Girl Detective

2:20 am.

THUMP. “Waaah!”

Me, up, out of bed, and saying, “G, wake up, I need you” as I rush into Drake and Guppy’s room, home to the new bunk bed. (I wish there was a video of this to submit to the Mom Olympic committee: how many seconds from sleep to rescue of a hurt child.)

2.5yo Guppy had fallen out of bed. He was upset, but unhurt–cried for a while, asked for some water and settled down. G, still groggy, wondered why I’d woken (awakened?) him.

And, to show that, in so many ways, kids are so alike, here is the story of when Drake had trouble with his crib.

I’m going to Minnesota Cooks day at the State Fair today. You?

During my recent visit with family, my husband G. Grod disassembled 2.5 yo Guppy’s crib, and put up bunk beds in 5yo Drake’s room. Guppy finally has all his teeth, and he slept well in a bed, and in the same room as Drake, when we were away. The transition home has been less than smooth. Guppy can climb up to Drake’s bunk, but not down. Drake excels at winding Guppy up, and the four of us have been up and down our three floors about an hour after “bedtime” every night trying to get them to settle. Loud thumps from jumping shake the house.

I hope the novelty wears off soon.

Ugh. Saccharine, smarmy, and boring to boot. Neither funny, nor charming. I gave up about halfway through. Instead, I read more of Hamlet.

Our little family of four went to the MN State Fair this morning, foregoing the double-wide stroller so we could park n ride. I found that the closest park n ride to us, Highcrest Park, isn’t ideal. The buses aren’t frequent to and from even though they’re listed as running every 15, they run less often. We’ve done better at the surface lots at the U of MN. They’re a bit farther to drive, but a much shorter bus ride, with much more frequent buses.

It’s very hard to keep the boys moving; they’re prone to stop and stare. While some might romanticize this–oh, look, they’re stopping to smell the “roses” of the fair!–it can be quite frustrating for G. Grod and me, who aren’t mesmerized by dirty water trickling into a drain, bumper cars, and watching the sky ride cars go ’round. These are ironic, too, in that 5yo Drake refused to visit supposedly kid-friendly things like the baby animal barn. The boys’ initially slow pace wound down as the morning wore on, but they LOVED the river raft ride, kidway rides and sky ride. We ate pork chop on a stick–LOVE!–french fries and a strawberry malt for breakfast. For lunch, a pronto pup, fried cheese curds, lefse with butter and brown sugar, jerk sausage on a stick, birch beer and a pickle pop, the latter of which was, not surprisingly, a mistake. And I was careless with my sunscreen–my nose is red.

I still haven’t been to fine arts building, or the little farm hands with Drake, and there are still some favorite foods I haven’t gotten too, like the mocha on a stick, corn, lingonberry ice cream, Sweet Martha’s cookies, and mini donuts. Plus the Nitro ice cream and handmade tater tots sound good.

Oh, so much food and so much to see. So not-enough money and time.

I returned to the fair last night for Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, who played live at the free bandshell. It was a great show with fabulous music and huge energy. They played again tonight, so I hope a lot of people got to see it tonight, too.

And I got corn fritters with honey butter and a root beer, to accompany the show.

What? It’s not Christmas? Well, maybe that’s the most wonderful time for you, but for me, it’s the Minnesota State Fair.

It’s opening day, and I’m going with the boys and our babysitter. I’m going to have to clean up my food plan from past years and be more conscious when I’m with the kids. (This year’s food map, here.)

Idea: 1. Big, strong food, e.g., wild rice dog or Sausage Sisters, 2. Snack food, e.g., cheese curds or french fries, 3. Treat, e.g., mini donuts or Sweet Martha cookies.

Why, yes, I _do_ have a talent for rationalization. I think it’s all those years studying and working in marketing.

Added later, post trip: I was brave and didn’t take the stroller for 5yo Drake and 2.5yo Guppy. We used the park-n-ride on 6th Street at the U of M. But as the boys got tired they got slower and fussier, so the trip to the parking lot felt endless. We ate a Twisted Sister from Sausage Sisters, a pickle on a Stick, Mouth Trap cheese curds, drank a green apple soda, had cider freezies and a lemonade for the road.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are playing, for free!, at the bandshell tonight, so I may go back if G. Grod is up for putting the kids to bed. I think the fair trip will have sufficiently tired them out.

