Tahoe Weekend 2026

Terry ventures out

Our Sierra retreat last weekend was blessed with an abundance of snow and cursed with a storm that stranded us on I-80.  Hoping to arrive Thursday afternoon, instead we were met by a Caltrans crew in Colfax who closed the highway due to "zero visibility."  After waiting things out at Auburn's Alehouse, Terry, Paul, and I descended another 1,500 feet to secure two precious hotel rooms in Roseville.  Meanwhile, Tom and Larry--who wisely decided to wait until Friday to depart--enjoyed a little schadenfreude at our expense. Everything improved once we arrived in Truckee on Friday afternoon.  The weather was spectacular, the snow ubiquitous, and the company excellent.  As in the past, we fell into our familiar routines of outdoor exertion and indoor excess.  The following illustrates the sanitized parts of our weekend....

Above: Plenty of snow at the house, especially for these two city slickers.

 Right:  Paul's dinner on Friday started with outstanding crudites, to which this picture does no justice.  Too bad we have no pictures of the main event: a nicely-paired butternut risotto, grilled sausages, and falafel salad.

Right: On Saturday morning, the snowshoe hike started off in promising fashion: Terry broke trail and the rest of us took advantage of his hard work.

Below: Things eventually deteriorated. Peter's moody glare, Paul's heavyweight down, and Terry's vamping slowed our progress.

Above: At the turnaround point,  Andrew, Larry, and Terry are standing at the western edge of the Martis Valley, with Northstar's back runs in the distance.

Below: Of course, it had to happen.  No outdoor swim at 6,000 feet is complete without time on the snow!

A trip to town for coffee and a little truth--but no sighting of our favorite one-armed barista.  She remains MBC lore.

Peter and Larry, who spent far too long in the warming hut and far too little time on the trail. (Unseen are the rest of us, nibbling cookies off to the side.)

Paul, in a rare moment of contemplation, sits quietly while Tom prepares his world-famous lasagna on Saturday.  Terry, sporting technical plaid, plays coy in front of the camera.

Left: Peter thinks no one is looking as he tucks in for seconds.  Yes, Tom's lasagna and fixings are that good!  

Below: At dinner's end, a group shot. (Note the infamous painting above the fireplace. It only took five men and a ladder to hang it last year.)

 

Ski Weekend 2023!

After a 4-year hiatus (thanks first to drought, then to Covid + drought), we finally made it back to Tahoe earlier this month for our annual ski weekend.  Thanks to the historic storms in December and January, there was plenty of snow. In fact, our departure on Sunday was threatened by a classic Sierra storm that dumped 6 inches overnight.  The details are in the pictures below....

John strikes a pose in new boots and skis

Larry, Doug, and I skied Northstar on Friday, and the only distressing thing about the short lift lines, perfect weather, and abundant snow was the $166 advance ticket price! The next day, Doug paired up with John at Homewood so one of them could pose for a classic lake shot. Not everyone skied, of course.  Tom persuaded Dan to drive to his cabin near Sierra City so he could instruct Dan on the finer points of snow removal.  We understand it involved Tom directing and Dan shoveling. 

No ice on the deck...easy!

While they labored, Larry and I swam laps in the outdoor pool.  Despite the snow around the deck, the blue skies and warm water made for perfect conditions.  Perfect enough to justify a trip into Truckee for a Dark Horse special (and a search for just the right blender--thanks again, Paul!).  

Sun and snow

Apart from skiing and swimming, there was the obligatory hiking.  I promised everyone an arduous snowshoe trek...and no one was game.  Instead, we avoided the knee-deep snow and stuck to groomed trails.  

Tom's lasagna never disappoints!

With plenty of calories expended during the day, our evenings were focused on food (and drink).  Tom's world famous lasagna was served our first night, followed by Paul's butternut squash soup and my baked salmon the next night.  Dan reputedly made Manhattans (none was offered to me) and, of course, the finest varietals from San Marino Cellars were poured each night.

We left Sunday morning, but only after Paul and Dan dug out a track for our vehicles. Tom showed his management skills one more time by directing me on the installation of a new wine fridge.  Thanks to all of you for a fine weekend!

2021 Redux

 A summary of unposted titles from Spring 2021....

