Now that’s Italian!

Alright, so I am going to bake tonight. Though I must admit, I do not like to search out recipes that are geared toward the healthy eater. Baking something that is labeled as low-fat low-carb high-fiber low-sodium wheat-free etc etc sounds like a trip to the pharmacy, not the baker’s kitchen.

But there are recipes out there that beguile in their authenticity, originality and flavor and that are also, upon careful inspection, pretty healthy, or at least balanced.

One such beauty is the Ligurian Cake (from Desserts by Pierre Hermé). The very name! It’s from Liguria, a province of Italy that speaks of villages perched on cliffs and distant hills with olive groves, a place where the anti-carb mania must be regarded as some kind of a statement against humanity (they do love their pasta there) and yet, if you look at what it is that they do eat on a daily basis – well, we should all be so healthy.

The Ligurian cake is called that because in its original version, it is made with Ligurian olive oil. But any extra-virgin olive will do (the 365 Whole Foods basic olive oil is fantastic for this). And let me remind you, we are two weeks away from the beginning of the raspberry season, so this is the moment for this simple little gem.

Personally, I like it with my morning coffee. But you can whip up some sugared egg whites (beat into a stiff meringue), spread them on top, bake for five more minutes (to brown the meringue) and you’ll have yourself a splendid dessert. Tell your guests that there’s almost a cup of olive oil in it and watch their mouths drop.

I don’t post recipes here. Ever. But, with every rule there’s an exception and this cake calls for it. First, the photo that shows how totally fun it is to bake it:


batter and berries 

…and the finished product. It looks ordinary. It’s not.


fresh, honest, very Italian 

Finally, the recipe:

1 3/4 flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 c sugar
zest of 1 - 2 lemons
4 eggs, room temp (do a quick warm up in hot water if you forgot)
3 TBSP whole milk (it's only 3 TBSP, relax about the WHOLE milk)
1 TBSP lemon juice
7 TBSP butter (remember: in baking, stick with unsalted), melted but still warm
2/3 c extra-virgin olive oil (use the tame kind)
1 pint (or so) of raspberries

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and dust with flour 10 inch pan (I use springform).
Sift flour and baking powder together, reserve.
Place sugar and lemon zest in mixing bowl, rub together well with fingers, add eggs, beat unitl pale and thick (3 min.).
At low speed beat in milk, then sifted dry ingredients, then lemon juice, then butter, then olive oil, beating each only until blended.
Pour one third batter into pan, top with barries, pour the rest.
Bake 30 - 40 minutes.

You need to check for doneness with the toothpick -- err on the side of longer rather than shorter if you like a drier cake. But don't fret, the cake is often eaten moist, so if you are partial to it that way, know that you're just like the rest of Ligurians. Or, pop your piece in the oven for another 5 minutes to firm it up. In baking, very few things aren't salvagable.

P.S. Something with a name that is as poetic as the Ligurian cake should have a rose carelessly tossed at the side. This flower (from my yard) would work well next to the dessert. In any case, if you're not into baking, perhaps a photo of this very splendid rose will mollify you.


in the garden, a rose bush blossoms 

Curiosity

I am at home, working at a desk that faces the front street. A young couple drives up in a sporty red car with an Illinois license plate. They get out, with a basic-looking camera in hand. They start taking photos – focusing especially on the house across the street (it’s not for sale, it’s rather standard suburban-looking, and they take several pictures of its ugliest feature: the huge, white garage door), of themselves, standing by it, of the lamppost just at the side.

I use this opportunity to go outside and pick up the mail. Surely they will engage me in conversation or at least explain their actions. Lots of smiles, no explanation given. I haven’t the courage to ask “what ARE you doing?”

They then walk around a bit, moving stealthily between houses, clearly aiming for back yards, camera still aimed to take shots. They disappear for a few minutes, reappear, walk up a few paces, back again. Finally, she takes out her cell phone, makes a call, can’t get a connection, he tries his, talks, they get back into the car.

In groping for his cell phone, he inadvertently places the camera on top of the car. Dilemma: do I wait until they pull away, repossess the camera and take a look at what the focus of the picture-taking was? (I can tell it’s a digital camera.) In the alternative, do I make a fool of myself by running out screaming and banging at their car trunk as they start to pull away, to warn that they are about to lose their camera, admitting, therefore, that I am sitting here like the prying person that I am, staring at their every move?

I choose the latter. As I shout, wave my arms, get them to take note, they stop the car, thank me, take the camera and drive off. No explanation is given, even though surely my antics should have bought me a slice of the truth. Damn these closemouthed types!

Guilt

I should have baked today. I could have baked today. I virtually promised that I would bake today. Yet I did not. Normally, it is deeply satisfying to bake on a Sunday. It’s as if you are storing up for the week: here’s the bread (more likely cake) that’ll see us through in the tough days ahead. And by Sunday night all the reject croissants that I haul in from L’Etoile are pretty much gone. There is a breadbox in the kitchen, but it stands empty.

