Threatening rain again on this March Sunday morning and it’s clearly been one hell of a week…Super Tuesday, State of the Union, Trump v Biden Redux, Oscars tonight, and my wife Judy North’s Art Show opening next Sunday, March 17, at the San Geronimo Cultural Center…Chemo therapy tomorrow, Cancer on the Run, Spring springing wildly, Rosie the Poodle resting easy, ready to greet the next weekend guests…Let me ramble a bit…Streaming the consciousness as it were…Margaret Grade…The eccentric but brilliant restauranteur , Creator of magical Mankas, and later Sir and Star in Olema, passed after medical complications following a crash in West Marin…Her brakes may have failed on the BMW as she hit a utility truck but emerged from the wreck only to experience difficulties in the following weeks…My experiences with her were peripheral in nature, a passing word as we dined on the sumptuous local cuisines as she sometimes moved among the tables casting her particular spell always unique and mysterious…I was of two minds as Sir and Star unfolded…Born and raised in West Marin, I had seen a lot of restaurants come and go, marveled at the enduring success of some, and seen the transient nature of the business itself, where my friend Tony Miceli had made the Two Bird Cafe successful utilizing the 70 hour a week work schedule that grinds a person down forever…Rancho Nicasio, Nicks Cove, I had been in all of them as a kid in the early 60s, Tony’s at Marshall, and of course the Station House as it developed into the Point Reyes Station power house with consistently good food …Sir and Star hit a completely different note…Starting with in my opinion the horrible choice of Dark Charcoal as the exterior color, it sent the message to me that the Addams Family had arrived in town, and continues to depress me to this day every time I top the ridge and head down remembering the off whites of the decades before…Margaret was the Queen of all she surveilled , and a masterful one at that…Her clothing and demeanor, always were carefully chosen , and her choices for dinner menu’s always reflected availability of the freshest and most pristine regional fresh vegetables and obscure entrees like the Devils Gulch Rabbit and other delectable entrees…The uniquely personal touches , and the drive for perfection shown brightly and attracted decerning diners from throughout the region…I never had a disappointing meal, my reservation was always the cost, and of course presenting this level of quality made the $100 to $150 a plate experience special occasions territory for me…My most memorable was a Saturday night with my great friend Jack Goldman visiting from LA…Wine lover, and gourmet to the core, he was immediately drawn to the Pinot from Skywalker Ranch, it did not disappoint…Rolling in at $150 dollars a bottle on the excellent wine list, the two bottles we consumed helped bring dinner for 4 to a hefty 1k…I wondered how many locals ate there with any regularity…Jack pulled out @ Gold Card and laughed it off as the cost of great dining…I agreed but felt like I was out of my depth putting up that amount of money for a single meal…A modern experience indeed, like a 49er or Warrior game, or a $500 dollar concert ticket for 90 minutes of entertainment…We left late that night, around 11…Margaret was sitting outside on the front porch, smoking a small cigar like a Tipperillo from my youth…She drank Champagne from the bottle and smiled a parting smile, sending us the ecstatic diners whose 3 hour tour de force in Foodie Paradise was a night to remember…It is an image burned into the memory and I watched as Sir and Star was poised to become a West Marin culinary legend only to meet the devastation of Covid and the now this final nail in the coffin…Long Cool Woman, long dress, fiery eyes from the fiery spirit and the history of uniqueness that made her the legend she has become…Hostess to the Stars, Star in her own right…