The 60s Kitchen

There is hardly anything I love more than a mid-century kitchen.  And I am being enlightened by a program here in the UK explaining the drastic changes in food in Britain in the 60s.  It had never occured to me that while frozen foods were becoming quite popular in the US, having been introduced to the public by Charles Birdseye in 1929, it wasn't until the 60s that they could take hold in the UK as many people didn't have freezers.  Food was bought fresh, not frozen.  And if you've ever visited, you know the mighty Brit-fridge is not large.  But in the 60s, the refridgerator and it's partner the freezer certainly started to become a staple. And like America, super markets were coming into vogue, putting the green grocer out of business.  What the these new super markets offered was the new idea of self-service.  Prior to, house fraus made their way to the local market where the nice man behind the counter collected necessities as well as suggested what was fresh and wholesome.  Hmmm.  I'll have to see if I can find one of those places.  It would just be kind of interesting to shop that way for a change.

This program cooks a meal, relatively true to the 60s philosophy of high efficiency and high tech.  So, the ingredients tended to be canned, frozen, powdered...  And I had such a flashback of the foods we had when I was a kid.  Jello (gelatin and pudding) and all the things made with it, TV dinners, Kraft mac and cheese with the powdered cheese, canned vegetables, beef-a-roni.  I didn't know food could be any other way.  In the early 70s, we had all the space man foods.  Things like Tang and space bars.  Plastic became an acceptable flavor.  Kool-Aid was the drink of choice.  I don't ever remember drinking water.  Ever.  And all I remember my parents drinking was coffee.  Even with dinner.  And iced tea in the summer.

I remember the pantry being absolutely stuffed with canned goods.  And I always thought that they must taste better - why else would we have them?  There was always a cake mix around and Sunday mornings meant blueberry muffins or pancakes from a mix with tinned or dehydrated blueberries.  There was also a random dessert I remember in the 70s which involved 3 layers of jello or different opacity which, if you tilted on the side of the fridge wall as it thickened, would set with sideways layers.  And of course, my grandma (the one dressed like Santa) made this thing called a "sickly salad" which involved green jello, cottage cheese, pineapple (canned), and nuts.  It did in fact look a bit like sick.  But tasted delicious!


The end of the program featured a high tea 60s style with such dishes as sliced tongue with decorative radishes and a pink fluffy thing called Angel Delight, which was something like strawberry pudding which took the place of blanc mange, so they said.  Either way, the guests on the show reported that the Delight was sickly-sweet and nothing like what they remembered.  A sheppard's pie with instant mash and canned veg was followed by a bavarian chocloate cake with canned cherries.

I took a moment to look back at my Mom and her sisters, having fun in our kitchen, circa 1967.  Note the turquoise and stainless steel kitchen and my mom wearing a matching outfit.

Grandma Santa

Christmas brings memories of egg nog (something I really miss), shopping, presents, carols and the ever present struggle in my house growing up over when to open presents.  My Dad traditionally opened them on Christmas Eve while my Mom preferred Christmas morning.  There was usually a compromise involving opening one or two on the Eve and the rest in the morning.

But when we visited my paternal grandparents, everything happened on Christmas Eve, including a visit by Santa!  I remember playing with my cousins and being summoned to the door.  There was someone to see us!  It must be Santa!  And in through the door came...my grandmother dressed as Santa.  Clearly in the video you can see my pure admiration for Father, er Mother Christmas, in spite of the fact that she always brought apples and oranges, which held little interest for us kids.  But I do remember a few years later huddling with my cousins post visit with clues that it might not actually be who we thought.  The glasses looked awfully familiar.  And how did Santa get lipstick on his beard?  Is it really Santa?