Perhaps this low/no carb era that we are living through is at the bottom of the baking inertia that has overcome me. I know and understand that the act of baking is sinfully bad and I am only providing unnecessary carbs for those who would rather see themselves with a steak and an egg than with a piece of raspberry tart with a dark chocolate crème patisserie or a flourless chocolate cassis cake (that has one third of a cup of the dark currant liqueur and half a pound of bittersweet Ghirardelli). So I buy the fresh currants for decoration, but I neglected to bake the cake.

I remind myself that the low carb craze isn’t new. Back in the 60s, during my first brush with ‘dieting,’ I picked up this booklet (for a mere $.35):


reading material from 1965 

On the first page I read:


the motivating introduction 

Did people really once diet on sauerkraut juice? The fashion surrounding food consumption is truly remarkable. At least I know all this will pass. And in the meantime, I am definitely going to bake. Tomorrow.

Sunday reading and zesty grinning

Ann, my blogging compatriot, says (here), in between chews on yummy Espresso Royale caramels (I love those!), that she hasn’t missed a day in posting on her blog. I’m right there, too, but it hasn’t been without challenge. When I started this blog on January 2nd, I thought that the hardest thing would be to feel motivated to write on a regular basis (at least twice a day). In fact, finding motivation has been the easiest. But finding a hospitable environment for blogging has been at times trying -- there are so many pressures in each day to do everything but blog!

And so it is always inspiring to read a few good words on this Great Blogging Project in the blog of another (see post here). Truly, to know that something you wrote would give someone even the faintest of smiles is completely gratifying. (I read your terrific blog regularly too!)

This blogger uses the words “a good enjoyer” to describe a person who takes pleasure in things. It’s true, I’ve been accused for a long time of having a wildly happy approach to each day. When I was a kid, my parents gave me the mawkishly old-fashioned label of “ray of sunshine” (we were in the 1950s, the world was less jaded, it sounded even charming then). Throughout my younger years I felt like I should act in ways to give substance to the label. Too much pressure? Not at all! I liked the role, played it effortlessly and with a great deal of zest.

But I was a misfit in my own family. My mother was moody, my father was on his own cloud and my sister was a more brooding child (she was molding her own more artistic temperament to a family structure that would not accommodate it). So there I was, all grins and happy plans, without the enthusiasm of others to match my own.

Eventually I learned to temper it somewhat. But even the greatest feeling of frustration remains always just a passing phase for me. I’ll wake up and suddenly the list of possibilities is before me. The cloud passes. I’m the kid with the zesty grin all over again.

Here’s a photo from 1958 (I’m not quite 5 years old): I am in a dining room, in the Polish mountain town of Zakopane, feeling…happy.


just another day 

Only in Madison can you get something this good…

Everyone should rush next week to the Capri stand at the Farmers' Market (it's at the south central end) and coax Felix into selling his private cache of espresso goat milk ice cream. Throw a couple of Harmony Valley strawberries into the dish and you ‘ll get this fantastic dessert for dinner:


Goat milk espresso ice cream with strawberries 

Market colors

Of course, Saturday means L'Etoile market buying for me. Not much text today and just a small handful of photos. Why? No, not lethargy, my arms and fingers are still sore from my rooftop tree chopping of yesterday. The spoils of my labors:


so many branches 

I did take photos of the early morning sunshine hitting buckets of fresh flowers. I have always liked it when sellers put great masses of flowers in buckets -- it's the way I remember flowers being sold in the Old Country (I like the associations I have with the term the 'Old Country'). And the delicate early sun makes the pastels even more appealing.


in the early morning 

There is such wonderful variety in color at the moment. Even within the blue range, you can pick shades that are exactly perfect.


marching blues 

And the pairings -- how terrific to see irises against the puffy purple balls.


puffy next to slender 

Colors are fantastically coordinated, even in the food groups. During my first run I picked up the goldenrod tomatoes, red currants, yellow gooseberries, and yellow and orange carrots.


yellow orange red 

The day at the Market always ends for me with a bouquet for the kitchen table. This one will see me through the week.


a bunch for home 

Do I have enough strength to pick up chopsticks?

Tonight I went back to our pan-Asian restaurant of the moment, Firefly. First I had a ‘working’ meeting there in the lounge (how the momentum can change from day to day! Big projects? Yes! Bring them on! I am ready!), then I stayed for dinner. I have to say that it is a place that you love, or you don’t, depending on what you order. The tofu mushroom spring rolls? Yum! The kung pao seafood? Wonderful! Let’s leave it at that.