 January 2021  Host - Roy   

Subtitled A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, John Vaillant's account of a man-eating tiger in Russia's Maritime Territory gave us a fulsome education on the wrenching poverty that afflicted Russia's far east after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the endemic corruption that has devastated the tiger's habitat, and the history of the Siberian tiger and its brethren in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.  What it didn't offer was a concise story.  After a promising start, in which we learn about and applaud the tiger's killing of a local poacher, Vaillant veers off into lengthy digressions about Soviet-era politics, the Russo-Japanese war, the consumer economy in China, the plight of early man in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.  After occasional updates on the activities of the marauding tiger, Vaillant does return in the final 30 pages to finish the story of how the tiger was eventually tracked and killed.  He doesn't, however, answer the question implicit in the subtitle, as we are never quite sure whose survival is at stake in this most bleak of environments.  Rating: 7.2

 February 2021  Host - Peter  

While Peter did offer News of the World for our consideration, we clearly disappointed him by not opting for one of his more substantial titles (Far From the Tree-Solomon; The Known World-Jones; Necessary Lies-Chamberlain; and The Return-Matar).  At 208 pages, Paulette Jiles gave us (and Hollywood, since it was recently made into a film starring Tom Hanks) a short, endearing story about a Civil War veteran who's agreed to escort across Texas a young girl recently freed from Indian captivity.  The book contains all of the ingredients needed for a successful movie:  a sympathetic protagonist bound by a sense of duty, menacing bad guys (and few good ones for contrast), an arduous but successful journey, and a bond created during that journey that produces the novel's climax.  OK, so it was predictable and at times corny, but it proved an enjoyable read.  Indeed, that was the most common adjective used during our Zoom discussion.  Misgivings aside, we liked the Civil War and Reconstruction history, Captain Kidd's livelihood as a reader of news in a time of deep political polarization, and the brief but sympathetic treatment of Joanna's captors, the Kiowa, and their Comanche allies.  Rating: 7.4

April 2021  Host - Andrew  

Kevin Barry's novel about two aging Irish gangsters waiting expectantly one night at the Port of Algeciras has been on everyone's list of books to read.  And it's been on ours as well. Offered but rejected in the past, I resurrected it alongside Homeland Elegies (Akhtar), The Abstainer (McGuire), The Splendid and the Vile (Larson), and Fortune Smiles (Johnson).  For most, our selection was vindicated by an appreciation for Barry's poetic dialog, his unforgettable characters, and the building suspense he creates out of a series of flashbacks.  Were it not for our American ears, we might all have given it a full thumbs-up as Doug did.  But the fact that Barry had us running for the Irish-English dictionary slowed many of us down. While I found pleasure in reading quickly and ignoring the unfamiliar references, I was in the minority.  All of us, however, were engaged by the gangsters' back story and intrigued by the significance each of the two men places on the elusive Dilly (for whom they are waiting) and her mother (whose death they both grieve).  Rating:  7.8

May 2021  Host - Tom  

When Tom told us we were finally going to dine in person, and he offered us a choice of Krueger's This Tender Land,  Weiner's The Geography of Bliss, Proulx's Bad Dirt, and Sides' Hellhound on His Trail to accompany our meal, he figured he'd also toss in a book about food just for kicks.  And that's how we ended up with Anthony Bourdain's book about his televised quest for the most compelling meals in the most exotic places around the world.  After a 14-month hiatus, with only Zoom meetings to sustain our reading, the promise of real food and a discussion of same proved irresistible.

Let's dispense with the book first.  It featured interesting locales and passable writing, with a few compelling stories intermixed with just as many forgettable ones.  What was most memorable about the reading were the occasional anecdotes--his time in France with his brother, his reflections crossing North Africa, his depression in Indochina--that foretold Bourdain's subsequent suicide.  While many of the dishes were enticing (and some utterly repelling), Bourdain's travelogue was bittersweet from start to finish.  

Our dinner, on the other hand, was a pure pleasure from start to finish.  With 15 guys in attendance (including our good friend Mark), and a table groaning with BBQ chicken and ribs and assorted sides, we spent less time on the book and more time simply eating and catching up.  Fully-vaccinated and guided by the latest from the CDC, our dinner was the first large indoor gathering most of us have enjoyed since the onset of Covid.  What a terrific way to return to normalcy!  

2019 Ski Weekend--Edited!

Stan prefers Squaw to Lahontan

[Editor's Note: What follows is Larry's overly generous, somewhat snarky take on our ski weekend. Naturally, I've added my own annotations to counter Larry's exuberance.]

A big thanks to Andrew for opening up his new cottage, cabin, mansion to us this weekend.  While my room felt a bit like being back at summer camp, especially when bunking with John and Dan, upscale resort living was the theme of the weekend.  Although we had to dig out of snow drifts a couple of times, nobody complained when we were forced to stay an extra day living the aprés-ski life.  [Ed. Note: I would have complained were it not for Dean's tasty Sunday dinner.]

