Lesley Seacrist's Online Portfolio

USA: Cheers to Historic Bars of America!
By Lesley Seacrist

Mix one part small town bargirl and squeeze a slice of big city girl, shake it up with crushed ice and pour a frosted glass of—me. It’s like splashing a bit of beer with Vermouth and Gin for making the perfect martini—impossible and unadvised.

In the big city where I live, it is nearly nonexistent to go to a mellow, sparse and wide open bar. Every weekend one hand is holding a beer while the other is tapping the person in front, to the side, in back, floating in the air shoulder to shoulder to please let me pass and burrow myself in the two feet of crawl space.

Don’t get me wrong; I have those heart thumping, bass bumping nights when getting beer spilt on me is a normal occurrence. I do the puppy face and in no time, another beer appears. And when there is good dancing and wonderful friends, a crowded bar seems like my own private utopia.

All I am saying is that most times I prefer a down to earth bar with elbow room. I have run across a couple during my lifetime and every time I order a drink at such an establishment, I rub my beer glass and wish for one in my very own city.

Actually when I say my lifetime, I mean the one year that I have been legal. But the two bars that really stick out in my mind were both in Wyoming.

Last summer on the way to Yellowstone, my best friend, her mother and I stopped for the night in Jackson Hole. This was after the beautiful, mouth open, camera out the car window view of the Grand Teton.

After dinner, we decided to take a stroll around the quant summer ski resort town square. With the desire to continue to unwind from the long car ride, a beer was on our menu. There were a hand full of possible bars to meander into, and ultimately we picked the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar (www.milliondollarcowboybar.com)out of our 10-gallon Stenson.

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar opened in the 1940s in a building that’s been around since the 1890s, but there I was, a hot summer evening of 2005, opening the door and being transported to the 1890s. Inside, the glossy mahogany rails and furniture were an excellent image of the possible elegance of cowboy culture.

I leaned over the stools, my elbows sitting on a glass showcase bar meticulously lined with myriad inlaid silver dollars. The dollars charged my attention until the bartender asked for my pleasure. For me, when I visit a new bar, I order what I know is consistent, until my relationship becomes more comfortable—one Budweiser please. While the older gentleman turned to retrieve it, my attention was captured by the breathtaking oil paintings by famous western artist Ray McCarty. Hung throughout the bar, my eyes were bouncing around like a rider on bare back.

However, the real cowboys were there on the entertainment stage. With a set of country hits echoing throughout the bar, two steppers filled the floor with elaborate turns and twists. There was an aesthetic crowd, from young studs to aged beauties, all wearing hats and talent.

They definitely made us young city slickers want to abandon our free spirit urban steps to learn some honky-tonk techniques. I am currently in the midst of lessons at the Sundance Saloon in San Francisco.

Another very famous bar in this ten-horse town is the Silver Dollar Bar. A member of the Historic Hotels of America, the Silver Dollar is part of the Wort Hotel (www.worthotel.com), the brainchild of the brothers Wort. Other homesteaders and ranchers thought the family was absurd for building a luxury hotel. Of course, those who gossiped behind closed doors were wrong and the Wort Hotel became a popular hang out—the makings of any good 19th century pioneering town story, the victory of consumption and leisurely lounging entertainment.

The bars in Jackson Hole made an impression on me like a mint does on a coin.

Speaking of mints, The Mint Bar in Sheridan, Wyoming (151 North Main, www.sheridanwyoming.org) was the other memorable western hangout. Noticeable for the electric bronco riding cowboy sign outside, giving light to the dead main street late at night, walking inside the bar just gets more interesting. I am not a stranger to a room of taxidermy animals, since my family has an extensive hunting tradition, but it was like they had used heads and bodies as a form of wallpaper.

Along with the teeth and fur, polished deep red wood furniture gave the bar a dark earthy elegance. Our seats of choice were one of the few booths that gave an option of privacy when the bar was pack on weekend nights. However, for the most part we would have some stumbling guy ask us how our nights were going, or we would do the same.

I met some characters. It seems like in small town bars, the prime pick up lines proffered by the gents are to gloat about culinary skill. No joke! Every guy that hit on us decided to wow us with what they were going to make for dinner. Every guy was going to go to culinary academy. And every guy thought that steak and potatoes were going to be the way to a girl’s heart—don’t forget the rosemary (secret weapon). I felt bad that we were from the city that makes some the world’s best eats. It led me to be quite a bitch—as I would yawn and ask them to get out of the kitchen.

