fact that Valentine’s wasn’t always flowers and chocolates and pretty cards with red hearts. In 5th century Rome the Romans practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men’s rite of passage to the god Lupercus. It wasn’t all religious seriousness however. The boys drew names of teenage girls from a box and each girl was assigned to each young man who drew her name to be his sexual companion during the remaining year. That’s certainly not flowers and soft music romance!

It took Pope Gelasius to clean up this pagan festival. He ordered that instead of the names of young women the box would contain names of saints. That’s quite a switch! And women could now draw from the box as well. The idea was that for the rest of the year the participants were to emulate the ways of the saint whose name they drew. St. Valentine got his top man status because the Roman men were so unhappy with the new game the Church was forced to seek a suitable patron saint of love to head up things. However Emperor Claudius determined that married men made poor soldiers so he banned marriage from his empire. But Valentine, defying him, was secretly marrying young men. Claudius ultimately had him imprisoned and while in jail he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer. His love for her and his great faith miraculously healed her eyes before his death. As he was taken off to his beheading he left a farewell note for the girl and signed it “From Your Valentine.” Now you can all take it from there…….

Bonnie Henricks saying goodbye to departing guests

As I drove off it wasn’t feelings of guilt that I felt from the piece of cake covered with freshly grated cocoanut and a piece of chocolate fudge cake or the darling little Chinese take out box covered with red hearts filled with chocolate hearts on the front seat next to me. It was feelings of warmth having lived in the gracious world of days past for an afternoon. As I drove Charles was there singing again. And my body was moving with the melody and I could almost feel the arms of a man I loved around me, while we danced in the old fashioned way……………

Dance in the old fashioned way.
Won’t you stay in my arms
And let me feel your heart
Don’t let the music win
By dancing far apart.
Come close where you belong
Let’s hear our secret song.

Dance in the old fashioned way.
Won’t you stay in my arms
And we’ll discover highs
We never knew before
If we just close our eyes
And dance around the floor
That fine old fashioned way
That makes me love you more

Sing on Charles Aznavour, sing on……………….

https://youtu.be/2ujKZm2PlPY

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

The Internet Trail Led From a Vanderbilt Wife to Dracula’s Daughter in Rumania

by Beverley

February 11th, 2012

Like Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz I followed not the yellow brick road but the internet trail unhesitatingly and ended in Transylvania with lots of Hollywood studio extras in Rumanian costume and a light going on in Dracula’s castle. Now I should explain I have carefully avoided all the currently popular vampire movies. I have no idea who those young beautiful people are who star in them and have the young women swooning when I encounter their photographs in fashion magazines. But there I was propped up on pillows under two down comforters with Rennie snuggled next to me on a very cold morning in Santa Barbara, too comfortable to get out of bed to turn on the heater, watching a 1936 film in English with Rumanian translation coming through at the same time on my iPhone.

What truly fascinates me is how we get on these trails we follow that begin with the words GOOGLE! What led me to Dracula? In the case of Dracula it was an invitation from award winning social planner Merryl Brown to be an honorary committee member of the upcoming Royal Ball being put on by the Pacific Pride Foundation. I accepted of course. The costumes will be fabulous. I wouldn’t miss it. Plus I will help any group that works to cure the world of AIDS that has taken so many talented friends of mine starting with the great Rudolph Nureyev, as well as millions of other men and women around the world.

Now what’s that title of mine about a Vanderbilt wife? AIDS reminded me of the loss of a dear friend, the late Esme Hammond. Esme was the wife of John Hammond, the great grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt. Esme was life and laughter and then in a few quick days in 1986 she was gone. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong at the end. She had undergone cancer surgery recently but this appeared unrelated. Then a doctor in Philadelphia was consulted about her case and wondered if it could possibly be a new disease he was researching. It was. They traced the source of Esme’s AIDS to blood transfusions following her surgery. Lovely laughing kind Esme in her Charles James and Mainbocher wardrobe was gone from a transfusion of tainted blood. The New York Times announced the cause of death as pneumonia in her obit, but at the funeral her daughter by her first husband Robert W. Sarnoff, chairman of NBC & RCA, stood up and bravely let the world know the real cause. This alone made “straight” America sit up and acknowledge that the threat was theirs as well as the gay community’s. When at the end of 1986 a major magazine early after the horrendous disease first appeared in the United States had a cover of the 50 most famous/talented people to die that year of this new disease Esme O’Brien Hammond was the only woman on that cover.

