Kilned Again, A Jennifer Harrington Jones Mystery

By Pamela Mattson McDonald

When Jennifer Harrington Jones discovers an unlikely gas fired kiln behind a prestigious winery in the Napa Valley dominos start to fall, bringing to light its connection with a widely varied cast of international characters, art world intrigues, immigrant quandaries, and delicious culinary forays.

Kilned Again inspires with personal growth lessons, triumph over adversity, and courage where angels fear to roller skate. Practical experience supporting herself in the fine restaurants of the Washington and Oregon coast, while developing her initial art career, provides embellishment of the story with luscious detail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pamela Mattson McDonald
• Release date: Mar 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311284044

Pamela Mattson McDonald

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYWhile a successful, visual artist at the mouth of the Columbia River for twenty years, Pamela Mattson McDonald relied on acute observation, creativity, and a disciplined focus.For the last ten she’s honed these skills to the written word. Her work is a window on her varied past experience and worldview. She’s worked in the merchant marines, cooked in fine restaurants, gardened extensively, hiked, climbed, and traveled the world.Her work is represented in print and on the Internet. Also the author of the Jennifer Harrington Jones Mysteries, Pamela’s eBook’s are available at smashwords.com and I tunes books. She is the author of the unpublished “Slingin’ Hash and Haulin’ Oil”.MEDIA REPRESENTATIONOregon Health and Science UniversityActivity and Restaurant Guide to Healthy Living at the Confluence of the ColumbiaJune 2015Heirloom Gardening MagazineThe Regal Thistle – Heirloom ArtichokesSpring 2015 (Cover Story)Produce News MagazineUrban FarmsJuly 2014Mountain Hiking MagazineSaddle Mountain Rocks!mountainhikingsite.comJuly 2014Astoria Coop NewsletterArtichoke Recipes, Tips on CultivationSummer 2014Rain Magazine, Astoria, OregonFiction – Parade Spring 2014Essay – The Middle of Somewhere Spring 2011Huffington Post Live (http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/military-family-holiday/50ac62e978c90a37b1000249) Deployed During the Holidays December 19, 2012The Ship Report (www.shipreport.net) - Joanne Rideout, HostFrequent radio show guest since 2007GrapevineIt Is a Family Disease September 2012Daily Astorian NewspaperTraffic Alert: Blizzards and Volcanic Ash Ahead September 11, 2009Sun MagazineEssay in Change of Heart August 2007Woodfired Ceramics –Coll Minogue and Robert SandersonContributed writing Pg. 139- 40, 2000DEGREES AND CERTIFICATIONSBFA Alfred UniversityMAE Pacific UniversityOS United States Merchant Marine

Book preview

JENNIFER & SARA 1

They passed oyster shells piled three stories high. Their faint fetid smell and the radiating heat of asphalt blended with the fresh Willapa Bay breeze as Kat drove her neighbor home from the Ark Restaurant. Jennifer was in shock. She’d spent an hour at the bar not drinking a thing. Her heart was so full of Sara she was stupefied. She couldn’t stop thinking of her. Her cascading curls and laughter expressed Sara’s spirited personality perfectly. She’d sat, her long crossed legs in strappy heels cutting a graceful silhouette against Willapa Bay beyond her. Looking over at Jennifer in the passenger seat Kat knew the signs, Lez Love.

They’d first met at Kat’s Long Beach espresso bar where Jennifer invited Sara to tea. Jennifer’s low sultry voice made it sound like sex. Sara was intrigued. This new Seattle émigré on the Peninsula was an artist like her, creative and passionate about food. Her seriousness balanced Jennifer’s playful and humorous side. Three days later, Jennifer served her tea in the newly finished green house on the front of her studio. She provided smoked oysters on thin rye bread with onions and cream cheese, humus with cucumbers, carrots and peppers for dipping; strawberries from her garden topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Soon they were dating regularly. Three months later Sara moved in.

