Shere Delight

Winter Cooking

Okay.  So I haven't written about food, or much of anything else, for a long time.  But days and days of dreary, rainy weather, short days with dim light for the studio, have driven me inside again.  And what better on these wintry days than my cozy old kitchen, whose stones hold molecules of meals consumed by people long gone.  I feel the smoke from those old fires wrapping around me like loving arms, whispering to me of families, of food generously prepared.

The chimneys are still there, although one of them now has a Norwegian wood burning stove in it.  The other one goes up to the bedroom above, but is no long usable so I put things there I want to keep cool - eggs, flours, sometimes cheese.  All in tight containers, of course, so spiders and other friendly insects can't get inside.  My mother would have been horrified at this crumbling storage area, black with centuries of unremovable suet, hung with spider webs until I clean them out and they return again. 

Anyway, my focus with food these days is more often economical, like using up leftovers, not because we need to, but because I want to.  The amount of food wasted here in the UK is appalling.  It must be many times worse in the US.  Part of that economy is simply  to avoid going to the supermarket, which I detest, which means often using up bits of what happens to be there. 

Today at lunch, for instance, the cupboard was pretty bare.  I made a short crust for a quiche, and then found 3 slices of bacon, and half of a sausage from last night,   I cooked the bacon, sliced the sausage into thin slices, thinly sliced a red onion and slowly caramelized it.  After cooking the crust, I put the meats and onions on the bottom, along with some frozen, grated Gruyere cheese I had left, poured a mixture of 3 beaten eggs, 1-l/1 cups of semi-skimmed milk, a pinch of salt and pepper over it all, and popped it in the oven for 30 minutes. 

It came out puffy and slightly browned, and perfectly delicious.  I made a little salad of arugula freshly picked from the garden with a balsamic/olive oil dressing and a pinch of salt.  Voila.  In not time at all, a pleasant little winter lunch. 

Tuk, A polar bear

By Kathleen Hall, adapted from the true experience of Merton Vaslet, who spent several years on the Dewline in Alaska in the late 1930's and early 40"s.

   

We didn't want to kill her. But after the ninth night of prowling, turning over garbage cans, and the dogs making a ruckus half the night, we had to try to  scare her off, at least.  So we set up watch, and on the second night the dogs started barking loud enough to wake the dead. Then we saw her, a pale, shifting ghost against the moonlit snow, easing toward the shelter, disappearing into the shadows, re-emerging, and then gone again. So when Jack pulled the trigger he wasn't sure whether he'd hit her, but after a few minutes it looked like she had run off.

   

At dawn we went out where we thought she'd been. It hadn't snowed, so we saw her prints, where dark blood spotted the snow and led up the hill. Two of us followed the trail and after about 3 miles we saw a still heap. We approached carefully, just in case, not wanting to surprise a wounded 600 lb polar bear. Then something moved. Two somethings. Two small white heads peeked from behind the still form, where they had probably nestled seeking the fading warmth of her body.

   

Jack ran back to camp for some rope and some fragrant bacon to tempt them closer to us. I stayed there to see where they went in case they decided to run away, and to let them get used to my scent. No need, though.

   

When Jack came back it was easy to catch them. They were so hungry they came right up to us for the meat, even though they were nursing cubs with only milk teeth. We just slipped the ropes around them, and half-led them, half-carried them back to camp. We didn't have much in the way of extra supplies there, so we radioed ahead to the main weather station.

   

"What have you men been drinking out there!" Captain Sims shouted so loud I could hear him clearly, even though it wasn't me on the radio. "We can't  nurse two polar bear cubs. There's enough to do around here without that. Who's going to feed them?  What if they are sick?   We're  a weather station, not an animal shelter. Leave them to the wolves.   I don't care what you do with them, but don't bring them here."

   

Jack and I looked at those cubs sniffing around the hut, padding over to us on clumsy feet, rubbing against our legs, and we looked at each other. We had only two cans of evaporated milk and some sugar syrup, and not much else to offer hungry bears, even small ones. No telling when they last had a square meal, and the main camp was at least two days away.

