El Greco

Bouzouki

When I'm in Germany I eat a lot of Turkish food. One of my favorite spots is Saka, just north of the Florastrasse stop on Rüttenscheiderstrasse. It's a combination dönerkebap and pizza place but the guys there also make up a traditional Turkish stew of one kind or another most nights, as an option to the standard offerings. It was my Stammdöner the last time I was in Essen for an extended visit and the guys behind the counter always had a friendly word for me and brought out a tea if the meal took a little longer to prepare than they thought was appropriate.


You don't see many Turkish places here in the states, but frankly the menu in most Greek places is pretty similar. And to an outsider, one who knows little or nothing about things Turkish, Greek or otherwise eastern Mediterranean, the cultures seem to have a great deal in common. I realize the Greeks and the Turks have sort of a thing going on for the past 4-500 years or so: genocide, atrocities, blah, blah...  but I just like the food. They both do great stuff with eggplant: where's the difficulty?

Last night I had the pleasure of dining in a nice Greek place in Sarasota FL. I'm attending a professional conference here and although I'm a firm supporter of the Arts, sometimes the party line gets a little extreme. Listening to some of our speakers, you'd think a decent painting would be proof against leprosy and a really good performance of Rigoletto would cure cancer. I needed a break from hyperbole, and this Greek place was perfect. The food was delicious, but what I loved even more was the spontaneous floor show. Not entirely spontaneous. There were musicians there: a keyboard guy with a drum track and his eighty four year old father on a balailika-like instrument called a bouzouki. They were good but were quickly joined by a vocalist and a monster bouzouki guy who remained very impassive while he poured out this music that had the place laughing, weeping, but mostly dancing. The vocalist didn't need much of a range of pitch to sing songs that went on for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, but he was a master at manipulating the microphone for great dynamic range.

Greek "homies" encourage a fellow dancer.

The dancing was equally impressive and alternated between line dancing and a kind of proto-break dance format. Men seem to dominate in the dancing, and they often squat and clap while each dancer takes a turn doing a solo thing. Apparently there is even a tradition of throwing a handful of dollars at the dancer, presumably if they are particularly good. After a lot of dancers had done their thing, they brought an infant out, barely able to stand, but damned if the kid didn't do a turn or two. He collected big time. I would have taken a turn myself, but it seemed that actually picking up the thrown money was somehow déclassé.

I was impressed with the dancing and with the music and the inclusiveness it demonstrated. These activities were clearly not reserved for the vituosi, but were instead open to the elderly, those not yet old enough to talk, as well as the accomplished. But when the guy in the wheelchair got into it, I thought, that rhetoric I'm hearing at my professional conference really is true: the Arts are in truth a powerful force for good. At the next conference I'll suggest we include the culinary in those other arts and see if I can get any support for a change in the by-laws.

Politically Korrekt

Germans love our president. If President Obama took it into his head to run for German Chancellor after he's through in the White House, I have no doubt he'd win hands down. But Germans have come up with some rather odd ways of showing their appreciation for Mr. Obama. Take the "Obama-Fingers" shown above, for example. What's that all about? Even if Mr. Obama were actually going to eat junk like this, I can't believe he would dip it in curry sauce. Some people (I'm talking about German people here. American people are largely unaware of the Obama-Fingers product, excepting those 100-200 loyal readers of Forschungjahr) have responded very negatively to Obama-Fingers. They feel that the product is racially insensitive. "Fried chicken has long been associated with African-Americans in the US..." they say. I can't really see the problem myself, and don't find the product to be a racial slur. Stupid, yes, but not racist. In fact, I question the possibility that any frozen food could be racist, but that's just me.

