Lumberjacks' Glory

The woods breathed life and wealth into the North Country for many prosperous years until logging waned and the jobs moved away. Today, a lone wooden lumberjack stands guard at the Municipal Park of Tupper Lake, a small town in the Adirondacks Park. On the first weekend of every July, however, the Woodsmen’s Days festival transforms the park from a sleepy deserted stretch of patchy grass into a bustling kaleidoscope of color and motion.

On Friday wranglers, farmers, chainsaw wood carvers, food purveyors and craft sellers set up stands on the grounds chasing the indignant birds and creating nightmarish traffic on the two lane road that is the main thoroughfare for the town’s business. All day Saturday and Sunday year-round locals in floral tank tops and preppy second-homers in polo shirts descend in downtown Tupper with their dusty pick-ups and sporty t-tops to feast on the competitions under the hot summer sun.

Log pulling and pole climbing harks back to the golden days of logging that ushered the long-gone prosperity and fuelled the local economy with jobs justifying general and specialty stores, hotels, restaurants and public schools. At the festival nowadays, young men and boys scale man-made wooden poles; with axe and wood-peg they secure a foothold with the peg, pull the peg below and gash the next higher one rising as fast and as high as they can until the winner reaches the top. The sturdy farm horses in pairs pull tons of cement blocks, in 500 pound increments, and charge forward under their handlers’ coaxing until the strongest team out pulls the competition. The air is thick with their perspiring breath and the clouds of dust they stir as they drag their load. At the gazebo, the children stick their giggly faces in wedges of watermelon and race to the thick white rind under the anxious scrutiny of their camera toting parents.

The park smells of fried bread and grilled sausages, ketchup smeared plates and Styrofoam cups accumulating on the grass as the day progresses. The craft stands attract idling gawkers who finger old snowshoes and homemade chotchkes while the amateur merchants sip their lukewarm beer. The most theatrical participants of the festival are the chain saw wood carvers. Their pre-sculpted wares are exhibited for the art competition; menacing bears on hind legs, majestic eagles with wings stretched wide, elaborately carved benches are on display and for sale. A competitive chain saw carving contest begins at noon; at the whistle, massive power saws roar on as the artists straddle their logs and start cutting, trimming, shaving their bear or eagle or bench until the whistle announces “time up”. The creations and judged and auctioned off right away.

I felt sweet nostalgia strolling through dust and noise, sipping beer and wiping sweat imagining older times when the competitions were a natural outgrowth of the daily toil rather than a production to attract sorely needed income for the struggling town.

Adventures in Mixology

Our first recollections of cocktails were the dark rum highballs at our friend’s parents’ house out on Long Island. Their house originated in the era of crinolines and parasols for the summer enjoyment of a well-to-do New York family and evoked an Edith Wharton sensibility. Older now, the couple spent leisurely days in the elegant yet gradually shabby house with colorful flowery wallpaper on the parlor walls. Upstairs, bedrooms where earlier guests would have taken their afternoon rest before dressing for dinner still held the faint smell of lavender. Stepping across the wrap-around covered porch with comfortable wicker chairs covered with flowery cinch cushions, a gently rolling green lawn led to the water several yards below.

We spent several memorable weekends there, grateful guests to a gracious host. In the lulling heat of the summer afternoons, our friend would fill a large canvas bag with ice cubes, toss it on the stone kitchen floor and smash them to ice chips with a heavy wooden mallet. On the marble counter tops, he would then line up tall glasses, fill them with ice and pour in dark Jamaican rum, lemon and sugar to make cool refreshing rum punches for everyone in the house. Somehow, this scene has stayed with us for decades as a quintessential element of WASP gentility.

Cocktails were not a part of our culinary vocabulary when we began our independent lives in the 1970s. We drank beer when travelling abroad because it was usually cleaner than tap water and always cheaper than wine, coke or bottled water. At home, we began our cultural sophistication by slowly exploring French and Italian wines from our neighborhood liquor store. A very palatable St Emillion could be had for under $5 at that time. Whether it was properly good or just good enough for our palates, we will never know although on one occasion we tested our purchase by bringing a bottle to our more sophisticated friends and remember our host pronouncing it “perky”. Maybe he was being kind but we chose to think him a snob.

