of yogurt and wars and legends – Northern France
Posted: July 8, 2014 Filed under: food, history, Northern France, travel | Tags: chestnuts, legends, mountains, northern france, the plank of the beautiful girls, yogurt 4 CommentsToday we started the morning with sheep milk yogurt, it was very rich and instead of fruit in the bottom it was flavored with a chestnut paste. Instead of plastic, the yogurt comes in a small glass pot. I think it tastes better in glass – one little item in the world where quality matters to someone.
Sheep milk yogurt with chestnut flavoring
The land is rich here but not prosperous. The farms don’t have that finely kept look of Austria or parts of Wisconsin. The Romans took the towns here, but never subdued the Celts that lived in the deep dark forest. It was foreign to the way the Roman armies fought and they were content with roads and cities.
Before the potato came from the new world, chestnuts were crucial to survive the winter for the poor. They made bread from chestnuts to tide themselves through. One of the armies that came through stripped the bark from all the chestnut trees and that winter the villagers starved.
Some of the old stone houses may have had their cornerstones laid four hundred years ago. When you visit, you might find a “hobbit hole” where an original door makes a grown man or woman stoop to enter it.
An abandoned stone building near the village fountain, it might have housed a community oven
Nearby is the “Plank of the Beautiful Girls” – where in the thirty year war some young girls jumped to their death before being ravaged by plundering Swedish mercenaries. One of the girls was very beautiful and the leader of the band tried to save her. He emerged with her lifeless body and above her grave carved a plank to honor her.
The mountains and valleys have seen much war and strife
After war and pestilence and martyrs, spring rains always and the cows graze in the meadows and the larks still sing in Northern France.
northern france – food
Posted: July 7, 2014 Filed under: food, Northern France, travel | Tags: food, France, northern france, tour de france 10 CommentsOne of the beauties of France is its honesty. Rich and verdant, we came to visit the tour de France
the promise of cycling and racing
Few things surpass butter from Normandy with sea-salt on a fresh baguette from a visit to the local bakery.
Butter from Normandy with sea-salt
We are enjoying a world that still loves the table… It might be from the Champagne Les Brun Servenay ( light and dry and perfect ), or in the foi gras with sea-salt and a touch of apricot jam, or the chicken spread which prepared with duck fat, or the olive tapenade with a local cheese melted over it
The table is a beautiful thing
Some things in life cannot be hurried….
Wishing you the luxury of time….
let your hair down
Posted: June 30, 2014 Filed under: cycling, pearls of wisdom | Tags: cycling, Pratt Castle, rapunzil, tolerance, vilify 30 CommentsI happened to come across a post where someone labeled another who had differing views. Of course I violated the “blogging prime directive” – don’t throw gasoline on someone else’s fire, it’s their blog, their belief, and one snarky comment won’t do a darn thing to open their eyes.
Still, I am reminded of Gimli the dwarf words from Tolkien: “The words of this wizard stand on their heads.”
When we dehumanize or vilify an opponent we take the first step of the path toward justifying violence.
While I am sure this tower is not so grand as Orthanc where Gimli and Sauron bandied words, if you ride your bicycle down the Illinois Prairie Trail as it lazily parallels the Fox river, you can catch a glimpse of this modern day castle built in the 1930’s by the Pratt family.
Built in the 1930’s by an engineer.
Maybe just the place to let down your hair….
taking a bite out of life – YARS
Posted: June 25, 2014 Filed under: sport, yars ( yet another rugby story ) | Tags: biting, retribution, rugby, world cup, yars 6 CommentsYARS, Yet Another Rugby Story – inspired by the Soccer World Cup…
We were a new team ( The Forest City Rugby Club ) playing Sciotto Valley, one of the top rugby clubs in Ohio. It was a cold day, and Buddy our fiesty scrum half was so chilled he was wearing a bright orange stocking cap in the match. Sciotto had an eight-man, a massive stocky fellow, Kaiser I think the name was. We had no answer for him, he left us bruised and battered every time we tried to run past him. Once I helped Buddy up after a smashing tackle by Kaiser, and the portly scrum half muttered “I think I’m paralyzed” as he staggered back to postion. Another time Buddy confided, “I punched him last time and he didn’t even notice!”
But by the second half, Buddy had had enough. There was a ruck, a massive pileup of men struggling for the ball and Kaiser with his big number 8 on the back of his jersey lay exposed with his arms pinned down on our side. I saw Buddy run up and clench his fist, ready to strike a blow for retribution, when Buddy paused leaned over and bit Kaiser right on top of the number eight. Kaiser bellowed like a gelded bull, and thrashed around trying to peer around and spy the culprit.