One of my favorite stories is when some drunken old man sitting on a stool told me why the ceiling was made out of tin. Allegedly, it was to protect the working girls upstairs from being shot from the stray bullets from the rowdy drunkards bellying up to the bar with their six shooters.

It was a good time in a good old small town, unable to be duplicated in a big city. I just had to come to realize that some of the best bars are scattered in these fifty states, and I can’t see everything in good old San Francisco—even though we all know that there is sometimes too much to see.

There are other must-see historic bars that I only hope to take a trip to sip at. The Natural Trust Historic Hotels of America (www.historichotels.org) is a good resource to research a shot of Americana, literally, in such unique establishments as…

1. The Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans has its only rotating bar called the Carousel Piano Bar and Lounge. Sitting 25 over 21 year olds, this merry-go-round is rumored to be more interesting than some might think since the Hotel Monteleone is known to have over a dozen ghosts circulating the hotel. I wouldn’t be surprised when happy hour began, they too took a 15 minute to eternity ride.
www.hotelmonteleone.com

2. Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, houses the J-Bar, which during prohibition times was seemingly changed into a soda fountain. However, when the bartender heard the ear-whispering word “crud,” he knew to slip shots of bourbon in the “innocent” milkshake. These days, the J-Bar serves their liquor straight up and without sneaky code words, and proves to be quite popular in the ski city.
www.hoteljerome.com

3. Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C., isn’t shy to the big wigs that control our country. Four blocks from the White House, this hotel has housed many U.S presidents and social elites. The Town and Country Lounge is where they go get their drink on in a most elegant old English decorum surrounding. If it isn’t the dark wood and fancy hunt club feel, the 101 martinis to choose from will definitely entice visitors.
www.marriott.com

4. The Algonquin Hotel in New York City will cater to a more creative side with drinks named after famous literary works of art like the My Fair Lady and napkins inscribed by the famous Dorothy Parker. This hotel’s fabulous nature doesn’t stop there. Guests are offered the opportunity to purchase a $10,000 drink. This drink is offered on the rocks, since the ice dropped into the drink by a hotel’s jeweler would be stupid to swallow.
www.algonquinhotel.com

5. The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, might put fraud to the rights of the Kentucky Mint Julep. They have records of serving their customers “juleps” for 25 cents in 1816.
www.greenbrier.com

Argentina: Mate Addict!
By Lesley Seacrist

Hi, my name is Lesley and I am addicted to Mate.

I can’t go one day without it. When I first started, I did it with a group of people, but when there is no one else—I still can’t resist. All my friends say that it is weird and the taste is unbearable, but that doesn’t stop me from having Mate when I wake up and again at night.

My addiction began when my mother and I visited my big sister in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was a young freshman in high school from San Jose, played on the tennis team and was an honor student. My sister was fresh out of college from UC San Diego and went to Buenos Aires to learn Spanish, but she picked up more than how to just conjugate verbs.

I remember the first time she gave me the Mate. She pronounced it in her newly acquired Argentine accent. I couldn’t understand what she was handing me. I tried to repeat it with my Californian “Valley-girl” annunciation:“Shirba whata?”

Cassie turned towards her kitchen in a closet (her studio apartment was on the small-ish side) and shook her long highlighted hair with annoyance and repeated it louder and more pronounced.

“Yerba Ma—te! Just try some and I will tell you what it is,” she said, while handing me the small silver cup with a gold metal straw emerging out of a bubbling grassy-green substance—it was all so strange.

It was slightly warm to touch, and my lips trembled from anticipation, coming closer to the tip of the straw. I slowly took a sip. Instantly my mouth puckered in minor disgust. My sister laughed and assured me I would get used to the strong bitter taste of the tea. She was my older sister. I looked up to her. She told me to finish what was left in the cup and I quickly did so.

My sister poured some more water in the cup and handed it to my mother. She took a sip, told her she didn’t like it and went back to taking her nap, while taxi horns and political pick-up trucks were blaring out statements of discontent that vibrated through the entire room day and night. Up on the ninth floor, the balcony looked down upon Avenida De Mayo, near the financial district and Casa Rosada (Pink House), and pedestrians bustled around in one of the city’s busiest areas.

Cassie turned back to me and began naming the separate parts. The silver cup with a wooden interior was called the Mate, the decorative metal straw was a bombilla, the green mulched up leaves and twigs, similar looking to what a lawn mower spits out, is Yerba, of course sounded with the Argentine Ch sound, instead of the Y.

