a little red hen

Happy Cup, bread, politics: Little red hen's peripatetic days

Rye breads recently made where I neglected to label recipe source.  They were very good.  One on right is 1968 New York Times Sourdough via Craig Claiborne.

And what better to go with a slice of homemade bread than my newest political button.  Yes, 17% is the stunning percentage of women in Congress.  A special election in the quirky district where we live is about to (fingers crossed) give Democrat Suzanne Bonamici a seat in the House of Representatives.  She will replace an unsuitable man I wrote about at length HERE.

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MOM MARKETING,  is a pro bono effort on behalf of HAPPY CUP ; it is my very own "start-up" for 2012.  Timmy Straw, composer and musician, who works at the other wonderful Portland bookstore, Daedalus, in the Northwest, was the first person I tried the idea on.

She listened to my pitch (we are already acquainted).

Three years ago our daughter Rachel (at right) had the idea to open a coffee shop to provide more jobs and more social outlets for her clients with disabilities.  Full Life Coffee Shop quickly attracted other programs who bring their clients on outings to socialize--and drink coffee.

In late 2011, through a circumstance that could only occur in Portland, Rachel had an opportunity to develop a coffee roast.  Happy Cup joined the lively java scene overtaking  America (end of pitch).

Tee-shirt and  mug have been added.  Of course, proud parents tell the Happy Cup story, distribute this small, informative brochure.

As part of  Mom Marketing I give the listener  a sample package of coffee.  Next month:  Happy Cup debuts at Whole Foods in Portland.

 

 

Katrina vanden Heuvel shares upbeat vision in PDX

How many references for a blog title?  Am I talking to self here or just me and Marianna at Hattie's Web?  Photo from couple of years ago when we met, walked over to the Pearl Cafe. 

"Upbeat vision" is such a delicious idea that featuring the words makes me giddy.  Outlandish and in-denial position these days?  Some of us grandmothers of young children ponder this often--Marianna and I among them.  We both are readers of The Nation Magazine, that not-glossy, picture-free, skinny lefty rag that delights or infuriates us.  So much for those claiming we only talk to ourselves in agreement.

As Marianna floats along on a Nation Cruise--an adventure almost unimaginable on my calendar--I question why that is any "more" or "better" than my going to a Nation fundraiser the last day of November.  It is not. Note to self:  watch that judgmental stuff.  Marianna and I were children in complex families where financial and personality issues loomed large.  We emerged with  with deep concerns on sorting out who we were/are and the lives of others.

In my own family of origin social justice was a keynote.  One of the reasons Hattie and I are  friends via blogging and real time is our penchant to sign petitions for causes (here's one today), march with signs in public, let others know what we support whenever possible.  We understand how lucky we are to have emerged from our darkish childhoods into adult lives to where we are today.

Though The Nation has been around for a long time, sometimes seems the place where aging leftists go to complain, Katrina vanden Heuvel as Editor reminds me how many young activists and thinkers are visible these days.  Marianna is a particular fan of Chris Hays of MSNBC; my own is Rachel Maddow at the same network.  It's also good to consider how my own "silent generation" has contributed some good to the present times.   My contemporary, Victor Navasky, my contemporary, had the foresight to bring Katrina into The Nation.

About the fundraiser.  We knew no one there, not a surprise.  We're always struck how the left has not discovered that the cause might be better served by a bit of reaching out.  Are we too uncomfortable with ourselves, fearful that the person we don't know might have politics a tad lefter than ours or a cause we do not care about?  We had a good time after Ron snagged a woman walking by who seemed to have an open demeanor.  As a result, had our best laugh of the evening.  Originally from New York, she and her spouse who soon came along, spoke about their early days in the City as adjunct faculty for a "third-rate university." 

Where? "That's where our son is an Associate Professor, lucky guy!"  I replied with enthusiasm. See, you just never know how small a world we live in.  Not very experienced with fund-raisers, it was curious to me that the evening was so very low key.  After Katrina gave her talk about the importance of readers increasing their support, people went up to speak with her.  I took photos.  

Shortly after, there was a book-reading at Powells' where Katrina spoke about her latest, The Change I Believe In: Fighting for progress in the age of Obama.  Poor woman, she had only a moment to eat, then had to be upfront again--with a far larger and livelier audience.  The place was packed; Ron and I split up to find seats.

