National Sugar Cookie Day

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.

Barbara Jordan

Fruits of the season

It looks like another bumper crop this summer from our little patch of urban real estate.  Climate change? This indestructible White Concord grape vine was one of the first things I planted 35 years ago, and it's been cut back to the ground more times than I can remember. Nothing will kill it. Bugs hate it. The resident wine expert here says grape vines can be productive for over 50 years, and then hang around for another 50 or so after that.  Sort of like people.

They look tasty, but this isn't a table grape because of the big seeds and sour skin.  Folks would have been grateful for fruit like that in olden times, but we're spoiled with sugary grapes from the grocery store.  I still wish it was a Purple Concord like on our Pennsylvania farm-- that unforgettable taste of warm grape in September when you popped them out of the skins right into your mouth.

Farm kids my age remember gorging themselves on whatever fruit was in season.  I'm sure my mom made grape jelly, because she would never let good fruit go to waste. They may have even tried to make sweet concord wine for fun, but the Pennsylvania Dutch were not big wine drinkers, except for maybe a bottle of Mogen David on the holidays. My Grammy would have been shocked at the amount of wine consumed in this house (oh, well.)

I'm ashamed to say I never "do" anything with our grapes, and the coons eat them on the day they are perfectly ripe. While you can make fruit chutney out of almost anything, I've never seen recipe for grape chutney. I have a friend at the museum who makes frozen grape juice concentrate with hers and says it's wonderful.  She also says I am bad to waste mine. Perhaps that was a heavy hint.

These days I let the grape vine grow free-range style on the arbor where the awful Hummingbird Vine once lived. It must be over 20 feet long now.  I like walking under it except on drippy days-- it feels sort of European. Of course it will drop all those leaves in the fall and that big mass of soggy vegetation will have to be scraped up off the sidewalk. But I'm getting ahead of myself!  Enjoy the moment, Sue. We're starting our most beautiful stretch of Seattle summer weather and the early mornings are so lovely it almost breaks your heart.

As for plums, every branch is hanging down with heavy fruit. These are giant-sized Italian prunes.  I look at the puny ones at the store for 2 bucks a pound and think, "Ha! you call those plums?"

Last summer we guesstimated about 50 pounds came off the tree, and it looks like twice as many this year.  We ate as many as humanly possible and I cooked up two batches of plum jam and then canned some in pints to put on ice cream, cottage cheese and yogurt. I also made plum chutney for the first time and I hope I remember where I put that recipe-- it was great on ham and turkey. You never know exactly how chutney will turn out until it ages in the jar for a few months.  The raccoons got into the last bucket I left on the deck, but I was plum-tuckered out by then anyway.

Happy birthday, Mahler

Gustav, age five

Today is the birthday of the famous composer and conductor Gustav Mahler.  He was born in Bohemia (1860) in what is now the Czech Republic. Many heavy, scholarly books have been written about his life and works. I once tried to read one, but I owe my appreciation for Mahler to our previous Seattle Symphony conductor Gerard Schwartz, who is of Austrian descent.  He understood Mahler and Mahler's music was his "specialty." Now we have a new French maestro in Seattle, who naturally prefers his lighter French music.

I once dreaded sitting through those long Mahler symphonies and now I miss them.  Mahler's Third is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around ninety to one hundred minutes. This is a long time to sit completely still and quiet, unless you go into a "Mahler time zone" which is something like "Wagner time" at the opera. A different dimension, so to speak.  But people are losing the desire and ability to slow down, shut up and just listen.  A monumental symphony is not entertaining enough.

As for Mahler, he was a difficult man personally and fanatical in his work habits. He got on people's nerves. He was always being asked to resign. He once said, "All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish." Which pretty much says it all.

Heart Strings

If you have 26 minutes to spare this long weekend, here's a sweet PBS documentary about the Kamaka Ukulele Company in Hawaii.

Sleepless in Seattle

Of course I'm old and grumpy, but when kids walk down our street at 2 am setting off firecrackers every few feet, I just don't get the fun of it.  But then I'm not an adolescent boy.  Anyway, this is life in Seattle until the Indian reservation firecracker stands close late Friday night. No heavy rest for the elders here.

From another place and time--some sweet pictures of Fourth of July girls. Who knew our biggest patriotic holiday was once so racy?   But it was bathing suit season, and those girls had war bonds to sell.

Personally, I think these gals are so much prettier than our current ideal of feminine beauty.

Twin rockets...

Ava for victory...

Blasting off 1960's style...

Keg-o-gunpowder...

Patriotic fun on the water...

Two flags are always better than one...

Flying high...

But these last ones are extra sweet, taken at a Fourth of July picnic in Vale, Oregon, 1941.

Happy Fourth of July!

A happy sound

Kamaka Ukulele Company was founded in 1916 by Samuel Kaialiilii (really) Kamaka.  The first shop was called "Kamaka Ukulele and Guitar Works" and was run out of his basement.  In 1921 he opened a store in the town of Kaimuki near Honolulu.  In the 1920's, Sam started making a new oval design of ukulele that made a more mellow sound than the normal figure-eight shaped ukulele.

Vintage Kamaka painted pineapple

Kamaka Hawaii is considered the most venerable and prestigious ukulele manufacturer in the world, making about 3,000 instruments per year with a backlog of over 12 months.  They still make the pineapple, but also the classic soprano, concert and tenor sizes. Almost all of their ukuleles are made out of solid Hawiian koa, an exotic wood with an unusual curly grain that gives them a wonderful shimmering look that needs no extra adornment. Kamaka ukuleles have had a big renaissance recently, thanks in part to Jake Shimabukuro.



George Harrison also played the Kamaka, and a music shop on Maui said Harrison would purchase all the Kamakas in stock to give to his friends as gifts.  Everyone knows George Harrison was a very nice guy and that proves it.

One of the most interesting facts about Kamaka is that more than half of their employees are hearing impaired. This is not a handicap in making fine instruments, because these ukulele makers use their heightened sense of touch to determine the exact thickness of koa by thumping the wood and feeling the vibrations. Two master craftsmen recently retired after being with the company for over 40 years.  Both were deaf since birth.

 Have you guessed where I'm headed with this post?  Yes, I walked out of Dusty Strings this week carrying a case with a new Kamaka soprano inside.  I sat in their little closet playing room and basically fell in love. It has an indescribably happy, rich sound and easy feel.  Well, playing it feels exactly like a Hawaiian vacation. I know I don't deserve such a fine instrument, but with hard work I hope I can grow into it.