For those of you unfamiliar with author Suzanne Collins’ widely popular fictional trilogy, they tell a story of a post-apocalyptic North America. In short, an oppressive government forces teenagers to battle one another to the death in a nationally broadcast ritual known as the Hunger Games (now a film playing at your local theatre). Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist and narrator, describes the arena (battlefield) environment for the Hunger Games as primarily scrub terrain, laden with boulders, scruffy bushes and hidden caves. She mentions that most tributes died from bites from venomous snakes, eating poisonous plants/berries or going insane from thirst.
Rhyolite, an historical townsite located in Nevada’s Silver Trails Territory
The Four-Seasons Hotel, perhaps, in Rhyolite, early-1900s
This past week-end I visited an area that could have been the film’s movie set. Desolate territory. Yes, rhyolite is a mineral. Rhyolite is also a ghost haunt hidden in Nevada’s Amargosa Desert. Having just finished reading these books, visiting Rhyolite was a snapshot into North America gone awry. An eerie Dora-the-Explorer Moment, perhaps, but one worth taking.
The Last Supper by Belgium artist Albert Szukalski, 1984
I’d been in Bishop, California, observing a young lady’s ninth birthday as well as Mother’s Day. The lack of spring snow cover combined with sunny temps permitted celebratory hikes and picnics in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with the ever present family festivities and gifts. Driving home on Sunday, having wound my way through Death Valley, I decided to detour to Rhyolite. Although I was aware of this little-known community, Rhyolite’s Goldwell Open Air Museum has just been selected as a Nevada “Natural Treasure.” Say, what???
Ghost Rider by Albert Szukalski
Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada by Hugo Heyrman
Rhyolite is located about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas near the eastern edge of Death Valley. The town sprang to life in early 1905 as one of several mining camps hobbled together after precious ore was discovered in the region. According to government statistics, by 1907 the camp had “electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange.” Add to that,“fifty saloons, thirty-five gambling tables, cribs for prostitution, nineteen lodging houses, sixteen restaurants, six barber shops, a public bath, weekly newspaper and stage coach transportation.” At its peak the town’s population varied between 3,500 and 5,000.
Sit Here! by Sofie Siegmann, 2000
Tribute to Prospector Shorty Harris by Fred Bervoets
Easy come. Easy go. The Montgomery Shoshone Mine, the region’s largest producer, closed in 1911. The population took a nosedive, falling below 1,000. By 1920, almost zero. That’s when the town turned into a genuine ghost town, little noticed tourist attraction, and occasional motion picture set. It was a group of well-respected Belgian artists led by Albert Szukaslski who invigorated this beleaguered area. In 1984, the artists began creating large scale, on-site sculptures which still exist today. That the “on-site” was the Mojave desert, making that vast and challenging wasteland integral to their work, is what makes this outdoor museum both spectacular and profound.
Icara by Dre Peters
Saloon Owner Tom Kelly’s Bottle House, made of beer and liquor bottles he collected from local saloons
Rhyolite may not be a destination of choice for the American tourist but artists from all over the world know of and visit this place. The Red Barn Art Center, located nearby, offers artist residency and workspace programs.
Rhyolite, early 1900s
Business as Usual, Downtown Rhyolite, early 1900s
Ghost town. Open air sculpture museum. Artist colony.
“STOP! DON’T TAKE ANOTHER BITE.” ( I guess the bread was soooo tempting “we” could not even wait for Mary’s photo op. Yeah, they look contrite!
Let’s see if I have this straight. In Italy, it’s focaccia. In France, fougasse. The names of both breads are derived from focus, theLatin word for “fireplace”. These flatbreads were originally cooked on a hot hearthstone or in ashes rather than an oven. Not often seen in a Parisian boulangerie, fougasse is “rooted in Provence,” as Dorie explains, “where olive oil trumps butter and rusticity reigns over prim, precise, and formal.”
The finished product. Think of this as a leaf from the Tree of Life.