   

We didn't discuss it, just packed up 4 days provisions and took off. On the second night out the smaller of the bears went to sleep and didn't wake up. I don't think he had the courage to hold out. The ground was too hard to bury him, so we left the small corpse for the wolves. At least his death would not be entirely in vain.

   

Sims was standing outside when we drew up. He must have seen us coming over the flat ground, and he was ready for us. His mouth was twisted in a sour smile, and from half-closed eyes he gave us a hard look. No one said anything. Jack was holding the cub wrapped in an old scrap of gray wool blanket. It was weak, and we didn't have much hope for it now, grieving as it was its mother and brother, and starving, too. Then it twisted in Jack's arms and its black eyes looked up at Sims. It struggled to get down, like a restless toddler. Jack let it go. It went straight to Sims and put its paws on his knees, as if it knew its fate lay in Sims' hands. It sniffed and quivered, the way dogs do when they smell something fascinating on the air. Sims looked down at the bear and sighed. "Ok, come in and warm up, but in the morning, get back to your camp with this animal."

 

But it wasn't to be.  It must have been love at first sight. That cub took to Sims right away, and vice-versa. The captain let him climb onto his lap, rubbed his head, let him lick his cheek. And he said, "Jim, mix up some powdered milk and syrup. We can't let this cub starve. But as soon as he's fattened up, off he goes."

   

It was touch and go for a few weeks. The bear was weakened by its ordeal, and suffered from some infection as a result, so Sims had to fly in antibiotics. He fed her himself from a bottle, and as she grew, hid treats around the station for her to find. They wrestled together, and he even tried to teach her to fetch. She fetched, all right, but never brought a thing back, not even balls, just sat there holding them between her paws, watching Sims shouting and gesturing, sort of smiling.

   

The short arctic summer was nearly over, and the bear was thriving. Sims sadly realized that she would soon grow too large to stay in camp, and was possibly too accustomed to humans to be safe in the wild. We heard on the radio that the Seattle zoo was looking for animals, so we told Sims, and that's how Tuk got there.   Sims went down with her himself, and questioned the zoo-keepers very closely to make sure they knew how to treat her. He looked over the environment to make sure it would be suitable for his bear, suggesting ways to improve it for polar bears.  Those zoo-keepers were glad to see the back of him.

   

We all went to see her over the years, and she always seemed to recognize us and sniff at us the way she did in the old days at the camp. She was huge, though, and even Sims didn't try to get too close.

   

Recently Sims got a telegram from the zoo, and called me to say that Tuk, at 35 years of age, had died. She'd lived much longer than she would have in the wild, though, and left the zoo four new bears. And she left us all changed men. Especially Sims.

   

   

ARMISTICE DAY, VETERANS' DAY, REMEMBRANCE DAY

Last Sunday, lugging a heavy suitcase, I took an expensive taxi to Waterloo Station from the hospital where Bernard was in Chelsea.  The streets thronged with people jostling for places to watch the Remembrance Day procession, which made my expensive taxi ride even more expensive.  But I was impressed that so many people, most wearing red poppies, turned out for the ceremonies.  And that all the tv presenters and news readers wore their red poppies, even on Strictly Come Dancing, all week. . 

It has been an especially poignant Remembrance Day. For the first time, none of the World War I veterans are alive.  Dear old Harry Patch, bright  thoughtful, and glowing with humanity, died this year at 110.  He had said, "War is the calculated and  condoned slaughter of human beings." The numbers may have been smaller in subsequent "conflicts", but the principle is the same for all of them.  

Another event made this day special this year.  We were invited to a service at our grandsons school. 

St. Edmonds school is in the Surrey countryside where my step-grandson Matthew attends along with his little brother Louis.   Their mother invited us to the Remembrance Day service held in the chapel of this red brick Victorian structure, built in 1900.  It is a "new"school as schools go in Britain, but old enough to have lost ":old boys", as former students are called here, to both World Wars and recently, Iraq.  We were one of  15 adults to attend, as Matthew was selected to read a war poem he had written entitled, Too Late.  Unfortunately, I forgot to wear the red poppy we bought a few days earlier. 

