a little red hen

On the way to Northern California...

It was early May.  Two days before leaving, I cracked my front tooth on a thick bar of chocolate. Got a tempo fix to last two weeks.

We began with the sight of an object that seemed far more California than Oregon coast. I called it the Radish Goddess on first sighting, was corrected by woman at front desk before we left.  Noticed a cord hanging behind it, plugged it in, rewarded with moving lights.  I was surprised there was not music too.  If you've visited Newport Beach and spent the night in one of the Sylvia Beach Hotel's rooms named for writers, this Kitchen God would make sense.

Our overnight was in the "Amy Tan" with a window right on the windy Pacific.   I'd eagerly read The Kitchen God's Wife after Tan's first novel, The Joy Luck Club.  Most of us had know little of Chinese American lives. These novels revealed immigrant stories of  Chinese-born mothers as seen by their American-born daughters.

As I grew up, mostly in New York City, this was the least visible ethnic group. Most of us only saw the Chinese as people who worked in the many neighborhood laundries and Chinese restaurants.  Chinatown was the only other place.  I have no memory of Chinese children in my elementary school.

Nor were they in my high school in suburban St. Louis, or college in northern Ohio.  My father was interested in the Chinese, would often take me to eat in Chinatown, walk through the streets.  He began to teach himself to do Chinese calligraphy brushwork.  His ink pad was inside a beautiful square silver box with green incised letters on the top.  He gave it to me--the only object of value he gave me--when I moved to New York after college.  Still sorry that I lost it in one of my many moves from apartment to apartment.

But I digress.  Ron has missed the ocean a great deal, happy to be near one again even though it was the Pacific rather than the other, so central to much of his life.  The beach at Newport was beautiful both night and day.

Moving on, we stopped in the Farmers' Market at Port Orford, "oldest town on the Oregon coast...most westerly in the 48 states."  As with others we've been in from here to New York City, each has its own charm.

Drawn to local honey, we spent some time at the stand for Lee's Bees. Man on the right is the husband of Lee, the beekeeper.  Originally from upstate New York, he had a compelling story about his travels and jobs from there to settling in Sixes, Oregon, population about 330 and home of the hives.  Lee had invented something unusual--bee cloth. an alternative to plastic wrap, it's cotton cloth impregnated with beeswax.  For what, you ask.  "You can wrap cheese in it, put it in the fridge."  I have not done that yet; keep hoping to discover other applications.

"Suspended items" was explained to me by this young woman.  Think it was a homemade bread that will not be offfered again till some time in the future. Escaped me then as it does now.  One of the major differences between Farmers' Markets around Portland and this one was the absence of piercings and tatoos. Nice.

We could have lingered but meeting up with Roxie was 200 miles ahead. 

 

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Is this any way to bake bread?

Yes.  If one is challenged to fit two loaves into a 19.5 inch oven.  And if you have very good eyesight and turn your head slightly to the right, it's possible to note that the oven thermometer registers about 355 degrees.  Effort was made to reach 475 but opening the door may have altered that--or not.

In spite of it all, two delicious loaves were produced from another new recipe, Sourdough Whole Wheat and Rye with Seeds.  Two years, almost to the day, Ron and I went to a class at Bob's Red Mill.  Our teacher was Alan Maniscalco who had partnered with Ken Forkish to begin Ken's Artisan Bakery which then expanded to Ken's Pizza with Alan in charge.

We had returned from another great trip to California.   It was starter-refresh time. Decided to branch out, develop a new rye starter from my white one.   Having two starters in the fridge takes me back to the days in my large Baltimore kitchen with its commodious regular stove whose size I never thought about.  Ah, the past and things one took for granted.

What particularly intrigued me on Alan's recipe was the soaker (link to The Fresh Loaf site and useful explanation).  Mine contained:

pumpernickel flour, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, and water.

Similar approach--Chad Robertson's adaptation of a recipe from his book, Tartine Bread.  More memories of last year's visit to Tartine in San Francisco. "Flour Water Salt Yeast" is title of Ken's new cookbook.  Only just discovered his series of videos--very useful.  I now know why his breads are so dark.