Jennifer worked at the Shoalwater Restaurant in Seaview, Washington, a coastal community in the necklace of towns strung along the Long Beach Peninsula. Known for its wine list as well as its creative food offerings, Jennifer waited on the tables of Germans, Japanese, Seattle food critics and San Francisco sommeliers. It was a good living. She was saving money to build a ceramics studio and living cheaply in the poorest county in Washington.

The first time Jennifer took a drink she liked was at the wine tastings Shoalwater owner Tony had on Friday nights for the wait staff. It was a real education. Before she found out about the nuances and poetry of fine wine and the way food could be enhanced, she had no interest in alcohol. Nor did she have the budget to indulge. But over time Jennifer became a smooth, knowledgeable saleswoman.

It was also a decade past the infamous, blind, Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has come to be known as The Judgment of Paris, when two California wineries, Montelena and Stags’ Leap, stumped the greatest French experts and catapulted the California wineries to worldwide celebrity. American wines from the West Coast were noticed for the first time.

"Have you ever read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Jennifer would ask a couple seated at a corner table in the restaurant. Do you remember Peter opening the box of Turkish delight in the Snow Queen’s carriage? The flavors? The surprise? This Trefethen Chardonnay has the golden buttery toast and apricot fragrance of fairy tales."

She roguishly reeled them in, despite the wine costing as much as their hotel room. Jennifer loved making people happy, whether it was with food and wine or attractive objects to enhance their homes. Her life was about giving pleasure, which sounded a little salacious when she thought about it.

After two years’ of steady toil in the restaurant and with help from her partner Sara, Jennifer had a chunk of money and the ceramic studio built. She needed a vacation before the final push to complete the railroad-car-sized kiln she’d designed for custom architectural pieces. That September she planned two weeks visiting California’s Sonoma and Napa counties. Her new excitement about wine bolstered her curiosity. As a passionate gardener she wanted to know the growing habits, soil geology and harvest techniques. Her inner geek needed the history, mechanics and chemistry of a vintner.

In a couple of days, she and her girlfriend Sara would visit Sara’s mother in Clear Lake, California, near the top of the Sonoma Valley. They planned to drive down the coast and spend the night. The month before, she’d written to eight wineries saying she’d be visiting on behalf of the Shoalwater. The restaurant’s reputation paved her way. Four wineries responded and invited her for private tours and tastings: Piper-Sonoma, Fostori-Russo, Trefethen and Montelena.

After leaving Clear Lake, Sara drove up and down the winding grades between the valleys to keep her carsickness at bay as Jennifer examined the terreouis—the French word for the symbiotic ecology of place, which gives wine its personality: soil, climate, flora and fauna. She was awed considering how two wineries in this small area blew France’s grip on winemaking. Now, quality wines were produced in South America, New Zealand, Africa and Iran.

They made their way to the Piper-Sonoma winery, southwest of Healdsburg, California. The Piper of Piper-Heidsdick Champagne in Reims, France had a problem. There were two children interested in winemaking, a boy and a girl. Instead of splitting the French winery in half, which would devalue the brand, they bought a winery in the Sonoma Valley of California to make champagne in the French tradition with California grapes and called it Piper-Sonoma.

Proceeding down a long, white gravel drive to the tasting room, Sara and Jennifer arrived at a contemporary stone-slab building with arid plantings in a pleasing design along it’s facades. Aloe, New Zealand flax, cactus and succulents grew in pastel stones. The Piper daughter, Simone, in beige linen, greeted them. She showed them through the immaculate winery, the temperature controlled aging rooms, and the labs for research on yeasts, sugars and bacteria, which gives champagne its character.

They descended down steps to a high ceilinged room with one glass wall. Opposite the glass was a huge tapestry. Jennifer knew her art history. It was a fabulous treasure of the Middle Ages, The Lady and the Unicorn. Five of the six tapestries depict the senses and this one illustrated Taste. Behind the glass wall a beautiful garden included palms, bougainvillea and bromeliads. In the center of the room was a table of white limestone on a Savonnerie carpet, set with crystal, silver and china. A young man greeted them. His brown, shoulder length hair, jeans, rough silk shirt and navy blazer set off his French accent.

