Had the nicest time with my brother Tom and his wife, Diane. They are on a nationwide wedding tour, starting with their own daughter's the end of July and with a new one practically every week thereafter it sounded like. It almost made me feel like I should propose to Bill and get married while they were here!
They arrived on Wednesday evening and left Friday afternoon. A nice relaxed visit...it rained one night and we stayed home. Ran around to the Pember and to Roy Egg's studio, down to Gardenworks and to Patty and Mark's where Patty graciously took Diane out for a carriage ride. The weather turned cool while they were here, which was nice.
Diane and I keep threatening to paint together, but there just wasn't time this trip. Hoping she comes back for a longer stay so we can do that.
In my family, Easter always included an Easter cake in the shape of the lamb. And while I have no use for any of the symbolism of that lamb anymore, the cake remains a fond food memory.
About two years ago, just prior to departing Brooklyn for parts north, I had looked about for the required lamb mold baking pan. My mother's had been tin, and I managed to find one on line (not easily, I might add.) it wasn't exactly like the one I remembered, but I thought it would do. It didn't. The material was so light that when the cake rises in the form (and is supposed to fill in the details of the form) instead it lifted the top, spilling batter all over the inside of the oven. A mess. I had spoken with our friend Beverley about my search and she came over with yet another, flat formed, lamb cake form.
But today...delivered secretly by FedEx ...(I mean really...can't they be bothered to ring the doorbell and at least let you know something is out there? But no...they leave it to you to walk outside and stumble upon the delivery. I don't understand)...a largish box arrived...from Bev. I opened it, and it was immediately clear that there was a heavy object inside, and before I was able to slice away the bubblewrap, I realized: it was an Easter lamb cake mold. In cast iron! (On the left here)
It is difficult to describe just how different the two forms I now own are...the tin one (at the right) a pale shadow of the sturdy, detailed cast iron model. It is night and day, to say the least. The cast iron lamb is, in and of itself, a work of of craftsmanship and art. For starters, it is numbered. The inside details are sculpted, as opposed to cast as the tin one's are. And the cast iron one is heavy, no mere cake batter will lift this top. The pictures don't do the comparison justice, but I include them for the sake of discussion.
Took the train down to NYC for some scheduled medical check ups...clean bill of health. I love traveling by train and this particular route is one of the most beautiful, virtually the length of the Hudson River Valley.
Managed to do a good deal while I was there. In addition to medical ministrations, I got a much needed haircut. Covelo and I took in Tony Kushner's new play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. A mouthful...and to be candid, a mess. But like Sondheim, Kushner messes up on an entirely different level than other mere mortals. Dense and wide-ranging in language and ideas -- like I said, it's Kushner -- it never quite takes off; it never seems to come together in a "grand idea" in the way the Angels in America did. In fact it is a mish mash of ideas. The play looks at the life of retired longshoreman Gus Marcantonio, a 20th-century thinker, who's feeling confused and defeated by the 21st century. In summer 2007, his sister, who has been staying with him for a year, invites Gus' three children (who in turn bring along spouses, ex-spouses, lovers and more) to a most unusual family reunion in their Brooklyn brownstone. Intimations of O'Neill, the writing is compelling even if the story is scattered.
But at least I got to sit next to Diane Wiest.
After theater cocktails and a bite with Robert and with Constance Rodgers, who I haven't seen in almost two years (or more.) A lot of catching up in too little time.
And while the theater was stimulating and the friends were warm and close, I have to say the thing I loved best was walking the High Line. It opened just as we were leaving the city and it was one of those "too good to be true" things that I had the highest of hopes for...all of which were met and exceeded. Just a beautiful urban experience. A breath of fresh New York City.
Sunday, Bodin and I went out for sushi and walked back through Central Park in all it's spring glory. Hopped in the car late afternoon and drove back north with Ron and Bodin and Reese and we all went fishin'.