Esme Hammond

So how did Esme take me to Transylvania? Lying in bed thinking about her and the last time we were together having tea in the Palace Hotel’s ornate dining room Esme told me of her pre-debutante days when she attended dancing classes in that room. After lunch she sent her driver on and took me on a walking tour of her youth pointing out places that had been important in her life. Then I couldn’t remember what year we lost Esme so I went to Google. Her obit came up, and lots about John Hammond who left Yale to settle in Harlem and go on to discover the greats of American Jazz — Aretha Franklin, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, a long long list. But a long blog about John’s great musical career is on the books for future By The Way.

Irving Townsend & John Hammond 1-23-77

And along with all these Hammond sites appeared sites on Lady Esme Hammond played by Hedda Hopper in Dracula’s Daughter. I had forgotten feared Hollywood gossip columnist Hopper had originally been an actress. Worth a look out of curiosity. Remember I’m ambling down the internet yellow brick trail. The beginning of this 1936 film was difficult because the vocal Rumanian translation (I’m assuming it is Rumanian — if any of you recognize it as another language please tell me) overrode the English. But enough English got through that it was possible to follow. And it was fun seeing Otto Kruger as a fairly young stuffy English doctor in London. I grew up with him playing Nazi generals in shiny boots carrying a riding crop.

Before I knew it I was snuggling deeper under my quilts watching the entire film on my iPhone. The London living rooms shown were lovely white Syrie Maugham-inspired rooms with lots of Art Deco which I love. One of the young actresses wore a typical 1930’s Hollywood white bias cut evening gown with a gigantic white fox cape and the obligatory orchid corsage and diamond bracelets. And another attraction was the leading lady who was named Gloria Holden, the same name of a very close contemporary friend of mine who to my knowledge has never been near Transylvania or a movie set. Of course the trail ultimately led from London to Transylvania and the climax in the cobweb strewn castle of the deceased dreaded Count Dracula with Otto Kruger arriving in an ancient horse-drawn carriage to rescue the……………………..

Well here watch it for yourselves. After a few minutes you will find you too can understand enough of the English to follow. But then the over-acting of some of the characters tells their whole story. Note also the wonderful Marlene Dietrich style lighting they have used. It’s actually a most amusing hour plus!

[Editor’s note: Unfortunately, the video has been blocked for copyright infringement. Here is a trailer for the movie.]

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

It’s Very Cold in Tokyo and Raining in Taipei

by Beverley

February 4th, 2012

My friend David Patrick Columbia generally starts off his daily report on his super popular New York Social Diary with a sort of weather report. “It’s a gray dreary day today” “Snow today….” Well I’m starting off with it’s been 85 degrees in Santa Barbara, the Flowering Pear tree is in full bloom as is my Flowering Cherry tree.

Natalie’s cherry blossom tree and in the background the redwood tree I bought in a five gallon can in 1974 and planted in that spot. It now towers over a three story building.

The latter is very special to me as the ashes of my beloved standard wirehair dachshund Natalie are buried there. When that tree bursts into glorious bloom with Monarch butterflies and bees fluttering around it and a neighborhood shiny blue hummingbird sipping from the pink blossoms it is Natalie coming back to say hello to me. But there is a very interesting story connected with Natalie being there that will be a whole blog in itself.

Whenever I’m thinking about weather reports the title of this blog today “It’s very cold in Tokyo and raining in Taipei” comes to mind. It goes back to the days when my daughter and I were a traveling team. I started traveling at the age of four with my parents:

My parents and me when I first started traveling

And I started taking her with me at about the same age. Here is our first travel adventure together in Honolulu in 1963.

A certain four year old and I on our first solo travel adventure Hawaii 1963

This picture reminds me of something she said when years later we landed in Bucharest after a flight of over 48 hours during the Cold War and our plane carrying just a very few of us, and needless to say she and I were the only Americans crazy enough to be going there at that time, was met by soldiers with bayonets and rifles pointed at us: “This certainly isn’t the way we’re greeted when we get off the plane in Oahu! They meet us there with floral leis!”

