THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS - BOOK REVIEW

On a beautiful October day we took the ferry from Cape Cod to Martha’s Vineyard.  We hopped a bus to Vineyard Haven and strolled the streets of the quaint harbor village.  We ate lunch at the lovely Atlantic restaurant with a view of the bay.  Then we boarded another bus headed for Edgar Town to see the gingerbread houses.  Three older ladies got on the bus ahead of us.  The bus had seats on the two sides  and places to stand for overflow.  Mike and I sat down beside the three ladies toward the front of the bus.  We were tuned into all the sights as the bus moved along.  We stopped to pick up another passenger.   She was an older black lady walking haltingly with a cane.  As she hobbled onto the bus the woman sitting next to Mike stood up and moved further down to a seat across the aisle.  She said, “This lady needs to have a seat as close to the front as possible.”   The black woman sat down beside Mike and began to shuffle through her purse looking for her bus pass.  Her hands were bandaged with Velcro stays leaving her fingers free.  She was having a difficult time managing the purse with her ailing hands.  The bus driver was huffing with disdain.  I wanted to go slap him.  The woman finally produced the pass and one of the ladies carried it up to the driver to scan.  She brought it back and Mike helped her put it in a pocket and zip her purse back up.  We moved on down the road.  Because I was reading, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” this event stuck to me.  

“This is the way humans should treat each other,”  I said to myself.  It is wonderful that things have changed.   50 years ago, in the Jim Crow south, the woman would not have been allowed to sit by us,  let alone get any consideration for her needs.  I bought the book in the airport as we were flying off to Cape Cod and have enjoyed every page.  It is about the great migration of blacks from the South to the North from 1917 through 1970.  I lived part of this history but mostly in the Utah bubble where we rarely saw a black person.   I really didn’t have an understanding of all that was going on. 

Isabel Wilkerson takes 3 people living in the South during this migration period and writes alternating parts of their stories from their childhood on to old age and death.  Historical events are told as they relate to the lives of these people:  a woman married to a sharecropper in Mississippi, a fruit picker living in Florida and a black man educated to be a Doctor.  All of them eventually migrate north with millions of other black people during this time.  The Doctor went to California, the sharecropper family to Chicago and the fruit picker to New York.  The author wove a fascinating picture of what was going on in all of these areas of the migration through the eyes of people I began to like and understand.   

My favorite books are about real people, their joys and struggles.  This is a powerful book that touched and educated me about a people and a time that I have not thought much about.    4 stars

PICTURES OF JOHN LATHROPS HOME AND BIBLE

I visited Barnstable Massachusetts this month and took pictures of John Lathrop's home and bible.  See them 2 posts below in the book review "Exiled."

APPLE GALETTE WITH FRANGIPANE & ROLOS

I have been experimenting with Galette's, which are free formed pies.  I love this dough.  It is crisp and buttery when baked.  I discovered Frangipane in a tart recipe.  It is a filling made with ground almonds...a very nice addition to this dessert.  This is a special recipe.  The apple, chocolate combination is very nice.

Galette Dough

1 ½ C flour

1 stick cold butter

¼ C. Sour Cream

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

¼ C. ice water

Crumble the butter and flour together until blended.  Mix the sour cream lemon juice and ice water together.  Stir into the flour mixture and knead a little until a solid mass.  Refrigerate for 1 hour or more.

Frangipane (A filling made with almonds)

1 C. Roasted Whole Almonds

1/3 C. White Sugar

Put these together in a food processor and chop until fine.

Add:

4 T. butter

2 egg yolks (Save at least one of the whites)

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Put in the refrigerator for an hour or more.

Apple Mixture

3 T. butter

3 crisp apples, peeled and sliced into bite size pieces

¼ C. brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

Place the butter in a non-stick fry pan to melt.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir on high heat to evaporate most of the liquid and cook the apples for about 5 minutes.

Dust your counter with flour and roll out dough to a 12 inch circle.  Place it on a piece of parchment and onto a cookie sheet or pizza pan right away.  (The dough will soften quickly and you won’t be able to move it if you wait too long)  Pinch off pieces of the Frangipane and press onto the top of the dough to make a layer to cover up to 2 inches from the edge.  Top with the apple mixture and 10 Rolo’s cut in two.  Fold the two inches of dough around the edge pleating as needed. Beat the egg white a little with a fork and brush the pastry generously with a pastry brush dipped in the whites.  Sprinkle with raw, coarse grain sugar (the best, but plain white sugar will work)

Bake 350 for 30-35 minutes.  Makes 6- 8 pieces, serve with ice cream…heavenly! 

