your lesser child

Suppose you had a kid who struggled to keep up with the total success story of the other sib at home. You’d love the kid anyway, right? Of course!

Oftentimes, that kid will bring to the table something so striking, so beautiful, that it will take your breath away. Othertimes, you know, things will be just ordinary.

I took my little guy, the Sony H5 out today when I biked to Whole Foods. On the way back, this lesser child took a good enough shot of the FINALLY emerging blue sky, close to dusk, over Lake Mendota...





And then, my little guy make me chuckle as he focused on the hair clips of the last of the Union Terrace devotees. In color, they matched the chairs and tables at the increasingly less populated Terrace.




Anyway, the camera tango continues.

more on cameras (and the way we live and function is this complicated world)

I can’t let go. Isn’t there a saying about returning to the farm after a year on the Boulevard St. Germain?

I tasted the Sony D-SLR alfa 100 and I am having a hard time packing it up and sending it back.

True, the smaller camera I would use in its stead (the new, far less expensive Sony H5) is lovely. And it takes quality photos. I mean, can you really tell that this…




…was taken by the H5 rather than the Alfa 100? Of course you can’t.

But I can.

But Nina, the world can’t tell. You’ll save money. The H5 is light. The H5 will take on a conversion telephoto lens giving you fantastic capabilities. You’re just clinging to the Alfa 100 because it buys you status. You like the idea of looking pseudo professional, with ten pounds of camera dangling from your neck. When oh when will you use it over and beyond next weekend in France? Give it up! The H5 is the way to go!

All the above has been said to me, to my face, in the past 12 hours. It makes sense. Absolutely.

Nina, do you know what the national savings rate is for France? (high) In Japan? (higher) In the US? (in negative numbers) Are you going to contribute to this national malady of spending more than you have?

If I were living in France, I’d be saving too, to purchase that house in the south where family and friends would come each summer for a protracted six week vacation and I would play and frolic to my heart’s content in the hours that I am not working and I would spend Euro cents for quality local wines!

The cameras, their packaging, receipts, printouts, etc are strewn all over the dining table. I am paralyzed. I feel I am about to capriciously fling an ax of doom on one of two players, not unlike what I have witnessed on Project Runway.

One must go. I love them all. tick tock tick tock…

cameras

This is so important to me: how should I be capturing the world on film/flickr?

Breaking my camera earlier last week in New Haven made me think of this again: how much would I improve were I to upgrade the old (okay, less than a year, but old by industry standards) equipment?

Tons. The new camera behaves beautifully. The shots compensate for light, for speed, for my inadequacies.

IT’S A KEEPER!
Well no, not exactly.

There’s the price. Astronomical by my standards. But I have come to terms with credit card debt for the most important things in life like daughters, travel and cameras. So no, it’s not the cost.

Call me obsessive about matters of weight, but that really is it – the new camera is too heavy.

I am retreating to the world of the Sonys without wonderful interchangeable lenses. I just cannot see myself being at peace with an elephant. You, with the huge trunk. Careful now, I need to change your lens. Let me load the replacement back into the suitcase they call the carrying tote.

Tomorrow I will be packing up the new baby and sending in a bid for a smaller replacement. I feel cheap. I feel horribly unkind to my little dependables. But I have to do it. Goodby Sony alfa SLR – you are too much. I look forward to the new kid on the block, to be tried out as soon as the weather changes from ridiculously wet to pleasantly and safely dry.

One parting shot and I’ll be on my way. With the telephoto lens, of the flowers on my sill, many dozens of feet away:

machines and skylines

Oftentimes their skin is pasty from being indoors all day and they wear dorky clothes.
The world of machinists, as described by one of the lot, at the International Machine Tool Show in Chicago this weekend.
Hey, that’s not a dorky bunch! These guys are in yellow and blue shirts and they move around blue lights!









Gone are the days where metal milling machines required a muscled arm. Everything around me is computerized.