Cocktails are an American invention first prepared in the 1860s but popularized during the Prohibition Era as a way to enhance the taste of the subpar liquor procured through illegal distilling during those years. They were relatively sweet and frequently included bitters. During Prohibition, they were served in speakeasies and enjoyed by men and women both. They were also popularized in Europe where well-off Americans would go to enjoy drinking in public. After Prohibition came the war, followed by the chaste 1950s, then the anti-establishment 1960s and early 1970s and the cocktail receded in popularity and became a signature of nostalgic Roaring Twenties movies, a decadent but passé glamour. In the meantime, America woke to the pleasure of wine and the glass of Chablis replaced the martini for many years. It is not clear what prompted the gradual return to the cocktail but it started making a come back during the 1990s and recovered its pre-eminence at the bar by 2000.

Our family first became conversant with the cocktail lexicon after we moved to Houston, when our son took a mixology course and needed help with his licensing exam. I recall pimping him on the shaker, the muddler, the right glasses and the ingredients of mixed drinks. He also prepared several cocktails for us by way of practice; he went on to have a limited career in bartending at private parties until the rigors of school diminished his enthusiasm. The experience, however, left us with a lingering interest in mixed drinks.

Our first undertaking in cocktails was the Margarita which is rather a national drink for Texas. At some point we decided to try our hand in this summer cooler but wanted to make it from its original ingredients rather than pour the pre-made mixes which tended to be too sweet and not sufficiently “organic”. The proper recipe calls for tequila, triple sec, freshly squeezed lime juice (3:1:1) and a dash of simple syrup. There was a satisfying simplicity in stacking all the ingredients and putting the drink together freshly compiled for each imbiber in well chilled glasses to be enjoyed out by the poolside with good conversation and company. There was something vaguely exotic about Tequila and the ritual was pleasantly reminiscent of those Long Island afternoons with the canvas bag and the mallet and the dark Rum. The Margarita was also quite tart and refreshing during the long, hot Houston months. Over time we tried different tequilas, each with slightly different character. One variation proved the most interesting: substituting Mescal for Tequila creates a muskier, more complex flavor with a smoky taste and a smoother finish. There is one more twist here:  older instructions for a Margarita suggest that using “gomme syrup” from gum Arabic, a resin of the Acacia tree makes for a silkier drink texture. It remains our next frontier.

Our next milestone was the Martini, this original and everlasting leader among cocktails. Myrna Loy in the Thin Man and later James Bond are its iconic ambassadors and continue to evoke an atmosphere of leisure and glamour. The three martini lunch has also returned with MadMen the wildly popular TV series. Originally, the recipes called for sweet vermouth and gin in a 3:1 ratio (nowadays, this is called an inverse Martini). Gradually, the rules called for drier and drier versions with the Vermouth almost non-existent: shaken, not stirred, vodka instead of gin. We have tried them all and find that we prefer gin and have made the drink less dry over the years with white vermouth (4:1).

In fashionable circles, bar tenders are increasingly adding ever more peculiar and sweet ingredients like chocolate and peaches which seems to run against all tradition, a bit like eating a cinnamon-raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Using the bounties of our garden, we have created herb infusions that we find the most interesting. We have tried basil and rosemary but our favorite has become tarragon: drop several sprigs in a small jar, add the gin and let the flavors blend in the refrigerator until it is time to enjoy a cocktail. It is fragrant and pleasing with a smooth grassy taste. For a spicier after-burn, best enjoyed in colder weather we have also infused small red hot peppers.

Time moves on and tastes evolve. Despite all the innovations and explorations into mixed drinks, however, the fundamental remains a modest but tasteful glass of wine with dinner across the table from one another with a freshly prepared meal and good conversation.    

Dandelions

My grandmother, Tassoula, would delight her grown sons and embarrass to death her daughters in law with her wrinkled black apron full of freshly plucked dandelions every time their families visited the family farm from the city.

Tassoula was a diminutive tower of a woman who without schooling and without a husband (he died when he was 38 year old) put her boys through the university by sheer will and frugality sacrificing one boy to tend the family business and sending the rest to the city nursing her wish to see them prosper in white collar professions. A doctor (he died young), an engineer, a chemist, a diplomat, a forester (my dad). They stayed in the city and married fully middle class urbanized women of self-importance who for the most part looked down on their husbands and dreaded the required visits to the ancestral homestead and Tassoula’s rustic table. Nevertheless, they brought the dandelions home and boiled them to make a rural side dish not available in the city markets at the time; strain, salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon. The dark green water smelled like a dark, earthy green tea served hot with salt and drunk in the kitchen as soon as it was cool enough to sip.

Forward a few decades, Tassoula had died of pneumonia, the forester of a stroke and the daughter in law, my mother, had a daughter in law of her own. She, more urban and sophisticated, a professional with gourmet, international taste living in England, shuttered when her mother in law went to visit and set out to gather dandelions at the town green. On her knees with a big paper sack to the mirth of Briton passers-by she tugged wild dandelions to fill the sack and bring them to the kitchen and boil for dinner. “You foreigners” still eating weeds, they would mutter.

