Hobbits In Rivendell

Hearth & Home

November 25, 2013

4:09 pm

As Thanksgiving approaches, that “homey”est of all American holidays, with its Norman Rockwell-esque focus on food and cozy family scenes, it’s impossible not to think of “home.” We’ve spoken quite a bit about home as a concept – and that home has become something that’s not fixed in a particular place, for us. This goes against what people expect, with having a place to call “home.” You expect that, even if you move from one house to another, there will be some one place – where your family lives, perhaps, or where you regularly attend church, where you have the largest collection of “stuff” – that is “home” to you. For us, this stopped being the case, probably after three years of living in Glasgow, and while we’re happy to be back with friends and family members, we’ve struggled with the transition, and have been mentally homeless ever since.

Our recent trip to Glasgow put us in the basic area that was home almost a year and a half ago. Going back to visit was … oddly like and unlike coming home. We spent time and had meals with as many of our friends as were in the city, and knew where we were going when we were wandering about. While we warmly reminisced, enjoyed the odd pockets of free time and all the city had to offer, we realized early on that Glasgow isn’t quite “home” any more – it is merely a place where many friends happen to live, and which we know well in our memories. We missed seeing a few dear friends, because their work took them to Belfast or London — which, for too many of our friends, is the reality; a life split in between their homes, and their jobs. Had we stayed in the UK, this likely would have been the way things were for us, in order to keep afloat financially. Missing these friends confirmed again for us that we were right in not trying to make Glasgow “home.” Having no flat there anymore, and no job, it now is merely a beloved piece of our history… But, now what?

After Glasgow, we stayed for a few days in Iceland during this trip, which has never been home to us, though we’ve spent good days there. D. had a tenuous possibility of a job there, though, so this time we considered the place from the point of view of homesteaders — to decide if we’d be able to dig in and make Iceland our home. We truly love it there, severe, volcano-blasted countryside, treeless tundra and all – but looking through the eyes of those who would be learning a new language and getting along without much of a vegetarian community, we’ve concluded that it’s more of a place to visit than to stay. Being flexible and resourceful, we could settle in, and would probably find ourselves making it home eventually, but we’re not content to settle… and so the mental flailing about continues.

So much of the concept of home is wrapped up in people, and activities, more than simply the place those happen to take place. Attending the chapel concerts, singing with the shape note group, drifting through parks and museums and having coffee with choir members reminded us again that for someplace to be a home, we need to be part of a vibrant artistic community – to engage in making beauty in a variety of ways, especially with our hands and with our voices as part of a group. Just with that small piece of the puzzle in hand, we know what’s missing from our lives in California — and we know what we’ll be looking for as we turn our thoughts toward home in the future.

In the meantime, we’ve confirmed that where we are right now is the best choice for us in the present, where we can save comfortably and pay down those school bills, and plan ahead for what’s next. It’s hard not to leap up and head for the next adventure, but with the idea that adventure is what where we find it, we’re keeping our eyes open.

Meanwhile, holiday baking has started up its long cold engines. We began with the easy stuff — nuts. We’ve rhapsodized before about the loveliness of having Dixon nearby with all of its almonds, but now we have a friend with a beau who has his own walnut orchard – score! This past weekend, we picked a leisurely nine pounds of walnuts and brought them home to freeze in preparation for nut brittle.

We’ve gleefully embraced the opportunity to commemorate the Hanukkah holiday with Thanksgiving, the holiday combo that apparently comes around only once every 77,000 years, and we’re looking forward to our sweet potato and carrot latkes our cranberry apple sauce, and reprising some favorites like mac and cheese kugel and sweet potato custard. T’s mum is attempting challah – vegan challah, which will be interesting, since the base recipe is like brioche, which is an egg bread. The cardamom apple almond cake will be a snap, though, since it’s just a matter of adding a new spiece. Our pumpkin pies may have caraway and rye in the crust! We’re going to also attempt a cardamom coconut milk pudding, but that’s still in the works… Lots of experimental food going on, which is what it’s all about.