As has become standard for these weekends, the meals were MBC calorie-and-cholesterol-be-damned masterpieces.  Dean's lamb (and lamb-less) curry, Tom's lasagna, and  Paul's crepes were highlights along with the seemingly endless supply of great wines.  [Ed. Note: Don't forget Terry's breakfast feast, your own lunches-to-go, and Dan's soothing Manhattans.]

Larry's almonds, a few cookies, and an empty bottle...dinner's over

Entertainment is always an attraction of these weekends and this weekend was extra special once we determined how to access Andrew's Pay-Per-View account. It was money well spent as we focused on the most highbrow of movies: Clash of the Titans and Venom.  It was also a good weekend to watch golfers of our vintage at Pebble show the young Turks how it's done  -- thanks Phil Mickelson and Bill Murray!  That said, Andrew, we need a bigger screen next year with a better aspect ratio. I'm partial to the one in this URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br9yftCP9Mg (just saying). [Ed. Note:  If you buy it, I'll install it.]

When we were forced into direct conversation due to numerous lapses in Andrew's high-tech entertainment system, we found ourselves engaged in manly topics such as pickup trucks (see related WSJ article https://www.wsj.com/articles/detroits-latest-offering-big-pickups-at-bigger-prices-11549886400), driving in snow, and our favorite -- what ails you?  [Ed. Note:  Well, that was mostly what ails Stan, since he's endured every possible sportsman's trauma in the last couple years.]

The driveway that defeated Tom's 4-wheel drive

The highlights of the weekend were several forays into the wild to search out the local coffee scene.  One trip required a carpool to town where we learned from one of our members how to chat up a 20-something barista using poetry (who knew?).  Another required breaking a trail through thigh deep snow, only to be rewarded with $9 cappuccinos.  The last, however, was truly MBC perfect.  We were treated (i.e., as in they were free) to custom made espresso drinks and affogatos by Andrew's affable neighbor, who's an espresso aficionado, whose equipment and knowledge rival the best San Francisco restaurants (hint -- bean uniformity), and whose home is the one Andrew should have built.  [Ed. Note: Yes, John and Nancy's company, their coffee bar (viva Tinito Rose Café!), and their stylish new home were all lovely.]     

So THANK YOU AGAIN ANDREW for a truly memorable MBC weekend in a new and wonderful place.  Of course Andrew will need to top this next year, so I can't wait to claim my comped room at the Ritz Carlton-Northstar (or can you at least figure out how to directly access the Martis lift from the cabin?).  [Ed. Note:  If Stan or George won't trade up to Martis Camp, maybe Doug will negotiate access rights for us.]

[Ed. Postscript:  The abundant snow at Northstar made for a terrific ski day--terrific, that is, if one ignores the 30,000-vertical-foot goal that Dean scripted for those foolish enough to hang with him.  The overnight snowfall forced Tom to put chains on at the bottom of the driveway and buried Dan's car at the top.  But the worst was Stan's treacherous drive back to Squaw Valley: what should have taken 20 minutes took 2 hours. We can only hope for this kind of snow next year....In the meantime, a brief photo gallery below.]

A simple walk proves chancy...thanks to John 

Still cold, but spectacular weather

Dan's car, covered by a snow angel

When brushing in the dark, Terry errs

Looking down the Martis run from the top of Lookout

John digs out

Ski Weekend Pictorial

After years of too little rain and snow, we had almost too much of both during our January ski weekend.  Our arrival at Serene Lakes on Thursday afternoon was greeted with blue skies and snow covered roads.  The weather later turned stormy, but that didn't bother us.

After a day of skiing Sugar Bowl, shoveling the back deck (thanks, Tom!), or lazing around (thanks, Peter!), we sat down to enjoy Tom's world-famous mountain lasagna.

The following day some skied Mt. Rose in the rain while the sensible ones stayed indoors.  We met up later at George's beautiful new home in Montreux.  The living room was picture perfect....

...but the blue tape on the dining room floor highlighted that everything else was not quite perfect.  The headaches of new construction gave us plenty to commiserate over as we enjoyed Stephenie's excellent white lasagna.

