Farmer Sam, Chef Pickle and The Quilt

Yesterday Plotnik and Ducknik got to share in The Good Life, Northern California Division. Wow. Farmer Sam and Chef Pickle deserve the top photo for the astoundingly good party they threw at Sam's Blue Tooth Ranch in Napa last night, under the full moon. Sam does this every other year and it's the party whose date you find yourself pointing towards from the next day after the previous party -- and that's today. Shoot. Two more years 'til the next one.

But we'll get there in a moment.

Look at these three women on the left in Manhasset, Long Island, New York:



Now switch 'em around, left to right, and fast forward fifty summers to B.R. Cohn Winery, Glen Ellen, California:



That's The Great Ducknik on the left in the first photo and right on the second, Molly Martindale in the middle both times and Shirley Spencer on the right in one and the left in two. See the date?



The five initials stood for Barbara Jenkins, Molly Martindale, Shirley Spencer and also Linda Bailey and Lynn Adams, who couldn't make it yesterday to the 50th Reunion. But Shirley brought the quilt.



In the first summers after High School, Ducknik and the four others got together periodically to 'do their mending' which meant hanging out and having fun. The quilt took them two summers to complete and other people helped out too.

Only one guy from the class showed up yesterday in Glen Ellen, the rest were women and all were very nice people. Plotnik had a great time and, of course, after wine tasting he brought home two very nice pinots.



The reunion broke up around four in the afternoon, so Plot and Duck hopped into the Plotzmobile and took off over Trinity and Dry Creek Passes and crossed over into Napa Valley.



It's not too far from there to Blue Tooth. There was no doubt that this was the place from the minute they turned into Sam's long lane, lined with fruit trees (bulging with apples, peaches, plums) and also with doggerel. Did we mention that Sam is a dentist?






The party was just getting going. Stunning Pickle met them as Plottie was taking photos of the empty tables that wouldn't stay empty for long.





At least fifty? More? main courses, topped by Chef P.'s incorrigibly incomprehensibly scrumptious meatballs and mac-and-cheese-Napa Style (blue, manchego, gruyere). Paella. Turkeys. Beef Tenderloins. Ribs and barbecue. Pulled pork. Fawgeddaboudit.





At least forty? More? salads and side dishes. At least forty? More? desserts, including Ducknik's Napa Valley Coffee Cake Tower Plus Outbuildings.






But most of all it's the farm, the grape vines, the garden, the fields, the moon, the old house, the roses, and everything and everyone in the best and most gracious moods possible.






Places like this don't really exist, not in the first world, not in our world. And people who get to live on pieces of paradise are rarely as generous as Farmer Sam. As Ducknik said to Plottie, as they were taking their biennial walk through the fields down to the Napa River (which they can never find): "People like Sam deserve to own places like this, because they know how to live and how to share. Sam knows what counts."

And the man does know how to throw a party.