a Krakow saturday

Can a Pole get a fresh perspective on her homeland by staying away for a while? You think you can, but it’s a myth. You get off the train, you see X, Y and that’s it. Say no more, you, dear country, are as good (or as quirky) as I remember you.

But when something hits you ever so forcefully, well then, you’d have to be rock iron steady not to falter.

Take the weather (but anything can be considered here). I come here with my warmest woolies in the winter. That wetness, hovering just below freezing gets to me every time. I expect this: I will be cold here in the winter in ways that I am not cold elsewhere. Not indoors, mind you. Wisconsinites with their bravado take the reigns there. Poles crank their furnaces to a toasty high. But outside, you are on your own. No toasty interior can ever take away the chill of a Polish December evening.

Except, today, when I step out for my first full Polish day and see this:



Off with the coat, off with the scarf, man, it is warm here! I talk to a waiter later in the day, he shares my confusion. We go outside and it’s warm. We don’t know what to do. What do you wear on days like this?

Not much of anything. No problem bringing out the accordion today. You don’t need the woolies or the mitts.



And the sky! The mist is gone, the heavens are pure cornflower. Look at the detail from the castle (just up the hill from where I am staying), against a template of blue.




I walk with Ed to Kazimierz, the Jewish section of Krakow. It’s not as if Ed is insisting on this (even though his roots are very much in the Eastern European Jewish culture, or at least as it was relived on the streets of New York City, post immigration), but I feel most people from the States are interested in what happened to the Jews of Krakow. I’m not sure a walk to Kazimierz answers all their questions (though I am able to say that this indeed is where Schindler’s List was filmed), but it’s a start. If you keep your eyes open, there are triggers for a conversation: the tiny proliferation of Jewish stores and eateries and an empty Square that once was the epicenter of local Jewish culture.




It is rather stupid to visit Kazimierz on a Saturday. Or maybe it’s not. The cemeteries are closed. I am spared the heavy weight of having to read the inscriptions on the tombstones, of seeing the wall of mourning, of reeling back to a Krakow of sixty-five years back.


Just at the periphery of Kazimierz proper (mind you, we are within a half hour stroll of downtown Krakow), we come across a market. Foods, yes, of course. A woman sits and waits for someone to buy her eggs. Her pears aren’t a draw, even though they are the only fruit at the market.




There is more interest in the pots of cooked cabbage and pickled cucumbers. At the core, Poland is as I remember her from my childhood.




The flee market next door causes a greater stir. The sellers insist their items are absolutely authentic. And why would you want to question this anyway? You can make a killing here. Imagine the real value of some of these treasures. Had I spare coins, I would have definitely put up the cash for the smirking woman in the portrait below. A steal at any price.





Walking back to Krakow’s main square, I pass a most familiar sight. I am a young kid, in post war Poland again! This is my world, the world of lines spilling onto the sidewalk. The lines you join first and ask why they have formed later!




Only this is different. This line is born of a lightbulb going off that there is a week-end ahead, with guests coming for supper and not much time to bake and so here we all are, standing at our local bakery to pick up a cheesecake or a fruit square, or those rose-jelly doughnuts covered with orange glaze. They’ll do, more than that, it is what we like, it is familiar and good, baked fresh and honest on the same way, for decades now.







Such a day. Did any Krakovian not walk through the main square, slowly, purposelessly, indulgently today?




I stop at a favorite café to get my pretend latte (or, is it that I get my pretend cappuccino back in Madison?).

I want to show off Krakow in its rosiest tones because if you, Ed, the visitor, cannot understand it at its best, then you may think us inadequate or somehow lacking (which is only slightly worse than the indifference that the outside world has otherwise shown us) and our complex runs way deep (can’t you tell from this paragraph alone?) and so here, take a look, we are doing it right. Believe it.


mirror mirror on the wall, who is the rosiest of them al?

The holiday fair is at its peak on this afternoon, but really dusk already, because it’s 3:30, December, in northern Europe, for God’s sake, the sun is done with. Thank goodness we have food.

The grills can’t keep up with the demand. Lines, jovial lines of people looking forward to that plateful.



We ask for the sides without the meat. We are not trying to be odd. But I had just sipped a cappuccino and eaten pear cake with almonds. A dish of cooked bigos (sauerkraut with hams, sausage, etc etc) seems wrong.



Yet, the smells are irresistible. We take another bite of the melty smoked cheese, a sip of the hot spiced wine and we want more. Can we please have the sides without the meat? Sure, sure, have it all, you Americans always ask for odd things, but you pay for it and so here you are – a dish of sides.



