Anticipating the new year

The usual platitudes about the new year are familiar to us all: exercise more, eat less. We tailor them to our own lives: Choose the bicycle over the car, get up before the dog. Empty the compost before it overflows into a second and third bowl. Do more yoga, meditate, plant a bigger garden. Write letters.

I don’t make promises. But I love a new beginning and the hope it implies. Like the smell of new pencils at the start of a school year, the raw weather of January inspires me to look at where I have been, and begin to shape where I am going in a more deliberate and intentional way.

At our house, when we celebrate the New Year, along with good friends and celebratory toasts, we take time for reflection. What difficulties do we want to let go from last year? What hopes do we hold out for the year to come? We write these challenges and dreams on small slips of paper and burn them, releasing them to the heavens the way we blow on fuzzy dandelion seeds in spring, making wishes.

And then we turn back to the everyday, having visited the possible.

Good news

This morning I read two good-news articles in the paper. In a row.

I consider that a banner day.

Maybe it had something to do with opening up the local Gazette, instead of the nationally-focused Washington Post.
It’s not that the Post is a bad paper. It’s just bad news. More than once, I’ve put my subscription on hold because I just couldn’t take the depressing headlines any more.

Yesterday was particularly upsetting: a photo of Afghanis mourning the people jumbled in piles at their feet, people killed and injured in the most recent violence there, their brightly-colored clothes mixed with blood in a vivid, confusing pastiche of loss. There was also a story about Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson’s prison sentence, handed down for fiction-worthy greed: he infamously advised his wife to flush a $100,000 check and hide another $79,000 in cash in her bra, to avoid being caught taking nearly $1 million in bribes. I guess that could be considered good news: he got his due. But the echo of sad behavior is inescapable.

Of course, I could dig and find better headlines: “Cookies,” for example, the annual holiday recipe with the oh-so-tempting photos on the cover of the Food section. And the previous day’s piece on Jane Goodall was inspiring: at age 77 she says, “There is so much I have to do!” Since I turn 50 this month, I find this particularly inspiring.

But today’s Gazette took the prize. “Happy to see Santa” headlines a photo of a beaming little girl in Santa’s embrace. “Curfew proposal ends up on the shelf,” describing the County Council’s decision to table a teen curfew that, I feel, was an overreaction to gang violence and a curb on personal freedom. Good decision! And my favorite: “Pay raises proposed for county teachers.” Finally, a bright spot in this dismal economy.

Am I wrong to ignore bad news? I rationalize that my worrying will hardly help fix the tragedies that occur half a world away; even my activism, if I choose to rise up and take action through advocacy for any of a million good causes, would barely make a dent. Some people are built for international action, for fighting the forces of evil; I applaud their efforts. As for me, I believe I’m more suited for tending the home fires, making my own life and the lives around me feel more secure and fulfilling. I’m better at highlighting the good, rather than condemning the bad. I hope that’s not a cop-out. But I know my limits.

Maybe I’ll become one of those quirky newspaper readers who wind up in literary fiction: people who read the New York Times with a red pen, to circle any errors they find, or people who compile scrapbooks of themed articles. I could cut out all the bad news from the newspapers and leave the Swiss cheese of good news lying about the house to lift our spirits.

In fact, we already do this: our “Image of the Week” is posted on the frig, a changing tableau of inspiration. This week, the comic strip character, “Lio,” is shown with her snowman built of autumn leaves, turning the impending dark season into light-hearted fun. That’s my kind of news.

Savoring the home kitchen, wherever you are

Sitting in a high-rise, 2:30 p.m., the usual afternoon office slump
Brightened considerably this day by the best snack:
Apple pie from home.
Crust by Tyler,
Filling by Clara.
And as I enjoy this treat, I remember Ty prefers to use butter instead of shortening (a more processed food, he likes to keep things simple); and I remember that he learned, as he made this crust, that it’s best not to handle the dough too much or it will get tough (unlike bread, whose mantra is the more handling/kneading the better). I remember wondering with Clara how long to cook the apples so they wouldn’t be too crunchy or too mushy, and whether the variety we used would give us the consistency we wanted.
All in all, this pie strikes a good balance.
Even better, it brings me back to my kitchen, and my kids, in the middle of the work day.

This particular pie was a holiday pie, baked for the post-Thanksgiving gathering of friends we hosted last Friday. We don’t need a holiday to enjoy cooking together, of course, but we do tend to gather in the kitchen this time of year. There, working together, food becomes not just something tasty, but something that binds us together.

This year, the Thanksgiving Day feast at the Grandad’s house included a trifecta of pies—Katherine’s apple tart (beautifully layered, sophisticated, refined and oh, so flavorful, just bursting with tart appleness); Doug’s pecan (a southern classic from a southern boy, all gooey corn syrup and nuts); and my pumpkin (the usual pumpkin-y sweetness, this time topped with perfectly browned , cinnamon-dusted maple leaf-shaped pie crust cookies). There was also a locally raised, free range turkey from Anne and Giles presented, perfectly cooked and perfectly carved, and especially appreciated among those of us who choose vegetarian fare or “righteous” meat, raised sustainably and humanely. Thanks for that.

The post-Thanksgiving feast was full of kids in town for the holiday, all coming and going with various leftovers and fresh-made contributions, plus another bird roasted especially for this occasion (“righteous,” again) and two pies from our oven—apple and pumpkin-chocolate. Clara and Tyler also made the gravy together, leaning over their father’s recipe, stirring and tasting until it was, well, perfect.

It all comes back to me as I savor the apple pie in the office.

Thanksgiving all over again.

Huckleberry pie

There really is such a thing as huckleberry pie. I’ve just made it.
I learned about huckleberries from the country woman at the Farmer’s Market. Among all the young and optimistic organic farmers there, who I imagine are idealistic and out to save the world with local agriculture, there are a few old school folks. This woman is one of them: someone whose family has probably been farming for generations not because they want to get back to the land, but because they were already there. She is a big woman with a face that’s spent years in the sun, maybe without sunscreen, and she seems as though she’d be more comfortable telling you how to fix the tractor than debating the merits of sustainable vs organic designations. She knows a lot of stuff.
Last year, she taught me about “peppercress,” which she pronounced “pepper grass.” Peppercress looks like a pesky weed you’d pull out of your garden (and maybe she did, then slapped a price on the plastic bag full of it) -- but it tastes like a delicately spiced mustard green.
This year, Farm Woman sold huckleberries. I didn’t know they existed, really, beyond the pages of Mark Twain’s books.
These perfectly round, dark, purply-black berries are bitter unless you cook them, Farm Woman told me. People think they taste like blueberries, she said. I bought a quart (exactly enough to make a pie) and took her recipe to go with it.
Add enough sugar and lemon to these and she’s right, huckleberries become something like a blueberry, without the tartness. Depending on your piecrust, they make a respectable pie. Delicious, even.
The magic of huckleberries is that you can make something edible out of an otherwise unappealing plant growing out in your yard, I imagine sort of like a briar patch. And there’s the undeniable kick of nostalgia for bringing an old-timey sounding food out of obscurity and onto my table.
What’s for dessert? Huckleberry Pie. Don’t you so want to say that?

Garden Huckleberry pie
Modified from Homestead Farm, Charles County recipe

4 cups huckleberries
1 ¼ cups unrefined cane sugar
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon butter
Juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Pastry for 9-inch pie
Crumble topping (see below)
Stem, wash and drain berries. Place in a heavy pot, cover with cold water and bring to slow boil. Cook until soft – 5 or 10 minutes. Drain, and mash to break skins.
Add sugar, nutmeg, salt, butter, lemon juice and cornstarch. Cook about five minutes or until the mixture thickens.

Make crumble topping:
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup whole wheat flour
¼ to ½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, cut up
Stir first four ingredients together. Add butter and mash it into the dry mixtures with your fingers until it’s spread pretty evenly throughout.

Assemble:
Place the filling into the pie crust; top with the crumble topping. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes.

Late season market

Standing at the Takoma Park Farmer’s Market, lines of people teem by with their market bags and baskets overflowing with the fall harvest. Our market is the kind of place where you comment to the stranger who’s picking over the big, fat green beans across the table from you, and say that even though they’re big, they’re tender, here, try a bite. And then you wonder out loud whether you should break them up or cook them whole, and the woman, who is wearing the most extravagant Sunday hat, with feathers flying off of it at least a foot from her head, says, in a sympathetic tone, “Oh, honey, you snap ‘em.” As in, how could you not know this basic cooking rule?
And I thought snapping beans meant just snapping the ends off, when it really means snapping them into bite-size pieces.
And then you see another neighbor who you thought would be the kind of person who would eat her green beans still crispy, and she admits that she likes them cooked to death, with bacon. The old-fashioned way.
This is how I get inspired to cook.
One stall this week has fresh black beans, with instructions on how to cook them (20 minutes, boiling). Wow, we eat a lot of canned or dried black beans, that’s something I’d like to grow. There are turnips and collards and carrots, too, bok choy and kale and onions, potatoes, four kinds of squash, pears and apples.
This is how I get inspired to garden.

