Dust Off The Blog

Wow, it has been over a year since I last posted.

Steve and I have enjoyed some travelling together and had other fun adventures in the past year but I neglected to record them in my travel journal.

I've never been good about keeping a journal... how many times as a young girl or young woman did I try keeping a diary...that always lasted about 2 or 3 days.

Well, here I go again.

I want to be more diligent about recording my/our travels and adventures for myself. Having the blog to look back on gives me a way to relive and enjoy our past travels that relying on my memory does not allow for.

Today marked the first leg of my vacation travels.

I spent the morning making 100 jars of elderberry and elderberry/verbena jam and syrup then I finished packing for a week in Switzerland to visit my sister and 12 days in Italy and a weekend in Cincinnati for my cousin's wedding.

I left Cleveland shortly after 2 PM to drive to Cincinnati. The idea is to fly in and out of Cinci so Steve and I won't have to get in the car and drive down here the day after we return from Europe. The added bonus is that I get to spend this evening and tomorrow morning with my Uncle Jack. I'm looking forward to seeing my cousin Craig, his wife, Gretchen and their son Ben tomorrow. Unfortunately, Hanna won't be here too as she is with her mom for the weekend.

Uncle Jack made a lovely dinner and we sat and visited like we haven't done in way too long. I know the wedding weekend will be hectic so I am appreciative of this time for the two of us.

After the frenetic pace of making pies all summer this respite is already much appreciated.

Senator Edward Kennedy 1932 - 2009

Family's Statement

“Edward M. Kennedy—the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply—died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”

Thank you for your service Senator Kennedy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60AChuvfzUo

What A Weekend

This was an amazing weekend filled with many great local food treats, great music and most importantly time with my husband, friends and family.

Friday night was dinner at my house to celebrate the birthday of my very good friend. We started with bacon wrapped cherries and savory puff pastry treats that the birthday girl brought for hors d' oeuvres. For dinner we had delicious grass fed ribeye steaks from Millgate, local corn, cucumber yogurt salad with local cukes and green onions and Great Scott's cupcakes for dessert.

Saturday morning it was a joy to see a bustling crowd at the Coit Rd. Market. The Shaker market was quieter than usual but I was pleased to see a new family there selling local, pasture raised, heritage pork and beef. I also got the chance to chat with a friend who just came back from a trip to Italy where he and his sister visited family in the town from which their parents came. This was his first trip to Italy so listening to his enthusiasm for the trip and what they experienced was a real treat.

After the markets I had a wonderful surprise. Several dear friends arranged a surprise lunch at Gerracci's to celebrate my 40th birthday that had happened while Steve and I were in Europe this spring. It was quite a surprise! It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't a funny coincidence that my friend and I ran into other friends at Geracci's but that they were actually there as a surprise for me. I keep laughing at the delay in my figuring that out (it was the balloons that finally gave it away)! We had a completely wonderful time visiting and lunching and guess what we had for dessert? Great Scott cupcakes for my birthday! Ha! I highly recommend celebrating ones birthday after the fact, as it was great fun. I felt very lucky and very special. The past week was a difficult one and this surprise was just what my heart needed.

Between the cupcakes Friday night, the half a cupcake I had for breakfast Saturday and the cupcakes at lunch, that was 3 meals in a row with Great Scott's cupcakes!

After lunch I went home and packed a picnic lunch to have that evening at Blossom. I made three kinds of sandwiches with imported meats, cheeses and trimmings from Gallucci’s on a rustic Italian bread from the new Blackbird Baking Company. Steve and I and another good friend had the sandwiches, lupini beans and castelvetrano olives along with a nice bottle of red before hearing the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom. Steve is very fond of Rhapsody In Blue so the outing to Blossom to hear the orchestra’s program that included that piece was my surprise for him. The whole program was wonderful, great American pieces, performed at Blossom on a July evening, that is the epitome of summer. Oh, and don’t tell anyone but I had half a GS cupcake when Steve and I got home that night. 4 meals in a row!

Today was the Rocking BBQ at Beachland Ballroom followed by a visit to my Dad’s to sit in the park that is his yard and visit with him and my Step-mom then a late evening visit to Honey Hut for a kid’s scoop of honey pecan ice cream with salted pecans and hot fudge that served as dinner.