…and to take back home, a sack of cows. Because they are the candy of my childhood. Krowki. Cows. Little candies, wrapped in paper with a picture of a cow. A forerunner to my eventual move to Wisconsin.



A walk around the square, once more, covering all angles, all sides...



And finally, the sun has set. Completely.

So is there room for dinner after this? Sure. I have a salad. Oh, and a whole trout filet. You can’t be in Poland and not have a local trout filet.

And late in the evening, we stop at a small bakery that does small cookies. Sweet endings to a very warm and rosy day.

from Warsaw, fleetingly, then from Krakow, chasing down peasant roots

The airport is expanding, the traffic is worsening, and there is the inevitable construction. [Come to think of it, this would describe Madison as well.]

My sister is waiting at the Warsaw airport. She has made the mental calculation that we could stop at her place on the way from the terminals, eat borscht and gingerbread and quickly scoot to the train station in time for my connection to Krakow.

So my first taste of Polish food comes from her kitchen. Fitting, and entirely memorable and wonderful, except I am so tired that I erase an entire card of photos documenting my earliest minutes rubbing shoulders with my people, so to speak.


A three hour train ride and Ed and I are in Krakow, red-eyed, weary. Still, we push my suitcase and carry my computer and camera bag (Ed travels with no such encumbrances) all the way across the main square…



…to the hotel, where I open the window to a view:



The air is warm – upper forties. Can’t complain. I hardly notice the slight misty undertones that have draped the streets with a thin sheath of wetness.

I take Ed to a place that serves Polish peasant food. I’m Polish peasant stock. This is my food!

The place is crowded and so we go for a walk, hoping that eventually a table will open up, preferably before midnight. We pace the main square taking in the crowds – the place is one foot into Christmas and another into the week-end. People, everywhere people, walking through, stopping for a snack. This is street food for the holidays: huts with burly men (mostly men) grilling meats -- food to sustain you between regular meals.



It’s intense out there under the moonlit sky: the grills are churning out roasted kielbasas and chunks of who knows what, I’m taking in the smells and sounds – yes, I can see myself piling a plate with slabs of meats and sausages and still, I resist. I make do with smoked cheese from the nearby highlands, grilled and smothered with wild cranberries...



…just so I can make room for the peasant foods back at the restaurant: the potatoes, the mushrooms, pan-fried and drenched in two kilos of melted butter, the herring heaped with sour cream and onion and the pierogi, sprinkled with lardons, oh and don’t let me forget the pickles and cabbage slaw and bread at the side and the tall jug of beer.



No one ever said peasant stock is raised on light food.

phone call

Early this morning, I call Krakow, Poland to confirm a hotel reservation. Finding a good room had been difficult (I want downtown. I want squeaky clean. I want the Internet) and so I do not want to lose this one.

Do you speak English? – I ask. Normally, it is a complicated decision for me when I deal with service providers – whether to proceed in English or Polish (if I speak English with an accent, it's not one Poles can detect). But this one is obvious. English.
Yes. How may I help you?
I want to confirm a booking.
She asks me my name, I give it to her: Nina Camic
She repeats it back: Gnee-nah, right?
Yes, Gnee-nah.

Only Poles pronounce it that way. In that brief exchange, I know I am talking to a Pole and she knows she is talking to a Pole.

Off I go, to catch my bus to catch my plane to catch my next plane to catch my train to Krakow.

oh clock

early

I zip out the door, not wanting to be late for student appointments. I pause and look at the birds, assembled, huddled, social, connected in space if not in words. I snap a photo. It may be the only interesting thing that I see all day.




middle

Last day of class. My torts students do something that touches me no end. It is always hard to let go of the first semester group, but this semester it is harder than ever. I look at them: the funny, the artists, the engineers, the quiet but ready in tough times, the ever-questioning, the ones with families, all with visions and I had this very brief foot into the door of their lives. Who should be thanking whom? (I thank them in the last sentence of the exam, which I write into the wee hours of the evening.)

late

I walk home tired and hungry. It is late and I haven’t finished all that needs to be completed tonight. But I have made progress. Should there ever be a n expectation of more than progress?
The wind is so cold now! My walk home is slightly under a half hour but it seems twice that. Yet, when I look up and see the lights of the bike shop, so enticing, inviting, as if anyone would, on this day, want to enter and buy a bike! – I pause and take a photo. I’m minutes from home, hours from Poland.

hoarding minutes

Why am I foraging minutes now, like a squirrel, thinking ahead to the long winter?




Why are my posts short, my stories inconsequential, my interactions with commenters minimal?