His kitchen very nice; I should get friendly.  Thinking I might try using two small Dutch ovens--if I can find them.  Might solve small oven issue.  

California?  The Redwoods this time to meet up with granddaughter Roxie and her parents.  More soon.   

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A mid-20th century romance began, endures...

 

THE LONG-TERM MARRIAGE

At last she’s happy, reigning with her creams,

rubbing his scalp’s roof until it gleams.

As the squamous-cell carcinomas sprout,

the local dermatologist cuts them out

 

or frosts the lunar surface with liquid nitrogen.

The creams come from West Fourteenth Street, Manhattan,

FedExed from their adopted son’s boyfriend’s home,

a relationship that remains, to them, unknown.

 

Their Oriental rugs are steeped in piss

from the bulldog barking like an activist.

Bickering over misplaced books, the tchotchkes

lost, and how she re-remembers her stories,

 

they wait with an unfinished, finished look,

and note how honeysuckle crowns Old Saybrook

and thistles overrun their last garden.

The dash between their dates is nearly done.

                                                                -Spencer Reece

Published in The New Yorker,  April 13, 2009;  on my bulletin board since then.

On a spring day in Portland, Oregon, I celebrate  meeting my spouse in Manhattan.  March 1966,  a large, airless room at a counseling conference in the Commodore Hotel. He was presenting; I was in the audience determined to get my question answered.  He took me for an ice cream soda at a nearby Schrafft's on 42nd Street..  It was a lovely day; we walked twenty blocks south.

We lived four blocks apart--Ron in a  classic 8-story 1930s building--one-bedroom, rent-controlled  ($110) on East 24th. Mine was a smaller studio ($160), in a new 21-story high-rise.    We married in his apartment October 29, 1966--the same year NOW began.  The word "femnism" was not in my vocabulary at the time.  We disagreed on the war in Vietnam.  We moved quickly toward working on equality between women and men--and being very opposed to the "American war," as it's known in Vietnam.

Two children, four grandchilddren, several moves--Oberlin, Ohio then Baltimore, Maryland, then back to New York City before landing in Portland.

The Commodore, built in 1919, was renovated inside and out in 1980.  Unrecognizable to us in its current state. Schrafft's is gone.  We are still New Yorkers in spirit, almost 50 years later, in Portland, Oregon.  

Afterwards, yet pre-election uneasiness lingers

My favorite image from Election Night with the Democrats, Chicago, 2012.

The whole campaign thing, its endlessness and thoughtlessness, lurked behind most of my days.  The bad vibes, though they should, do not vanish with a good outcome.  All that negativity in the air must become dark cloud formations.  This is only my conjecture--yours are welcome.

Walked into Whole Foods across from Powell's Books the other night and saw pale green ornamental kale--new to me--and brown/tan wheatlike fronds turned out to be ornamental corn.  Who knew? Orange gerbera nearby seemed right.  The glass battery jar holding them hovers over a Day of the Dead figure brought to me from Mexico years ago.  Courtesy of a friend in Baltimore who appreciated (or was amused by) my fondness for hen images.  Joining him (all skeletons to me are male for some reason) are heavy metal locks I found in either San Miguel de Allende or Oaxaca, Mexico.

While grocery shopping I found another new fruit/vegetable, watermelon radish.  My posting these images is a way to move past my uneasiness in America.  Besides the re-election of Barack Obama whose graying black hair over the last four years signals the weight of his position.  He has much more heart that most give him credit for.

17% of women in Congress has miraculously inched up to 20 per cent.  The long struggle for equality has made some progress...November 5, 2012, marked the 100th anniversary of woman suffrage in Oregon.

Travel mind-expanding in unexpected ways

Staying in motels on the road always means a window into life outside my bubble--encounters in elevators, free breakfast at Hampton Inn.  Sure, we try to do things in Portland that keep us in touch with the known universe but it is a challenge for old people. In our retirement community no one is poor.  Is anyone worried about paying next month's fees?  I would not know.  Because we have an active foundation trust fund to provide financial support to those who have exhausted their funds.  