Well there I go getting off the subject again. Checking out weather reports. The first time we were going to Asia I read the weather reports and told her, “It’s very cold in Tokyo and raining in Taipei.” When she repeated it, emphasizing each word, it became a sort of chant and from then on whenever weather came up with it came the chant “It’s very cold in Tokyo and raining in Taipei.” And frequently when I go off to those areas now it still holds true. Try saying it in sort of sing song way and you’ll see what I mean.

And this all leads me to something I read in the New York Times today while lunching poolside at the Coral Casino Beach Club enjoying our beautiful weather. It was an article by Sharon LaFraniere titled Activists Crack China’s Wall of Denial About Air Pollution. My first thought was it’s about time!! When I first went to China in 1975 there wasn’t really a pollution problem. But within a few years I found that Peking I’d known with beautiful blue skies was now Beijing with smog that reminded me of Los Angeles when I was younger. However I never realized how really serious the problem was until a trip my friend Tamara Usher Kinsell and I took in October 2002. It was just after Zhang Yimou’s marvelous film Raise the Red Lantern had come out and I wanted to go see the mansion with the incredible roofs in that film. I researched and found out you had to go to Shanxi Province and stay in the city of Taiyuan and go out from there. Taiyaun proved to be a very large city in the middle of the major coal mining area of China and about the only person we found at the time who spoke any English was one phone operator in our Shanxi Grand Hotel. Tamara’s fluency in French, Italian, Russian and I don’t know what else was no help since she lacks Chinese and so do I. But somehow we got along with our language books and lots of pantomime.

Here is a scene from the movie “Raise the Red Lantern” that shows the amazing roofs.

I was so excited as we drove off for several hours into the countryside to see that glorious Qiao mansion, those incredible sweeping roofs. My first clue something wasn’t according to my plan was gigantic balloons flying high and an avenue of vendors selling tee shirts etc leading up to the the mansion as our car approached. We braved the mob scene and toured some the very grand house that was almost empty except for some imitations of fine old Chinese furniture. The Qiao mansion has 313 rooms, six major courtyards and 19 minor ones. And everything was jammed with Chinese tourists. But most importantly you couldn’t see those glorious rolling gray tile roofs I’d come all that way to see. You just couldn’t get an angle. I was pouting all the way back to Taiyuan and finally Tamara said, “Didn’t you realize that to get those angles they had to have cameras on cranes or take them from the air?” No I hadn’t realized. But with her son Kinka Usher a leading producer of commercials in Hollywood (the kind we’ll be seeing at the Super Bowl — the big league ones) Tamara had figured it out. Just wish she’d figured it out before we dragged thousands of miles to Taiyuan. Although one day we went to the ancient village of Pingyao, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, I’d wanted to see. Pingyao was once a town of rich merchants and financial center. Amazingly the magnificent city walls built in 1370 still survive as do their towers and the city gates. And we visited other incredible mansions in the general area, driving out each day in a different direction. It turned out that very successful pirates had gone from this remote area to the coast, made/stolen their fortunes and come home ultimately to their ancestral villages and built these gigantic compounds to prove their success.

Little boy in Pingyao	Pingyao street scene
A street scene in Pingyao

Well now to my point of this whole blog. It wasn’t until our departure plane flew out of Taiyuan that I realized we had been in a valley the entire time, surrounded by tall mountains. The smog had been so thick we never saw the mountains until we flew over them! Yes the New York Times article is right. The smog situation in China definitely needs some attention!

As a postcript, after going all that way for the first time in my photographing lifetime ALL except three of my photos from this journey got lost!

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

Dragons are Definitely In

by Beverley

January 29th, 2012

The kingfisher feather lantern was a great hit with so many followers who have emailed me about the dragons I live with. I featured the black dragon holding the lantern up but I failed to mention that on four corners there are dragon heads on the lantern. Here is a close up of one of the dragon heads.

Chinese New Year is still with us and has grown in popularity throughout the USA so remarkably the past few years. I’m celebrating heavily this year because as I’ve mentioned before I was born in the Year of the Dragon. This is my year. But I’m breathing happiness not fire!

