On my first trip to Europe, my parents took me to Austria, Germany and Holland. They wanted to share some of my heritage with me, have me meet family I have never met before and enjoy some of the food, culture and sites that were important to them. One of events I very much remembered and enjoyed was a trip into the mountains overlooking Vienna. It was mid-day and we were beginning to think about our mid-day dinner and my mother walked up to a stranger and asked him where a nice place for dinner was. She came back to the car and said, "follow that gentleman."  He took us on a twenty minute ride higher and higher into the mountains. At a certain point he left us feeling that from that point on we'd find our way.  We ended up in what was a former monastery now converted to an outdoor restaurant overlooking Vienna. We sat on an outdoor veranda and had a delightful dinner of blackened trout, green beans, with something else and this dessert called Salzburger Nockerln.  This enormous bowl of white foam came and while it was quite tasty I wasn't sure what all the fuss was. It really was nothing more than an enhanced meringue. I had been enjoying Sacker Torte and Black Forrest cake so this didn't quite excite me as it did for my Mother. I think it brought back childhood memories and for her it held meaning.

 

Anyway, for years I was trying to remember the correct spelling and/or pronunciation of Nockerln.  I had remembered it as Salzburger Nockerlie which may have been close but not close enough for me to find out what it really was. I had taken a number of German courses over the years and would always try looking up the correct name, spelling or perhaps a recipe. Nothing.  Then last week I was looking at the most recent issue of the AARP magazine and something caught my eye. Wolfgung Pak was taking about foods of Austria and there he mentions Salzburger Nockerln.  So after 25 or 30 years, I finally find out the correct spelling and name  and that it is nothing more than a "luscious" meringue.  Laughing with you.   Bittersweet

 

 

I just opened "The Book Bag," an autodidacts's literary newsletter.  In short a woman in Williamstown sends out a six to eight page review of books which encompasses what's on her night table, books of interest, usually a reading theme, a summary on books that have won this years book awards etc.  It's her take on books in a paragraph or less and far from a stuffy newsletter. It's so delightfully written that I read it from cover to cover. I always have another book or two to add to my list when finished.

 

This newsletter focused on E.B. White - his work with the New Yorker, his wife, Katherine White, his friends, his writings, books and children's books.  I think we all know "Stuart Little" and "Charlotte's Web."  And many of us have in our possession Strunk and White's, "Elements of Style."  I buy a new copy every few years when I can't find my last copy!

 

But this is not what my entry is about. My brother had the desire to build a boat - a small boat but a boat.  The closest he's gotten to that project is a kayak. But it was the early eighties and my brother asked me if I want to go with him to North Brooklin, Maine to visit a small boat builder. We took my parents motor home and took a several days trip to visit Steve White who had a shop in North Brooklin. The town was small, this small boat yard, a general store, and a business that was the home to the magazine "Wooden Boat." The community was very quaint, quiet and typical New England. The old salt box homes, pea gravel driveways, fences, full shrubbery and well maintained hundred and two hundred year homes.  What I remember was the isolation and this enormous barn which was the home to this boat builder. Somewhere in our conversation Pete mentioned that this was the grandson of EB White and the son of Joel White, the gentleman who started the boat building company. What I wasn't aware of was that Pete was planning to talk to Steve about working for him for awhile and was enquiring about the details. It was a wonderful idea until the salary came up; three dollars an hour! I think that was the end of Pete's boat building career.

 

The editor of the Book Bag references several books that I knew I'd add to my books to read; "Onward and Upward: a Biography of  Katherine White which "traces her life as a child, as a shining student at Bryn Mawr College, as the young wife of Ernest Angell, her second (and very happy) marriage to E.B., her New Yorker days, her life in Maine, her gardening passion and her children and grandchildren, ending with her death in 1977." The second book is entitled "Onward and Upward in the Garden" by Katherine White. In her later years as fiction editor of the New Yorker, she wrote fourteen columns on gardening that were published over a 12 year period in the New Yorker. Posthumously, E.B. White edited and compiled her gardening columns into this book which "became her final legacy."

 

So you wonder how I find some of my books that lay in piles all around the house?  Some of it starts as innocently as a trip to North Brooklin, Maine and an interest in gardening.  Have a good day.   Bittersweet

 

 

 

I don't know how many of you rooted for the Giants but I mentioned awhile back that the Giants were my team for the last 35 or 40 years. Prior to the game I reconciled myself to the fact that if they played a decent game I'd be satisfied. I knew the defense would play well and if Eli had an error free game, well, when all was said and done I could hold my head high. Well the improbable happened.  The NY Giants won. What i didn't realize was how emotional I was as a result of this win. Historically there were so many close calls; if they didn't have that interception, or if they had made that field goal, or the quarterback didn't play well etc., etc., etc. In recent years, post Lawrence Taylor, they never seemed to draft that impact player. They was always something that left fans saying, well there is always next year. I heard a phrase yesterday while watching the parade....NY teams "just pump the heart." But back to the emotionality of all of this.

 

While I was going to school, doing Master's degrees, Doctoral studies, taking on a demanding job, which required report writing,(and many of my weekends were spent writing,) doing government work reviewing grant proposals, adjunct faculty in graduate studies while working full time for the State Education Department, my free time was very limited. The one thing I permitted myself was watching the New York Giants football game. It was the one luxury I allowed myself - and sometimes it wasn't even a full game. Maybe I should say.....many times. When there was the expectation of a win, they never performed. And our greatest nemesis was either the Cowboys or the Redskins. I still remember Emmitt Smith taking the ball down field at the Meadowlands with a dislocated shoulder. Here's our opponent, winning the game - late, with their running back injured and he takes the ball down the field with Giants hanging all over them. How can you respond to that!

 

So when the unexpected happened this past Sunday after a season of controversy; a coach that was almost fired, mutiny by players that objected to the discipline, former player (s), feeling the quarterback wasn't showing leadership, injuries to our receivers etc., etc., I and millions of others were in shock. Keep in mind that there last six games of the season where games the sports analyists thought they'd loose.  The Vikings, the Redskins, Tampa Bay. the Cowboys, the Packers and then the Patriots. I and many others would approach each of the those games with.....ok, let's see what happens. As each Giant win mounted, you'd wonder when the bubble would burst.  Did I mention that the Giants did play the Patriots somewhere around Christmas and did play them very well. I think 35 to 32. A game where the Giants could have rested players but went all out. In my mind, that set the tone for the Giants that they could compete with the Patriots. Anyway, the Giants did the unexpected, they won the Super Bowl.

 

So why am I repeating something that we all have read or heard about a hundred times?  I found myself in tears most of the past two days.  I knew that the win was very emotional for me but I found myself asking.......but why.....it's only a football game. And I started to think back to all those years that I had to curtail my Sunday afternoon pleasure. But it was more than the memories of lost or won games. It was also the reliving of 30 demanding but very rewarding professional career.