For those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah. May gathering with your family ground you in what really matters, and may you have a taste of home this week.

( Recipes (if anything turns out) to follow!)

-D & T

Settling Back In…

by David T. Macknet

November 18, 2013

10:24 am

2 Comments on Settling Back In…

California, Critters

We’re settling back into the groove of being in California, and have finally made it to the local pool (yes, it’s free to swim … between 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., but you try getting out of the house and into the water in the cold, dim morning). Nothing much is happening here – just getting ready for Thanksgiving, and finally getting around to the idea that we should hang some pictures, since we’ve been in this house for over a year and it doesn’t look like we’ll be leaving any time soon.

If anybody should need a Thanksgiving Turkey, just know that they frequent our neighborhood, and that we’re not responsible for your actions….

-D & T

“Safe Journey Home”

by TadMack

November 6, 2013

2:45 pm

2 Comments on “Safe Journey Home”

Glasgow, Life, Traveling

And so we’ve reached the end of our fortnight, full of images and encounters, including this LOVELY example of “Glasgow toile.” Now, for those of you who were Trading Spaces/Changing Rooms fans, you know how toile is this high-end, hoity-toity fabric that designers like to cover things with all over the house. We’re going to suggest that the Glasgow Toile is NAE what ye want on your wall coverings. While these plates show only the smallest section of the beauties of this fair and filthy city – someone shooting up, and someone peeing against a tree – the full fabric panels have hard looking mums pushing prams, drunks crashed out on park benches, a guy with a crack pipe, wee neds gathered on bikes, tower housing, and ugly, scabrous looking seagulls. It also has Glasgow landmarks clearly noted, like the Uni, the Clyde crane, the Armadillo, etc. It’s a great gag, but it’s ruinously expensive, at over a hundred pounds a meter, and we don’t imagine most people do much sewing with it… at £75, probably a decorative plate is even out of the question!

T. has suffered through leaving – her beloved Seconds again (plus agreeable adopted tenor) and we’ve seen our Uni friends, and made arrangements to see each other soon – at the beginning of the year, maybe in the summer – and through the abruptly cold and dark afternoon, they have gone, with hugs and waves, and choruses of “Safe journey home.”

Safe journey home. It’s a lovely wish.

Like with most holidays, we are “caked out;” while we have been strenuously walking around and have the ability still to fit into all of our clothes, we have rediscovered that you can only have tea and scones so many times before you are longing for some plain beans and avocados. Time, indeed, to go home.

Safe journey, with side trips for one more cake…

We have truly enjoyed ourselves, and enjoyed some of the rich plethora of choices on offer in a multiple-university town. First, we enjoyed the organ for the Chapel Choir Choral Interlude – and a very modern composer, full of atonal chords and all manner of dissonance. We went away… thoughtful. (Some of the thoughts included “What was that?! but those are good thoughts, too.) Our next was an All Souls service at St. Mary’s, where the Malcolm Archer requiem was performed. It reminded us a bit of the Duruflé, and we enjoyed the Pié Jesu and the Sanctus very much, though the rest was a tad derivative.

Our final musical fêtê was to attend an old-fashioned Singin’ School! We enjoyed a shape note workshop and learned the rudiments of the bizarrely shaped notes and the “fa-so-la” from The Sacred Harp with leader Tim Erikssen, who is sort of the end-all, be-all for the shape note folks in the Northeast. (You know you have arrived when you have your own Wikipedia page, and used to tour with Nirvana…) His energetic leadership whipped us into shape, and we ended the night with our heads stuffed full of knowledge, and with our ears ringing with the loud and hearty sounds of “hardcore Americana.” We’re hopeful he’ll someday come to the West Coast; he’s an amazing ethnomusician, full of facts and an excellent fiddler and vocalist as well.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Iceland for a few days, to luxuriate in the sulfurous stink of Keflavik and the lovely Blue Lagoon. Our hair will be a matted mess when we fly home, but we’ll be awfully relaxed. Our minds will be, hopefully, less conflicted as well. It was a joy to be here; it is a wrench to leave, and yet — this isn’t where we’re meant to be. We are not home yet. We’re still travelers – pilgrims and strangers, as it were.