While I’d like to be in a major city in China to see the fireworks displays, or in San Francisco Chinatown for their great annual parade, the New York Times this morning made me wish I’d been there to attend the Chinese New Year gala performance of the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. They did it right starting things off with a traditional Chinese dragon dance, the lengthy active dragon performing all over the stage. Not surprisingly Lang Lang, the marvelous Chinese pianist, was guest performer. This is a hard act to follow but conductor Long Yu tried his best conducting the New York Philharmonic in a program that included Li Huanzhi’s Spring Festival Overture. But what I would particularly have enjoyed seeing was the troupe of Mongolian children, the Quintessenseo Mongolian Children’s Choir, performing Mongolian folk songs dressed in traditional costumes. Jennifer Taylor took the following adorable shot for the New York Times:

The children concluded their part of the program with America the Beautiful learned in English with Mongolian accent. This would have been a harder act to follow than the dragon dance!

My last post about dragons I live with brought an amazing response of emails, snail mail and phone calls. And presents! A good friend in Northern California Roberta Quan sent me two treasures with dragons:

My good friend Roberta Quan in northern California is always sending interesting articles and sometimes wonderful little surprise gifts through snail mail. She so enjoyed the Dragons Around My House blog that she contributed to the participants with this wonderful snuff bottle with a perfectly lovely dragon to join my crowd.

Roberta Quan also sent me this lovely antique silver comb with a dragon wiggling its way across the top.

And my friend Joan Selwyn brought me a copy of an enchanting children’s book she wrote using dragons to teach the A,B,C’s:

Joan Selwyn got into the dragon act with a wonderful contribution. A copy of a children’s book “ABC Dragons” she wrote and illustrated. I’ve had more fun with the book than any child could have, it’s so delightfully imaginative.

Then having thought I’d found all the dragons in my house I started looking around and I missed quite a few. How can a person miss a bunch of dragons in the house? Well I did and here they are:

How could I have forgotten my beloved TinTin statue from The Blue Lotus? TinTin has his dragons, a blue one on the vase he’s hiding in. It delights me to see the recognition TinTin is finally achieving in the United States thanks to the new film about him. It has always surprised me most American guests in my home didn’t know who he was. When someone exclaimed happily upon spotting my TinTin “Ah TinTin!” it was always said with a French, Belgian, Italian, Swiss or German accent.

And TinTin has a red dragon with him on the notebook I carry in my tote. You can see TinTin is almost as much a part of my life as my dragons are!

And TinTin has a black dragon on the cover of his book. He’s well covered with dragons too.

Yang Du is a marvelously creative young Chinese designer in London I discovered and sort of adopted. She does the most imaginative giant knitted sweaters, hats, gloves and scarves. Here’s her dragon hat for Chinese New Year of the Dragon.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

There Are A Lot Of Dragons Around My House

by Beverley

January 20th, 2012

I found this 1920’s lamp in a funny little antique store in Edinburgh, Scotland in early 1980’s. Without thinking I pulled the old dangerously frayed electric cord out and left it in the Caldonia Hotel waste basket. Once home I took it to the lamp repair shop for a new cord. A week later they called me admitting defeat. “There is no way to get a cord back through there Mrs Jackson.”

So I took it to the best electrical shop in Santa Barbara. They kept working with it a month before giving up. “We’ve tried everything. It is impossible,” they announced.

That evening my close friends Anita and the fine painter Yasu Eguchi were over for dinner. I showed them the lamp and told them the disappointing results. Yasu who loves great challenges asked if he could take it home and try. I said it was hopeless. The experts in town gave up on it.

But the lamp went home with the Eguchis. Two days later Yasu was at the front door smiling broadly holding the lamp which sported a nice new electric cord going through it.

“Yasu how did you do it?” I asked in total amazement.

Laughing all the while he explained. “I caught a live beetle and carefully tied a piece of silk thread to it. Then I pushed it through the hole in the wooden base of the lamp. Meanwhile I had Anita holding a flashlight aimed in the dragons mouth. As the beetle moved up through the curving passage in the wood following the light I attached a thicker piece of string to end of silk thread. Once the beetle crawled out through the dragon’s mouth I took the silk thread off the beetle then laid it carefully in the grass totally unharmed. Next I attached the electric cord to the end of the string and pulled that through.”

Now I have safely wired dragon lamp. And somewhere a heroic beetle is living out it’s life in healthy peace.