Car-free giving

Today is my son’s 21st birthday. So, for his birthday, I committed to a car-free week in his name. I’ve told a number of people about it, trying to spread the good word, maybe inspiring them to try similar green projects—but not everybody gets it. “What? You’re not driving so he can use the car?” No.

Here’s an explanation:

One, Tyler is traveling, so presents sent across the country and then stuffed into the small car he’s sharing with two other people is impractical. Two, Tyler is the least material-minded person I know. He does not want big piles of stuff. He loves a celebration, though, and so when asked what he’d like for his birthday, he suggested something creative—a meal, a movie, a hike up a mountain. Car free week seemed to fit.

Plus, Tyler is determinedly eco-minded. For a long time he refused to pay for car insurance because he preferred to walk, bike or take public transportation. For an entire summer, he biked from Takoma Park to a job in Dupont Circle. And this is the most important point: Ty wants to reduce carbon emissions and shift the country to a lifestyle with a smaller footprint. By watching him walk the walk I have learned, once again, from my kids. Just do the right thing. Even if it’s just for a week.

I thought a car-free week would be no big deal, but it was more challenging than I expected it would be. There were no quick runs to the co-op for the one missing ingredient for salsa (limes). I had to postpone banking and I’m late returning my library book due to pouring rain. And I had to surreptitiously swipe at my dirt-spattered legs after a rainy bike ride to metro and an early morning business meeting.

But in other ways a car-free life is rewarding. There are no moral dilemmas about whether I should drive or walk—the answer is predetermined. No parallel parking in front of the house. No checking to be sure I have quarters for the parking meters. I am getting exercise even though I didn’t make it to dance or yoga. I felt the first fall days in a way I’d have missed in the car. I met a fellow bike enthusiast while I was unlocking my bike outside the grocery store. And when I was on the phone describing to Tyler how my bike began to feel like a part of my body, as easy to maneuver as my legs and arms, he knew exactly what I meant.

Happy Birthday, Ty. And thanks.

Locally laid

This week I’m eating eggs from my neighbors’ back yard chickens. “The girls,” they call them. Six hens, who live in a simple henhouse behind the vegetable garden in this suburban neighborhood. Each lays one egg a day. The household that owns these “girls” totals three people, now that one of the children is off at college; the mama says there’s only so much quiche you can make.

So I happily accepted a dozen eggs, and my friends made me feel as though I were doing them a favor.

Quite the opposite.

These eggs were so big the egg carton wouldn’t close. They made the brightest, yellowest quiche that’s ever come out of my oven. Fried up in a pan, they had nice, firm yolks and flavor to spare. A real treat.

Besides which, I love eating locally, and unless these chickens were in my own back yard, I couldn’t get more local than this. Local eating, as most of my readers know, saves the environment from the gazillions of gallons of gas used to cart food across the country, and it preserves the freshness and therefore the nutritional value of the food. It supports the local economy.

I also believe in free-range chickens: It can’t be a good thing to eat eggs from an animal that has been crowded into a tiny cage and/or de-beaked to prevent it from frantically pecking its fellow prisoners in a desperate bid for more space. I don’t go in for the over-the-top graphic descriptions of animal cruelty peddled by PETA and others, but I have made a conscious decision to buy only from farmers who take good care of their animals.

And there are plenty. Like the farmers who sell at the Takoma Park Farmer’s Market and other local outdoor venues. And the farmers at Weathertop Farm, in southwestern Virginia. I’ve visited Weathertop, and was thoroughly charmed by their birds, who move in a wave of feathers and self-important clucking, all together as if somehow attached to one another, their little voices rising in a chorus of curiosity when you approach their fence. They are real animals, living real lives, and their eggs are really tasty.

Even when I can’t get super-local, super-fresh eggs, I look for free-range in the stores. But beware: free range doesn’t always mean what I see at Weathertop and in the backyard around the corner. Case in point: a couple of years ago I called Wild Harvest, the purveyor for Shoppers Food Warehouse that supplies so many of their organic products – including eggs from “cage free” hens.

This has got to be a huge company, if they supply Shoppers, an enormous grocery store chain in the metropolitan D.C. area; I didn’t really expect much of an answer to my query about how well they treat their animals. So I was surprised when, a few weeks after leaving a message at Wild Harvest, I got a phone call from a farmer ready to describe to me how he raised his chickens—the ones that lay the eggs I buy at Shopper’s.

I wish now that I could remember exactly what it was he said, but I do remember that it was unequivocally inadequate. Each chicken, I believe he said, was given a full square foot of space in a group cage.

That didn’t sound like much to me.

In the real world, the one where you’re rushed to grab a dozen eggs because the kids are having friends over for breakfast, the one where you’re at the grocery store buying dog food and you can’t see making another stop at the co-op, the one where you’re really trying to save money and buying not-so-free-range eggs at 50 cents cheaper a dozen won’t change the world if I do it just this once, in that world, I occasionally buy the one-foot-by-one-foot-per-chicken “free”range eggs.

But not this week. This week I have these gorgeous backyard gems.

Here’s my quiche recipe, flexible for whatever fillings you might have on hand. The night I made it, I used broccoli from the farmer’s market, but my favorite thing is spinach. Or onions. Lots of them.

Ginny’s Quiche

One pie crust – preferably homemade (see previous recipes)
Half cup or more (to taste) grated cheese – your choice, but I like swiss or gruyere
Three (really) free-range eggs, with enough milk poured on top to equal 1-1/2 cups
(use half and half or cream if you’re feeling decadent or if you need to put on some pounds)
1 to 1-1/2 cups vegetable filling: steamed broccoli, lightly sautéed spinach or other greens, or onions
cooked in butter for 20 minutes or so, until super soft and sweet
Salt and pepper to taste

Spread cheese in the bottom of the pie crust. Add vegetable filling, spreading it around evenly.
Whisk eggs and milk together. The rule is: for every egg, fill the measuring cup with milk to meet the ½ cup mark – hence, three eggs, fill it to the cup-and-a-half mark. If that seems skimpy once you get it into the pie pan, add another egg-and-milk-to-reach-1/2-cup.

Bake at 375 for 20 to 35 minutes, until the middle doesn’t jiggle anymore.

Forgiveness

I opened the frig in Takoma Park the other day and saw (again) an enormous plastic grocery bag full of grapes from Misty Mountain, the western Virginia hideaway where I picked them oh, say, three weeks ago. Oh, dear. They must be leaking all over the refrigerator shelf. They must be far past their prime. How will I get them to the compost pile without staining the floor with grape juice on my way?

I first discovered these grapes last year, when their overwhelmingly sweet smell led me to the spot where they hang from a tangled vine, entirely unkempt and temptingly plump. Thrilled to discover this bounty, I made grape juice from them—two quarts of it. I savored the pure, sweet grape-ness of it, in small portions (it was so intensely flavored), then let it sit in the back of the refrigerator in its quart jars and… go bad. Sadly, I had to throw it out.

Unforgiveable.

So this year, I decided to try again. Between other chores at Misty Mountain, I slipped away to fill another bag with these deep purple orbs, carefully stretching to grab as many as I could, knowing full well that I might not be able to do anything with them for some time. But I felt greedy. They smelled so good. And there were so many, tart little orbs ready to burst with juiciness, just hanging from this vine that seems to have sprouted out of nowhere to climb all over a (mostly) dead tree, tangled up and all willy-nilly. I picked and picked and longed to be able to reach the higher portions of the vine, but I ran out of time to rig a way to reach higher, and had to leave with just the one bulging plastic shopping bag stowed in the car, which then smelled sweet for the entire, four-and-a-half-hour drive home. No Staples bag has ever smelled so good.

But there it sat, the Staples bag full of fat and juicy grapes, in my refrigerator, untouched. I had such great intentions: to make grapejuice, and not let it go bad. Can it. Or freeze it. Something. But competing deadlines and business trips out of town and launching my daughter to New York City prevented me from processing any of them. They just sat.

You would think that the smell of fermenting fruit would start to overpower the rest of the contents of the frig, eventually flavoring the butter and wafting out when you reached for the cheese.

But these were, I have discovered, patient and forgiving grapes.

