Guns and Butter

This 2 year campaign has been such a drain. And it feels like the country is more polarized than ever -- liberals against conservatives. Always the same thing. It's annoying, it's self defeating, but it's the way American politics seems to be done.

There are a few things which I do remember from college. One is from my very first micro-economics course. Guns and Butter. Guns on the X graph and butter on the y graph. If you live in a society which buys guns, it has less finite resources which which to buy butter.

Seriously, that knowledge alone must have been worth the price of my education. It's something that Bill Clinton remembered (yes, there's that balanced budget he left behind) and George Bush chose to forget. I say chose because he has his MBA from Harvard. So I am pretty sure he got the guns and butter economics class, too.

Now, we did go along with the convoluted BushCheney thinking that debt doesn't matter? We must have, because we got enough of it, don't we? Enough for every family out there to owe, today, $115,000 and get nothing for it. So, when McCain talks about Obama being a socialist who wants to redistribute the wealth, I have to wonder what kind of rocks he has in his head.

It would seem to me that Bush/Cheney has the corner on wealth redistribution. I mean, if his buying guns and pretending we can have all the butter we want has put every family in the hole $115,000, then the amazing Bush/Cheney duo pretty much redistributed the wealth of our entire generation, didn't it?

My father was a conservative, a thinking, rational one. I shudder to think what he would say if he saw the state of the Union after the debacle of the last eight years. I remember years ago being on the phone with him when he said to me, Diana, I don't want to think about the fact that they might not find the WMD's, because that is going to change everything. Everything.

I could not have agreed with my father more. The WMD no show meant waging a war which had no business being waged, it meant the concentration of unbelievable power going to the executive branch, it meant the death of America's reputation as a country which abides by the Geneva convention, which abhors torture, and which has respect for human rights. The estimates are that over a million Iraqis have been killed in this war. Add to that the troops. All for WMD's that did not exist.

My father hated deficit spending. He knew it would mark the end for the country's leadership role in the world. He was a Republican because the GOP was the party which stood for less spending and less taxes. He would be furious to see what has transpired in Iraq and what it has meant. He was against Regan's deficit military spending. And he would hate this even more. With good reason.

Guns and butter. You really can't get away from it. We are done with having both. And taxes, no matter how you look at it, redistribute the wealth so that we can all use roads and have access to public transport and public education. Well, that's what they are supposed to do. We can argue about the degree of the social net -- but that's what taxes are supposed to do. They are not supposed to pay down the interest on money we borrowed for guns while basking in butter. But that's the situation we are in today.

I know. There are the complex sub-prime-derivative products and there are economic factors which even an Harvard MBA who actually attended class wouldn't understand. But I think we have finally figured out that with the very bad fiscal behavior of the last 8 years, we will need to have some discipline.

And I don't think there is any question as to which candidate has the corner on discipline, whether it be how his campaign was handled, to how he reacted to vicious, feral, unnecessary, childish, moronic attacks, to how he is sticking to his message -- that's one narrative, folks, not 10 in 2 months -- to how he simply conducts himself- with dignity, and with consistency. His high road, and his ability to market his very clear message has impressed me, much more than I ever could have imagined.

I was not always an Obama fan. I had my doubts from the beginning right up to the DNC. But I am impressed with how he has conducted himself. I am impressed with his intellectual strength, his curiosity, his ability to communicate, his ability to listen, and his ability to have run a campaign which has been parallel to none - ever. And all that against a team which threatens so un-Americanize and run into the ground everything which I am and which I believe in.

More than anything, I see Obama as our chance to be able to lead in the world of nations. If there is one thing which has hurt me personally more than anything else, it is to see how, through the last horrific eight years, George Bush and Dick Cheney have simply destroyed America's reputation beyond its borders. They have stepped on and smashed to bits what my father and his whole generation fought for. We are SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUYS. And we need to be the good guys again, not out of arrogance, but out of understanding and communication. We cannot risk any more hawkish - axis -of-evil thinking. And we cannot afford to have anything close to a Joe Sixpack mentality anywhere near within reach of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let's please say good buy and good riddance once and for all to the Karl Roves, the Drill Baby Drill, the Obama-is-a-Muslim-who-palls-around-with-terrorists, the pitbull in Prada, the Joe the Plumber, the Real-and-Not-Real America. Let's just take it all and throw it where it deserves to be thrown --in the non-recyclable pile -- because none of it is ever worth bringing up again.

What I see in Obama is discipline. Patience. The ability to wait for the moment and sieze it when it arrives. The ability to hammer the same point home, again and again. The ability to stay on message. To electrify the masses.

