Fleur-de-BookClub

I guess it comes from living in a university town, but over the years I’ve listened with envy to women talking about their “book clubs”.

Well, late last year I had the opportunity to join my first book club, and it’s the smartest move I’ve made in a while.

Ours may be a little different. It has a distinct gardening focus with the emphasis on one of our Centre County Master Gardener projects, the Snetsinger Butterfly Garden at Tom Tudek Park. That said, the books we read may revolve around plants and pollinators, but they also touch on issues dealing with race, foster children, relationships, and millennials making their way in life.  And in the meantime, our discussions help us see into each other’s hearts, even over Zoom.

On Valentine’s Day we tackled The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, a riveting novel tied in a bow with Victorian floriography, communicating by code using flowers. Most the time our “homework” is simply reading the assigned book, but for this month’s meeting, we also shared our favorite flower. Mine was lavender:

The first time I met lavender, I was working for a landscape designer, weeding gardens in the Lehigh Valley. After a day of work at the home of a CEO, I told my boss that I should be paying the CEO and his wife to be able to work around such a fragrant drift of plants.

The Victorians and The Language of Flowers say lavender is a symbol of mistrust.

Blame it on Cleopatra. The story goes that a poisonous snake struck and killed Cleopatra. It was hiding under a lavender plant. 

Lavendula is a member of the mint family, with 47 species.  Lavender repels insects and deer yet it provides nectar for bees.  For humans, it is a flower and an herb that delights all five of our senses.

1. Sight:  After a trip to Provence, fields of undulating rows of blooming lavender are etched in my mind.
2. Touch:  The velvety buds on the flower stalk or in a bath-salt infusion fill you with calm and wash away your cares.
3. Smell:  The fragrance of the purple-blue flowers and gray foliage shares a heavenly scent throughout the three seasons of the Pennsylvania garden.  And by weaving a lavender wand, you can brighten the winter blues for years.
4. Sound:  I needed help on this, and Lyrics.com provided assistance.  “Lavender,” the site reports, is found in the lyrics of 317 songs. Dating back to 16^th century England is the “Lavender’s Blue (Dilly Dilly)” lullaby. Centuries later Frank Sinatra crooned of giving his father “a most lovely lavender tie” (ok, that’s the color not the plant but I love listening to old lavender eyes) and The Kinks rocked out to wanting to live on “Lavender Hill.”
5. Taste:  There’s lavender honey, lavender tea and lavender kombucha, lavender scones,  and my favorite, a culinary memory from a courtyard café in Ghent—toasted country bread with a smear of goat cheese, sprinkle of lavender buds, and a drizzle with honey.

Trust this: Refinement, grace, purity, serenity, calmness … unforgettable lavender. Laurie Lynch

Bookworms Unite:  The other books we’ve read so far are The Language of Butterflies by Wendy Williams, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and A Honeybee’s Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes.  I recommend them all.

Fleur-de-ForTheBirds

I was deep into Patrick Taylor’s  A Dublin Student Doctor when I came across a term that was new to me: Bird Table.

We just replaced the deck at my mom’s house but it’s still a little chilly to sit out there.  So, I thought I’d turn our outdoor dining table, within view of my mom’s recliner, into a Bird Table during these rain-then-snow-then-rain days of March.

My cardinal friend, upper branch on right

I found a old bakery tray, filled it with birdseed, sprinkled in a few dried Brazilian peppers (which I was told would keep the squirrels away), and set it on the table, next to a wooden bird feeder my brother-in-law Tim made for my mother, and a pot with a tiny ornamental cabbage and a viola called Frizzle Sizzle I bought at Tait Farm. Voilà, my Bird Table.

Then, I found Bird Table info on the The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds website: https://www.rspb.org.uk

Although mine will do during a pandemic, the RSPB has DIY instructions for a Bird Table with a roof and a stand.  There’s even a video of a ginger-haired lass showing you how to open a Bird Café. (Other projects include How to Make a Frog and Toad Abode, and, my favorite, Open a Hedgehog Café.)

For those sheltering in a city, without a deck or yard to go to, turn your favorite window into a nature window.  Sit in a comfortable chair and gaze out at the sky, watch the drama of the clouds, or search for a pigeon or two.  My bird-feeder-crafting brother-in-law is in charge of a Massachusetts recycling plant, considered an essential business and still open. On his daily commute he observes nature from behind the steering wheel while his mind churns out jewels, like the one that arrived in my Inbox this morning:

For the Birds, tjf

Yesterday’s zero dark commute was …. quiet!

