Across the Pond

White on white, hard to capture: iceberg roses Mid January, and we just cut the last roses: Icebergs, a burst of fullness but serene and still, white on white, hard to capture in a photograph. Years ago, when I was in high school in Innsbruck, my good friend L. used to give me the last roses from her mother's garden. It was an annual ritual I looked forward to, always reserved for the end of October. Unlike mine, L.'s roses came in colors - red, yellow, a washed out orange. Their stems were  often scraggly, the leaves a little smaller than they might have been two months before, at the height of summer. The memory of the recurring gift includes that of the giver: L.'s green eyes, quick and sharp, the big yet humble smile as she passes the bouquet, three or four flowers, thorny, wrapped in aluminum foil and a damp paper towel. L. was the smartest in our class, an honor student through all grades. After graduation she enrolled in vocational school, to be trained as...

"Their album - it's an excuse." Stamps from Austria Last week I received a packet from Austria. It came with two old fashioned looking petit point stamps. I do not collect stamps and would not recognize a Blue Mauritius if you sent me one but the stamps from Austria caught my interest. As my fingers were running over the stitching I couldn't help but wonder: does anyone still do petit point? Are young people here in L.A. or even back in Europe still acquiring the craft? I learned to stitch, sew, and knit in elementary school in Austria but handiwork was not my forte. On the contrary. Crafts used to be the one subject I loathed - though I believe that my mother still keeps the red and blue pot holder I crocheted in second grade. (It was supposed to be a square but ended up an irregular trapeze.) The other thing I was wondering about when the packet arrived is whether young people still collect stamps. When I was in high school I knew a guy my age with a collec...

"Meal at which all people present share dishes they brought"? Po tluck. Today being Labor Day some families in our neighborhood decided to get together for a potluck: grilled chicken and salmon, home made potato salad; a salad of spinach, blue cheese, and pears; a fruit platter, brownies... I like potlucks, their casual spirit, the egalitarian touch. Very American. Everybody pitches in, no one has to feel bad because one family or even one person had to do all the work. In Austria potlucks are not really common; there is not even a German word for the concept. It could be   Kesselglueck -  literal yet somewhat charming - but that term doesn't exist. On the web I found "Potluck: großes Abendessen, bei dem sich alle Anwesenden selbst mitgebrachte Speisen teilen" (translation from  Reverso ). This describes the idea accurately but it is a bit long. For those of you who don't speak German, here's a re-translation, phrased as an invitation: "P...

What do we know about simplicity? Figs from our tree. Figs. The taste of summer, the taste of home; my immigrant home. Our backyard tree is heavy with fruit. In the mornings I go out to pick what is ripe; figs for breakfast, a treat straight from the tree; flesh and seeds, refreshing and sweet, grainy resistance and softness at the same time. Figs, the color of their skin, purple with blotches of green or white stripes where they have cracked. The reds and browns inside bring up memories: a summer spent in Normandy, France, with my parents, my brother, and my maternal grandmother. Life was about food in its basic, original form, about mussels and figs and cheese; it was about the ocean and its tides, gigantic but predictable, and about history. We visited Bayeux to see  the tapestry which tells the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings;  we spent a day or a half at  Arromanches,  saw a documentary on D-Day and the landing ...

If I had a chicken farm... Wild hen or rooster on Kauai. So your kid goes out with a basket ball and breaks the neighbor's window. You groan but you pay for the replacement of the window; you also let your child know that it will be responsible for the cost if it breaks another window. Next week your child goes out with its ball and - more broken glass. You do what? Bail him or her out again? The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is going to buy 40 million Dollars worth of chicken from the poultry industry and donate the birds to federal food assistance programs. It's the bail out of the chicken farmers  because they are having a hard year. The price of chicken food and the production of chickens have increased while consumption of chickens and thus their market price have dropped. Sounds like a horrible situation, farmers squeezed from both sides, the classical double whammy. Alas, this is not he first time we are bailing out the chicken industry. According to ...

Paper or plastic? Bag from South Africa. My friend recently came back from a trip to South Africa and brought me a reusable grocery bag. It is from Woolworths, one of the largest retail chains in South Africa; it is made by a community project and serves as a symbol of the company's commitment to sustainability and social development. I will think of this whenever I use my new bag. Thank you, dear friend! The Woolworths bag is not my first reusable bag. I carry two baggies which fold up into packs smaller than a deck of cards in my purse and a bunch of bigger ones in the trunk of my car. To me this feels like an easy way of making a difference environmentally. Others seem to have a harder time. When the county of Los Angeles recently introduced a ban on plastic bags for its unincorporated areas the new ordinance was met with resistance. Shops bemoan that paper is more expensive than plastic. They charge customers ten cents for every paper bag. Shoppers complain about ...

Romantic getaway? Poster in a thrift store in Bakersfield. Want to spend a weekend for two in California? Your options are many. You probably know them: Yosemite, Napa, La Jolla, San Francisco, Big Sur, Mendocino... My husband and I, for a romantic getaway in July, picked - Bakersfield. What? my friends asked, Bakersfield? Did the hotel have a pool? (It did not.) For those of you who are not from California, Bakersfield is a hot place. In July which is the warmest month highs average 96.9 °F (36.06 °C). Then again, Bakersfield is not what you'd call a hot spot. The apparently once beautiful historical town center was almost entirely destroyed in an earthquake in 1952 (actually an aftershock to a shaker a month earlier); bland looking buildings replaced the ruined heritage (though some are rather colorful); malls and marts went up on the outskirts and drained the inner city of life (a fate Bakersfield shares with many cities in the U.S.). According to the...