 With the Frangipane

Folded over ready to bake

BOOK REVIEW - EXILED The Story of John Lathrop by Helene Holt

 John Lathrops Home in Barnstable, Which is now a Library with an addition on the back

A window inside the house where they met for church.

I told my friend Jolene Alphin about a planned trip to Cape Cod.  She said, “Oh, you need go to Barnstable and see John Lathrop’s home and bible.”  I said,  “I know about John Lathrop."  I had listened to Susan Easton Black give a lecture at Education Week and I have never forgotten it.   John Lathrop was the 6^th great grandfather of Joseph Smith and a host of other religious and government leaders are related to him.  Lathrop was exiled to America after years of abuse and time in the infamously horrible Clink prison.  He was a beloved leader of a group if separatists who wanted to follow their own religious dictates.  

“Because of the Laudian persecution (Laud, the bishop perpetuating the abuse), emigration to America increased.  It has been estimated that between 1629 and 1640, twenty-one thousand people came to New England.” (p. 236)  

“With the…deposing of Laud, and the cessation of persecutions, immigration to America virtually ceased.  English hopes were once more centered on the homeland.  For the next century and a half, immigration was minimal.  The growth of the colonies is attributed almost entirely to the early migrations of 1629-1640.  These were the formidable men and women of conscience, Puritans, who in the words of Samuel E. Morison, ‘hewed liberty, democracy, humanitarianism and universal education out of the black forest of feudal Europe and the American wilderness.”  (p. 237)

Helene Holt fictionalized the life of John Lathrop up until the time he came to America.  She won first prize from the Utah Arts Council with this story written in 1987. It is always true of historical fiction that you have a clearer picture of the events when they are humanized.  There were parts that bothered me.  I didn’t like the romance element between Lathrop’s daughter Jane and a cell mate of Lathrop.  It added some interest but it was done in a Harlequinish way.   There were some other cultural things that I thought could have been better researched.  Some of the personal stories had too much of a modern twist, including some of the family interactions.  I wished that events could have had an indication of whether they were based on fact or fictionalized by the author in the way of end notes.   But on the whole I enjoyed getting a picture in my mind of the terrible persecution and abuse that was going on at this time in the name of Christ.  Some of the dialogue between Lathrop and Bishop Laud when Lathrop was defending his beliefs was excellent.  I saw him as a man, like unto Stephen, who was ready to die rather than recant.  The end of the book has some excellent historical information including an extensive list of church leaders and dignitaries descended from Lathrop.

My good friend Jolene is a ninth great granddaughter and she let me read her book.  Thank you Jolene.

 The actual bible that John repaired.

There is a lovely story in the Appendix about how a hole was burned in John’s bible either in prison or on the ship coming to America.  Lathrop repaired the hole and filled in the missing words by heart. This bible is on display in his home in Barnstable.  I can’t wait to see it. 

ESCALLOPED MUSHROOMS

My oldest learned to like mushrooms somewhere after he left my home.  I made this for his birthday dinner hoping he would enjoy them and he did.  Even my picky husband took a helping. This is a very nice side dish and I will make it again.  I have always liked thyme with mushrooms so you could leave it out if you want to keep it plain.  This is simple and the mushrooms shined without too many distractions.  

Recipe
1 lb. sliced mushrooms tossed with ¼ C white wine or chicken broth
3 cloves coarsely grated  garlic or 3 T. grated onion
5 T olive oil

1 C crushed croutons (I like Costco’s) I chopped them in a food processor.
¾ C coarsely grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 C. chopped fresh parsley (or 2 T. Dry)

1 T fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried
¼ tsp Salt   

1/2 tsp pepper 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 

In a small frying pan put 1 T olive oil and fry the grated garlic or onion until it begins to brown.  Add the 4 T. of remaining oil and toss with the bread crumbs, parsley, Thyme , Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.  Toss the wine or chicken broth with the mushrooms and half of the bread crumb mixture.  Put into a 7x11 or similar size greased casserole (not 9x13) Sprinkle with the remaining crumb mixture and bake for 20-25 minutes.   This makes 6-7 small helpings

 

MUSINGS ON CHANGE

I stood before the mirror this morning and raised my sagging and wrinkled arms to comb my hair.  I thought my skin looked like a mini version of Rino hide.  I took a close up at the Zoo when we went this week with the little boys. Beau wanted a picture to use in a game he is working on.  When did this happen to me?  Maybe I will have to start wearing long sleeves every day or perhaps I just need to accept the inevitable and know that it will get worse.  Accepting my deteriorating body is tough.  