Ed, who convinced me to go to the Show with him, has designed and put into production the smallest cheapest CNC (computer numerical control) milling machine on the market – for the hobbyist, or the miller with a threadbare pocket. Ed likes cheap things.

I like the free candies they have in bowls to entice you to look at their machines.
What kind of candies?
Oh, you know, Hershey’s Krackle or milk chocolate Kisses.

Just like guys to not go all out on the candy. I mean, is a Hershey’s kiss going to get you to look over and buy a machine for hundreds of thousands?

This is an international expo and some countries still believe in grabbing the (male) audience by the seat of their pants.








And the French! Theirs is a full-scale show, with cups of beer (they're pandering to American machinists), if you stick around for a minute.

But really, the fascination is all in the machines.






honey, I'll be home soon...



We walk past countless displays. Ed pretends to be blasé about stuff. He parades in his denim shorts and ancient t-shirt, his face wearing an “I’ve seen it all before” look. But the sales reps know one of their own. He gets approached, cajoled, coaxed and I get the benevolent smile, like I’m some kind of tag-along.

The machines are of course impressive. But showing me their capabilities is like impressing a kid with Belgian chocolate when Skittles will do the trick as well. The thing mills metal. Wow. It does so with the precision to the millionth thousand or something. Wow. Etc.


We end the day at Frontera Grill (see post below) and drive out way beyond the airport to stay overnight at a roadside inn. Remember, we’re dealing with frugal guy who can’t understand why anyone would spend the money on a big city hotel. You could buy a whole new camera for a night’s lodging there – he tells me. I have no answer other than -- you can.

The next day we backtrack down to the Museum of Science of Industry. I used to live by the Museum. For six years it was within spittin’ distance of my front door and yet I rarely went there. You could say that I am more of a paintings than a diesel engines kind of person. Still, they are showing a film on the Tour de France… Besides, this trip is meant to put Ed at peace with urban life. Ed dislikes cities almost as much as I like them. Best to take him to places that have the Burlington Zephyr on display.





We take Lake Shore Drive back downtown. It is wet and navy gray outside. The acqua tone of Lake Michigan seems strangely out of place.





We can go malling now if you like. Ed tells me. I don’t hate machines. I do hate malls. Still, I aim to please. Besides, I need the perfect black shoe that will move seamlessly between work and dirt roads. Says something about the demands of my day.

If you buy your coffee here and also pick up three candy bars, we can save $10 at the mall parking lot.
The man is frugal to the core.

plateful

...not possible to pull out the old computer and the new camera late in the evening and to begin thinking about a post on machines. Much better to come back to this tomorrow, fresh and squeaky-not-tired.

For today, I'll put up a pic of just desserts. From an eatery in Chicago. A foodie-Chicagoan would recognize the whole mess of sweetness, I'm sure.

Until tomorrow then:





[P.S. Thank you, new camera for taking much of the noise out of dark evening shots.]

yeah!

Three packages – one from Fed Ex, one from USPS and the third from UPS. Missed them all. Can pick up only one before the week-end. Which would you go after?

Oh, Fed Ex, of course. Fed Ex smacks of importance. USPS is probably the tote bag. UPS – the extra lens.

I get on a motorbike that weaves through traffic as if it wasn’t there (I'm not driving, thank God). I get to the Fed Ex holding warehouse before it closes and voila!





I am up and running. [If only I can figure out how to work the darn thing! Tomorrow I am off to the machinists’ convention in Chicago. I’ll mess with it there. In the meantime – a first attempt to press down and get a photo out of the pricey little piece of plastic.]

waiting

I rush home in the afternoon just to be there when the mail/fedex/ups vans come. Excuse me, let me interrupt this lovely lunch – I have an appointment this afternoon. Not yet? Not here? Sigh…

Ocean feels naked without the shield of a lens. So often a camera determines the story for the day. Oh, look at that, I have a picture from the day of a bird. Let me write about birds and me.