Not too long after that, I was in the first grade when my classmates completely destroyed my Santa bubble.  They told me that he isn't real.  He's your parents.  I don't remember being disappointed.  I remember thinking that it made much more sense.  I never bought the idea that all the shopping mall Santas were his "helpers."  They seemed far too sweaty for one thing.  One evening, as I was getting tucked into bed, I asked my Mom if Santa was real, since my classmates said he wasn't,  and I explained that I really needed to know the truth.  I think she was more disappointed than I was.  She had just lost her youngest child's pure innocent belief in all things Santa, and that had to be a blow for a mother who loved all things Christmas.  I remember she paused, thinking of what to say.  And then she sat on the bed and told me how important it was to keep the fantasy going for all the other younger kids and the general spirit of Christmas.  I remember processing everything I had known about Santa that night.  All the half eaten cookies, the empty glasses of milk, the presents showing up under the tree and the one magic year that my favorite doll, Princess, showed up late Christmas afternoon in a travel case filled with doll clothes.  It was snowing that year, and I really believed that Santa had dropped it on the way in or out, rushing out to beat the snow. As is Southern tradition, I also assumed he had to hurry to the store to buy milk and bread, as that is what you do when it snows.  But in all likelihood, my parents simply forgot to add it under the tree.

The following years still brought visits by Grandma Santa, as I wasn't quite the youngest grandchild, but the question soon became not so much if it was Santa - we knew it wasn't.  But who was it?  It wasn't our parents.  And somehow, we couldn't quite figure out who was absent from the room whenever Santa was there.  But during a hide and seek game one summer, we stumbled upon the Santa costume hanging in her closet.  And then we knew.  The great mystery of our childhood had been solved.  

Oooooo! Explosions!

Oooooo!, a photo by daradactyl on Flickr.

I've waited almost a year for this! Guy Fawkes Day! November 5! In terms of fireworks, it is to the Brits what July 4 is to the Yanks. Anyone can buy them. In fact, they were 2 for 1 at the grocery store.

As in the states, people started "practicing" by setting off bottle rockets a week early. I asked my neighbor, the completely insane Josephine, crazy cat lady and collector of stuff from garbage bins. Jo told me that it's all about that guy who tried to blow up Parliament. And that on Bonfire Night, people make up a fake guy and set it on fire. It's a guy. Named Fox. That's been my favorite explanation so far.

In fact it did start as a remembrance of Guy Fawkes who did try to blow up Parliament a few hundred years ago. But he failed and was tried and executed. So, I suppose it's more of a "what would it have looked like if he did succeed." And so the fireworks.

I decided to join the ever fun Frui group to do a photo excursion to Primrose Hill, near Regents Park, overlooking the city. About 20 of us camped atop the hill and under the guidance of our trusty tutors, started shooting. Of course, I had to forget a very important piece of equipment, I always do. This time it was the tripod. At least it wasn't the memory card, which I ironically often forget. But it made the exercise really difficult to do long exposures with no stabilization. But there was coffee with brandy, red wine, and a lively pub afterward. So, a terrific time all in all.

Everyone kept saying, "where is the fireworks show?" And there was a certain lack of coordination to the explosions. They seemed to be random. Some were in the park, where the lighters-of-the-wicks were quickly escorted out by police, as it is illegal in that park. Some were off on the distant Thames. And everywhere in between. But they were generally n bursts of about 30 seconds. Not the 30 minutes I'm used to from the big US of A shows. And the locals seemed confused as well. Though not down. Every single roman candle brought huge cheers from the drunk crowd. And everyone giggled with delight over kids running with sparklers.

It also made me consider the over emphasis on safety in the US. I don't think it would occur to anyone there to set off a roman candle in a crowded park. But as far as I know, no one lost an eye. Or a couple of fingers. Unlike Guy Fawkes.

A brief cold snap after weeks of relatively warm weather has summoned the delicious colors of autumn from the local trees.  It seems to have happened overnight although I'm sure it's been weeks in the making.  The gathering leaves on the ground form a light padding that subdues the all too common footsteps from the likely tapping to a dull steady  thud.  and so with autumn comes the damp.  I first noticed as I stepped out this morning to grab some milk from the market across the street. I can't recall ever having a market that close.  Even as a child, the nearby neighborhood market, Todds, was a drive away. An entire quarter of a mile away.  And while I think of markets as having produce that was farmed during the Eisenhower years, this one, or rather these as there are two right next to each other, always surprise me with fresh cheeses and chorizo.  And yes, milk.