But how about a doll? Could a doll be racially insensitive? Here I think German doll maker Marcel Offermann has shown that the answer is a resounding "Yes!" Offermann is famous for his dolls representing figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai Lama and Lady Diana. But as he turned his hand to Barak Obama, he decided to just use a generic dark skinned doll head. He admits that the physical resemblance to Obama could have been closer. "The doll works more on a symbolic level," he said. "It's a symbiosis of the clothing and the fact it's a black doll." Although "90 percent" of the feedback so far has been positive, he admits that "10 percent of people said the doll doesn't look like Obama." I figure that means 90 % of the people asked must be blind. Just for the record, let me state here that all black people do not look alike. Not that Herr Offermann is too concerned. The Barack Obama doll is available in a limited edition of 999 and as Offermann points out, "The pope doll sold out in two-and-a-half weeks." Alle Achtung!

But my favorite example of Obamamania is the cover of the Berlin-based daily Die Tageszeitung: normally considered a bastion of political correctness. Founded in 1978, it has always been seen as a left-leaning alternative to the mainstream press and is outspoken in its attack on xenophobia in Germany. In a cover story about Obama's run for the presidency back in May of 2008, the paper referred to the White House as "Uncle Barak's cabin." "The headline is intended to be satirical," said deputy editor-in-chief Reiner Metzger as he defended the paper against critics. Well, that's a relief.



I'm just happy that our president is so popular and that I can retire the red maple leaf I always kept handy while traveling in Europe, at least for a little while. I'm not very touchy when it comes to racial insensitivity and I don't see the point to getting all worked up about an Obama doll that could easily double as a Muhhamad Ali doll in a pinch. There are hate crimes enough to go around without looking for offense where none is intended. At 139€ a piece, the Obama doll is out of my price range. But I'll be on the lookout for other German Obama memorabilia on my next trip. And with any luck I can get on his campaign staff for the 2017 Kanzelerwahl.

Viscosity

At Utah State University I teach students in the Art Department how to paint. For many painting instructors, that might mean primarily a focus on theory and concept. I'm talking here about the kind of people who never miss an opportunity to use the word "reference" as a verb. But in the courses I teach, I do spend a considerable amount of time actually talking about the physical activity of painting. I don't think it hurts anyone to know how to mix color or to use a system based on local values to create order in an image. But even given my willingness to deal unashamedly with the mechanics of painting, I can't always shield my students from the esoteric stuff. And the fact that I keep coming back to, is that in painting, viscosity counts for a lot. And the truth about viscosity, is that it's virtually impossible to explain it verbally. If the paint has the right viscosity, it's easy to make it do what you want. If the viscosity is wrong, you can forget it. Recently I learned, it's the same when you're making Spätzle.


About this time a year ago, I was in Essen, enjoying an expat Thanksgiving dinner at Seitenblick. I ordered, ate and later wrote about a fabulous meal of Kurbisspätzle, or Pumpkin Spaetzle, pan fried with sauerkraut. We decided to try making it at home about a week ago, but we didn't get the Zähflüssigkeit right and our noodles turned into a kind of spätzlemässig brick. It was still good sliced and fried with the sauerkraut, but I think we'll cook a turkey this Thursday just the same.

The contrast between then and now is interesting in other ways too, and the blog allows me to go back and see more or less exactly what I was doing a year ago. Then, I had just gotten started on several paintings and managed to complete at least one of the larger oils. Now, I'm working intermittently in the studio and starting to think about preparations for the exhibition I'll be doing in January. A year ago, I was spending time with Thore, a one year old German native, trying to bring him up to speed on the American blues tradition. I don't really know what's happening with Thore now. He never calls, he doesn't write... If he's like many of his countrymen, I imagine he celebrated Tag der Deutschen Einheit recently and is trying his best to avoid the Schweinegrippe. When he's a little older, I'll ask him if he can help me out with some Spätzle tips. Until then, I'll just stick to painting and try to get the viscosity right.

Dreamgirls

On a recent trip to Seattle I learned that a Capitol Hill landmark, Vivace, had been knocked down and the lot paved over. It's being done in the name of light rail mass transit, so I can't complain too much. I'm facing similar changes in Logan, where building seems to go on at a furious pace, in spite of what I'm told is a pretty serious recession. There's a MONSTER new Walmart in Cache Valley now on the south end of town. It's easily the ugliest building I've ever seen, with the other monster Walmart a few miles to the north running a close second. There's no light rail planned for Logan but at least it's good to know that everyone's consumer needs are being met here in the Intermountain West.