Recycled photos do not work. Here, what sense does this make?

I was sitting at an outdoor café in Madison and I noted that there weren’t many enjoying the warm summer evening in the same way. The street felt desolate because of the absence of aperitif/coffee drinkers. I shared the space with a bird and a bird at a café does not contribute much to a robust urban scene. By the way, this happened two weeks ago.




Yawn.

Today, I ran home after hours of teaching, exhausted. I filled myself with coffee so that I would not doze off and miss the fedex/mail/ups delivery. I missed the fedex delivery anyway.

I’m glad I am not a regular on-line shopper. I could not deal with this sort of nervous anticipation. Mine is a quiet life. Predictable. With minimal stress. And with photos. Camera, I need you.

tough choices

So tell me, is it the end?
No, but we’ll need to do extensive surgery.
I don’t know if I can afford it! Should I just say my good-byes? How do I decide if the surgery is worth the cost?
We usually suggest that it is worth it if the cost of surgery is less than 60% of the actual value…
But how does one attach a price tag? I mean, there is immeasurable value…
It’s up to you… We have a graveyard if you decide to let go…
I think the surgery comes out to be 59% of my best estimate of the value! I don’t know what to do!
Take your time. There’s no need to decide right away.
Oh go ahead, do it!

[That’s the gist of my conversation today at the camera repair shop. The old camera will be fixed, even though the new baby is on the way.]

parrots

A friend sent me an article from the NYT about parrots today. I do not know why – it came with no text. And so I read it, to see what about parrots reminded him of me.

Perhaps he thought I should get one. No, no parrot for me. I travel too much. And their droppings are disgusting. I had parakeets once, to appease a universal longing children have for pets. Naturally, one died and had to be replaced. Years later the other one died and had to be replaced. I realized then that unless miraculously two died at the same moment I would be replacing parakeets for the rest of my life. Eventually one died and I told the other that she would just have to live out her final years solo.

I think she kind of enjoyed being on her own. She lived forever.

Maybe the article was sent to me as a question. The person interviewed in the article is a parrot fan but he admits to having once eaten a parrot. I did answer my friend and assured him that I had never eaten a parrot. Not even when visiting places where parrot consumption is the norm.

(But I do eat chicken so perhaps I should not brag about my parrot avoidance.)

In the article, it was mentioned that parrots are smart and loyal. Perhaps my friend was suggesting that I am both, but I do not think so. There are more efficient ways of telling someone they are smart or loyal or both.

I am hoping it is a hint at future travel. Perhaps he is suggesting that we should visit parrot-inhabited regions of the world. I’m happy to do that. Friend – if you are reading this, the answer is yes! Preferably this winter, as winters in Wisconsin are long and tedious and a parrot-break would be most welcome. And I mean some place further than the bird house in the zoo.

It is the first day of Law School today. I cannot post much, as I worked from before sunrise. I cannot include a photo from the day, as my new camera is, according to UPS, halfway between a warehouse and the loft and the old one, the one I dropped on the sidewalks of New Haven, is being inspected (I am paying $5 so that the repairperson can assess the shattered plates and pronounce the damage as complete). All you get, therefore, is this musing on what is it about me that prompted my friend to send me this link about parrots.

from New Haven: globe trotting

I can say this about Labor Day week-end in New Haven: it may require lifting, moving, dragging, dusting, arranging, unpacking. It may be taxing, strenuous, demanding.

But it is also delicious.

Looking back, I see heaping plates of spicy, satisfying foods from every corner of the globe. We have our favorites by now. Each evening, I lose myself in the heady foods and aromas of kitchens that mix spices and ingredients in beautiful ways:

Tuesday: Eritrean



Wednesday: Italian



Thursday: Thai



Friday: Malaysian



Saturday: Japanese



Sunday: Latin American



Monday: I go home, full of warm feelings and wonderful food.