My table had the bottle of Firefly white Chardonnay along with the meal. Now that is unique! How many Madison restaurants are there with their own private wine label? (answer: none.) It turns out that these guys have independently found an Australian producer with the same name, willing, obviously, to sell at rock bottom prices. How clever, I thought. And then my cynical side kicked in: what if the restaurant proprietors (an enterprising lot as we know) first found the wine and then named the eatery? What a scheming bunch!

But, I am not cynical. I am reveling in the fact that you can have tasty fresh Asian food in Madison and wine to go with it and not walk away feeling that either 1. the chef desperately needs to sign up for one of those evening cooking classes around town, or 2. the kitchen has a pipeline to the MSG depositories of the world, or 3. the diner needs a secret investment to pay for the inflated tab that hits the table at the end of a lousy meal. [Big Bowl is in this same league of fresh and honest eateries and I do not mean to exclude it from my nod toward good Asian fare. But you have to arm-twist people of the Isthmus to go to a place such as Big Bowl because it is on the Far West side of town, whereas Firefly is homegrown and within spittin' distance of the Capitol and thus one of the emergent local heroes.]

Enough on food. The evening is getting on, I have to get up early for Market, and I haven’t yet begun my daily ritual of checking in on the various blog posts of the day. Instead, I am sitting here staring at my arm muscles, wondering why they buckled under the heave-ho of the saw this afternoon (see post below). Why am I so sore??

Tuscan rooftops

Peasant stock! That’s what I say when something needs to be done that requires more than a modicum of exertion. And so today I shouted it out to the world as I borrowed my neighbor's high ladder and climbed to the top of the roof to survey the overgrown trees that were precariously suspending their loaded branches over the house. The branches had to be trimmed. Hearty peasant stock!

Five hours later I am dead. The peasant in me must have trickled out over the years.

Oh, but the view from the top of the house! Almost like Tuscan rooftops, no?

Color

If you were to count the number of cloudy days we’ve had these past months, you’d have to believe that an evil spell has been cast over Madison. I walk out of my office tonight and I see the usual dark clouds and I feel the dampness of the day, the chill in the air and I think -- what kind of a summer is this anyway?? And then I pass the bike rack and I relax. For, wouldn’t it be lovely to coast on the bike, the first one in the rack --devilishly red, in-your-face bold... Fantastic! I’ll even settle for the blue bike in back with the purple basket. But spinning down Old Sauk Hill on the red one – wow! The world would be mine again.


the power of red 

Thank you!

It’s time to be grateful. And I am, I AM!

Thanks to Ann (here) who is supremely generous in her blog links. You write something even halfway relevant to the world out there – she’ll give you credit for it.

Thanks to MY STUDENTS for the moment of spring fever that lead them to write the lovely, lovely comments (I picked up my course evals today). YOU ARE ALL JUST TERRIFIC! I wish I had given out all 89s like I wanted, they MADE me revise and resubmit with a more normal distribution (no, it’s not true, I take full responsibility, go ahead and hate me for it). And I totally forgive the ones who said I move too fast through the material (do I?), don’t linger long enough after class (I’m shy) and don’t use the Socratic method in the way Socrates intended (help me here: what IS it that Socrates intended?).

Thanks to my blogger pal down south (Mother in Law, here) for one of the all-time nicest comments I am ever likely to get (EVER) on a blog. The feelings expressed therein are entirely mutual.

Thanks to chef Odessa at L’Etoile for calling me tonight and telling me I was a good forager in spite of my sometimes quirky input into the life and culture of the restaurant world (including my off-the-wall comments and suggestions, indicating how little I know and how quick I am to sound off anyway).

Thanks to all my pals who have been such great friends in recent months (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!).

Café etiquette

Should I tell the couple that is hogging TWO tables at the Café that this is not right? That they are disturbing my sense of fair play? That others, discouraged at the sight of a crowded Café are leaving while they are luxuriating in their kingdom of books and magazines (they need two tables to hold their stacks of reading material)? Grrr…

Sometimes one of them walks away (to get more books and magazines) and so then there is only one person at two tables. A customer comes up and starts to ease into the chair and it becomes like a scene from Candid Camera. “You can’t take that place, someone is sitting there” says the table hog. The customer stares at the empty place and the piles of books, puzzling over this and walks away. Eventually, hog number two returns with more magazines (bending back the bindings, making them look UNFRESH!)

I will not rant, I will not rant, I am NOT a ranter. I wish them no ill will. Just a few small inconveniences maybe. Ah, may his black nail polish chip before the day is over and may her computer crash in the middle of a long email. Too mean? If you spent the afternoon watching their greed dominate an entire area of the Café, you’d come up with some juicy zingers as well.

Sticking to the sidelines

1. I had a long, leisurely meeting yesterday with a colleague who has been at the Law School for quite a while. His experiences are such that he can remember fondly times when colleagues were more likely to have these long meetings, over a beer maybe, scheming, forming coalitions, building empires. We talked wistfully of a project that could have been implemented, but which is being dropped for want of a sufficient number of empire builders these days.