But the loss of Vivace was a blow. The coffee there was outstanding and it had a tradition and a vibe that the new place a few blocks further up Broadway just can't replace. The old location wasn't perfect. For one thing, the restroom hadn't been cleaned since the King Dome was demolished. If you anticipated a call of nature, it was best to bring a hazmat suit. A little inconvenient, but it just added to the legend. Legendary or not, many buildings along Broadway were knocked down during the year I was in Germany. By contrast, during the year I'm in the US, I anticipate that no buildings in Essen will be razed. Even with the current renovation of the Bahnhof and other preparations for the 2010 Kulturhauptstadt celebration there's just very little demolition. Germany is stable. People stay put. For the most part, the new must accommodate the existing, and where it doesn't, such as the new Limbecker Platz development in Essen, most people are not pleased. There are some people in Logan who are not pleased by our second Walmart store, but mostly it's just me and a few other malcontents out on the fringe.

On the road back to Logan from Seattle I unknowingly stopped at what is apparently another Washington coffee monument. It was very early on Sunday morning and I had pulled off I-82 in Yakima to find some breakfast. Nothing seemed to be open along the main street and I was ready to get back on the highway when I noticed a little hut in a parking lot with cars idling in front of it. It was an espresso drive-thru called Dreamgirls, according to the Yakima Herald, one of several businesses springing up that people are calling "Sexpresso stands." The concept is simple: your coffee is served to you by a young woman in her underwear.

I think this may be a bonus for some, but I found it just a little disconcerting. When you give your order, where are you supposed to look? Is it impolite not to leer? Should you hand the payment for your purchase directly to the barista, or just tuck it into her waistband? Is it appropriate to make casual conversation, such as "Isn't it hard to walk with your underpants all wedged up in your butt crack like that?" I teach life drawing from time to time and have no particular problem with naked people. But then, they're usually not making me a double latte. The bottom line (no pun intended) is that Dreamgirls was open and the coffee was excellent: what's to complain about?



When I returned to Logan I was curious about the Dreamgirls and gave them a quick google. There were news stories and blog postings listed. Lots of photos and they have a MySpace page. I visited the page and was suitably underwhelmed, but they do have their fans and some even leave them comments. Here's an example of a recent one:

WHATS SUP BABY GURL ...JUST SHOING LUV TO U R PAGE BUT YEAH GET BAK AT ME

I guess that just about sums it up for me too.

Lüchow's

I'm looking at old photos again in my role as family archivist. I've discovered lots of interesting stuff, but I was puzzled for a while by images like these:




The mystery was cleared up as I realized that these were pictures of the famous Hudson River Crossing. My father worked for Consolidated Edison in New York and as near as I can figure, he spent most of his working life on the several transmission towers that cross the Hudson River for ConEd. According to a contemporary press release from Henkels & McCoy, one of the contractors on the job, "This wire crossing is the longest and heaviest crossing yet attempted in the East, demanding technical expertise and ingenuity to link Orange and Rockland utilities with Con Edison." My father may, or may not, have provided some of the ingenuity to accomplish the job. I'm not sure about that. But one thing is certain: no Con Ed employee ate more lunches at Lüchows in support of the project than my Dad. He tested, evaluated and ultimately purchased insulators, cable and other hardware for the crossings and salesmen attempted to sway his decision by plying him with the excellent German food and drink served at Lüchow's, a Manhattan legend since 1882.