Despite last year’s moldy grape juice and this year’s three weeks of neglect, despite the abandonment of homesteading aspirations, and the prioritizing of working overtime instead of putting up pints of essence-of-grape in jars of juice to line my winter shelves for winter, these grapes came through for me.

When I reached into that Staples bag, instead of mush or shriveled up raisins, I found (mostly) firm grapes, ready to become whatever I deemed best. Or, more accurately, whatever I had time for.

So the other night I made grape juice, and I made a grape pie.

The juice is straining in the frig overnight. I promise it won’t go moldy this time.

The pie was inspired by Lucky’s, a new favorite restaurant in Roanoke; I ordered it for dessert a few weeks ago, and though I didn’t love it, I loved the idea of it. So I made my own version, which I believe is better –but credit must got to Lucky’s for inspiration (and everything else about this place is great).

I’d never have thought to make a pie from grapes. I’m not sure I’ll do it again – but maybe. On a special occasion. It is labor intensive – to say the least. But oh. So. Good.

This recipe is for a (6”) miniature pie, which will feed two hungry people or four people who want a tantalizing taste of grapes for a reasonable after-dinner treat. The flavor is so intense, a small bit really is enough. Or, you could double or triple this and fill a bigger pie tin. Depending on how much time you have.

Grape Pie

2 cups Misty Mountain grapes (or wild grapes. Or I guess you could grab some seedless ones at the store, but they won’t be as tart, tart, tart)
3/8 cup sugar (or so)
1 teaspoon or 2 of cornstarch

Wash the grapes, and pick off the stems and other funny detritus that winds up all over them. Squeeze them out of their skins, and put the skins aside. Take the pulp and put a bit of water on top of them in a pan, heat slowly until they start to soften and their seeds loosen.

Sit down. Call a friend on the phone, or settle down with someone you love. You will be picking out seeds for a long time and good company would be nice.

Once the seeds are picked, combine the now seedless pulp with the skins (which are a gorgeous royal purple/black color) and add the sugar and cornstarch. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

Pour it into a waiting pie crust and put into a 400-degree oven. Turn the oven down to 350 and bake for about 20 minutes.

Yum.

Country mouse, city mouse

It’s a Thursday morning. I reach into my backpack, past the parsley and basil I picked in the garden this morning, find my metro card, and pull it out, redolent with fresh herbs. I’m ready to commute into the city, smelling still of the garden – and, by extension, the country.

It makes me think of Clara, who spent a month in the mountains of southwestern Virginia over summer, quiet days near a pond, picking blackberries and catching salamanders in the pond with the two children she nannied. She ate eggs from hens clucking to one another on a farm just down the highway, and learned to two-step with the old timers dancing to bluegrass music at the country store.

Last week, I dropped her off in New York City, where we navigated the crowded sidewalks of Soho to discover the best health food café and art galleries and clothing boutiques and, well, the usual teeming and over-stimulating activity of the city. She’s working at the uber-hip American Apparel on the Lower East Side, making art with friends at the School of Visual Arts and interning at a ballet company, helping with administrative tasks in a loft above Broadway. (the photo was taken just outside the loft)

My own days have handed me a series of these country life/city life moments as well. One afternoon I’m standing on the dock of the pond, my clothes hanging in the branches of a white pine, with the dogs swimming among the reeds. The next I’m standing in line with a bunch of office workers to choose between lamb gyros and bahn mi from the food truck outside a 10-story highrise in D.C.

What do you get when you cross a country mouse with a city mouse? A chameleon.

Back to the future

When I was small, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House in the Big Woods. I would dream of having a home with only kerosene and candles for lighting, and a butter churn, and a little pinafore and a prairie hat to go with it.

Then, when I was in college, I spent some time in a house that had no running water; we hauled our water from the spring in the yard, carefully dipping the bucket so we didn’t disturb the resident frog, who would muddy the water if he was startled. There was an outhouse there and I loved going out in my flannel nightgown and hiking boots, then sitting with the door open on a starry winter night.

Now I live in a house with electricity and running water and internet service, the usual array of conveniences. But once in a while, when a storm comes along and knocks out the power, I think about Laura and wonder how I would fair in pioneer America. And, earthquakes and hurricanes and 10th anniversaries of terrorist attacks make the idea of going back to a simpler time more and more appealing.

Having said all that, isn’t it a lucky thing that I have partnered with a man who has been a homesteader? Who heats with wood? Who grows his own food? Who has not only used an outhouse, but dug one?

And now, he has bought a couple of vintage items that will steer the future back to the past.

First, a Maytag washtub. This is an electric washing machine, but without the spin cycle (see photo). Pour the water in from a hose, turn her on and she swishes your clothes around until you think they’ve churned enough. Then you turn a lever and the water empties out, preferably all over the garden. Next: rinse. Drain. Then, my favorite part: put the clothes through the wringer instead of a spin cycle, saving energy and delighting me with ingenuity. It’s like a pasta maker, but instead of dough it flattens clothes—which are then no longer drippy, and ready to hang on the clothesline.

Here’s the bonus: when you’re not washing clothes in it, this machine doubles as a beer cooler.

Perfect.

The other new/old item we recently acquired is a Home Comfort wood cookstove. Cast iron and white enamel, four big burners and two mini’s, a good-sized firebox, a little drawer for emptying the ashes, and a spot for a water tank to keep hot water available for dishes and cleaning and baths, I suppose. I am picturing myself baking bread and keeping the house warm at the same time. Cooking soup. Learning to stoke the oven so it’ll cook but not burn my favorite pies.

We may just re-enter that Little House in the Big Woods. Bring the past into the future.

Mad men and bachelors

I am happy to report what I hope is a shift in the paradigm of the bachelor party.

The concept still makes me cringe: the last sexual hurrah of the groom-to-be, aka strip clubs, booze, cigars, etc. Ew. Not that I’m a prude—but, well, stripping is problematic on so many levels I can’t even begin to address them, and, while I enjoy my own cocktails/beer/wine, hitting the booze at bachelor party-level quantities, makes people behave in ways that make you wonder why anyone would want to marry them, especially the day after. Cigars – well, as long as you don’t smoke them near me I suppose they’re not so very bad.

My judgments aside (yes, I’m judging!), I loved hearing about two recent bachelors celebrating with their buddies. One group ate burgers and shakes, then hit the board games: Risk, Star Wars version. The other party involved Mexican food and bowling.

I love this. I love it especially in the face of another, more disturbing trend: the popularity of “Mad Men,” the television hit.

I watched this once early in its inception and was repelled. Sexism at its zenith. A bachelor’s party would have been the least of it. On top of that, materialism on parade, infecting the entire cast and, it seem, the entire culture it represents. It is Madison Avenue (hence “mad” men), so I guess it’s understandable—but still unappealing.

Despite my distaste for this show, people keep referencing it—smart people. There's a clothing line. A Barbie and Ken, Mad Men-style. Maybe I’m missing something? So I tried again.

Cue the first episode. The show’s main character sleeps with an independent, artsy woman (is this a bad-girl depiction?) while his beautiful wife and children wait at home. Young upstart smarms it up in the office, commenting on the new “girl’s” skirt length (not enough leg showing). The culture is established, the sexy, stylish swagger has made its impact (yes, they are beautiful people to look at) and the token exceptions—senior colleague schools smarmer about insulting the secretarial pool, but only because they won’t do your work well if you cross them; said “new girl” propositions the first powerful man she can, a curious but troubling role reversal—does little to dilute the feeling of wanting to shower after viewing the entire show.

Then, in the New York Times, I see that many viewers can’t get enough of this stuff. The article lists alternative shows to tide them over while Mad Men is on hiatus.

What is this about? Nostalgia for a pre-PC universe? For a time when men could disrespect women unapologetically? For men, maybe—but why would women watch it?

Or is it about fashion? (Banana Republic has a Mad Men line—I liked the safari theme better.) Is it about the origin of feminism—a portrait of why women rose up? But it’s too hard to sit through repeated insults to get to the subtle progress and triumph women MIGHT make in this show, or the moral come-uppances some of the greedier suits might eventually be served.

Other people don’t seem to have such a strong reaction to this show. Why do I find it so repulsive, then? Maybe because I still feel threatened by this sort of disempowerment and disrespect, maybe it’ll happen again. Yes, when I was 21 I was cornered in a senator’s office by a much older, much more powerful man—with a family—who fortunately backed off when I stood up to him. I was ogled by a (male) editor for whom I worked—what to do, allow the smarmy looks and comments, and keep the article assignments, or cut them off and risk losing the client?

If the sort of social history displayed by Mad Men stays in the history books (and films), and out of our reality—and if new bachelors keep opting out of the strippers-n-booze parties, maybe my daughter won’t have to face these sorts of dilemmas.