Ignace was from Leon. He grew up in one of the oldest wine making families in the region. At the time, all males in France did three year’s of conscripted military service. If a French company overseas needed the talents of one of their soldiers, he could fulfill his military service working for the French company. Ignace was helping Piper-Sonoma make champagne in California. He led Sara and Jennifer to the limestone table and poured the first of three different bottles.

Plates of fois gras and thin-sliced whole grain bread, cornichons and pickled onions were placed in front of them. The pale gold liquid tickled Jennifer’s tongue. She smelled rose and peaches but tasted only a crisp, dry finish. A salad of curly endive, grated radishes, carrots and Roquefort came next. The second bottle was opened. This had more body and a fruity, flinty depth. As they tasted their first sips Ignace quickly stood and let out a sharp cry. At the same time a solid THUNK came from behind Jennifer’s chair. She turned towards the glass wall. A bird had flown into the glass. It lay still upon the pale stones of the desert garden. Ignace was frozen with shock. For a split second Jennifer wondered if he were superstitious.

Ignace excused himself.

Sara raised her eyebrows as Jennifer walked over to look at the bird through the glass. It was a chestnut-backed chickadee. Sweeping her long red hair over her shoulder, she turned to Sara. Sara looked worried and a little teary-eyed. Jennifer gave her a compassionate look, and thought—in this rich, organic, moment of life, death is still present.

Sara was copacetic with the four-footers and the flyers. Back at their acre in Seaview they had two cats, Wacusa and Lunch. Both were mature when they adopted them from the pound. There were too many coyotes roaming the swamp across the street from their house for a kitten to survive.

Ignace came back into the room and poured more champagne, The gardeners are taking care of the bird. Crashes happen with these expanses of glass. The birds are fooled.

Jennifer could tell he was still a bit shaken, but was distracted when poached salmon on a bed of popped wild rice and spinach arrived. It was robed with an orange, tarragon burre blanc. A sauce so silky and delicious it rivaled the champagne. Despite the bird incident, and all of the cool stone of the table, floor and garden around them, the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. Ignace was the perfect host.

As Jennifer delighted in the flavors she looked closer at the tapestry across from her, letting her imagination go wild, probably because of the wine, but mostly due to her unquenchable imagination. Two rabbits at the foot of the unicorn had looks of such pointed inquiry between them, she wondered what their story was as she intensified her viewing. Wait, she thought, there were a lot of rabbits in this "textile terreouis," and they were busy with their own agenda despite the virgin in their midst. In fact there was some conspiracy between the monkey and dog at her feet. A clueless leopard floated above all like a balloon. The unicorn looked bewildered. She remembered there were six tapestries ,with a unicorn in each one, the poor beast must be getting tired.

After Napoleons with a gossamer, light, raspberry filling and the last champagne, Jennifer and Sara gratefully thanked Simone and Ignace for their gracious hospitality. Heading up the road, they stopped at other vineyards along the way and took pictures. In two days they’d be back in the valley at Fostori - Russo Winery.

WINE COUNTRY 2

As Jennifer and Sara exited their car parked by the palatial gardens stretching for acres around Fostori-Russo, three men in well-cut Italian suits walked towards them. They did not look happy.

The man in the center sternly asked, Are you Harrington Jones?

Jennifer snidely thought, we had an appointment. We’re on time. Who the hell could I be? Smiling to mitigate her indignation, she brightly replied, That’s me!

Sara had a sinking suspicion the winery had assumed J. Harrington Jones was a man. Jennifer always signed her letters in this way. It had gotten her through many doors in the construction and art world firmly closed to women. The signature had become a habit.

Jennifer’s accuser introduced himself, I’m Alesandro Tagliaterri, please follow me.

