Minneapolis moments

What a deeply satisfying set of hours! My week for friendship is drawing to a close and yet the aftertaste remains, in the best of ways. Like one of those wines which, they say, "lingers for a long time on the palate."

I loved my overnight at the Danish cottage. The breezes traveled through the spaces below, the fan pushed out the warm air and the couch, covered by a very Danish quilt, felt especially luxurious.

We were up early -- both Diane and I have that habit. Breakfast, over conversation (and a glance at the booklet about the construction of the guest cottage).

A look at the garden and a chat with the gardener par excellence, Mette (the homeowner whose son designed the small house). As always, you learn something from talking with a person who grows things. 

I pocket the nuggets of information for later use.

Eventually Diane and I head out -- first for a walk across the Mississippi (you can do that in Minneapolis!).

We admire the cityscape that has been shaped so strongly by its milling past. [Minneapolis was once the "flour milling capital of the world." You can see why: the drop in the Mississippi from the St.Anthony Falls gave the industry the power it needed. Grains from the northern plains and the Dakotas were brought by train and flour sacks were then carried up to Duluth, from there they traveled to the East Coast and beyond. In its heyday, Minneapolis had some 20 mills lining the river, in much the same way that steel mills once lined Pittsburgh's riverfront.]

 They're beautiful views.

We then go to a place recommended by our landlady, Mette. As a food photographer, she is very much involved with the local food scene in the Twin Cities. This spot is called "the Food Building" and it houses a flour mill and bakery (Baker's Field), a creamery (Alemar Cheese Company), a salumeria (Red Table Meat Company), and a cafe that allows you to sample any of the products made or baked here (Kieran's Kitchen).

We start off with a leisurely chat over coffee and fantastic rhubarb-ginger popovers.

But a after a while, I suppose a long while, because we are friends of long duration (time for a timed release!)...

... and so we can carry on for quite a bit, it's the lunch hour and so we move on to foods more appropriate to that meal.

All so delicious that I buy out the bakery just so Ed can sample the stuff that is good and, importantly, very different from our usual fare back home.

Very quickly I am nearing my departure hour. Diane drives me to the airport and I shuttle back to Madison. 

It's a super short flight today (31 minutes!), leading me to dream about the day I would not need to fly (because someday, there will be a speedy train linking these Midwestern cities). As sometimes happens, I get upgraded to the inebriated class. Meaning, I get a seat up front where even during a flight of 31 minutes people are offered a free drink in the air. And they take it! At least most do. At 4 pm, double shots of vodka with a splash of ginger ale are are being delivered by a running flight attendant (Sorry sir, but I have to do this fast, we are about to land!). I have to think that either people are secretly fearful fliers and the slug of booze chills them a bit, or we, as a species just cannot turn down a free anything. If they offered a free gallon of gas for the car, poured into your water bottle, people would take it, sloshing it all the way home. They've spent a small fortune on a flight ticket, and if it comes with a drink, damn it, they'll take it. And who can blame them. Flying these days is so stressful. Anything to make it go faster. Anything. (My own "booze," having the same effect, is reading the latest David Sedaris book.)

I pull into the driveway of the farmette and I see a piece of beat up machinery in the place of my parking spot.

Ed!

It's a long story, gorgeous...

I am home.

old haunts

Everyone has them -- places where we'd spent so much time, so long ago. Places that were once so familiar because rarely a day passed when we wouldn't poke in or at least pass by. Places that somehow got off our radar screen because life took us elsewhere.

Minneapolis is full of these old haunts for many of those close to me. They grew up there, or they raised a family there, or they moved there for a while. And because it was their turf, I'd drive up, or take the bus up, or fly up to visit. My Minneapolis has always been someone else's Minneapolis. I was the interloper following at the heels of those who knew it at some deeper level. I never paid much attention to the city itself because I was always more focused on someone whom I wanted to see badly enough that I would make that trip.