When we attend Portland State for classes/lectures, we see a homeless person or two. Going further downtown, there are more since there's a shortage of housing for the homeless. Even in New York where there are more robust public programs for homeless families and childrens, needs now outstrip the supply.  

But then we leave home to travel and want to keep up with news; lately  we do not find the Times.   Lucky us, U.S.A. Today is everywhere we stay. Theirs is a different point of view from what we're used to, brings us in contact with a more conservative view of the world.

July 31, headline: "The underlying duel of 2012:  Seniors vs. Millennials."  Along with the narrative which we have heard and will hear over and over again, I am startled by the photos chosen.  Older white guy and young woman of color.  This selection, not an accident in the news room, delivers a double-whammy.  It's not devisive enough to point out how old folks "more engaged than in 2008,"  are in an ideological war with the young who favor Obama.  The paper would have readers think that only black people will be voting for the President.

The kicker:  the two in photo are grandpa and his granddaughter--so you can't say it's about racism.  I can.  In an effort at fairness, the paper's website features a sensible response from a reader in California:

"The future generation is being short-changed by cuts in education spending and the increasing cost of higher education. We are witnessing the dumbing-down of America."

In Yakima, Washington, my education is further expanded.  On a sidewalk, a couple of people are campaigning for a local candidate.  To get attention to what he stands for, they have used a photo-shopped image promoting impeach Obama that I had only seen on news programs.  An even bigger one is attached to the side of the table.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
                                                                                –Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad 

“Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.”                                                    -- Elizabeth Drew, N.Y Review of Books

 

79th birthday on a dark & light Sunday

Toward the end of our trip north, my move toward 80 occurred.  An August birthday often has seemed less notable than those happening in non-summer months.  The month is know primarily for its connection to Hiroshima, our country's leap into the darkest side of "American exceptionalism."  Does that sound like an only-child sigh?  Yes.  What did my 12 year old self think as children at summer camp puzzled over the news.  We could not have understood more than that "the war was over."

From the window of our Tacoma, Washington motel on August 5, this dancing green figure sent a welcome, could pass for a birthday wish.

The heat that our son had reported from New York, our daughter from Chicago, had reached the northwest.  We searched for a spot to get a good view of majestic, mysterious Mount Ranier.

Found a local free paper, learned there was a used bookstore in the south part of town-- good views of the mountain and the industry on Puget Sound. We had a fine time among the shelves at King's Books.  I bought two bread books never seen before; talked with the young man at the counter.  He loved New York, was very involved in local theatre.  Oh, he must go to the Brooklyn Museum on his next trip--since he has friends in the now-youth-filled Williamsburg.  

Because the front window of the store was filled with feminist books, I mentioned that Judy Chicago's Dinner Party was there. "What is that?"  Always time for educational input of the feminist sort.  He immediately looked it up on the computer, "Looks fabulous!"  Yes.

What's the best thing for lunch at Doyle's Bar next door, we asked.  "Definitely, the Cubano sandwich."  He was so very right.

Driving back to Portland, we heard of the awful murders in a Wisconsin Sikh temple.  How often, people, will we allow the rationalizing to continue: that gun control is not the problem...accept that our presidential candidates slip and slid around this monumental issue?  Have you signed a petition, written your congressperson?  

Read, please, this from The Washington Post, a blog by Anya Cordell, "Sikhs bearing pizza," filled with many insights from her work against appearance-based judgments.  In 2010, she received the Spirit of Anne Frank award, is author of Race: An Open & Shut Case, a book I intend to read and share.

 

Summertime & the jammin' is easy...

Only for my spouse.  Making jam never claimed my attention.  Maybe I have a less sugary early history than his in Brighton Beach, the 20th century one so different from today's changing Brooklyn.  But, he says, Becky only made a simple compote from summer fruits. He claims it's my influence.  Curious.                                                                             This photo from last month cannot truly represent the extent of his enthusiasm for peaches, apricots, blueberries as their seasons arrive.  Our supply is only limited by a very small freezer drawer.  Always room for more, however, as he gives a jar away to friends and neighbors.