How time can change the rules and resurrect forgotten delicacies… Forward a few more decades; the first world rediscovers the virtue of organic produce and traditional foods. Only now, when dandelions become chic again, the town green is mowed and the road sides are paved. Dandelions have to be grown meticulously in small artisanal farms and are sold at high-end groceries for $5 a tiny, dainty bunch enough for an elegant side dish. They are chopped in salads or gently steamed in stainless steal heavy pots. Their broth is light green and tastes at best like diluted Japanese green tea good only for the sink.

Kilimanjaro 1980

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro was literally the high point of a three month camping journey in East Africa that we took over three decades ago and which fulfilled our wanderlust for the ensuing decade when we settled into real jobs and started our family. Our camping van, a British military surplus Bedford 4-wheel drive truck offloaded our group and our gear on the grounds of the splendid Kibo lodge an idyllic spot with lush gardens, elevation 5000 feet, where we set up base camp before undertaking the 5 day climb up the mountain.

Our supplies were packed in heavy canvas bags by the porters who were to carry them up the mountain on their heads; one porter per traveler. We set out in the early afternoon on a smooth path along a cool lush beautiful forest. The landscape gradually turned to rain forest with thick brush and tall wet trees, our feet squishing on slushy mud. The ground was covered with button ferns, little purple and white flowers and wild begonias all the way up to the conifer region. Suddenly the forest cleared; pines, fir trees and brushes took over; grey moss was hanging from every branch. The juxtaposition of many different greens is striking. Here in the middle of dark Africa, the afternoon was sunless; the air was cold and damp as we walked in the clouds in a thick fog unable to see anything beyond 100 feet.

We reached the first hut a few short hours later, elevation 9000 feet, before our bags and waited shivering for the porters, our sweaters and hot tea. The huts were built in the 1900s when Germany had control of the area. There are three huts in all: the Mandara hut at 9000 feet, the Hrombo hut at 12000 feet and the Kibo hut (same name as the lodge) at 15000 feet. They are all wooden A- frame chalets with tables, benches and a stove on the ground floor and sleeping bunks on the first floor. At each location, there is a separate poorly ventilated hut with a wood cooking stove where the porters spend most of their time preparing complete, balanced and elaborate meals three times a day using local ingredients including an abundance of avocados

A remarkable change happened in the evening as soon as it got dark. The clouds, thick pea soup at dusk, gave way to a moonless clear sky full of stars. The absolute silence was interrupted by the occasional chirp from the forest. In the morning the sky was again clear blue until about 7:30 when the pea soup returned and never quite left us.

On the second day, we walked through low conifer bushes and thick brush, an unchanging landscape for six hours. The air was now damp and cold and we quickly put on parkas, hats and gloves. The path would still qualify as an easy uphill walk rather than a climb but the air became thinner by the hour and we huffed and puffed and stopped to catch our breath every few minutes. Except for rare moments when the sun broke through we walked in the clouds all day. The absolutely quiet landscape was hazy and eerie with scattered yellow wildflowers, a few birds and chipmunks stirring about. It was a beautiful serene feeling for about one hour, followed by the drudgery of putting one foot in front of the other slowly to conserve energy with eyes on the path ahead. Joe and I were bearing the altitude without symptoms except for air hunger; it took much deeper heavier breathing to get enough air in. I remember thinking “How beautiful can the top be to make another two days worse than this worth while? “ On the way up we kept meeting people returning from the top. They uniformly described vivid horrors of nausea, vertigo, vomiting, cold and misery but they all insisted “You should go it was worth it”.

The third morning dawned crisp and cold with a clear sky; I could see the top of the mountain from the hut but had serious doubts about my resolve. I was not finding the challenge enjoyable, a nasty cold and stuffy nose made the shortness of breath even worse. Unwilling to quit and to leave Joe alone, I was less willing to keep going; I decided to return to base camp and let the others scale the top without me. I walked down the mountain alone for 5 hours of complete solitude, in the quiet woods, the landscape reversing from fir trees to lush tropical forest as I got lower. It was remarkable to stand at the equator and experience the change of landscape from tropical to almost arctic changing the altitude rather than the latitude.In my memory, this day was exceptionally pleasurable though surreal. I was completely alone with no human reminders except for toilet paper and cigarette butts strewn on the trail. The sun would come out once in a while then the thick clouds would move back in. I reached the gate of the national park feeling well except for soreness in my knees and lower back. Then I made the mistake of sitting down to rest; hard as I tried, I could barely get up after a few minutes. By the time I reached the lodge an hour later, my hips were throbbing and my knees would not bend. I did not so much care about cleaning my muddy hands and face as I could not face lowering my body to the ground and to the sleeping bag. I made the decision to splurge, booked a room in the hotel and tucked into a real bed after a hot shower.