From Food Alliance Midwest:

A Farm to Table Tour
6th Annual Minnesota Cooks Event at State Fair

SAINT PAUL, Minn.– Food Alliance Certified growers, extraordinary Minnesota chefs, and hungry fair-goers will all come together on Tuesday, August 26th at the 6th annual Minnesota Cooks program at the State Fair. Minnesota Cooks is a unique event that celebrates the fabulous foods produced right here in Minnesota and educates consumers about the importance of supporting locally grown food and sustainable agriculture through discussions and demonstrations with area chefs, farmers, and celebrities. The program will begin at 8:30 AM with a special, first-time breakfast show and will continue with a show at the top of each hour from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM on the Minnesota Cooks Stage in Carousel Park, just west of the Grandstand Ramp.

The Minnesota Cooks event features 16 of Minnesota’s premier chefs who will present 45-minute demonstrations using ingredients supplied by sustainable Minnesota farms. During their presentations, chefs will interact with charismatic emcee Scott Pampuch, chef and owner of Corner Table Restaurant in Minneapolis, about their award-winning recipes and will engage in rich discussions about the sustainable philosophies they hold for their restaurants. During the last 10 minutes of each 45-minute demo, local celebrities as well as audience members will have the opportunity to sample the delicious dishes created. Between each show, Light of the Moon, an eclectic, bubbly string quartet from Saint Paul, will serenade the audience with their wide variety of songs, serving up blues, gospel, and bluegrass.

“The Great Minnesota Get-Together is the perfect venue for the Minnesota Cooks program because it brings farmers, consumers, and chefs together to showcase the great food we have to choose from right here in our state,” said Doug Peterson, Minnesota Farmers Union President. “With the growing energy costs and concerns, Minnesota Cooks also highlights ways you can use local resources to reduce those costs while also contributing to our local communities.”

Available for complimentary distribution at the event will be the beautiful and informative Minnesota Cooks 16-month calendar, produced by Renewing the Countryside. The calendar is packed with stunning photography and enticing recipes and will weave the meaningful stories characteristic of chef/grower relationships.

Participating chefs, many of who will be available for greetings and calendar signings during the event include:

Judi Barsness, Chez Jude, Grand Marais
Anna Christoforides, Gardens of Salonica, Minneapolis
JD Fratzke, The Strip Club, St. Paul
Jorge Guzman, Tejas Restaurant, Edina
Brian Hauke, Red Stag Supper Club, Minneapolis
Nathalie Johnson, Signature Cafe, Minneapolis
Jeff Klemetsrud, Savories Bistro, Stillwater
Donna Lovett, Marriott City Center, Minneapolis
Mike Phillips, The Craftsman, Minneapolis
Alex Roberts, Restaurant Alma, Minneapolis
JP Samuelson, jP American Bistro, Minneapolis
Nick Schneider, Cafe Brenda, Minneapolis
Tracy Singleton & Marshall Paulsen, Birchwood Cafe, Minneapolis
Carla Blumberg, Chester Creek Cafe, Duluth
Dick Trotter, Trotter’s Cafe, St. Paul
Lucia Watson, Lucia’s Restaurant, Minneapolis

Minnesota Cooks is sponsored in part by AURI and is co-presented by Minnesota Farmers Union, Food Alliance Midwest, and Renewing the Countryside.
For more information about Minnesota Cooks, please visit the website at www.minnesotacooks.org or contact Jill McLaughlin of Food Alliance Midwest at 651-209-3382 or e-mail info@minnesotacooks.org.

Minnesota Farmers Union (www.mfu.org) is a nonprofit membership-based organization
working to protect and enhance the economic interests and quality of life of family farmers and ranchers, as well as rural communities.

Food Alliance Midwest (www.foodalliance.org) is a nonprofit, third-party certification program for environmentally friendly and socially responsible agricultural practices, and is dedicated to promoting the expanded use of sustainable farming systems in the Midwest. Food Alliance Midwest, a joint project of Cooperative Development Services and the Land Stewardship Project, is an affiliate of Food Alliance, based in Portland, OR.

AURI (www.auri.org), created and supported by the Minnesota state legislature, is a unique and innovative nonprofit corporation working to enhance Minnesota’s economy through the development of new uses and new markets for the state’s agricultural products.