And once again, today I fly up to the Twin Cities. My friend Diane doesn't live there anymore, but she is up for a few days' visit and it is, therefore, a perfect opportunity to see her. In her old haunts.

But first, a morning at the farmette. I'd say it was full of search and discovery. Why search? Because I could not find two of the Bresse hens. I searched everywhere. Two were, as always, poking around just outside the barn. Two were missing. 

I woke Ed. Two got snatched!

Two? No, they're around.

I looked everywhere. They are quite visible and they have never strayed more than a dozen feet from the barn.

They're around.

We've lost two in one morning to predators before.

True. But they're around.

More searching. And of course, he was right. They'd wandered off toward the writer's shed. Carefree and seemingly happy. 

When I say "full of discovery," I am of course thinking of the hens (I surely discovered that their range has grown!), but I also mean new blooms. At the end of June each day begins to bring new day lilies into the picture. Today I discovered these lovely faces:

(At the same time that some of the old irises are still at it. Such deep colors we have right now!)

Breakfast is on the porch and I am so grateful that we do not have to spend it talking about "who could have snatched the chickens" and "how do we keep the rest safe in the face of a stalking predator." Instead, we talk about how beautiful our little corner of the planet is right now. Despite everything.

I weed a little. And I think about the article in today's paper that described how some women have channeled their anger into "rage gardening" this week, pulling up weeds in a fury as they felt their lives to have been upended. I appreciate the sentiment, but I think rage gardening isn't really about the furious pulling at weeds. I've come across the term in these Covid years and I feel it's more appropriate to describe rage gardening as a way to diffuse your inner turmoil and anxiety. By gardening you take yourself out of the immediate reality and put yourself in a very basic composition of soil, plants, maybe water. At least this is the way I experience it. Your fury eases and eventually, if you weed long enough -- dissipates.

And in the afternoon I hop on a flight for the one hour trip to Minneapolis. Were there a speed train, I'd take that but we are not a nation of speed trains.

Diane meets me at the airport and we set out to her favorite little Airbnb. And yes, I can see why it is a favorite! Rented out by a Danish woman, it has that feel of someone's very deliberate, yet very restrained style. (Having a son architect do the design helps...) And the little garden! Beautiful!

Diane and I mostly need to catch up. 

I haven't seen her in person since before Covid. It seems remarkable that we are still in the thick of Covid issues, even though she and I have both managed to escape infection thus far. But we do venture out some, including to dinner at Sooki and Mimi -- a fantastic place named after two grandmothers!

We don't pick it for the name, however. It's all about the food here: a mix of influences: Latin, Asian -- you'll find both in the dishes. (My main: maitake mushroom tacos)

The eatery refers to itself as a neighborhood joint and I suppose it is that. Like Chicago, Minneapolis has these very local places that may well become a haunt for you if you live there, bringing in a next generation of regulars. Plus Diane and me, eating at this new place, but in blocks so familiar to her.

The evening flies by so quickly! We'll have a few more hours tomorrow, before I catch my late afternoon flight back to Madison -- where there are not two but four Bresse hens, five old cheepers, many cats and a not too young Ed looking after them all.

Good night, from way up there in Minnesota, where, too, you will find fireflies dancing at dusk and if you look hard enough, maybe a swallow or two.

Tuesday with Polish friends

My attention is split today between the farmette and Warsaw. Perhaps not in terms of hours spent planted there, across the ocean (I did not travel to Warsaw!), but surely in terms of thoughts processed and words spoken. 

I talked about traveling to the homeland with my doc this morning. (She is contemplating such a trip to her own homeland.)

I spoke as well to my Polish friends on a Zoom call, reviewing some of the events I had described in Like a Swallow. (They have been enthusiastic about the content, which is very sweet and very gratifying. After all, they lived those same years in that same Warsaw that I describe in the book.) We rarely go back in time, but the book allowed us to open some of those doors long closed -- a wonderful unanticipated consequence of putting something out for others to read.

