International Bacon Day

Bacon Day is always the Saturday before Labor Day.  This holiday was founded in 2000 by three graduate students in Massachusetts who started a blog and celebrated that first bacon day cooking and eating this most perfect meat. Since then, the holiday has spread all over the United States and Canada. The celebrants at International Bacon Day social gatherings like to chant "bacon is a vegetable!"

As Americans literally pig out, bacon is more popular than ever, and the price of bacon has risen at more than three times the rate of inflation since 2008, the most of any meat. Supply and demand-- it still takes nine months to make a pig.  Despite the soaring prices, bacon sales climbed 9.5 percent to a record $4 billion in 2013.  If you've bought a pound lately, you had sticker shock.

Yes, we had bacon this morning with blueberry pancakes.  However, John will tell you that bacon gets doled out in two-slice increments in this house.  Since the average serving in America is four pieces, we can feel somewhat virtuous, even though the only good reason to eat bacon is simply because it tastes good.

It's cloudy in Seattle and getting ready to rain. For once I'm glad on a holiday weekend, because the garden is parched for a drink and it gives me a reason to putter around inside and play my ukulele.  I've been practicing two Irish jigs, so John will probably find chores in the far corner of the basement.

Labor Day weekend

Amanda snapped these pictures of Maya and Nova when she came home from work yesterday. Instead of being greeted with the usual before-dinner chaos, both little girls had dropped in their tracks after a long, hard day of play.  An adorable sight and a bit of peace and quiet for their hardworking parents...

Have a restful Labor Day weekend!

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall's passing on August 12 was somewhat overshadowed by the Robin Williams news frenzy.  She was one of the last great actresses to witness the golden age of Hollywood. Born Betty Joan Perske in 1924, she was discovered by the wife of American film director Howard Hanks after she appeared as a teenage model on the (now iconic) cover of Harper's Bazaar in 1943.

During screen tests for her first film "To Have and Have Not" in 1944 she was so nervous she pressed her chin down to keep from quivering and tilted her eyes upward.  This became known as "The Look" and became her trademark.

On the movie set, Humphrey Bogart, who was unhappily married at the time, initiated a relationship with her and in 1945 they married. Bacall was 20 and Bogart was 45.  They remained married until Bogart's death from esophageal cancer. 

Her first autobiography, "Lauren Bacall: By Myself," won the National Book Award in 1980. I read it many years ago, and still remember her poignant description of Bogart's death at home. The word "cancer" was not discussed so openly in those days, and Bogart never mentioned his declining health even with his family.  The kids remember their father spending increasing amounts of time upstairs in his room, until...one day he was just gone.

Lauren Bacall made many memorable quotes.  She said this about keeping secrets:

A man's illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.

Lauren Bacall lived at The Dakota in NYC for many years in an art and memento-filled apartment with her beloved dog.  She was beautiful, shrewd and tough, and when she died on August 12 at the age of 89, she left an estate worth more than 26 million. $10,000 was set aside for the care for her Papillon, Sophie.

Urban exploiters

 

Our front door is open on warm late afternoons, and when I sit in my favorite living room chair I have a nice view of this shiny spider web.  Sometimes it seems to vibrate in the breeze in perfect time to the music we're playing, making a pretty prism.  This is either magical, or else I'm just becoming senile, staring at a spider web.  (No, I have not been shopping at our new cannabis retail outlets.)

The spider is catching flies and getting bigger each day!  Well, a good housewife would get up and knock it down, but summer has taken a toll on me. The spiders are everywhere in this old house and garden.  

However...this morning there was an enormous one in the kitchen sink, and a big one in the bathtub last week when I was not in a mellow, reflective mood.  Washing them down the drain is an epic and fair battle, but winning still makes you feel kind of heartless.

A recent study in Australia found that some spiders grow larger and produce more babies in urban environments than their country counterparts.  This heightened ability to adapt to cities has earned them the name "urban exploiter."  These are the species which benefit from urbanization, and do better in cities than their natural habitats. Here's another one:

The researchers think a combination of hotter temperature (the heat island effect) and more abundant food are plumping up the spiders.  The coons are getting fat on cat food.

