Features

Salinas by Way of Steinbeck

By KATHLEEN HILL Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 19, 2003

A Stanford dropout who won a Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature, John Steinbeck began his life in Salinas on February 27, 1902. His life’s journey ended when his wife Elaine and his son Thom took his ashes to the shore at Whalers Bay south of Monterey for a last visit to his favorite place and a memorial service on Christmas Eve, 1968.  

Steinbeck’s entire life is chronicled artfully and humorously at the National Steinbeck Center, a valiant and entertaining effort to honor one of America’s best known writers and an attempt to revitalize downtown Salinas. Ironically, among the donors whose money built the Center are many descendants of the leading local farmers who wanted Steinbeck’s books banned and once burned copies on Main Street. 

Seven themed interactive, multi-sensory galleries depict scenes from Steinbeck’s novels: You can feel the cool air of an “East of Eden” lettuce boxcar, smell the fish and hear the seagulls in “Cannery Row,” and listen to classical music in Ed “Doc” Ricketts’ lab. 

Seven theaters show Steinbeck’s films—which together chalked up 29 Academy Award nominations—and you can walk around “Rocinante,” the green camper that plays a central role in “Travels with Charley,” before stopping off at the center’s superb gift shop, which offers nearly every book in print by or about the writer. 

For serious scholars, the Steinbeck Center offers its invaluable archival collection of Steinbeck’s original manuscripts, rare editions, correspondence, photographs, taped interviews, and other memorabilia recently donated by the John Steinbeck Library. You may access all of these materials from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday by calling ahead for an appointment. 

And when it all gets to be too much, you can take a break at the restful café on site. (1 Main St., Salinas; 831-775-4720 or 831-796-3833 to reach living bodies; open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily; www.steinbeck.org) 

Steinbeck House (1897), where Steinbeck was born and lived for 19 years, is maintained and run by the Valley Guild, and includes a rather old-fashioned dining room where you can enjoy a tearoom-like luncheon served by volunteers. Docents lead tours of the rooms in which Steinbeck wrote his first stories and worked on parts of “The Red Pony,” “Tortilla Flat,” “The White Quail,” and “The Chrysanthemums.” In the basement, The Best Cellar gift shop offers rare editions and memorabilia as well as the lunchroom’s recipes. (132 Central Ave., Salinas; 831-424-2635; open Monday-Saturday 11:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.) 

To visit Steinbeck in his final home, go to the Garden of Memories Cemetery, where his ashes are buried in his mother’s Hamilton family plot No. 1, surrounded by his parents, sister Mary, William “Uncle Will” Hamilton, friends, and neighbors, many of whom appear in East of Eden. To get there, drive south on Main Street, turn left on East Romie Lane, continue longer than you think you should, make the rather difficult right turn onto Abbott Street, then right again onto the cemetery’s Memory Lane, and right again after the mausoleum. Follow the signs. 

My favorite restaurant in Salinas is Spado’s, which offers an antipasto bar and excellent polenta, delicate pizza, crisp innovative salads, stuffed grilled Portobello mushrooms, pastas, an irresistible five-clove garlic chicken sandwich, sand dabs, lamb shanks, and daily Italian stews and pastas, at very reasonable prices. (66 West Alisal, Salinas; 831-424-4139; open from 11 a.m. daily). 

To walk off your repast, try a stroll down Main Street—a journey back in time, with the occasional gallery and a few new restaurants to ponder if you decide to linger. 

Steinbeck made frequent trips to Carmel, often to visit muckraker Lincoln Steffens in his home on San Antonio, south of Ocean Avenue, where the two writers chewed the fat with an eclectic collection of radicals, liberals, and humanitarians, as well as farm labor activists who inspired The Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle. 

One of Steinbeck’s favorite hangouts—and the place where he met Elaine Scott, his third wife and love of his life—is the Pine Inn on Carmel’s Ocean Avenue. 831-624-3851 or 800-228-3851.) 

Another Carmel compatriot, Robinson Jeffers, was one of the few contemporary poets Steinbeck admired and respected, and the author made many memorable visits to Jeffers’ Tor House, south of Carmel Point. Jeffers built both the house and the adjacent Hawk Tower stone-by-stone, decorating them with pottery and artifacts donated by interesting characters from around the world. Usually there’s a lovely garden party the first Sunday in May, as well as a Tor House Festival on Columbus Day weekend in October for a fascinating poetry walk. Call for tour reservations. (26304 Ocean View Ave., Carmel; 831-624-1813 or 831-624-1840; open for tours every hour 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday-Saturday.) 

For lunch or dinner in Carmel try Grasing’s, right across the street from the Carmel Fire Station. The baby of Narsai David and Chef Kurt Grasing, Grasing’s presents a simple and impressive menu based on Central Coast harvests and the best of the Monterey Peninsula wines. Specialties might include Roast Rack of Lamb Narsai, marinated with pomegranate and red wine over ratatouille, seared duck breast with figs, pearl onions and star anise, or grilled swordfish with baby bok choy. The lunchtime bronzed salmon salad is divine if on the menu, as are the medallions of pork with shiitake mushrooms. Medium-expensive. (Sixth Avenue near Mission; 831-624-6562). 

Kathleen Hill writes a series of Hill Guides to the West Coast with her husband Gerald Hill, including “Monterey & Carmel--Eden by the Sea.”