Except for the birds

With few cars on the interstate, stretching long

When normally packed,

When cars sped along, in the fast lane

And long lines of long trucks, front to back, like trains

In the right lane, with all those lights

Like the old truck on a platform, down in the city

Lighted up, old west side highway,

On the way to Gram’s, in the village

Always surprising a young lad’s imagination, for the birds

An orchestra at first light, after last night’s rain, for the birds

As if a whistle for a mill’s morning shift went off … for the birds

Peepers chimed in the puddles, songbirds followed suit in the pines, with seagulls in the bay

A sing song erupted, for the birds

Country house lights dim, driveways packed

A hint of wood burning sweetly filtered down an old trail

Warming a heart, for the birds

Morning routines silenced, for the birds

No school buses, no standing student line, no heads bent, no fingers pumping away

A lone dog walker, silent

Except for a single bark

The only noise

When everything is different

For the birds …

Cardinal dining at the a makeshift Bird Table

Together, we will get through this.  Laurie Lynch

Fleur-de-Sweetgrass

When we were kids, my sisters and I would dash around the yard, riding bareback on our ponies, pretending to be Indians.

I always chose to be the squaw (so I didn’t have to take my shirt off and could pick wild raspberries). My younger sister, a bit of a tomboy, didn’t mind being the shirtless brave on her white steed, Nicky.

That, however, is the closest I came to thinking about Native Americans.  I was Polish on my mom’s side, Italian on my dad’s—American. That is what mattered, what defined me.

Then, on the far side of 60, I started reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  In one way it was so unfamiliar to me—the names of the tribes, the stories, the atrocities—yet in another, there was a stirring in my soul, a familiarity perhaps transported from my fingers digging in the soil all these years.

There are books I’m glad I’ve read. Books I wish I had written. Books I want to buy and keep in my library.  But this is the only book I wish I could memorize, recite from heart, and share with everyone I know now or will ever meet.

Until I opened Braiding Sweetgrass, I had never heard of the Potawatomi and many other indigenous groups. I somehow missed discovering the horrors of the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle even though it is in the same state I’ve spent most of my life.  And, although I casually wondered how man (and woman) learned to eat certain plants or use others medicinally, I never truly thought about or researched it.

Then came the teachings of Dr. Kimmerer, a professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York and founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.  With those credentials and an inbred passion for nature, she weaves science, indigenous culture, and spirituality through each essay in her book.  Add to that her recollections of teachable moments and her poetic descriptions and you will float from page to page.

Dr. Kimmerer introduced me to the traditions of reciprocity and gratitude rooted in Native American ways.  She explains how the squirrel showed indigenous peoples how  to make maple syrup; the beaver, how to craft an ax; the spider, how to weave a fishnet.

The storytelling tradition she treasures and brings to the printed page made me recall stories in my past, not from Native Americans, but others who made imprints on my life.

Throughout the book, I learned about sweetgrass, puzzled that it is a plant I know so little about. Its botanical name, Hierochloe odorata, was not familiar. I later read Hierochloe literally translates from Greek as sacred (hieros) and grass (chloë), and the odorata speaks to its vanilla scent. The Native Americans call it wiingaashk, and the repeating vowels remind me of Flemish.

Wiingaashk  is the sweet smelling hair of Mother Earth—the first plant to grow on Earth, a sweet memory of Skywoman.  It is still used ceremonially through burning the dried and braided grass stems for an incense or smudge—fragrant smoke used for purification and to carry prayers to the Great Spirit.  To give a plait of sweetgrass is to show kindness and gratitude; to weave sweetgrass into a basket melds the loving care of the earth’s bounty with human ingenuity.

As I read about Native American sweetgrass baskets, I was pulled into the 1970s when I lived in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Detail of Sweetgrass Basket

Stands filled with sweetgrass baskets, made by Gullah artisans, line Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant on the way to Charleston. They are woven with sweetgrass, palmetto leaves, pine needles, and bulrush.  They moved from a 300-year-old Lowcounty craft to a national treasure when Mary A. Jackson’s baskets were added to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  The baskets are still sold at the Charleston City Market as well as the Four Corners of Law, the intersection of Broad and Meeting, a block or so from my first apartment on King Street.  These traditional baskets are tied to West Africa via the transatlantic slave trade yet at the same time sweetgrass baskets are also a Native American art form.

“Sweetgrass, as the hair of Mother Earth, is traditionally braided to show loving care for her well-being.”  Robin Wall Kimmerer

Then there was my German neighbor in Coplay, where we started our family.  As my infants became toddlers, I was creating my first garden. Mrs. Sacks watched over the white picket fence, gave advice, and shared cuttings and divisions of her plants. I’d thank her for the starts and I remember her admonishing me.  She insisted it was bad luck to thank a person for a plant.  That philosophy always puzzled me until reading Braiding Sweetgrass. The reason is simple—the gratitude should not go to the human but to the plant, for sharing its beauty, its wonder, its value.  

“Plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then give it away.”  Robin Wall Kimmerer

As I read Braiding Sweetrgrass,  I took to heart what Dr. Kimmerer calls the guidelines of  the Honorable Harvest.

–Asking permission, to show respect for the personhood of the plant.

–Knowing the ways of the plants that take care of you so you can take care of them.

–Taking only what you need, leaving some for others.

–Harvesting in a way that minimizes harm and shows gratitude.

The forests that shared their bounty with our indigenous peoples and it was an honorable harvest.  Immediately I thought of Settimio, my father’s Italian cousin who the kids and I visited in Treviso several years ago.

His eyes sparkled as he told us about gathering fungi for delicious meals with his family.  But, he hastened to add, he only collected fungi in a loosely woven basket so that the mushroom spores could drop to the forest floor and spread their goodness as he made his way home.

“The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.  She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves.  That’s what good mothers do.” Robin Wall Kimmerer

Through the poetry of her prose Dr. Kimmerer again looks to botany and the science of plant communities and reassures readers with hope and practicality. Native plants are defined as those plants found in North America before European settlement. The same is said for Native Americans.  We can’t all be indigenous.  But, she explains, as non-native plants can become naturalized, so can humans.

“To become naturalized is to live as if your children’s future matters, to take care of the land as if the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do.”  Robin Wall Kimmerer

Please, read Braiding Sweetgrass for yourself. Mother Earth is calling you. Laurie Lynch

Trying Times:  It seems the pandemic has sparked YouTube videos on everything from how to clean your blues harmonica (and get control of your life) to a skit with Belgian hospital workers singing and dancing the Dutch Handpalm Tegen Handpalm (hand-washing song) to the music of Baby Shark.

Well, I will spare you a Laurie Lynch YouTube video but here is an easy Daikon Radish Salad that is good for what ails you, will put a nice crunch on your plate, and smile on your face.

1 lb. daikon radishes

1 Tbsp. honey

1 Tbsp. Japanese Seven Spice*

1 tsp. salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ c. chopped onions

2 Tbsp. rice vinegar

Peel the radishes and slice into thin half- or quarter-moons. Place in bowl and drizzle with honey, add spices, salt, garlic and chopped onions.  Stir well and sprinkle with rice vinegar.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

* Japanese Seven Spice is also known as Shichimi Togarashi.  I found it at Wegman’s. It is a mixture of red and Sichuan pepper, ginger, white and black sesame seed, orange peel and nori flakes (seaweed).

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Gaia

Years ago, my mother’s housekeeper passed on a bit of gossip to a neighbor.

“You know, Mrs. Fedon actually reads cookbooks.”

While most women at the time opened a cookbook to locate a recipe, my mother had a gourmet cooking, stitchery and gift shop.  To her, reading cookbooks was a passion, as well as good business.

As her daughter, I proudly follow her reading habit.  A good cookbook is not just a collection of recipes it can be a roadmap for a slice of life.

Gaia’s Kitchen is such a cookbook.  Marina and Koen sent it to me for Christmas via the UK bookseller, Book Depository, which, by the way, ships books all over the world—for free.

Gaia’s Kitchen is a collection of vegetarian recipes put together by Julia Ponsonby and friends at Schumacher College in Devon, England. Marina was introduced to the book at an Art of Hosting training, co-sponsored by a group calling themselves the Schumacher Sprouts (because they are Belgian and attended Schumacher.)

Never having heard of Schumacher, my first journey in the book was learning that the College was founded in 1991 to promote the values of E.F. Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful. The school’s curriculum is based on a new vision for human society and its relationship to Earth.  (Journey No. 2: requesting Small Is Beautiful from the library.)

Third journey: Who is Gaia? Well, it turns out she is Greek, the goddess Mother Earth. Apparently I slept through that chapter in high school mythology.

Anyway, back to Schumacher College.  It is an international college for Ecological Studies offering Master’s degrees such as Ecological Design Thinking or Holistic Science, as well as short courses for a weekend, week, or more.  Classes are coupled with the community experience of living on campus and working together in small groups to mop floors, chop celery, weed the salad patch, scrub potatoes, and wash dishes.  This way participants from all over the world share skills and stories while building community through social exchange.