My favorite this year is peach-apricot jam.  Just a little sugar.  He went to a free how-to evening at one of Portland's vintage co-operatives, People's Co-op (sorry the link only gives first paragraphs to Oregon Historical magazine article).  Afterwards he tried the suggestion to add a little lemon juice.  Not pleased with result...back to his way.  

Cooking jam takes the place of some winter knitting of button hats.  And there is always the opportunity to give one of these away in warm as well as cold weather.  Here's a neighbor in one he selected at the April arts & crafts event at our retirement community. As we left to travel north to Vancouver, B.C. and surroundings, Ron selected more hats to take along for women and men we will meet along the way.  

Myself, the non-driver, will be knitting a blue cotton sweater for youngest grandchild, Eliana, almost four, who has reached a behavioral milestone (no details, please).  We are very lucky feminists, spouse and I.  Beneficiaries of a lost mid-20th century time, we craft, we politick to bring a saner 21st century to the lives of those we will leave behind.  

Here's something just in about a darker side of Canda and people trying to protect us and our environment.  We'll see what more we can learn in our travels north.

A bird's nest...recent traveling bread memories

Much going on over spring/summer that needs attention here.  Many choices for posting--ideas sparked by other bloggers, stuff in my everyday life. Deciding can get in the way of doing, don't you think?  Over at Folkways Notebook, the images Barbara posts often lead me to stuff in my own space as this one of a Carolina wren nest.  Time to consider the nest lingering, carefully saved in a container that once held roasted, unsalted cashews from the Harlem Fairway. 

Imagining-- did it land on a Manhattan street or did I find it in my Baltimore backyard in 1995 before we made the final move to New York.  A birder was visiting, so I opened it for the first time so we could examine it closely.  From the front and the back, a bit of dental floss?  Birder took out her book and delivered a lesson:  "It's probably a Blue gray gnatcatcher " (link is to actual bird sound).   

    

BREAD  Have neglected writing about it lately.  Was I so bowled over by my encounters in northern California that I felt inadequate to homemade efforts? The loaves at Acme Bread in the Ferry Building at the San Francisco wharf were good but the five-grain loaf  and pastries at Pearl Bakery here in Portland are more flavorful. 

Tartine on Guerro Street in the Castro District?  This is complicated. I was especially looking forward to this.  Much hullabaloo on food sites about the book the baker there had written.  Delightful ride on crowded trolley in the late afternoon, then startled by naked gay men preening in the sunlight at the last stop, finally a very long walk through friendly neighborhood to arrive for the moment bread was removed from ovens--at 5 p.m.  Different.

"Our bread is available Tuesday through Sunday after five o'clock in full or half loaves."  Folks lined up around the block. It was also possible to order earlier by phone, then get in line.

Staying in a motel, eating out, we were not up for even a half loaf. Here's the only photo we managed of quickly-purchased intact loaves--on the way back from the restroom. We ate an early dinner in the tiny Tartine cafe alongside the waiting bread-buyers.  Had delicious quiche, followed by an abundant and tasty bread pudding.  

From what we could discern, bread was good  but with so many other ingredients surrounding, it was hard to compare with our favorite so far on this trip, Wild Flour in Sebastapol--out in the country in Sonoma.

Finally, on our trip on our return to Santa Rosa, our friends said we had to have THE experience.  And we did.  We went to the  Sonoma Farmers Market where the bejkr (may be Esperanto for "baker") holds court, along with a clay, wood-fired oven for pretzels attached to his vehicle.

Cult Sonoma dscribes him as an "artisanal god."  Hyperbole but  the quirky Mike Zakowski is both an unusual character who grows his own wheat (little red hen could relate) but also makes fabulous bread and pretzels.

Our encounter was soon after he'd won a silver medal in a bread-making competition in France.  Movie is in the works.

