Pennsylvania Pilgrimage
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Road Trip Restaurants, Accidentals, Coco Gauff, Shel's Sidewalk
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue features our road trip to the Keystone State, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, five perfect Pennsylvania sandwich spots, a musical Michigan trio, the first American teen to win the U.S. Open since Serena Williams in 1999, and Shel Silverstein’s sidewalk in Silver Spring. I hope you enjoy the picks and pics.
Fave Five 50: Pennsylvania Pilgrimage. Kavalier & Clay’s Comic Book Capers (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay), Sensational Sandwiches (Moonlit Burger, Braddock’s Restaurant & Tavern, Falls Market Restaurant, Chocolate Avenue Grill, Cross Keys Diner), Traverse City Troubadours (The Accidentals), Tennis Teen (Coco Gauff), and Shel's Sidewalk.
Fave Five Lists: Pleasant Pennsylvania Places
One week ago, Barb and I met our friends, Jeri and Kyle Johnson, on the first leg of a road trip through Pennsylvania, stopping in Pittsburgh for lunch and a downtown walk. They stayed with us that night at the Historic Summit Inn Resort in Farmington, or is it in Hopwood? The next day we visited two Frank Lloyd Wright homes before Jeri and Kyle returned home and Barb and I drove on to Hershey.
On Friday we walked around the grounds of The Hotel Hershey and visited Hershey Gardens before driving to Doylestown to tour The Tileworks of Bucks County. MEICNB: More Excited I Could Not Be! After seeing how tiles are made, we drove to Silver Spring, Maryland to spend the weekend with our son Roger and his family. On Monday we stopped in Columbus to see my sister Ann and her family and then headed home.
Here are five highlights of our Pennsylvania tour.
Point State Park (Pittsburgh) - Three Rivers, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela meet to form the Ohio
Kentuck Nob (Chalk Hill) - a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
Fallingwater (Mill Run) - a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
Honorable Mention: The Moravian Pottery & Tileworks (Doylestown)
Book Best Bet
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
My sister Joan recommended this one to me, and it was a lot of fun to read.
From Amazon: The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible story that begins in New York City in 1939.
A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.
Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.
Awards
Pulitzer Prize
Bay Area Book Reviewers Award
New York Society Library Book Award
Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly
Finalist
PEN/Faulkner Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Reviews
It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read. — The Washington Post Book World
Towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book — Newsweek
Magnum opus — The New York Review of Books
Restaurant Recommendations
Here are five places where I had great sandwiches in Pennsylvania.
Moonlit Burgers Uptown 1023 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Moon Bird Chicken Sandwich: pickle brined chicken breast, Smashville Hot Sauce, cabbage & jalapeno slaw, Kosher dill pickles, Moon sauce, Martin's potato roll
Moonlit Chili: onions, cheddar, ranch, puffed spaghetti
Shoestring Fries
Braddock’s Restaurant & Tavern 3261 National Pike, Farmington, PA, 15437
Cowboy Brisket Sandwich: Half-pound Smoked Brisket with Jalapeno, Pepper Jack Cheese, BBQ Sauce, and Fresh Cut Fries
Falls Market Restaurant 69 Main Street, Ohiopyle, PA 15470
Hot Italian Hoagie: Italian meats, cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato, and Italian dressing on a hoagie roll
I hereby interrupt the sandwich photos for an aerial shot of this restaurant’s location next to Ohiopyle State Park in the Laurel Highlands. After a nice lunch here, we walked over the Low Ohiopyle Bridge (pictured in the lower left) on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail for a scenic view of the Youghiogheny River bending to round Ferncliff Peninsula.
The Chocolate Avenue Grill 114 W. Chocolate Ave, Hershey, PA 17033
Hot Roast Beef: House made roast beef, served warm on a sesame seeded baguette with garlic horseradish mayo, Swiss cheese, red onions and au jus
Noah Sandwich: Two stacks of turkey, two pieces of applewood smoked bacon, two slices of avocado and two pieces of melted provolone with lettuce and chipotle ranch dressing, between two pieces of grilled wheat bread (get the pattern?)
Cross Keys Diner 4125 E Swamp Rd, Doylestown, PA 18902
Cheese Steak Hoagie - when near Philly, order a cheesesteak
Marvelous Musicians
My late friend Max Bromley raved about fellow Traverse City natives Sav Buist and Katie Larson early in their career. I have seen them September 11, 2015 in Northville; June 22, 2017, June 13, 2019, August 18, 2022, and August 31, 2023 at Sonic Lunch in Ann Arbor; and November 27, 2018 and April 24, 2019 at The Ark. They are energetic, musically gifted, and very entertaining. I really liked the energy and enthusiasm their new drummer, Katelynn Corll (from Rochester, Michigan), brought to their most recent appearance at Sonic Lunch.
Max had reminded me that Sav and Katie were in our home on April 26, 2014 as guests of Marshall Crenshaw when he performed in our living room. Marshall was supporting them at the start of their career.
From Wikipedia: The Accidentals are an American band, formed in Traverse City, Michigan in 2012 by singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Sav Buist and Katie Larson. The group has featured an eclectic blend of indie folk, pop, bluegrass, rock, classical, and other genres. They have released six full-length albums, three EPs, and two live albums.
Buist and Larson grew up in musical families, released their first two albums while in high school, hired percussionist Michael Dause in 2014, and began touring nationally. Dause departed in March 2023 and was replaced by Katelynn Corll. The band signed with a major label by the time the members were around age 21, but they later returned to releasing their recordings independently. Now based in Nashville, Tennessee, they also lead music workshops at schools across the U.S.
Michigan and Again
Eastern Standard Time
The Accidentals cover the hits at Sonic Lunch 2023 (I am in the front row, right side)
Acoustic Alternatives with John Bommarito
My Playlist
Sports Star
Barb is a huge tennis fan, and loved watching Serena and Venus Williams, and now she has a new hero. When we were picking crabs in Annapolis, Maryland on Saturday, Barb closely followed the U.S. Open on her phone as Coco dropped the first set 2-6 to Aryna Sabalenka before roaring back to win the final two sets, 6-3, 6-2 to win her first grand slam title.
From Wikipedia: Cori Dionne "Coco" Gauff (born March 13, 2004 in Atlanta) is an American professional tennis player. Gauff has won six WTA Tour singles titles, including a major at the 2023 US Open, and eight doubles titles – five partnering with Jessica Pegula and three with Caty McNally.
Born to parents with NCAA Division I collegiate backgrounds in basketball and track and field, she became the No. 1 junior in the world after winning the junior 2018 French Open singles title and also won a junior major doubles title at the 2018 US Open.
Gauff made her WTA Tour debut in March 2019 at the Miami Open. She received a wild card into the qualifying draw at the 2019 Wimbledon, where she became the youngest player in the tournament's history to qualify for the main draw. She rose to prominence with a win over former world No. 1 and seven-time major singles champion Venus Williams in the opening round, going on to reach the fourth round. Later that summer, Gauff advanced to the third round of the US Open. She won the WTA Tour singles title at the 2019 Linz Open at the age of 15 years and seven months, making her the youngest singles titleholder on the Tour since 2004. In 2021, she reached her first major final in women's doubles at the US Open and reached her first major singles final at the 2022 French Open. In 2023, she won her first WTA 1000 title at the Cincinnati Masters and her first major singles title at the US Open.
Picture Pun
Shel Silverstein lived here.