Public Art

You never know what you’ll see on the way home – especially when you’re riding a bike. This week I noticed several new sculptures along the Metropolitan Branch Trail, each more intriguing than the next. The first one involved a pile of stones caught up in wire, topped with a brightly painted totem pole; the second I liked better, a pole with ceramic masks set in it at intervals. I slowed down and said to the young family standing among the sculptures that I’d not seen this art before, was it new? And the woman replied yes, he is the artist, and pointed to her husband standing beside her.

How often does that happen?
See art.
See the artist.
Right there on the side of the bike path.

The artist, Wilfredo Valladares, explained that his commission was to create eight abstract totem poles, representing the eight wards of the city. They are planted now like odd, mismatched flowers beside the trail, but I later discovered that they were originally installed, temporarily, at 3rd and H Streets. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities had something to do with it – and posted the pictures I have here on their facebook page.

My favorite is the woven funnel-shaped swirl of a cone, open to the sky, like an unfinished basket or the bell of a trumpet pointed up. Some of the woven strips of wood have words carved into them: “More kids parks.” “Racially undivided city.” “Peace, love and happiness.” Little prayers, shooting skyward.

Best watermelon salad

At book club the other night, my friend Lisa brought a beautiful bowl of watermelon tomato salad, arranged right in the stripey green watermelon. It had tomatoes in it.
Which sounds weird.
But it was so delicious, a ping pong match between two of my favorite summer flavors: sweet watermelon and tangy tomatoes, with some herbs to give it further bite. I had two helpings and asked her for the recipe.
Lisa’s salad came from a Mark Bittman creation, and anything I’ve tried by this big-name chef and local/good food advocate has been great. This was no exception.
So I recreated the salad last week for lunches to bring to work. In the office kitchen, the folks around questioned me: that looks good! It’s enough of an introduction for me to wax on about any dish, so I explained: it has watermelon and tomatoes, and it calls for gorgonzola but I used feta, because that’s what I had around. It calls for cilantro but I used basil, because it’s what I had around. It calls for sherry vinegar, but I only had balsamic.
In the end, I guess this is my own salad, but many thanks to Bittman and to Lisa for launch. These amounts are approximate, and make about two servings.

Watermelon salad
1 ½ cups watermelon, cut with a melon baller
1 cup cherry tomatoes – I used the multi-colored ones from the Takoma Park Farmers’ Market
½ cup feta, crumbled
4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Olive oil to taste
Balsamic vinegar to taste
Mix together, keep refrigerated. Yum!

Can she bake a cherry pie?

I can bake a cherry pie.
In fact, I am good at pies, in general.

This is especially important when I am faced with a task that I am decidedly not good at. Like repointing a brick wall. Which I attempted yesterday. What a mess.

After a couple of sweaty hours of smearing hydraulic cement into the cracks between bricks (and despairing because it inevitably dripped in unattractive chunks down the wall) I took a break, headed for the kitchen and reclaimed my dignity.

Yesterday’s pie was peach-and-blackberry: summer tucked into a crust and sprinkled with a crumb topping. Yum.

But the more legendary pie has got to be cherry – and not only because of can-she-bake-a-cherry-pie-Billy-Boy, Billy-Boy. I baked a cherry pie a couple of weeks ago and was especially happy with it because:

* I made it in a houseful of kids over a weekend when I completely set aside work and didn’t even sweat the to-do list. I pitted the cherries while watching a Miyazaki anime movie, with a bunch of kids sprawled around the living room.
* I used the “pie cherries” I bought from my favorite Farmer’s Market stand, Twin Springs.
* Making cherry pie makes me think of my mom.

Mom made the best apple pie, every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is because of her that I can roll out dough without crying in frustration over buttery holes in the crust—well, her and the pastry cloth my sister Jean introduced me to.

Mom also made cherry pie, with canned pie filling.

But when she was a young bride, she was more ambitious. She and my dad set up house in a tiny cottage down the lane from Dad’s parents, who lived on a farm in Gordonsville, Virginia. The farm was called Spring Fields. So my parent’s tiny place was called Trickle Lots.

My mother adored my dad. She adored him so much that, when she was 21 or so, she left her goody-two-shoes behind and married him despite his big bad motorcycle and despite the fact that her parents weren’t too wild about his rough edges and defiant independent streak. But the fact was, Dad was supremely responsible and, more importantly, he adored my mother right back.

Out in the country, they made a home together. Dad commuted—in a car so old the rain came up through the rusted-out floorboards—about an hour to law school at UVA, while Mom, who grew up in a Long Island rowhouse, held her breath as she passed the enormous cows out in the pasture near the cottage, hoping they didn’t attack. She was determined to be a good housewife, wherever she was planted. She pinched pennies by removing Dad’s worn-out dress shirt collars, turning them inside out and sewing them so the frayed bits were hidden. She cut their worn out bed sheets down the center, where they’d worn thinnest, and sewed them back together with the less worn-out side pieces in the middle.

She read her own mother’s feathery handwriting on small index cards, recreating family recipes for her new husband: Lamb stew. Meatloaf. Scalloped potatoes.

And she baked a cherry pie.

Cutting the shortening into the flour with two knives, criss-cross, criss-cross, until it was the size of peas. Adding cold water a little at a time, until the dough was soft but not yet sticky. Rolling out the crust on the table in the tiny kitchen. Did she have a rolling pin? Or did she use a milk bottle? Laying the crust into a pie tin. Mixing cherries with sugar and corn starch, to take up the juice. Laying the cherries into the crust, dotting them with butter, covering with a second crust, crimping the edges and cutting vents into the top to let steam escape.

The house would smell buttery and sweet when my dad returned from Charlottesville, clattering down the two-lane country road. And after dinner Mom would set the pie on the table to cut it, so he’d see the perfectly browned crust, and he’d raise his bushy, blond eyebrows and say how beautiful it looked. He loved pie.

And they’d take their first bite and discover:

She’d forgotten to pit the cherries.

Here's my cherry pie recipe, with a variation on Mom's crust (no more Crisco, and with a bit of whole grain flour):

The Crust

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening

5 tablespoons, maybe more, ice water

Mix the flour and salt together, then cut the shortening in with two knives until it is the size of peas (you can do this in the food processor, just don't overmix). Add ice water a little at a time, maybe 5 tablespoons, until it is all coming together in a ball, but not yet sticky. Roll out and lay in your pie pan. Add:

The filling

1 quart basket of sour cherries, PITTED

maybe 2 tablespoons honey, or more to taste

3 or so tablespoons flour

a good sprinkle of cinnamon

Mix together in a bowl. Top with:

The topping

1/2-3/4 cup oats

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon or less, salt

3 tablespoons butter

1/8 cup flour

mix together with your hands so the butter is distributed evenly

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or so. Serve to someone you adore.

Chasing Skirts

I feel sorry for men because they can’t wear skirts.

Then I look around on Metro and can’t believe the number of women in pants. Why would anybody choose hot when they can have

Airy and cool in summer.
Legs available to summer breeze and sun.
A swish of hemline teasing the whole concept of clothes on a hot summer day
And under the fabric, naked legs, like a little secret in the buttoned up world of the city.

Family table

My family on a recent weeknight is daughter Clara, her friend Emily and Joseph. We come to the table at 8 o’clock for pasta with butternut squash and talk about the merits of feta cheese versus goat cheese, and the “cheap cheese” we had in a German restaurant that, without the accent, turned out to be “sheep cheese.” We discuss whether we like olives in our pasta. I could tell about the olive oil we had at Nikita’s, pressed from her housemate’s family trees in Italy, but since we are a sort of family ourselves, they’ve already heard that story.

We talk about the U.S. soccer team winning the semi-finals against France, and whether we’ll get to see the finals this weekend. We brainstorm how to handle a challenging kid in the sports camp where Emily is working this summer. We puzzle out how to arrange the furniture in Clara’s craft space upstairs.

Another night the table might include a combination of other friends and family: Tyler and Aaron and Clara, or Martin, or Tom, Amber, Tommy, Giovanna, maybe Adriana or Lauren. It could be just me and Clara and Joseph. Or me and Joseph. Or me and my own two kids. We might talk about the latest tragic headline, like the massacre in Norway, and debate whether there’s any obligation to read about such things when they are so depressing. Or we’ll talk about the quality of the acting in the Harry Potter movies (adults good, kids not so much), or the proposed teen curfew in Montgomery County or single vs. double rooms in college dorms. Recently, my nephew and his wife joined me at the table, and we talked about their move to Charlottesville and law school, and whether Mormons can eat chocolate (yes), and how to make something called a stuffed burger.

I love this fluid table, always open, throw some more pasta in the pot. Or not.

I miss it when the kids are gone.