The walls of the huge reception room were covered with notices of school events, sports results, competitions, and art work, like schools everywhere, and the children - mostly boys, though now there are a few girls as well - were lined up to enter the chapel. Their teachers herded them in, class by class, and then we slid to our benches in the back.  At a signal from the headmaster, the children sat down as one, and the boys' choir began to sing Kyrie eleison  from Messe Basse by Faure.

I'm not sure why I find the collective voices of pre-adolescent boys so moving.  Maybe it is simply their youth, the innocence represented by the as yet unchanged soprano voices, and the awareness that those young soldiers who died were like these.   The soloist, probably 13, didn't miss a note of this very difficult piece, and the choir followed suit. 

I felt as though I were participating in centuries old ceremonies. 

We all sang hymns, except me, as I didn't know them, but the words were appropriate to the occasion, like, I Vow to Thee, My Country, and The Servant King', and the music beautiful.  The Reverend Witheridge, headmaster of a much older nearby school, Charterhouse, gave a simple sermon pointing out to us that the young men lost in the wars had sat on these same benches, played the same games, learned the same subjects, as the children occupying the benches now. 

I looked at the children, praying they would  grow up in a world at peace; thought of my own boys, and how grateful I am that they didn't have to fight, and of the parents who did lose sons and daughters to the horrors of the battlefield. 

Then Matthew and two other boys read their poems, all sensitive and well-written, and we were proud of him, at 13, writing a poem an adult might have been happy to write. 

The headmaster read out all the names of the öld boys killed in battle, a too-long list for a small school, including a 19 year old fallen in Iraq.  Eyes were moist for the two minute silence, and then the melancholy sounds of a trumpet playing "The Last Post"" sounded through the chapel. 

Finally, we all sang God Save the Queen, including me, because I could. 

After more prayers, the choir sang The Lord Bless You and Keep You, and I was nearly undone completely.

I will not forget to wear the red poppy again.

September

Our gift this month has been soft, sunshiny days and warm nights. Autumn is my favorite time of year, the time when I feel nature take a deep breath before plunging into winter's profound sleep, after the explosive growth of spring and summer. The trees still have their leaves, although you can feel the trees sighing, ready to let them  go, and the soft-edged sunshine still warms.

Our vegetable garden is still producing lots of runner beans, chard, and celery, and we're hoping for turnips, leeks, and red cabbage for winter. We'll keep our fingers crossed, as it is all an experiment. The carrots were pretty pitiful, tiny and underdeveloped, the radishes went all leaves and woody red knobs, the green onions variable.

Going out to pick vegetables for dinner has been such a pleasure for both of us that we will try again next year, now we know what works well for us. We are getting tired of runner beans, though; I'll have to find a recipe for green bean chutney.

Syria and Jordan Part One

Syria and Jordan

 

 

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We’ve been back from Syria and Jordan for nearly two weeks and already it seems like a dream.  In fact, it seemed like a dream the day after we returned, but I know  it wasn’t.   I have Jordanian sand in my sandals to prove it.  I haven’t cleaned them yet, not having needed sandals in England so far, but I have hope.  A hot, dry summer is predicted.  Then everyone will complain about how hot it is, and how dry.  Television programs will warn about sunstroke. There will be a hose pipe ban (hose), while tv journalists gleefully wring the subject dry and accuse the government of doing nothing to avoid it, while gardeners will shake their heads about the state of their plants.

It is the same everywhere, of course.  Every year of the fifteen I lived In southern France it was the same, despite the fact that it was dry, every year, as it had been every year in living memory, and never did have enough water.  Californians, too, complain about water, fire, and wind, to say nothing of earthquakes, and no doubt the mid-west of the U.S. is the same, if Mark Twain is correct.  And Somebody who is in charge is responsible, not uncontrollable Mother Nature. 