Safe journey home. May we all arrive, someday.

Oh, for…

by TadMack

November 1, 2013

9:58 am

4 Comments on Oh, for…

Glasgow, Life, Traveling

Gratuitous cathedral picture, just because.

Would it BE a trip to the UK, if the boiler didn’t go out????

What is this effect we have on boilers, that even the flat we rented for a holiday — which was working JUST FINE when we came, though it, like the whole building, is ancient — immediately dies? WHY must it quit working just when we’ve had a spate of cloudless – and immediately much more cold – weather?? And to think they just had the boiler guy out the day before we arrived…!

We remain thankful for the invention of space heaters and electric showers.

From pretty much our first day in, we’ve had a steady stream of guests and invitations. We feel like we’ve walked all over the entire West End and parts East as well, but it’s been good. Plans next week include brunches with university friends, some more crafty activities including making lanterns in advance of the Feast of St. Martin (celebrated by our German friends), coffee dates and dinner with the Superb Second Sopranos, and a chance to hear about their Poland tour. And then, lovely Iceland calls!

Thanks to all who have asked; the storm that hit Southern England was nowhere near us in the North, and we felt no more cold and wind than usual. We’re fine and dry, with our space heaters…

Happy Weekend, happy November!

Hobbits at Home, Away

by David T. Macknet

October 26, 2013

12:54 pm

1 Comment on Hobbits at Home, Away

Traveling

And here we are again.

The bank had started this PR campaign before we left and we’d seen the “this is home” posters in the airport at least twice returning from some outing or other. But this time, seeing them we both gave a somewhat disbelieving laugh. T. had had a conversation just before she left wherein a friend told her, “remember where home is.” Yes, home… where is that again?

Glasgow greeted us, of course, by bucketing down rain, but cleared to blue skies and a lovely sunset the afternoon of our arrival. And, yes, the sun set in the afternoon. We’re in that stage of losing light at a ridiculous pace. And yet we’ve found sunshine, in the enthusiastic greetings of friends, and the retrieval of a work mug of D.’s he hadn’t known where he’d lost. We are possibly the only people on earth to go on vacation and manage to have some of our dishes with us.

Should you ever have the opportunity to go abroad for more than a week, we hope you consider letting a flat. Aside from the obvious financial benefits of having some place to cook and not relying solely on restaurants (trust us, your innards will thank you), renting gives you a nice home base from which to explore everything, and if you’re very lucky indeed you end up with an amazing bathtub like the one from which this blog post is being dictated….

Our plans for next week include a meeting of the Glasgow Sceptics with a lecture on nanotechnology, a Chapel Choir concert, and a good rummage about at the Hunterian Museum (one of the only museums which, in 5 years of living here, we never managed to see, despite its being on the University campus). We may also pop up to Perth to meet with friends. All in all, without the pressures of a dissertation to write, a work schedule to keep, and various illnesses to combat, we are recapturing already the sense of things we’d been missing – a vibrant electric life just out the door and down the block, and a slow, bone-deep contentment at home. Strange, growing up in suburbia and turning out to have been a city person after all. Or maybe just a Glasgow person.

-D & T

In Glasgow

by David T. Macknet

October 25, 2013

5:20 am

2 Comments on In Glasgow

Traveling

Well, everybody, we’ve made it to Glasgow, had lunch, and are futzing about at the library whilst waiting for the flat to be cleaned. 40 minutes from now will see us having hot showers and trying to stay awake in order to adjust to the time (well, one of us will try, at least).

It’s, of course, raining here. And gray. And Glasgow. Photos to come as soon as we’ve taken any of note, and more posts from Abroad, once again, as well.

