Madison in June

Mama Birthday Guitar Lesson Videos

2011-11-07T16:46:00.001-06:00

Lesson #1: Strings of the Guitar:

Lesson #2: Chords in the Key of G

Lesson #3: Four More Common Chords

Lesson #4: C Major and G Major Scales

Lesson #5: Changing Chords Practice 1

Lesson #6: Changing Chords Practice 2

Lesson #7: Changing Chords Practice 3

Lesson #8: Strumming Patterns

Lesson #9: You Are My Sunshine

Lesson #10: This Land Is Your Land

Spectrum of the Sky

2011-04-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

I think this image is really beautiful:

From http://thebarracuda57.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/spectrum_of_the_sky-wide.jpg

Blogs here, Blogs there, Blogs everywhere!

2011-02-06T15:25:00.001-06:00

So, although my posting over here at Madison in June has been pretty slow lately, I have actually been writing blog posts, just in another venue. Let me introduce my new blog: Dining and Opining.

I've been wanting to focus more on food writing for some time now, and so creating this separate blog gives me the space to focus more exclusively on my food thoughts, activities, and general goings-on, and to share my writing more widely. I still plan to write in this space from time to time, but with a more personal feel and for a smaller audience--namely, all of you who I love!

Oh, and toward the end of not having too many different blogs all over the place, I've decided it's time to say goodbye to my mostly-defunct academic blog, You're the Historian, but I've imported all of the back posts into Madison in June, so that they're still accessible.

But please do check out the new blog, and let me know what you think!

Postcard Wall

2011-01-10T15:37:00.002-06:00

One of the main goals of the last week or so in the Zeide-Horn household has been to de-clutter and refresh our home, to embrace our roles as "home-makers" and to make our space feel more like us. Among the ways that we've tried to reach this goal is new wall hangings throughout the house. The space above the piano in our living room has long been itching for something new to display, and so we came up with this idea of a postcard wall, where we could display postcards from friends, a few photographs, and other aesthetically-pleasing images from magazines and old calendars, in a grid-work fashion.

And so, this was born:

Some of you are already well-represented on this wall (cards from GR, JB, DJ, CH, and others!), but we'd like to have more of you in our home! If you'd like to participate, we'd love it if you'd send us a postcard (or a roughly 4"x6" photograph, card, or other pretty two-dimensional item) so that we may add rows and columns and memories of you to our wall... (email us if you don't have our address and want it).

Looking forward to expanding our postcard wall!

Reflection amid song

2010-12-21T22:51:00.000-06:00

As this semester comes to a close, with impending flights to warmer, family-filled places and an end to this grading, I've been thinking a lot (too much?!) about all the things that have come together to make this semester feel so auspicious,* so productive, so full of hope. These things are many, and perhaps will be elaborated upon further in blog posts to come, but one of them has most certainly been a return to our roots for both Justin and me--musical satisfaction and conversation/affection, respectively. Interestingly enough, both of these sets of roots have been planted in the soil provided by a new friend, who has brought with him both reminders of Annas and Justins past, and a chance for some guerrilla wassailing.

Guerrilla waissalling, or glorified Christmas caroling, is a lovely combination of four-part harmony and college spontaneity. Justin had been practicing a few songs with a group of (mostly) UW undergrads for the last few weeks, which all culminated in several outings to coffee shops and breakfast nooks, pizza places and public buses, complete with vibrant renditions of Joy to the World and We Three Kings.

Here, the waissallers regaled a friend of ours with song. I particularly love the gleeful look on our friend's face (and his thumbs-up!) as he took in the beautiful voices and wondered how he got so lucky:

*I first came to know the word "auspicious" when my high school roommate was studying for the SATs and would go around saying "'auspicious' is an auspicious word." Later, on the first day of training when I worked at Interlochen, the Intermediate Girls Lakeside staff did an icebreaker where we had to go around and say our names along with an adjective that began with the same letter as our names. I said "Auspicious Anna." The next day, the administrators asked if I wanted to be a unit leader for the summer (which included a pay raise and slightly more prestige). I accepted, not knowing why they chose me even though it was my first summer at Interlochen and I was younger than many of the other counselors. Later in the summer, when I asked my boss why I was chosen for this position, she said it was because I had used the word "auspicious" during that icebreaker on the first day of the summer. An auspicious word indeed.

Shout Out!

2010-12-21T21:55:00.001-06:00

Much-needed appreciation to power me through this end-of-semester grading:

The UW student paper, the Badger Herald, has this feature called "Shout-Outs" where people can give shout-outs (SO, or antishout-outs--ASO) to whatever or whomever they want, in an anonymous fashion if they so prefer. A friend told me that I got my very own SO today! Never have my teaching warm-fuzzies been more strongly felt...

Digging through the archives...

2010-11-22T09:03:00.001-06:00

This post might be more appropriate for my other, now mostly-defunct, blog, but I was just re-reading my dissertation proposal from last year and was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed reading it, as a document for its own sake! I thought I'd share the first page here, in hopes of feedback or other ideas it might spur. Let me know what you think, eh?

Few images are more evocative of rural places, of domesticity, and of a tranquil American past than that of the middle-aged white farm wife, with her hair in a bun and an apron around her waist, pouring fruit into glass jars, immersing the jars into kettles of hot water, and then, when the jars have cooled, lining them up on a cupboard shelf, neat and tidy and ready to nourish her family through the winter.

With today’s increased interest in eating locally and in the do-it-yourself movement—exemplified by the popularity of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle—this nostalgic image has re-emerged and taken on a new sheen. A New York Times article from May 2009 describes home canning in the twenty-first century as a “quasi-political act,” because many of its new practitioners see it as a way of opting out of the food industry, out of scientific modernity and technology. [1]

One of the characters depicted in this Times article, a woman who has published a canning cookbook, Eugenia Bone, exemplifies this new movement within home canning. Not only does she look very different from the housewives of yore—the article describes her as having “spent her youth in a plastic miniskirt, smoking and running between punk music shows on the Lower East Side”—but she also flouts the restrictions scientific and government regulations have placed upon home canning. She delights in a jar of tuna three years old, two years past the USDA recommendations: “The Feds wouldn’t like it…But it’s still going to make a great lunch.” This confidence Bone displays in the safety of foods processed in her own kitchen stands in stark contrast to the increasing suspicions American consumers harbor against industrially-processed foods.

These rising concerns about industrial food safety are one reason people are picking up on this renewed trend of home canning. Another reason is perhaps revealed in this rich statement Eugenia Bone makes about the meaning of her home-canned products: “The jars are like characters, with story lines that I remember…Seeing them brings back the farm where I bought that case of artichokes, or the day we picked all those cherries.” Industrially-processed foods, and especially commercial cans with their opaque containers and colorful labels, are characters without stories, without history. Or, rather, with concealed histories. They enter our homes and our cupboards as anonymous members of enormous grocery stores displays. If they evoke memory, it is of a standard, prosaic shopping practice that almost all American consumers experience regularly.

This project aims to uncover those concealed histories, to find the stories inside the opaque industrial can. Although some Americans may now be moving back to the practice of home canning and eating locally produced foods, it is important to understand what led Americans away from that model in the first place, over a hundred years ago. Commercially canned foods were among the earliest processed food products, and were, in many ways, a foreign way of eating for Americans. This is a story of how Americans came to view a metal can as an important element in their cupboards, how they learned to trust its unknown and unseen contents, and how an increasing reliance on processed foods affected their sense of connection to the environments around them.

[1] Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (HarperCollins, 2007) follows the author and her family as they try to eat only locally grown foods for a full year; Julia Moskin, “Preserving Time in a Bottle (or a Jar),” The New York Times, May 27, 2009.

The emails I received from my brother today

2010-10-09T18:24:00.001-05:00

Your nephew sleeps well in the car.

Thumbs are tucked in for safekeeping.

Mouth is slightly ajar for optimal respiration.

Toes twitch periodically to indicate that Jeremy has entered the dreaming phase of sleep.

That time of year...

2010-10-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

...when the accidental squash are running away with productivity! All those squash seeds from last years' compost that got randomly spread throughout our garden yielded a hefty haul of butternut and delicata and carnival and sweet dumpling and ambercup and maybe even some unidentified squashes!

Eddie Vedder doesn't quite know what to make of all this...

And what should we make of all this? Any recipe or serving ideas?

Visions of squash soup and stuffed squash and squash/bean enchiladas and sugar plum fairies are dancing through my head!

Swinging with Da-Doom

2010-08-26T15:37:00.002-05:00

Gif animator

Yonnondio

2010-08-12T14:43:00.003-05:00

To follow up on the last post, a passage from Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio: From the Thirties, that captures so well the toil and fast pace and difficulty of canning in an early twentieth century kitchen, with sick kids and flies and heat to boot:

"In the humid kitchen, Anna works on alone. Mazie lies swathed in sweated sleep in the baking bedroom. Jimmie and Jeff sleep under the kitchen table, their exhausted bodies, their hair damp and clinging to their perspiring heads, given them the look of drowned children. Ben lies in sleep or in a sleep of swoon, his poor heaving chest laboring on at its breathing. Bess has subsided in her basket on a chair where, if she frets, Anna can sprinkle her with water or try to ease the heat rash by sponging. The last batch of jelly is on the stove. Between stirring and skimming, and changing the wet packs on Ben, Anna peels and cuts the canning peaches--two more lugs to go. If only all will sleep awhile. She begins to sing softly--I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea--it clears her head. The drone of fruit flies and Ben's rusty breathing are very loud in the unmoving, heavy air. Bess begins to fuss again. There, there, Bessie, there, there, stopping to sponge down the oozing sores on the tiny body. There. Skim, stir; sprinkle Bess; pit, peel and cut; sponge; skim, stir. Any second the jelly will be right and must not wait. Shall she wake up Jimmie and ask him to blow a feather to keep Bess quiet? No, he'll wake cranky, he's just a baby hisself, let him sleep. Skim, stir; sprinkle; change the wet packs on Ben; pit, peel and cut; sponge. This time it does not soothe--Bess stiffens her body, flails her fists, begins to scream in misery. Just then the jelly begins to boil. There is nothing for it but to take Bess up, jounce her on a hip (there, there) and with her one free hand frantically skim and ladle. There, there. The batch is poured and capped and sealed, all one-handed, jiggling-hipped. There, there, it is done."

Toiling away in the kitchen...

2010-08-10T21:48:00.001-05:00

So it's possible that that last applesauce post of mine made it seem like this whole canning business is easy-peasy, but in fact, it's damn hard work. One of the reasons I wanted to try my hand at canning (besides the obvious fact that it helps us eat more locally year-round, by preserving summer crops grown in the Madison area for eating in the winter and spring) was that I wanted to have a better sense of connection to the men and women I write about who canned food in the home and factory environments in the early twentieth century. The men in the factory had a whole different set of issues to deal with, but those women at home were doing much of the same sort of work that I'm trying my hand out. Well, by "much of the same," I may mean that the general process of sterilization and preservation of food by heat and vacuum sealing was the same, but of course many of them had to deal with a lack of running water, or stoves that had to be supplied with firewood and stoked by hand, or kitchens with no ventilation, or homes with nothing like the air conditioning that sometimes pumps through our house and keeps the home environment tolerable even as the water in the canner boils away. So, not really the same at all.

Walking the walk

2010-08-10T15:45:00.001-05:00

(a post from a couple of months ago that I never actually published, but that makes sense to post before I write about my more recent canning adventures)

After all of this writing and talking about canned food, I decided it was time to actually try my hand at this home canning business.

Two instances came together perfectly to enable me to do just that: (1) Last week, I saw a box sitting by the dumpster outside our house. People often put things there when they no longer want them, but they're not exactly trash. I looked inside the box and what should I find, but 8 perfect quart-size Mason jars! and (2) After my recent place-based workshop [end of May 2010, focused on energy in the upper Midwest], there was lots of food left over from the snacks that had been purchased for the trip, among them many, many apples. We gave away as much of this food as possible, but I still ended upcoming home with several bags of apples. So, though they weren't garden fresh or even local, these apples seemed like a perfect first canning project.

So, I washed them and I peeled them:

Then I chopped them and I cooked them:

Then, while the apples cooked, I sterilized and heated those mason jars in a big boiling water canner, courtesy of Mom Horn:

And after the apples were hot (and I helped along their puree-ing with an immersion blender) and the jars were sterilized, I filled up the jars, wiped the rims with a clean towel, put on the new lids and sterilized screw-caps, and put the filled jars back in the boiling water for 20 minutes. Afterwards, I removed the filled jars with a jar-lifter, and voila! canned applesauce, ready for winter eating. Yum.

Stay tuned for August pickles and corn relish...

PEOPLE: In pictures

2010-07-05T15:13:00.002-05:00

My last post gave the nitty gritty about the class I've been teaching, but here I'd like to share some photos and some reflections. Because I feel like I probably shouldn't show images of my students without their permission, I'm going to stick to the slightly-less-evocative hand and back and food shots:

Day 3: Dairy Barn
Pictured below: (1) Teacher helping student tie on plastic food protectors (to protect from cow poo in the dairy barn!); (2) a sad cow, chained up, buck-toothed, and seemingly pleading for help; (3) one of my students sticking his arm into a cow's fistula:

Day 4: Gardening at FH King
Pictured below: (1) Collards growing on the student farm; (2) A Madison scene if ever there was one; (3) The students made a salad with lettuce, mustard greens, and mesclun mix from the garden (and some of them even ate it!):

Day 8: Badger Rock Middle School
Pictured below: (1) A beautiful purple cabbage just beginning to make its way into the world, (2) Student friendship, (3) Robert Pierce and his daughter Shelly, the masterminds behind the South Madison Farmer's Market and the Madison branch of Growing Power:

Day 9: L'Etoile
Pictured below: (1) Chef Tory Miller showing the students a map of Wisconsin and the over 70 farms that deliver produce to L'Etoile, one of Madison's finest restaurants, (2) Tory cooking up a fancy meal for the kids, reflected in the mirror above his cooking table, (3) The fancy meal itself: quiche, greens, and a parmesan crisp

Day 10: Porchlight
Pictured Below: (1) Students mixing up the batter for chocolate chip scones, (2) The Porchlight Products director explaining to the students how she works with formerly homeless adults and trains them in food production using locally-sourced foods, (3) The delicious scones in all their glory, (4) The students got to make their own strawberry jam, which is sold in shops across Madison (5) with this label! (6) One of my students pouring hot jam into a jar for canning:

Pictures from many days: Food
Pictured below: (1) Salsa the kids made using fair trade tomatoes, in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, on Day 5; (2) Juneberries foraged from several trees on campus, on Day 6; (3) Fruit salad made to contrast the kind served frozen and in heavy syrups in school cafeteria, on Day 7

PEOPLE

2010-07-04T15:11:00.001-05:00

Now that the whole experience is over, I feel like I finally have the distance (and the time) to write a little bit about what I've been doing for the past three weeks. I had the great fortune to be able to design and teach a class on food and agricultural systems, called "You Are What You Eat," for an innovative program on campus known as PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence), which is a pre-college pipeline program for students of color. If the students stay in the program for the full six years, beginning in seventh grade (which includes summer classes and after-school programs and standardized test prep), and get into any University of Wisconsin system university, they get to go for free! So, it has the great potential to really make a difference in expanding college opportunities for kids from under-represented groups. This year was actually the first year that students graduated from college who had begun PEOPLE in the seventh grade, and there were 60 PEOPLE scholars in this year's graduating class at UW-Madison. So, in almost all ways, a real success.

In any case, I (along with a friend of mine who was my co-teacher) got to teach a middle school summer class, with thirteen students, who were rising seventh, eighth, and ninth graders from around the city of Madison. I'd spent the last several months planning the curriculum for this class, and still ended up staying late almost every night trying to get everything together before class the next day. Although many of the administrators did a good job of mis-characterizing our class as one about "nutrition," it was actually much more broadly conceived, with a week on Production, one on Distribution, and one on Consumption, or, as we translated it for the kids "where your food comes from, how it gets to you, and how you eat it."