That first step out onto the walkway was litererd with damp leaves and mud, and that wonderful smell of falling leaves and decay.  Like Autumn is supposed to smell.

Having spent 8 years in Catholic school, I never really thought that much about ancient Rome.  I don't remember it really being covered or being pressed as important in school other than "they killed Jesus!"  But touring through ancient Rome, one is given a fascinating picture of a society that valued, among other things, family and the reverence for the dead.  The necropolis under St Peters was a look into the society of the dead.  Families would brig picnics to the mausoleums and pour wine and food through holes in the floor to their dead relatives in the afterlife.  Some mausoleums were for erly Christians, made clear by the symbols left on the engraved plaques commemorating the life of that person.  They were quick to praise.  One man's epitaph listed him as "joking with everyone and never quarreled.  He was a dear brother," the stone claimed.  Many were left by husbands to "chaste" wives, who were assumed to die in childbirth as the birth rate was high to combat the infant mortality rate which was about 75%.

The necropolis was discovered while trying to make the Popes' burial grotto bigger and more enjoyable for visitors.   The excavations took a place in the fourties and fifties.  This too was amusing as I remembered being in high school and having the younger girls freak out over the rumor that they had run out of burial space in the Vatican for Popes, so when John Paul died, that was the end of the world.   The nuns perpetuated that rumor, maybe they even believed it themselves.  But when he was shot, the younger girls were seen sobbing in the corridors, crying the end was near.

What struck me too was the idea that Jesus was a religious person in this era of gods and demi gods, of superstitions and luck; a Jew who was persecuted.  And the town that I knew as the center of the Roman Empire soon became the center of the church of a completely different religion.  Everything was then taken over buy the new church.  The Pantheon, which was at one point was the center of learning and community became a basilica.  Which we were reminded is what kept it in such great shape.  No one had the money or the interest in maintaining the secular building, but anything that became a church or otherwise struck the interest of a Pope or one of the powerful, wealthy families was saved from eventual ruin.

The Castle and the Colosseum are great examples of ruins subsequently adopted by the church.  The latter receiving giant cross as a memorial to all those early Christians persecuted there.  Although the audio guide tells us that it wasn't the the main show there.  It was more about gladiators and hunting.

Our necropolis tour ended with a peek into the grave of St Peter.  The bones found there, the guide tells us, were tested by Vatican scientists who verifies that they are of a man in his late 60s who a had worked hard during his life.  That seems to be enough to convince the Vatican that they are in fact those of St Peter.  And therefore, only the Pope can say mass in St Peters on that altar which stands over the grave. But the altar adjacent to it, which is not over St Peter,  has and thousands and thouxans of priests say mass.  

The Vatican was huge and beautiful but did sort of run under it's own rules.  It was as if there was a whole different state within the city of Rome.  Oh wait...

Remembering 9/11

Exactly 10 years on and I am in London watching BBC specials in which NY and London memorials are reading through the names of the lost.  And I realized that I never wrote down what I remember from that day.

It was my 6th wedding anniversary and Mr McGarry was in Nashville working on a shoot for a cable show.  The phone rang at about 6:40am LA time. I assumed it was Russ being funny and wishing me a happy annivesary early.  I ignored it.  It rang again.  Pulling myself out of bed, I answered the phone with growing irritation, but was surprised to hear the voice of my Mother-in-law, weeping.  "We're at war!  They're attacking us!"  She told me to turn on the tv.  I don't remember what I said, or even if I said anything.  My neighbor, Joel, was up and his tv was on.  I remember going across the hall to his place.  I remember watching the televised broadcasts, which were on all channels, but the timeline seems comfusing as the events were just happening.  They tended to show both live feed and rebroadcast which made it hard to figure out what was happening, not to mention that the events were so shoking in the first place.  Even now, I'm not sure what had happened by the time I tuned in, but I do believe that I was watching the towers fall as it happened. 

Not knowing what to do, I went to work.  But along the way, driving up La Brea, people in their cars turned and looked at other drivers with a sense of worry and empathy and connection, and that was the only time in LA I ever felt connected to other drivers while driving.  Along the way, I listened to NPR rebroadcasting Rudy Guliani as he walked around the towers before they fell.  I remember the emotion in his voice as he talked about seeing people jump.