I wish both sides had Obama's discipline. It would have made for a more intelligent, interesting race. One which is worthy of our country. The race has been one sided. Intellect on one side. Anti-intellect and all that intellect stands for on the other. That makes me very sad. The United States of America deserves much better at this point.

Republicans, listen up. Stop marginalizing intellect as elitism. Just stop. The GOP was at one time a party of sharp, disciplined individuals, and had a very clear idea of where they wanted to take the country- whether one agreed with the path or not -- but it was NOT down a path of futile and unjustified war, with economic devastation, intellectual bankruptcy and moral confusion thrown in for good measure.

Where has conservative intelligence gone? Why has this term become an oxymoron?

The party needs to get its brains back. And I am not talking about the neocons who would not know an AK47 from a pound of butter. The GOP owes that to the country. America needs the smartest, the brightest, from both parties -- now more than ever.

Here's to change on Tuesday, my friends.

Comments

You'll notice that I have changed the comment section. You guys, sorry, but you'll have to register again--but the upside is you can do a lot more with this commenting section, including adding multiple links, etc.

Thanks for your patience -- I love getting comments :) even though I am not as good as Michelle Fabio or Ragazza at responding to them .....

What's Cooking Wednesday - Il Tartufo Bianco

A couple of weeks ago, our guests Sue and Jeff brought a white truffle back from the Alba Truffle Festival. We served it up that evening with fresh tagliatelle and butter. We drank a 2003 Nebbiolo with it.

The next morning, there was enough of the truffle left over to make some creamy scrambled eggs -- over which I shaved the remains of the night before.

Truffles always surprise people. I think because they have a very intense aroma, people expect them to have an overwhelming taste, which they do not. The flavor is sublime.

There are not alot of truffles around this year. This is the opposite of what we expected, since we had a really wet spring.

Other dishes which are served in Piemonte with shaved white truffles include:

Goat Cheese (Robiola)i
Carpaccio (raw filet, thinly sliced)
Fried Eggs
Baby Ravioli filled with Fontina Cheese

Sister Girl Tales

Yesterday nyc/caribbean ragazza wrote an excellent post on the fact that Jezebel had done an article about increased suicide rates for women in their mid forties. It hit a nerve with alot of people, including me. Mid life is the summing up of one's experiences -- and with luck, we move forward in a way which suits us more than it suits anyone else.

The statistics don't surprise me. In fact, just getting to our forties was an accomplishment considering how hard so many of us have been working for so long, and how many difficult obstacles continue to be thrown before us, day after day. The whole thing makes me think of my sister and I, two decidedly different people who have lived decidedly different lives but have come to such similar places after so long.

Back when we were in our 20's and 30's my sister had a seriously demanding job, raised children, cleaned her own house, and passed out exhausted in front of The Cosby Show at 8.30. She made sure that the grocery shopping got done, that a detailed calendar with every single soccer practice and ballet lesson and PTA meeting hung, continuously updated, on the inside of the pantry. Husbands of this day were active as well, but there is no making up for a woman who sees the crumbs accumulating in the corner before they have actually accumulated. Better to stay on top of things. That is how my sister lived her life during those years.

I was not on this track. I didn't have kids, but spent indescribable energy trying to climb professionally, on one coast or the other, reinventing myself for every job interview with every two-bit personnel manager I found sitting across the conference table from me. I always took the interview process and the resulting job as a challenge to do more, earn more, get more. Be more. I was never content with what I had, or with what I had done. I was always looking for the next step in the Darwinian business cycle. I see pictures of myself in my 30's and I look beyond tired and a little detached. No wonder.

I look at my sister now, and all she has done and gone through, and she amazes me. Not just for the person she is -- a woman taking care of her husband, mother, and dog who have all had cancer in 2008, a woman who teaches pharmacy at University level but is also getting her yoga instructor qualifications -- but for all she has done for so many for so many years.What I wish for her now, at this important time in her life, is less work and more joy.

I look at myself now and realized it took all of that to become the kind of person who can be content sitting on a hill and creating. I am content with the person I am today. I also wish for myself less work and more joy.

Over the years, she and I both have started untying the knots of our complicated selves. We both do truly see that getting the most out of these days we have now is of utmost importance. This knowledge forges us together in the strongest of ways.

Staying healthy and happy in mid life is easier with a sister to lean on. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

The Upside of the Downturn

Well, the last few weeks have been a real bummer if we want to take world news seriously. Only those on the American side of the pond succinctly obsessed with one indicator - the Euro/Dollar exchange rate - have had any reason at all to break open a bottle of something expensive. The rest of the developed world simply watches as retirement funds shrink, property values plummet, and we realize that this round of the global flu won't respond to $700 billion worth of antibiotics.