In a word, fougasse may not be très chic or Parisian-sophistiqué but it sure is délicieux. Now, leave it to the French to get fancy. Fougasse is often cut in a leaf shape to suggest the Tree of Life. To make the traditional pattern, you slash 2-inch slits in the dough and then nudge and tug the slits open. Honestly, that “technique” caused me the most stress. To check that the holes remained holes, I opened the oven five times to monitor the nine openings and managed to burn my right thumb twice!
Fougasse is a yeast-raised bread seasoned with olive oil, fresh rosemary and studded with oil-cured black olives. There is nothing difficult about mixing the dough and shaping it into flatbread ( the recipe makes two). I did let the dough rise for two hours before stirring it down to chill overnight and shaping and baking it.
The dough, after rising two hours, before stirring it down to chill in the fridge.
After deflating the dough,I placed it safely in the fridge for an overnight slumber . Note the soldiers on guard.
Dorie gives explicit and excellent directions as to shaping fougasse. It’s amazing how nicely a 12” X 9 “ rectangle can be transformed into a leaf. Here, a slash. There, a slash. Everywhere a slash, slash. Viola. Done. It is important, however, for tasty results that the bread be at least one-inch thick.
Please note that fougasse will not bake too dark. Its brown will be a golden hue. The salt on top? I used Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, author Michael Ruhlman’s salt-of-choice.
The rectangle prior to surgery.
Slash, Pull, Tug, Pray.
The definition of chutzpah may be sharing your first attempt at fougasse with my five-star neighbors, Ray Dillion and Dominick Prudenti, former East Coast delicatessen owners. As well as, Sicilian-born-and-bred, Adriana Scrima and her family. Relying on Dorie’s every word and explicit directions, I baked pretty darn good fougasse. Pat Mary on the back. Although my neighbors all lean Italian focaccia, my French fougasse earned some respect.
Oven-ready.
I would suggest the fougasse ultimate Provençal eating experience is with savory bites and a glass of Sancerre while dreaming of the Côte d’Azur. That’s, of course, reality. Far better is to just BE there.
Although we cook from the book and urge you to purchase Dorie’s “Around My French Table”, go here for this recipe. To see how my baking buddies did this week, go here.
Demolished before the pasta dinner. No contrition. Note the basalmic – a good companion.
Sometimes when you shout, “Enough,” no one hears you. I turned the other cheek, two, maybe, three times, counted to ten, took deep breaths and meditated, all before last Friday evening. That’s when it happened.
Repeat after Me: Computers do NOT like liquids of any kind.
After finishing some work on my laptop computer, I grabbed my coffee cup to carry it to the kitchen. You know the end of this story, don’t you? The cup wobbled in my grasp, tilted and cold coffee spilled on my laptop. I grabbed some paper towels, wiped it dry (I thought) and then turned it upside down, shaking the hell out of it. I did not turn it off. My laptop immediately started behaving erratically and, after finally shutting it down, would not restart.
“Uh-oh.” (That’s not what I really said.)
The next morning (No, I did not sleep well.) I was at the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store. I explained my dilemma to three of the employees as I worked my way to the “right” fix-it specialist. The conversations went like this:
Me: “My computer doesn’t work and I need someone to look at it.”
Employee: “No problem. We’ll have someone take a look and get that fixed for you.”
Me: “I spilled coffee on it.”
Employee: Pain. Grimace. Frown. “Oh, that’s not good.”
Three times. Same conversation. I became more alarmed.
By noon I was sitting on a stool at the Genius Bar counter facing Jay, my specialist. There were seven other customers, all on stools with computer problems of their own, working with their specialists. Jay looked kind. I explained the problem.
“My first two words to you,” he said, “Sippy Cup.”
Everyone at the Genius Bar laughed. It’s an intimate area, conversations are not private, and everyone is curious to know your computer dilemma.
“I’m going to take it in the back and have a look,” he told me, “but I think it’s toast.”
In ten minutes he was back. “Yes, I was right. Look at this.”
Jay pointed to pictures on his iPhone which showed my laptop’s innards with puddles of coffee and moisture still present. “It must have been good coffee,” he joked. “Your computer smells good.”
Ha. Ha.
