What is Your Home Town's Claim to Fame?

From Bike The Byways

Everybody’s home town has a claim to fame. My home town, Gouverneur, NY is where the founder of the Life Savers Candy Company, E.J. Noble, was born. There is a giant roll of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers in the middle of town. This statue (along with the local museum’s two headed calf), is what has earned Gouverneur mention on the Roadside America web site.

This is not a paid promotion. I don't even get a free bumper sticker or anything. I have just found some cool stuff on the site. Roadside America is a guide to finding offbeat attractions, which in my mind are the best kind! You can find any number of small town museums, works made in homage to their originals (like Foamhenge in VA), and stuff that you have only seen in the movies (hint for Kevin Smith fans, head for NJ).  

From Earth Art By Brad

This brings me to the real reason for this post. When we were traveling a few weeks ago we stopped in a little town called Roscoe, NY. Along with claiming to be the fly fishing capital of the world, there were those photo props that you can put your head in all over the place.
 

Figlet & Her Daddy

 After taking a bunch of pictures I thought ‘This place ought to be listed on the Roadside America site’. So I sent them a tip, and now it is!
 

The End

The Ultimate Hide-a-Veggie Recipe - A Letter to a Home Town

My Family Says I Try to Hide Veggies in Everything!

In honor of Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day (August 8th) here is a Letter from the archives.

Those with a garden of significant size can tell you: now is the season of bounty! Veggies abound in midsummer. Tomatoes shine like red Christmas balls on the vine. Carrots have grown beyond wee fingerlings. Summer squashes could squish out every other dish on the table.

Thanks to the CSA I mentioned a while back, even without a garden of our own, this year we are lucky enough to partake as though we had. The quantity of fresh vegetables delivered weekly reflects the bounty of the season. (Bonus: knowing it would cost far more if we bought them at the grocery store.)

Contrary to planting our own garden, we had no say over what seeds were sown in spring. The result is that nearly every week we receive some vegetable that I have no experience preparing: garlic scapes, purple kale, fava beans, etc. I consider this incentive for culinary exploration. I am also thankful that my companion has an adventurous pallet!

Along with the unusual, sometimes the sheer quantity of produce presents a challenge. Nearly every dish I have prepared over the past few weeks, from stuffed eggplant to fresh squeezed lemonade, has contained fresh basil. One week’s surplus of cucumbers became refrigerator pickles for the elder kids to enjoy when they come home from their upstate adventures. Lately the challenge has been how to use the gluttony of zucchini.

Excess zucchini is not an unfamiliar experience. Zucchini grows well in the North East. Almost everyone with space enough grows them. This means a bumper crop in one garden is a bumper crop in every garden. This inevitably leads to sneaking zucchini onto neighbor’s porches in the dead of night; a well meaning, yet desperate measure that an unyielding overabundance of zucchini may yield.

Thankfully zucchini is a versatile and easily disguised vegetable. (Come to think of it, I don’t remember Grandma ever making plain zucchini.) Zucchini bread was the first thing I made (Joan’s recipe from the church cookbook.) I’ve snuck it into omelets. It is a staple in stir fry. Marinated in Italian dressing, it is fabulous on the grill (an idea borrowed from Aunt Patty). With eggplant in the CSA basket, ratatouille is on the menu. My latest endeavor: Chocolate Zucchini Cookies - an ultimate hide-a-veggie treat! Just in case anyone else is looking for a way to use up some zucchini…

Chocolate Zucchini Cookies

* 1/2 cup butter *1/2 cup white sugar *1/2 cup brown sugar *1 egg *1 teaspoon vanilla extract *2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour *1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder *1 teaspoon baking soda *2 cups grated zucchini

Mix butter, egg, vanilla & sugars – then the baking soda and cocoa then the zucchini and finally the flour. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto baking sheet the bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.

Optional additions – a scant cup of chocolate chips in the batter or swipe of cream cheese frosting on top. If a veggie hater asks what the green stuff in them is, tell them it’s apple.