And I thought about how history is painting events in this country and how it had painted events in Poland in the years I lived there and in the years that followed.

I had plenty of time for all this thinking, because the day was once again beautiful, but also dry. It was time to water the lavender. 

Oh, hello, Bresse hen! Are we really going to butcher you for a Sunday meal? Somehow this is feeling more and more remote. These four gentle hens are awfully sweet...

I give a quick glance at the flower tubs (oh, hi Henny!)

And at the sunflower that's growing (and growing and growing)...

And then I attend to my appointments and since I am out and about, I may as well stop by a bakery. For breakfast breads. Delicious!

In the late afternoon I pick up Snowdrop at robot camp. (She reports that each class has exactly one girl in it.) We don't have much time, but I bring her to the farmhouse anyway. Someone needs to pick the cherries! (We do not lack the cherries.)

For her, the farmette is a place of quiet  (no little brothers around, and a set of pretty quiet grandparents). I'm not sure she would appreciate a steady diet of quiet, but in small chunks, it suits her really well. 

And as she plays, I think to myself -- when did I become this quiet? Is it the Ed effect? Or is it that I have listened enough in my life to know that so many things are better left unsaid? Thoughts fare better when given space and time to simmer before served out on a plate for others to hear. Or maybe it's because I had a father who liked to expound and you know how that goes -- the next generation always wants to be different than the one before it.

When I was a nanny for the child of a prominent New York couple (read about it in Like a Swallow!), I learned how to do small talk very well. Put in a room full of "Very Important People," I could weave my way conversationally through sometimes tricky situations. At the same time, in the course of my life, I've met too many who just don't know when to stop a story. These days, if I have to pick one -- grab the stage or stay at the side of the conversation, I'll almost always pick the latter. 

Evening? I cook up soup which perhaps is not right for a warm summer evening, but still, I have rainbow chard and beet stems and a soup is an easy way to dispose of both. Besides, Polish people really love to eat soup. (We eat dinner on the porch, it's that beautiful outside!)

Wait, am I still Polish? Yeah... I think that designation will stay with me. Rainbow chard American, with a good chunk of beet Polish in me. For life.

Fantasia on Polish Airs

I hear this piece on the radio and I'm thinking -- if Chopin hadn't snatched that name (Fantasia on Polish Airs) for his lovely piano composition, I might have thought it to be a good title for a book. (For example, for my second Great Writing Project.) As it is, I have to come up with something else.

Not that I am deeply immersed in that project. Yet. I still haven't done much to "sell" my first book and, too, I have a summer of three F's -- family, flowers and friends. They take priority right now. Not unusual for summer months!

This week, I seem to be switching a bit to pay a little more attention to friends. I love my good friends to pieces. Truly, I can't imagine life without their presence. But so often they stay at the side as life plunges forward in torrents and rushing streams. So this week, I'm making more of an effort to see the people who mean the world to me. Insofar as I can do it. Too many live too far away!

Early morning breakfast at Paul's cafe, with my good Madison friend.

It's lovely! The weather is once again perfect and we sit out in part shade, part sun and the morning feels so leisurely. Like a vacation!

(At the farmhouse, I have a second breakfast with Ed. On the porch.)

And then, with only one short interruption for a Zoom call that is really more work than pleasure, I spend the entire rest of the day outside watering and weeding. The rain we were to have a few days back fizzled to nothing much at all and so I had to roll out the hose and soak some roots. There are too many new flowers and young plants that still need a sustained weekly dose of water. I can't possibly get to all in one day and so I work one field on one day and another later in the week. And always, always I weed.

(Unie knows how to scare the daylights out of the cats! She gets really close to them and they're sure she's going to attack!)

It seems to me that this year I am spending more time on flower maintenance than in past years. There's a reason for it. Last spring I planted probably several hundred new flowers. They typically start their robust growth the second year. Meaning now. I cannot let them wither and slump! It's their prime moment! So I make sure they are well weeded and that they get their weekly soak.