Maybe the only place on earth where people don’t complain about water is the near East, because they live in a desert-like environment anyway, where even 5 start hotels have signs in the bathrooms saying "Water is Life".  It is  desert-like, but not true desert, at least in Jordan, our guide Walid told us.   The soil is not sand, it is fine, dry earth which would turn into a rain forest if it rained. Well, that is what he said.

However, I know this to be true because in Wadi Gilrat we went to see a Neolithic settlement called Beidha.  On the trail back to the bus a Bedouin woman and her children were selling the inevitable post cards and jewelry.  As we talked, one of the smaller children sat down in the dirt and threw it over his legs as if her were in a paddling pool. The dust blew in the wind like sprays of water, unlike sand which would dribble through fingers onto the ground.   Which explains why the children were so grubby.   And in the Fertile Crescent where rainfall is greater, the land, while not a rain forest, is green and prosperous.

But I digress.  Or do I?  I can’t regurgitate all the facts we were given about the cradle of western civilization in 10 short days, including two countries and several ancient sites, so I’ll begin as I do when I start a painting, with roughly the right colors in roughly the right places.  Or maybe just the colors.

Syria’s and Jordan’s contemporary architecture mostly consists of gray concrete block squares emerging out of flat land, with long steel reinforcement rods sprouting at each corner like a forest of quills. It was the same in Egypt, where you don’t pay taxes on a house until it is finished, so it is never finished.  Our Syrian guide told us the houses are left unfinished so when the children grow up they can build another floor, but I think the tax story is closer to the truth. 

In between building sites, vast stretches of dun-colored soil spread out on either side of the bus as we rolled from site to site.  Men in elegantly long robes, scarves draped over their heads, tend herds of sheep and goats nibbling at invisible nourishment hidden in  the rocks.  Donkeys stand in their midst, seeking company, or sometimes in small herds together.  Camels roam in rocky hills like horses in pastures, or carry shepherds watching their sheep. 

Unfortunately, the main crop in the Syrian countryside seems to be plastic bags billowing from fence posts or rolling like tumbleweeds across the barren landscape.  In Jordan there are fewer, but still, in the poorer, drier areas, there are too many.

The cities we visited are a different story.  Damascus, the little bit we saw of it, is a vibrant ciy with magnificent villas and squares from the past, islands of beauty amidst the color and confusion of the streets.  Donkey carts piled high with goods manoeuver through the chaos of vehicles driving either on the left or the right, as required; horns honk, and minarets rise out of the groves of reinforced steel rods. 

Ammon, near magnicent Petra, is beautiful and clean, with good roads, modern architecture, and finished homes. 

But here’s the thing. 

In Damascus, three girls about eleven or twelve years old stopped to watch me sketch.  They asked me my name, told me theirs, and asked me where I was from.  They were practicing their English, curious about us westerners. 

In Jordan a middle-class family asked where I am from and if they could take a picture of their four children with me.  They asked me how I liked Jordan and the Jordanians. They were smiling and kind.

Also in Jordan a family of women stopped me to talk.  The youngest one asked me the same questions, how I liked Jordan and Jordanians, my name, where I am from.  They shook my hand, including the grandmother with hennaed tattoos on her face and a long, hooded black robe. . 

I didn’t feel unwelcome anywhere.  Maybe there is hope after all.    

To Be Continued ---  

Syria and Jordan, Part 2

Syria and Jordan, part 2

 

At last, the promised continuation of our Syria/Jordan trip.  This will only be highlights; my highlights, not those of an anthropologist, geologist, ancient historian, student of Biblical history, or anything academic in the slightest.  Our guides were a bit of all these, especially the tour organizer, David Price-Williams, who has a Ph.D in just about all of the above.  However, this did not rub off on me to any appreciable degree, although smatterings have remained in my consciousness, so what you get is my ramblings.  

We arrive from London under the cover of darkness.  There seems to be no way to arrive in Damascus earlier than 11:30 PM, which I worry about slightly,  but the driver and guide are smiling and friendly, and after a  reasonably sane taxi drive we arrive at the Hotel Semiramis. The name  triggers dreams of tents and cushions and camels, but we fall into very comfortable beds with all the comforts of modern plumbing and power.  I can even check my email. 