Lüchow's was just two short blocks south of Irving Place where the big Con Ed building was. An easy walk for Con Ed employees and even easier when someone else was picking up the check. During the 1960's Lüchow's was owned by Jan Mitchell, a Swede who bought the place from the original owner, Herr August Lüchow. His only change to the landmark eatery was to install air conditioning. The original oil paintings, including a Van Dyke and a Goya, remained in place and the kitchen continued to serve the excellent Wienerschnitzel, Sauerbraten, pigs knuckles and Schlemmerschnitte that made the place famous. In the 1970's, Lüchow's moved uptown to the Broadway area and it closed for good in 1982, one hundred years after it's opening.

I imagine interest in heavy German food must have waned in the face of a lot of nonsense about cholesterol and so forth. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a quiet renaissance in traditional cuisine is taking place today. When I first lived in Germany in 1994, I asked my downstairs neighbor if he could recommend a nice German place in the area. He turned his head in thought and after a while said tentatively, "There's a good pizza place on the corner..." I asked if maybe there was a place that served German food, as opposed to Italian food prepared in Germany, but ultimately he couldn't help me. I came to find that he wasn't alone in his ignorance about his own national cuisine. German food had a bad rep in those days. It was the butt of insider jokes at parties. People under 30 were surprised to learn it even existed.

On my most recent trip, that situation had changed. At homes where in the early 90's the talk was only of the finest olive oil, roasted egg plant and sun dried tomatoes, suddenly I was being served Rouladen and Schweinebraten. These were foods that for many years, people associated with the Nazi past and they were avoided. Now, it turns out, German food is good, and you don't have to be a Fascist to appreciate it. Social Democrats, Greens, members of the of the Christian Union; they can all sit down to a plate of Salzkartoffeln mit Spargel und Schinken and enjoy it.

Lüchow's is gone, an NYU dormitory stands on the site at 112 East 14th Street. As far as I know, the only place you can buy German food in America is Wienerwald, a fast food joint where the food isn't necessarily authentic. I'm glad I got to eat in Lüchow's in the old days and I'm looking forward to learning more about the secrets of Knödel next time I'm back in Germany. Until then, I'll focus on the roasted egg plant and have to be satisfied with an occasional German pilsner from our state liquor store.

Andalé!

I imagine it goes without saying that I enjoy spending time in Europe in general and in Germany in particular. There are a lot of things I like about being there that I'm already missing now that I've been in the States for about two weeks. But there is at least one thing that I DON"T like about Germany. They don't have good Mexican food there. There are Mexican restaurants, but they are laughable. The cooks are mostly from Sri Lanka and can't tell a taco from a tamale. I intend no slur on the fine people of Sri Lanka. Presumably they are fine chefs when it comes to cooking Sri Lankan specialties.

When I landed two weeks ago at JFK, I was disoriented, jet lagged and hungry. I had to drive my giant black Jeep Liberty to Connecticut through intense NY rush hour traffic and the whole way I was thinking of what I could eat. I made it to Hamden and found my hotel, then drove to the closest restaurant: Andale. It featured a mouse with a large sombrero on the light-up sign and there was plenty of parking. The building was a converted residence. I entered and ahead of me was a long bar with two young men nursing Buds and a barmaid who looked about twelve. Her response to everything I said to her was, "No problem." But the place was completely empty of diners. I imagined the underage barmaid thawing my dinner in a microwave.



When the barmaid turned waitress approached our table with two glasses of water, my wife asked her if the Chile Rellenos were fresh. My scornful laughter at the question was cut short by the waitress, "Yes, our cook makes everything from scratch. It's no problem." Wow! A cook. This required a complete reevaluation of the menu. I decided to try the Enchiladas de Mole and was not disappointed. By accident we had discovered surely the finest Mexican restaurant in New England, disguised as a rundown roadhouse. We arranged our return trip to enable us to visit Andale again last night. Again it was empty and again the food was fabulous.





Today I board a flight to Salt Lake City and I'm preparing myself mentally to get back to work on campus: teaching, organizing my office and studio, dealing with the seemingly unending budget cuts from the legislature. It's not a particularly happy time. But I'm trying to focus on the benefits of living in the Intermountain West. Eating good food from those huge white platters that are an inch thick and scratched as though they were dragged behind a pickup half way across the Baja peninsula, for example. Food brought to you with serious asbestos gloves. Carnitas. Frijoles. Corn Tortillas. Life is good. And I've got some time now to plan for my next sabbatical.