-D & T

A Book Birthday: Happy in Your Head

by TadMack

October 22, 2013

10:25 am

2 Comments on A Book Birthday: Happy in Your Head

Uncategorized

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.”
– The Desiderata

Nope, this isn’t one of T’s book birthdays, but you’ll indulge her excitement as she fêtes a friend-she’s-never-met. She writes lots of book reviews for other blogs, and we normally keep them separate. However, she knows some of you will really love this book, so… enjoy.

Two weeks ago, T. opened an email and read the following line: “If you are, at first, lonely be patient. If you’ve not been alone much or if, when you were, you weren’t okay with it then just wait…you’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.” She beamed to herself because, she could hear the poet reading the line. Yes. T. is one of Those People responsible for making Tanya Davis’s spoken-word song poem thingy, “How to Be Alone” have five million hits on YouTube. Visually jazzed up by artist Andrea Dorfman, this is a little video many have come back to over and over, the past couple of years. And now it’s a book, out October 22nd.

T first started kvelling about this particular piece of poetry in 2011, around about the time it was one of those short-lived viral video things. It was everywhere, because it was a poem that had come out recently in a Canadian chapbook called AT FIRST, LONELY, and the author, Halifax poet-spoken word artist, Tanya Davis, set it to music and video by the poet with a filmmaker friend, Andrea Dorfman (who also was part of the team working on the book). Only some of what we pass around the ‘net has any staying power, however, and this poem has had that for me. Readers have come back to it again and again. It is the eclectic imagery of the video, yes, the poet’s careful voice, yes, but it is also the words. The words – so lucid, so simple, so heart-full and honest – that speaks to the universal we. Readers wanted to take in that heady balance of perspicacity and intellect over and over again, until it became an intrinsic part of themselves.

And, now we can.

T thought she’d give away her copy of the book as a gift to a friend, but this isn’t that kind of book. It’s the kind of book you get for yourself – but you get two copies. Then, when someone picks up your copy and wants to take it away – which will happen, this is guaranteed – you can be calm enough to say, “Oh, sure, yeah, go ahead.” And you let it go – not like a book that’s going to be borrowed and returned, but like a book that you’ll never seen again, because you won’t. It’s not that type of book.

What it is: a short and concise bedside table book for introverts, one that you can pick up and reread and realize that you’re okay, that, living in your head is okay, and that if you’re happy there, or uncomfortable because you’re not sure it’s what you’re supposed to be doing, and it maybe doesn’t look like what everybody else is doing… it reassures you that Different isn’t fatal.

It’s a coffee table lifeline for extroverts, who might find themselves in the unenviable position of being in a place cut off from their old connections, and find themselves adrift and panicky, unable to pull in the old charm that used to work so well. It’s an under-the-pillow midnight read for the puffy-eyed, heart-cracked and bleeding newly abandoned and broken; it’s a sanity saver for the newly together and commingled – it speaks to all of us who need to find and claim space in our heads – whether it’s because we’re in a life jam-packed with people, or in a world where we seem to rattle along by ourselves – and within are clear instructions as to how.

Those who loved the video may have wondered if the its quirky brilliance would translate smoothly again to the printed page. It helps that the filmmaker is also the illustrator of the novel. Reminiscent of Maira Kalman’s work in the New Yorker and elsewhere, the hand-scripted poetic words convey an intimacy, as if this is a journal you’ve written yourself, filled with brilliance you’re ready to share. The illustrations show the journey of a single sock, a single knitter, a single tree-climber, all surviving their original-and-only-one status in a paired off and lined up world, all thriving on their differences. Especially in this world of political, financial and employment stresses we experience, where lockstep conformity is expected and desired by so many, we need to step back and reconnect with both solitude and sanity, and reaffirm our commitment to originality – even if that means going it alone. This book is an antidote for out-of-focus living. Stick a copy in your car, read it in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, or in line at Starbuck’s, and regain your mental health.