How his iPhone x-rayed my laptop, I will never know, but his evidence was damaging to my case. The good news, my hard drive was salvageable.
“You have two options,” he continued. “Fix this laptop. The cost for that is $1275 or buy a new laptop.”
It got very quiet at the Genius Bar as everyone waited for my decision. I had already turned a pale white. Would I go ballistic? Would I cry? What was going to happen?Ballistic’s not my style. Although I am a crier, this was not a crying opportunity. I raised my hands and said, very sarcastically, “Well, since money’s no object…..” and did a face plant on the counter.”
Jay laughed, “She’s going to buy a new computer.”
Now these antics of mine always embarrass my kids, and I feel their pain. On the contrary, at the Genius Bar, everyone breathed a sign of relief, was amused, and got back to their rather minor, compared to mine, problems.
Jay handed me off to David to sell me a computer? Since my coffee-stained MacBook Pro was only 2 1/2 years old, the question was whether to just buy another MacBook Pro or go with the newer MacBook Air. I always lean towards newer, bigger, better, but I had loved my MacBook Pro.
What to do? It became a group decision. On Saturday, there were more than 35 employees on the floor, many whom had given me computer lessons. Troy, Jon, Alphonso, Mariano, and Jay huddled, ask questions and weighed in with advice. The overwhelming consensus? MacBook Air.
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I am sitting in my office writing this Post on my new 13” MacBook Air. The turnaround time from caputz computer to replacement, albeit expensive, was less than 24-hours. I’ve already re-worked my May/June budget, dipped into my stormy day pot, and filed this under Lessons Learned.
As I was leaving the Apple store, needing just one more shot to my stupidity, Jay cautioned, “Mary, I want you to understand that your new computer is not going to smell as aromatic as your old one.”
Free Advice: If you spill liquid on your computer, immediately turn it off. Just as immediately, wipe it off. Then turn it over. Probably, shaking violently is not a good idea but try to get all the liquid to drip out. Once this is done, blast it with a computer air duster. DO NOT use a hair dryer. Then, pray.
More Free Advice: If you drop your cell phone in water (like, for instance, the toilet), immediately turn it off. Take the battery out. Plunge the phone into rice. Keep it immerged in the rice for two or three days. Then, Pray.
A Beautiful Evening and Lovely Meal with a Friend of Twenty-Five Years
Almond flounder meunière is today’s FFWD recipe choice. It couldn’t have been a better one for me. This week my friend Kent Harding, who lives in Toronto, is visiting Las Vegas. Every year he joins his colleagues for a golfing junket here and always spares time to see me. He and his wife Jean, one of North America’s preeminent portrait painters, also own a home in LaCadière, a tiny village located in the far western sliver of the Cote d’Azur. We have known them for the past 25 years, since first meeting on a bicycle tour in Provence. Friends ever since, over the past 8 years I have often enjoyed their extraordinary French hospitality and been welcomed into their expat community of friends there.
What better dish to serve him than the Dorie-version of sole amandine and sole meunière rolled together into Almond Flounder Meunière. If we wanted to wring out a few precious French memories, this would be the perfect meal for it.
Unfortunately, flounder doesn’t come easy, sole is trés chère and I needed to cast a wider net to haul in an acceptable substitute.
Skai Fish Farm, photograph courtesy of koi-bito.com
The good news is, according to experts, skai is a white-fleshy fish with a sweet mild, taste and light flaky texture that can be broiled, grilled, or coated with bread crumbs and fried. The bad news, for me at least, is it is a river-farmed catfish (with a wink, wink, to river-farmed) harvested from the Mekong River in Vietnam. Whoops. The more investigation I did, the more I questioned whether I should take the bait and buy Skai.
There was all kinds of Internet chatter about this fish because it is a cheap alternative to pricier swimmers. I scanned the comments. My thinking was that Skai was kinda French, being from Vietnam which had been a part of the French colonial empire until 1954! Reason enough. However, what locked in my decision to buy Skai was a comment left on a food blog forum. Regarding Skai, the commenter wrote, “I have other things to worry about killing me before the Skai will.”