I found the section on cooking for those with special dietary needs—substitutions for eggs, butter, wheat, milk, sugar, cheese, nuts, salt—to be important for those of us who often attend potluck events.  If nothing else, label your dish!  And, each recipe includes ingredient amounts for a family, as well as for a crowd (30-40).

The section called Juggling with Onions illustrates that chopping onions brings tears, no matter which hemisphere you live in.  The author’s 10 tips, gathered from many kitchen visitors, includes such tricks as putting a slice of white bread in your mouth, with it hanging out like a tongue, to wearing a pair of swimming goggles. You still may cry while juggling onions but everyone else in the kitchen will laugh hysterically.

Other gems from Gaia’s Kitchen:

• The information.  I’ve always known basil’s scent, either in the garden or the kitchen, is heavenly. But I never knew that the herb is considered sacred in India where it is known as tulsi.
• The description.  While writing about quinoa being a complete source of protein, Julia Ponsonby writes that each cooked grain is wearing a “tiny white halo”.  The recipe, following this train of thought, is called Angelic Quinoa Salad.
• The delightful UK lingo on page after page.  Sultanas (white raisins) and aubergines (eggplants) sound so exotic, and yet the description of one recipe,  “quite fiddly to make,” sounds like it’s straight out of Mary Poppins.
• The creativity.  A healthy cake invented by a vegan at the College named Sophie is described as sophisticated, with a lot of “naughty-but-nice flavor” you get when using butter, eggs, sugar and wheat (but it has none of those). It’s called Sophisticakey but there is nothing sophisticated about the instructions written in “fistfuls”, ie. 2 fistfuls of desiccated coconut, 1 fistful raisins, 1 fistful cashew pieces, etc.
• The personalities.  The College’s house manager William claims the “avocado pear” is one of four conclusive proofs of the existence of God.  The other three: black olives, grape juice and Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus’.

There are plenty of recipes for my lazy Sunday afternoon kitchen experiments, including Spinach and Mushroom Plait (UK term for braid) with how-to-plait-puff-pastry instructions and the brewing secrets for William’s pot of Masala Chai.

The people within Gaia’s Kitchen come alive and led me to the College’s short course website.  What fun to visit England and take a course on “An Exploration of Eldering,” a term I had never encountered, to learn how to turn Age-ing into Sage-ing.

After scanning courses on forest gardens and soulful communication with trees, I traveled to an instructor’s website where I fell in love with the Mud Maid Earth Woman at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall.  This giant sculpture by Susan Hill is a sleeping woman covered in moss, ivy, and ferns—a woodland beauty in one of the most popular botanical gardens in the UK. How I envied the images of the Lost Gardens.

The next morning, I took Sandy IV for our usual walk in my dad’s Secret Garden.  I saw it with new eyes.

The fire pit became The Ring of Fire.  My dad’s hand-chiseled marble figures, although not as large as the Mud Maid Earth Woman, have the patina of moss and lichen and decades of weathering.  Tree stumps and roots offer perfect hiding places for forest faeries.  Sometimes a good book, even a good cookbook, brings you home.  Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate:  “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.” –Thomas Berry

Fleur-de-Duo

I knew I was in trouble when my library book sprouted a thicket of torn paper markers.  It was like some of my favorite cookbooks, with recipes to try tagged, one after the other.

The name of this book is Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori. The illustrations by Lucille Clerc are a complement to the text, allowing the reader to “see” the tree, its leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit; its habitat and cultural setting. Neither my travel itinerary nor my mom’s property has room for 80 trees.  No worries.  My slips of paper save spots of stories to remember, nature’s notes, botanical history with a dose of British understated humor.

Did you know that in the late 19^th century some posh neighborhoods of London had streets paved with wood blocks of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) imported from Western Australia? Wouldn’t you love to travel to Morocco to see goats nibbling fruit while standing on the thorny branches of an argan tree (Argania spinosa)?  Or try to lift the heaviest seed in the world (65 lbs.) of the coco-de-mer tree (Lodoicea maldivica) of the Seychelles?

Heck, I’d better buy the book.

By the time I was about a quarter of the way through the book and reading about a tree of Crete (Quince—Cydonia oblonga), I needed an escape from reality and a break from cramming tree lore into my brain.  I needed a novel. That was precisely when I got an email from the library saying A Single Thread, for which I was on the wait list, was available.

So, in mid-read, I switched to Tracy Chevalier’s novel set in 1930s England. I loved Chevalier’s historical novel Girl with a Pearl Earring, centered around Johannes Vermeer’s Dutch portrait.  I wanted to see what she was up to now.