Life is good.

Canandaigua/Rochester, NY

So, Steve and I have been saying how much we would like to see another show during the current David Byrne tour. We saw him in the fall when he was here in Cleveland and we both LOVED the show. I checked the tour schedule yesterday to see if there was a show this month that we could maybe drive to and I saw that he is playing tonight outside of Rochester with Ani DiFranco! We were himming and hawing as to whether or not we would go and while we were trying to decide I checked Craig's List for tickets and found 2 FRINT ROW seats. That made up our mind!

We are off to see the show!

We will stop to visit my Grandma and Uncle in Conneaut on the way back.

Yippee!

Heading Home Soon

I started packing today. After being here at my sister's for so long we have really moved in! I have to go through the kitchen and try to remember but I brought to leave here and what I brought to use while we were here but planned to take home.

Even though I did not do a great deal of shopping while we were here I did pretty much re-fill the "kitchen" bag that came with me. The oats, chocolate chips, other goodies and kitchen-wares that I brought to Switzerland have been replaced with salts, spices, caramels, vinegars and other goodies for my own kitchen and to share with my Mom and friends.

I am sad about leaving my sister's house. I love my sister and Nico and it has been great spending as much time with them as we have. Of course, I could have used more time with my sister but, that is always the case. I love Switzerland and I love their house. I hope that Steve does end up with a postition in Europe that we will be able to live close to Jenny and Nico.

We have had wonderful travelling experiences since we've been here. I still have posts to write about my trip to Gruyere with our friends, my trip to my favorite sculpture garden at the museum in Martigny and about our travels to Prague and Germany. Those posts will come once we get home and have a few days to settle in. I don't expect that I will post again before we leave here.

It will be good to get home and at the same time I am sad to leave.

Greece

I've been struggling with my thoughts about Athens and whether or not to post them. I really don't want to disparage a whole city and generally I prefer to follow the creed if you can't say anything nice...however, this is a blog to record my experiences and thoughts about travelling so it doesn't seem right not to post my honest feelings about our time in Athens.

I know that I am incredibly fortunate to have lived in all the places where I've lived, traveled to all the places to which I've traveled and for the opportunities of all the traveling that is surely yet to come.

I also know that I am fortunate to have been raised in a way that makes me curious about the world and gives me appreciation for all the people that I meet and all the places I go.

Both those things being said, it is impossible for me not to quantify places I've been in terms of favorites and lesser favorites. I say lesser favorites because there is no place I've lived in or traveled to for which I'm not happy to have experienced whether or not it was one of my favorite places.

So, um, yeah, you've already guessed where I'm going with this haven't you?

Athens is not a city I have fallen in love with.

Athens is dirty, hot and very loud and it is all of those things day and night. It is also overpopulated like many big cities. Most of Athens seems haphazard as if there are no zoning laws or guidelines for how or where to build or how property should be maintained. The city is a jumble of business mixed with light industry and housing all next store to one another with seemingly no rhyme or reason. There is much blight throughout Athens and this city is plagued with riff-raff who are intent on covering every surface in graffiti, even the historical sites and natural wonders. It is heart breaking.

There are beggars everywhere in Athens and the city is home to a large Romini gypsy population. The Romini children walk from table to table in the tourist areas and up and down the streets throughout the city begging for money or offering things like packs of kleenex for sale. It is very interesting to watch the Romini children. They will approach a person to beg from them with the most sad and distraught look on their faces and then a moment later several of the kids will meet up with each other around a corner and you can see them laughing and playing together. I am fascinated by the Romini gypsies (there is also a large Romini population in France) but that is a whole other subject.

Here is a Ramini boy who I came across several times during our stay. He nestled himself into my heart the first time I saw him and he seemed to know it. He gave me a mischevious smile with a sparkle in his eye and a wink each time I saw him.

Athens is also home to large illegal African and Sri lankin populations many of whom sell junk goods on the street from cheap plastic toys to fake designer handbags. These peddlers are everywhere and mixed with the hawkers who stand outside most restaurants and shops trying to get you to enter their establishment they make for a raucous and unpleasant environment.

There is a constant police presence all about the city but there is no way that the illegal hawking of pirated goods could continue the way it does both with the itinerant street vendors and in the fixed stores and market places if the government had any care about what was going on.