In a panic, Buddy ripped off his hat and threw it on the ground and ran out to stand in the defensive line, leaving the enraged Kaiser searching in vain for the person to pulverize.
So when I saw the bite on the World Cup, first I was horrified then I laughed thinking “If Luis Suarez had bitten Kaiser, he’d be paralyzed!”
father’s day thoughts
Posted: June 14, 2014 Filed under: cycling | Tags: cycling, fathering takes some learning, shooting baskets 21 CommentsMy dad was a tough guy. Never said much about difficulty. In fact I found an old journal of his where all he said about being on the beach in Normandy was “It was hell.”
One of my daughters played basketball. Often we would ride our bikes over to a nearby playground and shoot baskets and play one-on-one. One day my twelve year old hops on her bike with the ball under her left arm, right hand for steering and off she goes with me following. Two blocks from home, I see her reach her right hand over to the left side to shift gears and wham it’s “Hello pavement meet girl.”
A neighbor lady who was out walking saw the spill and sprints up making comforting noises. I ride up, “You’re OK, let’s go.” Leaving a stunned neighbor, mouth agape as off we go.
About a block later as we silently ride on I glance over at my ever game companion and she is cuts and scrapes and blood all over. “Uhhh… maybe we should turn around and let your mom check you out.” Remember girls, Webbs gotta be tough, just not that tough.
Happy Father’s day kids, thanks for putting up with the learning curve.
A D-day thought
Posted: June 7, 2014 Filed under: history | Tags: cake, d-day, history, Normandy, World War II 34 CommentsOn the seventieth anniversary of D-day I thought I’d share a war story.
My dad was on Normandy beach so long ago. He rarely spoke about it, but I remember him telling that the waves crested pink with blood. In his Higgins boat of the 49 soldiers he was the only one to reach shore alive.
But the story I have is one about sugar and cake. Just before the invasion, my dad was stationed in Torquay. Just 19 years of age, he and his fellow soldiers in a strange country were a confused mixture of amazed and homesick. England at that time was under harsh rationing, and the Americans had money and access to supplies that were rarely seen.
One day my dad is leaving the base when a Brit approaches him saying “sailor, sailor, have you got your ration ?”
Dad warily replied he had when the fellow offered “If you’ve got sugar, we have the rest. If you just come home with me my wife can make us a cake.”
I don’t know if they were young or old, but I recall Dad telling us how excited they were, and how she mixed things up and soon that had a cake to share.
This is one of my favorite war stories, where in the shadow of a great darkness people find comfort in a shared piece of cake.
Some day I think I’ll take a trip to Torquay and maybe have a piece of cake.
Hidden Treasure I&M canal mile 58-83
Posted: June 1, 2014 Filed under: Chicago, cycling, history, travel | Tags: cycling, history, I&M canal, Ottawa Ill 24 CommentsFarther from the city the canal trail is not so well maintained. One of the aqueducts has collapsed leaving the canal a “tadpole puddle”. Some places it’s full of sediment, and trees 30 feet high grow there or people mow the grass in the canal behind their homes like it’s a play-ground for their kids.
Some places just a tadpole puddle.
It’s hot, over 90 degrees ( 32 c ) and the trees give shade, but the large waterfowl are gone. We hear birds singing around us, but they are deep in the trees. At one section, the sticks ahead of us suddenly wriggle away, turns out they are snakes sunning.
This is like where I grew up, small town America – wave at everyone, don’t have to lock your doors. Kids smile and wave at us, and one family is playing with their pet goat. We meet a guy who has ridden many trails, over a thousand miles all with his two buds.
Two little guys for company, they’ve logged over a thousand miles in their milk crate
We pass Seneca, a little town where a brick making company is still going strong after starting in 1835. They sit right on the canal and I wonder how many of Chicago’s fine brick homes were build on bricks fired there. During the potato famine in Ireland over two million people died or left the country in a great diaspora. Many found their fortunes here, and many their ruin, for malaria and dysentery claimed a toll. The workers believed that whiskey would prevent malaria, and so held out to ensure that their weekly pay included a ration of whiskey.