Daughters are ensconced in their new living quarters. Time to head back to Wisconsin. It will be salads and scrambled eggs again. Though not for long – in a couple of weeks I get to test my soon-new camera in a distant venue. But for now – home.

it was twenty-nine years ago today…

Measuring life by notable dates. Do you remember where you were your last birthday? Do you remember where you were on your birthday of twenty-nine years ago? Do you remember where you were on this day twenty-nine years ago?

I do.

I was standing in a small university chapel on Chicago’s south side, thinking forever thoughts, looking around a space decorated with flowers. 'Regional, seasonal' were words of the future. Twenty-nine years ago I held lilies of the valley because they reminded me of spring in Poland and if memories count, then they would be counted as the 'something old.'

Do you remember what it is like to be barely twenty-four? To have faith in friendship and love, to look ahead to holding a newborn or two?

And then, to have before you a day when you have to sort through mountains of old scraps and papers and something falls on your lap and it’s better than memories of old women selling lilies of the valley on street corners in Warsaw?

I did.

Have you ever sat in a photo booth with someone you loved to death who laughed with you at the funny faces, the funny young faces in the smudged mirror just ahead? Would you classify a photo taken then as one to keep forever?



I did.

To you, ILYAFA, from me.

from New Haven: shattered glass

I asked a friend to look something up about replacement cameras on the Net tonight. It did not happen, but rather than finding out that it did not happen, I was told something else and before you know it, I was tangled in an untruth of ridiculous proportions.

People lie all the time, I know that. Mostly they lie to avoid the consequences of truthtelling. I do not intend to decipher the whys and whereofs of it all. I just want to note that, in terms of finding out information about replacement cameras, truth fares better than lies, not because with truth comes a better camera, but because we are, when speaking of cameras, wedged within the realm of the insignificant and if we cease speaking truthfully about the insignificant, then what hope is there ever for honest discourse?

I broke my camera yesterday. I was literally walking on the street, reaching into my purse for keys and I dislodged the camera strap. The precious little thing fell to the sidewalk with a loud crack.

Coincidentally, this afternoon I drove out with my daughter to get a new little TV. She had carried the old one everywhere with her and finally, when she brought it home after the toil of travel with it precariously balanced in her lap it quit working. It is cheaper to buy a replacement TV, I said to her, than to fix an old inexpensive one.

It is probably cheaper to replace a dropped camera than to fix it.

It is probably better not to say just anything for the sake of the pleasant ring behind good words because there are only so many fake good words that act to sooth the soul. After the initial sugar rush, fake good words just sound hollow.

As for the camera – if you hold it at a particular setting, you can still eek out a picture. I suppose you can post it and say – it’s the rain, that heavy awful rain that created the blurry lines. But after about a dozen photos, the reader may wonder if maybe it’s not the rain. Maybe it’s you, refusing to let go of a broken camera.



familiar colors of a parking lot, through a broken lens and a rain-splattered window

from New Haven: eat well?

A busy day. Of course. Moving in can be as taxing as moving out.

I looked over the three or four photos that I took all day and I liked none of them and so even those cannot inspire me to write something sensible here. Okay, maybe one was worth reprinting on Ocean. I was walking across Old Campus – the place where most freshman live and I was thinking how young these kids look (I have a law student and a senior – both far removed from “the first year of college” category). And, how tense they appear!

I was mulling over what pressures they must feel and I wondered if I did anything to take a load off my own daughters when they first left home to study here. I probably did not do enough. Most likely I told them to eat well and not worry about much else. But I am sure they did worry, even as they ate well.

Then I saw this guy talking to a woman who may have been his daughter (or a well kempt mother of a freshman – you can’t tell with these groomed types) and I marveled how effective he was in conveying his message to her and to the world. (Of course, he appears not to be too great on the “eat well” front... his beverage of choice speaks mountains.)