The next morning was again cold and cloudy day, but a bright warm sun came out in the afternoon and I nursed my cold on the beautiful green grass waiting for Joe’s return. He arrived on the following day dirty and tired but triumphant holding his Mt Kilimanjaro certificate. I experienced the last leg of the climb vicariously through his telling; this is what he wrote in our diary:

"Why climb Kilimanjaro? One climbs to get to the top; the view is extra. It involves striving for a goal, which we are familiar with in an intellectual sense but rarely meet in a physical sense. When the guides came in at midnight I took a practice walk and managed the hundred yards without difficulty and decided to go ahead. The guides carried lanterns and flashlights. The crest of Kili was looming ahead in the star lit sky. The final climb from 15000 feet to 19000 feet is gravel and scree; steady plodding and gasping for air. Each stop allows my pulse to slow to 120 but it quickly accelerates as I start moving again. We leave the gravel and begin to climb over rocks. The silhouette of Kili is close as the sky begins to lighten. We move as quickly as we can and reach Gilman’s point just as the eastern horizon turns orange and the sun rises; it is a good sunrise as we look down upon the clouds.

Going down was a disaster; my shoes had no traction, no ankle support, I tumbled down the scree, tore my pants and scraped my left knee. Further down where the rain had turned the trail to mud, I could barely keep my footing and literally had to be hand held by the guide to make it down. Blisters formed on both feet, my knees tightened the abrasion hurt; by the time I got down I felt like one of the walking wounded. However Rena’s ministrations revived me”

I can clearly vouch for that last one; when Joe crawled into our room he could hardly move, he could not bend his knees or reach them with his hands to wash off the grime. I was so happy and relieved to see him; I sponged his aching body with soapy warm water and lowered him into our bed; then climbed next to him and held him all night. Youth is resilient and by the next day he was ready to move on.

For thirty years, we have recalled that whole trip and the Kili climb especially in conversation and reminiscence of a younger, more care-free time of our lives. The beauty and the grime of those five days have faded into sepia-toned, romantic memory. All the while, however, we have remembered the cold, the breathlessness and the frozen joints. Certainly, returning to the journal reinforces that climbing Mt Kilimanjaro was an almost foolish expedition that we enjoyed despite our better judgment. We have seen much more beautiful sunrises lounging on a comfortable chair in the mountains, on the beach and even in an airplane. Yet, we still have fondness and nostalgia. To this day, the Mt. Kilimanjaro certificate remains the only diploma in Joe’s office. “It was the hardest one to get” he likes to say.

Tortuguero, Costa Rica

I turned down my soul mate’s first attempt at a date because I was busy dissecting a baby green sea turtle as a college student. It seems sadly pathetic, therefore, that the great green sea turtle nesting beach and egg-lying season was not even close to our collective radar screen as we were planning a Costa Rica family vacation some 20 years later.

A stop at the Tortuguero Caribbean Conservation Center, created by Archie Carr the godfather of turtle ecology was a small side-bar in the itinerary of the spring break trip we had arranged for the family in 1996. A small canvas-covered boat took us through a complex lacework of rivers and swamps ingrown with vines, reeds and water lilies to Mawamba Lodge, an airy, spartan establishment in the midst of lush gardens bursting with the color of birds of paradise. After a long day of navigating the swamps, wet, tired and sweaty we learned almost as an afterthought that we had arrived to the very spot and at the exact time that the green sea turtles come out of the ocean to lay their eggs on the sandy beach.

It was a stormy, quarter-moon lit night. The wind was gusting and distant lightening pierced the sky, turbulent waves crashing on the shore as we followed the Conservation Center guide onto the beach. We stood in the dark straining our eyes until we saw what looked like a truck-tire mark coming off the water, up the beach: the trail of a turtle coming to nest. The guide held us back until he was sure that the nesting hole was dug and the egg laying had begun (disturbed prematurely the turtle would turn around back to the ocean). Only then did we tip toe up the sandy beach into the vine-covered strip between sand and forest and saw the nest. The turtle half buried in the sand, head invisible, body covered with dirt and tail clean in the air over a hole one foot wide and sea water level deep was dropping her eggs. In intermittent spurts, out plopped soft glistening round white eggs like eyeballs: one hundred eggs.