There was an article this week in USA Today ranking cities by their urban heat index.  Based on data from 2004-13, the top 10 U.S. cities with the most intense urban heat islands -- measured as the greatest difference in average temperatures between urban and rural areas over the entire summer -- were:

Las Vegas (7.3°F)
Albuquerque (5.9°F)
Denver (4.9°F)
Portland (4.8°F)
Louisville (4.8°F)
Washington, D.C. (4.7°F)
Kansas City (4.6°F)
Columbus (4.4°F)
Minneapolis (4.3°F)
Seattle (4.1°F)

Aha!  My sister Marji owns a pest exterminator business in Las Vegas, and she tells me her best customers are the arachnophobics. Sounds like job security to me.

August light

The early mornings have been too beautiful this week to sit at the computer, and I've been trying to get outside chores finished before school starts up in the neighborhood. 

Next Wednesday, the sweetest arborist in Seattle (remember Colin?) is coming to trim the laurel-- one of the big final jobs.  We were surprised that the street side filled in so nicely this summer, considering how ugly it looked in April when he cut it back to "compliance."

A distant memory

This morning I made seven more pints of plum halves, then scrubbed and painted the deck.  That's not as much work as it sounds, because I "can can" in my sleep, and I paint the deck the exact same color (brown) every year to simplify the job (I'm a fast, slapdash painter.) It's a mistake to wait until it looks like it really needs painting, because then you have scraping and prep on top of the painting, and I don't have the patience for that stuff.

Can you believe Labor Day is coming up?  Next week, instead of quiet mornings, the street will be roaring with school buses and harried parents dropping off and picking up kids.  I'll have to start timing my comings and goings with school hours or I won't have a place to park when I come home from the grocery store.  I love kids, I really do, but don't recommend living near a Seattle school.  Even big middle school kids have to be chauffeured everywhere these days.

Speaking of school and kids, Nova starts kindergarten next week!  Amanda and Tom took the girls blueberry picking at Cascadian Farm on Sunday.  She said they picked about 40 pounds to freeze, which was less than they hoped but sounded like plenty to me.  Probably another 20 pounds was consumed on the spot.  Sweet little Maya got into picking for the first time, although not many made it into the box.  Amanda told me that Tom takes the moral high road, and does not eat one blueberry until they are paid for.  You gotta admire that kind of willpower.

Thanks, Amanda for the adorable pictures...

A little help from my friends

Summer weekends don't get much better.  I spent Saturday with my foodie friends in the International district downtown.  We lined up with hundreds of other people for a dim sum brunch and went to the fortune cookie factory outlet for a bag of "flat unfortunates" (apparently very fortunate, crushed up for pie crust.)

After that, stuffed with dumplings, we were on to serious Asian condiment browsing at the Viet Wah Asian supermarket.  The next stop was Big John's Pacific Food Importers, a hole in the wall store that many people don't know about, even though they've been selling Mediterranean food since 1971. The very best feta cheese you can buy in Seattle. 

The PFI cheese case

Then on Sunday morning, our friend Candi took the ferry over from Poulsbo and helped me with some rough transplanting. She's the only person I know who "gardens" like me.  This is just a fact and I'm not bragging, because you have to be slightly crazy to work so hard.  Though she be little, she is fierce. In a few minutes, she shoveled and wrenched out a 3-foot plug of Japanese iris that was root-bound for 15 years. Then she said, "Now what? I thought I was over here to WORK today?" And I thought, "Oh, boy." 

It was just what I needed. I've been bogged down and overwhelmed with late summer chores and doldrums. Maybe it was all the canning, or maybe it's just that time of year, still too early for fall cleanup but all those clumps of overgrown, yellowing perennials filled me with ennui. 

Anyway, we soon had enough plant divisions to start a nursery, and I used them to fill in bare spots here and there.  The more good plants, the less space for bad weeds to grow. Candi left with a trunk full of plants to deal with when she got home, but I was sure glad my work was done for the day.

On to the plums.  The chief ladder picker got plenty of advice from his female supervisors on the ground.

We picked this many more, believe it or not. Under cover of dusk last night, I left bags on four unsuspecting neighbor's doorsteps.