He drew himself up into his five foot eight inch body, leading with his small paunch and elegant Italian leather shoes. Large tortoise shell glasses perched upon his nose over lushly lashed deep brown eyes. The silent men on either side of him peeled off in the direction of a nearby outbuilding as they approached a grand palace built in the Florentine Renaissance style with sweeping wings to each side. The various outbuildings reflected the design. The facades were marble, probably from Italy. Large curving beds of tulips, iris and budded lilies framed the outer walls and graced acres of classically designed gardens rich with shrubs and flowers. A grape arbor led off to the side where beyond, wide lawns could be seen.

Once inside, the opulence continued with wormy walnut paneling and Persian carpets. Jennifer knew these were no copies and they were old. In the tasting room a raven-haired beauty in an elegantly cut lavender dress welcomed them. Five bottles of Fostori-Russo’s fleet of wines sat on a thick wooden bar with a marble top. Wine glasses for red and white, a pitcher of water and a bowl of generous chunks of French bread sat alongside.

Jennifer thought how different it was from Piper-Sonoma; here they had sumptuous outer packaging and a sparser tasting. She harbored resentment, wondering if being a woman had quashed grander plans had she been a male representative of the restaurant. The flanking flunkies on either side of Mr. Tagliaterri concerned her. It was rude not to be introduced.

Behind the bar a huge Baroque painting hung on the wall. Jennifer dug into her inner treasure box of art history, to figure out the school as she savored the delicious aromas of peach and orange blossom in the wine. Rolling the weighty Sonoma Valley Chardonnay around in her mouth she tasted pear, lemon and honey with creamy, toasted oak notes. Its bright, velvety weight of flavor mirrored the highlights in the painting.

After two more wines: a Pinot Grigio and Estate Reserve Chardonnay, Jennifer and Sara ate a few of the cubes of French bread. They conferred about the painting. Sara was an animation illustrator with Zixtic. She knew art history too, though not as extensively as Jennifer. Her read was Titian because of the lush colors.

Jennifer inhaled fragrances of the next wine. Plum, cherry and cinnamon floated off the Fostori-Russo Pinot Noir. She tasted pomegranate and caramel.

The painting must be the school of Caravaggio, she thought. Its use of shadows and light created drama. In a vineyard winemaking scene with a dominant shaft of light defining the shadows, servants were setting up a feast on a raised platform and workers hoisted baskets of grapes, walking to the warehouses and presses. It reeked of emotion. Everything was voluptuous and verdant. A lot like this Pinot Noir, she thought.

But all told they both thought the wines at Fostori-Russo were showy. Jennifer wondered if they introduced malic acid to speed up the fermentation process. The first Chardonnay tasted slightly of raw alcohol under the bold flavor.

Walking towards the white, chipped limestone parking lot Sara noticed one of the silent men watching them from the building doorway where they had disappeared. Jennifer was looking the other way, and saw to her astonishment, the top of an active brick chimney above the roof of the west wing. The smoke was black and snaking skyward with the updraft. Despite the warm California sun, it disturbed her, the contrast of this luxurious setting with the harsh industrial process of stack and smoke.

They drove west towards Montelena Vineyards near Calistoga, enjoying the view of the Mayacamas Mountains in the distance. It took two hours to wind their way, stopping at an adobe hotel with an outside café for lunch.

Montelena was an imposing vine-covered fortress. It carried an air of devotion to the craft and culture of wine. Not one to rest on its laurels, they had been turning out stellar vintages for decades after taking Paris by storm in the 1970s. Some of the most expensive California wines on Tony’s list at the Shoalwater were Montelena.

Jennifer walked towards the tasting room as Sara parked the car. A man in a Hawaiian shirt with blonde hair to his shoulders ambled towards Jennifer. Sara caught up and he introduced himself as Robert, the owner’s son, guiding them into the belly of the fortress with its gleaming primary fermentation tanks and towers of oak casks, through to a sweeping grape- covered granite terrace.

The most important thing in winemaking is balance. It’s the strength of the triangle: art, farming and science. Robert said as he poured the golden 2009 Napa Valley Chardonnay into their glasses. The tasting was set up overlooking the rolling vineyards with the mountains in the distance.

Jennifer smelled the