Acorn Panacea

Primitive at work processing acorns

The streets are full of acorn powder, the gutters full of unbroken acorns. Every four or five years it’s like this, and I always tell myself that I have to learn to do what the Miwok did.

Thanks to Heather Crawford, and Mia from the Trackers, I’ve  cracked the mystery of the  nut that rains abundantly down from the local valley oaks, which are technically in the ‘white oak’ category.

They are (I came to learn) among the lowest in tannins.

First you gather (fun part, if you’re a natural hoarder).
Then you crack and peel (more fun than expected).

A few of simple moves: grab an acorn (so smooth it might jump out of your fingers) ,  balance the thing on its tip, and tap the rounded end with a hammer.
At first I was working with a normal v-shaped nutcracker, and it took a minute or so per nut. Then CC (the primitive in the above shots) decided to join me for a smash-a-thon.

I went for a second hammer, after watching him tap six or seven, then peel them, assembly-line fashion.

The most recent batch are unblemished–no worm-veins or mold. Not that a few worms would stop me.

The bowls filled up.

We kept popping the nuts.

“It’s kind of hard to stop!” CC sez.

With a couple of grocery sacks full of good dry acorns, and a paltry couple of mixing bowls (small) filled, it’s obvious that we will need about ten or twenty hours to get it all ground up in the old fashioned grain mill.  CC mollified the hand-cranked apparatus to take a drill bit, while I pounded the nuts into the hopper And then: where to store our damp acorn meal?

The mash has  the most delicate wood-and-nutty aroma, nothing at all like other nuts we know.

Then you leach out the tannins: Soak in a bowl draped in linen or cheeseclothx3, strain, repeat with fresh water. Use the brownish water in the garden. In a couple days the mash will not taste at all bitter.

Since  I’d already done a batch of nuts in my crummy blender four days ago, I had coarse, but still quite fine to eat, nutmeat to play with the last few days, and the pancakes I made ((1/3 cup wheat flour, 2/3 cup acorn, 3 pinch salt, .5tsp baking poudre) were pure heaven.

The pancakes we made were so satisfying that even Mr. Eats-Every-Two-Hours was able to go four hours until his next meal. And: NO GLUTEN (not an issue for me, but of critical importance to CC).
Nutrient-dense…and maybe even a future local industry for bored teenagers. Estimated cost of a pound of the meal: $110.00 given the four wombat-hours it took to fabricate.

From free ingredients.
It’s enough to make you (well, not quite enough) believe in a deity that bestows precisely what creatures need…\

All we know is, we love those trees even more…

flapjacquie

New Shoes

My Shimano MPsomethingorother model shoes (circa 1991) served me eighteen years, with  a major kick at the finish: a 4,000 transcontinental road ride.  In that last couple of months, they served as open-toed sandals, not shoes.

Today I decided to take them (and myself) out for a ride. My horrible flu was abating; the sulfa drugz were doing their job.

I needed to see if I had any fiber left in my noodle-y legs and goop-clogged lungs.

So up the road I went, knowing that sundown’s at five nowadays.  I had some stuff to drop off at Joe Breeze’s house–a note for the kid, and some floral tisane (Osmanthus fragrans flowers) for Connie B, my sister-doppelganger.
Having a mission helps me complete a ride.

The last three times I’ve been up “Bo-Fax” road, I’ve turned around at the first opportunity, which is the Meddow Golph Club. It felt like a defeat each time, since I’d hoped to do my very favorite ride: Pine Mountain.
But sometimes your legs (or your mind) say “no!”.

These days, I obey that voice.
I  seem unable to ignore signals that I’m tired or just don’t feel like a real ride.

But since I’d packed a note for the younger Breeze about the phenomenon of Farmville,  and a sachet of cool tea–flowers for the missus, I had a great excuse not to die, not to give up.

And to make it more fun, I dropped into a long–forgotten shortcut that puts me at their doorstep within an hour or so…a cool ridgeline run with magnificent vistas and no people for miles and miles around. Just chapparral–sharp pants-perforating branches, tight turns navigated using mental sonar, and the occasional wren–tit registering surprise at the intrusion.

Down in  Fairfax town, Joe was home. I handed him the tea (and a careful descripton of the Latin name of the plant)  and showed off my old “sandals”.

“I wore a pair for about as many years” Joe said, adding: “Hey,  what size do you wear? “

“Forty”

“I have some shoes that are too small for me…”

And he brought forth a pair of 1993 shoes, the next generation after mine; three straps instead of two,  yellow and blue, rather than subdued orange, gray and blue.

I put them on, he pressed down on the big toe, like a regular shoe salesman. “They seem to fit just fine”  he observed. “I think they might just be a really small pair of forty-ones.”

“Can I throw mine away here?”

“Sure, just leave them there on top of the trash can.”
For about the first time in a decade, I hurled a pair of truly worn-out shoes, and thanked Joe for his generous gift.
I I can’t think of a better person than you to get these.” Joe said kindly.