2. This afternoon I met over a quick Borders’ coffee with a ‘constituent,’ a woman who also wants to plan, propose changes, restructure the 'system,' though her focus is on family law and especially an area of it that recently has fallen victim to too much political tinkering. She is a grassroots-type person. She facilitates meetings and plans agendas. From my tired and jaded perspective, I see her chances of success as very small indeed. I tell her of what she is up against, but she is undeterred. I tell her others have tried (and failed at) what she is doing and she responds “so what.”

3. This evening I have yet another meeting, over a glass of wine, with yet another reformer, a colleague who is rebuilding a program at the Law School, introducing some much needed changes in a specific area of the curriculum. She is a friend to all, beloved by those at the top and those at the bottom. She works this to her advantage and she has everyone convinced that by tomorrow, nay by yesterday, we will have a better world.

So, here I am, having within 24 hours talks with three leaders, listening to three agendas, with three different approaches. And where am I in all this? A tired beer-coffee-wine drinking listener? The one who smiles patiently, benevolently and then says “it can’t be done?” Maybe I just need a long vacation – like about a year’s worth of days to recharge my enthusiasm for grand-scale projects. Because right now, all I can do is look at my to-do list and be happy if I cross off five items from each day’s allotment.

Two bits from a busy afternoon

invitations

I’ve written here upon occasion about my Polish high school crush of all crushes, the one that lasted years and years, where the person garnering my greatest affection became a chanter (of PRE-Gregorian music I believe) in later years. Today I got an email from him inviting me to “drop in” on a music festival that he is organizing in a godforsaken town in southeastern Poland next month. And you know, that is just like him to beckon in this way to his own performance. I feel honored, but I think I’ll pass. [The last email I got from him before this was also an invitation: to his son’s wedding. I did not fly down to Poland for that either.]

smells

I asked for my usual latte at the Borders café. The person behind the counter brewed the espresso, frothed the milk and put the two together, fanning the air under her nostrils rapidly and wincing in disgust as she handed me the cup. Naturally, I had to ask: am I ordering something particularly repugnant? Oh no, she tells me. She just hates, positively hates the smell of milk. [They must have forgotten to ask her this during the interview.]

Slapped down on the East Coast

When I first moved to the Midwest people would tell me that they didn’t much care for the singular snootiness of East Coast types who never looked to the Midwest for anything distinctive or worth stopping for. I balked at that. I’d not heard anything slanderous said about Indiana or Wisconsin during years spent living in New York. Paranoid bunch, I thought.

Over the years I revised my perspective. Having lived in Wisconsin since 1979, I am now certain that to those in the East, the Midwest is like a blimp, a hurdle one has to jump over on the way from New York to California.

Of course, one can quibble about whether indeed, apart from Chicago, there is a city that even comes close to some of the coastal greats in terms of cultural and demographic diversity. Fine, I’m not going to enter that discussion. I like New York and San Francisco and I understand their defenders.

But to have Wisconsin slapped down on the subject of CHEESE? In this day and age? Yet sure enough, today in the NYTimes (here) I read about the remarkable artisanal producers of cheese in New England (and they are remarkable, I have sampled their cheeses; even L’Etoile and Harvest occasionally feature a Vermont or Maine cheesemaker). And I read these two charming statements:

New England has become the most important center of American cheese craft east of California. While California has more sunshine, New England has better grass.

Are we forgetting a stretch of pasture land in between California and New England? And:

"The reason there are so many supermemorable cheeses from New England," Mr. Jenkins said, "is these cheese makers, more than those that come from any other state, including Wisconsin and California, are more Europe-oriented. Their cheeses have their roots in a 4,000-year-old tradition. They did their homework and understand the realm of cheese, the alchemy and science of cheese making."

Now that is just so insulting that one really wants to take Mr. Jenkins (who is in charge of cheese buying at Fairway Markets in NYC) and push his face into a goat manure pile. For, if you look at Wisconsin’s Fantome goat milk cheese (Ann, the cheesemaker, travels to France periodically to study the production of chevre at small farms there), or Felix’s sheep’s milk feta (Felix is European born), or Butler’s creamy sheep camembert, or Pleasant Ridge Reserve (which is patterned after the Alpine cheeses of Farnce’s southeastern regions) you would see that the traditions of old world cheese making are very much in places in Wisconsin and have been thus for many years now.

You want to hold our mass produced bricks of tasteless cheese against us? Look at your own processed Vermont cheddar. They’re in the same league.

Darn those East Coast snots.

'My Life' in Madison

Who would spend an entire afternoon at Borders on such a beautiful day? Me. I have a lot of work to catch up with and oftentimes bringing stacks of papers to Borders forces me to actually move through them. It worked for me today.