And if that wasn't fine enough...Bill announced he'd been offered a job.
hough in no way am I a COLLECTOR collector of Rockwell Kent, I have, for a very long time, picked up a piece or two of his work along the way, rummaging through junk shops and the occasional estate sale. I have most all of his original books and a few of the classics he illustrated...Moby Dick, Canterbury Tales, Leaves of Grass.... I have a few nice prints, a litho, all signed...and the plate at the right (and whoever stole the collection of six Vernon Kiln Moby Dick plates from me -- may you rot in hell!)...and I have continued to enjoy them as much now as the day I found them.
I have always wanted to visit SUNY Plattsburgh where he left a large portion of his artistic estate (other than the bulf of paintings which went to The Hermitage in St. Petersburgh...long story.) And yesterday we did. As a holiday gift to Mark and Patty, Bill and I hosted them to a daytrip up to Plattsburgh for lunch and a visit to the Rockwell Kent Gallery at SUNY Plattsburgh. (and then back home for dinner) .We drove up through the snowy Adirondack peaks to the frozen shores of Lake Champlain and had lunch at a nice little sandwich place there and then found the gallery.
It was worth the wait and the two hour drive. His work is as stunning as ever and even more so in person.
[left: "Godspeed" 1931 woodcut / upper left "T" illumination R. Kent / right: Rockwell Kent "Our America" series charger Vernon Kilns (from the Young-Foote Collection)]
It was the fulfillment of a lifelong wish to see this collection and it did not disappoint. And it was made all the more sweet by the company with which it was shared. Now to plan a trip to The Hermitage...
For some strange reason, my computer and my camera have decided they can see one another again and I have pictures to go with a post. Not as many as I would like...say, for example, shots from CNN's "Decision Desk" for the midterm depression...er...I mean election coverage.
I put up about a dozen pints of jalapeno jelly and then took off for the city on the train...the Hudson River in all it's autumnal raiment. Had dinner with Bev and Robert (who worked the election with me) and Ken Monday night at Cafe Loup, which was lovely as always. Spent two nights in a chic little hotel right at Lincoln Center and headed back home on the
train Wednesday morning (reading Angela Miller's Hay Fever all the way -- she's the proprietrix of Consider Bardwell Farm here. I recommend the book. It was fun to read about Granville and Pawlet and Roy Egg and the West Pawlet Fish and Game Club.) Which reminds me...I need to submit my invoice so I can get paid (CNN is notoriously slow in payment...I probably won't get paid till January!)
Got home and hit the ground running with two days to pull the second First Friday at the Pember together. Had a nice break from the Post-Star which ran a front page of the Arts section story on Tuesday about one of the artists we featured. The wooden bowls (over on the left there) were a big hit...turned by our neighbor Tony Mesaric, using local woods.
Had another 80+ people turn up (in a village of 2,000+ people, that's not bad), which was what we had hoped for. Battenkill Creamery (by the way, they were just named "Best Milk in the State of New York") served ice cream sundaes and a delightful time was had by all.
And last night...we went to the rodeo...YEE HAW! [Pretty horse...prettier cowboy]
Well the long delay has been due to the intransigence of my technology to cooperate. My camera, from which I have uploaded many hundreds of photos, is suddenly invisible to my computer...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr So I have no current photos to show...or at least I have no access to the photos I took for the time being...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
And there has been much to talk about, too. Ron and JiYoung and Bodin and Reese were here for the weekend. We ate and played and hiked and toured and had a great time as always. We took Bodin to see the Fly Fishing Museum, which Mark Wenser had just taken Bill and I to see a day or so before (Mark designed the building that houses the museum, as well as restorations and updates to Hildene (left) the summer estate of Robert Todd Lincoln in Manchester, where he also gave us a personal tour.) And we drove to the top of Mount Equinox, where we hiked the Lookout Trail...beautiful views.
Let's see....what else? I spent the day yesterday making 75 pounds of merguez sausage with Jody and Luisa Somers at the Dancing Ewe Farm. We dressed out the meat, trimmed it, ground it, seasoned it and finally stuffed it into casings, tied them off in groups of six and packaged them. Handmade from stem to stern.