She picked up the thermos and poured more hot water in the Mate. She quickly sucked all the water out of the Yerba through the bombilla, moved it from side to side and poured in more piping hot water. After passing me the Mate that I was a little reluctant to drink again, she mentioned some rules. Rules to drinking tea? How uptight can these Argentines get?

1. I am the Mate server. After one person finishes their Mate, they pass it to me and then I fill it up and give it to the next one in the circle.

2. You have to finish your entire Mate.

3. Never disturb the bombilla, unless you are the server (I found that when my friends try Mate, they love to see the other end of the bombilla. They pull it out of the Mate. This causes little Yerba tea leaves to get inside the filter of the bombilla—leaving the next drinker to sip up a mouthful of leaves—not enjoyable)

4. The server decides whether or not to put sugar in the Yerba.

5. Mate goes great with Alfajores, which are chocolate covered cookies with dulce de leche oozing from the middle (more of a suggestion).

The last rule I had some trouble with back home in California:

6. Mate is a social drink—you don’t drink it alone.

Rule number six was completely true from my observation. Whether it was in parks, cafes or within homes, Mate is poured and passed over a futbol game, a conversation among close friends and during family functions. Mate is such an influential staple of the Argentine culture; they go together like the dance of tango and the famous early 1900s tango singer, Carlos Gardel.

Within no time at all I learned to love the bitter taste of Mate. Every sip was like dancing on the streets of La Boca, the colorful art district located on the mouth of the river. My legs would weave back and forth while my craving hands gracefully embraced the Mate, swaying to the accordion.

At that point during the visit, Mate was the only aspect of Argentina that I could become accustomed to. I had only taken one semester of Spanish in middle school, which meant that I knew how to count to ten. The fashion was about three years ahead of the U.S. and quite frankly, women’s chest sizes left me gasping for air. However, Mate was my saving grace, it was delectable, I didn’t need a dictionary to drink it and it was an authentic aspect of the Argentine culture that made me a little bit hyper and ready to go out dancing.

Since my mother opted not to join into the Mate circle, I often released a lot of tension to my sister’s listening ear. While my sister was teaching English during the day to businesswomen and men desperate for the Wall Street vocabulary, the mother and daughter duo set out to discover a cryptic city ourselves. Neither of us knew the language and found ourselves in some frustrating situations.

As a teenager my nerves would oftentimes get frayed over the silliest of things, like the embarrassment from asking for so much help—so afraid to look like a tourist and stick out like a sore thumb. I was young and immature and hopefully have since learned.

My sister and I would gossip and bitch and laugh and just plain vent about our troubles while drinking Mate. I soon integrated Mate to be a part of my own culture within a week of being there and began to hassle my sister to make Mate for us.

Before I left to go back to California, I bought my own Mate, bombilla, and Yerba. In the beginning, I would prepare it for myself, coaxing any nearby friend to participate. They perked up with interest, but that quickly got spit out along with the brownish-green liquid. Over the passing years I have notice small cafes carrying Yerba Mate. If the café was anywhere near my house, I would make it my home. I soon discovered that tea bags of Yerba would be easier for my own consumption. Each barista would soon learn what I drank.

When my sister Cassie finally came home from her extended stay, the first thing I wanted to do when she opened her suitcase was to find her Yerba (I had since ran out). Cassie told me to make it. I made an excited yelp and ran to the stove to heat up the water. She plopped herself on the comfortable home couch that she had been without for three years.

With our mother beside her, she began to tell of her adventures and hard-learned lessons. She brought back stories and souvenirs of Argentina and other countries of South America. Some memories were encouraging and inspirational like when she climbed all by herself up Macchu Picchu in Peru, when the others hired personal guides to carry all their baggage. Some were discouraging and emotion filled, like the personal relationships gained and lost with some of the locals.

While listening and pouring water in the Mate, my sister seemed tired. I could almost see the saturation of three years in Argentina in her face. She looked good, thinner, and her chest was more revealed (something I am still getting used to), but exhausted.

She was addicted to Argentina. She had her ups and downs. She met myriad people and saw a rainbow of different sights. For the most part she has pictures of them and phone numbers of friends met, but for her the tradition of Mate is a habit that she can practice everyday that reminds her of a different culture that has become a part of her own.

Almost six years later, I too still can’t nip the habit of Mate.

However, I guess when my habit contains all the essential vitamins, is a dietary fiber, a healthier form of caffeine, and a great way to socialize within a community, I am doing pretty well as far as habits go.

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