Mine was next to a friendly woman my age who said she wished there was someone who'd go on a Nation Cruise with her.  She'd enjoyed the trip a few years ago.  On the other side was a man whose father had been a Wobblie!

Generally though the audience was younger than those at the fund-raiser.  Why didn't I get up and shout, "Folks, The Nation needs your subscriptions!"  That's one of the points Katrina made, and one electronic readers dodge around. By the way, I never have a link to Amazon, that book-destroyer.

She stays on message: we need to be as pragmatic and clear-eyed about Obama as he is about us....it's important for movements to keep working with the president, and pushing him when needed--criticizing, engaging, and supporting when called for.  As with Plan B and the fear of teen pregnancy.

It's invigorating to be the choir preached too--don't care what anyone says.  Katrina delighted the crowd.  Just before the very, very long line for book-signing, I slipped her another one of those immodest proposals.  Suggested that The Nation initiate Teach-Ins around the country about Occupy.  Oh, not those Nation reader groups listed in the back of the magazine.  The woman next to me, like others, have said she had to quit one because one person came to dominate with his opinions.  We had that in Baltimore too.

Could there be a better design:  Potlucks for the left?  We do need something that gets us to come together in real time, to do the hard work that Marianna and I talk about--for our grandchildren's futures.

HAPPY CUP...new, remarkable coffee roast in Portland

You're thinking, "Why would an old lady blogger be touting a new coffee roast?"  Tea, maybe, but...

And I'm answering, "HAPPY CUP is special."  

It's the latest idea from our daughter's FULL LIFE, now in its 12th year providing s a employment opportunities and a range of creative activities for people with disabilities. 

Midspring Rachel Bloom, CEO of Full Life, had an urge to  start a Flower Farm.  Before we knew it, some lovely person in the community near her business offered an odd lot--one that would not work for other development.

Full Life Flower Farm sprung into being.  Provided joyful work and outdoor space for her clients.  And  glorious blossoms.  Around the same time, HAPPY CUP was perking around in the development stage.

Rachel talks about the flowers and the coffee on this video from the website.

 

Full Life from Lifted Visuals on Vimeo.

More details on this local, sustainable business (we are in Portland, Oregon, where sustainability is the most-often repeated word) in a recent Business Journal article.

Today, an email with the latest from Scott, Rachel's spouse, very involved with Happy Cup:

As a social enterprise- Happy Cup will donate 100% of net profits to organizations that create programming for individuals with disabilities.

  Of course, we're very proud and drinking delicious coffee.  Happy Cup can be ordered online in Dark Roast, Full Potential (Expresso), Papua New Guinea, and El Salvador--even has its own cup and tee-shirt.  Just in time for the holidays there's also a Gift Box.

Happy Cup is a socially conscious product in providing excellent ethically traded coffee that is also roasted, packaged and delivered by individuals with disabilities.   Full Life has found another way to create jobs for underserved members of our community.  Government funding for programs like Full Life are being slashed in the Oregon state budget.  Full Life Flower Farm and Happy Cup underwite the lost funding for programs that provide a more meaningful life for "people with potential."

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There are those who believe that Ron and I have many irons in the proverbial fire--knit, spin, weave, etcetera.  We are in awe that both our children have taken the model so much further. 

Last week our son, Nick Bloom, remembered to tell us, in a kind of offhand way during a Skype visit, about his latest book, American Tourism:  Constructing a National Tradition. 

This one, co-edited with  J. Mark Souther of the Center for Public History at Cleveland State University, features 35 illustrated articles from a  group of public historians, travel writers about places transformed into tourist destinations. 

 

 

 

 

C-span panders just like network TV?

Sunday late afternoon and the Big Screen broadcasts.  Ron spins, I knit.  An intriguing interview with Howard Markel, doctor-author of "An Anatomy of Addiction:  Sigmund Freud, William Halsted & the Miracle Drug Cocaine".  Quite a title, fascinating book. I remember  the Halsted's name--a late 19th/early 20th century innovative surgeon at Johns Hopkins.  I had doctors' appointments in a building named for him when we lived in Baltimore.