Change in my life hurts more as I age.  I feel vulnerable.  Fall was in the air when I walked the hills this morning. The cool air felt good but I am not ready to let go of this sweet summer with only one day of 100 degrees.  My secret garden was at its prime 2 weeks ago.  I sat in my swing with my eyes going in circles taking in the flourishing red inpatients and the bright yellow sunflowers whose blooms have cheered me for 2 months.

The music of the waterfall has lulled me in peace as my eyes feast on my little herb garden with the 3 metal chickens.  I collected them because I like hens but not roosters.  We raised chickens at home when I was a child.  I recall the dozens of fuzzy little peeps in the coop under lights in the spring and watching them grow during the summer.  The roosters would peck the hens on the neck and make them bleed.  That’s why I don’t like roosters.  But the main reason I like hens is the scripture; “How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens and ye would not.”  I understand that pain all too well.

Puttering in my secret garden has been like playing house this summer.  I would dabble and dream there every summer morning and take a book in the afternoon to lay on the hammock and read and doze.  Perhaps this is the ideal life that Camelot is made of and of course it can never last but I wanted just a little more.  The Yellow flowers are fading and falling with the leaves on the flagstones as the wind has been blowing the last few days.  The morning air is crisp and I know that this sweet time will end before I am ready.   I recall too often that my mother died when she was 64.  I have a sense of grasping every precious moment. 

My little herb garden grew better than I expected because there isn’t a lot of sun on this spot.  I planted lemon basil by mistake and it has excited me as I have looked for ways to use the bumper crop.  Loaded in a tuna sandwich, chopped in a pasta salad, lemon basil pesto rubbed on a grilled piece of salmon—oh lovely lemon basil how I will miss you. 

 

Yesterday my neighbors said they are going to put up a fence.  It depressed me all day.  I think they don’t like it because we play badminton when Michael is here.  We hook the net between our houses and one side is wrapped around their rain gutter.  We have only played 3 or 4 times but Michael loves it.  Now there will be nowhere to play.  And then Maren’s dog trots into their yard sometimes when he is here and I have to invade their space to retrieve him.  But I have only had Douggy 2 times this summer.  Do they really need to put up a fence?  I imagine I will get used to this change and it will stop depressing me.  I have learned that time heals all disappointment.  

Two weeks ago in Sunday School the teacher asked for examples of how we treat those who have different religious views from us.  I wanted to tell about Mike and Gary Boning but there wasn’t time.  Joan Boning has been Mike’s secretary for many years.  She is a lovely woman and Mike has become good friends with Joan and her husband Gary over the years.  They are all golfers so they play together often.  Mike needs someone to make the T times and Gary is good at doing this and calling Mike.   Mostly Mike has played with Gary and his Baptist friends.  They have invited him to Baptist golf functions and Mike goes gladly and has bonded with these good people over the years.   Mike knows golf so well that he sometimes gives them personal golf instruction.  We are aware of some rejection the Boning children felt from LDS kids when they were in school.  It is hard to be a nonmember in Utah at times.  But the Bonings love Mike and he has loved them and the fact that he is LDS and they are Baptist has never been an issue.  Recently Gary discovered that he has some LDS relatives that served as a mission president.  Knowing that we are planning a mission Gary had these people contact us to see if we wanted help or advice.  How considerate of him to do this.

Last Saturday morning Mike received a phone call from Joan.  Gary died unexpectedly from an aneurism the night before.  Of course Mike would be one of the first people Joan would call.  This death has been very upsetting to us.  How are you vibrant and alive one week and gone the next?  Life is so very fragile.  Because we are of a similar age our mortality is a little too real right now.  And knowing that losing a beloved mate has to be the most devastating change of all

At Gary’s funeral we learned that he loved the Savior and tried to be a disciple all of his life.  I know there will come a time in Paradise when Gary will be taught the fullness of the gospel and he will say, “I knew a  good, honest, loving Mormon guy, Mike Anderson.  He was an example of the believers.” 

I am blessed that my life is sweet and I cling to its joys but I need to learn that it is best not to cling to anything too much or to be too happy or content because if I do and it all changes I will suffer more than I should.  Can I learn this?  Growing older is making it harder.