Chinese lantern made of blue Cambodian kingfisher feathers

A favorite dragon holds court in the entrance to my living room holding up a very large Chinese lantern made of blue Cambodian kingfisher feathers. Marie and the late Bob Carty found the very special old lantern for me in a Los Angeles antique store over 30 years ago. How to hang my lantern was a problem. A temporary plant hanging “arm” from the nursery was starting to prove not so temporary when Bob called one day to say he was on the way over with a proper black cast iron dragon lantern holder. It was perfect! “Where did you ever find it?” I asked. “I was waiting in Mike’s (Mike Haskell a mutual friend who deals in rare Native American antiques) for him to get off the phone. While I was waiting I was helping him unwrap a shipment of very old Navajo baskets and your Chinese dragon was nestled in one of them.”. We were never able to find the real provenance. Ancient Chinese palace to Navajo reservation in New Mexico to me in Santa Barbara, California. Not a usual route for sure!

Dragon from empress robe with four corner constellation

This dragon embroidered basically with silver foil covered silk thread in a technique called “couching” was one of many dragons on a very rare yellow robe of an empress from my collection. What made this robe so special was: An empress was entitled to wear five of her husband’s 12 symbols on her robes for festivals or religious ceremonies. Those symbols were sun, moon, power, good luck and a three corner constellation. This robe had a sixth symbol, a four corner constellation in addition to the three. Only six other robes with four corner constellations are known in the world. My robe is now in the collection of a Chinese collector and has been on display in the Hong Kong Museum.

Theatrical dragon robe

This is a dragon from a theatrical robe in my collection. We know it’s a theatrical garment because it has exaggerated eyes and also if it showed the sides would be closed by ties instead of buttons, easier for quick changes.

An early 20th century flag of China
Chinese flag

There are four rather harmless looking carved wooden dragons on the pair of standing lanterns in my dining room.

Dragons on the dining room table

Here is the dragon’s head from the satin table cloth in my dining room.

The bronze bowl holding apples on my dining room table weighs a ton! The handles are frightening dragons with very sharp scales. The table cloth it sits on has two dragons whose heads are more or less hidden by the bowl.

1920’s Chinese cut velvet chair cover

The four dragons seen here are playing around on a lovely pair of 1920’s Chinese cut velvet chair covers. These chair covers found popularity in early 20th century movie star mansions in Hollywood where every Steinway piano was draped with a heavily fringed “Spanish” shawl which were all made in China. Think Norma Desmond/Gloria Swanson’s home in “Sunset Boulevard”!

The Chinese cut velvet chair covers showing the phoenix

Since they hang in a narrow hallway it is difficult to photograph full length. But here you can see the very grand Phoenix bird they frolic with. And adding to delight with these dragons they are coral color, a great favorite of mine.

Rank badge for imperial prince, son of the emperor of China

This is a delightful small embroidered picture of children with a giant dragon doing the dragon dance for some celebration

This is a carved wood fragment, probably late 18th century of the head of a dragon. The inserted eye is a very fine example of Peking glass done in several colors. Some of early red paint remains in the mouth and nostril area. It most likely was originally attached to a long carved dragon.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

Leisurely Shipboard Cruises Aren’t Always

by Beverley

January 17th, 2012

As the news of the Costa Concordia tragedy in Giglio, Italy keeps coming in it overshadows all those longings for a wonderful cruise ship holiday for me. And it brings back memories. I’ve had some wonderful cruises — the Greek Isles on a small Greek ship, many cross-Atlantic adventures, Crystal Symphony and Crystal Harmony cruises in the China Seas, through the Panama Canal, in the Mediterranean. On three of the China Sea cruises I was a guest lecturer and that was great fun!

But since tragedy is overshadowing leisurely pleasure currently it is a sailing in 1969 that comes to mind. I’d been spending a great deal of time in Spain and suddenly I came to the decision it was time to change course and head home. But not a straight flight. I called my mother in Los Angeles from Barcelona and told her of my decision and asked that she book me passage on the S. S. Michaelangelo sailing for New York from Cannes in two days. And to please book me for one night in the Carlton Hotel in Cannes. I called to arrange for all the mail accumulating in London be sent special delivery to Cannes and booked my Barcelona/Nice flight. Then I packed and said my goodbyes.