Yes, I know a more efficient watering job could be done with soaker hoses. It's true. But my fields are too big, too spread out all over farmette lands. And honestly, I do not mind hosing them (in a targeted way of course). I think lovely thoughts, I sing songs in my head, I revel in all that I see around me. It's the closest I get to meditating. 

With love.

strawberry day

Once a year, Tipi Produce -- our CSA farmers -- organize a strawberry u-pick for its members. You get a row, you get some buckets and you get a set time when you can pick. Just this Friday they decided Sunday should be that day. The strawberries are at their best. I signed us up.

It is a glorious day. Stunning, really. Sunny, crisp, with a pronounced breeze. Not hot at all. It doesn't get much better than this! (For the first time, one of the Bresse hens takes a little stroll...)

(the phlox stands out)

We are up around 6 and get to work outside. Me -- not for long. I need to do some baking prep before we set out to pick our berries. And of course, we do pause for breakfast.

I decided to bake a strawberry tart for dinner. I used to make red fruit tarts all the time. I know the recipe for the shell, the creme patisserie, the red currant glaze by heart. But it's been a while, in part because the berries you get in the grocery store are too big and cutting them into slices just doesn't do it for me. You need market berries, or better yet, a u-pick with flavorful small berries -- at least this is my vision for a tart. (Too, making it is soooo labor intensive! Takes forever!)

I make the dough for the crust and let it rest in the fridge. And we're off!

Picking berries at Tipi's is fun. This year, they put down enough wheat straw on the rows that the weeds are largely suppressed. It really is easier to pick when you don't have to push aside thistle.

I warned Ed to pick only the very best, but he and I have different yardsticks for this and so of course, his bucket is fuller than mine.

We have a very productive hour out in the strawberry fields (forever!).

On the drive back (Tipi's farms are only about 25 minutes by car to the south of us), we pause at the nearest town of Evansville. Call it an exploration of small Wisconsin settlements: I'm looking for good places to bring visitors who want a taste of small town America.

Evansville is pretty.

So why is it so desolate? There is a cafe in town and Ed and I stop there for a treat...

We kind of think the pecan roll came straight from Costco's freezer section, and moreover, there is a sign in the window indicating that the cafe is ready to close doors for good. It's not a surprise. One person stopped for a drink while we were there. It's not the kind of traffic that will keep a cafe in business.

It always saddens me to see these Main Streets so forlorn and deserted. What would bring people -- local people, visitors, anyone! -- to these town centers? A dedicated cafe life, maybe a bakery where you absolutely must buy your daily bread -- these things work in France, but they're not part of our culture. Is there something else that would be a draw? For sure the stores with "antiques" and "nick racks" are not bringing in anyone, not in any stream of sustained traffic. And so eventually the eateries close and the shops go out of business and you have a Main Street that looks like it belonged to another era, offering nothing at all to those who pass this way right now.

At the farmhouse, I return to making the tart. 

There, done!

And the young family comes for dinner.

(I take the kids to the new orchard: cherries! Sparrow is the rare kid who doesn't love cherries, but he's polite!)

This is what you look forward to all winter long: an evening with food on the porch.

(Sparrow asks if we ever go up on the porch roof. We do! Can he go up with us? Not today....)

(Sandpiper, before the tart...)

(Sandpiper, after...)

Hey, it may well be a whole year until I bake a strawberry tart again. The berry season is very short! So, enjoy this most awesome dessert developed by Paul Bugat, pastry chef at the infamous Parisian Patisserie Clichy,  and brought to you today by the farmhouse staff of dedicated berry pickers and one ambitious pastry baker!

(some go straight for the strawberries...)

(others linger over the creme patisserie...)

Later, much later, I clean up, put my feet up, feel the night breeze, and savor this moment of summer calm.

With love...