Tonight, I left work a little early so I could catch the Cowboys-Redskins game. (I tend to work late.)
You see, while I was growing up in Takoma Park, Maryland, seven miles from the DC border, my family's religion was the Washington Redskins. While I'm horrified by the money being floated around over nothing more than a game and simple entertainment, I justify my interest with the economic impact football has on the good old U.S.A. I do believe the money would be better spent helping starving children in Africa, but at least folks in the lower economic echelon in the U.S. reap some benefit (if disproportional) from the sport. Besides, watching football makes me feel close to my dad, who I lost in 1985. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator, as every good advertiser knows.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Episode 5: Featured Guest: Sabine
Of course, I had already noticed her. Who wouldn't have? She moved through the hallways unlike anyone else, tall, elegant, "lovely in her bones," always dressed in a way that we Americans don't, putting together textures and colors and styles we never would and pulling the ensemble off with panache. With her blond hair and bright blue eyes, along with the mellifluous accent, I assumed she was Swedish. In fact, I'd learn she is German, but her voice carried none of the harsh sounds I'd always associated with that language. Hers was High German, in which "No" is "Nay," not "Nein.," though her friends came from Southern as well as Northern Germany and all over the world, and she would settle, at the end, not far from Stuttgart.
One day shortly after I began working at the law firm, I stepped into the ladies' room, where she was just leaving. She reached out a hand and, with a friendly smile, said, "Hello! I'm Sabine! Welcome!" (She tells me we first met in the coffee room--isn't memory fascinating? This is how I remember it.)
I'm sure I mumbled my name in reply, but no one at that point in my twenty-eight years had ever approached me with quite so much confidence and warmth. Perhaps it's because I grew up in America, and Prince George's County to boot, or perhaps it's because I just hadn't been around many confident, sophisticated people, but I truly couldn't remember anyone introducing themselves to me in that manner. Besides, my shyness had been pathological since a young age.
Sabine's warm introduction was a revelation. What a sensible, good-natured approach!
Here I was, Queen of Shyness and Social Anxiety, seeing perhaps for the first time how easy it is to open oneself to others, to demonstrate one's affability, and to instantly make friends. As I said, a revelation.
One day shortly after I began working at the law firm, I stepped into the ladies' room, where she was just leaving. She reached out a hand and, with a friendly smile, said, "Hello! I'm Sabine! Welcome!" (She tells me we first met in the coffee room--isn't memory fascinating? This is how I remember it.)
I'm sure I mumbled my name in reply, but no one at that point in my twenty-eight years had ever approached me with quite so much confidence and warmth. Perhaps it's because I grew up in America, and Prince George's County to boot, or perhaps it's because I just hadn't been around many confident, sophisticated people, but I truly couldn't remember anyone introducing themselves to me in that manner. Besides, my shyness had been pathological since a young age.
Sabine's warm introduction was a revelation. What a sensible, good-natured approach!
Here I was, Queen of Shyness and Social Anxiety, seeing perhaps for the first time how easy it is to open oneself to others, to demonstrate one's affability, and to instantly make friends. As I said, a revelation.
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| Sabine and Me, General's Beach, Albania, on the Adriatic, 1/2012 |
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Episode 4: Amanita muscaria var. guessowii ... and other things
Today I found an Amanita muscaria var. guessowii in my front yard. Of course, I had no idea that's what it was when I plucked it from the earth. I've been riding a mushroom obsession since I visited my best friend from sixth grade (forty years ago, in other words) recently after finding her on Facebook, and her German mother sauteed up some fresh mushrooms from her yard with onions in olive oil and served it to me on a toasted English muffin.
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
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| Amanita muscaria, var. guessowii from my yard, 9/24/11 Feel free to use, but I would appreciate an attribution. (Copyright Mary Dell Spalding) |
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