             I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Somewhere Between Here and There - Letter to a Home Town

It has been a long time since I traveled alone with just a toddler in tow. She frets and plays on the long ride, but mostly she sleeps the trip away. For me, the sole driver, life is suspended for the passage of miles. I imagine myself caught in an elevator between floors. The only real difference is that I have some control over what music plays. My monkey mind dances to the tune.

The car is packed to the roof with North Country fare. There are enough fresh picked blueberries to both eat and freeze. The syrup alone makes up for a passenger. But mostly the seats of absent passengers are filled with things from my grandparent’s house. There has to be a metaphor in that somewhere.             

It has been eight months since Grandpa died. The arduous task of sifting, sorting, distributing is beginning to wind down. I claim no credit here. The burdens and privileges were for a generation before mine. Now the estate sale is just a few weeks away. My Grandparents left no shortage of interesting and useful things.

Price tags on memories. The possessions are in a state of flux: personal belongings are transforming into assets of the estate. It is all just stuff now; stuff that they left behind. Now that the immediate family has taken choice, strangers will be able to pay dollars for leftover things. Dollars will wash the memory trail clean. In another house they will begin a new life with new meaning.

My traveling companion will have no memory of her Great Grandparents. I shift the rearview mirror to glimpse at her sleeping face. Right now the blueberries have more meaning in her world. They are her new favorite fruit. The family bible, the tiny china dolls, the smocked pillow mean nothing yet. They are stepping stones I have collected for traveling into the world that came before her. One day she will use them to prompt us, and we will share our memories. Lessons of heritage come through heirlooms.

My dad handed me the box marked “Grandpa Yandeau’s Candy Jar” with instructions. It needs to be filled with hard candy, specifically butterscotch flavor (with the possible exception of Horehound). He recalled how Grandpa Yandeau would use a hammer to break hard candy, then share the pieces small enough that he couldn’t choke on them. Grandpa Yandeau was my Grandma’s father. He was short, a veteran, worked on the railroad and they lived in Rochester. I have no memories of him of my own.

The lights and city traffic pull my monkey mind into the present. Highway driving is better suited for deep thought. The elevator, once stuck, lurches into motion. In two word sentence structure my traveling companion requests “music off”. I pull up in front of our apartment in a car load of North Country fare and memories. I am happy to see my companion by the door waiting to help me unload.  

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Blueberries!!!

When we were in Northern NY last week, the blueberries were ripening so fast that my Uncle could hardly keep up picking them. I helped pick twice; once while my girl filled her belly basket and practiced her colors (blue, purple & green), then again by myself. We made our way back to the city with an ample supply for eating and freezing.

Back in the city - CSA pick-up day. Our share included... You guessed it: Blueberries! (And of course the ever present zucchini. I am always looking for new things to do with zucchini.) This weeks quest - a good Blueberry Zucchini Bread recipe. I found one on the blog My Baking Addiction (here: http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/blueberry-zucchini-bread/) and with some help from little hands we made a batch. The verdict... YUM! I am actually hoping that we get blueberries and zucchini again.

 

 

Cousins Week - Letter to a Home Town

Cousin Art Time

I don’t want to! I am digging in my heels! I am balling my fists! I am sticking out my bottom lip! I don’t want to get out of the lake and dry off! I don’t want to go and write my column! I want to keep playing! This is my cousin time! Sigh. Okay. I’ll get to it. But first watch me jump off the dock just one more time.

I was the only grandchild for 8 years. That is a long time. When others told the tales of summer get-aways and gatherings with all the cousins their own age, I always felt a little left out. It wasn’t that I didn’t get to go places and do things. I just didn’t have any cousins my age.

There were advantages to being a singleton. I got to go all kinds of places with a lot of different family members. Just one kid, especially one who is adept at self entertainment, is pretty easy to take along. I got to go to Canada and to Michigan. I got spoiled in all the households we visited where their own children had grown.

When I was 8 my first cousin came along. It was pretty cool for the first year or two. She was cute and didn’t do much. I got attention for giving her attention. The thing is she got older and some claimed even cuter. As far as I was concerned she was quickly becoming decidedly less fun and more bother. A 3 year old tag-along was not my 11 year old idea of an ideal playmate.