The Butcher's Sign

Back in Essen and sorting through the photos for a blog post. It will take a while to process all the experiences and synthesize them in one (or two) insightful and pithy essay(s.) But in the meantime, I've got to post these photos I took in Traben about halfway to Koblenz along the river. We stopped to check the map and saw the finest butchershop sign in southwestern Germany. I knew all Forschungsjahr readers would want to see it.

Grocery Research

A minor emergency required my presence in the French alps this past week. I spent a few days in a town called St. Jean de Maurienne and suffered from boredom punctuated by short periods of anxiety and panic. During the boredom, I wondered, what can I do for the blog? Ultimately I don't know much about France. Could I comment on lifestyle and culture in France with the same insight and precision that I exercise in Deutschland? The answer turned out to be, yeah, why not? The truth about France is complex. But I hate it when Europeans expect me to be a cross between LBJ and Homer Simpson, so why should I expect all Frenchmen to wear a beret, and drink red wine for le petit déjeuner?

At first I did see some "typical" French behavior. On Sunday morning every second person I passed on the street carried a bag with a pair of baguettes poking out the top. Individuals talking on the street did purse their lips in a Gallic way and blow air out with a shrug of their shoulders. But the grocery store tells a different story. Consider this yummy treat:



A bed of sauerkraut with an assortment of sausages, side meat, hot dogs and slices of what looks like salami. I don't know many Germans who could keep all this stuff down, but it seems like a regional specialty in this town. It was on the menu of at least one local restaurant. And this kind of prepared meal was a big item in the grocery store I visited. Options included paella and a kind of fish stew with salmon and mussels. Cooked chicken was another favorite. Even if we call it poulet, this doesn't look like my idea of French food.





I wandered through a section of the store devoted to toys and games and continued my research. First a game that looks very French. Participants build a funny looking swine-like creature. How does the girl get her braids to stick out like that?



But which is the bigger seller? "Build Your Own Cochon," or this item, clearly influenced by the kind of American who cuts his hair short on top but leaves it long at the back:



And then I came to this item. In a country where cheeses can stand up on their own little hairy gray legs, how do we explain this product? Easy, it's pour le burger.

Barcelona: Caracola

Nothing makes me happier than a good bakery and I was lucky enough to find a great one on my first morning in Barcelona. The woman behind the counter was kind enough to put up with my Spanish and I learned some new words from her too. The most important was "caracola," which is the name for my favorite kind of pastry. It's a flat spiral of dough with either raisins or poppy seed between the layers. Auf Deutsch, they're called "Schnecken" and this bakery makes an outstanding example of the raisin variety.

This morning I was in another part of town and couldn't make it my Stammbäckerei, but I popped into a "bar" on the Diagonal for breakfast. "Cafe con leche y caracola," said I, as I sat down at the counter. I gestured to the pastries in a glass case as I said it, but there was a mix up in our communication. Caracola does mean Schnecke, and Schnecke means snail, so called because of the spiral form, but in España, I guess I should have said "una caracola," because what I got was a plate of garden snails in a light butter sauce with sage and rosemary.

Como se dice "yum?"

Schallern mit Thore

I spent another day walking with my Kumpel, Thore, on Friday. We snapped some pictures of us together in a park along the Ruhr. It took a while for us to get the range right, but we finally got something for the blog.