So, to all who speed through each day and worry that they haven't done enough, here's my message, found on a random back of a guy on campus and reprinted here, on Ocean.

from New Haven: time travel

I look out the window of first daughter’s new home…





…then second daughter’s new home and I think what every parent must think when the stars are looking bright: man, they are doing okay! Soon, they can take care of me!

I asked one of them if she would, indeed look after me were I penniless and destitute in my old age. She smiled benevolently and said -- yes, even if you are penniless and destitute because you travel so much…

In the afternoon I clean the apartment that one daughter is vacating so that nothing is taken away from her security deposit. It is an old and creaky place and there is a lot of cleaning to do. I am reminded how awful it was to clean the house that I was vacating exactly a year ago. A house that overwhelmed me. A house that had dust in corners I never knew existed.

That was one of the worst moments of my days – that godawful first half of last September, as I packed to leave a house which had overwhelmed me in all ways. (Again, thank you to all those who helped me get through that move. Thank you especially Susanne and Sarah and Sep.)

I remember last year so well. On September 1st I bottomed out. I was passing through New Haven on my way back from Boston and I crashed. I sat in a bar, just under the apartment my daughter is now moving into and I flirted outrageously with some local attorney and I wont even say how outrageous I was, but it was definitely the low point of all low points.

But time passes and new things happen. And here I am, in New Haven again, looking around the spaces inhabited by my daughters and thinking – man, you two are doing alright…

And ahead of me, just a few weeks ahead, I have some returns – to places that gave me such a beautiful fresh perspective on everything – to Languedoc, to the vineyards that allowed me to let go of so much tension, to the little wineries that I grew to love, to all those places, now beginning their fall harvest, a harvest I want to see with my own eyes.

Sorry for being so wordy. I just was remembering September 1st last year and thinking how quickly a bad string of days can flip their noodle and become a good string of days.

from New Haven: faces

If I could draw a cartoon of myself today it would be of a person drooping under the weight of a heavy load. Yes, I collected a few bloggable moments while flinging loads of trash into the dumpster by the curb, but now my arms are too tired to pound out the words.

I do think that New Haven has character. Too often, its many faces are overshadowed by the massive numbers of students that show up right around now. Still, they are there: the goths, the lovers, the moms with babes, the older people, eating their ice cream, smoking their cigarettes, or, just watching the world go by.

This post is for them.



with smoke




with book




with love




with child




with gelato




with flag

travel notes

I am on the short flight from Madison to Detroit.

Nina? A familiar voice from the seat behind me. I slam my seat back hard in friendly greeting. Hey, it's Jeremy, the blogger friend who ditched Madison in favor of a few years in Cambridge.

Disembarking, we catch up on all relevant events of the past month.

I have a rich social life in Cambridge in the next four days – he tells me.
I just quit being CEO of a yet to be formed corporation – I say to him.

On my next flight, Detroit to Hartford, I sit down in my window seat and take out work papers.
Nina? Are you Nina? The flight attendant is hurrying toward me.
(Did I do something wrong? Did I leave behind valuable possessions? Did someone find chapstick in my bag? Chapstick is permissible on board, no?)
Welcome! We want you to sit up front! We have a seat for you!
(Is it because of Ocean? It’s my blog, isn’t it? No… it’s my Air France (now merged with KLM and therefore NW) frequent flyer status.)

For those curious about first row flying, let me just share this view from up front: (Write your own story for this photo)





So begins my trip out east to help daughters move to their respective residences in New Haven. The moving-in ritual has been a fixture of my Labor Day week-end for the past eight years. Heavy duty labor: lifting, carrying, building. I did it first at age forty-five, thinking – man, I’m too old for this. That was then. Now I’m thinking – bring it on, kids! I am so ready for you! (It could be that I understand that I am nearing the last stretch. College years will be over and done with. Moving-in rituals will change. Two Men and a Truck will replace Mommy with her Bare Hands.)