Last summer when I read the N.Y. Times review , I was reminded about Freud's drug habit.  Earlier writers, many in psychoanalytic fields intent on preserving his image,  have downplayed this journey on the dark side.  As the Times' review points out, it was very dark:

Freud liked the stuff so much that between roughly 1884 and 1896, when he was in his 20s and 30s and in his major cocaine period, he tended on many days to have a red, wet nose. He gave cocaine to family and friends.

Also, famously, to a patient.  Much as I wanted to know more-- how Freud's habit did or did not influence his psychoanalytic theories, I was not moved to get the book.  Today's C-span expanded my knowledge, but reading the book is the only way my questions might be answered.

Another C-span Book review appeared on the screen.  Oh, Bill Clinton with his latest foray into how-many-ways-can-I-prove-I-should-still-be-president thorough his new book, "Back to Work."  Busy with my knitting problem, I stopped paying attention then started again when I noticed--how could I miss--that daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was his interviewer.  Odd, don't you think?

Perhaps this was a practice gig for Chelsea's coming appearance as a regular on NBC.  A number of journalists have commented on her hiring, not happy with her lack of background for her work.    John Doyle in the Globe & Mail, offers a Canadian perspective.  Noting American journalists' uneasiness with numerous recent NBC hires of relatives of political figures, he adds:

...a larger trend becoming evident here. It’s the same urge to hire celebrity names that compels sports broadcasters to hire ex-professionals to do sports analysis, instead of real reporters....the hiring of Chelsea Clinton is another sign of the terminal decline of network news. Thank goodness for newspapers. Right?

I should mention that the Clintons were appearing on the stage of the New York Historical Society which gave the interview a patina of dignity that it did not deserve.  Once again, as in those halcyon days when Bill Clinton was revealed as a philanderer, I felt sorry for Chelsea.

Immediately following, C-span proved that it may be in the same groove as NBC:  Truman Clifton Daniels, grandson of Harry Truman, was interviewed by Margaret Hoover, perky Fox News correspondent and great granddaughter of (ready?) Herbert Hoover.

He has published a book of letters between his grandparents and is Director of Public Relations at Truman College in Chicago, also wrote the 1995 book, Growing Up With My Grandfather: Memories of Harry S. Truman.

Could someone open the window?

 

What IS it about being in school?

The quarter system will always elude me; semesters person, I'll always be.  Nevertheless, after a disappointing winter term--dropped both classes--have been back at Portland State for a couple of weeks.  Happier with choices this round.  "World Population & Food Supply" taught by  Hunter Shobe in the Geography Department.   Last year his "A Sense of Place" class was my initial insight to how northwestern students experience their surroundings.  The readings  challenged my personal sense of whatever-place I am in/have been in.  This time the readings are darker as you might imagine from the covers of these two texts.

The juxtaposition of more  and more hungry people and corporate decisions that wrongly influence the growth and distribution of food:  not a pretty picture.  But it is what I'd hoped to know more about.  Thinking about how to use my time to become more engaged in this struggle.

Besides enjoying my classes, I am stimulated by the energy of students and the ambiance of this university setting.    Many many bikes, some skateboards, and way too many smokers.  Tobacco is an industry the peace movement might emulate for its skill at habit-making and clever use of smart lawyers, enormous piles of money controlling the game.

Crowded classrooms curious matched with recent news that the school intends to double student enrollment plus faculty will not increase, actually be reduced.  For Ron and me, not paying fees and there at the kindness of strangers (people over 65=free classes up to 8 credits), the question is how long will this generosity be continued.  If there are not enough seats, we cannot stay in a class.  Most professors work hard to find room for all but there are fewer leftover seats every term.

What about asking us for a few bucks per class--$10 seems reasonable.  Someone told me the other day that there may be 700 Senior Auditors:  if each of us paid for two classes, that could pay for a professor plus an adjunct.  

Anxiety about student debt is palpable.  The school's president has called for a 9.2 per cent increase in tuition.  Many worry about cutback in Pell grants, thank you Congress.  Last week there was an event titled "Carnival of Debt" held outdoors on campus. [Cartoon from student paper, "The Vanguard."]