As we walked, Thore was in danger of falling asleep, so we sang together and I taught him some America folk songs. Oh! Susannah, John Henry, The Greenland Fisheries, Joe Hill...Most of the songs were from an old Pete Seeger album I listened to a lot when I was in high school. One song I really enjoy from the album is Go Down, Old Hannah, which I also had a recording of on a Lightin' Hopkins album. It's a real classic. It's a statement/response work song, sung originally by slaves, and then later by chain gangs. I tried it with Thore, who was supposed to sing the "chorus" part so to speak. As leader, I sing, "Well won't you go down old Hannah...won't you rise no more..." and then he is supposed to sing, "Won't you rise no more..." in response. The trouble is, because he's only a baby, when he remembered to sing at all, he just sang, "Na, na, na." If we had been singing "Land of a Thousand Dances" (Wilson Pickett, 1966) Thore would have been a star. As it was, we did better when I did all the singing and he was responsible for listening.

There was no turkey at our house for Thanksgiving. Instead we went out for dinner to a nice place in Essen that features a menu from the Alsace region. I had a fabulous meal of Kurbisspätzle, pan fried with sauerkraut. I know it doesn't sound all that good, but it was one of those dishes that's got a kind of depth and resonance that's still humming in your brain the next morning. We'll probably be back. Dessert was a Flammeküchen with cinnamon and apple: as close as we could come to a pie.

Chowder

When I'm back East, I inevitably wind up spending time looking at old photographs. Through a random twist of fate, most of my family's memorabilia wound up in storage at my place in Jamestown. So each year when I visit, I get lost for an hour or so, sorting through the boxes, and thinking that I really should try to organize the stuff. It's an activity that also leads me to spend time thinking about my place in the big picture and the factors that led to my particular Weltanschauung. For example, although I've lived in Utah in relative contentment for twenty years, I can't really say I feel at home there: there's no ocean. I need to live in a place where restaurants put malt vinegar on the table, not fry sauce.

Yesterday I came across my father's clam chowder recipe in the accumulated junk out in the back house. My father, William Wells Terry, was a member of the class of 1930 at Yale University and at a reunion during the 1970s, he ran into Howard Johnson Jr. It isn't clear to me if Mr. Johnson was a member of my dad's class, or maybe a year or two ahead or behind him, but somehow my father got Howard talking and came home with his recipe for Boston Clam Chowder. This isn't the recipe they used for the canned stuff sold through the restaurants, but rather Howard's personal recipe.

During the 70's and 80's my father would make a batch of chowder for family events. These cooking episodes always took place between midnight and dawn and involved every pan in our kitchen. My mother would wake up later to a couple of hours of steady clean up. But the chowder was good. I've transcribed the recipe below, leaving out a lot of my father's marginalia. It's particularly good with Royal Lunch Milk Crackers

Boston Clam Chowder

1 doz. quahogs, opened raw, (black stomachs removed)
1/4 lb. (2 big or 3 small) onions
1/2 lb. potatoes
1/4 lb. butter
1/2 cup flour
1 quart milk
1 chicken broth cube

Drain clams and juice with a coarse strainer over large pan.
After draining, put clam liquid through fine strainer and reserve.
Peel onions, chop into small pieces.
Put onions & clams together through meat grinder.
Using a double boiler, cook ground clams and onions until tender. Moderate heat; do not burn.
To dilute fairly thick ground onions & clams, dissolve chicken broth cube in one cup boiling water and add to onions & clams. If still too thick, add a little clam juice.
Cook this mixture slowly for about an hour or more. When onions are soft, the mixture is done.
Peel potatoes - slice and dice into 1/2" cubes and start cooking in separate pan. Cook until potatoes are soft.
Pour 1 quart of milk into the large chowder pot which will hold the final chowder Put on very slow heat and try to get cold milk hot very gradually (be sure not to scald milk.
In a small pan, melt 1/4 lb. butter. Mix 1/2 cup flour into butter as it starts to bubble. Simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add butter + flour sauce and stir well into milk.
Put clams + onions into pot with hot milk and mixed sauce.
Stir well - add a little reserve clam juice.
Put only potatoes (reserving potato water) into chowder pot and stir in well.
Add reserve clam juice and reserve potato water, cook on very low heat until white round spots appear on surface.
Now you have Boston Clam Chowder! Taste it after white spots appear - Cool before refrigerating. - It will be a bit thicker and better second day.