Breakfast is all the usual hotel food:  eggs;  scrambled, poached; omeletted; fried potatoes, toast, cereal, fruit, for us, plus wrinkly black olives, bitter little pickles, dried beef, yogurt and honey, and cheeses.. Let's just get this over with.  We had the same breakfast for 10 days, lunch was black olives, bitter pickles, yougurt, cheese and overcooked meat, and dinner was the same.  Tourists are not targets for gourmet cuisine in Syria and Jordan. . 

We meet most of the people with whom we will share the next 10 days, but get little more than a glimpse of  them before we pile into a bus for the museum in Damascus.  The ride is hilariously chaotic, but the museum is beautiful, with arching water fountains, colorful tiles, flowers, green plants, and statues. 

Inside, immense white ceilings and  marble walls house innumerable artifacts from the very long history of this part of the world.  My favorites are little statues called the Mari.  Made from clay or carved in wood, they all, male and female, have smiling faces and wide open eyes.  They are like pre-historic Positive Thinkers, I guess;  I was enchanted, and too busy drawing them to listen to our guide.  I thought I could look them up on the net but can’t find them.  So, more shall be revealed.  Maybe I can email our Syrian guide, Haitham, for more info, or some of my more conscientious tour mates.(I have since found some explanations, at least for who the Mari are.  See www.geocities.com/encyclopedia_damascena/ancientsyria/mari.htm or type in Iku Shamagan)

We visit the Ummayed Mosque, which is immense.  It was built by the Ummayed civilization on the site of a Byzantine church dedicated to St. John the Baptist .  The Ummayed captured Damascus from the Romans in 636 AD, who in turn  captured it from the Aramaeon Kindom, who no doubt got it from somebody else. 

We women had to borrow the brown robes provided for us to enter the mosque and the tomb of Saladin.  The mosque was filled with people at their prayers, the men in a row nearest the wall, the women several yards behind them, trying to pray and watch the children at the same time.  I asked the guide why they pray separately.  He said, “when women look at men’s backsides, they are not tempted, but the other way around is different.” Poor guys.  No control of themselves. 

Saladin is the fellow who defeated the Crusaders in the 12^th century, as you may know, and his tomb is beautifully decorated and widely visited, so it was crowded and stuffy.  I couldn’t wait to ditch the brown robe. 

We trooped back through a shopping mall which predates most cities in the US, filled with stalls selling everything from an ice cream, which is said to be delicious, to fabrics, food, hookahs, children's items.  I  declined to taste the ice cream, being slightly anxious about uncooked local cuisine, but nobody who tried it got sick, and I wish I had not been so squeamish.

Back to the hotel for our first lecture on what we have seen, followed by dinner.This will be the pattern for 10 days.  Our leader, David Price-Williams, is deeply knowledgeable about this part of the world, and is a fascinating lecturer.  However, after 12 hour days some of us would have preferred a rest for an hour before dinner. 

And that was just the first day. 

Krak des Chevaliers

This crusader castle dates from 1144 .  It lies near the Aleppo-Damascus road on a high plateau with 360 degree views, and looks invincible.  In fact, it was nearly invincible.  Saladin, who knew his odds, never attacked it, but managed to defeat enough of the other castles to win dominance.  In fact, though, the Egyptian Mamaliks successfully besieged it in 1271.  The knights were forced to surrender, but were given safe passage to the sea, which was mighty decent, I thought, considering the indiscriminate slaughter which the Crusaders inflicted on the Muslims.

The castle is perfectly preserved and maintained.  You could almost live there.  Huge storage areas, wine-making vats, grinding stones and stables lie behind thick stone walls with arched windows, and a mossy moat surrounds it.  From the parapets, the vast desert stretches away on all sides, a must- see even for sufferers of vertigo like me.  The poor little Bedouin man helping me up the steps needed a cast on his hand afterwards.

To be continued.