The Relaxing Corner

LEMON BASIL PASTA SALAD

Lemon Basil has been my surprise joy this summer.  I got a package of seeds and planted it not realizing it was Lemon Basil.  Wow is it good!  It is wonderful chopped in a tuna sandwich or a  pile of it on a chicken sandwich or chopped in the following pasta salad.  I will be sad when it is gone.  I did dry some and also I made some lemon basil pesto for use this winter.  Three cheers for Lemon Basil. If you don't have Lemon Basil this is still a good salad.  The dressing is lovely with fish.

 A pile of Lemon Basil

 

 Lemon Basil Pasta Salad

DRESSING   (This is good on grilled chicken, fish or on a sandwich)
1 C. mayo
3 T. lemon juice
1-2 cloves finely grated garlic fried until a little brown in 1 T olive oil  (I love this flavor)
2 tsp. finely grated lemon peel
2 tsps. dijone mustard
1 tsp black pepper
salt to taste

Boil a pound of pasta and cool in running water.  Add a pound of cooked shrimp or chicken or salmon or whatever. 2-3 C. sliced Celery, 8-10 hard boiled eggs peeled and cut in fourths and chopped lemon basil to taste...start with 1/4 cup. This makes a gigantic salad so cut it in half if you want a smaller one.

This is the Lemon Basil Pesto.  I just blended some basil, olive oil  and garlic.  Then I poured it in a 7X11 inch pan lined with plastic wrap, freeze it, cut it into squares and keep the squares in a zip lock bag in the freezer for later use to rub on grilled fish, chicken or whatever.

BOOK REVIEW - THE WORST HARD TIME - by Timothy Egan

Reading this book was like watching a very long train wreck where you couldn’t look away.   Nothing much happened good in the book except the personal human stories of strength and fortitude.  I didn’t know very much about the dust bowl that occurred during the 1930’s.  This is a book about suffering and hope. It is about a people who wouldn’t give up because they had a piece of land for the first time in their lives and they believed the disaster would end and that their life would return to some kind of normal.  In many ways, those that stayed were trapped with few options other than to wait it out or die. 

The American government encouraged settlement of the Midwest at the beginning of the century by offering land grants to immigrants.  When the railroad reached the areas of the Texas Panhandle, Kansas and Oklahoma immigrants and others were easily enticed to come and get a slice of the prairie.  And they came in droves, made dugout homes to live in and plowed millions of acres of prairie grass.  

They planted wheat and it flourished.  The farmers took their healthy earnings and built mortgaged homes, bought farm equipment on time and plowed more land.  Before long there were silos bulging with the fruits of their labors.  There was such a glut of wheat that the price fell, making it difficult for the farmers to make a profit.   This was the beginning of farm subsidies, as the government attempted to prop up the price of crops by paying farmers not to plant.  This left millions of acres of land laying fallow creating a perfect disaster when the drought hit and the winds came.  And to compound the problem the stock market crashed and the economy imploded.  Foreclosures destroyed all that was left.  

“On September 14, 1930, a windstorm kicked up dust out of southwest Kansas and tumbled toward Oklahoma.  By the time the storm cut a swath through the Texas Panhandle, it looked unlike anything ever seen before on the High Plains…The strange thing about it, the weather bureau observers said, was that it rolled, like a mobile hill of crud, and it was black.  When it tumbled through, it carried static electricity, enough to short out a car.  And it hurt, like a swipe of coarse-grained sandpaper on the face.  The first black duster was a curiosity, nothing else.” (p. 88)

The drought brought colder winters and hotter summers.  The wind blew furiously for days on end.  “The shovel was a rescue tool…In a long day’s blow, the drifts could pile four feet or more against fences clogged with tumbleweeds, which created dunes, which then sent dust off in other directions.” ( P. 138) Some mornings the cars were completely covered.  The wind blew the paint off houses.  It filled the digestive systems of cattle.  It filled their homes.  Nothing they tried could keep it out.  They contracted dust pneumonia and many died.  There was no escape.  They could not stay outside for fear of getting lost of choking on a blast of gritty air.  When it rained it rained black globs of mud.  During some months the dust storms were a daily occurrence for 40 days in a row. 