I should mention that unlike most of the world I’ve never been ecstatic about the South of France. Charming Menton is fine but I prefer the Italian Riviera. Ah Rapallo and Portofino! Heaven!!! Arriving in Cannes I was shown a room in the Carlton hotel, where I’d been a previous guest, a perfectly miserable tiny room way in back with the bathroom down the hall, by an extremely rude bellman. In those days a woman traveling alone wasn’t always treated with great respect. I remember checking into the brand new Ritz Hotel in Lisbon once. The assistant manager took me to a lovely small suite and then informed me he would send a waiter up with the menu for my dinner in my room since women alone were not allowed in the dining room! Needless to say I dined elsewhere, angry as anything!

Well back to Cannes. I was finally given a decent room and bath. After requesting my mail I was told there was none. I calmed down and went out for a stroll and a light supper in a waterfront cafe. The reception there for a single woman dining alone wasn’t much better than Lisbon. The waiter couldn’t have been more rude. One sweet bus boy commented I wasn’t eating my dinner. Maybe I should get something else. I thanked him and said it wasn’t the food that had taken my appetite. And when I left it was the busboy who got a tremendous tip and I left one U.S. dollar next to my plate for the waiter. I didn’t want him to think I just forgot. I wanted him to know I remembered quite well!!!

Can’t say I had the best night’s sleep but I rose happily because I was leaving Cannes. A very nice bellman helped me this time and as we were going down in the elevator he said, “Mrs. Jackson we must pick up all your forwarded mail. A very large pile of it came from London yesterday morning.” He got a major tip too and I hope he bragged about it to the other bellmen!

The Michelangelo was a beautiful sight. Boarding was very pleasant. All the handsome Italian crew helped make the process pleasurable. My mother had booked me a lovely stateroom and even arranged floral bouquets since she was only one who knew about my departure. Even my Spanish friend didn’t know where I’d disappeared to. I dropped my purse on a chair, we didn’t have to carry our own bags then, and headed up to the top deck. It was beautiful and sunny and just enough breeze to keep the flags moving and make my hair swirl round my head. I was standing up there all alone looking at Cannes, quite pretty in those days from the sea before all the cheap apartment buildings took over. And I was thinking, “Goodbye Cannes. I had a rotten time with you. I’m going home!”

“Do you like our ship?” a very handsome Italian in white uniform with a couple of gold stripes on the sleeve asked as he joined me at the railing.

“It’s the first time I’ve sailed her but so far I certainly like what I’ve seen.” And I rather liked what I was looking at right then!

“Do you like your stateroom? What stateroom do you have?” he asked pleasantly.

My first thought was this wasn’t information I should be sharing with a stranger. But I told him. He turned white! “It’s alright Signorina. It’s alright. Everything was made good. You are safe there.”

And before he could explain his reaction newspaper headlines from the past flashed through my mind. Three years before — April 1966 — Rogue Wave hits Italian superliner Michelangelo while crossing the Atlantic to New York. The wave crashed into one stateroom so violently the stateroom was destroyed and the couple in it were killed instantly. It couldn’t be my stateroom. It was. He calmed down and explained that I was very safe now. That stateroom had been totally rebuilt and reinforced and it was the safest stateroom on the ship. And would I have dinner with him.

Well now, you don’t expect me to tell all of you everything do you! I will say as the trip progressed I was happy to have such a sturdy stateroom because we hit some very rough weather mid-Atlantic. Designer Lily Pulitzer and a couple of her children were on board and when the weather got really bad the Pulitzer family, a few hardy British types and I had the dining room and the movie theatre to ourselves. We were about the only good sailors on board except for all that good looking Italian crew.

Here safely at home I have just Googled a bit on rogue or freak waves and the Michelangelo incident. The first one recorded was off the West cost of Ireland on March 11, 1861. Preceding the Michelangelo being hit in 1966 the Captain Giuseppe Soletti had given instructions the morning of the accident to all passengers to stay in their cabins as the ship had encountered some very bad weather. He had switched to a more southerly route than usual to try to avoid the worst of it. One ship’s officer has reported: “The waves got ever more high and violent. And just at the end of one grand pitch THAT wave came up in front of us very suddenly. The ship that until that moment could ascend the waves threaded the prow into a frightening wall of water.”