As I began reading A Single Thread, I dove into the English countryside, sandwiched between the Great War and the second round, and surfaced in Winchester Cathedral. Prior to this, the only thing I knew of Winchester Cathedral was the odd, megaphone-sounding song by The New Vaudeville Band in the 1960s. Now, England is at the top of my list of places to visit besides Belgium. The book tempted me with the intricacies of needlepoint, the charm of bell ringing, and the social fabric of the times.

I zipped through A Single Thread.  I didn’t want the story to end. Not wishing to close the book, I even read the “Acknowledgements”.  On the last page, under “The Rest,” I read:  “My husband, Jon Drori, for walking in the rain with me between Winchester and Salisbury cathedrals, all in the name of research.”

I stopped. Searched my brain. Was there a character in the book named Drori?  Where have I heard that unusual name before?

I thought. And thought. Then I reached for my bedside table. I pulled Around the World in 80 Trees onto the bed and looked at the cover.  Jonathan Drori , the author.  And Tracy’s husband.   For several days and nights, their books were stacked on top of each other for me to read at my leisure, without me knowing their secret. What a strange, strange world.  Laurie Lynch

 

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Binge

Thank goodness (and Benjamin Franklin) for public lending libraries.  I have been on a book binge.

The end of summer-early fall repeatedly took me to Denmark and France, as well as crisscrossing the U.S. It seems I read a book, enjoy it, and the authors’ notes would list books they’ve written or read, and off I go. Or, fate keeps circling around.

In mid-August, I was in search of a happiness fix and read Helen Russell’s The Atlas of Happiness. Then I traveled to Denmark via her earlier book, The Year of Living Danishly.  I went political and breezed through Peter Buttigieg’s  Shortest Way Home.  Finished with that and a friend lent me a copy of Nickel Boys, promising that the novel by Colson Whitehead would bring me down from my happiness spree, but necessary, nevertheless. Next was the true adventure memoir  Find a Way.  It takes place in the waters between Florida and Cuba with Diana Nyad, a childhood idol, who continues to amaze me in my mid-60s.

It was the cover of Paris by the Book—a French bookstore—that drew me to Liam Callanan’s novel, which, in turn, led me to the children’s book The Red Balloon (I still am looking for the movie, which came first).  Paris by the Book also helped me find Rosecrans Baldwin’s memoir, Paris I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, and Kate Betts’ memoir My Paris Dream.  Whew, done with that whirlwind, I logged into the Schlow Centre Region Library website, scanned the new book section, and I snatched up Hungry with my greedy, computer-request keyboard strokes.  The full title: Hungry—Eating, Road-Tripping and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World. 

In Hungry, author Jeff Gordinier pulled me back to Denmark. It brought me even further back to memories of my chef-phew Wille talking about Chef René Redzepi whose Copenhagen restaurant Noma has been named Best Restaurant in the World four times in the last 10 years, and this year is No. 2, but most likely trying harder.

IF you can get a table at Noma, a 20-course meal for one is several hundred dollars (wine pairings are a few more hundred dollars). There, diners sample the likes of plankton mousse, bear steak, birch water, sea snail broth, kelp butter, apple-pine juice, fermented blueberries, and pickled flowers.

Noma, Redzepi, and his kitchen crew are all about foraging, fermentation, fandom and friggin’ food Instagrams.  Hungry details the quest for excellence and the pitfalls of the restaurant business as Redzepi takes Noma on the road to Australia, Japan, and Mexico, and then rebuilds a new Noma, returning to Copenhagen with three seasonal themes: game, ocean, and plants. Eating or cooking a la Noma is not in my future, although I respect the philosophy behind the extreme local flavors and artistic presentation. The recipe in the book that really made me hungry was one that Redzepi’s father, an Albanian Muslim who migrated to Denmark, ate almost every day of life and has never been served at Noma.  Redzepi’s wife Nadine makes it for her chef-husband at home—true comfort food. I plan to try it during the brisk autumn evenings of Central PA.

Home-Sweet-Home Beans

Soak beans overnight. Heat in chicken broth on low for several hours (4 times as much broth as beans).  Add a few peeled cloves of garlic and tomatoes.  The secret part, about 20 minutes before the beans are finished, drop in three bags of chamomile tea.  Steep and remove before the teabags break apart.  Season beans with salt, ladle into bowls, and crown with herbs and a “lizard’s tail” of red chili oil.

Written on Slate: “… The best moments have happened when something in the present connects with stories from the past. …When past and present merge, something new happens.”  René Redzepi’s Journal Entry

Photograph Explained:  The Dianthus tucked into a little alcove at our front door started blooming in the spring, pushed out flowers throughout the summer, and is one of the last flowers still blooming in October. And I love its gray foliage.

