Hi All
I slept from 10PM last night to almost noon today. I was so tired! Next year I will definitely curtail my schedule. At first everything was so exciting, Pattye, my daughter Kether, and I ran all over the place for four days. We just about covered it all! That included 3 visits to Tom Stern's booth- Titan Pearls where I photographed some 130 photos over a 3 day span. I will post the 20 or so good photos in his thread on natural pearls.
Every time I visited Tom's booth, well known pearl experts were finding him in his off the beaten course booth in the JOGS show. And one major person is doing an interview for his major pearl publication. I am not positive who, so I hope someone catches me up on that.
I met Antoinette Matlins in front of Tom's booth and asked a couple of questions and for an update on the Victorian Quahog pin. It is still not sold, but she is seeing some good prices for quahog pearls. She told me the the market is opening.
When I first started posting, there was no quahog market. Then I saw the story about the huge quahog pin that was at the 2004 gem show in Tucson. The Victorian quahog pin seems to have provided the publicity needed to start getting the pearls to the experts- and Antoinette Matlins is not the only expert. Jeremy Norris, a member of this forum, had some beautiful quahog pearls with him, so I could see some in person. They were large, dark purples, and very lustrous. He is putting together a strand of graduated quahog pearls, his second, I believe. I asked for photos......maybe some day soon......Then I crashed for 2 days while Elaine and Pattye ran all over everywhere again.
Saturday brought a group of us to the Elisabeth Strack lecture, which was fascinating as always, and should be reported on its own thread. Elisabeth did say her mighty tome (my words) was an endless work and after seven years she finally had to just publish it in the state it was in, because she realized she would never get it all in and never get it all right. She was able to revise and update the English edition, and when she does another edition, no doubt she will try to catch up for a second. Because the second it goes to press the findings keep coming. She is an absolute giant in the pearl world, yet she is easy to approach and easy to talk to. Altogether, a number of us from the pearl guide got chances to speak to her and even have a cup of coffee. She had to decline the dinner invite from Blaire- but it was after she had accepted it for several hours, so I really hope she comes back to lecture next year and will plan ahead to have dinner with us.
I'll jump straight to dinner. This dinner was Jeremy's treat and it was unforgettable! Thank you Jeremy for such a great ending to a fabulous pearly day. First of all, it was at Janos, one of the nicest places to eat in Tucson. Janos been a Tucson favorite for a couple of decades. The food was great, just perfect. Several people ate the surf and turf, which, in spite of its fairly common appearance on menus, was uncommonly delicious. I ordered lamb and got a chop with a long handle, a lamb tamale, and a lamb lengua soft taco. I have made tamales for years, and I know a good tamale. This was great. I never thought of making a lamb tamale, now I can hardly wait for my next one! The taco was a revelation of flavors. The wines were brilliant. I did not try the Chardonnay, but Kether raved about it. It was dry, which she loved. The Cabernet was my choice and what a good choice that was. It was so mellow, extremely educated too, by the hint of old books in an old library, taste that inhabits my favorite Cabernets.
Then the dessert was a perfection of a chocolate souffl?, eaten warm and melting, a strawberry, delicious in its sweet tartness and on the right hand side of this trio a small scoop of ice cream of some kind. This desert would have won on Top Chef; it was far better!
Blaire reminded me that it was my posts about the Gem shows on the "Two weeks of Pearls in Tucson thread" that roped her into membership on this forum. Now, when I compare the solo accounts that year with the 8-10 members that were here this year, it has become the absolute high point of my year in Tucson (which on any other day is still a dusty little border town, no matter how big it's grown)!
One pearly day in Tucson with Jeremy and Pearl-Guiders is as much fun as it gets. So keep the couple of days next February for the pearl walk and dinner. It is so worth it!