Carpe Diem

An old friend of a friend died recently—someone I’d never met. But in marking his life, with a memorial of photos and shared memories among his family and friends, I got to know him enough to be inspired.

What a life.

Here is a guy who sailed across the Atlantic in an historic schooner, with Greenpeace. It took something like 27 days. He lived on the legendary Farm in Tennessee (yes, that Farm, the intentional community founded by Stephen and Ina May Gaskin), hiked the snow-capped mountains of Chile, and spent his last years growing acres of lush fruit trees and organic vegetables in that country. He was a craftsman and an adventurer, someone who lived life to the fullest.

I told my son, Tyler, about him, told him how I was inspired to reach beyond the comfort of another predictable day to consider the opportunities for adventure and risk that might come my way – to think outside the box. Tyler hardly needs to hear this tale—at age 20, he has lived it already, having spent two months on an organic farm in Costa Rica, ridden his bike across country and backpacked through Europe. He’s just returned from 10 days on the Appalachian Trail with 15 14-year-olds.

Similarly, his sister, Clara, just 18, has plunged into the mountains of El Salvador to build latrines in a sweltering jungle for an ecotourism site. At age 16, she flew by herself to New Orleans and joined a work crew painting apartments for hurricane victims and repairing anti-erosion fences for sand dunes. This month she moved to rural western Virginia, where she knows no one her own age, to nanny for month.

But embracing life happens on a smaller scale as well.

Like one recent weekday morning, when I roll my bike out of the shed, ready to ride the five minutes to the Metro station, then board the air-conditioned train into the city for work. With all the other worker drones. It seems too predictable. So instead of doing the expected, I go back into the house, change into bike shorts, and ride the 40 minutes all the way in to the office. A small choice – but it feels as though I’m getting away with something, taking a mini-vacation on my way to work.

On my ride, I pass the Dance Place, a center for classes and performances founded by another risk-taking innovator. An adventure when visionary founder Carla Perlo first purchased the building on a then-dicey street in Brookland in the early 1980s, it’s recently expanded to include a newly erected complex of studio, gallery, performance and rehearsal space with affordable apartments for artists and their families. Brilliant.

My ride also takes me past an older woman bent over a bright orange, five-gallon bucket in her front yard, watering the tomatoes she’s planted in it. No garden space? Innovate. I pass an old man slowly crossing a busy city street with his cane, trusting that cars will stop for him—a small but important act of faith. Like the one I’d witnessed before I’d left my house that morning: one of my friendliest neighbors, recovering from too many physical challenges for me to track, has taken his own cane and ventured all the way around our block. At my house, he stops long enough for a good chat and a bit of a rest before finishing his trek.

All of it is inspiring. Carpe Diem. Whatever the Diem may be.

Happy Fourth of July, Happy Summer

Hot.
Humid.
And beautiful.

Our Fourth of July parade is like a community portrait: you get the marchers, from Shriners—serious-faced, older African American men, with their funny, tassled hats—to Peruvian dancers, exuberantly dressed like lions, or in bright skirts and pants. There are bands, including the mostly-brass Takoma Park Community Band tootling along in the back of a truck; the perennial D.C. Motors rock and roll trio (“unplugged,” but playing with amps); and the Takoma Park Folk Festival contribution of a group of 20-plus people singing along with a guitar—again, in the back of a truck. The crowd sings along with them.

We get to wave to our neighbors, who march with the Unitarian Church, the boy scouts (in their hand-made roller derby cars), the community preschool and the attachment parenting group (they pass out fliers to explain exactly what that means). The Elementary School rolls along with a flat wagon dressed up as a swimming pool, to celebrate the pool they have there – the one that was almost abandoned, but then saved by they community. Their principal marches along with them.

The natural foods co-op wheels shopping carts with live-green messages on them, and gives away re-usable grocery bags. The manager of the new Ace hardware store drives by to hearty applause; the Panquility calypso band gets everyone dancing along the sidewalks; the folks who believe 9/11 was a conspiracy hold banners with quotes about truth from our founding fathers, and the parade watchers sober up. There’s the VFW from Hell’s Bottom, a once-backwater neighborhood near my house. We watch antique cars parade by, and a big, old firetruck. The Greenbelt Dog Training Marching Drill Team walk by singing about how they love their doggies, who obediently march along with them. A group of young girls in cheerleading skirts and tank tops, part of the Finest! Parade Marching Wildcats, shimmy and step to a clean drum beat from the boys who march along with them. The Washington Revels, dressed in long dresses and flower garlands, harmonize like good medieval musicians as they march.

Just as much fun as watching this crazy sampling of Takoma Park and its quirkiest neighbors is walking the parade route to see who’s out watching. I greet neighbors I run into every day, and others who rarely turn up, except for at this event: an old friend from my dog park days, another whose son attended elementary school with my daughter, a photographer I used to work with. Friends of the kids’. One of the community center’s artists, the director of public works, the former mayor, the guy who always cleaned up the cones at the soccer games.

And after the parade is finished—“That’s all folks,” proclaims the last car, staffed by two people from the Independence Day Committee that sponsors the event—neighbors disappear into various back yards and houses for follow-up picnics and parties, annual events that have become favorite markers in the Takoma Park calendar.

Yes, summer has arrived and settled in, with all my favorite characters along for the ride.

Photo by Julie Wiatt of the Takoma Voice

That's Clara on the left! With Lauren and her sister.

All That Jazz

“Un. Deux,” he says into the mic.

Then, “Superb!” In French.

It is sound check time at the Jazz Fest in Ascona. When the mics are right, it’s “Grazie mille,” many thanks: French and Italian from an English band playing American music in Switzerland.

This two-week music festival features an international mish mash of gospel tributes, big band, blues and New Orleans Dixieland jazz, set along the Lake Maggiore waterfront of Ascona, a village-like town in the part of southern Switzerland so influenced by Italy that the official language is Italian.

We walk through winding, narrow, cobblestoned streets to arrive at the waterfront, and follow our ears to various stages of international musicians. I wonder, as we listen to The Big Band Connection playing Glenn-Miller style numbers like Begin the Beguine and Satin Doll, whether Swiss horn players are less spontaneous in their improvisation, or more, or just different. The players line up for their turn to solo, which strikes me as a little more organized than what I’ve seen in the States – or maybe that’s just big band vs. smaller ensembles?

The band is set up in the main tent, complete with café tables and a bar, plus Lindy Hop dancers. Swiss ones. Good ones.

We find that, at many of the stages, the European audiences are reserved, compared to Americans. Not much hootin’ and hollerin’ after a hot bass solo, for example (except from me, the loud American I guess). Not much dancing, either, except for here in this tent, where a floor is set aside just for this purpose. At the blues stage, no one gets up at all, but the music is so irresistible we start our own dance floor (and later, the Lindy hoppers come and take over).

One of my favorite scenes this night is a side street filled with audience, all standing, looking up a slight incline to the stage where Mrs. Betty Lastie Williams pays tribute to gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson. These deep, heart-based songs –prayer, with an earthy, driving beat—have even this reserved crowd of (almost entirely white) Europeans swaying. Not all of them. But enough so you can tell they are moved.

Magic.

Photo of Big Jay McNeely by fotopedrazzini.ch

Beachy

I grew up at the beach in Florida, and visit it each year in Maryland or Virginia. There we roll out our towels on the sand and lie in the hot sun; we read books, surf, play Frisbee. When I was a kid, there was one place where we could buy food: the Sea Burger, which served bad hamburgers, fries, soda and ice cream.

What we did not do at the beach was drink coffee. Or steins of beer. Or have espresso and pastries in the afternoon. Or meet friends for a game of cards at a café table near the water.

These are the things people do at German and Swiss beaches.

The two lakeside beaches I visited during my trip to Europe each had a perfect mix of sun and shade. Sticky sand in the bindings of our books wasn’t an issue, as we could choose to spread out our towels on grass. At Lake Maggiore, where we went to the Lido Locarno, the sand that was along the shore was fine, like ocean beach sand, and the water was clear. Sailboats and small power boats drifted out past a raft you could swim to, but the water was so cold I only stayed in for long enough to dunk my head and gasp, then get back out into the sun.

There was a playground for children, and an older couple playing cards at one of the tables set up under a bit of shelter where, in the U.S., a boardwalk might have been. We set up another table and took advantage of the free wi-fi to book a hotel in the next town on our itinerary.

Nearby, another table of two old women enjoyed cappuccino and pastry. A big-bellied, shirtless man on the other side held his beer glass up to the sunlight, considering what—its amber color? Anticipating its refreshing bite?—before taking another gulp. The locals greeted one another as they arrived as if these were the weekly routine.