As for A Nation of Sheep, we let George try to convince us that Lederer's 1961 screed is as relevant today as it was leading up to the Vietnam War.  When he was finished, we turned back to Stephenie, her lasagna, her conversation, and the excellent Bandol she poured.  Thank you, George, for letting us visit and spend time with your infinitely more interesting wife. I'm sorry, George, that wasn't fair.  I should have also acknowledged the pleasure we took in the company of your well-behaved dogs...!

2014 In Review

With apologies, here’s a belated summary of our meetings in 2014, following our evening imbibing Joy Juice with Dan:

In March, I hosted and had the highest hopes for my favorite novel of 2012, Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars.  This first-person narrative chronicles the post-apocalyptic angst of a pilot (Hig) holed up in a rural Colorado airport with an ornery fellow survivor (Bangley), an aging dog (Jasper), and miles of open (and threatening) prairie around the airfield.  I thought Hig’s obsession with and eventual exploration of the world beyond would capture everyone’s imagination.  It did, but with reservations about Heller's plot contrivances.  At rating time, we gave the novel a modestly positive 7.1.  At least the Filipino food from Ma’s was a hit.

Glenn hosted us in April, with Rory graciously providing the venue.  The dark interior of the McNear House dining room was the perfect atmosphere as we ate stew and discussed Miller’s Cold War classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz.  Most were glad they read (for the second month in a row) this post-apocalyptic novel, but some quibbled with the narrative’s intentionally slow progression (yes, it took centuries before those monks figured out the meaning of a grocery list).  The church/state tension and the hostility towards science were fascinating, as was society's fate in repeating its cycle of self-destruction (barring a technological, not spiritual salvation at the novel's end). Were it not for the novel’s plodding pace, we might have rated it higher than 6.7.

In May, Terry had us reading another period piece, this time from the French Indo-Chinese conflict in the 1950’s.  Graham Greene’s The Quiet American generated ambivalence, as we struggled with the opium-laced duplicity of the English correspondent, Fowler, and the implausibly naïve American diplomat, Pyle.  The book had no likeable characters and instead was an interesting, if disturbing harbinger of the war that followed a decade later in Vietnam.  Following Stan’s loud protestations that Greene’s novel was “not a war book” (no one said it was, Stan), we gave it a thumbs-up rating of 7.1.

Stan hosted us for a twofer in June.  Our chosen book, Saramago’s Cain, was (thanks to the sudden generosity of Random House) twinned with a pre-publication edition of Alan Furst’s latest novel, Midnight in Europe.  Those of us who read Furst’s pre-WWII spy thriller were disappointed.  Thin, poorly plotted, and with unfinished characters.  Enough said.  Cain, on the other hand, was a provocative read for even those whose recollection of the Old Testament had grown dim.  From the Garden of Eden through Cain’s lengthy exile, Saramago's final novel moved along with an almost mystical hum.  Impressed but unpersuaded that Saramago had achieved anything close to the standard he set with Blindness, we gave him the benefit of the doubt with a 6.5 rating.

Following Doug’s summer party in July (thanks again, Doug), we met at Dean’s in August to chew over Reza Aslan’s critically-acclaimed Zealot.  It was mere coincidence that Zealot picked up where Cain left off.  And while no one was pining at the end of the meal for yet another story about the Bible, we were all quite taken by the extraordinary research Aslan poured into this latest account of the story of Jesus of Nazareth.  His thesis that Jesus was less a proselytizer than an overt revolutionary provided plenty of conversation to accompany our meal and as a story was impressive enough to earn a 7.6. And about that meal, Dean did a superb job replicating the cuisine of Israel while operating with a balky hip.  (Glad the bionic version is working well, Dean.)

In September, Larry persuaded us to read Steven Kotler’s controversial work examining the state of “flow.”  In The Rise of Superman, Kotler posits that today’s generation of extreme athletes is achieving extraordinary success by hacking (his term) flow and that this state of being holds promise for all manner of human endeavor.  As a group, we weren’t buying it.  And I mean that literally, as some of us felt that Kotler’s book-length exposition was designed in part to sell his accompanying workshops, seminars, and the like.  While some felt that a state of flow was achievable (Stan and Dan, in particular), no one was willing to defend Kotler’s view that flow is the sine qua non of ultimate performance.  The anecdotes were interesting, but the hyperbole relegated The Rise of Superman to a subpar 5.7.

