These Fish Just Keep on Walking
Here we go again...
Eight years ago, Steve and I were celebrating his birthday with a picnic at the Eiffel Tower. Six years ago we were enjoying dinner at our Julie’s favorite restaurant in Florence. Not every birthday is that exciting (at ALL), but as we mark age 75 for my love, we’re in Europe again—England and Scotland this time!!
ESSAY: Here’s a piece I wrote for The Chestnut Hill Local about our first foray across the pond. When you read it you’ll understand the title of this week’s newsletter…
It’s become a tradition for us to make a little video, set to music, of each of our trips abroad, and our trek in 2022 was no exception. We had planned, then twice postponed, a visit to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague. As COVID finally began to recede we got there, and it was certainly worth the wait!!
VIDEO: ELISE AND STEVE IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA AND CZECH REPUBLIC OCTOBER 2022
SPRING FLAVORS: MORELS AND RAMPS
I was not raised to enjoy (or even to notice) which foods were in season, and when. After all, frozen fish sticks and Salisbury steak TV dinners are timeless, no? Even after I assumed the mantle of Family Cook (age 10!) I didn’t pay much attention to eating according to the calendar. Sure, I realized that strawberries in the markets in January lacked, you know, taste (ditto tomatoes), but as long as they were still available, shipped from another part of the globe, that was good enough for me! Nowadays, while I’m still guilty of buying and cooking some out-of-season items, I’ve learned that nothing compares to fresh, local and seasonal foods.
At a recent dinner out at Andiario (a wonderful restaurant in West Chester, PA) with Patrick and Ashlyn, I tasted an ambrosial pasta sauce made with ramps (wild leeks, gathered in early Spring only). Evan has been foraging for wild mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest, including the prized, intensely flavored morel. I found a wonderful online company, Foraged, offering food items from small, independent farms and foragers, and have been ordering both ramps and dried morels there.
I HIGHLY recommend seeking out both morels and ramps (and another briefly-available treat: shad, fish that leave the ocean to return to fresh-water rivers to spawn in the early Spring.) Here are some favorite recipes:
Morel Pasta with Parmesan Cream Sauce
Broiled Shad Filets (simple but perfect recipe from American Food and California Wine by Barbara Kafka):
And here’s a terrific poem I recently discovered, for the traveler (which is every single one of us). A lyrical reminder that we create our own paths as we go…
POEM: THE PATH by Lynn Ungar
Life, the saying goes, is a journey,
and who could argue with that?
We’ve all experienced the surprising turns,
the nearly-impassible swamp, the meadow
of flowers that turned out not to be quite
so blissful and benign as we first thought,
the crest of the hill where the road
smoothed out and sloped toward home.
Our job, we say, is to remain faithful
to the path before us. Which is an assumption
as common as it is absurd.
Really? Look ahead. What do you see?
If there is a path marked out in front of you
it was almost certainly laid down for someone else.
The path only unfolds behind us,
our steps themselves laying down the road.
You can look back and see the sign posts—
the ones you followed and the ones you missed—
but there are no markers for what lies ahead.
You can tell the story of how
you forded the stream or got lost
on the short cut that wasn’t,
how you trekked your way to courage or a heart,
but all of that comes after the fact.
There is no road ahead.
There is only the walking,
the tales we weave of our adventures,
and the songs we sing
to call our companions on.
VIDEO: TED TALK WITH FATHER GREG BOYLE
Father Greg Boyle is a great inspiration to me. This extraordinary Jesuit priest has been working with gang members and other at-risk youth in Los Angeles for over 30 years. His Homeboy Industries provides employment and, most importantly, hope. His TED talk “Compassion and Kinship” is well worth viewing…
BLOG PREVIEW: MR. TOAD’S LATEST WILD RIDE—on our current merrie jaunt through the UK, Steve and I decided (mostly I decided) to rent a car for part of the journey (with 100% Steve driving). How has this challenging mirror-image road adventure been going? Read and discover!
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
In a world intent on separating us into warring factions, let’s remember this week (and every week) that there really is only ONE group (humanity) and we’re all beloved members!!
A favorite come-home treat after visiting charming Scotland last spring was discovering the words of every-person poet, Donna Ashworth, who calls the Highlands her home. As I read (and re-read) her always-inspiring words, I think of our holiday house in the stunning Scottish Highlands, the perfect writer’s retreat. Thanks for sharing your musings. I always smile when your newsletter arrives in my inbox.