Of course, I was keeping an eye on the activity up front surrounding the first day of sales of the Clinton book. My desire to present accurate information here led me to inquire at the counter about the strength of customer interest. Naturally, they lied and said that the book was doing very well indeed. Have you ever heard a business admit to lagging or mediocre sales? No, of course not.

I noted that one colleague was hovering near the Clinton books for a long time, much as if he wanted to buy the volume but couldn’t get himself to lay down the cash for it. I also saw a TV camera recording the non-action (there were no people buying nor even looking at the book at that moment). And I saw a blissfully empty café. No readers and few shoppers here today. All this reinforced the belief that in Madison, the rush to purchase “My Life” is NOT on.

In any case, this is the kind of town where people wait for paperback editions to come out. Or at least for the week-end Borders sale for state employees (that would be 75% of Madisonians... okay, a slight exaggeration) to kick in. Second-run movie-houses (at $2 per viewing) are also popular. And the used books store, ‘the Frugal Muse,’ is a hot place to run into People You Know. One could say we are a frugal sort.

A photo of the Clinton display at peak evening rush hour:


buy me, buy me! 

It is in my blood…

It is barely 7 in the morning. The phone is ringing. Not to worry, I know who it is – it’s my walking buddy catching me again for an early morning hike. We go through spurts, she and I, walking sometimes daily for weeks on end and then retiring into our own worlds for weeks, months even, exhausted perhaps by our own feverish intensity.

Oftentimes there is A Topic that gets dissected and thrashed around and today we started in on being cold. Or not. She says this about herself: “I come from Siberian great grandparents on the one side, and hardy German stock on the other. I can’t help it that Hitler forced my grandfather to leave Europe and settle in a land that places high value on the thermostat. I need my gusty Siberian winds and breezes! I need to breathe deeply each night! My blood churns with the tundra.”

Okay. I am empathetic. I, too, like open windows at night and I have a great disdain for air-conditioning unless the temps climb well into the nineties and beyond. But her significant other, the guy who shares her space, what of him? “He was born with cold fingers and toes. There’s a condition that keeps him from ever being warm enough. So I tell him, on your side of the room, keep the windows closed. On my side, they stay open.”

I ask if her breeze migrates to his side of the room. “Sure,” she says. “That’s why in the summer he wears flannel pajamas. And a night cap. It’s very cute, he pulls it down low, and he huddles under a warm blanket. What can I do? I tell everyone they’ll have to drill holes in my coffin otherwise I wont be able to breathe! I need the cool air. It is in my blood.”

I envy her. She is a woman that is not afraid to state her needs. And her partner in life? “Oh, you mean the guy who felt compelled to set up a digital camera studio in our older daughter’s bedroom, forcing her to sleep downstairs in the basement when she visits? He does fine.”

The longest day of the year

Every year I conclude that this day is under-appreciated. In terms of celebratory oomph, it definitely trumps New Year’s. There, we’re talking about paying attention to calendars artificially constructed around fictional time periods. But summer solstice is for real: it’s all about the sun’s position and minutes first being added to the day, then being taken away. For a person like me who loves long hours of daylight, summer solstice should be heralded in ways that make all other celebrations look feeble.

I seem to remember something from my youth about setting wreaths, with candles in the middle, to sail on rivers, as the night finally closed in on daylight. Or is that in my imagination? How do you place candles in a wreath’s center? Isn’t that where the hole is?

Google-to-the-rescue revealed so many sites on summer solstice – it would take the rest of my longest-day-of-the-year to go through them. But the very first one that had celebratory notes attached to it (from a website here for “pagans and those practicing nature spirituality” ) did offer some promising ideas for today. I read the following:

Celebrate Solstice time with other Pagans -- take part in the Pagan Spirit Gathering or some other Pagan festival happening during June. Keep a Sacred Fire burning throughout the gathering. Stay up all night on Solstice Eve and welcome the rising Sun at dawn. Make a pledge to Mother Earth of something that you will do to improve the environment and then begin carrying it out. Have a magical gift exchange with friends. Burn your Yule wreath in a Summer Solstice bonfire. Exchange songs, chants, and stories with others in person or through the mail. Do ecstatic dancing to drums around a blazing bonfire.

I’m not sure that writing a blog post on solstice with a vague recollection of possibly imagined floating wreaths qualifies as “exchanging stories with other persons through the mail,” so I should consider some of the other options. Welcoming the rising sun is out the door – too late, of course. True, I could well imagine myself doing a crazed dance around a bonfire, given the right amount of spirit (of the digestible kind). Absent that, I’ll just make a pledge to continue my support of the earth by writing periodic checks to Green Earth, my organic lawn care service. Such an act seems to me to be a bit anticlimactic, perhaps not what I would count as sufficiently thrilling, but if that’s what the Pagan worshipers out there want me to do, so be it.

This morning, I read the following...

