I often hear about the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in association with arts funding and medical resource. Duke inherited a $100 million estate when she was 12, the results of her father’s successful American Tobacco Co. She died in 1993 at age 80 and, following years of sorting out legal hassles, her jewelry, furniture and wines are being auctioned off by Christie’s in June. To entice those able to afford the baubles, Christie’s has been holding invitation-only viewings of Duke’s jewels in cities around the world. At the two days of showings in San Francisco, guests enjoyed breakfast, tea, or cocktails and were allowed to try on items such as a Belle Epoque diamond and pearl pendant necklace (valued at $800,000 to $1.2 million) and a 1927 Art Deco Cartier bracelet (valued at $350,000-$500,000). Other pieces of note of note are a 19.72 carat cushion-cut diamond ring and an emerald necklace with pomegranate shaped beads. Proceeds from the sale will, of course, go to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Why don’t companies sell watermelon juice? Are watermelons too seasonal? Is there no point to drinking watermelons when they are so much fun in their sliced and chunked fruit forms? The ingredients of Snapple’s What-A-Melon drink (Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Pear and Watermelon Juices from Concentrate, Watermelon Flavor With Other Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Salt, Fruit and Vegetable Juice (For Color)) are hardly a match for a cup of the real thing. Nantucket Nectars has “Watermelon Lemonade” and “Watermelon Strawberry” juice cocktails, but no 100% juices with watermelon. Watermelon Works “the first and only watermelon juice on the market” test marketed their product in 2001, to some success it seems, but beyond their website still being up, it’s difficult to tell if they are planning a go at the fresh juice business. Maybe I can make a go of selling watermelon juice on a street corner with some local lemonade kids.
As I researched yesterday’s QM2 and tugboat topic, I came across the exciting existence of Tugboat racing on Puget Sound!
Mammoth cruise ship, Cunard’s new Queen Mary 2, is on its way to Manhattan, and the PR trivia machine is ready. Clearance under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at high tide: 13 feet (I’m guessing they’ll prefer a different time of day). The ship was specifically designed to fit under that bridge, thus the shortened funnel. Length: 1,132 feet, which makes it more than 100 feet longer than the pier it will dock at. Because of the extra length, a tugboat will be out to keep other ships away. However, thanks to its bow thrusters, the QM2 won’t need tugboats to help her dock, unlike her older sibling, the QE2.
The Mercury News’ Food section editor has seen a rough cut of “Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters” and deems it “more in keeping with the heart and spirit of the original cult-favorite Japanese version.” She found the William Shatner version “painful to watch” but this one is more on the mark. The lineups: Flay v. Sakai, Morimoto v. Batali, Morimoto v. Puck, then a mix-em-up tag team finale: Morimoto and Flay v. Sakai and Batali. Hosting is Chairman Kaga’s nephew, and of course there’s the real reason for us to watch: Alton Brown as commentator. The fun starts April 23. (Alas, the Merc has started up registration for content access, but here’s the plain link to the review.)
I don’t know if this piece of news is of interest to anyone (besides me of course). Bon-Macy’s (formerly Bon Marche) is finally accepting the Macy’s credit card. After the name change last year, Bon-Macy’s customers could use their newly renamed Bon-Macy’s credit cards at Macy’s, but the reverse was not true (according to all the sales and customer service people I kept hopefully asking). Now I can once again feel like one of those ladies-who-lunch, if only for brief moments in time.
Baby giraffe! (warning: actual birth process photos)
Last June 2 in San Jose, a man in a pickup truck deliberately chased down and drove into Tom Castrillon who was riding a motorcycle. Castrillon was thrown off his bike and paralyzed from the neck down. The man fled the scene, changed the title on his truck, and disguised it — but not enough. Rodney Torres was tracked down as the driver of a truck matching the description and was eventually found guilty of hit and run and assault with a deadly weapon (he pled not guilty). Apparently this was a case of road rage as the two exchanged words after Torres cut off Castrillon. Torres then followed the motorcycle into a restaurant parking lot and ran into it. On Thursday, Torres was given the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. He is also due back in court in May for restitution hearings, though it’s doubtful he will be able to pay out the requested amount of $2 million in damages. I’m hoping this incident helps me think twice before doing any little thing to incite any idiots on the road to blow off their steam at me in murderous ways.
After realizing that my gardening activities centered mainly around weed and pest control, I became less enamored of cultivating a green thumb. However I have just discovered that there is something called flame weeding. You can kill your weeds with a propane torch. How satisfying! Unfortunately it won’t work in all situations since desirable plants can be easily killed as well. But…torching weeds! What a concept. And it’s organic too!
Every time I see the elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle, I think of the raised (and now being razed) Central Artery in Boston and the collapse of the elevated Cypress Street decks during the Loma Prieta Earthquake. In other words, it doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies. I wasn’t surprised to find that it has been a subject of redesign for the Seattle waterfront area. Perhaps the most controversial plan, publicized today by a coalition of concerned residents, is the option of removing it and replacing it with…nothing. No tunnel, no new highway. Just some better planning on existing roads and highways to handle increased traffic. The DOT has five replacement alternatives: rebuild as it exists, rebuild widened, replace with a tunnel, a tunnel and widening of the road underneath, and a larger widening of the road underneath. Not having knowledge about the traffic patterns in that area, I’ll just hope for anything except rebuilding an elevated highway.