On returning to Portland, my first effort, oft baked sourdough graham recipe from from some mix of flours , looked remarkably like a torpedo. Used French bread pan,carried from our place to our baby-sitting gig at our daughter's.  Best part was six year old Zoe joined grandma in working with the dough.

Stopped for a while.  Last week used my sourdough starter to make another starter for a Sourdough Semolina bread recipe I found online. Gave the entire process far more time for autolyze and fermenting.  Excellent result--even though I turned the oven too high at beginning.  But no illusions I'll reach the level of the bejkr in this lifetime.    

 

 

 

Black Sheep Gathering with Zoe, day one

If...if...if only all my days could be something like the past weekend lost in fiber.  In Eugene, Oregon, of all places.  Nothing against Eugene, please, in the 1990s the publication site of "The Worm Digest."  On one of our visits to Portland before relocating, we made an unforgettable overnight stop when I was their east coast correspondent.  

Zorba was the intense and gracious Editor whose futon we slept on in his living room.   Ron has never forgotten this; we were only 60-something then.  Very granola place, still felt like the1960s.  So it's no surprise that the vibes are different--even from the perspective of Portland.

In 2008, we took our oldest grandchild, Zach, with us when he was six years old.  We discovered then that a child companion alters the experience.  Shepherds, sheep ranchers are eager to encourage children to touch the animals being prepared for showing.  Now his younger sister Zoe was six; it was time for an out-of-town overnight to "see the sheep."

Thursday afternoon we took her to get a haircut. She had one side braid her mother had made when we arrived.  Clueless grandma had no idea that "braids" at a salon would turn into a glam "French braid" production.  Cute but did not last through swimming practice.  They were gone by Saturday morning when we picked her up.

By late afternoon we were in Eugene and braidless Zoe met her first sheep up-close.  Joanie Livermore of Double J in Oregon City noticed that she did not need much encouragement to help clean the sheep's coat  for showing the next day.  Busy taking pictures, I missed out on touching the animal's skin under the curly white fleece and feeling, as Ron reported, its warmth.

How do the old folks engage with the Gathering?  Ron has a special fondness for Black Sheep as the place he bought his beautiful spinning wheel from Wallace van Eaton of Yakima, Washington. Already in his eighties back then, Wallace has not been a vendor for the past three years and we learned he still lives there though retired from hand crafting wheels.

Ron looks forward to buying roving at the event for his spinning.  It's a good place to have exchanges with other fiber enthusiasts about his knitting and weaving.  He always carries along some button hats and small woven tapestries.  Zoe was a willing model.  Several people will receive a hat for the winter in the mail.  No,  never sells them.

 

Beads from my son...

Somehow it had moved.  The old cream bottle filled with beads, all from Florence when our son was in Italy.  He brought back a great selection of them and more on a necklace. I'd never take it apart, only wear. It was the 1980s; all dates escape me more and more. I spill them out to look again--it's been a long time.

We'd arranged that I'd give him $100 to buy beads for the jewelry I was making then.  People ask, on the few occasions I wear one of my Ceremonial Neckpieces, the collection of weathered shells, hardware, beads--below with a coin from Bhutan--why don't you do this now?  Why would I?  There's not enough room to keep the ones I have; not interested in selling them; each required intensity, better vision.  

On our recent visit to northern California, on our first day in San Francisco, we threw ourselves into Chinatown walking and looking. We felt at home again, each of us connecting to our early histories. 

Mine as a child in the 1930s, Manhattan's Chinatown entirely different, more crowded, fewer tourists. Eating in tiny restaurants with my father who would later try to teach himself Chines.  Ron's first high school teaching was at Seward Park on the lower east side, near Chinatown.  Many of his students--in the 1960s-- were recent immigrants from southern China. Much was familiar from the Chinatowns in Manhattan, and the newer ones in Queens, and Brooklyn.

Primary-colored cords in a shop window drew us in. This one is silk, adjustable.  Would not require a closing or stringing of beads.  If I'd simply wire on some shells as in this picture.

.

Once in a while the idea of making more another neckpiece, far less labor-intensive than what I did 20 years ago.  I still have so many beautiful beads and shells.  Maybe.