I’m a sucker for blog posts that are poignant, troubled, heartfelt, sincere. Unfortunately, there aren’t many who attempt to do this and even fewer who pull it off well. However, this morning I read one that was so profoundly touching that it literally forced me to swallow twice. I’d tell the blogger directly, but she lists no email address and so I’ll substitute the message with a link here (even though I rarely link to other blogs for numerous reasons, all too irrelevant to mention – clearly I do not play the blogger game according to the Rules Out There).

Generations of fathers

I don’t ever recall celebrating a Father’s Day in Poland, nor Men’s Day. Mother’s Day – most definitely and Women’s Day too. One could guess that the women’s holidays were guilt-driven. If you’re going to dump paid work, household chores and childrearing on the women, you may as well give them flowers twice a year to acknowledge their efforts (virtually all women I knew worked; the concept of ‘housewife’ did not exist in the Poland of my youth).

My father’s job in the foreign service meant that he traveled a lot. He was gone when I was born and I rarely saw him in my first years when I lived with my grandparents in a rather isolated village in northeastern Poland.

I knew several things about him as I went through my childhood years: that he lacked a formal education as a result of the war (he retained an unhealthy disrespect for academics forever after), but that he was damn smart and could knock down my little-girl existentialist fears in a minute.

He was also (and still is) an expert practitioner of the art of “out of sight, out of mind” (there’s a small soliloquy delivered in the movie “Cabaret” by Sally, at the point where she receives a telegram from her father – if you know the scene, I can tell you that those exact words could have been said by me).

The two men of my childhood, my dad and my grandfather (on my mom’s side) were both public servants of sorts, committed to socialist-communist ideals –in my grandfather’s case, until his death in the early 1970s. Privately, they were intractable. But there were ways to get at their sentimental side – through music, for instance. I went with my grandfather to see a movie about the Polish folk group (“Mazowsze”) and he sniffled and snorted throughout the whole sappy thing. My dad, too, could get worked up over music and things associated with it. In fact, just about the only time he ever shouted at me was when I, as a young girl, messed with his precious hi-fi. That was definitely his baby and I could not be trusted to come within ten feet of it.

Otherwise, I saw both of them as the calming forces at home. To me, they were the men of reason, the peacemakers. As a girl, I loved their calmness in my oftentimes chaotic family (much later, I was assured that my images of their even-temperedness are mine alone).

In reality, neither of them obsessed much about the family. They came and went according to their own schedules. My dad was (and is) a great talker but a terrible listener (dad, for twenty two years you have been misspelling your granddaughter’s name: I promise you, there is no “z” in it). My grandfather was the storyteller. But I heard far too little from either of them when I was growing up.

It is surprising that they are together in so much of this post since they didn’t especially like each other. My grandfather was a common man’s friend: he built houses for peasants in the Polish village and organized workers into political coalitions. My father was a quintessential diplomat (though they say he lost his diplomatic tone when he left his last post and retired). But both, in their own circles, loved to weigh in on topics of a political nature.

I see my father once a year when I travel to Poland. I see him get spiffed up each day, always dressing with care, often wearing one of his ancient ties, dousing himself with cologne in the way European men so often do. He lives in our old apartment and that, too, is faded, unpainted for years, drapes hanging as they were hung when we moved in many decades ago. He is always so excited to see me, pleased to have my ear again, happy to pour a cup of tea or a glass of wine with his shaking hand. Then I leave and more often than not, I do not hear from him again until my next trip.

My dad has a standard comment that he inserts, always with a grin, at the end of a story or an observation. He’ll say in his accented English: "life is curious… and it gets curiouser and curiouser every day."

A photo of my dad and me, taken during my first vacation away from Poland (in 1959, to Bulgaria):


Nina, 6; Bohdan, 33 

And here's one from the village where my grandfather was born. It is taken also around 1959. My sister and I are visiting old relatives. It is, I think, the only time I've seen my grandfather wear a tie. Maybe he borrowed it for the occasion.


Eliza (6), Wojciech (approx.70), Nina (5) 

Purple blooms, cows, & remembering Babcia

It took six hours to finish Market buying for L’Etoile today. Three comments on the foraging: too much, too long, too windy.

This is my one day to go nuts with color on the blog and today anyone could tell that purple colors dominated nearly every flower stand.


a bucket of purple 


purple in every bunch 


a rainbow -- with purple 


a great pairing 

What’s with the cow? It was THE Saturday to bring cows to the Square and so the moo motif was evident in many side stands set up to promote dairy products.


pinch the cow 

And the line, is it the beginnings of a queue for the Tuesday sale of Clinton’s memoirs? No, just the typical Saturday crowd waiting patiently for a L’Etoile croissant.


worth the wait? 

The season is shifting rapidly: this was the tail end of the asparagus; even the strawberries will start to taper off soon. But we have the cucumbers, summer squash and beans now making an appearance.


baby cukes 

Since the berries are so sweet this week, I bought several dozen pints for home use. There is always a part of me that wants to do the entire bit of wintering-over fruits purchased at the peak of the season. But I regret the impulse the minute I get home. Washing, trimming and storing all that I buy will take the better part of the evening.