Here's an outline of the syllabus, including all our awesome field trips and the snacks we had each day:

Week 1: Introduction/Production

Day 1: INTRODUCTION TO FOOD SYSTEMS; creating food system collages (Snack: Peanut Butter, Strawberry Jam, Crackers, Oranges, Raisins)
Day 2: WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE? AND DOCUMENTARIES; Media scavenger hunt around campus (Snack: Popcorn)
Day 3: ANIMALS; Field trip to Babcock Dairy Store and UW cow barn (Snack: Babcock ice cream)
Day 4: PLANTS AND GARDENING; Field trip to F.H. King student farm (Snack: hand-picked salad)
Day 5: LABOR AND FAIR TRADE; Lesson on Coalition of Immokalee Workers (Snack: salsa with locally-grown tomatoes)

Week 2: Distribution

Day 6: LOCAL FOOD AND FOOD MILES; How far does your food travel activity (Snack: Juneberries foraged on campus)
Day 7: SCHOOL LUNCH; Debating Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (Snack: Fresh-made fruit cups)
Day 8: SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION; Field trip to the Badger Rock Middle School (Snack: PEAT program lunch)
Day 9: RESTAURANTS; Field trip and cooking lesson with L'Etoile's Chef Tory Miller (Snack: broccoli quiche, fresh greens with house-made raspberry vinaigrette, and parmesan crips)
Day 10: HOMELESSNESS AND FOOD PRODUCTION; Field trip and kitchen work at Porchlight

Week 3: Consumption

Day 11: FOOD ADVERTISING; Design your own food commercial activity (Snack: oranges, apples, carrot, cucumber, and celery sticks with hummus and peanut butter)
Day 12: FOOD CULTURE; What the World Eats activity (Snack: home-made spring rolls!)
Day 13: FARMERS MARKETS; Field trip to Dane County Wednesday Market (Snack: baguette, cheese curds, raspberries, strawberries, sugar-snap peas)
Day 14: FOOD WASTE AND RECYCLING; Sorting trash activity, making thank you cards, and salsa recipe creations (Snack: home-made salsas)
Day 15: LAST DAY AND CELEBRATION!; wrap-up and closure (Snack: home-baked chocolate chip cookies!)

Photos and more thoughts to come in the next post...

ONE

2010-06-26T17:57:00.001-05:00

To catch up on overdue posts, and to continue the theme of my last pre-anniversary post, here's a little peek into the celebration of Anna+Justin one year later.

Although our official anniversary (of the ceremony day, June 14) was on Monday, both because I had to teach that day (the first day of my PEOPLE program class! about which I'll write more soon) and because we wanted to honor our whole wedding weekend as much as that one day, we did a lot of our celebrating on the Sunday before. The plans for the day mutated various times, and bike rides with friends and canoe trips were prevented by closed signs and rainy weather predictions. So, we embraced the strawberry season that it was to take a trip to JenEhr Family Farm, the only certified organic strawberry farm in this part of Dane County (did you know that strawberries are #3 on the list of the "dirty dozen"--fruits/vegetables that are the most laden with pesticides when not organic?)

So, we traveled a few miles down the road to gather 18 pounds worth of delicious, local, organic strawberries. As we began picking, a little boy ran right by our row, screaming "STRAWBERRIES!" at the top of his lungs, face and shirt covered in pink-red stains. Exactly.

After a day of berry-picking, a picnic lunch, and a dinner at a yummy Vietnamese-Thai place in town, we gorged ourselves on cake and strawberries. Since the Willy St. Co-op bakery had made our two wedding cakes (chocolate and carrot) last year, we decided to order a smaller version of the chocolate wedding cake to eat on our first anniversary. So, we had a lot of chocolate cake. So much cake. We ate it for several days on end, froze some of it, and took some of it to a potluck and Time's Up party.

The next day, on the actual anniversary, after I taught my first class, Justin met me for lunch at an Italian place downtown that our friends had been raving about for the last year or so. We had a eggplant panini with a really interesting carrot-white bean-dill soup and margherita pizza with really well-dressed greens. The meal was not as outstanding as we might have hoped, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway (andthe company and conversation were unparalleled).

That night, we dined at an even nicer place: Casa Zeide-Horn, and enjoyed beautiful plates of Mexican salad and strawberry daiquiris Justin whipped up with our anniversary strawberries (which we continued eating and eating, and baking with, and freezing, and pureeing, and taking to our frisbee team for the rest of the week).

Finally, to conclude our festivities, we indulged in my favorite part of the anniversary, the reading of our one-year letters! At our wedding last year, we had a table with little slips of paper for people to write notes for us to open on our first anniversary. We savored each and every one, taking in the love and the humor and the wittiness of our friends, reliving the evening and the joy of our wedding and reception. I wish we'd had everyone write us letters for our 2nd and 3rd and 4th and on and on anniversaries... (hint, hint)

To sink more deeply into nostalgia, we watched a video of our wedding ceremony, read our vows to one another, watched the videos of our wedding guests sharing their wishes for us, and looked through our wedding scrapbook. We also began a tradition of writing each other letters, which we hope to do every year on our anniversary, and then to enclose them in an anniversary scrapbook I made for us this year. It's been a heck of a year, but I know the best is still to come. Happy sigh.

Harvest, with days to spare

2010-06-08T10:45:00.001-05:00

Last night, we finally made it out to Harvest (a fine-dining restaurant in Madison that uses local and organic ingredients) to use one of the gift certificates we'd been given for our wedding by my dearest high school friends NB, RS, and AM. With only one week until our first anniversary (!) and an impending gift certificate expiration date, we snuck in this dinner just in the nick of time.

The whole experience was lovely, and though some of the food was a bit over-salted, we were impressed by the range and creativity of their offerings.

Compliments of the chef, a fresh spring garlic puree soup and a warm, toasty roll:

A delicious cocktail, the bee's knees (with a real piece of honey on comb stuck in for good measure!):

Our first courses, Seared Sea Scallops with Parsnip Chips and Parsnip Puree, and Grilled Asparagus with Farro, Spinach, and House-Made Ricotta:

Then, for our main course we shared the House-Made Cavatelli Pasta with Asparagus, Mint, Chili, and Olive Oil and three other sides: Spinach with Crispy Garbanzos, Chickpea Fries, and the Seasonal Mushrooms Hen of the Woods.

Finally, for dessert, we had the Chocolate Almond Cake with Caramel and the House-Made Mint Ice Cream (which actually tasted like mint leaves!), along with two Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies, compliments of the chef:

Throughout it all, we thought of and sent vibes of love and gratitude to our friends who gave us this night, and to everyone who shared our wedding with us, almost a year ago.

Yum.

Birthday scavenger hunt!

2010-04-27T22:13:00.001-05:00

If you know me, you know I love a good scavenger hunt (see, for reference, my first birthday at Wash U on my freshman floor; my 20th birthday with a cross-campus hunt; Justin's 20th birthday with a cross-city hunt; our wedding weekend with a cross-Madison hunt; and many others). And, it turns out, my friends in Madison know me!

Last Thursday, on the night before my birthday, some philosopher friends and a couple of others threw a surprise birthday party for me, full of delicious food...

...and an even more delicious scavenger hunt. The wonderful mind that has brought us Shakespeare reading nights and visits to the American Players Theatre and rollicking games of Psychiatrist or Time's Up and wisdom on the alienability of bodily rights (and so much more!), our friend Hallie, crafted one of the most complicated and intricate scavenger hunts and riddle games I've ever seen. I'm sure my synopsis won't do it justice, but each team of two had to work their way through the following seven clues, each of which refers to a specific holiday:

1.
The number of the month
in which this holiday persists,
Minus that of the month
in which Caesar ceased to exist,
Is a day of the year,
Familiar to your ear.

2.
To figure out which holiday,
You've been assigned, here is your way:

Take the last name of the red-haired gent,
Who is not on this party's roll-call,
But who lives with someone who has spent,
This evening with us all.
Now combine that name with a syllable,
Within the name of the birthday girl.

3.
Should you wonder which friends of Anna's are timely, examine
Old Facebook posts tomorrow night, and then look at those
Acquaintance(s) who have yet to wish her happy B-day,
Be-hold! You'll see who
Forgot. What day (besides Anna's birthday) is riddle here
?

4.
What Day?
The worst day for those still in school,
In honor of those who are done,
The last day for any of these fools,
To spend any time in the sun.

5.
It's a day that all science teachers love,
And that every hippie fancies,
It even rhymes with the end state of,
Most non-terminated pregnancies

6.
A thin room,
Not for meals or rest.

An exclamation,
sometimes said with zest.
Slowly giving up,
the breast.

7.
What Day am I?
My first syllable is for bravery
Though, for that quality I am not praised,
My third (to engage in a little knavery)
Rhymes with the last word of each phrase:
On Greeks, the Cyclops _______.
On Turkey, Nala the Cat ________.
On the products of Stephen's cooking, you ______.

After correctly guessing each of these clues, we got to take yet another rhyming clue from the corresponding month that led us to a specific trinket in Hallie's apartment, hidden away in hats and under book covers, in jewelry boxes and vitamin bottles, on cat posts and under pillows, and in egg racks. First team to collect all seven trinkets was the winner! (My team came very, very close, but Justin's team squeaked ahead to take the lead).

Anyone want to play along and guess some of the answers to these clues? Like I said, each clue refers to a specific American, well-known holiday. Genius.

It was an awesome beginning to a purely wonderful birthday, filled with bike rides to Lake Mendota parks and college reunions, phone calls and hugs, St. Louis Thai food and best friends on all sides. Thanks to all who helped make it so sweet!

Mix CDs

2010-04-21T09:59:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, one of my favorite blogs, Accordions and Lace, (which I first discovered as a wedding blog, but which has now become a wonderful mix of food writing, observations on life, and thoughts on relationships and family) proposed a mix CD exchange, in which her readers signed up and she then assigned everyone a buddy for whom they'd create a mix CD, along with cover art. I thought this was a totally awesome idea, that really captured the things I love about the social networking possible on the internet and about creativity and thoughtful mail. So, I signed up and was soon sent the name of another A&L reader in Philadelphia.

At first, I had a hard time coming up with a list of songs to put on this CD--there were just too many that I loved, and I wasn't sure how to narrow them down, or how to find cohesion. But then, I noticed that several of the songs had animals in the titles or in the artists' names. So, I decided to go with the animal theme and to create a mix CD called "Menagerie," where every song or band had an animal in it. The cover art naturally flowed from there, as I depicted the menagerie present within the songs, along with little numbers matching the corresponding track.

Here are the fruits of my labor, along with the track list (click on the image to enlarge), if anyone's interested... How many of the animals can you name without checking the track list?

Wisconsin Film Festival 2010!

2010-04-19T22:25:00.005-05:00

This past weekend was the 2010 Wisconsin Film Festival, and although we were only able to see a small portion of all the films (there must have been at least a hundred!), we did catch some real winners. Some trailers and links or small blurbs are below.

The first night, on Thursday, we saw a series of British short films, and although 4 of the 5 were really great, the first two particularly stood out to us. They were both about the particular difficulties about adolescence, but approached this issue from such dramatically different perspectives and styles that they complemented each other perfectly (one leaving you shocked and with tears, the other with smiles).

Bale

Love Does Grow On Trees

Then, on Friday, we saw a Romanian film, "Police, Adjective," that was billed as the anti-Law-and-Order or any other cop drama on television, in that it showed the tedium of police life, in contrast to the fast-paced, action-packed appearance of police work on television. Read a great New York Times review of the film here
and then watch the trailer:

On Saturday, we got to cinematically travel to Justin's home state of Oklahoma, to learn more about the worst environmental disaster in the country, Tar Creek, and all the awful, unfair, disgusting things that are happening in the attempt to address the human and environmental impacts of this relic of the country's mining past. The thing I liked most about this film was how clear it was that "environmental damage" really comes in the form of human damage--developmental and learning disabilities in children from lead poisoning, collapsed homes, financial ruin, corrupt politicians, and disenfranchisement on all levels...

And then on the last day, I got to see two films that were paired together and gave different glimpses into the American prison system. The first, A Life Taken, about the case of Shawn Drumgold, a man who was wrongly convicted of murder and who spent 15 years in prison before finally being released. And then, Girls On the Wall, one of the most moving films I've seen in a long time, about a drama program at a juvenile detention center for girls. This was a film that made me cry and smile, reaffirmed my convictions about the importance of processing emotion and trauma through creativity, and brought home just how much the cycle of difficult and traumatic lives gets passed down from parent to child and how deeply rooted "criminal" behavior is in psychological turmoil:

Anyone else seen any good films lately?

Inspiration

2010-04-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

Among the more exciting food-related episodes in the last month or so are the cooking of Anna-inspired or Anna-fostered dishes all over the place (or at least in two other Midwestern places)!

Two of my very best friends, MC and NB, have been cooking beautiful food that looks like this:

MC's creations, using recipes and spices I sent for her birthday

and this:

NB's rendition of the enchiladas Tom Y. made so deliciously for our Bayless night a few weeks ago

These photos and the knowledge of the experiences that accompanied them have made me unspeakably happy. If only I could be doing this sort of cooking with all of my friends! If anyone else is secretly inspired out there, do pass on the stories...

Jonathan's Favorite Game

2010-04-02T12:38:00.001-05:00

Turns out all our nephews like this game at the four-month-old stage! This is a tribute video to our sister-in-law Amy and other nephew Jeremy (you can see their version here).

Do You Like the Word.... (Click Here)

Nephew Jonathan!

2010-03-28T16:26:00.002-05:00

After time in the archives and all around California on my own, Justin joined me a few days ago and we traveled to Santa Rosa, CA to meet our new nephew Jonathan! Though Jessica and Jason welcomed him to the family almost four months ago, we just now have had the chance to come out here to visit. It's already been a wonderful couple of days with Jonathan, full of tummy-rubbing and funny voices and baby cooing (and Justin's first try at diaper-changing!). We've also really enjoyed getting to spend time with Jessica and Jason, going to farmer's markets and (soon) wine country, talking about family, and getting to see what their lives are like out here.

We still have three more days of California fun and family before getting back to a Wisconsin spring in April. Happiness all around.

All I managed to capture of Sacramento, in photo form

2010-03-18T14:43:00.002-05:00

Although my three days here mostly looked like this:

I also managed to see (and almost taste!) some of these (who knew oranges grew on trees?!):

And smell some of these:

And do some of this:

...next to this:

All I managed to capture of Portland, in photo form

2010-03-18T00:41:00.001-05:00

here's food composting at the airport!

And Powell's has lots and lots of good books (here are their top 25 best sellers in both fiction and nonfiction, for all those reading lists out there):

Growing Power

2010-03-09T09:00:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow I leave for my west coast adventure of the American Society for Environmental History conference in Portland, archival work in Sacramento and Palo Alto, visiting friends in Oakland, and visiting family in Santa Rosa, CA. But before then, I wanted to write a post about an inspiring day we spent at Growing Power in Milwaukee a week ago.

I wrote about Growing Power and the amazing work Will Allen is doing there way back in September but we finally got to see the transformative urban farm for ourselves last week. And, let me tell you, it was incredible.

Throughout our day of goat-muck raking (the literal kind, not just the Upton Sinclair kind), compost shoveling, soil sifting, removing algal blooms from watercress, and more, we got to see first hand how this group has turned a piece of land smaller than the size of a city block, right smack dab in the middle of a Milwaukee neighborhood, into a food-producing haven.

They grow lots of greens and sprouts throughout the winter, raise tilapia and trout in their self-designed aquaponics system (in which the water flows through watercress, whose roots filter the fish poop out and use it to fertilize their own growth, seen above), raise chickens for eggs, have goats for manure, grow turkeys, and so much more. They also provide a space for education and empowerment, providing jobs to local underserved teenagers and helping to create a culture of healthy eating in Milwaukee schools and neighborhoods.

We feel so lucky to have gotten to visit this site, which has so much potential to revolutionize the way we grow food. In fact, when Michael Pollan was here last September and someone from the 8,000 member audience at his public talk asked a question about how we're supposed to grow our own, local food in northern regions in the middle of winter, Pollan pointed straight to Will Allen's Growing Power. So much power in learning to grow...

Failure Part 2: Mystery Strings

2010-03-08T13:35:00.002-06:00

I don't know if anyone's guessed yet what my second big mistake with respect to the cashew cheese ingredients was, but when I opened up our worm compost bin a couple of mornings ago to take a look at our voracious roommates, I also didn't yet know what my mistake had been.

But this is the sight that greeted me (and keep in mind that the last thing we'd put in our bin was a usual mix of vegetable cores, fruit peels, and newspaper more than a week ago):

Now, I don't know how familiar you all are with what a compost bin usually looks like, but let's just say it's usually very dark brown, with lots of wet-looking mostly-decomposed food, soil, and pink worms. Not mounds of long yellow stringy things.

So what could these be?! When I first discovered this, we had friends soon coming over for breakfast, so I had to ignore the problem for the time being. When I returned the next day, I pulled out one of these yellow string things to find this:

Can you tell what it is?!

It's a sprouted wheatberry!

You remember those wheatberries I'd thrown in after my failed cashew cheese attempt? Well, they'd taken root in our fertile and lush compost and had sprouted in the dark and damp worm bin conditions, pulling up all the nutrients from the compost and crowding our poor little worms. I spent the better part of the morning pulling out these shoots, cutting them up, and mixing them back in with newspaper in a new layer of the compost bin (I assume they won't just take root again...) Even as it was kind of a pain, it was also really cool to realize how much growth potential our compost has and to think about these grains we eat as breathing seeds capable of regeneration.

Now I just can't wait for spring and the ability to use this compost in our very own garden!

Failure Part 1: Cashew Cheese

2010-03-07T13:30:00.000-06:00

Lest you devoted readers begin to think that my time in the kitchen and in the creative world of cookery is all sunflowers and rainbows, let me share with you a two-part story of failure (Part 2 to come tomorrow, so stay tuned).