It’s too hot for snow, but the cotton-wood seeds drift down like snow and later we pass a golden meadow.
cottonwood seeds are like snow in June
the golden treasure given to those who travel
We ended at mile 83 in Ottawa, the Indian word for trade, at the conflux of three rivers the French had been trading for furs since the 1600’s. Ottawa hosted one of the Lincoln presidential debates, but now is just a quiet place. When Illinois was nearly broke in the 1840’s they had to borrow 1.6 million from investors to finish the canal. What’s was a dollar worth in those days? The workers digging by the canal by hand received one dollar a week and their whiskey ration.
We were left to turn around and head back the 25 miles, once more moving through time and we returned to the car. One more ride ahead of us to get us to mile 96 and the end of the I&M canal.
hidden treasure I&M canal miles 31-58
Posted: May 26, 2014 Filed under: Chicago, cycling, travel | Tags: cycling, I&M canal, wild life 34 CommentsWe drove out to Joliet for the second leg of the I&M canal. Miles 31-58 are farther out, and the trail is less kept being mostly crushed limestone. You might see a section where a million cat-tails wave in the breeze, or stands of pampas grass tower above you.
The canal, dug by hand by immigrant labor is six feet deep and sixty feet wide for ninety-six miles. It opened up trade in dolomite, limestone, and later the areas became steel towns where immigrants from all backgrounds worked the mills. But building the canal had challenges, and here we can see an aqueduct built over flat land to allow the canal to traverse a river below it. Think of it, a canal six feet deep crossing a river, they did so multiple times to open the heartland to the rest of the world.
An East and West canal over a North/South river
Three times deer jumped out in front of us within several yards. We saw mallards, geese and goslings, ( I thought one goose was coming after me when I came too close. ) There were Great blue herons, egrets and a cormorant graced us with his presence along with cardinals, blue jays and robins and finches galore. There were red-winged black birds, and I think females with a yellow spot on the neck, but I have to confirm that ( still looking ).
He fed, striking without remorse, then retired to his tree where he almost purred, the feathers of his upper neck vibrating…
Of course I don’t stop for garage sales, but do stop for turtles. This ten pound snapper threatened to give me something in common with Nine Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom. Isn’t he ( or she ) magnificent .
I estimate this guy weighed ten pounds
This is turtle posture for “you want a piece of me” – and actually, just a picture was fine.
I made up a corny turtle joke – my sense of humor is odd, let me know if you want to hear it.
When we dropped in and out of the shade, the flower scents were strong and lovely. It might have been wild grapes, but some flower had the scent of a sweet grapes – not cloyingly strong – but a hint that made me think that as a perfume it would be irresistible. The I&M trail has been full of surprises.
It was a hot humid miserable, great fifty mile ride.
the open canal, as it might have looked one hundred years before
the art of Sushi – food
Posted: May 25, 2014 Filed under: Chicago, food, naperville, travel | Tags: food, Naperville, sushi 29 CommentsWe live about as far from the coast as one can get ( Chicagoland ) but Naperville has some excellent sushi restaurants. There are three, that form the Sushi-trinity near by and we try to alternate between them when heading out for lunch. This week it was Sushi House in Warrensville. It’s a small place but really provides excellent food.
We started out with a tempura roll, which includes battered shrimp in the center. It’s crunchy and tasty.
Tempura in sushi – isn’t that cheating
Next we had smoked salmon and Unagi ( barbequed eel ) – I have to admit the eel is my favorite of all time, one of those “last meal” type of flavors.
Smoked salmon and bbq eel
Being hockey season, we had to try their special “Black Hawk Roll” which featured the team colors in roe on top.
in the team colors with roe on top
In celebration of spring we tried the “winter/spring” roll – artistically my favorite, it was almost sad to devour it, but we did, with gusto. Squid on the outside, spicy tuna and avacado on the inside, and roe providing the spring buds on top.
my favorite in presentation
For the finale, a bit of ice cream, two mochi balls with a touch of chocolate sauce.
Mochi – little ice cream balls wrapped in a sweet rice dough.
bwthoughts 
just a thought
Posted: July 2, 2014 | Author: billgncs | Filed under: figures of speech | Tags: commenting on blogs, humor, IMHO, paradox | 14 CommentsThe other day someone responded to a comment I made and started it with “IMHO”. I looked up the acronym and it means In My Humble Opinion. It made me think that maybe he was proud he was humble. Can that be? Or the opinion was humble. I suppose if the evidence was weak, or in your heart you didn’t truly believe in the argument it could be humble.
I ended up replying, “Humble is good.”
That’s just a thought, IMHO.
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