New Fruit:  Richard was shopping at Wegman’s and brought home a bag of grapes that were new to us: Moon Drops. They’re purple-black rods, about 2 inches long. Seedless and so sweet!

 

Fleur-de-Happiness

There are plenty of reasons to read:  To learn. To travel in the comfort of your living room.  To solve mysteries and experience adventures from the couch. To enjoy words and storytelling.  To wade into history and cultures.

But this is the first time I’ve read for one simple quest: Happiness.

Yep, the title grabbed me: The Atlas of Happiness, The Global Secrets of How To Be Happy.

I was looking for a dose of happiness.

Brit Helen Russell’s book is filled with wit, wisdom, and research, outlining a myriad of ways to find happiness.  She explores the happiness factor in 30 countries—well Hawaii has it’s own entry, but I’m happy to let Russell classify the Aloha state as it’s very own entity. Heck, it’s her book.

The book is structured in alphabetical order and each entry has a specific formula:  the words or expressions that characterize the country’s flavor of happiness, testimonials from friends or friends of friends native to the country, and a checklist of the elements of that country’s specific happiness traits.

And, because this is my blog, I won’t go in alphabetical order. I’ll move almost to the end and tell you what Russell has to say about happiness in the United States. The expression she uses is “homeyness” – the US of A is the land of handcrafted items like quilts, wooden spoons, and home brew;  the land of coziness, re-purposing, and cherishing old treasures.

Then, to describe the historical roots of “homeyness” she tells a story I had never heard — and remember, I was born here.  During WW I, knitting was promoted as our patriotic duty.  Americans were asked to knit 1.5 million garments to keep the troops warm and remind them of the comforts of home.  Knitting became so popular that in 1915 that the New York Philharmonic had to ask its audiences to abstain from the activity during performances because the clacking of knitting needles was disrupting the music.

So what makes people happy around the world? In Japan, they celebrate imperfection.  The term is wabi-sabi. In Norway, it is friluftsliv, the practice of open-air living, climbing every mountain, singing about it like Julie Andrews, and then relaxing.  In South Africa, the interconnection of humanity and happiness is captured in the word ubuntu, which thrives on forgiveness, caring, and cherishing family.

Russell delves into places I’ve never thought of to find happy.  In 1972, the King of Bhutan decided that the country’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) was more valuable than its Gross National Product (GNP).  In war-torn Syria, happiness is not the first emotion that comes to mind. But Syrians have a word, tarab, which boils down to musical ecstasy.  A singer named Umm Kulthum will sing one song for 45 minutes on YouTube and bring Syrians to their feet with dancing and delight.

I loved reading about the Yule Lads who play pranks on children in Iceland and the country’s Christmas Eve tradition of jolabokaflod,  translated as “Christmas book flood”. This, in a country where they say: Blindur er bóklaus maõur—a man without a book is blind.  And if you are thinking that happiness is always giddy and child-like, forget it.  In Brazil, they practice saudade,and even have a national Saudade Day.  Saudade has been defined as the “presence of absence.”  Simply put, without sadness and longing, there is no joy.

So, what makes you happy? Music? Community? Family? Exercise? Reading a book? Taking a hike? Stretching out in a hammock? Weeding? Rocking a baby in her stroller? Baking cookies?  Pondering a poem.  Writing one? The fragrance of a rosemary plant as it wafts along a path? Stepping in a puddle, barefoot? Daydreaming on a porch swing?

By all means, pick up a copy of The Atlas of Happiness and explore the world, simply and happily.  Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate:  “It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, impossible to find it anywhere else.”  –Arthur Schopenhauer

Reading Another:  I’m such a Helen Russell fan that I’m traveling backward and just began reading her first book, The Year of Living Danishly, Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country.  

 

Fleur-de-WinterSpring

Witch Hazel

After several blogs on books, I’m switching gears to write about a documentary. I’m no film critic, and the movie isn’t new—it premiered in 2012—but I heartily recommend it

In Happy Valley we celebrate Earth Day all month long, so two “green” committees sponsored After Winter, Spring at a nearby retirement community. Filmmaker Judith Lit, who grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, and her crew followed the lives of seven farm families over four years and through the four seasons in the Périgord region of France.

For pastoral scenery alone this film is worthwhile. But it is also the story of community and of farming, the pressures of change, vagaries of weather, life, death, and skies filled with migrating cranes. Viewers get close-ups of personalities and peasant life in southwestern France, and English subtitles.