A recent article, "Feeding the Hungry," surprised me.  Last year a food pantry for students opened to help those struggling to make ends meet.  Many worry about Pell grants being cut by Congress.

Lately I've lunched at the student-run cafeteria in the basement of the student union building.  "Food for Thought," same name for my retirement place group I wrote about yesterday,   Reading the menu board, feeling the sense of alternate life reminds me of visits to Eugene, Oregon.   The 1970s lives!   Free WiFi is a 21st century add-on.  Everything's vegetarian or vegan.  Overheard a woman at the entance as she reassured a friend worried about taking his homemade lunch inside, "I can't take my bologna in there!" The sign on the left disappeared this week and was replaced by the artful chalk drawing on the right.

What I'd like to see reappear soon are the tea filter papers for loose leaves (many choices).  One instructed to close with stapler.  Staple!  I chose to fold mine instead and it worked well.  This week there are coffee filters that can be torn into something resembling a tea bag, then stapled.  Stapled!

The food?  Pretty good though spicy. For $3.50, Eco-bowl of rice, beans,  curry (favored spice).  Asked to buy bread and received very respectable slices made on premises.  Impressive.  A rich coconut square dessert, $2.  Here's their website with comments at the extremes; some speak of service improvement since last term.  I have only compliments:  they're gracious to old ladies.

 

 

Food thoughts mid-20th century...and now

How I wish some of the retirement "authorities" would talk about the hidden danger of too much time on our hands.  Especially parents, now grandparents.

Guilt runs amook.  On the other hand, on a more upbeat note, I've explored the  possibilities for latelife shifts as we head toward the last frontier.  One that may last longer than we once thought.  Personally, ten years ago an expiration date of 80 felt like enough.  Approaching that marker, I now want to push it ahead.

 What does this have to do with "food" and "retirement" you might reasonably ask.

  Eating and preparation of meals has changed dramatically since we moved to Portland less than two years ago.   The local food culture, the emphasis on locavorism, has been a ethic easy  to pursue while not so much in New York City.

Cooking classes at Bob's Red Mill have been far more accessible moneywise/timewise/accessibilitywise than in our former home.Many, many farmers' markets and thoughtful vendors.  And some years back, strolling through the bountiful magazine section at Powell's Books, I discovered Gastronomica, the journal of food and culture--another link?

All roads appear to lead to Portland but is there more, some kind of epiphany-not-noticed encountered after 75?  Food is something that everyone  will talk about:  the latest restaurant someone's discovered, intense color of kale in the local market, less meat consumption, quinoa and how to pronounce correctly.  

With the help of Jeanne P, another  quite food enthusiast and native Oregonian, a new group was begun where we live in June 2010.  "Food for Thought" (FFT) we named it.

Georgia V, a resident, agreed to talk about how she came to write three cookbooks with two others working with her at the local Kitchen Kaboodle.  Here's Georgia, left in photo, at the first of a series of Potlucks, an additional food-focus event, that were an outcrop from FFT.

The monthly FFT  discussions have ranged from "Cooking for One or Two" to reflections by Joyce H, a 92 year old resident, a WWII Wave officer who became a Home Ec teacher in 1947 in the Portland Public Schools.  Titled "Home Ec:  What Martha Stewart Learned," the session included this 1955 YouTube, a 1955 film, "Why Study Home Economics?"   

When I first watched it, seemed quaint.  Then I reconsidered and find it very sound.  Except for that tired notion of preparation for wifehood, there's more about careers and personal relationships.  We need to bring it back to middle schools with a re-configured curriculum that includes material  about  housing.  In the 1980s, I used an excellent text, Self, Space & Shelter by Patricia J. Thompson,  a feminist home economist, for an Urban Housing  class at Morgan State in Baltimore.  Sadly, my copy was lost in transition and is out of print--and the course is no longer offered.

 

"A Knitter's Home Companion," my snowy day read

In the last couple of days, we've experienced snow-panic in Portland.  We're too new here to know how to assess the weather.  Yesterday, when many spoke of snow coming, the sky was so pretty in the late afternoon.  Why did Bob's Red Mill cancel our Cooking with Kamut class for today?

Because it was snowing early this morning.  Just enough to be picture-worthy.  Then we heard about people living north of us who'd had to wait hours for buses struggling with serious accumulation.  By 11 a.m., what appears in the photo at the right (from my window) was gone.