And I can't share a single photo of any of it...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The last two weeks have been a blur...between my parents visiting, which was wonderful and preparation for First Fridays: Home Grown @ The Pember, a monthly art exhibit and local food celebration we're starting as a fundraising, consciousness-raising event for the Pember Library and Museum.
The idea is to invite local artists and local food producers...cheesemakers and cider being the most obvious, but there are many others...to a monthly event at the Pember. Seemed like a no-brainer, really. We're in the middle of one of the highest producing agricultural areas in the country.
I had no idea.
Turns out that not one, but two of the local cheesemakers...Consider Bardwell Farm and Dancing Ewe Farm...provide some of the finest restaurants in New York City with their cheeses, to say nothing of Murray's Cheese. And by "finest" restaurants I'm talking about the just-this-week recipient of four stars in the NY Times, Del Posto. And that's just the start. The woman who runs Consider Bardwell Farm is nothing less than Mark Bittman's ("How To Cook Everything") cookbook editor! We picked up some nice hard cider from the Slyboro Ciderhouse. I am not personally fond of hard cider, but this was very nice. That's our friend Mark Wesner in the front and our friend and the artist who made the painting they are standing by, Roy Egg, in the photo. I don't know how much money we made exactly...but it was a very nice evening and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We even got the mayor to commit to tending bar for us for the next one!
Meanwhile, the weather has been inclement to say the least. Not really "inclement"...rainy would be more accurate. I think they're saying we got something like four to six inches of rain in the prior 48 hours. I think it had to be more than that...it rained, steadily and drenchingly throughout the entire night Wednesday night and well into Thursday. From Thursday into Friday it was off and on, but mostly on, only stopping by mid-afternoon on Friday, just in time for our First Friday event!
Meanwhile...back in the garden, the season is drawing quickly to a close. Those are the varieties of squash we grew in the foreground (l. to r. Marina di Chioggia, pumpkin and golden Hubbards). The can is filled with only one of the many girasoles...Jerusalem artichokes...we grew. And the basket has everything from baby eggplants to the last of the cherry tomatoes, some green tomatoes and a few delicatas.
An acquaintance of mine and a pretty good friend of Patty's, took it upon himself
early last spring...in April as I recall...to renovate an old Tiffany-topped, McClintock chiming clock that had originally been a part of an old bank that is no longer in business, and is now on a pole outside the TD bank downtown.
It had been allowed to rundown and it no longer told the time, much less chimed. So John Steed decide this would not do and he got permission to take it down and started renovating it. As he tells it, all of a sudden checks started coming in...to the tune of something like $35,000 or so, and this enabled him to completely update the inner workings of the clock and to refurbish it in the style that he wanted.
So Saturday, September 18, was the big re-dedication. There was a parade. Bagpipers and fire engines. Marching bands (well, technically a "riding-on-the-back-of-a-flatbed-truck" band) and teen-age beauty queens and children throwing out candy to the throngs along the sides of the streets.
Vendors had set up along Main Street and were selling hotdogs and chicken wings. And there was the re-dedication, with a special emphasis on the remaining WWII vets, and lots and lots and lots of speechifying and introductions of dignitaries (one of our Senators was there...so was our Congressman, who brought a flag that had flown over the Capitol. There were Boy Scouts and ribbons and balloons and twenty-one gun salutes and an Air Force flyover!
And at precisely 7:45 the clock chimed. We had good seats (as did about 2,000 other people!) but a tree was in the way of my photo. The clock says "Lest We Forget" on one side, and "Those Who Served" on the other. There is a lovely green Tiffany dome on top and the chimes are very pretty.
A lovely time was had by all. And Mark and Patty and Bill and I went to dinner. On the way home, we heard the 9:45 chime...which means we managed to hear the quarter hour chime twice in one evening. I look forward to hearing an hourly chime. [As always, click on the photo to enlarge.]