The giant, freak, rogue wave was estimated to be about 18 meters high, tearing into the forward superstructure of the ship more than 70 meters away from the head of the prow. It was so forceful that extra thick windows on the bridge 25 meters above sea level were smashed. Soon after the accident the ship was able to rendezvous with a U.S. military vessel that had been in the area and American military doctors aboard were able to help the doctors on the Michelangelo. The very capable captain Soletti brought his ship safely, though limping, into New York where temporary repairs were made and ultimately she went back to Italy where the aluminum alloy sheeting that was destroyed by the wave was replaced with steel sheets. That’s why that handsome Italian officer said I was safer than anyone!

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

An Italian King

by Beverley

January 12th, 2012

Today I’m going to tell you about something that I really meant to tell you about in late autumn but the holidays interfered. Well a bit late but……………

The king in my title won’t be found on any throne with a crown on his head and beautiful courtesans at his feet. He will be found in deciduous and coniferous forests and tree plantations. I speak of that treasure The Porcini which translates from Italian to English as Piglet. Not a very noble title for a king really is it! His royal relatives in France are called Cepes and they are found in the same environment. There are all those technical names like Boletus edulis and family of Boletaceae and Class Agaricomycetes — well you know those complicated names. At least his Kingdom is simple Fungi – that I understand.

The Porcini is actually found in many other countries including the United States but its just not the same. The Italian king of mushrooms reigns. Only in France with the Cepes do you get that other worldly fragrance and flavor the Italian Porcini offers. It’s an earthy flavor which is understandable since it is found hidden beneath chestnut trees in woods, or nestled into dead pine needles beneath the trees in aged pine forests. Foragers in the autumn seek these treasures in secret places known only to them. Finding the big fleshy cap atop its short round stalk is the prize reward for day long adventures in the forests. That cap can grow as large as 14 inches in diameter, but that’s a rare king indeed.

Cepes near Toulouse, France. November 1982

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to handle a large batch of this giants which I describe in my forthcoming book Living Like A Rothschild. “It took several visit to Chateau Mouton in Pauillac near Bordeaux before I won the semi-respect of baroness Pauline de Rothschild‘s renowned chef Mesma, considered the finest private chef in France, for my culinary knowledge. Mesma wasn’t the least bit impressed with all my culinary studies from the Oriental Hotel Bangkok to Robert Carrier in London to La Varenne in Paris and many other famed chefs of the past in between. However by my third stay at Mouton Mesma finally at least appreciated my tremendous enthusiasm for the gigantic fresh cepes brought to him by peasants who foraged the forests and brought their finest to Mouton for the baron’s table. I was paid the honor of being allowed to watch Mesma’s assistants prepare the cepes, then saute sections of the stems in oil. He even let me take some photographs of the delicious mushrooms in their uncooked splendor. It wasn’t until the following autumn however that I was actually allowed to help prepare the gigantic cepes with my own hands.

As I said domestic porcini/cepes just aren’t the same. Nor are the dried versions brought from Europe. They do have their own distinct flavors and I actually prefer to use the dried Italian porcini in making mushroom soup. But oh the rare beautiful real thing!

Well this had to be leading somewhere and here it is. One day late autumn I dropped into a small very fine Italian restaurant in Santa Barbara called Via Maestra 42 for a late lunch of salad made from fresh baby calamari flown in twice weekly from Italy, Waiting in line, there’s always a line even at three in the afternoon when I usually get around to lunch, I was trying to avoid looking longingly at their incredible pastry display or the refrigerated case of gelato also brought from Italy. And what caught my eye but a display of The King. Big beautiful real fresh Porcini. The other people in line looked at me suspiciously as I went into total raptures over what they perceived as nothing but big mushrooms. I let people go ahead of me in line as I studied each specimen carefully through the glass that protected them. At $19.95 a pound I wasn’t rushing into a purchase without thorough scrutiny. I finally chose one perfect specimen about six inches in diameter, just the right color. My Porcini weighed in at just under half a pound. The young Italian woman who waited on me handled it beautifully, with true respect. Not the worship I displayed but good honest respect. She packed it carefully for its journey to my kitchen. And as I started to leave I remembered I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I returned for my calamari salad after placing the king on a chair of his own.