It’s time that I went back to Poland for a while. After an 18 month break, I’m ready for it again.

I used to do some work at the courthouse in Krakow during my most recent trips there, but this time, I may do none of it. I want some hours with family (an aging father and a close in age and in shared experiences sister are there, in Warsaw) and with old friends.

I want to show Ed, my occasional traveling companion, who this time did not say “no” to the proposed trip, I want to show him the store where my mother once bought me a hazelnut birthday cake, back in 1959. I want to participate in the Polish language. I want to study the faces of the women who come in to the cities to sell stuff. Cheeses, slippers, anything. Not flowers. This isn’t the season for lilies of the valley, or for bunches of violets.

Ed and I are taking off the day after tomorrow. We’ll be in Poland for a week and then elsewhere in Europe for a handful of days. This week has been, as a result, packed with work. I need to wrap up the semester before I fly back, home.

in the light of the moon

Teach, grade, read, respond to emails, write exams. My days.

But when I take just a minute to drive into the countryside once the night has set in, I am able to put it all aside and watch the Rudolph herd all over again. Fleetingly.

And then suddenly, the deer retreat and the field is moonlit and bare. All in the space of seconds. All lovely.

nina-long-legs

I am not even going to try to put a label to this day. Work. Much of it against the backdrop of a splendidly cold day.

Until finally, as the sun almost put an end to any warmth, I set out to see what it was like out there in the great outdoors.

Madison’s lakes are starting to freeze over. How long does it take? A day? A week?




In the last rays, I am enthralled with the colors. Or, maybe with seeing myself shadowed against them. Nina-long-legs. Lean and tall. Towering. On a field covered with snow.




Over the river (brook, actually) and through the woods and … a pond, this one frozen, it appears. Imagine skating here, as a kid, or as a young adult.




Maybe it’s not totally frozen. Maybe it would not be so very romantic and cool to fall through it and suffer the cold? (Aren’t there great movies that follow this sequence of events?)




The sun sets, I return home. By way of fields where Rudolph and his pals do their thing.

peace of mind

Four pictures from a day of many vignettes. Just four. Signs of ice along the bike path to the (indoor) farmers market; a girl watching a miniature train spin through fields of poinsettias; in another room (this is at Madison’s Olbrich Gardens) – a boy trying to see if the goldfish matched his gold sweatshirt; and finally – a woman of infinite patience, holding up for the n-th time the tree that would, in the end, be the one that I’ll take home.

And even this does nothing to convey the warmth of this very cold day.

snow story

Hey friend, I know you’re coming up from Chicago tomorrow (Friday), but did you know there is a snowstorm in the forecast?
No, really?
…So you should make contingency plans. You have a 3 pm meeting? Take the bus if it’s snowing in the morning.
I hate the bus.
The bus is cool. Take the bus.

Next morning:
So what’s up?
It’s a blizzard here in Chicago! But I can’t get a cab to get me to the bus!
Try.

Later:
It took close to two hours to get to the bus stop! I almost did not make it. Nothing’s moving!
You’re okay now. Those buses move on air.

Later:
I am stuck in a snow drift in Rockford. Those buses move on air right into snow piles.
Oh damn. Only Rockford? You are so late…
Tell me about it!
Do not worry. If they dig you out in the next hour, you’ll make it.

Later:
They dug the bus out, we are on our way!
Yay!

Later:
The bus is stuck in another drift! Still in Rockford!
Well now… I don’t know what to say…

Later:
We are on our way!
(tentatively) Yay!

Later:
The driver had to do a detour because of a pile up on the Interstate.
Be glad it was not your pile up… good luck…

Later:
I’m in Janesville!
Yay!
No, not really. The replacement bus driver hasn’t shown up. We’re just sitting here.

Six hours later:
We are almost there!
whatever…


Meanwhile, here in Madison, it is cold as hell, but people get by. We always get by. It is in our nature.



plowed and ready for all sorts of moving vehicles



..lovely day to be caught in the snow...



Madison snow removal priority: bike paths.



sometimes walking it is preferable



meticulously, in front of downtown condos

weather

Last night, a bunch of us sat around a table describing to an outsider what it was like to live in Madison. Said outsider was contemplating a move to the area.

Sure, it’s cold, but really, it’s quite sunny! And autumn is wonderful! And you don’t feel the cold when it dips below minus 20. It just feels like regular old 25. And we clean our streets of snow and the schools stay open and our heating bills are reasonable. Given the circumstances.

In good company, this seems entirely credible. Back home, in my own space, I realize it is a stretch. It can get ridiculously cold here.