Women lovingly raise goslings into geese and then force-feed them for the end result—foie gras and a livelihood.  An octogenarian gets help from family and friends to finish the grape harvest in his vineyard, knowing it will be his last. Another grumbles about his new neighbors who complain about the noise from his three cows wearing bells around their necks. A young dairyman joins in a protest over milk prices, dumping tankers of milk along a highway.  A woman expertly handles a sharp knife as she slices off the roots and the upper tough green stalks of the leeks she just pulled from the ground. Into the wire basket they go, then to the kitchen. A 60-year-old fellow harvests young oak saplings from his woodlot in fall and takes them to his workshop for winter work, shaving each into staves for wine barrels.

Paperbark Maple

That same man, Guy, also grows tobacco, raises livestock, and fields of hay.  His face exudes pride after growing, harvesting, and curing a fine crop of tobacco as he pats the bundle of dried tobacco leaves, eloquently saying he knows it’s good because, “It sings.”

After Winter, Spring provides a lyrical look at the passion of farming as it takes root in the soul. See it and celebrate the earth. Laurie Lynch

Back to Books: My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard has become my struggle.

I just can’t relate to the male teen-age angst, no matter how hard I try.  And, where are the chapters?  I like a book with chapters, especially short chapters, to give me a good stopping point.

I got a notice from the library that Unto Us a Son Is Given, Donna Leon’s latest, was waiting for me.  I zipped through it.  Then, I returned to My Struggle—nothing but cold, Scandinavian melancholy sinking me into a funk after the sun and warmth of Leon’s Venice.

I’ve invested enough time.  I will leave My Struggle in Part Two, Page 230, and enter the Northern Irish countryside once again with An Irish Country Village. There I feel a connection and learn a delightful new expression: “Horse apples,” slang for horse manure.

Oriental Spicebush

Slow Spring:  The photos throughout this entry were not taken in France, Italy, Scandinavia, or Ireland. No, it is pure Central PA, April 4, 2019.  The Arboretum at Penn State has a main loop, .175 mile, with a smooth sidewalk and plenty of benches, perfect for my 90-year-old mother and my cane, camera, and rehabilitating ankle. Just call us Hobble and Wobble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleur-de-Books

I remember him as a marine biologist gonnabe with a soft Lowcountry drawl, a guy who felt at home ankle deep in pluff mud.  (For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of experiencing coastal waterways of South Carolina at low tide, pluff mud is odoriferous marsh muck.)

We haven’t seen each other in decades. Soon after I moved back to State College, Wally somehow dredged me up from cyberspace and since then, we exchange occasional emails. His last note was in the comment section of my blog, thanking me for the mystery series recommendations.

Charleston, S.C., would be the perfect setting for a collection of murder mysteries. Spanish moss dripping from ancient live oaks, ghosts of the “War of Northern Aggression,” and lots of local color—Charleston racehorses (BIG cockroaches), carriage horses wearing diapers (at least I think they still have that local ordinance), women who weave baskets of sweetgrass, and heck, the father of the detective story, Edgar Allen Poe, was stationed at Fort Moultrie and set his short story “The Gold-Bug” on Sullivan’s Island.

I took to the Internet and sure enough, Charleston is home to the Tea Shop Mysteries, about 20 books by Laura Childs.  Titles include Death by Darjeeling, Shades of Earl Grey, Sweet Tea Revenge, Chamomile Mourning, and, I especially love this title, Scones and Bones.  Somehow, I don’t think these would be Wally’s cup of tea. He is much more of a pint and Cormoran Strike kind of guy.

The Fleur-de-Mystery blog brought others to my email Inbox, with lots of titles to seek.

Although it’s not a series, Valerie recommends The President Is Missing,  by Bill Clinton and James Patterson.  James Patterson isn’t my favorite author and Bill wasn’t my favorite President, but Valerie and I go way back, so I’m going to give it a try. And, if we’re not only talking series, I must recommend Educated by Tara Westover. Haunting.

Tim, my frequent book swapper, suggested a six-volume autobiographical series (not a mystery series but perhaps a mystery how one person could write six autobiographical novels.) Anyway, Karl Ove Knausgard is Norwegian and his series is called My Struggle.  I don’t want to be too repetitious, but if you are looking for a memoir that reads like a good novel, Educated by Tara Westover. Daunting.

Alicia recommends a series of Irish doctor books by Dr. Patrick Taylor, who grew up in Northern Ireland until his family emigrated to Canada during “The Troubles.”  Now living in British Columbia, Taylor has written a series of 13+ , starting with An Irish Country Doctor and has at least one spinoff, An Irish Country Cookbook, which Alicia gave her dad for Christmas.  In my youth, I was a Perry Mason fan, forget Dr. Kildare, but I plan to check these out.