And off I rode, no wind on my toes, into the twilight of Dogbark Lane.

scottish solution to saddle soreness!

cycling on the promenade 1

Originally uploaded by byronv2

I think they have something there. They ARE the fattest people in Europe, and it should not be a deterrent to riding if your ass is kind of wide…

A hundred years ago in Russia…

solovetsky tower

 

Church of St.Nicholas the wonder worker

Berries for the visiting photographer

….was captured in color photographs…not the hand tinted postcard stuff –real magic thru chemistry. The inventor’s name was Sergei Prokudin-Gorkii, and he got carte blanche from the Tsar to roam the empire, aiming to take his triple-slide show to schools.
The revolution wiped away everything he had, save the 2000 plates he left the country with.

To gaze upon these pictures a second and third time, it dawns on the viewer that there aren’t any automobiles. Plenty of foot-paths, short-cuts-to-the-church-on-a-hill, and dirt roads (but not many).   I suppose the serfs were all at work, out of camera range. Still, it looks edenic. Eden, minus the bicycle. But I know that Nabokov rode a bike…hmmm.

The Library of Congress bought the glass plates from his heirs in 1944, and only in 2000 did digital chromatography make complete restoration possible, yielding the museum show, The Empire that was Russia.

 

—–(Ugly transition)

Want my news? I’m sick, but happy.

See SALIVATION ARMY blog!

Today’s subject: NO CALORIE LEFT BEHIND.

Vast & Simple

Zanzibar Beach Bicycle (Vertorama)

Originally uploaded by Panorama Paul

bicycles rule.

Community Colleges, bicycles, and the mind’s joy

(Letter to a reformer)

Esteemed Lloyd (Thacker, founder of the Education Conservancy)
I just found an interview with you when I dug up past (‘condensed & edited”)  interviews by Deborah Solomon.
Sunday’s NYT magazine had her interview with  Thorbjorn Jagland (Norway Nobel chairman), mostly about why they picked Obama. One of her questions rankled me:

DS: Here in the US, socialism is one of those words…where people worry you’re going to take away their cars and make them ride a bicycle.”
TJ: “Look at the welfare state (we) built. We have better cars than most of the Americans.”
DS “What do you drive?”
TJ “A Volvo“
Me to self: DAMN, why didn’t he tell her that he ALSO RIDES A BICYCLE —he must—everyone over there does!
I’m at home sick w/cold so my ‘dudgeon’ is high but my energy for getting real work done is not there.

But I can blog!

Thanks to a guidance counselor, I went to a school  I’d never heard of, before rankings were common (I think–might be wrong…this was in 72-73). Since those days I’ve watched its ‘brand’ develop—and have been appalled by the whole ‘laundry service’ and ‘marketing’ thing….I believe they have jumped in both feet, and don’t much care what alums say (unless they care to donate funds for a yet another new science building or sports complex, once known as a field house).

When I was there, nearly no students had a car, but now they almost all do. Some even have two.

So…reading YOUR interview w/Ms. Solomon over 2 yrs ago got me thinkning more..
I was wishing you had mentioned ‘community colleges’ when asked about where one can get a good education these days.
Why am a writing you?
I jst was in DC hearing friend (Kay ryan , poet-in-chief of US) describe how she wants to celebrate community colleges –she started college at Antelope Vally Community College, in the desert near Lancaster California.

Here’s Kay  in the Library of Congress Gazette: “Right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly- –and with very little financial encouragement-saving lives and minds. I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful, or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.”

Now I ‘m a bike nut, pure and simple.
Kay is, too.
And I’m passing this on to you because…er, I believe you will remember to include community colleges in the next interview you give.

Hope so,  JP

Wombat goes to Washington

Under the sassafras with Mary Costello

Kay, Barbara, Jean in Poetry Room

Alison & bike on Metro

In the poet's corner, attic of Library of Congress

No sooner had I stepped out of the tunnel at the Shady Grove metro station, than I was greeted by the warm autum breeze and a flower-seller  missing four teeth.

“Is this the ‘kiss -and-run’area?” I asked sheepishy.

“Yep.”

She could tell I wasn’t a flower buyer. I had a tiny backpack and that hobo hat on. Behind me I heard a voice speak.

“Aren’t you Jacquie Phelan?”

Nearby stood a woman pushing her bike out of the trains station.

She (Alison Horton, a transplanted Californian) said she’d heard of me and WOMBATS, liked what I was doing etc.

“I’m in town to hear the muscle poet  (aka the Poet Laureate of The United States, PLOTUS) Kay Ryan read at the Library of Congress tomorrow night. YOU should come..it’s free and I promise you, Kay will rock your world…”

Damn if Alison didn’t take me up on it, coming to Coolidge Auditorium the next day without really knowing what she was getting into.

Amid a home team of Fairfaxians, Alison and I got great seats down low, and I caught up with Poe, Sam, Laura and David.

“Tthis is going rather well”  said Kay  as a tsunami of applause engulfed her.

She read, and even re-read  an hour’s worth of wisdom-nuggets…Deer Park, the Gordian knot one, some new ones….since her little pile of books had been left on the plane, she was going without notes. I pray some kind person will send the precious trove back to her.
One of Kay’s great causes is the role community colleges play in the “freeing” of people…how it’s not just big four year institutions that inspire our citizens but unsung and undervalued institutions in every community.  She likened them to the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that nourishes the soil that the legumes grown in…’the students return to their community…they stick around’.