But wait...early afternoon and here it comes again.  As I write, snow and sun, nothing seems to stick on the roads.  But who can tell?  A good day to think about cooking and knitting and talk about my friend's new book, "A Knitter's Home Companion: a heartwarming collection of stories, patterns, and recipes." [*updated link shows color photos not in review copy]

Michelle Edwards and I met (in the internet sense) via her knitting essays for Lion Brand's online newsletter.  Her thoughtfulness and her rounded, engaging illustrations, both evident at that link, led me to write her.  A conversation began and took several turns over the past six years.  I discovered her childrens' books, favorites of my grandchildren now, and she joined a project of mine.

But back to her new book.  When Michelle first talked to me about what she planned to write, I was intrigued--yarn and food.  But how to bring it off?  She has taken her time and produced a small book I'm glad to own and would be pleased to give as gift to another knitter--or someone who wants a recipe for potato latkes or roasted root vegetables.

When the book first arrived, I was struck by its difference from  most contemporary knitting books.  It's a bit old-fashioned,  takes time to lead the reader along the paths of Michelle's life from upstate New York to kibbutz to wife and mother of three mostly grown children in Iowa City.  Reading along, trying to be disciplined and go page by page, I was distracted by the "Good Karma Slippers."  She wrote the pattern to problem-solve for a friend who wanted to duplicate knit ones  bought in India.

Did she know I wanted something lightweight, other than bedroom slippers, to wear indoors?   Turkish cast-on and knitting in the round on two needles are new challenges.  Time to go to my local yarn place because I want these; maybe  other knitters will want to knit them too.

In one of our earliest exchanges, Michelle shared her concern about her children's learning about safe sex.  Soon after, I asked her if she would add a pattern to the Knit a Condom Amulet project.  She surprised me with her yarn,  100% Corn Silk from Iowa.  Instructions for all seven are in the blog.

If I were still living in New York, I could finally meet Michelle Edwards on March 10 at her book signing in Lion Brand Yarn Studio on West 15th Street. It's a beautiful store opened three years ago by this 130 year old company known for its community-minded owners. I'll be with her in spirit with memories of generous people in the yarn world we share connections with--Melanie Falick, publisher of "A Knitter's Home Companion," whose interest generated enthusiasm about my Knit One Red Worm and David Bluementhal of Lion Brand who gave me many skeins of red chenille for that project.

Tomorrow--snow's melted again--I'm off to get cotton bamboo for those slippers.

 

 

 

 

Powell's Books lays off 31 employees...

About to sit down to dinner tonight, OPB startled us.  "Powell's Books will lay off 31 employees."  According to the Portland Business Journal, Emily Powell, daughter of the founder, informed workers earlier today in a memo:

  “We see this as a clear indication that we are losing sales to electronic books and reading devices.... “Given the company’s declining sales, combined with industry data on the rapid growth of electronic book sales, we expect to see continuing erosion of new book sales over the next few years. While we believe we can compensate for some of the loss with solid used book sales and growth in gift sales, the erosion of new book sales will continue to take its toll.”

An old memory from my life in Albuquerque.  I was writing copy for an ad agency in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  A man in the art department invited me and my then-spouse to dinner.  The moment he opened the door, I noticed all the white walls were bare.  Nothing on them, nothing hung in the room where we ate dinner nor any of the other rooms.  How peculiar it seemed that someone who worked with images, colors would only have blank walls.  Maybe he was avoiding distraction?

Rooms with no books flashed through my consciousness, in color of course.  How awful.  They are our old friends, returned to for remembrance...book shelves are decoration in our homes not to be replaced by potted plants. 

Wanting to be very loving toward my own recent purchases from Powell's along with abebooks (used ones), I arranged them for you to admire, ask me about.  How I'd like to talk with Sherry Turkle, whose new book is "Alone Together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other."  She spoke at Powell's on Burnside last month about how her research has shifted her earlier enthusiasm about the the digital age, expressed in earlier books, to concern about the degrading of  relationships through electronic exchange, the cellphone, and the growing acceptance of robots to replace personal interactions.