The first part begins with an e-conversation I had with our friend Kroy, who had been living in India at this awesome sustainable community Sadhana Forest, where he'd participated in this vegan cooking workshop that he told me about. In the workshop, they'd made a cashew cheese, which he raved about. And so I thought I'd try it. The recipe was very straightforward:

Vegan Cashew Cheese spread

This recipe makes a healthy cholesterol free cheese which tastes amazingly like cheese. It needs to be made before hand as it takes 2 days to get the mature cheese.

INGREDIENTS
½ cup wheat berries (whole wheat grains that have not been milled)
1 cup whole or broken raw cashews (or any other nut)
Salt, pepper and herbs to taste

METHOD
Wash the wheat berries and soak them in a jar in 1 cup drinking water. Leave this jar open for 24 hours in a cupboard or keep it lightly covered. In case of very cold temperatures it could be left a little longer.

The water will turn a little yellowish or serum colored and will have a sweet fermented smell after 24 hours. (This is called Rejeuvelac and is supposed to be a very healthy drink, which you can make and drink everyday.) Pour this rejeuvelac into a glass. If desired another cup of water make be added to the wheat berries to produce more rejeuvelac after another 24 hours. It can be drunk or used to make still more cheese. After 2 such uses the wheat berries are usually thrown away.

Grind the raw cashews to form a powder (it does not need to be absolutely fine) and then put this into a jar, which has at least twice the volume of the cashews. Pour Rejeuvelac over the cashews so that they are covered with it. There may be some extra rejeuvelac, which can be drunk or thrown away. The whole mixture will now ferment and grow so if the jar is too small it can overflow. Do not cover the jar or cover lightly.

After about 6 – 8 hours the cheese is ready. Add salt, pepper and herbs or other seasonings. Serve.

So, I soaked the wheatberries:
Ground the cashews:
And combined the cashews and the wheatberry juice:
Although everything seemed to be in order, the cheese somehow never really set and so I ended up leaving it out a little longer before refrigerating it. After another day or so in the fridge, it began to have a ricotta-like consistency and definitely took on a flavor all its own. I thought I might have gotten it to work (!), but within an hour of that potentially-successful tasting, I tried it again only to find that it had totally soured. The whole thing tasting more like sour milk than cheese and it only increased in sour-ness over the next couple of hours. I was a little sad to have had my experiment fail, but I sucked it up, washed the cheese down the sink, threw the wheatberries in the compost bin, and went on my merry way.

What did I do wrong? Any ideas?

(And any ideas on what the second part of my failure might be?...)

Youth Grow Local

2010-03-02T12:17:00.001-06:00

I've been meaning to write for over a week now about the conference I helped plan and that went off swimmingly two weekends ago, February 20. I thought I'd wait until I got to see some of the photos from the conference, but still no photos. So, a few words instead!

As some of you know, I've been involved with a local organization for the past 8 months or so, Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens, that has really changed my outlook on how I spend my time now and into the future. It's been a wonderful relationship, full of kid gardeners, outdoor cooking, hand-blended pesto, a fundraising campaign for an outdoor kids' kitchen, and lots of Madison community and people who care about kids and good food.

So, the purpose of this conference was to bring together all the people around the region who are working on youth gardening in its various forms. Over 150 people signed up! So many that we had to add another session to fit everyone in. There were workshops on seed starting, on hands-on garden activities, on cooking in the garden (led by me and two others!), on nutrition and health, on local resources for garden supplies, on garden-based school curricula, and more! (Check out the full schedule on the quick-and-dirty website I made for the conference.) Chef Tory Miller, a local celebrity chef from L'Etoile restaurant gave a keynote address and IronWorks Cafe, led by Undergound Food Collective's Ben Hunter, served a lunch of amazing sourdough bread; a potato and oyster mushroom soup; and a confit of local organic chicken, celeriac, and kale. There was so much energy throughout the event.

One of the most exciting aspects of the conference was just hearing where all of these people were coming from, and learning that there were over a hundred different jobs in the Madison area employing people to work on issues around youth gardening! It made me feel much more hopeful about the possibility of incorporating something like that into my future career--whether primarily or extra-curricular-ly. Madison is an amazing place because of all its enthusiasm for ethical and sustainable approaches to food and agriculture. Hooray!

(click on the image above to open a pdf of this awesome Garden
Toolkit put together as a resource by the Wisconsin Department
of Health Services and by Community GroundWorks)

Chocolate Party (at Home)

2010-02-25T15:55:00.000-06:00

So, it looks like this is quickly becoming a food blog... Perhaps it's just that cooking and eating and writing and thinking about food is most of what I do for fun these days, and so it always feels like the appropriate topic of conversation. Is it? Do you all like hearing about our eating escapades?

In any case, this time around, the fair Mexican mole is our topic of conversation. (Though just now after reading the Wikipedia entry for "Mole sauce," I'm not exactly sure this can be labeled as such, since it doesn't neatly fall into any of the categories laid out there. But it was delicious!)

The idea for this dish came from an invitation to a Mardi Gras-Chocolate Party (hosted by some local Madison foodies) we got a couple weeks back that encouraged us to bring something chocolate to pass. Because I figured most things there were going to be of the sweet variety, I thought it would be fun to make something savory and chocolatey. We also had this bar of 85% cacao Dagoba chocolate that was far too bitter for actual eating but that I thought would make a delicious mole sauce. First I thought about making something like empanadas with a mole filling, but then that seemed like too much work. And so, the idea for mole black bean quesadillas was born!

This also gave me the opportunity to use our new pressure cooker, which I'm quickly learning to love. We've decided to go BPA-free (see Consumer Reports review of BPA in canned food here), giving up canned foods for the most part, and definitely at least canned beans for now (just in time for my history of canning dissertation!). So the pressure cooker really comes in handy for this. We buy lots of beans in bulk at the co-op (so cheap!), and then after soaking them overnight in 3 parts water to 1 part beans, cook them in the pressure cooker for just 4 minutes, let the pressure drop, and voila! delicious, perfectly-cooked, non-salty, non-chemical-filled beans! We've then taken to freezing portions of these beans in 2 cup servings, so that they can be had on hand for a quick meal, just like a can of beans. Now I just have to figure out what else the pressure cooker is especially handy for (I've been eying this book Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, by Lorna Sass, lately, so maybe someday I'll get some more ideas from there).

So, for this meal, I cooked a bunch of beans, and scooped out four cups to use in this recipe. Beautiful, shiny black beans:
I then combined these beans with 2 cups sauteed onion, 6 cloves minced and sauteed garlic, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, oregano, flour, vegetable broth, the crushed chocolate bar, sugar (which I only added because our chocolate was unusually bitter), and salt. And then it looked like this:

Finally, I made some quesadillas with this black bean-mole combination, some shredded Cedar Grove cheese, red onions, and pickled jalapenos on wheat tortillas (Trader Joe's has good trans-fat-free tortillas, which are actually surprisingly hard to find elsewhere). We used some of the leftover filling to make a quick burrito with the same ingredients, plus a thrown-together slaw of shredded cabbage and lemon juice.
Sadly, we didn't end up making it to the chocolate party, but at least Justin got to enjoy the fruits (or the quesadillas?) of my labor:
(We were so proud of how these turned out that I allowed myself to imagine that, if we had gone to the Madison foodie chocolate party, someone there would've exclaimed, "Whose quesadillas are these?! I want to hire this person to be my chef/caterer/food-provider," and a whole new life for me would've been born. I guess I'll just stick with my regular life for now...)

Bayless-Inspired Feast

2010-02-23T22:37:00.001-06:00

Last week, we joined with our friends for one of the very best home-cooked meals I've ever had. Inspired by Rick Bayless, we decided to put together a Mexican menu, the likes of which would--I'm betting--rival anything the man himself would serve. And I'm allowed to brag about this meal, I think, because most of the food (and all the best dishes) were not made by me, but by uber-culinarily-talented friends of ours (not that I usually have any problem bragging about my own dishes [unless you consider the bragging itself the problem...]). Feast your eyes on: Home-made Margaritas; Mushroom Ceviche; Smoked Trout and Poblano Salpicon; Citrus, Jicama, and Cucumber Salad; Twice-Fried Tofu Tortilla Soup; Swiss Chard, Onion and Monterey Jack-Filled Enchiladas in a Tomatillo Salsa; Green Poblano Rice; and Chocolate Pecan Pie. Wow.

Now off to dream Bayless-inspired dreams!

Weekly Food: Kheer Muffins

2010-02-09T22:44:00.000-06:00

The other great meal we had was at Maharaja, an Indian restaurant on Madison's east side. We got the vegetarian feast for two, and it came with way more food than we could handle: Samosas, Saag Paneer, Vegetable Korma, Karhi Pakora, Basmati Rice, Nan Bread and two desserts of mango ice cream and kheer. We had so much food that we had to take leftovers, but I, as usual, didn't want styrofoam containers. That was all that was on offer, though, so the best I could do was convince our waiter Kirv to bring only one container instead of two. But then he snuck in an extra little box, insisting we take the rest of the kheer (a sweetened dairy rice dish) home as well (even though we'd been trying to leave it behind since it was the one element of the meal we didn't love). So, we came home with these leftover curries--which we gobbled up--and this little box of cloyingly sweet, liquidy rice. I knew we weren't going to eat it in its present form, so I had to transform it.

And so I had to make some muffins. I've been on a muffin kick lately because they're about the only thing, besides fruit, that I can eat in the morning. Justin insists I eat a breakfast, so muffins it is. He's the Norm to my Marge. Here's the classic scene from Fargo that captures our relationship around breakfast:

(snoring)
(phone rings)

(Marge)
Oh, jeez.
Hi, it's Marge.
Oh, my. Where?
Yah.
Aw, jeez.
OK, there in a jiff.
Real good, then.
OK.

(hangs up phone)

(Marge to her husband Norm)
You can sleep. It's early yet.

(Norm)
Gotta go?

(Marge)
Yeah.

(Norm)
I'll fix you some eggs.

(Marge)
That's OK, hon. I gotta run.

(Norm)
You gotta eat a breakfast, Margie.
I'll fix you some eggs.

(Marge)
Oh, hon, you can sleep.

(Norm)
You gotta eat a breakfast.

And since I, too, like Margie, have gotta eat a breakfast, I took my cup of kheer, added a cup of white flour, a cup of wheat flour, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a quarter cup of soy milk, a tablespoon of butter, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and a handful of raisins, and popped it all in the oven.

And it worked! (and this is a real accomplishment for me, since I love to cook, but have never been much of a baker, especially an off-the-cuff sort of one!) Golden, tasty muffins: (I took the Kirv-ball thrown at us and threw it right back)

Weekly Food and Craft: Cartoons and Vegetarian Feasts

2010-02-09T22:30:00.000-06:00

My old friend Microsoft Paint came in handy this weekend, helping me to make a cartoon drawing for my friend D's 30th birthday. Here's the original:

And the cartoon version I drew:

Aside from crafting digital cartoons, I also found some time to do a little cooking this week, even amid the delicious meals we had out and about. More on the cooking in the next post, but first about the restaurant treats of the week. Last night, we attended a dinner of the Madison vegetarian meetup group, which has monthly dinners at local restaurants that offer a special vegan menu just for the group. Last night, it was at the Green Owl, Madison' s new and only vegetarian restaurant. Although we've been to the Green Owl before, they really put it all out there last night, serving a truly delicious meal of:

kalamata olive, pesto, and roasted red pepper tortilla roll-ups
hummus and baba ganouj with pita chips
baked corn cakes
samosa stuffed phyllo cups
spicy tomato and chickpea soup
Lebanese Sfeeha Pastry (spinach and walnuts in a folded soft pastry), served with carrot-cilantro salad, hummus, and muhammara;
vegan chocolate cream cake with raspberry puree
and orange blossom lemonade.

It was all amazing, but the cake may have taken top billing. Here's a photo I managed to find of the delectable dessert:

Weekly Kindness: Operation Parent Birthday

2010-02-04T21:36:00.000-06:00

For the last couple of weeks, my great friend D. B. has had a message on her Gmail chat status that read something like "Who wants to play Operation HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DANA'S PARENTS?" I decided that I very much wanted to play, and so she sent me her parents' address and my task was to send them a postcard. The idea was that she would get as many people to send them postcards as the number of years they were turning on their respective birthdays (though she didn't reveal what that number was).

So I made the parents an owl postcard (by cutting out the front of a card Justin's dad had sent us the week before and writing on the other side), recounting all the reasons I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate them on this day (whatever day it is when they receive the card!). I hope it brings them a smile or two, and that they feel loved and appreciated--most of all by their awesome daughter. Leave me a comment if you also want to play Operation HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DANA'S PARENTS? and I'll pass along their address to you.

Weekly Kindness is a part of my 2010 Resolutions of Happiness.

Weekly Conversation: Much-Needed Boosting

2010-02-02T23:05:00.000-06:00

Although I have sometimes felt that there's a great divide between graduate students and faculty, and that we are all too busy in this great rat race to actually sit down and have a conversation with someone we're not obligated to be invested in (or even when that obligation does exist!), today I was reminded that it does not always have to be that way. I poked my head into a faculty member's office today to chat about a totally procedural thing, and that small conversation turned into one that restored my faith in (some) professors' ability to be interested and engaged and present during a routine conversation. Besides talking about the issue I'd stopped by to discuss in the first place (which I got such good supportive advice about), we chatted about my undergraduate majors, about the power of good prose, about recruiting students from under-represented groups to our department, about my summer plans, about Justin's teaching, and so on. I left feeling somewhat renewed.

I shouldn't make this sound like a thing that never happens, because I've had many wonderful faculty members nurture me and applaud me during my 3.5 years here, but this conversation came at a particularly important time and boosted me more effectively than a deep brown plastic seat at a Midwestern restaurant ever could.Weekly Conversation is a part of my 2010 Resolutions of Happiness.

Resolutions of happiness

2010-02-01T14:47:00.000-06:00

Justin wrote some wonderful New Year's Resolutions this year, and although my only resolution so far was to write a similarly wonderful list, I haven't made it very far. So, I've decided that instead of making a traditional list, I'm just going to think about what makes me happy, and try to do one example of each on a weekly basis. Plus, if I actually keep up with this, perhaps it'll make good blogging material and I'll be able to check yet another resolution off my (imaginary) list: Blog Regularly. Please let me know what you think of these ideas, and which ones you might try to incorporate into your own life.

The List:

Weekly Blog: Write here at least once a week, documenting my progress on the other tasks.
Weekly Food: Cook a creative, delicious meal (or, for half a point, eat such a meal at a restaurant). (Send me recipes to try out!)
Weekly Craft: Make something! Whether it's a card, a gift, a sewing project, or a little note, exercise my craft muscle. (Share ideas, requests...)
Weekly Kindness: Do something nice for someone. I'm leaving this intentionally vague for now, and it may overlap with the other projects, but mainly I'm shooting for random acts of kindness that brighten someone else's day. (Please send ideas my way!)
Weekly Conversation: Have an interesting, enriching, and/or enlivening conversation with one person (besides Justin--though he of course is the ultimate in being interesting, enriching, and enlivening)
Monthly Reading: Read one non-work book per month. I guess it reflects well on what I'm doing academically that it's sometimes hard to differentiate work from non-work, but I'll do my darndest. And I'm always looking for reading recommendations.

We'll see how it goes!

My impressive friends...

2010-01-28T23:19:00.001-06:00

You may remember that last year I was really impressed with and inspired by a wedding invitation stop-motion animation video and felt like I would never find the time to make anything remotely like that myself. But then I did!

Although it's true that that invitation video was one of the main inspirations for my desire to try my hand at animation, another central motivation was my friend from college, Eric Portis, who once made our mutual friend J.B. a birthday animation video, that warmed my heart and made me love their friendship even more deeply than I already did.

Well, Eric's now made this sort of craft the center of his life, and has recently taken this animation thing to a whole new level, with an "unconscionably adorable" (his phrase) work of art that I'm happy to share with you: Click here. (It takes a few minutes to load, but is totally worth it).

And when you're finished watching the animation, take a look at some of his other art work, like this photo essay.

Sneak peek:

You're the Historian: News and Views

2009-12-24T00:02:00.002-06:00

The guest post today on "News and Views: The History of Science in America" blog is a tidbit from some of my research! I'm really excited go get to contribute to that awesome venture, and I hope that this guest post can encourage me to pick this blog back up.

What sorts of topics would be most interesting or useful for other graduate students or young scholars for me to write about or raise here? I'd love any input...

You're the Historian: ABD

2009-12-16T23:59:00.001-06:00

Today, I had my dissertation proposal defense.

Which basically just means I had a (somewhat intense) conversation with my committee members (three historians, of science, environment, and public health) about my 20-page proposal that I sent to them a week ago.

And it went well! I passed! I got lots of feedback about questions that still need answering and problems that still need addresssing, so the work is only beginning, but it feels wonderful to have jumped through this penultimate hoop. And one of my committee members even said, "I think this is a great project. I love it! I can't wait to read the book." So that's good news.