So, it was a Sunset Magazine sort of day in Seattle. Though not exactly "local" we had a nice outdoor lunch: Spanish wine, Asian eggplant with Methow Valley honey and imported Greek feta, our own garden tomatoes, basil and mint, and coconut shrimp from? Costco!  The last days of summer are sometimes the sweetest.

A drop in the bucket

I picked these tubs of plums in just a few minutes yesterday, and I'm not exaggerating there were probably 10 times this many on the tree.  Many fell down and got smooshed on the ground-- they don't get ripe all at once. Some are just too high to reach, even with our hand-dandy fruit picker on a pole. Some were "stolen" in the sidewalk feeding frenzy.

Time to share the bounty.  Everyone who sees me these days gets a lunch bag of plums.  Maybe I should open the gates to the barbarian hoards?  (Well, maybe not.)

I was canning yesterday from dawn-to-dusk, which is why there wasn't a blog post written.  Eighteen pints of pitted halves in light syrup, two batches of plum chutney.  On top of that, another batch of peach/plum chutney I made last week.  The storeroom shelves are groaning with  bounty.  I'm tired now, but will be glad in January when I can grab a nicely aged chutney off the shelf for curry.

There are few things more satisfying to the natural-born housewife than seeing all those gleaming jars lined up in the winter. Men are hunters and gathers; women are genetically programmed to save food for the hard times ahead.

I still know a few women who make jam and such in small batches, but no one around here cans in bulk. No wonder! Being a farm-wife is lots of work.  But to put it in perspective, Grammy didn't have a nice gas range and a quiet kitchen with classical music playing. She cooked and canned everything on a wood stove, with a passel of kids underfoot and a thousand other chores.

This is a more recent picture of the Bucks County farm I ran across in the photo collection. Sadly, the property is no longer in the family. But of course, our memories of home will never be lost.

In the Army now...

Our Dad

circa 1940

Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. Like everyone of his generation, dad remembers the day, and told me he was with his mom when they heard the awful news together on the radio.

Dad's brothers were quite a bit older and not eligible for the first draft, but his mother knew that Sam Jr. would soon be leaving for the war.  The following year when he turned 18, he was drafted into the Army.

Dad had probably never traveled more than 50 miles from the family farm, and his story was not unique-- just substitute Columbus, Ohio for Quakertown, Pennsylvania.  John's father, like thousands of other boys, joined the Marines as soon as he could, and was shipped out (literally, like a sardine packed in a can) to the war in the Pacific.

Many of these boys came from big, close families, and by today's standards had led very sheltered lives. When they left home, no one knew when or if they would ever return. Just imagine what those family good-byes were like? 

While I was organizing the old family farm pictures, I found this interesting little sequence of snapshots. From the serious faces, I'm sure these were taken right before dad left home for the Army.

 Dad with his sister Marion

And dad being dad, maybe clowning a bit to lighten the mood? 

And here's the family posing together on that sad proud day.

Back row left: older brothers Clarence and Howard standing behind their father, then Grammy (dad behind her) and his sister Marion and sister Helen (I think) in the apron.  The little girl in front is the youngest in the family, sister Doris. 

They didn't see Samuel Jr. again for four long years.

 In the Army now...

I wouldn't call a teenager "lucky" who is wrenched away from home to fight a war, but by the luck of the draw, dad was sent to Panama, considered highly strategic because of the Canal, but not directly involved in combat.  When the war suddenly ended, dad thinks he was just a few weeks away from being shipped out to the Pacific front.  There might have been a very different ending to the story.

Dad on the right with his buddies...

And here with enlisted rank insignia of sergeant, about the time of his discharge.

And then what?  He came back home to the farm, bought a snazzy convertible roadster and went courting a pretty young city girl who had just moved from Philadelphia to Quakertown.

I think this picture was taken on the day they got married.
And the rest is history.

The wedding...the honeymoon

To be continued...

Wilderness playground

 

Maya and Finnbar in front

Nova center back, with best friend Adelina on right

I love these pictures Amanda sent yesterday. These kids are growing up with the North Cascades wilderness right in their backyard, and Amanda and her friends take them on long hiking trips together on their days off.  And this summer, the high mountains must be a nice escape from the smoke down in the Valley.  

I have to say, those moms must have eyes on the backs of their heads to keep up with this crew.

Pausing for a wilderness disco pose.  I think Nova learned this from her dad!