The rapid growth of electronic reading being privileged over handheld books feels like one more way we have found to be less intimate not only with others but also with our surroundings.  She worries, as a clinical psychologist, how Facebook, texting, blogs too are leading people to a preference for technological interactions over those in realtime.  The disappearance of  THE BOOK feels like another line in her argument though not discussed in "Alone Together."  That's why I'd like to talk with her; perhaps I'll use the email address at MIT that she gave her listeners that January night.

And I'll mention one area I see very differently as an older person.  She has a dark view of the interaction of robots and old people. Given who I see may be my caretakers in the future, those unengaged young people constantly on their screens,  I am more open than Sherry to being cared for by androids in my dotage.  Picture this:  it is 2031, Sylvia, my gracious robot, enters my room.  I point to one of my beautifully illustrated 19th century books on temperance.  She reads in a pleasing, even voice (absent "like"), shows me the pictures when I ask. 

[Sherry Turkle talks at length in this  PBS Frontline and in an interview on Huffington Post.]

 

 

Faux Library as PSU parking garage

  For the past year I'd walk or drive by this wall of books and want to take pictures.  Finally.  But there was too much sun.  Imagine yourself on a sidewalk on SW Fifth Street, near Portland State.  I picture a librarian or two having a great time selecting titles.

Hey, Powell's Books, the woman just received a MacArthur...a little respect, please!

It has been a very long, very wonderful day in the City of Roses.  So fine that I regret to say:  PDX showed its provincialism.  

Behind on my New York Times reading earlier in day (one day late) I was carefully perusing the article about the 23 new MacArthur Fellows, known as the "genius grants," in Tuesday's paper.  Already had noted, buried on page 2, of yesterday's second section of the Oregonian, that two local women scientists had won awards.  (This Portland paper reserves its enthusiasms for a new beer, oddly named music group, or latest police shooting.)

In the Times, I saw that Yiyun Li, the writer we were about to hear tonight at Powell's, had just won a MacArthur.  Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (NPR review with writing excerpt) is her third book, a collection of stories. Her debut novel, The Vagrants, called "grieving and unremitting" by Pico Iyer when it appeared last year, was much praised.

We'd thought there would be a big crowd now that Li's award had been announced.  There was not--only 30 people in this very writer-focused town.  I have never heard an introduction of such smallness as the one delivered preceding Yiyun Li's presentation.  Who was this desultory woman?  She hurried through her few sentences with an odd disinterest and did not mention Li's having received a $500,000 "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation only the day before.

Yiyun Li seemed not to notice, greeted us sweetly and read from  "Kindness,"  one of the stories in her new book.  It is an elegaic tale of a solitary woman in today's China--a novella.  I could see the spare room of the woman's childhood home, her unhappy mother's pile of Chinese novels. I was reminded of women, friends from the past who never could move beyond their anger with family and the limits their origins seemed to prescribe.

Where did she get her ideas?  "I love to eavesdrop!"  Her notion of listening in was different from what I'd expected:  she reads Chinese newspapers on line. The stories she finds pique her imagination as she writes their endings and beginnings because "I want to know more about them." 

She told us about herself, a girl growing up in Beijing, daughter of two scientists.  "I was a math prodigy.  My life was chosen for me at eight or nine."  She came to the U.S. to college at the University of Iowa to study immunology but learned that "everyone else in Iowa City was writing a novel."  About to receive her PhD, Yiyun "panicked and instead became a writer," became a student at the Iowa Writers Workshop with all those other novel writers.

Her own story is a wonderful one too, happier than those she writes but wistful too.  Her responses to questions were straightforward and thoughtful about the personal price the Chinese people experience from the many changes over the last fifty years.  She spoke of her two young boys, eight and nine as "free range chickens," neither Chinese nor American, who will have to sort it all out for themselves in the years ahead.

When we spoke with her at the end, as she signed our Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (which means the "perfect couple"), I was surprised to hear that she had served in the Chinese Army as a young woman.  Ron congratulated her on the MacArthur recognition and she acknowledged how amazed she was to receive it. 

I'm sending a link to this email to Powell's:  every writer deserves respect--with or without a MacArthur grant.  If there's no one on staff, this old lady or one of my friends knows how to do it with enthusiasm.  Call me.