Happy Book Birthday, Tanya & Andrea! This book is out today, October 22, 2013. I received my early copy courtesy of the publicist, and Harper Collins, for which I’m grateful! You can find your copy of HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis and Andrea Dorfman online, or at an independent bookstore near you!

Everything Goes Better With… A Baker’s Report

by TadMack

October 21, 2013

12:08 pm

1 Comment on Everything Goes Better With… A Baker’s Report

Baking, California, Food, Life

We’re well past a report on the baking experiments, but the goods have been, to say the least, odd. Still, the odds are good that eventually, we’ll get this whole thing right!

The mise en place chefs continue to rise to the top, because they always know what ingredients they have before they start cooking. If you, like T., finds the filling of little bowls with measured and prepped ingredients fiddly, well… too bad. She started these fudge brownies with what she had on hand – insufficient cocoa powder and no eggs. Oh, the fun things you discover as you go along without the little prep bowls! No problem; she’s good with flip-flopping between vegan and not, and we have lots of solid baker’s chocolate. Unfortunately, almond flour is a pickier substance, and isn’t as easy with her choices.

We’ve talked before about how to make a flax “egg” – but you absolutely must account for that three tablespoons of water that you’ve used. It’s VERY EASY for almond flour pastries to become too moist. It’s one of the perks of baking with almond flour – lovely, moist cakes that don’t dry out, but oh, be careful, little bakers. Vegan-izing can so easily lead to disaster.

T. used the “basic” quickbread ratio for almond flour – two cups of almond flour to a half cup of cocoa powder (augmented with grated chocolate), a third cup of vital wheat gluten, 2/3 c. of a combination of Truvia and erythritol, a teaspoon of vanilla, and about a half cup of milk.

Aaand, there’s problem #2 – that pesky word “about.” It’s been really hard for both T. and D. to get through their heads that everything they think they know about baking no longer counts. We’re just not good enough yet to substitute without measuring. Right now, we’re conforming closely to recipes from The Low Carb Baking and Dessert Cookbook by Ursula Solom and Low Carbing Among Friends, by Carolyn Ketchum & Co…. and trying REALLY hard not to give in to the inevitable urge to just substitute… and failing. Repeatedly.

We have lovely in-the-process pictures from baking these fudge brownies. They came together well – baked up well – but I had some questions as soon as we took it out of its springform. The bottom seemed … too moist. We let it cool completely before doing anything with it, having learned out lesson last time about mucking around with almond flour pastries before they’re cool enough to move — but I thought, “hmmm,” as I saw how damp it was. Not a good “hmm,” either.

And yet, they were SO delicious, and so moist, and …so caved in on the top, and ugly, which is something we can lay at the door of overly-moist as well. They were super-ugly, which is a big minus, since we always like to bake to share, but amazingly chocolate-y, with a deep, rich flavor. Too moist, but yummy, like a fudge brownie pudding, maybe. We couldn’t figure out which way we wanted to go for frosting – plain? A cream cheese base? A chocolate frosting? We tried both plain and cream cheese – really, really tasty. We never got to the ganache we were going to make. Unfortunately, a cake so moist does not keep well – you have to refrigerate it, and we didn’t. YES: we ate a chocolate cake so slowly that it went bad. That’s got to be one for the books, but it really WAS good, and next time – well, we’ve got a lot of plans for next time…

Rodent Wars

by TadMack

October 18, 2013

11:20 am

For What We Are About To Receive…

by TadMack

October 2, 2013

12:26 pm

1 Comment on For What We Are About To Receive…

California, Food

Sometimes what you think is The Worst turns out to be …livable.

