Orleans Camera Archives - Brookside Condo Resales

After the opening of the photo show at Orleans Camera last night, I decided to indulge a long-time desire to experience ABBA, an Orleans restaurant that’s been showing up on all the “Best” lists for 18 years. What a treat! It’s intimate, thoughtful, and lives up to its reputation. I doubt it’s named for the Scandinavian musicians.

I met the owner/chef, Erez Pinhas, who was as charming as his restaurant. In Hebrew “abba” means dad or father. I should have asked if it’s named for him or his dad, but I was enchanted, and didn’t get to that. But I did find out why he and his wife opened this very sophisticated Mediterranean restaurant in Orleans. He said that they first visited in the summer and thought it was as special as the French Riviera.

Now that Erez and his wife have been here 18 years, raised their family, and become true Cape Codders, he’s acutely aware of all the ways that Orleans isn’t the French Riviera. He’s started leading culinary tours of Israel, where he’s from, in our off-season. Sounds fabulous! Look at abbagotravel.com for more info, and who knows, maybe I’ll be on your trip! Meanwhile, dinner at ABBA is definitely worth the drive down-Cape.

I was surprised and delighted to receive a phone call this afternoon that my photo “Red White and Blue-ing on the High Line” would be receiving an award tonight at the opening for a show at Orleans Camera. I’d stopped submitting photos to shows a couple of years ago, only because my work schedule no longer allowed for sizing/sending/printing/matting/framing/delivering/picking up necessary to participate. But Orleans Camera made it so easy- all I had to do was email the image, and they’d do the rest. Perfect!

The theme for the show was Red/White/Blue, and the judge was Julia Coombs. I was so pleased that her comments showed that she saw and appreciated what I saw: how a collage of building facade images could resemble a flag, and that the colors were still red, white and blue, but not in the conventional sense. If you’re reading this, you saw the image when I sent it as my Fourth of July greeting. Here it is again, and also some images of the reception.

And there wasn’t even bad traffic…