My half pound porcini from Via Maestra 42

And what did the future hold for my king? For dinner I wiped him gently, sliced him skillfully, sauteed him in lovely white Meyenberg goat milk butter supplied to me by Carol and Bob Jackson who keep my refrigerator stocked with this, as well as chive goat milk cream cheese, and chevre cheddar cheese (a very interesting new product). The king was joined by a salad of super crispy Sierra lettuce and heirloom tomatoes, and a glass of vintage Pol Roger champagne. It wasn’t Joel Robuchon’s or Grand Vefour or Guy Savoy restaurants in Paris or the best of dining spots in Italy — but it could have been. It was that good!

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

The Saga Of The Countess Of Jersey’s Handbag

by Beverley

January 6th, 2012

A young friend who only knows the modern young Parisians emailed me about my New Year blog on Paris in the 1950’s “Why did you say they can be infuriating?”

Since I have a talent for answering a simple question with a half hour discourse I explained the following….

I’ll give you an example. Some years ago I was lunching with a wonderful friend, the late Virginia Martini, in Santa Barbara the day before I left for a month and half in France. Virginia was a very worldly woman. Her first husband was Cary Grant. Her second husband was the Earl of Jersey. Her last husband was a Polish flier in WWII who escaped to England and flew with the RAF. Santa Barbara friends had the opportunity to meet many of Virgina’s friends from her past when they came to visit her in Santa Barbara. One of her house-guests who was widely entertained during her visit with Virginia & Florian was the duchess with a most colorful past, Margaret, duchess of Argyll. Virginia was an intimate friend of David Niven and Jai, the Maharaja of Jaipur, the great grandfather of the very young current Maharaja of Jaipur, was in love with her.

Virginia Martini with my guests for a Noche de Gala Fiesta party in 1970’s, Bubbles the maharaja of Jaipur, his brother Joey, Ayesha, the rajmata (queen mother) of Jaipur, widow of Bubbles’ father Jai.

Virginia Martini with her houseguest Margaret, duchess of Argyll at a party in Santa Barbara in their honor.

A simple question from Virginia “Are you set to go?” brought the explanation that I was except I’d just discovered that morning the clasp on my black leather handbag I always carry when traveling was broken and it was too late to have it repaired.

“After lunch come back to the house and chose a couple of mine,” wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order from Virginia. She always had very definite theories or answers. I remember she once didn’t approve of a young man a certain 17 year old was dating. I was instructed to tell her “Aunt Virginia doesn’t approve of ……….. and to get rid of him.” I did convey the message and was told “ There’s no way I’m taking any advice about men from a woman who was crazy enough to divorce Cary Grant!”

But back to the handbag. Virginia had a vast array of the very finest leather bags, several with interior fittings for travel items. She insisted I take two and not as a loan but gift so I wouldn’t worry about damaging them. Virginia was at an age where home with Florian Martini and all her dogs and her friends was her life. No more fabulous travels.

Virginia Martini with one of the many stray dogs and cats who shared her bedroom and bed in her last years.

The bags were simple but superb quality.The detailing perfection. They weren’t covered with today’s LV’s, CC’s, GG’s etc. There was just a small gold monogram, a combination of VJ, her Countess of Jersey’s initials, topped by the coronet of an English countess, wife of an English earl.

Here’s what this blog is all about, Virginia Martini’s initials and coronet on bag she had when she was the countess of Jersey that I took to Paris.

Soooo I’m in Paris and I go to a marvelous stationery store where I have shopped for years. Where I have spent a great deal of money for years! And where I had always been treated exceedingly rudely by the woman who always waits on me. If they hadn’t carried such desirable merchandise I’d have walked out the first time and never returned. So there I am once again being treated most haughtily while I pick out an assortment of enchanting and excessively expensive place cards molded like rose petals. Something I would never buy today! And Virginia’s purse is casually sitting on the counter.

I just happened to glance up at the very moment my tormentor spotted that tiny gold coronet. “C’est vous Madame?” she asked in the most surprised voice a whole octave higher than she had previously always used on me. I just smiled sweetly and enjoyed from that moment on being treated like a queen. Well at least a British countess! That was infuriating but with a mixture of supreme pleasure. And Virginia enjoyed it more than I when she heard the story upon my return.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life

Archive for 2012 – Page 3