The books are set in Northern Ireland, another place I’ve never been, but dear to my heart.  Memories of Project Children (begun during “The Troubles”) and the youngsters we hosted at Fleur-de-Lys Farm come back to me. Shauna King, Danielle, Dan (“I-eat -every-meal-at-McDonald’s) McDonald. Those memories drew me to my computer keyboard and I dashed off a quick email to Shauna, who visited over three summers and became an unofficial niece.

Like Dr. Taylor, Shauna emigrated to British Columbia. She emailed back and sent a photo of her 10-month-old son Caleb at his first Vancouver Canucks’ ice hockey game.  The wee one is already cheering for Fin the Whale.  Laurie Lynch

 

Written on Slate:  “Reading old travel books or novels set in faraway places, spinning globes, unfolding maps, playing world music, eating in ethnic restaurants, meeting friends in cafes…all these things are part of never-ending travel practice, not unlike doing scales on a piano, shooting free throws, or meditating.”  Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage

Fleur-de-Mysteries

I keep falling for these complicated types—detectives—in faraway places filled with intrigue.

The first was Commissario Guido Brunetti, an Italian police detective in his hometown of Venice. Happily married with two children, Guido hops on the vaporetto or ambles down narrow cobbled paths, philosophizing about morality, environmental destruction, fraud, bureaucracy, and the ottimo espresso.

At first I thought the main attraction was to revisit his ancient city of canals, open-air markets, and cafés. Twenty-seven Donna Leon novels later, it is much more than the city; I’ve fallen in love with Leon’s characters and plots.

Then came the new guy on my reading block: Cormoran Strike, a private detective who lives in a simple apartment above his office on Denmark Street in London, a place I’ve never been except via the pages of Robert Galbraith, the nomme de plume of J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series). I’ve zipped through all four of the mysteries in the past three months.

And, I’m not the only one. I was 17^th on the request list at Schlow Centre Region Library for the latest Strike adventure, Lethal White.  On Google Maps, you can get a Guide To Cormoran Strike’s Britain.  And, if recipes are more to your liking, Roberta Pianaro and Donna Leon took advantage of Guido’s love of food and created the Brunetti’s Cookbook.  These whodunits also have spawned television shows in the United Kingdom and Germany, and blogs across the Internet.

It’s not just a male thing. I’m caught up in Cara Black’s character of Aimée Leduc, a private investigator in Paris.  Each of the Leduc series takes the reader to a murder investigation in a different neighborhood in Paris. Thus, you have Murder on the Left Bank, Murder in Montparnasse, Murder in Montmarte, or Murder in Clinchy, visiting 18 different arrondissements in all, with the 19^th scheduled for release June 4. And, I’m cheering for Cormoran Spike’s assistant Robin Ellacott and Guido Brunetti’s computer whiz and fashionista Signorina Elettra, and other strong female characters.

With Guido, one of the main attractions is Italian food. As I read descriptions of the dinners his wife prepares, I get so hungry for polenta or pasta that my mouth waters. With Aimée, my French vocabulary has expanded: mec (guy), flic (cop), pute (prostitute) and Vraiment? (Really?) With Cormoran, it’s been right-leg compassion.

When my sister and her husband drive the five-plus hours from Connecticut to State College, they often listen to audiobooks. That’s how they got hooked on Cormoran Strike.

Me & my boot

When I had ankle reconstruction surgery in November and was sentenced to having my right leg, from foot to knee, in a cast for three months, they figured I’d have lots of time to read and would feel camaraderie with Cormoran, who lost the lower half of his right leg in an attack in Afghanistan. They sent me a copy of the first Cormoran Strike crime novel,  The Cuckoo’s Calling.

So, for the past three months, I’ve been immersed in fictional crimes taking place in contemporary London, with the real-life backdrop of Kate and William’s wedding or the London Olympics.  I got so excited when a character in the first novel had links to Marina’s grad school, the School of Oriental and African Studies.  All the while, I’ve commiserated with Strike’s tendency to push past his physical limitations with the acknowledgement that his pain, at least in the pages of crime fiction, is permanent, while mine is temporary.

The anticipation of each new installment of these three series reminds me of the Harry Potter days with my children. Early on, I’d read each adventure aloud in the Hobbit Garden or at night, in bed. Then, they could read them on their own, but we still researched the publishing date of each next volume, prepaying for its direct and immediate shipment. We were hooked, as I am now.  Laurie Lynch

Reader’s Quest:  Has anyone out there read another good mystery series that they’d recommend? I’m reading my favorites faster than the authors can write!