So, now I'm ABD (All But Dissertation). And I'm a dissertator. All these new titles to make my own.

Now I just have to figure out where to go from here, how to go from a life filled with concrete assignments and deadlines to one wide open and free. Any sage scholars out there have any good advice for me? I sure would appreciate it...

Winter in Madison

2009-12-16T20:43:00.000-06:00

Last week, we got something like 14 inches of snow in the course of one night here in Madison. The next day, the university was closed and we all had a snow day! We stayed home all day, and were able to avoid this sort of situation:
We did get to build a little snow-woman, have a snowball fight with our seven-year-old neighbor Cedric, and clear off the huge accumulation of snow on our car:

Later, over the weekend, we went on a retreat for one of Justin's classes to a 4H camp an hour north of Madison and got to go tobogganing, down a real toboggan ramp! It was pretty awesome, even though I was (a teeny tiny bit) scared and resisted going at first.
Sometimes, winter isn't so bad after all. (Even though it is 3 degrees F right now).

ABD

2009-12-16T20:34:00.000-06:00

Contest!

2009-12-06T22:01:00.000-06:00

And just in case someone didn't make it all the way to the bottom of my last post, I'm trying to get a sense of readership, so leave your name or comments in the comments section and I will deliver a tasty surprise to a randomly chosen person from among those. Thanks!

Community and Contest!

2009-12-06T22:00:00.000-06:00

So I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of blogging lately (and have been talking about it with my office-mate AS), for a variety of reasons:

(1) I've been trying to take my Twitter account from being a class assignment related to the film festival to something I actually use for networking and becoming part of this larger community of online food/agriculture/environment commentators. I like the idea of connecting with strangers half way across the world who care about the same issues that I do.

(2) I got a really nice comment on my Facebook profile: "I basically need to read the "Anna Times" everyday. Giving the FB world a reality check. THANK YOU! Keep it up. And when you go on missions to put the world back together take me with you! :)" This comment made me reflect on the random stuff I post to my Facebook wall simply because I come across something interesting and feel like sharing it with people and don't want to bother Justin yet again. (Topics ranging from historical tidbits about food to Bhopal to Jonathan Safran Foer and back). The idea that someone actually reads these things and finds them useful made me feel really happy and purposeful. Given that I get half of my news from links people post on Facebook, I know how meaningful this little act of social media can be, and I'd like to think that my blog can serve some of the same purpose.

(3) I first began this blog because I wanted all my friends to read it, and I wanted them to know what was going on in my life in the spaces between our monthly phone calls. When we did talk on the phone, I wanted them to ask questions like "How's your composting going?" (Thanks, AMM!) and wanted them to know what I spent my time doing even if we didn't talk all the time. I wanted them to see the blog as a weekly update on my life. But the problem is that I don't know how many of my friends actually read this blog, and I'm not sure that people are inclined to keep up with blogs if they don't use Google Reader as obsessively as I do. So now when I talk to people, I have no idea if they're already aware of my life through my blog, or if I have to fill them in on my quest for a winter coat or on the film festival or on those delicious savory pies that I baked. The only way I know anyone reads this (and my current reader count that I'm aware of is up to 5) is if he/she leaves comments (BadgerBear and Mike!) or is my Mama.

So, I'd like to hear from you who sometimes read this. What purpose can this blog serve? Do you like reading it? What can I do to make it better?

To add some incentive to all this, I'm going to deliver a tasty surprise to the first five people who leave comments (except maybe not to Mike in India) and to a randomly chosen person from among the remaining comments. Even if you don't have a concrete comments, just leave your name and you'll still be eligible for tasty treats!

Savory pies

2009-11-29T23:42:00.000-06:00

...because pretty food pictures are always easiest to post.

Mini vegan pot pie, savory pumpkin pie, and collard quiche:

And the big versions:

All delicious, all perfectly freeze-able for later enjoyment!

'Tis the season, Pt. I

2009-11-17T11:20:00.000-06:00

As some of you may know, I hate(d) Christmas. Perhaps I hate it because it was something the other kids had when I was growing up. Perhaps it's because it's so nauseatingly omnipresent for a full three months of every year (the Madison oldies station has already been playing Christmas music for three weeks! And not just Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman, but songs like Christmas Shoes [with the line I want her to look beautiful/If mama meets Jesus tonight] and Destiny's Child 8 Days of Christmas [which holds up "a pair of Chloe shades and a diamond belly ring, a crop jacket with dirty Denim jeans, and the keys to a CLK Mercedes" among the ultimate perfect gifts]). And especially because it promotes (not just promotes--forces!) the worst kind of deep-down, dirty consumerism that I hate most.

In any case, I have much more to say about Christmas, and with "the holidays" coming on, it's probably a safe bet that I'll keep writing about it, but the initial topic I intended to write about in the first place was the impact of our consumer choices, and how hard it is to reconcile all the different forces that go into the purchase of a single winter coat (at least for me). Now, I'll just admit upfront that I'm one of those environmentalists who focuses on consumption, even as I know that the decisions made by corporations and huge entities like universities have so much more impact than whether or not I put a brick in my toilet tank (to use the analogy Bill Cronon uses in his environmental history lectures) or do any of the other 50 things I can do to save the earth. And the end of the day, I do think our culture stems from the actions each individual takes and the impact that individual has in setting an example for her friends, her children, her classmates, her students, and the people around her (along with, of course, the lobbying and editorial-writing and organizing [and blogging!] that she does).

But I'm the kind of person who gets totally amped by Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff

And the kind of person who can't stop talking about The Better World Shopping Guide, which helps rank lots of different companies and products based on their records with Human Rights, The Environment, Animal Protection, Community Involvement, and Social Justice.

I'm just the kind of person who believes that every individual choice matters, and that change has to start with me, and with you, and with my mother, and with my friends.

But that does not make it easy to buy a winter coat.

To be continued...

Tales from Planet Earth, Pt III

2009-11-15T22:31:00.000-06:00

And here's a video from the weekend itself, and the event that I planned, involving beautiful images from the Troy Kids' Garden, a sing-along of "Dirt Made My Lunch" (lyrics below), and a cooking demo of farmers' market spring rolls with Madison's premier chef Tory Miller:

Dirt made my lunch,
Dirt made my lunch.
Thank you Dirt, thanks a bunch,
For my salad, my sandwich
My milk and my munch 'cause
Dirt, you made my lunch.

Tales from Planet Earth, Pt II

2009-11-14T22:03:00.000-06:00

Just because Tales from Planet Earth was such a big part of my life during the past few months, it seems fit to describe it in somewhat more detail (whether for posterity or for those few of my friends who actually read this blog...). The entire event and activities leading up to it were a crucial balancing force on the lopsided academic thing that is sometimes my life. I have felt grounded and sane this semester largely because of this opportunity to reach outside the academy, to find inspiration in community and children and people's goodness and their hope for change.

First the background:

Two years ago, when we (that is, my academic home, the Center for Culture, History and Environment, or CHE) put on the first Tales from Planet Earth, the film festival was a huge success and left many people excited and inspired. But this time around, it seemed like it was worth filling in what had seemed like the only missing piece last time: How do we make it so that this film festival can have a lasting impact on the larger Madison community? How do we leverage the films and people's excitement into action and activism? How do we create a direction for people to turn, a place for them to funnel the energy coursing through a theater as the lights come up? So, out of the collaboration between Gregg Mitman (my advisor) and Judith Helfand (an amazing filmmaker and activist who organized a group called Working Films) was born this class called Community Engagement through Film. Now, I was finished with all my course requirements and would've otherwise just spent the semester working on my dissertation proposal, but I was so excited about the idea of this class, and the idea that we could positively shape this film festival, that I couldn't resist signing up.

Through this class, and my own interests, I've spent the last semester working with a local organization Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens (where I also worked last summer as a garden educator) to link their goals and projects with one of the festival's amazing films, What's On Your Plate? This outreach work has taken many forms, from organizing and fundraising to writing press releases and planning events. You can read more about this partnership here, or by looking at my Twitter account, or by visiting the website I built for one of our projects.

One of the goals of our partnership was to find local businesses to be festival sponsors. But instead of the usual model of sponsorships where businesses give money to the festival itself and get positive publicity in return, we encouraged them to donate specific materials to our community organizations instead. So I (with the help of one of my classmates when I was down with the flu!) pitched my project and this outdoor kids' kitchen that we're hoping to build to a bunch of local businesses a month or so ago, and ended up getting three who were willing to help out! A local home building company, Marling HomeWorks, offered to donate $500 in building supplies for the kitchen; our favorite brewpub in Madison, The Great Dane, gave $300 toward mosaic glass and tiles that are going to provide the foundation of the kitchen; and our awesome local grocery, the Willy St. Co-op gave $200 in store credit for use in buying items for cooking that we can't grow in the kitchen. So I raised all this money for Community GroundWorks, and it felt awesome. Just awesome. We still need more, though, so please visit our gift registry, if you're so inclined, to help stock the Kids' Kitchen!

In short, I've found this sort of community work so exciting and rewarding and the perfect balance to the rest of my life. I need to remind myself, again and again, that I have to be proactive about keeping this sort of element present and central to who I am. Otherwise, I wither away...

Tales from Planet Earth!

2009-11-08T23:46:00.000-06:00

For the last few months, one of two projects that has absorbed me most has been in preparation for this film festival Tales from Planet Earth that just came to a close this weekend. It was such an overflowing-ly impressive weekend, full of awesome films and community building and a real sense of what makes Madison and the UW and CHE so great. I'd like to write more about the whole weekend soon, because there was so much to it, but for now I'll share some trailers for some of my favorite films that I saw this weekend. For the full roster (aka "movies to watch" list), see the Tales website. Check them out!

Two I couldn't find trailers for, but which I was astonished by and think everyone should go seek out (now!)

AN INJURY TO ONE

HARVEST OF SHAME

TROUBLE THE WATER

WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE?

OUR DAILY BREAD

YES MEN FIX THE WORLD

A brief look inside the life of Felis domesticus...

2009-10-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

Who knew that under that striped orange fur and those adorable big-pupil-ed human eyes, there could be such ferocity?

Captured on the 6th Anniversary (old anniversary?) of Anna and Justin...

Our new roommates

2009-09-27T17:23:00.000-05:00

During the pre-wedding festivities, we played a round of The Newlywed Game, and among the questions was: "What item off your registry is Anna most excited about receiving?" We both answered, with confidence, "A Composter!"

And although our great friends knew us well enough that we actually got TWO whole composters for our wedding, both had stood idly in our basement the last three months, as we first tried to decide which one to use, and then tried to find the time to actually set them up and shift our habits of compostables-collection enough to make it all happen.

But then, a week or so ago, I finally got to hear Will Allen, of Milwaukee's Growing Power fame, come speak in Madison. As his MacArthur genius grant blurb puts it, "Will is an urban farmer who is transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved, urban populations." The NYTimes has done some great pieces on him in the last year: here and here. His presentation was a thoroughly inspiring one, from his description of the ways that they're growing food in the middle of a Wisconsin winter by heating greenhouses with compost to the aquaponics systems they've set up to grow fish right in the city, from the ways he's recreating their projects all over the country and all over the world to the way his system of farming and gardening has been taken up by the Milwaukee City Hall and by the Milwaukee School District. It was all so exciting. At one point he mentioned that Growing Power has 35 employees working for them. Later, though, when describing the amazing system of vermicomposting they've set up, he said, "Actually, I should take back what I said earlier, we don't have 35 employees, we have 35 million employees: all our worms!"

Here is Will with his worms:

So after listening to a talk like that, how could I go home and ignore our empty worm bin?

A few days later, I biked over to our local bait shop and picked up four containers of red wiggler worms--they're the most voracious eaters, I learned. A few hours and one dinner preparation full of vegetable peelings later, our little worm roommates had found a new, and hopefully happy, home:

Hooray for composting! More stories on this adventure to follow...

Our own Hungry Planet photo!

2009-09-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

At our dear friend Kroy's request, we've made our own Hungry Planet photo, displaying a week's worth of what we eat around here in the Zeide-Horn-Vedder household. (Inspired by the photos discussed in my High Price of Cheap Food post). It's a really interesing exercise to put this together, so we encourage you all to try and share your photos with us!

Carrots have a history

2009-09-11T17:21:00.000-05:00

In my two day streak of posting garden-related videos, here's an inspiring video about Michelle Obama's White House garden:

"Just like people, carrots have a history."

Awesome.

Growing School Gardens

2009-09-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

The Madison Metropolitan School District, in partnership with Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens (where I worked this summer), produced this video that outlines the 'Growing School Gardens' initiative, a local organization dedicated to helping schools create and sustain gardens that will serve as outdoor classrooms and provide children who live in an increasingly urban landscape with a direct connection to their food and the earth.

http://mediaprodweb.madison.k12.wi.us/node/132

It's a great video, and you get to see footage of the kids' garden where I worked; Nathan Larson, my boss; and some of the wonderful kids our program serves! Check it out, eh?

Food for Thought

2009-09-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

Every year for the past few years, Madison's REAP Food Group (Research, Education, Action, and Policy) puts on this Food for Thought Festival, in which it brings in speakers and chefs and food demonstrations and activities in order to help the town "explore and celebrate our many opportunities to eat more pleasurably, healthfully and sustainably." This year, my muse Michael Pollan will be giving the keynote address. And, the opening act before the big guy comes on will be readings of the winners of the Food for Thought's writing contest, in the areas of fiction, poetry, and memoir. Well, I couldn't pass up the chance to open for Michael Pollan, and so I threw my writing into the mix. I guess this one goes in the category of memoir, but only because they don't have a creative nonfiction category. This also helps to sum up what my work in the kids' garden was like this summer (in one word: inspiring):

“Taking Back the Table: Real Food Connections”

September 2, 2009

The path from bus to basil plants to outdoor kitchen was clear. June and July had passed, leaving behind a trail stamped flat by Martell's colorful and dusty sneakers. His mornings at the garden were always spent in the kitchen, no matter how pet-able the chickens were nor how sweet the mulberries tasted. Martell's feet always remained firmly planted under the yellow tent, where he directed the food preparations, serving as head chef to his sous chef classmates. Black eyes sparkling with the inspiration of a thousand artists, he sawed away at the basil leaves with the (ever child-friendly) butter knife.

“Put those in here!” he directed, as he held the handle of the hand-crank blender tight. “Just a little more olive oil,” he might add, even as the other kids snuck in some lettuce, perhaps a raspberry or two, expanding the range of pesto flavors. On the brightly-colored plastic cutting boards, the other kids hacked away, chopping garlic scapes in June, obliterating hefty garlic cloves in July, producing a pungent mash with little clods of northside Madison dirt mixed in for good measure. LaTia pooh-poohed the metal garlic press, showing me and the other kids the proper way of smashing garlic--pressing on the top of the clove with the flat side of the knife--as her dad had once shown her. Into the hand-crank blender it all went, swirling around in a sea of green. The kids each took their turn, cranking the handle faster and faster, turning to me only when the rickety plastic handle flew off and needed re-attaching.

Martell directed his friends in laying each cracker just so upon the cutting board “serving trays,” so that the pesto could be spooned atop.

Kids become chefs. Kids become waiters. Kids become experts.

Toward the end of summer, when the budget allowed for it and the grocery store run just had to be made for non-garden supplemental items, a container of pine nuts appeared in the outdoor kitchen. When I picked them up and brought them near the blender, Martell immediately eyed them with a look of suspicion.

Pine nuts? In pesto?

“There are no nuts in pesto,” Martell assured me.

“But…” I began, as his black eyes flashed with conviction. “Ok,” I said, as I backed away.

I know that he is right. There are no pine nuts in kid's garden pesto. At least not on Thursday mornings when Martell's group comes to the garden. Instead, there are mulberries and broccoli leaves and the occasional green tomato. There are haphazardly chopped basil leaves, garlic cloves that the kids themselves planted, sometimes hastily grated parmesan cheese. Pesto is as the kids make it, a culinary creation imbued with the authority and expertise of this particular brand of children's garden freedom.

And so the appropriately pine-nut-less pesto was blended. Round and round the hand crank went. And out came the savory delight. The kids eagerly reached in with their butter knives, scooped up clumps of dark green pesto, and brought the knives from blender to cracker, dripping basil juice and olive oil all the way. They spread the crackers with the utmost care (or the utmost-est care that ten-year-olds can offer), beaming, and tripping over each other with “Ooh! I want to carry this one!” and “I'll take this pesto over to the music machine!”

The kid waiters spread out around the garden, offering their wares to the kids planting flowers, to those chasing Oreo the black-and-white chicken*, to the ones running around with butterfly net in hand, to their friends banging on old pots and pans and overturned plastic buckets, to the girls already munching unripened grapes (a part of their cultural cuisine). And the kids ate, finding joy in this hand-made spread, this synergistic product of the garden's goodness. They ate, appreciating the handiwork of their culinary classmates, silently acknowledging--perhaps?--the power that the homemade and homegrown can bring.

Martell hung back in the kitchen with me, putting the used dishes through the garden dishwasher--a bucket of soapy water, a tub of rinse water, and a final splash in the clean water bath--and quietly approving of the work he and his friends had done, the work that now came so naturally, that felt to him like an extension of any normal eight-year-old activity.

Now, when I eat pesto, it tastes, more than ever, like summer. It tastes like accomplishment and knowledge and authority. Pesto, when spread thick, even tastes a little like childhood glee. And it doesn't even need the pine nuts.

* May she rest in peace. (The day before this memoir was written, Oreo--after 6 or so happy years at the Troy Kids' Garden--met her gruesome end at the claws of a watchful hawk, who circled round and round before targeting its prey, leaving Oreo's bunkmates, Pearl, Regina Marie, and Carmella, squawking with fear and, possibly, grief, as their fallen sister lay dead beside them).

High Price of Cheap Food

2009-08-28T11:57:00.001-05:00

There's a pretty good article in last week's Time about some of the stuff I care about most in the world: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food. Although it simplifies a lot of the issues, as it has to do, to describe the whole picture in five pages, it captures much of what is so terrifying and soul-less about the state of America's industrial food system today, and also a little bit about what is hopeful in the current interest in alternative, sustainable methods of food production (even if it is small and limited to certain strata of society, for now). As the article writes, "Not all costs can be measured by a price tag. Once you factor in crop subsidies, ecological damage and what we pay in health-care bills after our fatty, sugary diet makes us sick, conventionally produced food looks a lot pricier." This is a key point to remember when we go to the grocery store, I think. We must be able to look beyond the price tag to see everything that lies beneath what we hand over to the cashier.

Also, in the article, there's a link to a photo essay based on this book called Hungry Planet, which shows photos of what families all over the world eat in one week's time. If you haven't seen these photos yet, they're really worth a look. Here's a small sampling, along with the cost, in US dollars spent on food in a typical week (click on the images to see larger versions):

The first married Southern tour...

2009-08-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

Last week, we got to take a little trip to visit both of our families in Georgia and Oklahoma, stopping in each for 3ish days, and it was a pretty ideal trip. We got to:

Play with Jeremy:
Eat Mama's delicious food:

Celebrate Justin's and Aaron's birthdays:

Visit Justin's great-aunt Estelle:

Participate in Justin's Mom's Relay for Life Survivors team:

Enjoy ourselves!

Closure and renewal

2009-08-27T14:47:00.001-05:00

The long days of summer are coming to an end, and there's a tangible sense of the next chapter starting once more. The air has an autumnal chill, campus is bustling with fresh faces once again, summer frisbee is over, we've made our new excel schedule spreadsheets, and I've almost begun to yearn for hoodies and down blankets.

This has been one hell of a summer. The sort of summer that makes me reach out and hold on to every moment, soaking up what it means to be free, but understanding that freedom is only sweet when held up against the grueling days of the semester. The schedule of an academic is so unlike the regular 9 to 5 worker, with 9 months of overwhelming busy-ness and frantic anxiety, followed by 3 months of sweet, sweet time off. This summer was so full of love and creativity and passion. I managed to get married, celebrate an incredible weekend with (almost) all my favorite people in the world, have one of my best friends visit, work a fulfilling and enriching job at Troy Gardens, play frisbee, watch Justin enjoy his session at CTY, complete over 3/4 of the items on my "project human" document, work on my Madison friendships, grow delicious vegetables in my first successful independent garden, cook delicious meals from my garden and our Harmony Valley CSA, and have a successful and wonderful trip to visit our families in Georgia and Oklahoma.

But now that it's pretty much over, I'm trying my hardest to be inspired by the sense of renewal that comes with a new school year. As one of my favorite bloggers, Sharon Astyk, wrote in this post, Judaism's celebration of the new year in autumn with Rosh Hashanah makes so much sense because of the harvest, the shifting seasons, and the chance for starting anew as summer comes to a close. Yesterday, I served on a panel that the graduate school put on, in which I shared my funding experiences with first year fellows. Being up there in front of the room, having all these new graduate students see me as some sort of expert, was such a good feeling and reminder of the ways in which I've grown since I was in their place. And after the session, I sat on the terrace with three of the first year students in my department and talked with them about questions and anxieties they had. Through all this, I soaked up some of their excitement and began to feel it myself.

As I begin this fourth year of my PhD program, and the first in which I am a "dissertator," I just hope that I can find joy in my academic work, can figure out how to strike the right balance between work and play and rest, and can begin to imagine a future around all this that I'm doing. Here's hopin'...

Recaps continue: Saturday Night Dinner

2009-07-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

I’d had such a grand plan of writing up the details of the whole wedding process, bit by bit, more to document it for our own purposes, for posterity, than anything else. But now I’m feeling like that’s going to be boring and take way too much time (time that, although I might technically have in these long days of summer, still feels too precious and limited).

So, instead, perhaps I’ll just recaps some key elements of the weekend, along with some photos and links and videos. And I don't think it's going to be in any good sort of order.

Saturday Night Dinner

Although we weren’t able to have every single wedding guest come to the dinner the night before the wedding because of the perceived limits of our venue, we were at least able to have all the out-of-town guests come to the dinner. It took place at the Wisconsin Historical Museum in downtown Madison, a fitting venue given my academic leanings and our desire to have our friend Genya cater the dinner—many other places we looked required us to use their appointed caterer. Genya started Slow Food UW on campus, and shares our sensibilities about how important it is to eat delicious, local, sustainable food. Furthermore, she insisted that we not pay her directly, but that any money we gave her would be a donation to the Slow Food café she’s planning on opening on campus in the fall. So we were all in.

Her food turned out to be delicious, and it was so exciting to see the menu we’d prepared materialize before our eyes (and stomachs!) There were appetizers of roasted nuts, cheese curds, and crostini, some with apple butter and blue cheese, others with tomato and mozzarella. There was fresh sliced avocado, tabouli, green salad, sourdough bread, wild rice salad, raw veggies with homemade hummus, cabbage and potato pirogies, and quinoa salad (in addition to the roasted rosemary chicken and spanakopita we got from the co-op). And for dessert, fresh fruit and an amazing assortment of baked goods—from poppy seed and cinnamon cookies to fruit strudels and rich chocolate balls. It was all so good, and we were so grateful to have access to Genya, because she made it possible for us to feed our families and friends yummy food which showcased our love of creative vegetarian food (and we offered the compromise of the baked chicken, but I don’t even think it was necessary, except as a token to appease the parents).

Unfortunately, the only photo anyone seems to have captured is of the appetizers (if anyone happens to have other photos of the food--or of anything else!--that you haven't shared yet on our snapfish account, please do!):

After dinner, the even more delicious course began (if you can believe it): that of the speeches and songs and poems and performances that our insanely talented and thoughtful family (I’m just going to use that word inclusively from now on, to include everyone who was at our wedding, who are all family in the broad sense of the word) put together for us. It was pretty much two solid hours of tears and laughter and me visibly shaking with delight and emotion.

My brother and our good friends Mike and Deepani videotaped all the speeches from this portion of the evening, so I’ll try to upload them eventually, but for now, I’ll just say that among the presentations were a Dream Street-inspired skit by my oldest friends, heartfelt speeches galore, a little embarrassment from our parents and high school friends, an extended limerick, a beautiful song based off of Such Great Heights, a rap to the tune of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a Christopher Walken cameo, and hugs and love and raw expression. It was all dream-like, and I floated around the rest of the night (and really the last month since then) on a cloud of support and ecstasy. Thank you.

The Chuppah...

2009-07-20T16:52:00.000-05:00

Pieces of a quilt from Justin's (great?) grandmother
From our old friend Stacey
From Justin’s Aunt Sue and Uncle Ralph
From fabric our college friend Deepani got in Malawi
From our college friend Ben Schatz
From my high school friend Abigail’s wedding dress fabric
From our Madison friends, the Barkers
From napkins sent by our friends Bob and Julie Ullman, who have hosted us for several Wisconsin Thanksgiving
From a t-shirt from the happiest place on earth
From our nephew Jeremy's baby blanket
From our college friend Michelle's self-dyed tank top
From our college friend's Brad's tie-dyed t-shirt
From Justin's cousin Susan
From our Madison friend's Rachel's Team Hot Stuff (our ultimate frisbee team!) jersey from Summer 2008
From my high school friend Casey, a piece of the sheet that divided her "bedroom" from my living room when she crashed with me for a semester in St. Louis after Hurricane Katrina ran her out of New Orleans
From one of my old favorite t-shirts, which displays Justin's favorite dinosaur (stegosaurus), my favorite US city (New Orleans), and our colors (green and yellow)
From a baby blanket scrap from Baby James
From our college friend Sarah, a piece of a beautiful dress made by her grandmother
From a bandana from Intelorlochen Arts Camp, where I spent a wonderful summer in 2002

(all the other pieces, as well as the light yellow cloth that is the backing, were supplied by my talented mama)

The Week Before the Wedding (Part 1)

2009-07-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

Although we’d really kicked our wedding preparations into high gear after about May 22, when I’d returned from my place-based workshop to Chicago and Justin had finished his semester, the last week before the wedding was definitely major crunch time. Sometime before that, I’d made this calendar on a big piece of poster paper for the last two weeks, so that we could keep all our to-dos organized in one place. It’s not the most beautiful organizing tool, but it sure was convenient:

The week before the wedding, our lovely Madison friend Rachel came over to help assemble centerpieces. The beauty of the 100+ paper flowers and dried lemons I ended up making was that we could assemble all the centerpieces in advance and have them ready to just plop down on a table right before the wedding.

We’d previously thought about having one living element in our centerpieces, that being long green grasses from our front garden. But after Rachel and I spent way too much time trying to make the grass look pretty, two things happened that made us think we should probably just nix the grass in favor of all-previously-prepared items: (1) we realized it was really hard to make the grass look pretty, and (2) Eddie ate all the grass:

So we settled for a bundle of green Spanish moss inside the small glass vases, with home-dried lemons around the outside of the vase, and 11-13 yellow paper roses stuck into the moss, cut to emerge just outside the top of the vase.

While we assembled centerpieces, our friend Joelle (who you’ll remember from the amazing picnic she prepared for me during my prelims process), came over to display the latest version of the jewelry she was helping to make for me and for some of the wedding party. It was all so gorgeous that it made me giddy with excitement to wear it and see it worn on the big day. The jewelry was made from these beautiful green jade beads, modeled after this inspiration piece I found on Etsy :

On Monday, four days before the wedding weekend began, my parents arrived in town. It was so lovely to see them, and to realize how excited they were—like us—for the weekend to come. Mama brought with her the wedding chuppah cloth that she’d been working on for the past few months. From assorted scraps of cloth that our friends and family sent, she’d assembled this beauty:

(I'll post soon about each piece of fabric and who/where it came from.)

After we picked up the chuppah poles we were borrowing from the local Reconstructionist Jewish congregation and set the whole thing up in our backyard to test it out, we realized the chuppah would hold best if it had little loops in each corner, so Mama dutifully sewed them on. In addition, she took her sewing skills to my dress, as she altered it a little here and a little there, brought up the hem and readjusted the side pleats, removed some beads and made sure it all looked just so. Papa was no slacker either, though, as he set to cutting yellow circles of cloth for the centerpieces.

My lovely parents also helped to put together the hospitality bags, which, after some haggling, we decided to make for our guests, even though it sometimes seems like they’re more wasteful and more trouble than they’re worth. After I ordered a bunch of paper gift bags of ebay, we stuffed them with delicious Russian chocolates my parents had bought in a Russian store in Atlanta, with other snacks, and with a map, schedule, and welcome letter that I had put together. A copy of the letter can be found here.

In addition to our parents, our good friend from college Mike Roy (or, Our Kroy, as we call him) was around in Madison the week before the wedding, and helped out with lots of odds and ends that needed to get done, like writing notes in our guestbook, cutting the slips of paper for our one-year anniversary wishes, helping to shop for hospitality suite snacks, and helping us to find music for our reception, like this Korean gem, which--as some of you may remember--we later danced ridiculously to at the reception (just the background music in this video):

And so the recaps begin...

2009-07-12T23:23:00.000-05:00

Before all the wedding weekend memories run away from me, I'd like to make some posts documenting the joy that was our wedding, as well as the thoughts we've had about the whole thing upon reflection. In order to actually make this happen in a reasonable manner and schedule, I think I need to make myself an outline to follow. Perhaps it'll look something like this:

1. The week before the wedding
2. Friday night: Scavenger Hunt!
3. Friday night: Frida's dinner
4. Friday night: Sex-segregated activities
5. Saturday market and picnic
6. Saturday rehearsal and dinner
7. Sunday morning
8. Ceremony
9. Reception
10. Monday morning

I'll try to include lots of photos in these posts, along with capturing as much of the feeling of the whole thing as possible. If there's anyone who reads this (sorely un-updated) blog out there and who was at the wedding (two groups that I imagine are pretty much coextensive), and who has any particular thoughts or memories to share or to encourage me to highlight, please do so!

Although we haven't seen our professional photos yet, here's one we did get as a sneak preview (it's exciting to see, even if the smiles seem a bit fake--the joy was real!)...

We'll be havin' some fun...

2009-06-19T22:34:00.001-05:00

Life sure does feel good here, as we sip our mead to celebrate our recent nuptials, during this lunar cycle. The sand is white, the water is blue, the accents are thick, the fruit baskets are plentiful, and we are in the ultimate state of relaxation and love.

All hands on deck...

2009-06-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

The wedding happened!

And now I'm a married lady!

But it was only possible because everyone among our loves threw their hands in--either literally, like in this photo, or metaphorically, like every single person who contributed so much love and energy to make the weekend happen.

I can't imagine a more inspiring or overwhelming or loving weekend.

More soon...

Mom's birthday!

2009-05-31T09:25:00.001-05:00

Also on May 27, my wonderful mom-to-be (Justin's Mom, that is), celebrated a birthday. And though we're far away for now, we celebrated with her, via youtube.

We wrote her a little song, with Justin on guitar and vocals, and me on ukelele:

And Eddie Vedder got his own verse as well:

The trip to City Hall

2009-05-30T00:08:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, on Wednesday May 27, Justin and I traveled down to City Hall to make this whole upcoming marriage thing legal. Along the way, we had adventures in municipal bureaucracy, feeling like adults, and pristine chocolate shops. But now the papers have been signed and we've entered into history, just like that. Although we won't officially be married until our officiant signs the papers at our ceremony, we're definitely already on file in City Hall. I was reflecting on how interesting that is--how this marriage license, along with our birth and death certificates, is one of the few pieces of recorded history that will be filed away in official municipal archives, for future historians to find. This privilege of marriage (the one reinforced so harshly by the lines I slightly guiltily signed that so starkly and discriminatingly read "Bride: Female" and "Groom: Male") extends not only to to hospital visitation rights and shared property rights, but also to the right to be remembered by history, at least for something other than being born and dying.

Place-based workshop: The State of Nature's Metropolis

2009-05-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been trying to write this blog post for about a week now, but it keeps just getting saved in my drafts. It's been a real pleasure to spend most of my days away from the computer in the last couple of weeks, but it has left me sorely behind on emails and blog posts and my own blog reading. But I don't want these exciting vibrant days of my life to slip away undocumented, so a few brief posts are definitely in order.

First up, the four-day trip I took to Chicago and its hinterland last week, with my academic home away from home, CHE (the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies's Center for Culture, History, and Environment). Although my official department is the History of Science, I spend way more time with CHE--my office is located there, I've served as a Project Assistant and Graduate Representative for the program, and most of my friends and intellectual colleagues are there. So, every year for the past three year's CHE takes a trip, or "place-based workshop" to somewhere not far from Madison and spends a few days really trying to get to know the place from the perspective of environmental history. We try to "read the landscape," or, in other words, to understand the histories of the places we live, work, and play through the interpreation of clues laid down by history, culture, and natural forces. The first year, the workshop was in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, last year it was in the agricultural landscapes of Southwest Wisconsin's Kickapoo River Valley and driftless area (I helped to plan that one), and this year, the trip visited Chicago and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

The trip was four days: (Day 1) learning about the history of ecology and of modern environmentalism at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore--much of the work my advisor writes about in The State of Nature; (Day 2) a day of learning about environmental justice in the Southside neighborhoods of Little Village and Englewood, and about Packingtown; (Day 3) learning about downtown Chicago's urban infrastructure through a downtown walking tour, about the relationship of Chicago with its Western hinterland (the topic of another of my advisor's most foundational books, Nature's Metropolis), and about the Chicago History Museum; and (Day 4) learning about issues of class in the North Shore suburbs.

The whole thing was such an enormous treat. The intellectual conversation and stimulation was incredibly lively--especially because we had access to the foremost experts in environmental history and urban history leading us through the city. The social interactions were just the thing I needed after a semester of being deprived of people and friendship--so many good bus conversations, so many interesting new people. And the sense of being part of a larger community was just unparalleled--it made me feel at home in this academic niche.

I also got to write our names in the sand:

Watch kids in Little Village play that awesome parachute game from elementary school (remember that?):

Learn about how really tall skyscrapers can stably stand on the marshy ground of Chicago:

Turn myself into a Chicago-style hot dog:

And pull a tick out of my head:

Hooray for place-based workshops, and feeling alive again!

The Great Big Sigh

2009-05-16T22:42:00.000-05:00

After a couple of days of unwinding and regaining some semblance of calm, I can happily announce that I'm through with my prelims...and I didn't even fail! So, all that I've been preparing for for the last six months culminated in this two-hour session, this oral defense in front of my three prelim advisors. And I came out of victorious, and smiling from ear to ear, and back again. I can't believe it's all over. (And I really was worried that I wouldn't do well, even if everyone else somehow knew that I'd pass. I think there was real concern. Which then yields real relief.)

Hooray! I'm just now getting to the point where I don't feel compelled to jump up and down repeatedly, for hours on end.

Now, for a Chicago place-based workshop and wedding planning...

A perfect spring picnic

2009-05-12T14:15:00.000-05:00

Speaking of food and friendship, as I always seem to be doing on this blog, I just returned from a most lovely surprise lunch. One of my closest friends, Joelle, who I went to high school with, has now joined me in Madison, where she also started grad school last semester. Here we are at our friend Abigail's wedding reception in 2005:

Although the academically-grueling and asocial nature of my year has kept me from enjoying her presence as much as I'd like, it's been wonderful to have someone who knows me so well in Madison. And today she proved once again just how well she knows me, coming to surprise me in the middle of my stressful day with a beautiful picnic lunch! It couldn't have been more perfect--sharing food outside on a beautiful day with a good friend. And the food wasn't just any food but fresh baby carrots and sweet mini peppers and Persian cucumbers with Sabra hummus; kiwi and mango and tangerine slices; deviled eggs; rice and adzuki bean chips; avocado pico de gallo; no pudge fudge brownie bites (my favorite); soft cheese triangles; chili lemongrass mixed nuts; and pomegranate soda.

Thank you, Joelle! Friends are awesome.

The culinary adventures begin...

2009-05-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

After a full day's work on Sunday, I decided it was time to dig into the yumminess of that CSA box. So, I went downstairs to the kitchen with an open mind and some stocked-up creativity. Out of those two ingredients, along with the help of Harmony Valley, I came up with this:

Although the photo doesn't fully capture the excitement of this plate, our dinner included roasted root vegetables (burdock, sunchokes, parsnips, sweet potato, onions); a sorrel, ramps, and sunchoke gratin; sauteed asparagus with lemon and garlic; a quinoa, black radish, carrot, jalapeno, and apple salad (a slight modification of the recipe in this post) and an overwintered spinach salad with cranberry walnut dressing. The new vegetables took a little bit of adjusting to, along with a little research into cooking times and so on, but I would say everything turned out yummily! I'd love to share more specific recipes if anyone wants them (and I'd be really happy if anyone wanted them)...

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T22:29:00.000-05:00

Growing up, my brother always said that Mother's Day was a stupid holiday invented by people too lazy to make their mothers feel special everyday. Of course, I think he said this because he, himself, was too lazy on the holiday, and every other day, to do something especially nice for our Mama. (Don't worry, he's doing his best to make up for it now). So it always fell to me to make the homemade cards and take my Mama out for lunch and tell her she was the best mother in the world (or at least my very favorite). Although I'm too far away to take her out for lunch today, I can send her a little e-love by way of this blog post. My Mama--as anyone who's met her can attest--is the kind of person who makes everyone feel instantly at ease, who is so sweet she's practically made out of sugar (but not of the saccharin variety), who has devoted her life to making me and my brother feel strong, safe, supported, and loved. And for all this, I thank her and send my deepest love and respect. On this day and every day.

I can't wait to share her with Justin, to let her be his mom as well. And perhaps the best part is that after June 14, I'll have a second best mom in the world (Justin's Mom, Nancy, that is), and will be surrounded by the winning-est mothers around. Yay for Moms near and far!

Happy Mother's Day!

P.S. If you haven't seen it, the new "dick in a box"

Return of the vegetables

2009-05-09T22:08:00.000-05:00

After a long, long winter, fresh local vegetables are now back in my life! Our CSA (community supported agriculture) share started today, so for the rest of the summer and fall, every other Saturday, we'll be picking up a box full of delicious organic vegetables from a local farm, along with recipes and information about the Wisconsin agricultural scene. I can't wait to try out all this exciting stuff. Today's box included: red sunchokes, rhubarb, sweet overwintered parsnips (all seen in first photo), and chives, ramps, sorrel, burdock, and a black radish (all in second photo), along with some decorative willow branches and overwintered spinach.

As soon as we find some time to cook, culinary adventures are ours! If anyone has any good recipes to share, please do pass them along!

Loving This American Life

2009-05-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

For the past couple of years or so, I've been a pretty diehard fan of This American Life on NPR (along with, apparently, all other "white people"). A few months ago, Ira Glass (the show's host) announced on the weekly show that they were going to be doing a live taping in New York City and were going to broadcast it via satellite to theaters all across the country. On one day only. And what one day might that be, you ask? None other than April 23, my very own birthday. So, although it would've been an ideal birthday event, we happen to live in one of the most happening-est cities (and most filled with "white people") in the country, so the show was sold out weeks in advance, and we didn't get tickets in time. Ira felt our pain, apparently, because he scheduled an encore showing for two weeks later.

So, last night, we got to go watch Ira Glass (along with Mike Birbiglia, Starlee Kine, Dan Savage, Joss Whedon, and others) on the big screen. It was awesome. It brought laugh-aloud laughs and real tears and respectful awe--everything one would want from a top-notch episode of This American Life. You can listen to most of the show here.

But this whole evening also made me want to finally write a blog post about another TAL segment that I listened to a few weeks ago and wanted to share. In this six-minute segment, Starlee Kine, one of the producers of the show, talks about how hard it is to become close friends with people as you get older, and about one solution a coworker of hers came up with. Listen to it here:

PART 1:

PART 2:

What do you all think about this? The reason it made such an impression on me, I guess, is just because it's so honest about this problem of making friends as an adult. And it's something I think about a whole lot, but not something other people seem to talk about all that much. As I move farther away from the late night talks of dorm hallways, I wonder how people find the time and energy to get to know each other--to really get to know each other--well enough that essential properties get conveyed? How can I be close with someone if they don't know where I've been, who I am, who my family is, what I need from others, etc.? This tape thing really seems to have something going for it. And yet, I can't imagine actually doing it with that many people. What can be our stand-in for the tape? How to build friendship, from the beginning?

Koala

2009-05-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

Although free time doesn't come easily these days, sometimes for fifteen minutes after dinner, Justin and I sneak away to play some music. I'm trying to raise my musical stock in his eyes, so after failed guitar and piano attempts, I've picked up the ukulele. And I have to say, the little stringed instrument and I are hitting it off quite nicely. Justin's grandpa Morley bought the ukulele for Justin a few years ago, before he passed away, because its sound reminded him of the time he was stationed in Hawaii with the Navy during World War II. Although the music we're playing isn't exactly Hawaiian, it's still pretty exciting. So far the set list includes My Name is Jonas by Weezer, Mr. Brightside by the Killers, Run by Collective Soul (a high school classic), and Mr. Jones by Counting Crows. (Somewhere in the old repertoire are Bye Bye Love and You Are My Sunshine). I can't wait until I actually have some time to work on this more assiduously. Any requests from you music fans out there?

You're the Historian: A taste of what excites me

2009-05-01T13:52:00.001-05:00

One of my prelim advisors, in preparing to give me a question for my prelim essay, asked me to write a page or so on the themes that most interest me within environmental history. This is what I came up with:

Although many of the traditional tales of environmental history focus on production—of national parks, of industrial wastes, and of scientific knowledge—I find myself particularly drawn to the other side of the balance, to issues of consumption. I read production-based accounts and want to know about the people going to those national parks, and their reasons for doing so; about the consumers who create the demand for goods whose production leads to industrial waste; and about the lay audiences who take in scientific statements of expertise and interpret, modify, and apply them to their own lives.

A closer look at consumption also makes room for the study of gender in environmental history, another category that I find exciting. Because women in the early twentieth century had more power within the private, domestic sphere of the home than within the larger public stage of conservation and policy-making, thinking about women’s (and their families’) consumption practices invites us into that sphere. Further, analyzing the different (or not) ways that men and women responded to new scientific and environmental currents in dominant culture often seems to illuminate the variety of factors that contributed to the dissemination of expert opinion among lay audiences.

My intellectual interest in food also stems, at least in part, from this engagement with the linkages between production and consumption. Food, conceived both as an agricultural product and as a marker of cultural identity, provides a perfect lens through which to understand how a material good, produced from interactions between soil and human labor, becomes an intimate part of people’s daily lives and personal understandings. Some of the books I’ve read begin the work of writing food histories, but often without much attention to environmental history. There is still so much thinking to do about the agricultural, material, and ecological underpinnings of our diets and food practices.

Food also serves as the binder between the health of the physical environment and of human bodies. This connection—between environmental history and human health—is another theme that fascinates me. I’m convinced by arguments which suggest that looking at these two fields in juxtaposition can help us find a place for humans within nature. I’m also interested in the ways in which studying environmental history within the context of health can make our discipline seem more relevant and attentive to human needs than a (now increasingly-outdated) traditional view of the environment as something out there, disconnected from daily human lives.

Finally, this attention to food, human health, and consumption speaks to one of the last themes that I enjoy reading and thinking about: the relevance and application of our historical knowledge to issues of import in the present. Without losing historical nuance or the ability to study the past for its own sake, I believe (or would like to believe) that our studies can offer something to those with contemporary concerns about the environment, human health, or dietary practices. Authors I’ve been reading take up this problem variously, usually in a few lines in the epilogue or at the end of an introduction, but often in ways that feel rather shallow. If we are to see our environmental histories as having relevance in today’s world, I’d like to think more deeply about how historians create these connections and communicate across disciplinary boundaries.

Oh to be unencumbered and creative!

2009-05-01T00:56:00.000-05:00

Stop motion animation is one of the coolest things ever.

Maybe if this had been our wedding invitation, we would have gotten everyone to RSVP on time? (What joy it brings me to move someone from the "Maybe" column to the "Yes" [or "No"] column in my Excel spreadsheet! The sense of completion and order is so satisfying.)

I'm adding "create a stop-motion animation short film" to my Project Human document that I'm keeping on my desktop to note all the things I want to do with my life once I'm human again, after my prelims are over. You should all hold me to it.

But, for now, enjoy this way cool video:

Three years old!

2009-04-27T21:06:00.000-05:00

Today our handsome cat turned three years old! According to the Humane Society when we adopted Eddie Vedder in August 2006, he had been born on April 27, 2006. So today's the day for cheering! To celebrate the Ved-man today, we decided to not pick him up at all (he hates being picked up), to Ticketmaster him (which means waving a feather on a string in front of him so that he can chase and attack it; we call it "Ticketmaster-ing" because, you know, Eddie Vedder hates Ticketmaster, and wants to kill it), to give him "meat food" (wet food from a can instead of his usual dry kibble), and to take him outside both in the backyard and on the balcony. We think he had a really good day. (But can one ever reallly tell, with cats?)

Here are some Eddie-related goodies:

Cat in his desk drawer:

Mr. Vedder curled up in the down blanket, seeking a little warmth:

The "Pointy-Faced Killer" all a blur in motion as he attacks Ticketmaster. (You can just make out an ear and the top of his head in the top left corner of the photo)

"Meow-er" cooling off in the bathroom sink:
Happy Birthday, Eddie Vedder!

Yom Huledet Same'ach!

2009-04-26T00:07:00.000-05:00

I hit the quarter-century mark last week, and although the end of the semester always conspires against my birthday festivities, I managed to get in some good old-fashioned celebrating and happiness anyway.

On Wednesday, the night before my birthday, my two favorite Daves came over and cooked me and Justin one of the best meals I've had in a really long time. The menu: macadamia nut-encrusted tofu steaks, roasted asparagus, roasted new potatoes, and Sticky Date Pudding with Toffee Sauce for dessert (Justin models a plate with the entrees in the second photo). It was high-class and delicious dining, to say the least, and I couldn't have grinned more cheerily about having such awesome (Wash U-transplant) friends here in Madison:

Then, on my birthday itself, after a day of breakfast at our favorite diner, a quick bike ride to a lakeside park, and lots of phone conversations with friends and family (and some work, of course!), Justin was going to take me to dinner. He said we had to catch the bus by 6:30, and that he'd told our friends the Barkers that we'd stop by to say hi to them and their baby, James, on our way to the bus stop. Of course, when we got to the Barkers' place, what should I find but a surprise potluck party just for me! After some tears of happiness and overwhelmed-ness (the second set of such tears for the day), I proceeded to explore the AMAZING spread my amazing friends had prepared for me. Justin had prompted them by suggesting that I love "colorful dishes with lots of vegetables and/or fruits." And everyone was in their best form, with a meal that included, going clockwise around the plate, staring at 12 o'clock: yellow rice with zucchini and vegetables, caramelized beet and goat cheese pizza, roasted potatoes and white beans, tricolor rotini pasta salad, spicy bulgur pilaf, noodles with tofu, artichoke brownies, fresh guacamole with tortilla chips and (not pictured) two cakes--orange chocolate and raspberry chocolate! It was just right.

Me, looking happy and well-fed, with baby James:

And the fun continued for days to come, as I received so much e-love and tele-love and postal-love from my friends and family near and far: a story written just for me, home-baked lemon bars, music of the bluegrass and indie varieties, Alice Waters' cookbook, gardening tools, coupons for gardening help, craft scissors, a super-cool pencil photo craft, a vintage beaded purse, gift certificates, thank you cards, homemade candles, and lots of hugs.

As I said to Justin after reading one particularly poignant card, "People really do like me!"

This reminder couldn't have come at a better time. Thank you to everyone who made me feel so special, both with material objects and with your presence in my life.

Why my hair is turning gray and brittle...

2009-04-24T13:54:00.000-05:00

One of the things that made me realize I was losing touch with people this semester (and that made me want to start this blog as one possible solution) is that it occurred to me that very few people would be able to share the joy and elation I will be feeling on May 14 after 12 pm if they couldn't experience, in contrast, the incredible stress and sadness of the months leadng up to that date. Why that date, some of you may ask? On May 14, at 10 am, I will enter a small seminar room in the Medical Sciences Center here on campus and will be faced with three brilliant professors who will quiz me on the content of some 200 books and 50 years worth of scholarship for two hours. Then, after a few minutes of deliberation, they will decide whether or not I've passed these "preliminary exams" (or "prelims," as we call them) and whether or not I can move forward with my Ph. D. program. This is decision day for me a in number of really important ways. This is the culmination of all that I've been slaving over for the past seven-ish months. This is, in some ways, what will determine the next chapter of my life.

Last semester, starting in September 2008 or so, I chose three fields, or subdisciplines within my larger program of the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology. These three fields are Environmental History, Science in America, and the History of Public Health in America. For each of these three fields, I chose one advisor who is an expert in that area, and drew up a list of 50-100 books which, after reading, would make me a (tentative) "expert" in that area. (You can see the lists of books by clicking on the fields above, if you're interested). Then, over the course of the last seven months, I've been working my way through these three lists, reading all of these books. Now, obviously, with 212 books to read in about as many days (along with taking courses, planning a wedding, serving as a graduate student representative for CHE, eating meals, and sleeping roughly 8 hours a night), I didn't really read every page of every book. The idea is mainly to know a really important subset of books very well, and to know enough about the rest to be able to talk about them intelligently, to know which ones to return to in the future, and so on.

I actually survived through the reading and note-taking process (with a helluva library account). Then, on Tuesday, April 14, each of my three advisors sent me one question that served to make me think back on the big themes from the entire list of books I read. The questions were on topics like how studying food can contribute to our knowledge of environmetal history, how science has been shaped by the physical environments in which it has been practiced, and how public health measures have been used to normalize a "deviant" sector of society. From that date that I got my questions, I had roughly three weeks to write three 8-10 page essays in response to those three questions. I'm in the middle of drafting these essays now, and they're due on Thursday, May 7. Then, I'll have one week to brush up on all my names and dates and timelines and big ideas, and then on Thursday, May 14, I'll go in for the oral defense of my prelims, in which my three advisors will ask me all sorts of questions about my essays, about the readings I've done this semester, about how it all ties together. And then they will let me know my fate.

I could go on for a really really long time about how I feel about this whole process, how deflated it's made me feel, how seriously I think I may not pass all three of my fields, how this will change my views about the next stage of my academic life. But for now, I'll just leave you with this sketch of my semester. I hope it gives some indication of how overwhelmed I've been, how weighed down I've been, but also how free! and light! and relieved! I'll feel after May 14 (regardless of the results).

Wish me luck, or just wish me that I may remember everything I've studied.

You're the Historian: The Joy of Primary Sources

2009-04-24T13:25:00.001-05:00

Their are lots of days when I forget why I wanted to be a historian in the first place. It's not that I forget why I'm interested in academia, or in environmental history, or in exploring the role of scientific expertise in our culture. I just forget why history, in particular, is the way I chose to go.

One of the things that makes me remember, in the most powerful of ways, is the awesome wealth of primary sources out there, and all the digital ones, especially! There is just something that feels enormous about being about to go through all these preserved relics of another time and place, these words and thoughts and arguments that come to us from the past. Being able to rifle through someone's personal letters in an old and dusty archive someone makes me feel like that person has become so important, in this retrospective way. And that all my thoughts and words and reflections are so important, too, in that they might one day help some historian unearth what life was like in the beginning of the 21st century for a white, middle-class, Jewish, liberal academic woman in Wisconsin. Our records have enormous power.

One of my good friends just shared with me that all the records of the American Museum of Natural History are online, starting in the 19th century. And you can learn from these, for example, that over 30,000 people attended a lecture of a famed Arctic explorer in the late 1800s. 30,000 people! At a time when people didn't have cars, the roads were mired in horse manure, and transportation in general was difficult. That's the sort of interest there was in exploration in that era. Just from a little fact like that, we can learn so much.

Some of my go-to digital archives for when I need a reminder of how exciting all this is are Cornell's Home Economics Archive (HEARTH) and their Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) archive, as well as the North American Women's Letters and Diaries (NAWLD) collection.

Wanna know what rural black women in the 1870s wrote about in their diaries? Go to NAWLD, set your parameters, and you can find out. Wanna know what women wrote about, say, "bananas" between 1870, when the fruit was entirely unknown in the US, and 1925, when one could be found in almost every worker’s dinner pail? Click away! How about finding out what mothering manuals said about treating the common cold before germ theory became popular in America? Go to HEARTH's "Hygiene" section and browse around. Entirely different worlds are opened with the touch of a button.

Southern Charm

2009-04-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

In June, we're planning on heading down to the Gulf of Mexico to spend a week on the Alabama coast, in a little beach town where my family and I spent many summers during my childhood. "Excited" is not strong enough a word to describe how I feel when I imagine a week of nothing but sand and blue skies and roosting and crossword puzzles and fruit smoothies with Justin. No work. No pressure. No stress. No deadlines. Eeek! to the umpteenth power is more like it.

But, unfortunately, this vision is marred a little bit by an experience we had in setting up the details with the small-town Mississippi woman whose condo we're renting while we're in Alabama. You see, I first called her to make the arrangements and she said she'd have to call me back. Before she did, though, Justin and I decided he'd take over the honeymoon planning work, so he offered to just answer my phone when this woman called us back. When she did, he told her he was my fiance and would be coordinating the planning from here on out. After the phone call, he told me that she'd been rather cold and fairly standoff-ish on the phone and had said things like "Where you are you two from?" in a rather accusatory voice. But, we moved forward with it anyway.

The next time Justin spoke to this woman, she was again pretty rude. And in the course of taking down some of his information, she said, "Now, is this Anna I'm speaking with, or which one are you?" Justin paused, and said "No, actually, this is Justin, Anna's BOYfriend, or fiance." At this, there was a long pause, an (almost) audible sigh of relief, and a subsequent total change of tone as this woman congratulated him on our engagement, inquired into Justin's life, and was totally filled with the typical Southern "charm." Of course, at this point we realized that she had mistaken Justin's somewhat high-ish voice for a woman's voice, had assumed we were a lesbian couple, and had not been too sure of supporting this sort of behavior.

Justin hung up from this conversation and came to tell me about what had happened. We both sort of sat in slightly-stunned silence as we recognized conflicting feelings of gratefulness for being the recipients of this woman's newly-found charm, but also bitterness that this charm was so selectively (and arbitrarily!) doled out.

And it's not even that I blame her. At least not entirely. She's an older woman from a small town in Mississippi. Her environment and her upbringing have largely shaped her to have certain views she can hardly call her own. But it still makes me so angry. Angry and sad.

It reminds me in such a personal way that even as we have all this good news streaming forth from Iowa and Vermont and DC, there is still so much work to be done, so much privilege we take for granted (in the sexual orientation realm as well as in so many others), so many people's lives that are unfairly restricted and challenged.

If you haven't seen this yet (and are lookin' for a good cry), please watch:

Friendship! Is there anything more beautiful? Part II

2009-04-21T10:58:00.000-05:00

See? I was right:

In the New York Times today: "What Are Friends for? A Longer Life"

“People with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to,” said Karen A. Roberto, director of the center for gerontology at Virginia Tech. “Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.”

The beauty of artifice

2009-04-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

One of the many things I'm excited about regarding our upcoming wedding is the chance to flex my craft muscles. I've always loved making colorful works of functional art from paper and foil candy wrappers and toilet paper rolls and bits of string and whatever else I have around. But sometimes it feels like there's not a lot of space for that sort of creativity in the adult world. But I'm making this wedding into a space just for that. And even though by the time I actually have a chance to devote all my energy to wedding-crafting, it'll be just about two weeks before the event, I've been sneaking in a little craft time when I need a break from the grind, or in between books. My latest venture has been into the wide world of paper flower making. I don't yet know exactly how I'm going to work these yellow beauties into the wedding, but they're going to make an appearance somehow, I think, both because I really don't want to have real flowers that cost too much and die within days, and because it seems like a perfect way to showcase a little handmade flavor. So, for a glimpse of what I've come up with so far:

In case you're interested, some of the inspiration and instructions for these flowers can be found here (Image 1), here (Image 2), and here (Image 4).

Which ones are your favorites? How might we might we use these in our wedding?

Those are indeed the questions...

Baby James the Rapper

2009-04-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Our good friends here in Madison, Erin and Matt Barker (who we hiked in the Canadian Rockies in Banff National Park with last summer, when we got engaged) had a baby--James--in January. He's only a couple of weeks older than my nephew Jeremy, so I've really enjoyed getting to watch James grow these past few months, both for his own sake and because it gives me some idea of how Jeremy is changing. Although I love them both, I inevitably find myself comparing them--their mannerisms, their sizes, their appearances, their rapping styles... And even though Jeremy is my flesh and blood (shares a quarter of my genes, right?), I've gotta say, I think James is the better rapper:

It's true that we don't have a video of Jeremy rapping for a fair comparison (and, it's possible that Justin might have helped James out, just a little, with this one). So perhaps the jury is still out. What do you think?

Kids and Gardens and Markets, oh my!

2009-04-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I found out that I got one of the internships that I wanted for the summer! I'd been concerned because the job actually starts almost two weeks before I'd be able to start (on account of our wedding and honeymoon--more on that to follow) and I'd already been rejected from another internship program at the same organization for that reason. But this one came through, so now I can share the exciting news that I'll be working as an intern with the Kids' Gardening Program at Community GroundWorks at Troy Gardens.

Troy Gardens is this awesome urban farming project a couple miles north of where we live here in Madison. Their missions are:

To nurture a meaningful relationship between people and the land
To grow wholesome and organic food for local tables
To regenerate urban natural areas
To cultivate a diverse learning community
To teach what we practice
To foster healthy communities and personal wellbeing

And, given that those are some of my own main missions in life, it looks like this gig will work out pretty nicely for me! The Kid's Garden, specifically, helps children from area community centers plant and maintain their own garden beds and participate in arts and crafts and cooking projects. So I'll be helping out with all that, and hopefully picking up some gardening skills of my own while I'm at it.

Which leads me to the next exciting part of this post, which is that I've acquired my own little 7' garden plot here at Lakewood Gardens, where we live. They have a few community garden plots, and I've managed to get one for myself. So, even though I doubt I'll be able to get out there to dig around in the dirt at all before May 14 (when I finish with my prelims, after *hopefully* passing my oral defense), after that date, I'll have a garden! And, thankfully, you can plant stuff a lot later around here than we did in Arkansas, so I think I'll still be ok getting some cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers into the ground in the second part of May. I've consulted this handy Dane County Planting Guide just to be sure.

And finally, to continue with all the excitement regarding fresh produce around these parts, today was the first day that the Dane County Farmer's Market was back outside, on the capital square! (there's a hint for all your wedding invitation acrostic puzzle-solvers!) And even though I was stuck inside working all day and couldn't actually find time to go to the market (which is a pretty big deal, as it's both the highlight of spring/summer in Madison and the largest producer-only market in the nation), just the very thought of all that asparagus and onion and winter spinach and rhubarb and cheese made me grin a little more than I might've otherwise.

Yay for vegetables!

You're the Historian: Peaches come from a can...

2009-04-17T21:35:00.001-05:00

In order to help myself along with the project of actually learning more about American history as I go along with this whole Ph. D. (in History!), I've been trying to memorize the U. S. Presidents in order. I've pretty much got it down, thanks to this video:

And I'm still working on this one:

And the worst one I've seen so far (laughably so):

Anyone want to quiz me?

You're the Historian: Go Time

2009-04-13T22:08:00.001-05:00

I just got my prelim questions! Ack!

No more procrastinating now.

I guess all those crepe paper flowers are just going to have to wait...

Friendship! Is there anything more beautiful?

2009-04-11T21:54:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, just as I was sitting down to work for the evening, two of my favorite people in the world called me, one almost right after the other. And although both times I picked up the phone and almost inwardly groaned, thinking “I want so much to talk to my friend, but I have so much work to do that I don’t even know if I’ll enjoy this conversation,” I nevertheless picked up the phone both times, compelled by some internal pressure to not subvert my priorities, to not let these mountains of work all around me to turn me into the sort of person who doesn’t savor friendship or continually reinforce the tender ties that link me to the most important people of my past (and my present! But only if I’m careful and attentive…)

And then, both conversations turned out to be so gratifying, so warm, so reinforcing, that I wondered how it was that I ever even considered not answering the phone. But as much as I enjoyed talking to two of my dearest friends about everything that was going on in our lives, however briefly, I could still feel the weight of a semester of rare correspondence. I still recognized that there was so much going on in my life that they didn’t know about, and that I couldn’t possibly fill them in on in a half-hour conversation.

But it also made me return to the idea of this blog as an incredibly powerful form of communication. I, for one, LOVE reading people’s blogs (heck, even the blogs of people who are semi-strangers, blogs that I stumble upon through facebook browsing or following blogger profiles through comments) and find so much value in being able to keep up with a person’s life through a few clicks of my laptop mouse, so that I still feel connected to their lives, even when we haven’t had the chance to talk in a while.

So, I’ve decided to rededicate this blog with a new mission of reinforcing and stimulating friendship. I’m going to start writing about the sort of things I would talk to my closest friends about if we could have a weekly lunch date in Bowles Plaza or the ASMS cafeteria or the Jacobs Camp dining hall or on the grass of the Library Mall. And I’m going to actually tell people about this blog, so that they (hopefully) will leave me comments and hold me accountable for actually updating this blog. Here's to the mission.

Won't you all help me out?

You're the Historian: On the importance of mentorship

2009-04-11T21:26:00.001-05:00

This week has been one heavy with expectation, with a sense of the future.

As I imagine the future, one possibility that emerges has me as a professor at a university dedicated to teaching and to research, a university where the students are assumed to be first-rate and the professors are there to help mold them into the leaders of tomorrow. As I imagine this possibility and consider what I will be like and what I will prioritize in my varied academic roles as researcher, professor, seminar-leader, committee-member, mentor, and all the rest, all I can hope is that I can remember what it’s like to be a graduate student and can offer my own students the kind of support that I see being so very crucial to my own life today. I imagine that as a professor it becomes very easy to forget what it’s like to be a student, to get wrapped up in the daily grind of academic work and put aside concerns over students’ mental and emotional well-being.

This week, very different models of mentorship have prominently shaped how I feel about myself, my future in this business, my success with my upcoming exams, and my own self-worth. A mentor’s kind word is everything. Having someone in a position of power tell me that she has faith in me, that she thinks I’m good at this, that she won’t let me leave grad school, that she has every confidence I will pass these exams…well, it just means everything in the world to me. I need this support. (And I imagine others need it just about as much as I do. Who will give it to them?)

Don’t let me forget this.

You're the Historian: Wash U love

2009-03-31T22:07:00.001-05:00

So, although this post isn't really about my current academic life, it certainly is about my previous one. A little sister of one of my close friends is trying to decide where to go for college and is considering Wash U, my alma mater. She asked me "if you had to say one thing that you didn't like about it, what would it be? and what is the absolute number one reason i should go there?:

Here's my plodding attempt at a response: (any Wash U readers have your own thoughts to add?)

Hi,

First, I'll address the absolute number one reason you should go to Wash U, because that's the sort of question I love answering. (Also, since I don't know that much about what sort of things you're looking for in a college, where else you're applying, what you might major in, what you like to do for fun, etc., this is the sort of standard answer I'd offer to anyone. I'm sure there are a lot of more specific pros and cons about WU relative to your specific needs, and I'm happy to go into those more if you want to offer me some of your criteria, but I'll give the general for now...):

Basically, I think the term "community" gets thrown around a lot in different circles to mean different things. But of all the places I've ever been, all the organizations I've ever been part of, all the groups of people I've ever known, Wash U embodies my idea of "community" better than any other. There's this sort of "we're in this together" feel about the place, the kind of assumption that pretty much anyone who's gone through the Wash U experience comes out the other end with a common set of values, a common set of ideas, and a feeling of immense pride in being a WU alum. This comes from a number of factors, I think. First and foremost is the residential life community. Although I may be a little biased since I was an RA for three years, I think that the cohesiveness of the res life staff and the importance of your freshman floor, your dorm, and the group of friends and acquaintances you build through your residential college is unparalleled. Then there's the kind of "rising star" nature of WU--it's not an Ivy Leaguer, but it's also really in competition with the best and the brightest in a number of ways (as my freshman roommate put it, the snobby smart people go to the Ivy Leagues, while the nice smart people go to Wash U). I think this aspect of the place makes people critically think about what they love about the university and what they could do to make it even better--so there's a lot of investment on the individual level (among students, among faculty, among staff, and among the administration alike) into the larger vision of WU's future. All of this stuff was very subtle while I was there--it wasn't like I thought about these ideas all the time and palpably felt all this at this level of analysis. It wasn't until after I left Wash U, until I'd been here in Madison, at the University of Wisconsin, for a number of years that this appreciation for the WU "community" came flooding over me. Most of my closest friends here in Madison are WU alums--but not even people I knew that well in college. It's just that when I got here, I found that WU alumni sought each other out, that I felt instantly comfortable around them in a way I didn't with people from my department and others I met. Just meeting someone who went to WU is often enough for the basis of a friendship, because there's the acknowledgment that we developed a common core of values and commitments to intellectual rigor, to community building, to Midwestern warmth, and to being part of something bigger. (Of course, this isn't to say I love every single person who ever went to Wash U, but as a general rule, it applies). As a point of comparison, I haven't seen this sort of mutual camaraderie from any of my friends who went to other institutions. When I have two friends who both went to, for example, UPenn, I always have this urge to introduce them, assuming they'll want to hang out as I do with any WashUer. But then I find that alumni of other institutions (across a broad range of other colleges) don't seem to have that same sense of community, that same desire for connection, that same assumption of shared values. So. That's a long-winded answer, but it really is the best thing about WU from my perspective, especially in hindsight.

As for my least favorite thing... I think this has more to do with criticism of myself and my decisions in college rather than the institution as a whole, but I do regret that Wash U didn't have more or an activist mindset, that there wasn't more support for activism around environmental, political, social, and progressive goals. People in St. Louis sometimes refer to the university as the "Wash U Bubble" because they see the fairly elite students inside WU as being uninterested in the community as a whole, somewhat spoiled, and too stuck inside an ivory tower sort of community. Although I think that is certainly a stereotype and doesn't apply to a large percentage of the students, it is true that being at WU sometimes makes it easy to forget that there's a larger world around us. And the studious nature of so many of the students often lent itself to a real focus on academics and the pursuit of a secure professional future over an engagement with important issues outside of academia.

I hope this all is somewhat helpful. Let me know if you have any other thoughts. And most of all, good luck in your decision!*

Anna

*Honestly, when it comes down to it, as much as I think WU is an awesome place--a college to beat all colleges--I also think that any intelligent, friendly, well-grounded, curious, engaged person can find a good university experience just about anywhere (or at least at any of the colleges I assume you're applying to). So, the bottom line is, don't worry about it too much. Don't ever feel like if you make the "wrong decision," your whole life will somehow be compromised. That is not the case.

Making Frozen Burritos

2009-03-31T09:55:00.001-05:00

Justin really loves burritos. He and his brother Jason spent their childhoods lusting over tortilla-wrapped goodness. Although burritos are generally a speedy thing to make, in our whirlwind work of school and stress, Justin particularly appreciates the quickness and efficiency of a frozen burrito. Out of the freezer, into the microwave, and into the belly in five minutes flat. But the Amy's burritos we usually buy, although delicious, are also pretty pricey.

So, for a while now, I've had it in my head that I would try my hand at my own frozen burritos to give to Justin as a gift. I scouted the internet for ideas on how to do this, but finding little of use, I ventured out on my own into the world of burrito making. Here's what I found: It's pretty easy to do. Just gather your ingredients (whatever makes your tummy happy), wrap them up in some tortillas, place the wrapped burritos on a cookie sheet so that they're not touching each other (otherwise, they stick together, like Jeff Daniels's tongue to that pole in Dumb and Dumber), and put in the freezer for a few hours or overnight. Once they're good and frozen, you can take them off the space-hogging cookie sheets and put them in a ziploc bag, all piled together. After that, at your leisure, you can just remove a burrito, put it on a plate, microwave for 2ish minutes, and have yourself a great snack! Justin has found that because of some mysterious alchemy during the freezing process, the tortillas hold together really well after re-heating (even better than fresh!), even though I didn't do such a great job of wrapping them in the first place.

So, without further ado, photographs of my burrito-making process (although I'm sort of embarassed by the mediocrity of my food photographs, especially as compared to Heidi Swanson's of my favorite cooking/food photography blog, 101cookbooks):

My first burrito in the process of composition: refried beans thinned with soy milk, frozen corn, black beans, and mashed sweet potatoes creamed with a little sour cream.
Scrambled eggs and fried pieces of Gimme Lean, ready to go into my breakfast burritos (I made lunch and breakfast versions, on both white flour and whole wheat tortillas):

In most of the lunch burritos, I put this mashed sweet potato mixture, which also had some black beans, soy milk, cumin, coriander, garlic, cayenne pepper, and salt mixed into it. In the colander you can see the wealth of fresh cilantro I used in just about every burrito:

Here are the refried beans and sauteed onions and garlic that I used in most of the burritos, along with my two piles of tortillas (both wheat and white versions from Trader Joe's--which are among the only tortillas I've found that don't have partially hydrogenated vegetable oils):

And finally, the homemade salsa that was in all the burritos (and, I think, the real key to their yumminess). The salsa contains Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes, fresh diced onion, lots of fresh cilantro, a few chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper:

A photo of the whole work station:

I just realized I don't actually have photos of the finished product. Sorry. But, happily, Justin loved his surprise frozen burritos and has been enjoying them for the past few weeks!

Happy Birthday Papa!

2009-03-30T23:12:00.001-05:00

Today is my Papa's 72nd birthday, and for that reason, I'd like to say Hooray! When I talked to him this morning, we reflected on how much he has to be thankful for on this day, as on many others--his new grandson who he now lives near, his adoring children, a devoted wife of (almost) 28 years, a super-fulfilling career throughout his life that continues to be a source of stimulation and pleasure, and woods nearby in which to walk everyday. Although I can't be with him today, I can offer a little online tribute:

And, from the archives, a biographical paper I wrote as a junior in high school about my Papa's emigration, and another one--this one from my senior year in high school--based on an interview I did with him. I guess you could say he was my muse... (and continues to be!)

You're the Historian: Rich gentlemen have it boys...

2009-03-22T10:30:00.001-05:00

So many great articles about food in the New York Times lately, all spurred, perhaps in part, by Michelle Obama's vegetable garden on the White House Lawn:

From the archive, 1991, Op-Classic: Abolish the White House Lawn (Michael Pollan)
March 10, Michelle Obama’s Agenda Includes Healthful Eating
March 20, Sugar Is Back on Food Labels, This Time as a Selling Point
March 20, Food, Glorious Food Myths
March 21, Washington’s Not-So-Secret Garden
March 21, Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not
March 21, Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?

More thoughts on all of them to come...

You're the Historian: With gratitude

2009-03-12T12:50:00.001-05:00

I have a confession to make: Sometimes when I'm reading books for my prelims, I spend more time reading the acknowledgments section than the whole rest of the book. (But shh... don't tell!) It often feels like the best way to get to know an author is not through their well-crafted analytic arguments, but through the way they express thanks to their families, friends, and mentors. I love reading these sections and imagining the personal struggles that went into the creation of every book I read, the many lives that were affected by a father staying up late typing at his computer, by a partner spending months away from home while visiting just one more archive, by the daughter who never gets to talk to her parents for quite as long as she'd like because she just has to finish one more chapter. And because I think about crafting my own acknowledgments section some day, I thought I'd begin that process by collecting some of my favorite acknowledgments here. (And it's probably no coincidence that my favorite acknowledgments come from my favorite books.) To begin:

From Aaron Sachs (of the "most disgusting pronoun" fame), in his Humboldt Current, a tribute to his wife and son:

"Christine Evans accompanied me on every step of this journey, and I am eternally grateful for her companionship--and her love. She also put in a great deal of hard work on various aspects of this project and put up with all my obsessions and compulsions, in a spirit of bemused goodwill. She's the strongest person I know. Samuel Evans Sachs came along while this manuscript was still an unfinished dissertation and I was a seemingly unemployable grad student. He immediately made it all worthwhile. Taking him on various expeditions has been my greatest pleasure in the past couple of years. Christine and Sam also provided excellent motivation to finish the writing. They are my cosmos as well as my hearth...Finally: my parents, Miriam and Murray Sachs, are the ones who got me into this mess in the first place. I can never thank them enough. And I can't help but think of this book, if it has any merits at all, as owing its existence to thirty-five years of their incredible nurturing and cultivation."

Another from Thomas Dunlap, in his 1982 book DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public Policy. I particularly like this one, because it reminds me of the role of secretaries in preparing manuscripts before everyone used a computer and word processor, and of how often mothers and wives and female secretaries did the grunt work for their sons and husbands and bosses:

"My wife and colleague, Susan Miller, who never typed a page for me, has my special thanks. She has been a relentless and perceptive critic of my work, a patient auditor, and an invaluable support."

This one from Sarah Igo's impressive book The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public , to her parents and husband:

My parents, John and Mittie Igo, have my gratitude for just about everything, but above all their unstinting stores of generosity, love, and confidence--not just during theses years of researching and writing but for my whole life. They provided the sturdy foundation upon which everything else was built. As for my husband, Ole Molvig, what can I say in mere words? His steadfast support, his stunning intelligence, his sustaining sense of humor, his quest for the good life, his dissection of my work but also his many and lovely distractions from it have made my life better in every way. It is to my parents and to him that I dedicate this book.

Ted Steinberg appreciating his editor, his mother, and (who I assume to be) his wife in Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America:

Susan Day was a pleasure right down to the last en dash...Helen Steinberg read over the entire manuscript and tried valiantly to save me from myself. Marie del Monaco, with her unparalleled sense of justice, is, for me, the final arbiter of all that matters in the world.

And finally, Louis Warren acknowledging the important role parents play in the graduate student's life, in his The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America:

There has been discussion in academic circles of the need to move degree candidates to completion more quickly. The best way to accomplish that would be to give every graduate student parents like mine. Throughout this endeavor, I have been the beneficiary of my parents' unstinting moral support as well as occasional, much-needed grants from the Claude and Elizabeth Warren Bank of Higher Education and Field Research. To them, a heartfelt thanks.

You're the Historian: Justice, in assessing environmental change

2009-03-11T23:08:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the major questions that continues to confront environmental historians is how to assess environmental change if we acknowledge the deep roots of human manipulation of the landscape, if we give up the idea of Clementsian ecology (that there is some stable state that natural systems revert to in the absence of human interference), if the science of ecology can't offer us a clear way of describing a "healthy land." Upon taking a second look at Andrew Hurley's Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 today, I realized that he offers a simple, but powerful new answer to this question, through the lens of environmental justice. Hurley writes in his preface:

"Thinking about environmental history in terms of social divisions also invites us to reconsider the way we assess environmental change. Environmental historians are well aware of the pitfalls encountered in evaluating ecological change. Recently, ecologists have thrown the concept of equilibrium into question, thereby making it difficult for historians to measure environmental change against any objective standard. The concept of social equity provides historians with an alternative. Thus, we can attempt to determine who benefited and who suffered when a particular society altered its relationship with the surrounding natural and built environment" (Hurley, xiv)

So, rather than worrying about, for example, whether we can call mountaintop removal coal mining "bad" because of the effects it has on native hardwood forests and on riparian ecosystems, we can just call it "bad" because it damages nearby homes beyond repair and decreases the value of surviving homes, because it undermines the local employment base by replacing labor with ruthlessly efficient explosives and machinery, and because it erodes the Appalachian culture. That is, rather than trying to convince others of the value of the natural environment--something which varies depending on individual viewpoints--historians can appeal to the value of human life, something which is more universally agreed upon (although not necessarily for any coherent philosophical reason).

I know that a lot of environmentalists don't like this sort of argument because they do, in fact, want to argue that the natural world has its own moral worth. But in absence of any clear explanation of where this worth comes from (a philosophical discussion not many historians want to get into), it seems that an appeal to human value is a pretty safe bet.

A picture a day...

2009-02-23T22:27:00.000-06:00

In high school, I always wanted to get a photo diary going in which I'd take one picture a day, every day, that would illustrate my life. These days, the photo I would capture most days would look something like this:

Me, in sweatpants, sitting at my desk with a big book in front of me, and an orange cat-man in my lap. All in all, I guess it's not such a bad life.

You're the Historian: Chewing the apple through the middle...

2009-02-23T14:14:00.001-06:00

In response to the really insightful and provocative questions that Badger Bear posted in the comments of my first post, I decided to devote a post to what I see as being the "core ideas" of environmental history, and why I think they are difficult for the educated public to digest. (Although, in fact, I think philosophers are perhaps more capable of digesting these ideas then others of the educated public, since the ideas are actually quite philosophical in nature [and philosophical about nature. Ha!])

So some of the main questions that I see underpinning the study of environmental history are as follows:

Does order exist in nature?
If that order does exist, can it be understood through science?
What is "natural" or "cultural" in the landscape around us? How much "nature" exists outside of human manipulation?
Where do we derive moral authority if not from a "nature" that is outside of human control? Is there something "out there" in nature worth preserving or protecting?
If the idea of Clementsian ecology--that is, an equilibrium state in natural environments--has been undermined by the scientific discoveries of the last 70 years, then what do we use as a baseline for measurement of land health?
Did Native Americans in the pre-contact period manage the landscape intensively? How much "wilderness" existed before British colonists came to America?
How can a commitment to wilderness preservation as the ultimate goal of environmentalism undermine and erode our relationships with other natural and cultural environments, and with human communities?
How much does the physical environment determine the course of human history and culture?
How has capitalism shaped our relationship with the land?

These questions are admittedly very broad. But they do underlie much of the foundational work in my discipline. (For a good introduction to the positions of some leading environmental historians on these issues see Worster, Donald, Alfred Crosby, Richard White, et al., “A Roundtable: Environmental History.” Journal of American History 76 (1990), pp. 1087-1147.)

Not all environmental historians engage with all these issues in all of their writings, of course, but at least some of them are at the core of most of the work we do. The problem with translating this work--and the importance of it--to our friends and families is that most people take the answers to many of these questions for granted, even if they don't think about them too hard. For example, most people outside my discipline (or at least most people I spend a lot of time talking to, which, admittedly, isn't really a representative group) believe in a wilderness "out there" that exists separately from human intervention. Believing in this wilderness is what lets us fawn over the Sierra Club calendar, lets us condemn polluters and destroyers of the earth, lets us revel in weekend hikes in the mountains...but which also lets us ignore the problems of environmental racism, lets us privilege problems of Arctic refuges over the problems in our own neighborhoods, lets us imagine that our own daily lives have little effect on the state of "the environment" so long as we recycle our plastic water bottles and donate yearly to conservation organizations. (Bill Cronon discussed these issues far more eloquently than I could in his famous/notorious essay, The Trouble with Wilderness.)

Alright, I guess I've maybe only chewed the apple through the skin for now--not quite reaching the core--but I think I'll continue with more thoughts soon.

You're the Historian: The most disgusting of pronouns...

2009-02-21T16:49:00.001-06:00

A few days ago, I picked up the next book I was going to read in the "Nature's Nation" section of my Science in America list, The Humboldt Current, by Aaron Sachs. I flipped the hardcover book open to look at the blurb and author's photo on the book jacket, as I always do. I was first struck by this author's photo. He looked young and happy and like someone I'd actually like to hang out with. This is in stark contrast with many authors' photos, in which they often look overly serious, overly ivory-tower-ish, or overly posed. So I decided to read more about this Aaron Sachs before diving into his book, and I came across a profile of him on the History News Network's Top Young Historians pages. In this profile, he describes his experience trying to publish his senior thesis and the criticism he got for using the first person singular--for daring to refer to himself in a work of history.

In reflecting on this, Sachs writes that the use of the "I" has "allowed me to maintain a sense of self in the all-too-impersonal world of academia..has made a better teacher...adds a layer of depth to my analysis...[and] allows me to tap different aspects of what I take to be my core identity." He continues, "I enjoy being a historical scholar, but I also want to be a teacher, an environmental activist, and a writer of creative non-fiction—preferably, all in the same essay, however short or long. I doubt I'll ever succeed at wearing all of those hats simultaneously, but no set of rules is going to keep me from the head-spinning joy of trying."

I couldn't agree more.

I suppose I've only sometimes reflected on how the injection of the "I" into my writing can help me wear these simultaneous hats, but I reflect unceasingly on all the ways I can go about trying to maintain these varied--but crucially connected--aspects of my intellectual life. Right now, I'm feeling entirely one-sided as I find myself being all historical scholar (or even just historical reader!) and not at all teacher, environmental activist, or writer of creative non-fiction (although I guess this blog is helping out a little with that last piece). I'm going to take Sachs as a model and am going to work in a pointed way (after these prelims are over, that is) on combining these different roles I want to embody--and perhaps I'll start by inserting that pronoun that too many historians consider a barrier to "objectivity."

Madison in June

2009-02-18T17:58:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, in these short and dark February days, when the sky is gray, the sleet and snow fall outside (but not quite enough for cross-country skiing or ice skating), my diet is deficient, and my companions are the books on all sides of me instead of the fresh summer air, I come to this blog just to look at the photo strip at the top of this page. One look at the fruit and vegetable bounty of the farmer's market--the peppers and eggplants and chilies and green beans!--and at the flowers and blue sky of days outside on the Capitol Square and at the beautiful rippling waters of Lake Mendota--with sailboats and live music and bugle calls at sunset--and I'm transported forward in time when my semester will be over, when my toes will once again come out to play, when Mr. Vedder the cat can run around in the backyard to his heart's content, and, this year, when this city I love will be filled with all of the people we love for at least one weekend... And just the imagined thought is enough.

You're the Historian: Have you heard of Franklin Pierce?

2009-02-17T23:56:00.001-06:00

I had no idea he was the 14th president of the United States. In fact, before tonight I would've said that I had never heard of him. Bah!

You're the Historian: The Best Time of my Graduate School Life

2009-02-17T14:37:00.001-06:00

This semester (and portions of the last one, too) I'm focused on reading the nearly 200 books on my preparation lists for my preliminary exams, which I'm scheduled to take, in oral form, on Thursday, May 14 at 10 am (preceded by the written exams, which I'll receive by about April 15). I'd heard a lot about this process since beginning my Ph.D. program and I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into. I would spend a semester curled up on my futon, reading books in my sweatpants, gulping down information and ideas, developing the breadth and mastery of my subdisciplines that would prepare me to write my dissertation and to teach courses in these areas one day in the future. Oh, I knew there'd be tedium and difficulty and procrastination involved, but I was looking forward to it. And my advisor and other faculty kept telling me that reading for prelims would be the "best time" of my graduate school life. After all, how often do you get to spend a whole semester just reading all those books you've been meaning to catch up on? All your other time is spent racing to finish reading for class, putting together a lecture, prepare for discussion, attending meetings, and so on. But here was an oasis of self-scheduling and reading books I wanted to be reading, in sub-disciplines I chose.

And now that "best time" is here, and instead of reading those amazing books on the history of Science in America, Environmental History, and the History of Public Health, I'm fretting over my inability to be an intellectual, looking for yellow shoes online, and (somewhat more productively) attending to this blog. The weight of reading book upon book every single day--no matter how interesting they are--is pressing down on me, and I'm wondering how such sustained attention to on any one thing can lead to the right outcome. I compare this whole process to the scene in Roald Dahl's Matilda where one of Matilda's classmates sneaks a piece of chocolate cake he wasn't supposed to eat and so, to punish him, the evil head-mistress, Mrs. Trunchbull, makes the chubby boy eat an entire chocolate sheet cake, in front of the whole school.

Sure, one piece of cake is delicious. Even two or three pieces can sometimes be a welcome treat. But when you have to eat 2 or 3 or 4 pieces of cake every single day for months on end, I'd bet anyone would come to hate cake.