There were young children everywhere, from babies to teens, but none of the sun-scorched, overtired screeching I associate with an American day at the beach. In fact, I didn’t even smell sunscreen. And although there was ice cream, there was no sugary-sweet smell of waffle cones or the scent of fried foods in the air.

Here at the lakeside beach in Kaiserslautern, a similarly bucolic scene surrounds us. We are camped out in the shade of dozens of tall birches in an enormous grassy field. There is plenty of shade—or sun—for everyone. Two pairs of people play badminton (no net). Earlier we tossed an aerobie (those middle-less Frisbees) beside some Americans playing catch with a baseball. On the water, a rowboat glides quietly; a few children splash in the shallows, and some swimmers congregate on the dock. The water is cold—68 degrees F, 20 degrees Celsius—but much warmer than Maggiore, so I swim briefly before getting out. It’s also browner, with an odd, slimy feel to it. And the “sand” looks more like dirt, plowed up in a neat rectangle beside the lake as if it’s ready to plant. We stay on the grass.

About 20 yards from the water is a group of tables at an outdoor, self-serve restaurant – as in, order fries or spaghetti or bratwurst and pick up when ready. Again, there’s a couple playing cards. Some friends drinking steins of beer. People eating French fries, with mayonnaise. There are showers and bathrooms and cabanas is you want to store beach chairs and rafts and inflatable canoes.

We have these sorts of things at some of our U.S. beaches, I suppose. Perhaps one of the differences, the open space for example, is due to these being lakes, and not ocean beaches. The sun is less scorching, the surf less frantic. There is some sort of calm over the scene that is generally missing at so many crowded American beaches in summer.

Also, nearly all the women wear bikinis, regardless of their age, and the men are in various lengths of shorts, from stretchy, just-below-the-buttocks style (just short of speedo-style) to knee-length and baggy. In the farther reaches of the closely-clipped, grassy field are a couple of nude sunbathers. No one seems particularly body conscious, neither preening about what babes and studs they are, or embarrassed that they don’t meet the expectation of a magazine-perfect body.

People are relaxed. We happily follow suit.

Adventures du la toilette

Remember the book, “Everyone Poops,” from potty training days? Well, here is the European version: Everyone Pees. In all kinds of places. My favorite new-and-different European bathroom element is the happily ubiquitous dual flush toilet, commonly found in restaurants and hotels (including ours). There is one button to press if you want to flush after #1, and another button to flush after #2, which flushes more water, for that heavier load. When is the U.S. going to catch up with Europeans and make these simple water-saving devices a part of the common lexicon?

I also liked the highway bathroom stop we made in Switzerland. This ESSO gas station was situated in the bottom of a bowl of mountains somewhere south of Altdorf, with views worthy of a highway overlook. In the bathrooms, there was a gizmo to clean the toilet seat before you used it, plenty of toilet paper, soap and those hand driers that involve inserting your hands in a sort of envelope, where hot air blows on them and you slowly extract them to see that, voila! They are dry!

We did have to pay one euro for the privilege of using this uber-clean toilette, but the view outside was free: plus, just off the parking lot was a small pathway to a fast-running river, with a straight-up wall of mountain across the water. Photo-worthy.

Less appealing was the beside-the-highway stop, I think we were still in Germany at that point. This was a scenic overlook-type pull-over, but without the scene, just a bit of woods and a big group of white-haired tourists in the parking lot holding small wine bottles and posing for a photo. There was no bathroom—just a path in the woods with telltale squares of toilet paper here and there along the edges. So much for the legendary German sense of propriety and perfection. I picked my way down the path, hoping that German poison ivy would look the same as American poison ivy, so I’d recognize it before choosing the wrong spot for my toilette, so to speak. And I took care to bury my own toilet paper under a bit of moss.

More interesting – though I’m not sure it was much better – were the toilets in Bellinzona. Typical of Italian toilets (according to my more well-traveled bathroom buddy, Nikita), these involved two foot pads with treadmarks (what, in case you start to slide into the toilet below?) on either side of a hole in the ground. Well, it’s a porcelained hole in the ground, but still, it is on the floor, and you are straddling it and squatting. Okay. So I gamely hang my bag on the hook on the back of the door and squat. But somehow, in the middle of this process, my eyeglasses fall from where I’d hooked them on my shirt, and fall right into the hole.

I now know that hand sanitizer is actually a very good thing to carry along. And that it works on eyeglasses, just fine.

Perhaps the best way to avoid a dirty bathroom is the sign we saw in a Locarno, Switzerland cafe, on the men's room only -- shown at the top of this post. How not to pee.

Bella Bellinzona

We pulled into town around 19:00, aka 7 p.m. (Europe seems to prefer what I think of as Navy time) looking for Tsui Fok Chinese restaurant. We’d read they have rooms to rent and this was confirmed by a friend who grew up in the area. But never having spoken to anyone who’d stayed there (and not knowing the friend’s taste in accommodations) we were unsure what to expect. The price was low, for Bellinzona (and for Switzerland), but more than the youth hostel (which was full). Would it be a find? Or would we find dark, narrow hallways permeated with the smell of fried egg rolls?

From the road, the building looked clean-lined, an ochre-colored stucco two-story with plenty of windows and balconies overlooking the quiet street just a block or so from the old town center. We walked into an airy foyer with a statue of a Happy Buddha grinning merrily at the entrance, and a brisk but smiling, round-faced, middle-aged Chinese woman showed us down the (well lit) hallway to our room.

Big sigh of relief.

Four beds, a sink and a wardrobe, whiter than white sheets and colorful comforters. Then, a big wow when we stepped onto the balcony: breathtaking views of the mountains and castles that embrace this little Swiss village.

This was a happy introduction to a short but very full stay in Bellinzona. That night we found the Corona, a restaurant recommended by our friends (thank you, Franca!). Aptly named—“Corona” means “crown,” and the town boasts three castles replete with kingly history—this spot also gave us a proper introduction to the distinctly Italian flavor of Ticino, this southern region of Switzerland.

Everyone here speaks Italian, including a staff of those young, good-looking waiters not only brimming with a mix of bravado and joie de vivre, but also with an infectious and inclusive spirit that makes you feel as though they’re about to let you in on all their inside jokes.

Our tables on the breezeway outside the restaurant was situated so that, just over Joseph’s shoulder, we could see the pizza man rolling, then throwing disks of dough and sliding them into the wood-burning oven built into the wall. Our pizza had eggplant and white asparagus, an unlikely combination that worked beautifully. There was also a carafe of the local merlot and insalata mista, something we’ve found at several places since but never quit as good: a selection of mixed lettuces, grated carrots, beets, corn and tomatoes. It all came together for that perfect European café experience you hope for: historic plaza, friendly restaurant, great food.

After dinner we wandered around town and walked along the lighted ramparts of the Castelgrande, carefully avoiding young couples smooching in dark corners and clusters of teenagers hanging out on the steps and in grassy courtyards. This castle and the associated city walls are so much a part of the town it seems their stones are as likely to pop up beside clothing stores and gelato shops as beside the castle gates, they are so integrated into the daily landscape.

The next day we took history for a walk through modern Bellinzona, renting audio tour phones from the tourist office and walking through the very much living streets of the villages founded around 900, steeped in centuries of long-aspt tradition, and still loyal to much of it. For example: the medieval market described by the tour echoes the present-day Saturday market in the square. And the fountain where we refilled our water bottles was the gathering place for villagers filling their vessels with the same mountain water back in Bellinzona’s earliest days.

Our audio tour took us up the white tower of the castle for sweeping views further up the mountain, where two similar castles guard the town. Then it was time to move on down the mountain to our next adventure: Locarno and Lake Maggiore.

Small Town Detour

One of the great things about this holiday is that we pretty much make our own schedule, and can get off the autobahn at will for a two-hour lunch in a cute town so charming it merits a return visit. Freiburg, Germany is a place we read about, as a center for solar energy use, and since Germany just declared it will lead the world and go nuclear-power-free, I thought it particularly appropriate to visit.

Alas, in our lunchtime stopover we saw nary a solar panel but we did see a city heavily reliant on the bicycle, and walking. Bikes were everywhere: a dozen parked in an alley, big clusters of them (think hundreds) in plazas and people pedaling everywhere. I especially like the various sorts of carrying baskets, mostly rigid and wire-based, others like milk crates, some soft-sided panniers. Two young women pedal by companionably riding side by side, one in hot pink tights, a short brown skirt and boots. A young mama is walking her bike, with one small daughter in the back of the bike child seat, and the other perched on the seat, though I don’t think she could reach the pedals.