8 years is a lifetime when you are 8. When I was 16 I was I twice her age (and I knew everything). When I had my first kid, 8 years behind she was still a kid. When she had her first kid, I was a seasoned mommy with two.  A funny thing was happening though: with each year, 8 years became less and less of a gap. These days 8 years may as well be 8 months. She even has more kids than me!

Hosted by our uncles (YAY!), this week we are at Trout Lake. Five adults, three teens, two tweens and four under four; the house is filled to the rafters with cousins. Breakfast goes on for a couple of hours as the seemingly endless stream of bodies awake. Like ants to a melon rind we trail to the lake to swim and play all morning. The melting pot of ages and stages means enough eyes, hands and laps that everyone gets some free time and me time. I have even gotten to write this column virtually undisturbed.

You’ll pardon me now. I must sign off. I want to go check on my daughter the elder. Her 3 year old cousin has been trailing her all day and a 3 year old tag along when you are 11… I have a hunch she’d appreciate a break.  

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Cousin Play Time

Letter to a Home Town - April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

This is the 'Letter' that was published in last week's Gouverneur Tribune Press. Sometimes I write about serious stuff... 

Last week’s headline overshadowing my designated corner of page 4 read in bold font “Sex... It’s time to write about it!” I am taking it as a sign. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

It went through my mind several times that this could be the subject of my next column. I shied away from it. It is too personal. It is too political. It is potentially inflammatory. It isn’t dinner table conversation.  But we should be talking about it. We should be admitting it happens. We should be taking steps to prevent it. We should be actively creating a culture where it is not acceptable or expected behavior. All too often we don’t. Today I am.

The trajectory of my life has been intrinsically impacted by sexual abuse. This is something that I am neither proud nor ashamed of. I am not inviting judgment. It is simply a fact. I would venture to say that your life has been impacted too. Sexual assault is a persistent issue in our culture, urban, rural and everywhere in-between. Though the experience may not be first hand, rarely, if ever, does someone escape the influence.

We are surrounded by images of sex; in commercials, in movies, on TV, in music, in video games, on the internet, in magazines, on billboards. In contrast sex isn’t something we are comfortable talking about. We dread the day we have ‘the talk’ with our kids (as if the knowledge and moral boundaries we hope they will exercise could be passed on in a single conversation). Education is often limited to the mechanics peppered with some vague concepts called love and commitment.

When it comes to sexual assault, the conversation is most often framed as how to protect yourself and what to do if it happens to you or someone you care about. Conversations are overwhelmingly aimed at women (and girls). Words like ‘victim’, ‘guilt’ and ‘blame’ come up a lot. These conversations are important. They reinforce the fact that it is not okay for someone to use sex as a weapon of dominance against you.

It is also not okay to wield the weapon, but how do we have that conversation? How do we teach the potential offender not to be? How do we define the line between sex appeal and objectification? How do we encourage and award a show of respect and self control? How do perpetuate the setting, communication and respect of personal boundaries? How do we define consent? How do we create an atmosphere in which the act of sex is expected to be a mutual decision guided by accurate information and personal moral boundaries?

I don’t have an answer, but I do know that no problem is ever solved by denial and silence. Sexual assault is a persistent issue in our culture. We have a lot of differing opinions about sex and sexuality, but most everyone will agree: a weapon of dominance is not what it should be. It shouldn’t be awkward to talk about that.

I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town "A Pie for Pi Day" (with a recipe for Maple Apple Pie)

It was recently noted that I had not yet shared any recipes on my blog, so I went in search of a Maple one in honor of the season. What I found was this Letter from almost exactly 2 years ago - A pie for Pi day!


A Pie for Pi Day

  I didn’t even know it was a holiday until a few years ago. Unless you are a bit of a nerd, there is a good chance that you have overlooked it too; March 14th is Pi Day (aka π Day).
            For those who could use a refresher, Pi is a mathematical (and physical) constant representative of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Numerically it is equal to 3.14159265358979323846……. For most math, science and engineering calculations, 3.14159 is close enough. For purposes of celebration, 3.14 or March 14th is perfect! (A bonus: It also happens to be Einstein’s birthday.)
So what does one do in celebration of Pi Day? Well, make and eat pies of course! Pies come in all kinds: cherry, rhubarb, mincemeat, pecan, shepherd’s, key lime, peach, and don’t forget pizza pie! Everyone has a favorite.
Our current household favorite is a Maple Apple Pie. A concoction inspired by a late night pregnancy craving, this pie is a conglomeration of multiple recipes referenced but not followed.
In honor of the Pi day just passed, and maple sugaring season in full swing, here is an approximation of how it is made, (editorial comments included).
Maple Apple Pie (9”)
 Crust
1 stick Butter
¼ c Maple Syrup
1-1/4 c Flour
Mix it all up, make it into a ball and set in a cool place.
(I have heard that if you are partial to a flaky crust then the butter should still be hard. I let the butter get soft because I don’t have an electric mixer it makes my life easier.)
Filling
5 or 6 Medium sized Apples (I am partial to Macintosh)
1/4c Maple Syrup
½ tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Cinnamon (if you’re like me and aren’t very good at shaking an even coating - mix with 1 tsp Sugar)
Peel and slice the apples and put them in a big bowl. (Keep in mind that how many you need is directly proportional to how many slices eaten as you cut.)  Mix together Maple Syrup and Vanilla pour it over the apples. Toss it all around until apples are completely coated. Set aside and pull out the ball ‘o crust.
 Roll out ½ the dough for the bottom crust and put it a 9” pie pan. (Stir the apples and syrup again any time you think of it)  Dump about half of the apples into the crust, dust with a light coating of cinnamon (and sugar), then add the rest of the apples and dust them with the remaining cinnamon. Roll out the rest of the dough and make a top crust (I make lattice crusts because solid ones always rip when I try to put them on – and because lattice crusts look cool). Bake at 350˚ for about 25 min. (until the crust turns golden).
Happy belated Pi Day!   
            I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town - "What is a CSA?"

Today it felt like spring so under the guise of putting up fliers for the CSA, we headed for the park. "What is a CSA?" you ask. Read on...

Mixing Work With Play

What is a CSA?
(Letter Circa June 2010)

A CSA in my neighborhood?! I stared wide eyed at the flier stapled to the pole by the train station stairs. I glanced up to be sure I had gotten off at the right stop. ‘Fresh from the farm organic produce’ the flier touted. My mouth salivated at the prospect.

Mine is not exactly the kind of neighborhood that you would expect a CSA to be forming. We don’t have a farmers market (though there are about 50 in NYC) or a health food store.  There is no coffee shop offering organic fair trade coffee and live jazz every Saturday night. It is a working class neighborhood where people get their morning coffee at the corner bodega and come home at night with no wish greater than to kick off their shoes and watch a little TV. Don’t get me wrong. I really like the area I live in. It just doesn’t have the same offerings as can be found in some other areas of NYC.

CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. How it works is that members pay a farm in advance for shares of a seasons produce, then receive deliveries of fresh product throughout that season. In some ways it is a lot like having a big garden; you can’t be picky. You get what is in season. If it is a bumper year for cucumbers, you get to make pickles. 

One of the most challenging things about getting enough people together in an area to form a designated CSA delivery point for a farm is that becoming a member is an investment. CSAs are based on a shared risk and reward system. Money is paid to the farm at the beginning of the season with no guarantee beyond an unspecified quantity and variety of produce delivered weekly. For families accustomed to budgeting their groceries by the week, investing in produce months in advance is an unfamiliar and sometimes difficult concept to fathom. Then there is always the (not so) simple matter of having the money to invest. 

With a creative cook and an adventurous pallet in the house, we knew we wanted in. With a little fund shuffling, we’ve found a way. Beyond the promise of fresh fruits and vegetables, joining a CSA gives us the opportunity to support something we believe in; small farms and local businesses. A portion of our groceries this summer and well into the fall will be coming from a farm less than 200 miles away. This may sound far, but then consider, much of the produce at our local grocery stores comes from Florida, California, Mexico and Peru. Tomatoes that have traveled 1,000 miles get road weary.

Peas, beans, mixed greens and strawberries are all expected in the first week’s delivery. I’ve heard there are sometimes ‘surprises’ so I am hoping for asparagus too. I am sure that there will be times when I am soliciting recipes for whatever arrives, but it will be worth it. I’ve never made pickles before.

I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town "A Cow in Queens"

For those who don't know, my 'Letters' are published in a small weekly newspaper called the Gouverneur Tribune Press. Gouverneur NY is about as rural as you can get in comparison to NYC where I live now. As a rule they have a lot more in common than most people think, but every once in a while... Well... Read on... (First published September '07)

Thompson Farm Barnyard From the Hill Nov 2011

A Cow In Queens

It wasn’t front page news but it warranted as much space as this column in most of the major NYC papers, some even included a picture and a map! It was note worthy enough story that the following day a few people asked me if I had seen it and one even cut a clipping for me. What was the story about? A cow got out.

Cows do that; they get out some times. Never in my life did I imagine such an event would be news worthy! In my experience, when a cow gets out you just chase her back in again. If she isn’t yours you get in touch with whoever she belongs to and help them get her back in again. In the unlikely event you don’t know who she belongs to; you corral her then call around to see who is missing a cow. There is no drama, no news coverage, and certainly no calls to 911. Yes, this bovine prompted people to call 911, over half a dozen of them!

The news reporting on this story was a delight! The New York Daily News reported that she was captured “After leading authorities on a 49-minute chase…”, included a quote from the Police Commissioner “The cow is in custody.” and a first person account from the twelve year old who’s yard she was captured in “I was sort of scared because it could have hurt somebody.”

There is only speculation as to the ownership of Queeny Maxine. (Some reports called her Queeny while others Maxine. I have combined the two to prevent any confusion as to if I might be writing about a different cow on the loose here in NYC). No one came forward to claim her. Her picture may as well have been on the side of a milk carton for as many eyes as fell upon her image. Someone must have recognized her! Cows aren’t cheap! Why on earth would no-one claim her?!?! It is actually pretty easy to figure out why; everyone prefers a story to have a happy ending.

It is most likely that Queeny Maxine got loose from one of the 75 plus live animal markets in NYC. These are legal licensed markets and many slaughter on premises. No one wants to be read the headline “Captured Cow Returned to Slaughter”, it is anticlimactic to say the least. Reclaiming her would have meant at best, bad press, and at worst riotous vegetarians, neither of which is a positive for her former owner. It is better to take the loss in silence than risk the alternatives. The ending that has befallen Queeny Maxine is more newsworthy anyway; the escapee is headed to live out her years on a 175 acre no-kill sanctuary; a sort of health spa retreat for runaway cows. This is one of those times when I have to admit, in some ways NYC is nothing like Gouverneur!

I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

Letters to a Home Town "60 Years"

When I asked for recommendations of past Letters Home to post, this was the first one suggested. It is vintage, December 2006. A lot has changed in that time, most pertinent to this Letter, both of my Grandparents have since passed away. I miss them.