Then a reception after that–quite lavish, the government-issue spread of white wine, sparking water, good cheese, crostini and vegetables.  . Poets, artists, very animated mix of people….Grace Cavalieri (one of the Poetry Project’s producers) enthused about my ‘rebellious’ hairdo. That makes three compliments in one day. As a dispenser of sartorial compliments myself, it is gratifying to think someone voted ‘yes’ for my Medusa ‘do.
Trooped over to Mr. Henry’s a celebrated hamburger joint, whose waiter, Marvin Ross was a major dear. Forty years in service to the thirsty, starved, and the impatient. A writer (Marianne something) wrote a hilarious account of trying to work there…

Toasts were raised, plates were licked clean, and everyone disappeared before the metro closed.

Woke up the next day at noon, in Bethesday Maryland. I owe my unseen hostess a big thanks.

I love this town where people love your hair, know your name, and  spontaneously come to a poetry reading .

Great City.

Wombat Mary Costello (71 summers and counting) took me up in the Gambrill forest to sample the incredible combo plate of Frederick trails.
We spent a couple hours, shared left d’oeuvre pizza in the middle of the trail, and got a shot or two while I adjusted to the new time zone. Wished Kay were able to just borrow a bike and be chauffeured as easily (I will find out if she would LIKE that), since one  of the major bonuses of living in this area is Proximity To Public Trails.

Mud Libs a la 42below

WIMPING OUT IS NOT A CRIME.

An  abbreviated Breakfast Crew (Bryan Reckamp, Adrianna Too-Longlastname and I) bailed on the Morro Bay-Gaviota leg, and  after two hour’s worth of riding, at Grover Beach plus a hefty second breakfast) we purchased tickets from a wall in the un-manned train station.

No, wait, there was a man.

A helpful volunteer in his seventies, who answered our various questions about how to work the machine and if bikes on trains were OK.

Thirty minutes and thirty dollars (apiece) later, the problem of our fatigue was ’solved’. The train would cut a day’s riding off.  The bikes were stashed, and we gleefully grabbed some seats in the uncrowded dining car.  The Rosie Ruiz club car.

Bryan suggested playing hangman.  I beat him so badly that I suggested we three play a more democratic game: Mud Libs a la Jacqu-pine. You know the one, fill in the blanks and make-a-story. The raunchier, the better.

Here’s what I drafted, and you can play it yourself. It gives a bit of the flavor of our doomed/delightful summer adventure.

“Another 42 below Day”

Dear Diary,  What a day!  It’s the ___(number)th day of the ____(# between 40 and 50) bike ride, and ____(friend’s name)   and I decided to ____(verb) _______(friend’s name) into playing _______(kid’s game) before breakfast.  Then the ______(adj) chore of getting ready began:

First, we made sure to have lots of ______(type of food) for the _____(adj) ___(number greater than 40 less than 50) mile trip ahead. By now we all know that the mileage is _______(adjective) and it’s really _____(number above 70) miles we’ll be riding.

For laughs, we flipped a ____(type of coin) to see who would have to load the truck , ____(verb+ing)  stuff on their ______(part of body).

Everything worked out great, except the _____(type of conveyance)  was ___(number) hours late, and Foster had told us to get to camp by ____(day of the week).  Our trip was ___(adj), full of ________(adj) hills and______(adj) descents featuring ___(animal) grates and barbed wire ___(pl. noun).  When ____(person named previously) fell off the trail, the other two would ____(type of dance) on his _____(body part).

By ___(time of day) o’clock we’d had enough ____(adj) ______(pl.noun) and were ready to ___(verb) down for the night.

Too bad someone stole our ____(crucial thing to pack) while we were picnicking on____(food) ___(beverage) and ____(type of frolic)ing on the beach earlier in the day.

This meant we had to sleep in our _______(type of clothing) all night with our ____(body part)  exposed to the ________(atmospheric phenomenon).

“42 Above”

Training ride, Nebraska. photo by Reckamp

I should not be surprised that three or four of the cities that our group of 21 riders passed through were equatorially opposed to the 42 below inscribed on our jerseys and in our trip manifests.

Yes, Erie, Cleveland Detroit and Chicago are on the 42nd parallel… aove the equator.  This brings me to the conclusion that perhaps there was some  subtle reason in our Charlie-Brownian motion up and down the national highway system, zig-zagging from south to north to south again…collecting miles and visiting as many city centers as possible.
I’ve been trying fruitlessly to reach the 42 below team–ad agency, Bacardi, owner of the brand…no luck (yet)…to find out how the project panned out.

Did anyone reading this ever try the wonderful kiwi vodka?

Cover Girl

"Subscribe to Bicycle Quarterly!" (photo by Halaburt)

Some magazines are pithy–not in the sense of  an inebriated Scot with a wee lisp–rather: much meaning is packed into a tidy parcel  of glossy magazine pages.

Such is the case with Jan Heine’s black and white 4x/yr paean to the bicycles (and bicyclers) of yore.