So what will I do in future years, when on Labor Day I will not have anything laboriously difficult to handle? Do people really just get out the grill, pop a can of Miller Light and do nothing?

In New Haven, the puddles are huge, reflecting what it has been like here for the past few days, centuries…

drip drip drip…

Exactly. A drippy kind of day. It had a window of light, but otherwise – the rain came down and the skies remained gray. So that even the construction workers outside my window could do nothing but hide under the shelter of the overhang.





Tomorrow I head out to the east coast. Maybe the skies will clear there?

hail to the chiefs

No real post tonight. Just a photo that joins two prominent chef-proprietors together – Odessa of the first twenty-eight l’Etoile years and Tory of the last two.




Two stars at l'Etoile...

Me, I just lurk in the background and take photos and notes.

Are you a photographer? A food writer? -- I get asked, often enough, especially in places where I am a stranger. No, I just post, on Ocean. It's not a huge deal, Just Ocean -- my eyes out onto the world.

happy birthday to you

I am a law student. Pregnant with a second child, married to an academic, holding the hand of a little girl. The three of us walk up the steps of l’Etoile. We haven’t the money to eat there really, but we are celebrating, big time. My then-husband has just just been voted tenure.

Creaky steps, warm space within. Our two-year-old orders something without sauce. The waiters smile.

Seventeen years later I am in the l’Etoile kitchen, plating appetizers and desserts, popping Vesuvius molten cakes into the oven, tossing wild mushrooms over mixed greens.

Two years more and I am rolling croissants and mixing up gougers for their Saturday market.

And a year after, I am the market buyer -- picking out produce and lugging it up the steps, to the small kitchen of l’Etoile.


Tomorrow l’Etoile celebrates its thirtieth year on the Square. There will be a party is for the farmers who supply the kitchens of this wonderful little place.

Last night I went back to eat there. And so you could see this entire week-end as being sort of a l’Etoile moment: from dinner on Friday, to making the Saturday rounds with farmers whom I know from my buyer days, to the official celebration tomorrow.

A colleague posted a question on the law faculty list this past week: what restaurant would you recommend to someone coming in from New York – someone who is used to the best of the best and doesn’t mind paying for it?

We are an opinionated lot and so suggestions appeared instantly. Fresco, Sardine, Nadia’s, Magnus, Harvest. Fine, fine, I’m sure good meals are to be had at all of them. But l’Etoile is special. It isn’t just a restaurant. It is the last link in that chain of events that begins out there with creating good soil. From field to table.

I can get quite emotional about the place. People don’t typically get emotional about restaurants. Do they?

Congrats, Chef Tory.

Melon soup with stravecchio cheese stick and prosciutto:





Jim’s muskmelons



Black Earth Valley Red Bell Peppers


Jim’s Muskmelon Carpaccio with Dungeness Crab Salas, Shooting Star Farm Torpedo Onions, Black Earth Valley Red Bell Peppers, Fried Capers and Garlic Toast:







Snug Haven tomatoes


Roasted Wild Alaskan King Salmon with smoky Shooting Star Farm Cranberry Bean Puree, Stenruds Haricorts Verts, marinated Snug Haven Sungold Tomatoes and Riesling-Bacon Broth:






Ruth Lefeber’s blueberries and kids



Bee Charmer Corn


Ruth Lefeber Blueberry Crisp with Cornmeal-Oat Struesek Topping and Bee Charmer Sweet Corn Ice Cream:






L'Etoile, inside and out

crash

It was a stormy day. Anyone living in this town would tell you that the flashes and rumblings the past two days have been out of control. I, too, felt that much of my warm feelings toward a mellowy Madison August had to be put by the wayside for now.

If you can imagine, most every time I looked out the window while at the computer I would see some variation of this:




In the evening, however, I had a change of attitude. What caused the shift? Come back tomorrow. I’m wiped for now.