I was able to buy a pair of reading glasses in Freiburg (triumph! Purchasing in German! With help from my mini-German dictionary!). We saw remarkable paving stones – tiny, one-inch ovals all fit together like mosaic, and bigger brick-size stones laid in intricate circular patterns along a plaza – plus a small work crew, including a father and young son, tap-tap-tapping each small stone into place, repairing a disrupted patch of street.

We also found a great vegetarian restaurant, with fresh salad, lentil/apricot/pepper soup and to finish, schokofondant (a tiny cake-like-pudding-like, soft-centered chocolate cake in a glass, Betsy, think pudd-ake) and espresso. Best. Lunch. Stop. Ever.

The bikes in the photo are actually in Heidelberg, Germany -- but we easily saw this many in Freiburg.

Castles on the Rhein

The second full day of our Germany/Switzerland holiday, we took a boat tour on the Rhein River. This meant boarding a tour bus with 31 other people and trundling up the mountains to a spot where we boarded a big vessel that took us all—kids, old folks, middle aged folks, everybody—up the River together.

I have never been a tour bus traveler, but it was lovely to just sit back and let our German driver, George, navigate the highway along the Rhein and listen to him tell our American guide about fishing the river, which has recently improved enough to support salmon. (Really? I think of salmon in Alaska and Washington, big roaring rivers, not wide, docile ones like this section of the Rhein. I’ll have to look it up).

Anyway, before we boarded our river boat, a.k.a. floating restaurant with phenomenal river views, we toured Castle Rheinstein. Our hostess: the owner of the castle. No, she did not wear a princess gown—she was a middle aged, pleasant, sharply dressed German woman who spoke accented English and told us the history of the castle, which she and her family acquired in 1975.

How does one acquire a castle? It must have been one big estate sale. Turns out the former opera singer, Hermann Hecher, bought the place from the Duchess of Mecklenburg, and our lovely hostess married into the Hecher family, who has worked hard to restore the property. It is now open for tours, events and romantic outings.

The place looks as though it was carved out of the rock on which it perches over the river. It has a couple of lovely courtyard gardens, a knight’s hall with a suit of armor, and a princess floor with a music room and a bedroom including a short bed we were told accommodated a lady who slept sitting up, to preserve her hair do (Clara, aren’t you glad your hair is so short you actually CAN’T do a ‘do like that?!?!). Above her quarters are the prince’s rooms. No kings and queens here, apparently –the prince and princess had a son though, another prince. Both prince papa and princess mama had a tiny room in the tower (one stacked above the other) for writing. Cozy. Though, I imagine, cold. I wonder if they had some sort of portable fireplace/radiator arrangement? Coals in a bucket, maybe? Something more to research.

My favorite part of this castle is what our guide called the “time out bucket.” This looks like a gigantic planter basket made of iron in a woven pattern, and hung from an outer tower over the steep embankment – i.e. over nothing but air. If someone misbehaved, they were put in the basket, and left there indefinitely. Worse than Tiger Mom, I would say.

This castle, built in 900 (imagine, a year so long ago it has only three digits!) is just one of many along the Rhein. One around every bend, it seems—we saw them once we got on the boat cruise, unbelievably—and I meant that literally. It was hard to believe the scenery was real: actual castles, neat lines of brightly colored houses with window boxes overflowing with flowers, and vineyards everywhere, striping the steep hillsides like corduroy and sprouting out of backyards so frequently that I realized the true meaning "house wine"--wine from grapes one grows outside one's house. It all seemed as if it were all right out of a picture book.

We imagined what it would have been like to live here back in the day—would castle kids have play dates with the kids from the castle across the hill? How did they cross the river? Did they paddle or row? Was there a ferry? Did they just hang out in the castle smelling roses and growing grapes and making wine (there were even vines dripping from an arbor over our heads, while our hostess described the castle’s history—the tiny, bead-sized grapes on them would be ripe in September, she said).

I think if I returned in September, I might bike along the river, rather than take the bus. But for a whirlwind tour, this was a great option.

When in Rome

Okay, I’ll admit it.
I am feeling superior, with my bag of nuts and seeds, surrounded on this flight (to Dallas) by passengers eating Auntie Anne’s soft pretzels and the Dunkin’ Donuts #1 special: coffee and two donuts (though I did think, as I stood in line a bottle of water, that if I bought a donut, it would be one of those hot pink ones with sprinkles. Might as well go all out if you’re doing donuts).

Beyond the issue of healthy vs. unhealthy food, bringing my own snacks also has something to do with controlling my own micro-environment, even traveling, when the environment, by definition, is changing all around me.

Why do we travel?

To experience different environments. To let go of our known world and dive into something new.
But I wonder if part of travel is about the triumph of maintaining our own comfort zones (however shrunken they become) in the midst of a world of unfamiliar newness. Of encountering a never-considered-before food, but having the Pepto to counter its affects. It reminds me of a guy I met in the Hiking and Outing Club at Appalachian State University – Dick—who was a gear geek. He went winter camping in the snowy Blue Ridge mountains and had so much gear insulating him from the cold weather, I thought of him out there in his own personal bubble of comfort, warmth, food, soft sleeping surface. At the time I thought this distancing from the actual environment really defeated the purpose of the hike.

Despite my bag of nuts and seeds, I will remember Dick, and strive to leave the bubble behind. The flight to Dallas connects to another to Frankfurt, then I’ll be traveling in Germany and Switzerland, immersing myself in the countries and cultures I am visiting.

By the time I get there, I will give it up for weiner schnitzel and cheese. Skipping the Dunkin’ Donuts at the airport is a forgivable omission.

Mulberry Street

You would think that a commute into the city would be a mundane sort of thing. Metro riders buried in their newspapers, or nodding off on their way home. Suits swinging briefcases, heels clicking along sidewalks to get to their various climate-controlled offices, and back again.

But there is much more to see if, as the sage Dr. Seuss advises, if you keep your eyelids up.

One day, it is a woman with hair so long she lays it across her lap on the train, brush-brush-brushing it as if it were not actually a part of her but as if it were a particularly beloved pet. Another day it is a procession of a dozen white-robed priests walking down 2nd Street, singing so quietly I am immediately uplifted, even though I have no idea what sect they follow.

These snapshots are everywhere: a pair of young men walking in lockstep down the sidewalk, matched so perfectly it is as if some illustrator has drawn them there: dark pants, dark shoes, pin striped shirts, computer bags slung just so, the only difference is the length of their shirt sleeves. A middle-aged African American woman wearing her hair in a blond Mohawk. An animated business man chatting on his cell phone while pedaling his bike, fast, down F Street. A young mother nursing her newborn at a sidewalk café. A fast-walking young man placing an icy cold soda in the outstretched hand of the homeless guy at North Capitol and First as he passes, no words exchanged, just a small gift on a hot day. A drunk careening into traffic, saved by less-drunk friends unsteadily pulling him back to the sidewalk.

“And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” follows Seuss’s young boy as he imagines his way home from school past elephants and Eskimos, a magician, a brass band. ”Say! That makes a story that no one can beat,” he said, “When I say that I saw it on Mulberry Street.”

I wonder what he would see here?

Finding inspiration: Busboys and Poets

On the menu at Busboys and Poets, interwoven between the lists of tea (chamomile or chai?) and sides (collard greens or sweet potato fries?), are philosophical bits from writers and philosophers and poets, including Camus— “Peace is the only battle worth waging”—and Benito Juarez—“El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.” On the walls, sketches of the Apollo Theatre and Lenox Avenue recall the Harlem Renaissance, and quotes inspire—“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly”—and provoke—“Art is dangerous.”

The place is full of conversation, even during a weekday lunch, and people are encouraged to sit at community tables to meet and discuss art and politics. But it is not only this atmosphere of open exchange and progressive thinking that draws me here: it is the menu – which, actually, is an extension of its philosophy. It includes free-range, locally-raised, grass-fed beef from Grayson Farm (the burger is great), and local greens from a place called Community Offshoots Farm Network (how can a place with a name like that be anything but good), and there are loads of vegan selections and gluten free beer and sustainable seafood and fair trade, organic coffees and teas. Even the cleaning products here are eco-friendly, and the restaurant uses 100 percent renewable wind energy, recycles its cooking oil for biofuel, and turns all the profits at the attached Busboys book store back to Teaching for Change, which runs that portion of the enterprise. On the entertainment side, there are open mic sessions, films, book signings and poetry readings.

Sitting in the midst of all this intellectual activity reminds me of my younger self, passionate about justice and art and ideas. That sort of open, full-throttle and, yes, youthful embrace of the world tends to fade in the workaday life of the middle aged. A trip to Busboys and Poets is just the thing to goose me back into awareness.

One of the reasons it works, I believe, is that it is not force-fed to me, like a prophet on the street corner. All of these ideas and poems and artworks are folded into the fabric of an everyday activity: eating.