With the arrival of rain and colder weather, we convened at Peter’s to mull over Dan Brown’s best-selling account of the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic rowing team, The Boys in the Boat.  To a man, we enjoyed the core story with its (obvious) themes of teamwork, redemption, sacrifice, honor, and the like. But, led by Larry, we panned Brown for larding up a compelling story with extraneous detail and trying too hard to eulogize an entire generation (yes, THAT generation).  We also decried the formula: part Laura Hillenbrand, part Erik Larson, Brown doesn’t quite do justice to either. George shared his early rowing experience in Pocock shells and that rowing gradually disappeared from the national consciousness not only because of the rise of televised sports, but also due to the taint of too many betting scandals. Notwithstanding our quibbles, The Boys in the Boat generated a healthy 7.1 in our final rating.

Roy hosted us—well most of us—in December to share reactions to Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  Ok, let’s cut to the chase. Since I didn’t attend, I can’t do justice to the conversation.  But I did collect the votes afterwards and was surprised that Shteyngart, whose peculiar brand of Russian émigré satire isn’t for everyone, managed to pull down a 7.5.  Either Roy’s distillations were especially powerful or I misjudged my fellow MBCers.  Regardless, kudos to Roy for a fine meal (according to my sources), and that’s a wrap for 2014!

A Make-Up for 2012

As club secretary, I must fall on my sword for my repeated failure, over the last year or more, to regularly post summaries of our meetings. I blame Tom A. for initially stepping in to save me, only to later step out and expose my lack of constancy. With that mea culpa, herewith a very quick summary of our meetings since January's A Sport and a Pastime.

In February, Paul fed us victuals from the Kashmir as we considered the story of the 1999 expedition that discovered the remains of legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory.  In Ghosts of Everest, Hemmleb et. al. chronicle their successful attempt to re-trace Mallory's fateful route in 1924 in order to figure out what exactly happened to Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine.  Less successful was the manner in which Hemmleb and his co-authors joined their account with Mallory's.  The story of each expedition was fascinating, but the book's split narrative was awkward and resulted in a modest 6.7 rating. Maybe it was the intimidating presence of our guest and published author/teacher, Andy, that made us extra critical.

In March, we convened at Stan's (yes, another outstanding meal of grilled meat and roast potatoes!) to consider Sherman Alexie's modern-day account of life on the rez in Reservation Blues.  We split over the dream sequences and mystical moments, but were taken by the honesty with which Alexie paints his characters.  Alternatingly sympathetic and scathing, Alexie depicts life on and off the reservation (and his characters' infatuation with music) with a remarkable vividness, especially for those of us for whom the BIA is just another acronym.  The 7.0 rating understated the generally positive tenor of our discussion.

Armando hosted us in April with an ethnic feast that complimented Robert Laxalt's beautifully drawn memoir set in pre- and post-war Nevada.  As men of a certain age, perhaps we were predisposed to fall hard for Sweet Promised Land and its elegiac re-telling of a quintessentially father-son story.  The father, Dominique Laxalt, is a hard-working immigrant (herding sheep in the foothills near Carson City) whose sons achieve fully the American dream (one as a US senator, another as a university professor) but whose heart can't quite forget the family he left behind in a small town in the Pyrenees.  His return home with his younger son is both reunion and closure. Several guys commented that this story continued to resonate long after the pages were turned.  It certainly did for me.  For that reason, it earned an 8.3 rating and climbed into our current Top 5.

We met next in June at my house and enjoyed plenty of sushi and sake as we considered Louis Zamperini's unforgettable odyssey from Torrance, CA to the Berlin Olympics to a POW camp in Japan.  Laura Hillenbrand is a shameless crowd-pleaser whose recreation of the Zamperini story engendered questions from us (and others) about its authenticity of detail. That aside, most of us felt uplifted and exhausted by Zamperini's extraordinary resilience and will to survive.  Our conclusion was to forgive the sometimes tedious and occasionally hyperbolic passages and celebrate--with a 7.4 rating--an amazing story of survival.

In July we declared a bye and instead appeared with spouses and no books at Doug's house for his second annual summer party.  After commiserating with him over his recent burglary, we tucked in and stuffed ourselves.  Thanks again, Doug.

Our last meeting was delayed to September, when Glenn hosted us at Roy's house.  With food from Sol, we were all ears as Ralph Leighton regaled us with stories about Richard Feynman, the Nobel physicist who was also his father's colleague at CalTech.  Glenn had proposed and we picked Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, unaware that Ralph Leighton was Roy's brother-in-law.  The book was filled with the infectious humor and antics of a renowned physicist who related his personal story to Leighton in a series of recorded conversations over the space of several years.  From those recordings, Leighton produced this delightful memoir.  Even those of us with little interest in applied physics found in  Feynman (via Leighton) a riveting storyteller indeed.