And look at Maya!  Not even two yet, but already keeping up with the big kids. What a sweet and wise little face.

Duwamish River

John is standing on the First Avenue Bridge that crosses the Duwamish River.  We took a Sunday drive last weekend in the new car and walked across the fancy bridge that just opened a few months ago. This is a main traffic route between downtown and south Seattle neighborhoods, and it caused major inconvenience for several years during bridge construction.

This bridge opens frequently for large boats during the day, snarling up the heavy traffic. In Seattle, maritime law actually pre-dates most other laws, giving boats the right-of-way.  There's a cute little South Park Marina below in the murky water, surrounded by disadvantaged neighborhoods and industry dominated by Boeing. 

With the binoculars, John was showing me the building he works in on the other side of the water. This seems about as close as family members can get, since no visitors are allowed inside the Boeing guarded gates, no exceptions.

I probably won't see where John actually works until the afternoon he retires, when apparently wives get special dispensation to enter with their husbands, and then get looked over for the first time by his co-workers, who have been hearing about you for years. Ha! You would think it was the CIA, instead of an airplane company.   

 Brave kayaking on the Duwamish

The EPA placed the Duwamish on the Superfund National Priorities List in 2001.  More than a century of industrial waste has filled the river with over 40 toxic chemicals. Boeing is a good corporate citizen and leading the clean-up of a five mile stretch of water. Of course they played a big part in creating the mess in the first place click here.  During WWII, the giant B-17 plant was right on the Duwamish,  and they didn't have time to worry about pollution in those days.

Tons of contaminated sediment is being dredged and replaced with clean sand.  Tugboats are hauling out huge barges full of dirty stuff, and I see them sometimes passing under the West Seattle bridge. The sediment is then "packaged" and transported by rail to an EPA approved landfill.  Yes, this is very expensive.

Believe it or not, salmon still spawn in the Duwamish, so dredging work can only take place during specific times of the year when juvenile salmon are not migrating.  Boeing is also restoring the shoreline as a fish and wildlife habitat, bringing in thousands of native plants. If done correctly, cleanup may generate new jobs and revitalize the South Park and Georgetown neighborhoods. On the other hand, gentrification forces out the poor folks who live there now.  You can't have it both ways.

We won't be around to see it, but I told John in 50 years the banks of Duwamish will probably look like this model High Point neighborhood in West Seattle.  Lined with townhouses, condos and miles of "nature" trails.  Another urban village for Seattle with expensive waterfront property.

Plum crazy

Every branch of the plum tree is sagging down with fruit. We've never seen so many plums-- it must be that lucky combination of good spring pollination followed another hot summer. I never water, spray or fertilize this tree and gave up winter pruning a few years ago because it was too much work. Leaving things well enough alone is sometimes the secret of success.

Some of the branches were hanging down on the other side of our fence, and we had to cut them back today.  The plums aren't even ripe yet, but they were causing a feeding frenzy on the busy sidewalk in front of our house. What is it about fruit trees, that makes people go crazy over the "free" fruit?  Who cares if folks snitch a few as they walk by with their dogs (we've all done that) but teenagers climb on the fragile old fence and break the higher branches off. 

And not just kids. I came home from the grocery store this morning, and a strange man was on a stepladder filling a big tub. He looked pretty guilty when I drove up, but got defensive and said he didn't think we would "mind." He drove off in a car with his ladder, so I know he wasn't a nearby neighbor.

Sigh.  It isn't easy anymore,  keeping a little private garden corner in an urban village.  West Seattle has changed so much, and not for the better I'm afraid. Well, hopefully no one will be brazen enough to sneak into the yard and steal the best ones I plan to use for chutney. 

I'm happy to share with neighbors, really.  These came off just the branches we cut away from the sidewalk. A few were ripe and I made John plum kuchen.  I recently cleaned out the downstairs storage cabinets so I could find my kitchen things, but then I couldn't find where I put my tart pans.

I used the pizza pan instead. I love this simple recipe and make it every year.  Probably all you have to do is look at the August blog for the last 5 years to find the recipe, I'm becoming so repetitious.

It's a plain cake, but looks pretty when you sprinkle it with powdered sugar. And put vanilla ice cream on top.