Thanks for all the nice notes about T’s sister. We were afraid for The Bug – known as Bug, since D. convinced her, when she was about four, that pomegranate seeds were bugs, and she ate them anyway – We were afraid that doing the stupid every-other-day dialysis would make her senior year a drag, that her social life would wither and blow away, that she’d miss out on some ephemeral something found only by being in high school. We thought she would be resentful, sullen, cranky – things we certainly would be. We did not expect the return of flashes of zany exuberance, 8 a.m. phone calls about what ridiculous video she had found on YouTube (“No, WATCH IT!! It’s FUNNY!”) and an amiable acceptance of the hand she’s been played. She feels better, for sure, her gimpy internal organs bolstered by a big, scary looking machine. WE were the ones who were afraid. She’s… seventeen. Hardly young and sweet, but apparently impervious. Unsinkable.

And, really – the whole “senior year” thing is a societal construct, much like the idea that the teen years are the “best years” of one’s life. Who actually believes that? If so, won’t the rest of your life stretch before you like an unpalatable desert road that you simply must travel, until you fall over? What’s the point of that? Better to watch this person living, hoarding the little crumbs of joy into a whole loaf, as she goes on. We got her this “Hello Kidney” shirt to wear to dialysis – might have to get her a few more in various colors. Together with her plush kidney, she is the pinnacle of snarkiness, ready for anything.

Thank God.

Autumn is, and that pumpkin-nut-apple-cranberry thing is happening, and leaves, and sunsets, and America is about to lose its stuff on running around, throwing garlands and gourds on everything, and baking up a storm. We’re right in there, of course, looking anxiously for the first frosty night (way, waaaaay off, if the warm sunny days after the one fluke day of icy rain are any indication), checking for full moons, and looking up every time a ragged line of geese goes honking by in practice formation. Californians, at least, love Autumn, because it tries so hard. In a state largely without seasons (but now, with climate change, we’re getting …something) just the green leaves crisping into brown, even without a major yellow-gold-red color show (Oh, hush, East Coast) is a favorite thing for many.

Thanksgiving is at our house again this year, because we have the most space coupled with the least number of people in residence. We think we’ll be more prepared this year than last – first, we won’t have just moved in (despite what it looks like with the boxes half packed to move, as we were planning a month ago. ::sigh::). We have a heater for the cold basement office/game room, which means we have a place to ~~escape from the Wee~~ let the Wee boys play, and stretch-out space for the interminable games – Six Hour Monopoly (which happens when you play with the very young), very short Scrabble games (where people CHEAT), and possibly this year, league-level (hah) Canasta, which we somehow have to reteach everyone every single year. The social bits all work out – T’s family amuses each other even when it’s not a holiday – but our dinner menu is going to be Something Of A Challenge this time around. Against a holiday menu that traditionally focuses so heavily on that aforementioned autumn baking, we’ll balance:

one hardcore vegan
one flexible vega
six carnivores
one flexitarian/pescatarian
three vegetarians

– PLUS! – three near diabetics and one kidney failure patient on a modified renal diet which is supposed to include nearly no salt, low protein, no carbonation, and low liquid overall. Not counting food dislikes or allergies – Oh, yes! We also have one gluten sensitive/intolerant – this salt free, sugar free, low carb, meat free, dairy free thing is going to be quite something. If looked at it from the perspective of making one meal with courses, it would be somewhat impossible. Fortunately, this family subscribes to the Are You Kidding, Make It Yourself school of holiday meals.

A few wise hosts are putting their guests on notice about their finicky food preferences this year, but since the “preferences” in our family are more a matter of necessity, we’re going to try and stretch our investigative skills. There has to be something really special we can make for the dialysis diet. We’re already on our way with the vegan desserts – throwing low carb and gluten free into the mix should be easy enough, right? After a few years practice making turkey for Christmas for Everyone, D’s gotten pretty good at it, so the carnivores are easy. Kind of.

Holiday meals are about gratitude – being grateful for the company of friends, the history (if not the present) of our nation, and the presence of family, etc. This year, we’re going to be truly grateful for the food, and that we have the leisure to experiment, that there are always new tastes and techniques to discover, and that we love each other enough to try to make what could be seen as a frustration into something uniquely …us.

Glasgow:
NY:
Grinnell:
Roswell:
Berkeley: