In the beginning....

Earlier this week, as I was going through my books to see which I felt needed a place on our new winter home’s bookshelves, I came to the shelf with Greek and Roman classics. Plato…Aristotle… Sophocles..and of course the playwrights.

These books have moved with me from place to place in the more than 40 years since my Great Books class at the University of Michigan, but, sadly, most have not been opened since I first placed them on the shelves in Larchmont.

Would I really need them again?

Then this morning at Larchmont Temple’s Chevra Torah, studying B’reishit and the story of creation, there they were, right in front of me again. Reading about Maimonides, I learned he was a student of Aristotle and struggled with his principles. And then Elizabeth recalled Plato’s concept of the human condition, in which (wo)men see only shadows in the cave and know nothing of the real world.

I realized I do need to read them again. So Plato, Aristotle and the rest of them are now in a carton, already enroute to our new home. I promise it will not be 40 years before I crack them open again.

Tucson

We are in Arizona this week, at a time of tragedy that may be for this generation a turning point similar to the assassination of John Kennedy for mine.

I've been listening to talk show radio in Arizona, and am heartened by the civil tone I am hearing from the callers. They are chastised, demoralized, and really searching deep into their hearts. Tucson leaders say "everyone loved Gabby." If that's so, why was her last election so hard fought?

I pray that this spirit of healing will last. But, unfortunately, I'm not betting on it. Our country has become so polarized. How do we turn it around? And how much of the blame lies with the media itself?

I wish I could feel more hopeful. But as I write this I see Palin on TV, and my hope deflates, like a pricked balloon.

Civil Rights & Social Justice: 50 Years of Reform Jewish Activism

Shopping locally

If you're a regular newspaper reader, you've probably seen the full page ads placed by American Express urging you to support the local businesses that create jobs, boost the economy and preserve neighborhoods around the country by "shopping small" this Saturday.

I can't think of a better excuse to avoid the mall than supporting Larchmont's small business owners by doing my holiday shopping here in town.

But, if you're still on the fence about it, here are some suggestions to get the ball rolling:

Holcaust Fraud, Israel Settlements

Sometimes it's hard to be Jewish -- and I'm not talking about keeping kosher, learning Hebrew or not celebrating Christmas.

No, I'm talking about when the Jews are their own worst enemy, and I'm trapped between my love for Judaism and the Jewish tradition and my deeply embedded sense of justice. The news reported on the front page of today's New York Times was a prime example.

First, the settlements. Netanyahu's insistence on building 1,000 additional settlements is going to scuttle any hopes of peace. I usually hold my tongue when Israel does something I don't like (how they treat Palestinians, Gaza's occupation come quickly to mind) but the arrogance in this is beyond comprehension.

And even more galling: the news that Jews defrauded the programs established to provide assistance and compensation to victims of the Holocaust.

The Jews have plenty of enemies and we shouldn't be providing ammunition to them.

It's pretty discouraging.

Trick or Treat for UNICEF

Tonight’s NBC news noted it’s 60 years since the first time young children collected pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters for UNICEF.

“Do you remember that?” I asked my husband, who grew up in the Deep South bayous of Louisiana.

“No, that was thought part of the international conspiracy,” he said, grinning.

We are a bit too old to remember the first year UNICEF was part of Halloween, but as an elementary student growing up in South Orange, NJ, in the 50s, I regularly collected for UNICEF – always, I confess, in tandem with my own request for sweet offerings of a different nature.

Cookbooks and the recipes we cherish

Pork has never been made a regular appearance on my table, which may be why, after each of my few feeble attempts to cook a pork chop for my pork-chop-loving husband I sugest he just order them in a restaurant. (FYI: John highly recommends Palmer Crossing's chops)

After the last attempt he asked me, "Has pork always been cheaper than beef?"

I looked at him in bewilderment. How was I to know?

I was raised in a kosher-style house. We didn't drink milk at the dinner table, but usually had butter on the vegetables. We ate lobster and shrimp in restaurants, but I don't think my mother knew how to cook them. And the only pork I can ever remember in her fridge was bacon - served exclusively on BLTs.

In spite of everything...are people really good at heart?

I had forgotten the power of The Diary of Anne Frank, which we saw today at the Westport Country Playhouse.

The theater was filled with middle school aged-children: the Playhouse was hosting “family day” to encourage this next generation to learn not only about the Holocaust, but about the play’s eternal message of optimism and hope.

Like so many, I first read the book when I was about Anne’s age, which meant I of course identified with Anne, and tried to emulate her eternal optimism. I’ve seen the play and movie several times, but not in the last 20 years or more. And so I was, to put it mildly, blown away, yet again, by this story.

Happy New Year, Ya'All

NEW IBERIA, LA - I've been in synagogues all over the country and around the world, but rarely stray far from home for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So when we booked Jet Blue's All You Can Jet passes and decided to spend the first week in Southern Louisiana, I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to join the small congregation in New Iberia, where the Jewish families my husband grew up with worshipped.

We'd walked around the outside of Gates of Prayer on our last trip and recognized many of the names memorialized on the stained glass windows, including the Wormsers, who owned clothing stores in Franklin, Jeanerette and New Iberia. But the building is open only for worship, and we were in New Iberia for lunch on a weekday.

What's Cajun?

Over the past decade or so, since Cajun food became a fad, there's been a mistaken belief that Cajun food is about spice that burns the inside of your mouth, instead of just giving you that nice warm feeling as it makes its way down to your stomach.

Those in the know, my husband John Boudreaux included, have always been slightly amused - dismayed may be a better word - at this.

So there we were, on our first stop on our Jet Blue "all you can jet" journey, driving from Madisonville, LA  where his sister lives to his home town in Franklin, when he got a hankering to visit a restaurant he frequented in his many trips to LSU in Baton Rouge.

Pat's Fisherman's Wharf in Henderson is off the beaten path, but in the 40+ years since John graduated it has developed a reputation as the crawfish capitol of the world.

Jet-setting

A few weeks ago my husband spotted a small notice about Jet Blue's "All you can jet" offer. For just $499, we could go anywhere Jet Blue flies from September 7-October 6th. After a quick check to be sure we could get trips to see the grandchildren,we decided it was just too good a deal to pass up.

So for the next four weeks, I hope to post some of the highlights of our ventures. First stop will be Louisiana to see friends and family, and of course get our fill of that great Cajun cooking.

How nice it is to be retired!

Recycling now a little easier

A blurb from the Town of Mamaroneck just caught my eye: we no longer need remove the bottle caps from plastic bottles before putting them out for recycling.

Seems like a small thing, but surely they add up. Maybe the added weight of all those caps will boost our recycling rate— which was a respectable 62 percent of all solid waste in 2009 —just a bit.

Of course, it would be a lot better— and a lot healthier, too —if we weren't using plastic bottles in the first place.

No one needs soda or fruit juice, and we have healthy clean water coming from the tap here in Larchmont. Invest in a water bottle — you can even keep it in the freezer to make sure it's cool when you set out. The environment will thank you.

Maybe we'll get to the point that there's so little solid waste in Larchmont-Mamaroneck that we can go to one-day-a-week collection. That  would surely help the tax rate.

If you aren't homeless, leave these tomatoes alone!

When I started plants from seeds indoors this spring, I tried to carefully label each pot. But thinking doesn't make it happen, and when the zinnias I transplanted to my corner garden began to grow, lo and behold, most of them were tomatoes.

My corner is a busy corner, passed each day by hundreds walking to and from the train, Turtle Park and the Palmer shopping district. I always lose a few flowers to people who must think I'm growing them for their dining room tables, and I've even caught people lifting whole plants from my garden.

So when the tomatoes began to grow among the dahlias, I wondered whether even a single tomato would make it to our table. Sure enough, even though the beautiful tomatoes growing on these almost six-foot-tall plants are yet to ripen, they're beginning to disappear.

And so I made a decision. These tomatoes would be grown to benefit the homeless; I'll donate the majority of them, along with other produce from my garden, to the "Nourish Your Neighbor" campaign that Ed Merians first announced on The Loop.
I've posted a sign on the plants saying: These tomatoes are to feed the homeless. If you are not homeless, please leave them alone!
I'm waiting to see if it works.

So long, tree

As one who has been known to complain about the Village DPW crew (why, for example, do they prune the forsythia in September, thus ensuring there will be nary a yellow bloom come the spring?), I want to give credit where credit is due.

In June a large branch fell from the street tree in front of the house.

When I went to pick it up, expecting I'd need to use a bit of muscle, I was surprised to find it weighed no more than a few ounces. The limb was totally rotten, with just the bark holding the sawdust and dirt together.

We called the Village, and soon thereafter a crew arrived to pick up the limb and look at the tree. They agreed that the tree was in terrible shape and needed to be removed.

Until just a few years ago the tree had been completely shaded by a much larger and dominant tree across the street, and this tree had but a few spindly branches on the top. Its only function, it seemed, was to provide a home to squirrels, which had been living in the tree since we moved in.

Organically grown or local - what would you choose?

I've been an organic gardener since I planted my first tomatoes almost 40 years ago, and I am something of an evangelist when it comes to the virtues of compost and the dangers of fertilizers and pesticides.

Nevertheless, when I'm in the grocery store, I more often than not pass by the organic produce and opt for what I was raised on: foods grown conventionally. With the growth of farmer's markets over the past decade, however, I've been paying more attention to the place of origin, and try to buy locally grown produce whenever possible.

Last week as I wandered around the Farmer's Market researching a piece for the Larchmont Patch on where to buy the best fruits and vegetables, I realized most of  the produce on display was not organic. The dilemma crystallized in my mind, and I realized it was time to give a little more time to the choices I make.

My children buy only organic vegetables, mostly locally grown (it is, of course, a lot easier in Oregon and California) and I applaud them for it. After all, my grandchildren -- four under the age of eight -- have a long way to go, so healthy habits are important.

But my formative years were more than a half-century ago, so part of the reasoning for not always buying organic is my age. If pesticides haven't hurt me yet, I rationalize to myself, surely I'll be okay for the time remaining.

Growing all my own food really isn't an option. Besides the limitations of the Larchmont climate, my garden is post-stamp size. Decisions, decisions. 

What do you do?

The lettuce is in

I was only half-way through the assignment for the Larchmont Patch to find the best hamburger in town when we left for San Francisco. While I managed to eat plenty of greens on the trip, we did take a dip into decadence with the the potatoes fried in duck fat that we found irresistable. 

But then we returned and I needed to finish the research.

While the Sherwood's blue cheese burger ran a close second, the award has to go to the classic burger at Chat 19. If you're wondering why, read the full article on the Patch that was published today.

Thankfully, the lettuce in my garden is in its glory, so it's back to eating healthy.

Decadent in San Francisco

The last time we were in San Francisco, we were disappointed to find the Washington Square Bar and Grill was closed, so we were glad to find this week that this historic newspaper hangout had reopened under new ownership.

Our cab driver -- from Armenia -- had never heard of the place, and when we said, "Just take us to Washington Square," he looked at us, shook his head and raised his eyebrows  "Washington Square? It's just a square," he said.

Ensconced at the bar, listening to a great piano player hitting the keys, it felt a bit like old home week. After a while, the young barmaid – a Maine native, with French Canadian blood coursing through her veins that made my Cajun husband think she was a long-lost relative – brought our neighbors at the bar a delectable dish.

"Potatoes fried in duck fat," she told us. They looked too good to pass up.

"Potatoes fried in duck fat?" my husband-the-heart-patient said, incredulous that I would order them. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Oh, we'll balance them with a salad," I told him. And so we did.

The potatoes were as good as advertised. Really. So next time you're in the City by the Bay, find your way to Washington Square and try the fries. You'll not regret it.

Chickens, anyone?

At last month's Sustainability Expo the portable chicken coop had lots of lookers - but no takers. It seems Larchmont and Mamaroneck residents, with their small yards, aren't ready for eggs on demand.

That's apparently not the case in Half Moon Bay, where we went to ride bikes along the beach with our grandkids. And the hardware store on Main Street had one of the best signs we've seen in a while.

Half Moon Bay began as a rural agriculture area, and there's still a lot small farming in the area, particularly pumpkins, Christmas trees and vegetables. So it's more than likely many folks raise chickens, too. But then again, the hardware store is just across from the local saloon, so who know which kind of chicks can be picked up on Main Street.

Dandelion wine, anyone?

One quick look at my yard is all it takes to conclude that I am not a lawn fanatic. As long as it’s green I don’t really care if much of the color is provided by weeds. I’d rather spend my time on the flowers and vegetables than on cultivating a carpet of clover-free grass.

So you might wonder why I’ve spent time each morning and evening for the last week scanning my yard for the telltale seed heads of the dandelion, trying to catch them before they open into a full sphere when the individual seeds will catch the slightest breeze.

It began on a whim, when I recalled a scene many years ago of my elderly neighbor picking dandelions along the street across from her house. She told me that picking the seeds would stop them from flying across the street to her lawn.

Larchmont trees, old and new

Larchmont residents value their trees, as was evidenced by last week’s Arbor Day celebration and the announcement that Larchmont has been named a “Tree City USA for the 29th consecutive year. But while children were helping plant the first of three bald cypress trees in Constitution Park on April 30, across town in Vanderburgh (Turtle) Park, a crew from Evergreen Arborists was taking down one of the Village’s oldest trees that had succumbed to Dutch elm disease.

The large elm tree in Turtle Park was more than 100 years old.

As the park is just across the street, I’ve been able to watch from my front porch the accelerating loss of trees in the park. Five years ago in a letter to then-Mayor Ken Bialo I wrote: