Much to Report and Where to Start? (27 cents)

Not sure why I have not been reporting as we go along, but I haven't been. So here goes...

1. A weird ad in this month's Smithsonian Magazine by Travel Texas, a Texas tourism promotion site, starts out with: "There's more art in Texas than in the Louvre." Huh?

2. The quickie restaurant reviews:

Dinner upstairs at Bistrot Lepic, still one of our favorites. I had, for the first time, cassoulet, which seemed to have three kinds of meat, carrots and a large number of white beans, and was quite the thing for a chilly, rainy spring night. Our waiter was French (and just passing through on his way to start is career as a musician in Los Angeles, "but don't tell my boss") and his English needs some improvement. My wife ordered "flounder" and got "foie gras". I should have been suspicous when she asked him what wine he would recommend with the flounder, and he said "but, of course, champagne". She tells me, as it turns out, that champagne and flounder make a good combination.

It's been a long time since we ate at Cafe Le Ruche in Georgetown, but our lunch on the outside patio away from the hubbub was perfect. My wife's salad was filled with all sorts of things, and I had French fish soup (a red soup with, I think, trout, no seafood) and an appetizer plate of lamb sausages, called merguez, which are eaten in France but come from North Africa. Fairly spicy with some sort of chili sauce built in to the mix.

We had brunch at Cafe Ole, a "Mediterranean" (read north African/Turkish) restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, near the FannieMae headquarters. Also out on the patio, and also quite good. Their brunch menu is a full menu, not only eggs, and the main style of service is mezes, small servings, although two (they recommend two to three) was more than enough. My two were a baba ganoush and a Moroccan chicken stew.

Then there was lunch at Kinkeads, another old reliable, but a bit pricy for noon time. We went with a friend; he had fish and chips. My wife had salmon and what she describes as a perfect avocado salsa; I had a arugula and beet salad, and three kinds of cheeses (none of which I could identify if I passed them on the street), all of which was more than tasty.

Dinner at Frascati in Bethesda, which we enjoyed the last time, was a real bust. Don't think we will go back again. Lunch at the Austin Grill in Bethesda equally lacking (Austin Grill has closed in Glover Park; is the entire chain in trouble?). And dinner at Jandera, an Thai restaurant also near FannieMae, was very ordinary.

Carryout from Jyoti, the Indian restaurant in Adams Morgan, was good as always.

Conclusion: we eat out too much.

3. Movie Reviews.

We saw two movies at the DC International Film Festival last Saturday night. We loved the first, an Argentinian/Spanish movie called "The Education of Fairies", set in Catalan outside of Barcelona, about a woman, her young son, a man, and another woman, who fit the definition of a fairy. The story line was (if a little obvious at times) a good one, the acting (particularly, but not only, the young boy) was extraordinary, and the visuals could not have been better. A strong recommendation if it comes back. The second movie, "Just Sex and Nothing Else" is Hungarian and is a comedy based on a Hungarian dramaturg who is in her mid-30s and giving up on love. But she wants a baby, so is looking for just sex and nothing else. Well, things don't turn out quite as she plans, and that is OK, but the movie, to me (but not to the audience it appeared) was a bit too dark and the funny pieces were not really funny.

4. Books.

For one thing, there was the Stone Ridge Books Sale, where I bought too much for a change, especially as it followed by only one week the Arlington Library sale.

But I read a couple of books, as well. First, a short novel by English writer Julian Barnes called "The Porcupine", which tells the story of a post-Communist eastern European country and the trial (or is it a show-trial) of its former leader. The prosecutor is the son of one of the leader's cohorts, and owes his job to the now defendant, who pulled strings to give him the best of the best. Moral ambiguity, is that the point? I am not sure. The advantage of the book is that it is short.

I also ready Amos Elon's "Flight to Egypt", which he wrote in the late 1970s. Following Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, Elon accompanied Begin to Israel, and became the first Israeli journalist to spend time traveling the country and assessing its modd. It would have been interesting to have read the book when it first came out; it is equally interesting today, because although the mood may have changed for the worst, the issues are the same, and the history which comes out through interviews with leaders in all facets of Egyptian life provides a very good backdrop.

4. The events.

There are several to report.

First, Professor Fred Lazin of Ben Gurion University, head of their politics and government department, gave a talk to BGU supporters about the current political situation in Israel. Second, we heard a speech by Haaretz journalist Tom Segev about the year 1967, and what it has meant for Israel (this being the year of the Six Day War and the start of the occupation, and the year of the creation of many myths0. Third, we went to a full day colloquium where twelve academics from the US, Israel and Canada spoke about various things relating to the future of Zionism and its relationship to the state of Israel. Many interesting thoughts were developed, although the presenations were uneven, and the day could have been thought out a little better by the organizers. If I have time, I will provide more details later.

On Sunday, Adas Israel's yearly Guardian of the Righteous commemoration, where a gentile who sheltered, protected or saved Jews during the Holocaust is honored. This year's honoree is Heinz Drossel, who at 90 or so could not make the flight to DC form Germany. His story is a very interesting one. He never joined the Nazi party but was an office in the German army. On several occasions, he disobeyed orders. Such as when he was asked to escort certain Russian prisoners to where he knew they would be executed, he instead told them to run.

On leave in Berlin in 1942, he saw a young woman about to jump into the River Spree. He talked her out of it, learned she was Jewish, told her he would find places for her to hide, and did. In 1946, he married her.

One of the individuals saved by Drossel spoke; he is the father of a friend. He currently lives in Michigan. His family was living in the same village as Drossel's parents, under false papers. When it appeared that their identity had been discovered, he went to Drossel, his friend, and told him the story. Drossel and his parents took care of them.

Finally, Saturday we went on a 90 minutes walking tour of the portion of Georgetwon formerly known as Herring Hill. It is between 29th and Rose Park, north of M Street. This is the traditionally black section of Georgetown and the history of the Georgetown African-American community was the focus of the walk. It was fascinating. Between the 1830s and 1940s, Georgetown was about 1/3 African American. Starting as slaves, sold at auction at Wisconsin and O, they became laborers and real estate investors, doctors and wharf workers. And the created several churches that still stand. They were dispossessed by gentrification, except for a few families, who can trace their ancestry back several generations.