Julia Child and Me

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         Julia Child and Me

In my tiny one-butt kitchen is a shelf full of cookbooks, the rest are in the bedroom. Squeezed between "The Escoffier Cookbook," translated from the French, as the Bible of Culinary Art, and James Beard's "American Cookery," is Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." It's Julia Child I want to write about.

I never had the good fortune to meet Julia, but I think we share several things in common. First, we both like to cook. And, both she and I have written cookbooks. Her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," is a classic.  Mine, however, consists a a few pages written as a guide for our sons attending college, who had not a clue about cooking. A very limited publication. I did include two excellent simple recipes at the end, in order to impress girlfriends.

So we both wrote cookbooks. What's next? Why, Paris, of course. Julia graduated from a famous cooking school and lived in Paris.  A city we both loved.  It's been over forty years since I last saw Paris, but I remember it well. A kindly grocer pulling a wine cork out of a bottle so that it could wash down bread, while watching barges pass by on the Seine.

Strolling through Les Halles, the great market often referred to as the "Stomach of Paris." And eating a thick bowl of onion soup with a crust of bread and cheese on top.

But, as I now understand, the Paris Julia and I knew is no more, and the great market has moved outside of Paris.

And, how many of you remember Julia's cooking show on television? It was really great, and she made good use of wine in her recipes and in herself. Another thing we have in common!

There is one other something that we share. Julia lived in the same building where my wife and I now live, in Honolulu. It is a beautiful building, surrounded by a concrete and iron fence, with a shallow artificial lake and tea house. It is called the "Waipuna," which means "sweet water." In the days before the overthrow of the queen, royal nobles used to water their horses here. There is a spring located under the building. When Julia lived here there were a pair of swans, and beautiful koi fish.

 But now the swans are gone, the fish are gone, and so is Julia. I have not been able to discover the apartment where she lived.

        Aloha
        Grant

Chicken Foot

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           Chicken Foot
In order for you the reader to better understand  what happened, please remove your shoes and socks. Take a good look at your feet. Does the toe next to your big toe extend beyond it? If it does, you have a condition known as "Morton's Foot." Congratulations, if you do. The ancient Greeks thought that the condition was beautiful. Take a good look at the feet of a Greek statue and you will see what I mean. We should all have pity for the rest of the population who have only duck feet.

But I freely admit that if I had duck feet instead of beautiful toes, it might not have happened, and I would have escaped injury.

It all took place last night during an excellent dinner given by our friends Connie and Ray Davidson. Connie opened the top freezer door and sent a frozen chicken breast directly on the top of my beautiful toe. Oh the pain, the anguish! Should I sue? What about their insurance? Will that cover it? Thoughts raced through my mind. If I decide to sue, shouldn't it include Gordon and Penny, as it was their chicken breast? After some more thought, I just decided to drop the whole thing. Besides, it was a really good dinner. But I can't help wondering if I had duck feet, would the frozen chicken breast have missed me?

      Aloha
      Grant
 

Hemingway and Me

                 
      More Letters From Paradise
         Hemingway and Me

I baited my hook with the name "Hemingway," and you dear reader bit. It seems that almost everyone is interested in the life and writings of this author.

I confess that I never met the man, but I feel a special bond with him. Let me explain why.

First, the family of Dr. Hemingway, Ernest's father, was not unlike other wealthy Chicagoans, who fled  hot summers, to vacation in the coolness of Northern Michigan. My grandfather built a number of those cottages. My grandmother always referred to these visitors as "summer people."

One cottage being built by my grandfather came to an end with the crash of 1929. He was paid with stacks of china, silverware and furniture. These were kept stored in his apple storage house for years, and were reduced in size over the passing years.

The Hemingway cottage is on Waloon Lake, and  my grandparent's house was on Portage Point road. And, Hemingway lived for a time in Petosky, Michigan.

Readers will remember that Hemingway enjoyed  trout fishing in Northern Michigan. So did I.  But the fish that he and I caught were native trout, not those that were later introduced from fish hatcheries. The flesh of native trout is pink in color, not white as seen in planted varieties. Both Hemingway and I fished Lake Michigan long before the introduction of salmon.

Hemingway and I agree that the best way to cook a trout is to first, roll the cleaned fish in corn meal, and then fry it in a pan in which bacon has just been cooked.

Years ago when I was teaching an American literature class in Michigan,  I baited my hook with the fact that Hemingway's early stories were not about Italy or the Spanish Civil War, but about Michigan. I read them a small portion of "A Moveable Feast," which shows him writing about "Up in Michigan," and "The Big Two-Hearted River." Some of my students took the bait and became readers of his many books.

It's like I said, I feel that I have a kinship with Hemingway.

        Aloha
        Grant

Oliver Sacks

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         Oliver Sacks and Me

Oliver Sacks is dead! The name Oliver Sacks may not be a household word. He was born July 9, 1933, and died of terminal cancer in his Greenwich Village New York home, August 30, 2015. He was the world renowned neurologist, author, and professor of neurology at New York University of Medicine.

His name may not be familiar, but the motion picture "Awakenings," filmed in 1990, starring Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro, Julie Kavner, and Ruth Nelson was based upon a famous neurological clinical study made by Dr. Sacks.

Shortly following World War I, there was a great epidemic of sleeping sickness, and some few survivors became frozen in sleep for decades! Dr. Sacks gave them a new drug LDOPA, and they were brought back from the past into a strange new world.

All the details can be found in his book "Awakenings," available from Amazon. Another famous book has the very odd title "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For His Hat." Also purchased from Amazon.

Oliver Sacks was more than a neurologist and author. He rode a BMW motorcycle, lifted weights (600 lbs.a record ) and swam every day.

Why am I so interested in Dr. Sacks, the neurologist? It is because I am being treated by Dr. Eliza Hagen, another neurologist. There is nothing like having a brain seizure to cause one to become interested in neurology. Following a ten hour brain operation, Dr. Lee, a South Korean near surgeon planted 68 platinum coils in my brain. Dr. Hagen has me on what we  call a "Five Year Plan," and Teena  and I agree that "If it's not broken, don't fix it ".   I have been seizure-free for two and a half years, but still on medication twice a day. The early days following my seizure were pure hell. One of the side-effects of one medicine was thoughts of suicide! I had never even thought of suicide. And we live on the 30th floor! But things got righted out, and it's all good. Scared the hell out of us! All good now so far.

      Aloha
      Grant

All You White People

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        All You White People

Some time ago my friend Paul returned to the mainland for a visit. He said that he wanted to have some Indiana home-grown sweetcorn and tomatoes. He was surprised to see all those white people.

I told the story to my Chinese, American-born dentist. He had a similar experience while visiting China. "They all looked the same," he said.

The point I am trying to make is that here in Hawaii, there is such an ethnic mix it is sometime called chop suey, and we all take it for granted. One such example is that the driver license tests are written in eight different languages! Our Governor is Korean, while the State Superintendent of Schools is Japanese. Our dentist mentioned above is assisted by a Samoan woman. The hygienist is Vietnamese. Our family doctor who recently retired, is Japanese. His replacement is an Indian woman.

Our condo security guards are Hawaiian, Chinese, Samoan, and Haole. The word "haole" (how-lee) is a Hawaiian term meaning white or foreigner.

If you call Sears for the repair of your dishwasher, your repairmen could be a Chinese and a Filipino. And it doesn't matter what your ethnicity is. We have come to accept it for what it is. The ethnic diversity adds much richness to our lives.

Recently, Teena received a call from a woman on the mainland, wanting to ask about a particular hotel. Teena told her that the hotel is excellent and managed and staffed by Japanese. Hearing that, she chose another hotel and found to her dismay, the same situation she was trying so hard to avoid.

There are a lot of problems here in paradise, but race and ethnicity is not one of them. In fact, there is a very funny Hawaiian song in which several ethnic groups are made fun of. Nobody gets mad. As they say here "Ain't no big 'ting."

           Aloha
           Grant

From the Back of the Plane

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      From the Back of the Plane

I am sure that many of you remember when commercial flying was fun. Wide seats with wide armrests, free food served in coach class, and free movies.

In the good old days, Pan American, T.W.A. and other airlines carried passengers who were all well dressed, and were treated accordingly. Remember? Smoking was viewed as alright too. (cough cough)

Teena and I just returned home from a visit to the mainland. We flew both ways aboard Alaska airlines. The plane was the new Boeing 737 800 and 900 series. They are real happy with their new aircraft, but we are not! I would just like to get my hands on those designers and have them squeeze into their new slim, little padding, tiny armrests, and take a long ride and see how they would feel later. They have stretched the plane so more more passengers can be carried. Do I sense a profit motive here? Also the center aisle must be only fourteen inches wide, because the cart traveling  up and down it must be all of twelve inches wide. And if you are seated in an aisle seat, you are bumped repeatedly.

Some sort of I Pad is available to rent for $10.00. Restrooms up front and three in the rear of the plane for the rest of the herd.

In all fairness, I should mention that the prices for both food and drink are reasonable.  

In closing this rant I feel I should mention that you can avoid $25. per bag fee until boarding boarding when they will check it for you with no charge. But  I will have to admit that the plane carried us safely both ways, and isn't that what it is supposed to do?

      Aloha
      Grant

The Wright Brothers

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        The Wright Brothers

For centuries men have looked at the birds flying in the sky, with envy. One ancient Greek myth tells of a man named Icarus, who fashioned wings of feathers and wax. But when he flew too close to the sun,the wax melted and he plunged into the sea.

It was Leonardo DaVinci, who made the first intensive study of flying. His famous notebooks show drawings of bird's wings, and a man recalling in a machine for flying.

The dream of flying became real through the efforts of two brothers Wilber and Orville Wright. Working alone in their Dayton, Ohio bicycle shop they read all the information about gliders, and even constructed a wind tunnel in order to study wing shapes.

But their story is best told in the new biography "The Wright Brothers," by David McCullough, the two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I feel that this book is one of the best biographies I have ever read.

I fear that if I write too many details of the book it will ruin it for any reader. Charlie Taylor, a brilliant mechanic built  a four cylinder motor  which delivered 8 horsepower to the two hand-carved spruce propellers, eight and a half feet long , via a chain link drive.

The story of those test flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and all the rest of the story I will leave to the book. But I will mention that the Wright Brothers home and bicycle shop can be visited at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village Museum, Dearborn, Michigan. If you are ever in the Detroit area, be sure to visit it.

The only other event which can compare to the Wright brothers, is when Neal Armstrong carrying a patch from their 1903 airplane, stepped out onto the moon.

       Aloha
       Grant