Renewing the Countryside (www.renewingthecountryside.org) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide inspiration, ideas, and assistance to individuals and communities looking for sustainable ways to strengthen their rural communities and reduce poverty.

On last Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, “Three Sundays”, Don Draper’s son Bobby asked what Don’s father had liked. Don, surprised by the seeming randomness of the question, paused, then answered, “Ham…and candy that tasted like violets, and came in a “beautiful purple and silver package.”

Interestingly, and I suspect deliberately on the part of the writers, many watchers thought Don said the candy tasted like “violence,” since his dad was physically abusive. (Link at Videogum, plus the clip.) Also interesting, because violet candy in a beautiful wrapper seems so incongruous for a ham-lovin’, child-beatin’ man.

I’d never heard of the mints; I found out they were Choward’s Violet Mints by reading the comments for the episode recap at What’s Alan Watching. Then, less than 48 hours later, I found the violet mints by a cash register in Philadelphia International Airport. On impulse, I bought them. The package is lovely, but the smell, especially to a sensitive schnoz like mine, is too strong. It permeated the rest of the food in the bag. It looks like lavender soap, and the taste is not unpleasant, though it’s floral and not minty. If you like chamomile or Earl Grey tea, you might like the mints. But I’m guessing that most people will feel similarly to Figaroo, who reviewed them at Writers/Artists Snacking at Work.

If you’re flying into or out of Philly, you can find them at Cibo Express in Terminal E.

R & J, an update of Romeo and Juliet set in an all-boys Catholic school, by Philadelphia’s Mauckingbird Theater Company, shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Four men, with some boxes, a book and a length of red fabric, bring Shakespeare’s famous love story to life. In the process, they show how universal is the story, which transcends time, sex, stage and location. Evan Jonigkeit is the student who plays Romeo, by turns wistful, hormonal, and brash. Conrad Ricamora, as the student in the role of Juliet, brings new depth and awareness to what could easily be a “damsel in distress” role. All four actors excel in the numerous roles they take on, infusing even the smaller roles with wit and emotion.

This interpretation is directed by Peter Reynolds from an adaptation by Joe Colarco, and at Philadelphia’s Adrienne theater through 24 August 2008. I highly recommend it; I am thinking and relishing the performance days later. I also highly recommend Fuji Mountain for dinner, and Capogiro Gelato, which has a good selection of local, seasonal flavors and ingredients; I chose black fig and pistachio.

More:
Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Weekly, City Paper, Edge Philadelphia, and PhillyMag.

My friend lxbean is not shy about how she feels about our family living in Minneapolis these past ten years.

“Move back! Please move back to Philly! Come back!”

Her plea might have held more weight if I had not been stuck in a nearly 2-hour traffic jam on the Schuykill “Expressway” for a normally 30-minute drive earlier in the day. And had to pay nearly $20 to park downtown. And walked by one of Philly’s stinky, steaming, summer street vents. And driven across the chemical-fume bridge from the airport and by the giant junkyard and chemical fields that line the run-down section of 76 into the city. Plus, houses comparable to ours sell for about twice as much.

I’ve enjoyed our trip to Philly. I had a lovely jaunt to NYC, saw a great production of Romeo and Juliet, had some great meals, gelato and ice cream. But I like Minneapolis, and miss our friends and our walking lifestyle. I love Philly and the East Coast. But Minnesota suits us in so many ways that I think we’re there for good.

My husband G. Grod and I were visiting family near Philadelphia. G. flew home on his own so I could stay for a longer visit with 4yo Drake an 2yo Guppy. As he went through security, G. was stopped for a search of his bag.

“What’s this?” asked the guard, holding up a brick-sized, foil-wrapped item in a Ziploc bag.

G., appreciating how suspicious this looked: “It’s a pound of scrapple. My mom froze it so I could take a loaf home.”

“OK,” the guard shrugged, replacing the package in G’s bag, as if that were the most reasonable thing he’d heard all day. Next he pulled out a heavy, paper-wrapped cylinder. “What’s this, then?”

“It’s an Eagles beer stein,” G said. “I took my son up to training camp at Lehigh.”

The guard then asked who they’d seen, and how the Birds had looked. He waved G. through the checkpoint.

Only in Philly, G. thought, would a loaf of scrapple not raise an eyebrow, and a heavy beer glass spark a conversation among fans. It’s good to see some things don’t change.

Empire has a good, if hard to navigate, list of the 50 greatest comic book characters. Now, lists are inherently flawed and best as discussion starters. Nonetheless, there are a lot of great characters on here from my favorite comics. (Link from Bookslut)

I’m kinda bummed Nexus and Zot didn’t make the cut. Oh, and Carrie Stetko (coming soon to the movies) and Tara Chace, too. And Batgirl and Supergirl. Perhaps I should stop thinking on this.

Others?

In Hamlet, Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Before Laertes departs Denmark for France, Polonius sends him off thus:

…There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee.

Several well-known phrases contained therein are deployed in common usage without irony. Many critics, though, regard Polonius as a clown, or figure of ridicule; this makes his advice likely trite and not meant by Shakespeare to be taken seriously.

Though later scenes in the book portray Polonius as foolish, the longer note on this passage in the edition I’m reading, with commentary by Harold Jenkins (NB: not the man better known as Conway Twitty), says it is a mistake to read the above passage as a joke:

Such conventional precepts are entirely appropriate to Polonius as a man of experience. It is a mistake to suppose they are meant to make him seem ridiculous. Their purpose, far more important than any individual characterization, is to present him in his role of father….by impressing upon us here the relation between father and son the play is preparing for the emergence of Laertes later as the avenger who will claim Hamlet as his victim.

So, is Polonius a good father, a pompous fool, or perhaps a little of both? Methinks ’tis the latter.

I’m reading Hamlet again. When I read it in high school, I dismissed Hamlet as an annoying procrastinator. I used my paper to prove my AP English teacher wasn’t reading my work, just giving me A’s, identifying Claudius with a term that contains the letters m and f. That was me, then: “an understanding simple and unschool’d.”

The next time I read Hamlet I was in graduate school, about ten years ago. My English friend Thalia lent me her copy, with her A-level notes. It was a discouraging contrast with my senior-year experience. I loved the play. It was a feast of words–so _this_ was the source of so many famous quotes, many of which I’d thought were from the Bible.

Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcelllus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the might
Been thus encounter’d: a figure like your father
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes
Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like. –Horatio, from Hamlet I, ii, 196-206

Footnote from the 1997 Arden Shakespeare edition:

Horatio’s speech ‘a perfect model of dramatic narration and dramatic style, the purest poetry and yet the most natural language’ (Coleridge)

I decided on a slow reading: not just the text of the play, but the xxvii-page preface and 159-page introduction first, since I’ve read the play before. I read the spread of two pages, then their footnotes. At the end of each scene, I read the longer end notes for it. The preface and introduction took me the better part of two days to read. The academic jargon was so thick I only noticed my edition skipped from page 14 to 47 when I paged back for a definition of “foul papers.” I’d had to read that page transition several times to make sense it didn’t possess; it looks as if it were never bound in, not as if it fell out. The editor, Harold Jenkins, is entertainingly satisfied with himself, cutting down interpretations of other scholars with words as poisonous as Laertes’s rapier.

The Arden Shakespeare series has undergone several changes of publisher. They have a new edition of Hamlet, but I’m sticking with the one I read before, even if my copy is missing a segment. As the introduction makes clear, the lineage of the text is murky. Most copies of Hamlet rely on the second quarto, though some adhere to that of the first folio. Editors have a mighty task to decide which copy, if any, is the most authoritative for any given passage.

Asked later: What edition is your favorite/least favorite? Do you have a preference?

I scanned the board at the coffee shop, but didn’t see what I wanted. The woman at the register waited for my order.

“Can I get a depth charge?” I asked, not surprised when she furrowed her brow and wanted to know what it was.

“A cup of coffee with a shot in it.”

“Oh,” she smiled. “We call that a red eye. Where are you from?”

Minnesota, I told her. She placed my order, then had another question.

“What do you call it when it has TWO shots in it?”

“A double depth charge. What about you?”

She laughed. “A _black_ eye.”

Vive la difference.

I visit NYC once or twice a year. That’s just enough time between trips for me to forget the basics of the subway. I may very well do it wrong the first time every trip, which is embarrassing, because I’ve lived in subway cities before! Perhaps the midwest, or motherhood, has dulled my city mojo. Here’s my attempt to reinforce what I learned yet again on this trip to Gotham:

(Sung, of course, to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus”)

The trains of New York run UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN
The trains of New York run UP and DOWN,
NOT just one way.

I’m watching the season premiere of Sesame Street with my kids. Murray seems to be the monster of the show. I wonder if they’ll feature other monsters in an alternating manner. No Cookie Monster? Wrong. Just wrong.

I wish I hadn’t watched the Feist “1, 2, 3, 4″ video before this. It’s delightful, and would have been a joy to be surprised by. Jack Black’s octagon enthusiasm was pretty fun to watch.

Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential received good reviews when it was published in 2000. I thought, “I’d like to read that.” Then I watched a few episodes of his Food Network “A Cook’s Tour“, and was put off by his on-air persona. But my favorite local food writer wrote a positive article about him, and his book was turned into a decent, though canceled, sitcom (now available on DVD). I thought I’d give the book another chance. Then a few years went by. A friend lent me the book. My husband lent it to someone else. I got it back, and finally read it. And I wish I’d read it way back when.

I’m now a fan of Bourdain as a guest star on “Top Chef” or from his Travel Channel show “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” for which he has a blog. From what I’ve read, part of the the unlikeability of Bourdain’s former Food Network show was about its production, not its star. His book is written in the acerbic, funny, and in-your-face provocative way that he comes across in person.

What most people don’t get about professional-level cooking is that it is not at all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking – the real business of preparing the food you eat – is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator …. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

The essays that make up the book alternate between personal anecdotes, behind-the-scenes looks at chefs and line cooking, and advice on food–don’t eat fish on Mondays, go to brunch or order meat well done, and own one good chef’s knife rather than a big block of mediocre blades. They are loosely arranged in the order of a multi-course dinner. “Loose” is the key term here, because it wasn’t always clear to me why some essays were in particular “courses,” and they did not flow chronologically.

In the eight years since this book was published, much of what he notes has become common knowledge, so the shock value it must have had has lessened. To be fair, though, some of the explosion of food knowledge and appreciation of fine dining is likely due to this popular book. I was both entertained, and a little disappointed in the book. I enjoyed the anecdotes, but they never delved much below surface level. I learned about food, though a lot in the book I knew already. This book was of its moment, and momentous in the changes it helped inspire. Eight years later it’s still good, but perhaps more culturally significant in retrospect than currently relevant.

At Inside Higher Ed, “The Innumeracy of Intellectuals” by Chad Orzel. (Link from Morning News)

Intellectuals and academics are just assumed to have some background knowledge of the arts, and not knowing those things can count against you. Ignorance of math and science is no obstacle, though. I have seen tenured professors of the humanities say – in public faculty discussions, no less – “I’m just no good at math,” without a trace of shame. There is absolutely no expectation that Intellectuals know even basic math.

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, “How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science” by Peter Wood. (Link from Arts & Letters Daily)

At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn – and worse, fail to develop as “whole persons” – if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren’t among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who “feel good” about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.

The intellectual lassitude we breed in students, their unearned and inflated self-confidence, undercuts both the self-discipline and the intellectual modesty that is needed for the apprentice years in the sciences.

I had an experience similar to those that Orzel describes at a dinner with a group of liberal arts grad students and professors. When our bill came, everyone looked around, hoping someone would step up to figure it out. I was the only volunteer. I looked at the total, mentally added 20% for tip in my head, divided it by the number of people at the dinner, then collected money and gave change. One of the professors, who’d recently been awarded a Genius grant, thanked me for taking charge, and said she was hopeless at math. I was in a liberal arts program at the time, but I told her I’d been a business student as an undergrad. She nodded as if this explained it all.

Wood’s article ties the decline in math and the sciences to the rise of an esteem based education system, which has been much bruited about online, of late, which I’ve written about here and here.) I was reminded of an English friend. When she showed early promise in school, she was urged toward the sciences, and went on to a PhD in biology from one of the world’s premiere universities. If she had been a US student, might she have become one of the overeducated liberal-arts baristas that Woods decries?

It’s interesting to ponder, as I’ll decide within the next year which school to enroll 4yo Drake in for kindergarten. The open arts school that everyone in the neighborhood sends their kids to? The Math/Science/Technology magnet school down the street (whose deal breaker may be that it begins at 7:30am)? The German Immersion school?