We watched transfixed this primal force of nature, an ancient rhythm that extends back thousands of years, the mysterious creature returning after 30 years of absence, navigating by an unknown compass to a desolate stretch of sand to nest and continue her cycle of life. After a few minutes that seemed an eon, the turtle flipped sand onto the nest with her clumsy hind flippers and slowly crawled back toward the ocean. Exhausted, making frequent stops it crept to the water then seemed to wait for the right wave before disappearing into the night. Back at the lodge in sweltering humid heat we lay down to ponder this awesome glimpse into the beginning of time. The next day at the Conservation Center I learned with dismay that Archie Carr had a distinct liking for turtle egg omelets.

Costa Rica is a favorite ecotourism destination, most itineraries focusing on the rain forests and the plantations. If you plan a trip there, go when the turtles come out to nest. After all the years and the trips, the memorable sites and experiences of travel, that one night remains etched in my memory as no other.

Beurre Blanc

Years ago, starting our life’s journey together we took our first trip to France, the Loire valley. It was cold that March and the majestic, masculine castle of Chambord was full of tall, thick stone walls and the wind howled through each grand ballroom and staircase. Shivering and hungry we sought shelter down the road at the hotel St Michel that had housed and fed travelers for almost a century, still there in 1977 as the years passed but time stood still. The menu was short but the room toasty warm and cozy. There we tasted fish with beurre blanc sauce for the first time. The buttery aroma rose from the plate, the sauce caressed our palate and lapped down the throat; nectar or ambrosia? Our travel diary from the trip says “we had found a warm and inviting restaurant on a biting cold March day and a fish with a divine beurre blanc that lingered in our soul for hours”.

It took us thirty years to screw up the courage and try the sauce at home. By then, Julia Child’s instructions had been adapted and modified by cooks and pundits all over the Internet. There were different proportions for the wine vs. vinegar, sometimes lemon or whipping cream were included, white pepper might replace black pepper, but the centerpiece was always cold butter.

Here is how we did it:

½ cup dry white wine (drinking not cooking wine)
½ cup white wine vinegar (balsamic or red wine types are too strong)
2 tablespoon shallots finely minced (they should be almost translucent)
One stick cold butter cut in 6 cubes (not margarine, it will curdle)
Salt and fine ground black pepper to taste

In an 8 inch non-stick pan, mix the wine, vinegar and shallots; over low heat, simmer gently until the shallots are wilted and the liquid has reduced to 2 tablespoons, about 10 minutes (but may vary a little depending on the stove). Turn off the gas (if using an electric oven, move pan to an adjacent cold burner). Keeping the butter cold (in the refrigerator or in a bowl sitting in water with ice), add one cube at a time and stir gently but continuously until it becomes smooth and creamy (most recipes suggest using a wire whisk but a slotted wooden spoon works as well). This will usually take another 10-15 minutes (makes about one cup of sauce, enough for a two person dinner). When all the butter is folded into the sauce, cover with Saran wrap and keep warm but off direct heat until dinner (make wait time as short as possible).

Beurre blanc goes best with white flaky fish such as snapper or flounder. Depending on the thickness of the fish and the individual preference as to doneness, the fish can start cooking simultaneously with the preparation of the sauce or after the sauce is done.

Galveston BBQ 2008

At the barber shop, I had noticed the announcement for the Galveston grand cook-off at Pier 21; the entries included wild game! Soon thereafter, Joe learned that judges for the affair can simply volunteer their taste buds without specified qualifications.

The day dawned warm and sunny with a welcome cool breeze. The grounds by the Pier were adorned with several dozens of big, black cookers under white tents filled with aproned, hefty Galvestonians bearing the insignia of their organizations. The air was thick with the smells of burning fat and bundled hay. We found the judging area and signed up for wild game. Before the time, however, we gave our charitable donation and got one Styrofoam plate each which we filled with pork rib, BBQ, deer sausage, boudin, venison and quail. Absolutely delicious, though it took up precious stomach space from what would later be needed for the judging.

At the appointed time, we walked into the judging hall where four tables were set with twelve Styrofoam containers each, numbered and “secretly” labeled for the contestants who created them. Each judge was assigned a table and instructed to taste all 12 items and select the three favorites. These three were renumbered and laid out on one table. The judges, then, tasted all twelve semifinalists and numbered them in order of preference. Our bellies were stuffed with meat and fat; an Atkins paradise. The three finalists were to be announced at 8pm during the award ceremony and before the fireworks display. We would never be able to find out which dishes won because we judged them by number while the winners were to be announced by their names.

After the judging was done, we strolled on the grounds and admired big men caressing briskets and basting wild hogs in the smoking drums. It was not possible to eat anything more, so we just looked and photographed.