I took the bait.
I purchased 16 ounces of the Skai which was maybe river-farmed but probably just caught out of the Mekong River which flows through Vietnam which used to be part of the French colonial empire until 1954. Two pieces, available in fillet form, no bones. On sale – $2.99 per pound.
Almond Skai Meunière
It’s a simple process to fry the fish in browned butter. The coating mixture is ground almonds, flour, lemon zest, salt and pepper. The next time I make this I will use almond flour rather than grinding my own almonds. After brushing the fillets with an egg wash, coat one side of each fillet. I fried the skai 4 to 5 minutes on each side since it was a fleshier fish than either sole or flounder would be. Toss some toasted almonds and parsley over the browned fish, squirt a shot of lemon on top and, viola, skai became Almond Flounder Meunière.
What a wonderful combination, Asparagus, Leeks, & Parmigiano Reggiano
To accompany the fish, I made a simple recipe of sautéed asparagus and leeks, both purchased at the Farmer’s Market. The recipe, compliments of Kate who blogs on Savour Fare can be found here.
No one has died from eating my Skai…….yet. The meal was delicious and the fish, tasty. Of course, what about “fried in brown butter” doesn’t spell heavenly. The cautionary note is I will do more research before serving Skai again. And, truthfully, this recipe really belongs to a fish in the sole or flounder family.
To see what other Doristas reeled in this week, go here.
Hungarian Shortbread Bars with Blueberry Preserves Filling
For the record, I spent four glorious days in Budapest last Fall. Cruised on the Danube. Stuffed myself with pierogi. Hiked up Gellert Hill and crossed the Chain Bridge. Nowhere was I offered Hungarian Shortbread.
Those Hungarians don’t know what they’re missing!
Mise En Place, The Ingredients and the Box Grater
This week our TWD/BWJ group is baking shortbread bars. These delicacies are delicious and a bit of a smile to make. Have you ever grated cookie dough? For this recipe, we needed to pull out our box graters, choose the side with the largest holes, and go crazy. If grating is your technique of choice and you wish to make this bar cookie, find the recipe directions here or here. This week’s hostesses, the gals who did the heavy-lifting, are Lynette and Cher. We thank both of you.
Instead of making the traditional rhubarb jam filling, I used a jar of organic blueberry preserves. Although there’s nothing unusual about putting together the dough mixture, the next chill-and-grate step may give you pause……. but charge right ahead. The filling goes in the middle and is covered by more grated dough. Immediately after baking, dust the top of the shortbread heavily with confectioner’s sugar.
Grating the first ball of frozen shortbread dough into the pan
After carefully spreading blueberry preserves over the shredded dough, I grated the second frozen dough ball on top.
Although my batch was delicious, they were a tad chunky because my baking pan wasn’t large enough. This is a rich cookie. My portions should be smaller. I think I’ll perfect this recipe and use it on my cookie platters during the upcoming Christmas holidays (okay, still 8 months away). If the filling were homemade raspberry or cherry preserves, it would look very festive.
After slipping it into a 350 degree oven, I just had to catch a picture of the preserves seeping through the dough.
Do we think I was a bit heavy-handed with the confectioner’s sugar?!?
Use your Imagination. Apple does not allow use of their icon.
Of the technical variety.
My first computer, bought thirty years ago, was a Mac. Since then I’ve loyally trudged through Mac-Land. I now own a MacBookPro. And, an iPod, iPod Touch, iPad, and, after next week, an iPhone. Except for my son-in-law, I’ve successfully converted my family from PC’s to Apple products. He’s a lawyer. He’s a holdout. It will happen.
If you are technically challenged, and, I am, the learning curve, with each new product, is Mt. Everest. That’s why I belong to Apple’s One-on-One program. For $99 a year, I can take a weekly private lesson to get set up, get trained, and get going on each new Mac device. Admittedly, there are some why’s and wherefore’s to this program, but, let’s just say, I have tenure.
The Apple employee/tutors in this program are amazing, patient, kind and young. How can they be so computer literate at 12 years of age? Which brings me to Troy, a One-on-One tutor at my local Apple store, and the reason for this Post.