I remember hearing that the plane had hit the ground in Pennsylvania.  And that there was a sense that maybe that was the last one, but no one could be sure.

Once at work, of course we all watched the tvs in the conference rooms.  We didn't get much work done.  And by 10:30, word got around that we should all just go home anyway.  Some of us, were continuing to hang around as we didn't' have much else to do.  But then we were told that we HAD to get out.  There was a threat to studios in LA and we were half a block from the Burbank airport.  We were a credible target.  And we were told to leave the building at once.

That night, I walked down my street to a small impromptu memorial.  The little group of us just sat on the curb with beer and candles talking about people we knew there in NY.  And we all asked why.

That was a Tuesday.  On the Sunday before, I had a show at ACME comedy theatre.  There was a small earthquake on my way to the theatre which really shook me up.  I asked to be able to go back home and check on things.  Everything was fine, but I had this strange feeling that something was horribly wrong.  The next day, I had been reading about the Taliban's treatment of women and I was looking up petitions urging Americans to take action.

It wasn't until Saturday when Russ was able to travel again.  I went to LAX and had to park really far away.  Trams carried passengers from the airport to the lots about a mile or so away where we were all waiting.  As buses released passengers, families reunited for the first time since the tragedy.

We knew the world had changed.  That was clear to me from the moment of that phone call.

Faversham Hops Festival

Since 1966, the Notting Hill Carnival has been the place to go for the August bank holiday.  And since the 1980s, the Hops Festival in Kent has been the place to go - if you happen to be in Kent.  While the Notting Hill Carnival was much bigger, the Hops Festival was much more of a festival.  I had heard that you should do the Carnival, just to say you did it, and then you never have to do it again.  Which implies that it isn't worth repeating.  Ad that made me wonder if it is worth doing in the first place.  

The Carnival, to me, was little more than several thousand people crowding onto the streets to drink and smoke and listen to music.  Which is fine except that there wasn't
 so much of a Carnival theme as it was just a giant pub theme.  The floats, when we were there at 2p on adult day, were just flat bead trucks with some speakers and a man, shirtless, singing along with the music.  There was nothing to buy but food, which included jerk chicken, roasted corn, sugar cane and coconut.  I was told later that they don't do vendors selling litems because stuff just gets stolen.    Ater a couple of hours of wandering through the neighborhoods, we felt like we had done all the carnival had to offer, and that was to drink.

By contrast, the Hops Fetival was a lively event.  There were plenty of things to buy, such as hats, fudge, beer of many loccal varieties, antiques, toys...the list is endless.  The shops were open and busy, compared to Notting Hill, whose shops were not only closed, but boarded up out of fear from the  recent riots.
  People were dressed in costumes or wore funny hats.  I was quite surprised to see a lack of that at the carnival, but guessing by the photos seen since, I was just there at the wrong time.  Maybe it's just too difficult to sustain a sense of fun over two days in Central London.

There were dance troupes who wandered about, performing regularly an old English folk dance that involved sticks being hit repeatedly then dancing in a circle.  The music which accompanied he dance was a charming piece that instantly made you think of Ye Olde English village.  There were also groups in similar folk costumes,but entirely in black.  These groups also had black painted faces, which coming from the American South has always been strictly verboden in my corner of the world.  But here, it had a Goth like feel, or perhaps reminiscing of the Schmutzli of German origin, the Dirty Man who accompanies Santa on St Nicks Day in German cultures.  I didn't get to see their dance, but I'm sure it was really cool.

I started to get the feeling of being in a village  when it celebrates the harvest.  There was tonnes of hops plants everywhere.  We got wreaths made to wear on our heads and on the dogs, which made us all smell even more like beer.  The hops were piled onto a wagon, which I imagined used to roll into the village and all the townspeople would cheer and dance.  Everyone was so happy and joyful, perhaps because it was sunny.  Perhaps it was he beer.  Or a combination of everything all put together.  
But there was a delightful sense of celebration that was contagious. Why was that missing from the Carnival?  Is it city life that is so oppressive?  Is there nothing to celebrate in the city?