Lining up for Lonnie (his house, that is)
This was the first Nevada Day weekend since moving to Vegas where I could walk through Lonnie Hammargren's incredibly gewgawed and festooned house.
I first met Dr. Hammargren (a non-practicing neurosurgeon and former Lt. Governor of this here our Silver State) this summer on an amazing work junket – a trip on the Zero-G flight out of McCarran.
I knew of Hammargren and his fantastical Pleasure Dome domus filled with Vegasy, spacey and pop cultural detritus from reading alone.
Up in the clean-lined and padded tube of a converted 727, I was with thirty-some people and Lonnie as we enjoyed multiple arcs in the sky. There's not much talk of collecting things when you are weightless... the subject at hand is being suspended and bobbing mid-air. But he was totally cool and charming in an eclectic way.
So on a Sunday afternoon I hit Lonnie's neighborhood. The parked cars were backed up the entire length along Sandhill Road. This was a car-and-crowd scene indeed.
Outside his curio-congested manse I stood in line for maybe four minutes before I got in, for all the people roaming around.
Inside was a menagerie of gawkers and more stuff than the gawkers could take in. Off in the distance I heard a karaoke version of “The Love Boat” sang out – really.
Wow is an expression and wow is a description. Both apply to Nevada Day at Lonnie's mega-house.
I can't even go into the here-and-there and a bric-a-brac detailed list of what's there.
Satellites and old Vegas Strip signs serve a project to some intrepid curator of the future.
I will say what I liked the most in Lonnie's house-o-rama: a carved fisherman holding a salmon and Lonnie's book-centric studies. He's a reader and a collector, so it seems.
Oh yes, no meeting with Lonnie happened. I assume he was around, but there were scads of lookers like me.
Glad I met you amidst the parabolas, Lonnie!
Persuaded by Panzanella
There's this gully-coursing, strange curve where Pecos hits Desert Island.
On the northbound right side of a nondescript strip mall I noticed a sign a few months ago for “Lillian's Restaurant.”
I thought it was a relic.
But the night before Halloween I stopped at a dollar store for some emergency last minute details needed by an office costume. I parked in in front of an actually open and a few months new Lillian's.
I looked at the menu in the window. I saw “Panzanella” in the salad column.
Panzanella is the Italian way of cutting costs. And it's brilliant in its method.
Day old, dried-out bread is cubed, soaked in water, and then wrung out. Then it's mixed with tomatoes, herbs, celery, onions and the rest ...
It's tasty poverty preservation. It's surprisingly uncommon in American menus.
So the next night I headed back to Lillian's and ordered a take-out panzanella salad.
I learned that this place is just a few months old and owned/operated by a husband/wife-chef couple. The place offers a diner-style menu with slight Italian and Mexican influences. The panzanella at Lillian's is a crouton-filled work – no soaked old bread. I asked, and the couple told me traditional panzanella does not last well, and waste is anathema to a small restaurant. It's ironic but totally logical.
As for my panzanella? Well I let it hang in the fridge for an hour or so. The bread soaked up the balsamic dressing and it was well done for a bread salad. And of course in a good salad, the leafy and vegetable components were fresh and nice.
Little places like Lillian's face a tough battle in food costs, labor, investment and garnering customers. I'll go back for more than panzanella.