60 Years

This month marked Clinton and Sally Thompson, my Grandparent's, 60th Wedding Anniversary. Echoing my kid's sentiment, I have to admit my first thought was 'Wow! They ARE really old' followed by a sense of awe. Sixty years is a long time! It feels like it is going to take me that long to pay off my student loans, but it also seems like I've been paying them forever (obviously I do not have a clear grasp on how long sixty years is).
            Sixty years is ten times as long as I have been married and nearly six times as long as the average marriage will last in this country. Sixty years is twelve times my daughter's age and about four and a half times my son's. Sixty years is a lifetime of knowing that, no matter what, they each have the other at their side.
            My grandparents' have never struck me as a tender, romantic couple. They have always been more… well… functional. For me, growing up in a generation that largely feels that romance has been kidnapped and held for ransom by greeting card companies, these are far from words of criticism. Grandma does the dishes and Grandpa dries and put them away. Grandpa makes maple syrup and Grandma makes it into sugarcakes and cream. They are partners, coworkers, allies: a fine team of horses pulling a plow; not a fancy sleigh with bells on the harness.
In the little room just outside my grandparent's bedroom there are pictures. One is of my Grandpa standing in the snow with a wide smile, a picture from about 60 years ago. Ask Grandma about that picture and you might uncover, dare I say, a tone of romance. I've heard it! Looking at that photo of Grandpa in black and white, Grandma has told me of the color of his eyes so vividly that I could see the color shining back at me.
In the movie "The Princess Bride" there is a scene where Buttercup, the maiden, and Westley, the farm boy, realize that they are in love. Buttercup asks him to fetch things, and to each request he replies "As you wish" and does so un-begrudgingly. Their eyes meet when he fetches her a pitcher and the narrator declares it "true love". In my minds eye, my Grandfather is that farm boy. He has always gone to fetch the mail, milk from the barn or vegetables from the garden. He has always done so un-begrudgingly, sometimes even handing them off along with a soft kiss on Grandma's cheek. It is a show of tenderness. If they were Buttercup and Wesley sixty years later, the narrator would still declare it "true love".
Every couple is different, and what works for one may not work for another. When I look at my Grandparent's relationship I do not so much look for guidance as inspiration. Congratulations Grandma and Grandpa. I am in awe!
             I hope this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…

                                                   Clinton and Sally Thompson circa 1987

Letters to a Home Town "Assembly of a Dream"

I won't be posting all of my "Letters" here, but you can count on a steady trickle of my favorites, both old and new. This one was from about a month ago....

I am not sure how it really happens, but in the myth that I have created there is a little workshop in the recesses of my brain. There is a Dream Maker who works there. She goes out each night and picks up scattered bits of thoughts and memories to use as supplies. Sometimes she gathers unfinished sentences and sights that were in the periphery – things I saw but didn’t notice. Some materials are plucked from the pile of things I thought but didn’t say. When the dreams play, often there are things of obvious source. Others I have no idea where she found them. Sadly, no matter how well crafted, chances are I won’t remember a dream when I wake. To the Dream Maker this does not matter. She gathers, assembles and creates because the act of creating makes her feel whole.

In the drifty space just before waking I know there was a dream playing. I could feel myself straining to hold on to it, catching bits like a conversation overheard from another room. The cat must have noticed my lids flickering because she began to knead. I feel like I am in the impulse isle of the store, the one you have to go down to in order to get to the register where they put all of those things that you didn’t know you needed but now you suddenly do. I grab randomly, tossing things into the cart of conscious thought just before opening my eyes.

Dear Cat, I find it rather gross the way you drool on me when you purr. I also find it endearing. I am conflicted. Also, please stop tenderizing me.  

The dream was gone but somehow I grabbed onto some of the bits the Dream Maker used to assemble it. The common theme - letters. I know this for sure because my first waking thoughts came phrased like short letters. I decided to follow this through; to encourage some morning pondering in short letter form.

Dear Coffee Pot, Please brew faster. If you could also ask the dishes to wash themselves I would be forever grateful.

Dear Almond Butter, I still can’t get past your consistency. It is too much like peanut butter which I am allergic to. I am sorry. I am putting cream cheese on my English muffin. 

Dear Sleeping Child, I am changing your middle name to “Zilla” until you are three. When you have children of your own you will understand.

Dear Politicians Seeking (Re)Election, I am pretty sure that Dr. Seuss wrote If I Ran the Circus after listening to politician on the stump. This is not a complement.  

Dear Every Place I Have Ever Lived, The number and composition of your population does not determine your values. Your populace does.  

Dear Dream Maker, Thank you for participating in my personal myth, cleaning up my brain scraps and putting them to use.

Dear Letter Home Reader, I hope that this letter has found you and yours in good spirits and good health. Until I write again…