Still, what has become apparent is that when an outsider visits, the first topic to reach the table is Madison's weather. Carved, dissected, dressed and delivered.

I remembered this as the thermometer did an about face this morning and plummeted from somewhere in mid-fifties to a nice brisk 15 – topping 19 when I set out for the Law School. I pretty much jogged the mile, but my hair never quite recovered. It does not like it when I choose to go from shower to freezer.



night falls, snow falls

more of the same

Only today, the weather turned worse.

Maybe wheedling out a smile...



...in the course of a walk through icy windy wetness is a so-what kind of thing in your book. In mine, it is (was) delightful. Work, then this. My day. (Though by dinner time, the tides shifted and a warm inner glow returned. But that’s another story.)

effort appreciated

I walk home past blocks of student housing. The landlords have not cared to do anything aesthetically pleasing to these houses for years. Their entire effort is placed in writing out notices of rent increases.

Toward the end of November these blocks look sad. And so I especially appreciate it when a resident takes it upon her (him?) self to try to make it a better, brighter place.

I mean, it’s not quite Michigan Avenue, Chicago, in the holiday season, but it is one person’s effort to make this dismal landscape a place of color and joy.

Thanks.

the art of reality

There is the reality of the last week of November. Wet, dark, and inching forward with the burden of excessive work demands.

Most of my non-teaching hours were spent at my home desk, looking out at this:




A significant leap from the bright exuberance of Chicago holiday lights. Still, you could get into the dispiritedness of it all, in a Hopper kind of way, no? I should have placed an empty martini glass on the desk to complete the image. The Ocean reader would have to guess if it was empty the whole evening long…

molecular gastronomy and me

Long ago, it was foreordained that on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I would eat at Alinea.



Hot potato, cold potato, black truffle, butter

Alinea is not just another excellent restaurant. Alinea is unalike anything else. And, by all accounts, superb. Ruth Reichl gave it more than a thumbs up. This year she proclaimed it to be the best eating establishment in America.



King crab, vinegar, aromatics, rice

I hesitate to even call Alinea a restaurant. There isn’t a conventional menu. You call, ask for a table years in advance and commit yourself to either one dozen or two dozen works of artistic degustation. (And, if you want to avoid a free ride to debtors’ prison, you stay hushed and quiet when someone else meekly offers to pick up the check.)

I chose two dozen.


Trout roe, cucumber, coconut, bonito

No one doubts Alinea constructs miniature masterpieces. But this is not what places it apart from virtually any eatery in the world. Alinea minutely zeroes in on the physiochemical aspects of food and creates sensations that are carefully engineered to excite, even astonish the palate.


Medai, radish, coriander, poppyseed

Molecular gastronomy: working with the temperature, texture and physical structure of food, with instruments and utensils designed especially to lend support to the Chef’s imagination.


Matsutake, mango, peanut, yuzu rind

From the NYT Magazine (8.27.06):

With solid sauces, Achatz [Chef and owner] explains, “flavor release” is key. Jellies are essentially flavor elements suspended in a neutral medium. Bound in their carrier matrix, the flavor molecules are relatively inaccessible to the taste buds, so the jelly is first experienced primarily as texture. At a certain temperature, different for each agent, the molecular mesh relaxes and the flavor is released. With gelatin, this occurs at body temperature; in Achatz’s Mussel Cream with Mint and Chamomile Jelly, the herbal flavor blooms in the mouth as the gelatin melts.

Jellies, frozen encasements, clouds of froth, spicy grains, solids, liquids, even smoke. Nothing in the listing of ingredients prepares you for the presentation.


Rabbit, cider, roasted garlic, smell of burning leaves

Achatz is terribly young to be doing such innovation. Or maybe not, considering that he was prepping and plating foods in his dad’s straightforward restaurant in Michigan since he was twelve. And doing a better job of it than the hired cooks, according to the dad.

Not satisfied with the ordinariness of cooking in most every restaurant, Achatz left Michigan, studied at the Culinary Institute and came back (via the French Laundry) to Chicago. Since then, he has been soaring to heretofore undisclosed culinary spaces. Without pause, without time off.


Carrot, smoked paprika, orange

From Food & Wine:

Once, before a holiday break [from the Culinary Institute], he called home and asked his mom to track down emu so he could cook it for a party. As his mother, Barb Strachan, recalls, "That’s when we knew he wasn’t going to do regular food."


Kobe short rib, beets, cranberry, campari

Deconstructed food. It would appeal to a writer, no? Even one who appears ever so slightly to be stuck on conventional processes. The challenge of seeing something differently. Alinea – a typographical sign formerly used in printed texts. It indicated the beginning of a new train of thought, a new paragraph.