My favorite example: this poem, printed in the menu between a notice about Free WiFi and the list of other Busboys and Poets locations: It is from the restaurant’s namesake, Langston Hughes, who placed a handful of poems on the table of poet Nicholas Vachel Lindsay one night at the Wardman Park Hotel where he bused tables in the early 1920s and thus earned the moniker, “a Negro busboy poet.” It hits me like a prayer:

Let America be America again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain,
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(American never was America to me)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed –
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me) …

Bike to Work

I feel like a hero. Dressed in bike shorts and helmet, rolling right through the carpeted Capitol Hilton past all the suits and heels, I am the girl walking down the city street, turning heads.

This is Bike to Work Day, last Friday. I almost didn’t ride, as I had to attend a conference here, two miles further from home than my usual office—a conference with all the usual expectations (like, wear something other than shorts and a t-shirt, and arrive relatively un-sweaty). Plus, thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon. But Tyler, who commuted to Dupont Circle all last summer, pointed out I could always metro home if it poured, the morning was clear and sunny, and really, who can resist a good bike ride?

So I decided to make a statement and join thousands of others who participated in the annual celebration of the bicycle commute.

Two years ago on Bike to Work Day, I rode to NIH in Bethesda, researching an article about the thriving bicycle commuter club there (Bethesda Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2009). That trip was an eye-opener. After years of commuting just up the stairs to my office, I was surprised at the intensity of a ride I thought would be a pleasant pedal through the park. Instead, drivers on the two-lane road squeezed me onto a tiny shoulder full of gravel and uneven pavement; I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I heard a vehicle approaching from behind, and was relieved to finally roll onto the NIH campus.

Oddly enough, now that I commute to the more urban Union Station neighborhood, I enjoy the ride more. It’s not canopied in trees, like the Beach Drive/Rock Creek Park route to Bethesda; it’s industrial, along beat up back roads with auto repair shops and abandoned buildings, then beside the railroad track and a gravel processing plant. But I have found unexpected beauty along the way: the funneled shape of enormous gravel bins, neatly numbered one through six; the brick arches filled in with more brick, lined up along the outside wall of on an empty building; the pyramid-like hill of black, tar-smelling substance piled up beside the metro tracks. There are the vibrant colors of street murals meant to dress up a transitional neighborhood, the irreverent stencils and scrawled tags graffiti’ed on warehouse walls, the curious establishments I pass (compressor rentals, charter schools, community gardens) and the occasional surprise, like the ripe mulberries, first of the season, fallen onto the sidewalk along the highway.

On Bike to Work Day, it was no different. I pulled my old red Nishiki out of the shed and carried it down the 27 steps from my yard to the street, pedaled up and down the hilly neighborhood roads of Takoma Park, up the sidewalk along New Hampshire Avenue, on to Ft. Totten Drive and then the Metropolitan Branch Trail. At 2nd and M Streets Northeast, I pulled off the trail to hit the Bike Day pit stop set up in the NOMA (North Of Massachusetts Ave.) neighborhood. Since I’d registered for the event, I got to pick up a purple Bike to Work Day t-shirt and a re-usable shopping bag with various promotional brochures plus a water bottle, a bike commuter map, and a tire patch kit. There were also muffins and bananas and friendly faces asking about my ride in to work.

Then I finished the ride, winding my way through downtown D.C. (on hyper-alert for unexpectedly opening car-doors, swerving cabs and turning buses). At the Hilton, the door man tells me the most secure place for my bike is inside, so I follow him through the lobby to the luggage check. The attendant gives me a tag, as if the bike were a suitcase I could pick up later; then I find the nearest bathroom to change into work clothes.

After dipping my toe into bike commuting about a month ago, riding only occasionally, I can now say I am fully immersed and committed to making the bike trail my primary commuter route. I want to tell everyone how, as one of the NIH bikers said, it feels as though I get to play before work. I want to tell them how liberating it is to leave the office building at the end of the day and feel the wind on my face as I pedal home. I want to describe how virtuous I feel for having reduced my carbon footprint, and how pleased I am to save the $6 round trip metro fare to work. And I want to urge everyone to try this for themselves: imagine what a difference it would make if just one in five of the drivers during morning rush hour were on two wheels instead of four.

Of course, I won’t lecture folks into commuting by bike. But I do hope that, striding through the Hilton lobby, I made people think: some people ride their bikes, even on conference days. Maybe I could do that, too.

Sweet on honey

Everywhere I turn this week, there have been sweets. Good sweets.

Not the tired pastries languishing on trays beside vats of big-hotel coffee, or the generic boxed cookies put out at low-rent art openings. These sorts of token treats are easy to pass up. Which is good, since I gave up refined sugar and cane sugar (white sugar in disguise, IMHO) for May.

Harder to resist are the gooey, delicious sweets I conjure up when I’m craving the best sorts of desserts. And, now that I’ve given up sugar, it’s those mouth-watering temptations that keep appearing before me.

Like the cake that called to me from the sideboard at Cayo’s house last week. Cayo is one of the best cooks I know. She once ran a restaurant in Adams Morgan, but more importantly, she cooks and bakes with intention. Though we’ve never discussed this, I am sure that, as she cooks, she thinks of the people she will be feeding, and because of that mindfulness the dishes she puts together become lovely gifts to share with family and friends.

It’s the same thing as putting something of yourself into whatever it is you’re doing. When Tyler was maybe four years old, and we were making cookies or some such kitchen project together, we oooohed and aaahed about how delicious they were, and talked about how they had the “special Tyler touch.”Okay, how corny is that? But it sounds great to a four-year-old, who thinks that he has some sort of magic to create something so good. And then, he does.

Just like Cayo.

Which is why the chocolate cake sitting on her sideboard was so hard to resist. Not only was it beautiful to look at, a deep, dark chocolate stack of at least two layers (I couldn’t look too closely), studded with chocolate kisses and oozing with chocolate frosting. It was also a birthday cake for her daughter (18!!), which makes it that much more alluring.

But I said no, thank you. I’m off sugar for just a month. I figure, I’ve got the rest of my life for chocolate cake, and if I can’t resist for one month, any discipline I thought I had is completely shot.

The other major temptation this week appeared on a plate at book club, from our generous hostess, Ellen. Cupcakes. These were not grocery store dreck, obligatory snacks served because it was her turn to host. They were from Curbside Cupcakes, one of the portable food trucks that travel around D.C., park, and create an exodus of hungry people escaping the city’s office buildings for something good to eat, served out of (surprise!) a truck. Like the Good Humor Ice Cream truck, but for grownups, Curbside attracts long lines of people who order up classic vanilla and chocolate cupcakes or more unusual combinations like vanilla with raspberry icing, carrot cake and peanut butter cup. They are decadent; the mocha at Ellen’s looked especially good.

Again, I resisted.

But I do have a confession. All this resistance is made easier due to the pretty phenomenal substitutes I’ve found for the usual white sugar treats. Starting with Mother’s Day, when Clara inspired me with miniature, sugar-free muffins, I poked around ‘til I found a honey-sweetened recipe for berry muffins that was quite good. There are plenty of other, easier sugarless-but-sweet options, too: fruit with yogurt and honey or agave, maple syrup on pancakes with berries or bananas, fruit-only jam on toast. When you allow for all those other sweeteners, life, is still pretty sweet.

Another favorite: a big schmear of Really Raw Honey on bread and butter. The Baltimore-produced honey, a thick, opaque spread, is so good that, the first time I bought it, the cashier at the food co-op warned me that it’s so addictive she eats it by the spoonful. I feel good about this indulgence, though, because it has bee pollen in it: energizing and healthy.

More unusual is the trail mix I’ve come up with: sweet raisins with whatever nuts are around (walnuts or pecans, usually) and bitter cacao nibs, the little flakes of ground up cacao shells. Yum. And, it’ll give you a kick when the afternoon slump is setting in.

But the best sugar-free sweet treat thus far is so good it really shouldn’t be allowed and does make me question whether eating all these yummy snacks is legit. The secret to this one? Powdered cocoa. Which has no sugar if you buy it in the can for baking. I wound up with Ghirardelli brand, since the day I bought it I happened to be in Whole Foods, and they had no (much cheaper) Hershey’s.

So here’s the recipe, if you want to call it that: Put raisins & walnuts into a favorite bowl, sprinkle a teaspoon or two of cocoa on top, drizzle on some honey, and add a couple teaspoons of cream. Stir it up for a while – at first the cocoa will be powdery but eventually it all incorporates into something that is awfully close to a candy bar you can eat with a spoon.

Suddenly a month with no refined sugar seems delicious.