My grandmother ("Babcia") would have filled shelves and shelves with her own fruit preserves and syrups. What a woman. I wouldn’t have the patience. She, on the other hand, always seemed comfortable working long hours in her very primitive country kitchen. Definitely your picture-book classic Eastern European grandmother. Because I moved away, I stopped eating her food – her blintzes, pierogi, poppy seed cake and strawberry compote – they’re all just a memory now.

Here’s a photo from my last visit (almost 30 years ago) in her Warsaw apartment (to which she moved when she could no longer look after her country house and garden). She deserves a separate post singing her virtues, though this buried little paragraph seems more fitting with her shyness and overwhelming modesty.


Babcia, 1976 

In the dog house

In “My Life,” Clinton admits to sleeping on the couch for at least two months after confessing to his wife that he had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. A reader asks – “How small is the White House anyway? You mean to tell me there are no spare beds to be found in the entire building, so that the guy has to retire each night to a couch?”

Bill Clinton has always been just a regular kind of guy, making do, like you and me, with whatever is available. Breakfast at McDonald’s, a month or two on the couch. With his dog Buddy keeping him company through it all.

Movement

A friend coaxed me out for an early morning walk. No, that is so incorrect. “Coaxed out for a walk” cannot be used in the same sentence with “me” in it. No one has to coax me to walk. I don’t think I have ever turned down a walk offer in my life. At most postponed it. And it would have to be for something of the magnitude of a wedding (I may not even decline for a funeral).

This walk was a bit absurd because I had a pile of work that JUST HAD TO BE DONE TODAY (n.b. it did get done) and I had already promised my flowering-into-eternity inner something-or-other that I would revisit the Yoga people at their early morning encounter with sweat (why does it have to be exactly 98 degrees there?) and pain today.

But I went for the hike anyway. (I’m serious. I never say no.) My walking partner (who is just a year younger than I am) talked about taking Argentinean tango lessons and going next month to language camp. I heard about trips to off-beat places where there were crushed pineapple smoothies and salsa dancing late into the night.

Energy. Others assume that it is just there for some. It’s not. It takes as much rigor to fight lethargy as it does to post in a blog on a regular basis. But the rewards! Oh, the rewards!

I’m off for another walk. Someone just suggested one. No weddings to attend tonight, and the sky is absolutely gorgeous.

Urban “noise” of a different kind

It has long been the practice in Rome to fund restoration of monuments by putting up scaffolding and selling advertising space on it (read about it here). The benefits are obvious: they say that Rome these days is looking cleaner, spiffier and that such ads are covering 100% of the costs of the facelifts. The downside? It appears to offend many a Roman to see gargantuan faces of models plastered over their beloved monuments. Moreover, some are beginning to suspect that scaffolding is staying up longer than necessary. Indeed, the need for some facelifts may be exaggerated so that additional revenue may be generated.

New limits are being placed on the type of ads that are appropriate and the amount of space they can take up. The city governing body is, of course, spending a great deal of time debating whether a face of a model is more offensive than, say, rusty scaffolding and a green cover net that would be otherwise in place to shield ongoing construction or restoration.

Can’t you just see the Italians arguing with great passion about which photo of a beautiful woman is more appropriate for the cover to the Spanish Steps? Of course, there is a peculiar subjectivity to the entire debate. One person’s rubble may be art in its purest form to another. Wasn’t there a famous New Yorker cartoon depicting the American troops’ entry into Rome during World War II, where one of the soldiers looks at the Colosseum and says something like “Damn those Nazis! Look at the damage they did to that building!” ?

In full public view

The squirrel that zonked out during last week's warm spell on the branch of the apple tree outside my window, came back today to clean herself up for a big night out. She has no shame. Really, anyone could see her go through her routine!

Street music

Today’s Isthmus describes the tribulations of the Library Mall Orange piccolo player. (He wears all things orange, always). He’s been cited for his playing before (too loud, too long --say the street vendors) but a court hearing exonerated him and the city of Madison had to pay not only court costs associated with the proceeding (it went all the way to a jury trial), but reimburse him for his legal expenses as well.

Last week the city issued another citation (no res judicata, they say: it’s a new offense). Apparently the vendors (and the city) are willing to let him play for an hour, but will not permit the two and half hours he feels he needs to get by (he lives solely off of his earnings from the street music).

The issue of the right to silence on city streets is a curious one because, of course, a certain level of noise pollution is constant. I am sitting at home right now, hating the loud lawn mowers that never stop, especially on week-ends (sometimes I am the one pushing one around and so I am equally guilty of creating noise). At some point the din downtown could get to such high levels that even I’ll rally around citing the offenders. But are we there yet? I expect city noises in and around State Street. A quiet downtown would seem to me to be more disconcerting than a noise-filled one. And in Chicago, I always give money to the street saxophonists – they never fail to lift my spirits.