Yes we have the same hawkers in New York and Chicago and other large American cities and yes I have seen it in Paris and surely will see it in Prague but I have never seen it in another city to anywhere near the extent of what I saw in Athens.

My Dad and Step-mom recently spent time in several large cities in India. When they came home my Dad spoke of how overwhelming the constant "chaos" was and that by the end of the trip he just wanted everything to stop for 5 minutes so he could catch his breath. That's how I felt in Athens which is making me wonder if I will be O.K. going to India but, that is yet another post.

Also, one of my brothers visited my sister in Athens and then spent a few days in Paris shortly before Steve and I left for this trip. He told me that he couldn't understand how I am so in love with Paris. He thought Paris was a filthy, loud city and he didn't think the Parisiennes were particularly friendly. He LOVED Athens. The whole time I was in Athens I kept laughing at how different my brother and I are in how we perceive the two cities.

There is a nice café right across the road from my sister’s flat. I went there every morning for our coffees. The woman who works the espresso machine at the café and I got to be friendly and on our last day she asked me how I liked Athens. I told her that I liked it. She asked “Do you like it a little or do you like it a lot?” I smiled as I lied and said, “Oh, I like it a lot”. To which she said, “I hate it!” Oh, my goodness did I get a laugh from that. I asked her why she disliked her home city and her reasons were exactly the same as mine. The constant noise and how dirty the city is and the illegal population of vendors that one just cannot get away from and how packed everyone is living in the city bother her. She told me that she would like to leave the city and live on one of the islands. Amen, sister friend, amen.

The most important thing about Athens is how incredibly kind, sincere, generous, gracious and thoughtful the people are. We experienced that everywhere we went in Athens and outside of the city as well. The French have a saying that “Paris is not France and France is not Paris”. I think the same thing can be said about Athens and one can go even further to say that the people are not Athens and Athens is not the people for the people are so much more than Athens, history and all.

Of course it was amazing to be in the cradle of civilization as we know it. To be in the place where the rights and value of the individual were first recognized and brought to bear on a new way of governing and seeing the world and our place in it, well, that was awe inspiring.

I see the irony in my appreciation that it was ancient Greek culture that brought to the world a way of life where the individual matters but at the same time being dismayed by the chaos of Athens and wanting the city government to clean up the town and do something about the illegal vendors and riff-raff that plagues the city. But, remember, the ancient Greeks also recognized the need for order so that the whims of each and every individual would not create chaos and make life unbearable for all. Balance, that's what they were attempting to create through the development of democracy and I don't see balance in Athens.

I would like to go back to Greece to see the islands and more of the country outside of Athens and I would love to return to our idyllic little spot we found on the beach of Iria. I will also forever hold in my heart a love and fondness for the Greek people, their immense kindheartedness and goodwill is something rare to experience.

Beer

Steve and I drove through a corner of Austria, Saturday on our way to Prague. We stopped for dinner in the town of Bregenz.

We each had schnitzle: Steve the pork, me the veal but the highlight of the meal for me was discovering this beer- http://www.augustiner-braeu.de/augustiners/html/en/Sortiment.html

I'm not much of a beer drinker. I may drink beer 4 or 5 times a year and when I do it is usually a Pilsner Urquell that I prefer. This German Pils-style beer is my new favorite! It is lighter than Pilsner Urquell, crisp and very dry with a flinty flavor.

I.love.this.beer.

This Pils would be perfect on a hot summer day when a light and crisp beer is in order. I would love to try this beer with fried perch and coleslaw.

We broke the drive to Prague into two parts. After dinner in Bregenz we drove for another hour and a half or so then pulled over for the night. Sunday morning we woke and drove to Plzen (Pilsen) for a tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery.

Though Pilsner Urquell has been fermented in large stainless steel tanks since the early 1990's they still ferment some batches in oak barrels like they used to so that they can compare the taste and other elements of the beers for consistency's sake.

We got to finish the tour with a taste of beer from the oak barrels. Steve and I both thought it had a slightly different flavor. It was a touch richer, rounder in the mouth and more caramely tasting.

This website has a fact filled page on Pilsner Urquell's history and the brewery-

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue5.3/urquell.html

It was a good tour and funny to have taken it the day after Pilsner Urquell was replacedd as my favorite beer!