White truffle explosion, romaine, parmesan

We enter through an unmarked door. No sign of a restaurant thus far. A tunnel-like, geometric space. A heavy door opens to the side and the silent corridor is suddenly a thing of the past. We are surrounded by a smiling, welcoming staff and, immediately to our right, the open entrance to the kitchen.

I hand over my coat, but my eyes are on the kitchen. Salt and pepper figures, some in white and black, some in black, moving deftly between stations. But are there even stations? The surfaces heat, freeze, dehydrate, rehydrate. Unlike in the land of Oz, you are introduced to the magic behind the curtain from the moment you step inside.


Squab, huckleberry, sorrel, long peppercorn

We sit down at a dark wood table. Rosemary sprigs to the side, a cloth napkin with the mark of an alinea.


Foie gras, spicy cinnamon, apple pate de fruit

And the presentations begin. Wines are paired with dishes (although you could order them by the bottle or not at all if that is your wish). Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Barolo, Soave, Black Noble…


Concord grape, frozen and chewy

Careful construction. Some morsels float above the plate, others swim out from beneath glassware. But there is no gimmickry. As you savor, you understand the intent. It makes sense. Sensual, all senses engaged.


Chestnut, Blis maple syrup

Excuse me, are you a photojournalist?
No, not exactly... Is this your first time here?
Yes. We are celebrating our 11th anniversary.
Food and marriage, partnership in eating. Engaged, tickled, amused, satisfied.


Persimmon, brioche, mace grapefruit

Our headwaiter is, by birth, from Bulgaria.
The Chef works all the time! Since I have known him, maybe he has not been in the kitchen once? Twice?

The long hours of Alinea. We come at 9:30 and leave after 1:30. And we are not the last to leave.


Quince, prosciutto, orange, juniper

Perfectionism. I strive for it in a few places I fall off on others. At Alinea, it is a necessity. For without it, the dish tumbles and fails. Precision. All for the sake of a blissful harmony of flavors.


Shellfish, gooseberries, horseradish, celery ice

Do you allow children here? I ask. At this hour of course there are no children.
We do not set rules about this. But the experience is lost on them. Still, we had someone come with a baby. The baby cried, the other diners were upset. They are spending a lot of money to eat here. The meal is long – this is a tough place to bring a young child to. But we leave it to the parent.


Hamachi, buttermilk, blackberry, green peanuts

You asked us about dietary restrictions. We have none. What if we did?
The chef accommodates them. We recently had a vegan – virtually every dish had to be modified. We did it. The woman went away so happy. She had not eaten this well in years! The chef saw it as a challenge. And really, everyone should walk away satisfied.


Pineapple, bacon powder, black pepper

Several of us had researched each ingredient so that we would not have to ask.
Mastic: an evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean region; resin from it is used in liquors and as a spice…

The waiters place the springs of rosemary into a hot slate. The dish has no rosemary in it, but the aroma from the heated needles floats over the bit of meat, creating the sensation of flavor.


Lamb, date, mastic, rosemary aroma

Uncommon couplings follow.


Venison encased in savory granola


Raspberry, goat milk, red pepper taffy, pistachio

And the presentations continue to take the breath away. Instructions are often needed.
You can eat the leaves wrapped around the piece of cake, but they may be a bit rough. Try blending bits of cake with the accompaniments.


Licorice cake, spiced with hoja santa leaves

At this point, the digestive track sends me messages: I am near capacity, mine warns me.
Has anyone ever complained of not enough food in this place?
Actually, yes. We had a table – they had read we were good but they did not know about our style of preparing foods. Maybe they thought there wasn’t enough meat, of the steak type. Conversely, we have had people get up and say – we cannot eat any more. And we cannot send doggie bags home.


Chocolate, bergamot, cassia, figs

We can barely finish. Comfortable clothing, I tell you. One has to wear comfortable clothing. Nothing should distract. You have paid, someone has paid, a virtual airfare to get you to dine here. You are on a culinary island. It is a vacation from the ordinary.


Caramel, meyer lemon, cinnamon perfume


I have no critical comments to offer. Chef Achatz has envisioned something so sensual, so intense that I am left speechless.

To do something that well in whatever field boggles the mind. And in the kitchen, where I know enough to smell culinary genius, I am ready to describe it as such when I encounter it. Sure, it can be in the home kitchen of someone fastidiously rolling out the perfect pierogi dough. Or it can be at Alinea. It is at Alinea. My hat is off, totally, completely.


in the wee hours of the night, conferring