It constantly surprise me how easily (and vehemently) annoyed people get at small irritants (if his playing is indeed an irritant, because he obviously does have a sizeable following).

It never struck me, in fact, that our downtown was exceptionally loud, even though during my 4 – 5 hours at the Farmers Market each Saturday, I of course hear many musicians, politicians, performers. Last Saturday, the Madison Police Department, along with other rescue squads and organizations were putting on a show for young kids all morning long. These same police officers may have at some point taken a break and walked to the other side of the Square to issue a citation to the piccolo player. Odd world.

Tuning out on myself

Not once but twice in the last 24 hours I have recounted lengthy stories only to forget, in the midst of telling them, why I launched into those particular details to begin with.

I am reminded of my work in Japan with the aid of a live translator. Every few sentences I would have to pause while the person translated what I had just said. The biggest challenge was to stay tuned, engaged, ready for the next idea or question. Allowing myself to drift off in boredom destroyed the progression of the interview or lecture.

When I tell a story here, I am often accused of not getting to the point fast enough. I make too many embellishments, holding off on the punch line for as long as possible.

I have, I think, reached a point where I am boring myself with the length of my own stories. Like during translations, I am tuning out on words, only this time they are my own words.

Reforms are in order: my tales henceforth will be shorter. I can’t afford to lose myself as one of the listeners. At the very least I should be able to stay interested enough to get to a story’s end.

What stands out 30 years after getting my B.A.? Bach, photography, and the African Queen.

“Careful: this person is not used to free choice.” That’s the warning that should have been pinned to my coat when I landed as a student on the American academic scene. But this post isn’t yet another run at nostalgia. It’s about breadth versus specialization.

I was looking yesterday through a stack of black and white photos I had taken some 30 years ago. The stack is large because at the time, I had enrolled in a photography class at Columbia and the requirements had us work through many darkroom assignments. Here’s one that I am fond of now – taken on the lower East side of Manhattan:


Lower Manhattan, 1973 

Why photography? Was it a filler class to ease an otherwise heavy load? Uh -- no. After my first two and a half years at the University of Warsaw, where the curriculum had been set and included such heavies as Advanced Calculus, Multivariable Analysis, Theory of Logic, Linear Algebra, Programming, Political Economics, Economic Theory, History of Economics – yes, truly, all the classes were like this – I landed in NY and the first thing my academic advisers told me was that I should let loose and develop a liberal approach to education. Explore! – they said. Go for classes you’ve not tried before!

You could say that I listened to this advice with vigor. In the remaining two years in college I took Photography: darkroom techniques, The study of the African Queen (this may have had a sexier title, but that is what we did: we analyzed the African Queen all semester long), Italian 1, 2 & 3, Metaphysics, J.S.Bach, Cultural Anthropology, Renaissance something or other, Introduction to Psychology, Twentieth Century Music, Urban Landscapes, and then a handful of basic sociology classes to fulfill my new major requirements. I have to say, none of these classes could really be labeled as “fluff.” They had their own built-in rigor that was oftentimes more challenging than my run through higher level mathematics (well, perhaps not Cultural Anthropology: I haven’t a single kind thing to say about that class).

One could ask “what’s wrong with that”? Nothing perhaps. Though for years I’d thought it merely to be great training for cocktail party conversations.

Comparing the two curricula may lead one to conclude that a balance might have served me well. Yes, that’s the easy answer. But isn’t it significant that from this assortment of disparate courses each stands out in some way, having left a strong mark on my educational memory? (Again, all general comments here have absolutely no application to Cultural Anthropology: that deserves a special spot in a pile of refuse along other items best forgotten.)

In the summer before going to Law School, instead of brushing up on my lackluster knowledge of the American legal system, I signed up for a UW class on Marcel Proust and his French contemporaries. And again, I remember just about every one of those very excellent lectures, not even so much for the content but for the passion that the professor (Elaine Marks) brought to literary analysis.

Quite obviously, the directive to explore was more than a push toward the unemployment line. And what of the need to specialize? Back in graduate school, one of my professors boasted that there isn’t a subject out there that he couldn’t in two months master well enough to teach to a roomful of students. It’s not an unfair statement. Substance is the easiest thing in the world to learn (it’s also the most easily forgotten) and more often than not one has an entire professional lifetime to learn it in. When law students come to my office, agonizing over class selection, I like to tell them that I was hired by the Law School to run a clinical program and to teach Family Law, having myself never taken a clinic or Family Law when I was a student here.

I’m mindful of all this now, some 30 years after my own college days, when I am again picking up old photos and other little bits and pieces of those other classes, and recognizing their odd presence in a variety of areas of my life.