During the last presidential election, we were both involved in the campaign. “Fired Up” would be an understatement. I’ve always been a political animal, but this was a new and exciting world for Troy. Being engaged in the democratic process lends importance to being an American and Troy, for the first time, felt it.
Fast forward to three years later.
Following a recent One-on-One session, referring to politics, I asked him, “What do you think?”
In a flash, he responded, “I think I don’t make a difference.”
Subject closed.
His response has haunted me. He’s too young, too smart and too vital to this country’s future to think he doesn’t matter.
His response also begs the question, for me at least, about making a difference. Do I? Beginning in 2011 and continuing for the next 18 years, between 7,000 to 8,000 Americans will be turning 65 years of age everysingle day. We’re in the fourth quarter. So it occurs to me, many Baby Boomers will be asking themselves that very same, legitimate question.
This past week I have had time to ponder this. My husband Michael, who lives in a nearby memory care facility and is under Hospice care, developed Shingles. Not good. Luckily, I had been vaccinated, could ignore the quarantine, sit by his bedside as he slept, and conduct a one-way conversation with myself (if you know me, that’s not all bad).
I liked my answers. Does Relevance still live at my house? Yes. Do I make a difference? You bet. The difference in my now-differences as compared to my past-differences is the key (one more time) difference.
In the past I’ve made a difference not only to my family but also to my students, my employees, board members, and everyone dependent upon me for one reason or another. My students needed a class grade to graduate. As an editor of a small newspaper, operating on a barebones budget, I hired young reporters and trained them well before kicking them up to better reporting opportunities. On charity and nonprofit boards, I organized fundraisers. Girl Scouts? Leader and Cookie Mother. Perpetual Room Mother – cupcakes for every occasion. Sunday School teacher. The list goes on and on. I am no different from millions of others heading into retirement. Like so many, I think I saw myself as more important than I ever was.
As for now, my universe for making a difference and being relevant is smaller but is, and this is my premise to all of you, just as necessary. It may be even more important to you women, like me, who live alone by choice, death, divorce, or health reasons.
First, I am fortunate to have many communities of friends. To every extent, they make a difference to me and I, to them. Friendships must be nourished and treasured, there’s joy and value in each one. Second, while sadly I don’t make a difference to Michael anymore, he does not remember our life together, I make a huge difference to the professionals who care for him. Every patient needs a ferocious advocate and I am his. Ironically, his caregivers appreciate that.
Lastly and what struck me as surprising, is how important I feel I am to my family. Besides loving me, which they do, they make me feel necessary and important and relevant. America is not a country that has ever valued older people. I suggest to you that phenomenon is changing and it’s this Sandwich Generation*, our kids, who are making this occur. So now, I believe, it’s up to us. It’s how WE handle this attitudinal change that will make the difference in our lives and theirs.
Please understand, my children are smart, capable, self-sufficient and very good parents.They both work and are successful. And, more often than not, a helping hand needs to be extended my way rather than theirs. I’ve concluded their lives, albeit happy, are far more complicated, difficult and challenging than mine ever was. That’s why sometimes my role is to listen, not my greatest virtue, offering unconditional support. More often, because I’m able to see the forest, I can suggest a quick-fix. Done. At times, I anticipate bumps and can smooth them out. Many a moment, it’s just the, “Hang on, this, too, shall pass,” advice that they have to hear.
We all need to feel valued rather than tolerated, appreciated and respected rather than ignored. For Baby Boomers, life has been all about goals, accomplishments and providing not just good but better and best for our loved ones. To slow down our train is difficult, to climb off, even harder. That’s why, as we step aside and Life continues barreling down the track, we each need to ask ourselves these questions, find our niche and honor who we are.
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* The Sandwich generation is a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children.
Traditional: those sandwiched between aging parents who need care and/or help and their own children.
Club Sandwich: those in their 50s or 60s sandwiched between aging parents, adult children and grandchildren, or those in their 30s and 40s, with young children, aging parents and grandparents.