“There was no color to the land…Some farmers had grown spindles of dwarfed wheat and corn, but it was not worth the effort to harvest it.  The same Texas Panhandle that had produced six million bushels of wheat just two years ago now gave up just a few truckloads of grain. Chickens died; Milk cows went dry;  Cattle starved or dropped dead from ‘dust fever.’ “ (p. 141)

In 1934 many cities on the eastern Seaboard got a taste of Midwest dust storms.  “Now the storm was measured at 1,800 miles wide, a great rectangle of dust from the Great Plains to the Atlantic, weighing 350 tons.” (p.152)  Someone told Congress that 51 million acres were so eroded they could no longer be cultivated.  It would take a thousand years to rebuild an inch of topsoil. 

Timothy Egan created a story around actual people who lived through this time.  When there was nothing left the settlers escaped if they could, as many as 2/3 of them.   I suspect, if I had a choice, I would have been one of them.  I am not sure how anyone survived these 8 years of misery, watching everything around them, including many family members, die.  

Journalist Ernie Pyle called it, “this withering land of misery.”  He toured the plains in the summer of 1936.  He wrote, “I saw not a solitary thing but bare earth and a few lonely, empty farmhouses…There was not a tree or a blade of grass, or a dog or a cow or a human being—nothing whatsoever, nothing at all but gray raw earth and a few farmhouses and barns, sticking up from the dark gray sea like white cattle skeletons on the desert…the saddest land I have ever seen.”  P. 257

This may be one of the saddest stories I have ever read.  The human spirit is amazing in its ability to adapt and go on through unspeakable suffering.   Reading this book changed me but I am still trying to figure out why.   But I do know it made me grateful for the pleasant circumstances in which I live.

BASIL HUMMUS

I am still on a crusade to use a lot of my bumper crop basil.  This is very good.  It makes about 3 cups.  It is good with  raw vegetables, pita chips, corn chips, crackers and bread rounds.

BASIL HUMMUS

In a small frying pan put 3 T. olive oil and 2 cloves of grated garlic with  1/4 C pinenuts.  Stir and fry until starting to brown a little. Add 1 tomato peeled and chopped.  Stir and cook for 3 minutes.  In a blender or food processor place 1 - 15 oz. can of drained garbanzo beans  and one can of drained white beans, 1 cup of basil leaves lightly packed, 1/4 C Parmesan cheese (optional), 10 good grates of fresh pepper, a little cayenne or hot sauce if desired, and 2 T lemon juice.  Add the garlic mixture and blend until smooth.   Add salt if it needs it and a little water if it is too thick.   ENJOY!

This recipe came from  here  But I changed it a lot.

CRAZY STUPID LOVE - Movie Review

We read the rave reviews in the Friday paper.  Josh Groban was in it.  The paper had a story about his acting.  It sounded fun, so we went.  We actually don’t go to the movie very often.  There are a few movies (mostly PG-13) that I consider the most destructive to the moral fiber of our society because they are clever, funny and the characters are warm and endearing.  The last time I had such a strong negative feeling about such a movie was “Sleepless in Seattle.” (Mostly I avoid the romantic comedies now)  I know immorality when I see it, but when it is wrapped so prettily in so much charm you want to overlook it.  This movie was as raunchy as they get and it should have been R rated! 

Dan in Real Life  is one of my favorite romantic comedies.  Steve Carell was great in this movie so I looked forward to seeing him in a similar role.  What a disappointment.  It started with Steve’s character Cal being told by his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) that she wanted a divorce because she was having an affair with an office mate.  Cal moves out of the house and begins hanging out in a bar drinking to distraction.  The alcohol flowing bar scenes are plentiful.  Jacob (Ryan Gosling) hears Cal crying in his booze and takes Cal under his wing to teach him how to pick up women in the bar.  Jacob is the king of one night stands with gorgeous women.  Cal’s son is cute and endearing even as we see him discuss masturbation with the babysitter (also darling), whom he professes to love throughout the movie.  But the babysitter is in love with Cal and takes nude pictures of herself to give to him.  But it is all in fun, nothing serious.   Jacob finally finds a girl he loves (I won’t give the plot away) and we know that he will be true to her even though he has been a serial womanizer for who knows how long.  Cal ends up convincing 9 women, from the bar, to come home with him (not in the same night). 

This is unbelievably raunchy!  But in the end it affirms marriage.  But here is the dangerous part:  How can marriage or family ever work with this kind of irresponsible, immoral behavior?  It is frightening that some 13 year old is sitting there thinking that it can.   And everyone laughed because it all looked so fun.