What a drag.

As one who has made a life-long conscious effort to change that half-empty glass into a half-full one, I would like to reveal some of the positive effects a global recession might have on our every day lives.

1. Those idiots in restaurants won't be annoying everyone by hanging out on their cell phones any more. This is because either their phone contracts have been terminated, or no one is bothering to call them, or both.

2. Your boss won't interrupt that all important raise discussion by whipping out his Blackberry. This is because you no longer have a boss. That entire layer of management, and the subsequent Blackberries, SUV's and mini-notebooks, were deemed unnecessary. You now will be reporting to the CEO, who is earning less than you did prior to said raise discussion. Now get back to your cubicle and stop complaining.

3. The wine selection at your local New York City watering hole just got a lot bigger. Well, no one saw this crisis coming, and Jacques the sommelier had just placed an order for six cases of1982 Château Mouton Rothschild which had not even landed at the dock before Lehman Brothers imploded. Time for the proletariat to dicker for a better deal when going out to dinner.

4. You won't have to hear your annoying brother-in-law tell you how much his Mc Mansion has gone up in value since puchasing it last year while sniggering at your lowly digs. Of course this one may backfire on you, since sister and kids might get sick of the jerk once he's lost all of his money and decide to move into your living room.

5. The selection of D&G at the local thrift shop is going to be awesome, and look for some great deals on repossessed houses, BMW's, boats, furs, castles, and trophy wives. The trophy wives will actually be the best deal because all of the surgery will have been done pre-Lehman. Go for the ones where the bruising is still evident, they'll start sagging a little bit later down the road which is important if you can't get her in for another nip and tuck with your post-Lehman asset portfolio.

6. Everyone is going to be talking about how living more simply is actually so freeing. This one can cut either way. Either you will feel exonerated because that's what you have been saying all along or it will be as annoying as hell because no one is giving you any credit for having realized this fact pre-Lehman. I fall into the second category.

7. To further point number 7, entire dinner parties will be conducted around what a person can do with a hunk of hamburger meat. Be prepared for some circa - 1975-Joe-the-Plumber Manwich parties to take over the suburbs and replace those dreadful flight-of-Barolo-with-food-pairing nightmares so prevalent during pre-Lehman times. How terribly bourgeois we were.

8. We get to tell our grandkids what is was like to flip a house, as they watch, eyes wide open, mesmerized. What we don't tell them is the last one we flipped actually flopped and splattered all over our 401K. But grandparents are entitled to their secrets, aren't they?

9. We get to think about buying a 1968 VW bus and touring the world. I mean, seriously, would we really consider such a thing while a three quarter of a million dollar balloon mortgage on which we have paid down no principle was looming over our heads? Of course not. Ok. Time to take the good china out of the crawl space BEFORE repossession, sell it, and hit the road. You can even think about visiting Russia. After all, there's only a small maritime border.... oh, forget it.

10. We get to be reminded how fragile we are. How fragile we are. Sting was right all along. Who knew?

Bush's Last Day Clock

Don't you just love it? I stole the idea from my friend Girasoli at Shave Ice & Gelato.

Grace and Humility

Drinking Bowl
Shoji Hamada
1894-1978

My world has been profoundly influenced by the most humble of artists. Artistic potters, at their very core, do what they do out of deeply spiritual reasons.

Shoji Hamada is one of my artistic mentors.

Earth (clay), water (to make the clay pliable) air (to dry), and fire (to bake). The four elements constitute the world of the potter. Making a pot happen, and work correctly, takes focus, concentration, introspection, faith, and practice.

Shoji Hamada is one of the fathers of modern studio pottery. His simple forms, made on a humble manually operated wheel, fired in wood, speak of the depth of his soul. I can only hope that one day that the sum total of my pieces will contain a small portion that is present in a single Hamada drinking vessel, from its perfection in imperfection, its scale and proportion, its humor, its grace, and its humility.


Small Japanese drinking bowls/2006 dianabaur

Switch Gears

In two weeks, our season is officially over. I feel it in my bones. The leaves are falling precipitously to the ground, fogis rolling in to cover the hills in the morning, and I am lighting the stufa in the living room on a semi-regular basis - all signs that the time is drawing near to wave farewell to the last people to grace our B&B for the season.

Which brings me to other thoughts, andere Gedanken, gli altri pensieri.

The time is coming to go make pots again.

The art of making ceramics is the yin to the yang of running a bed and breakfast.

Innkeeping requires endurance. Pots require introspection. I couldn't do the B&B work without having the pots and art to balance it out.

I am tired, I have to say. It has been a long season with Micha in Switzerland working. I have had little time for much of anything, and when I have gotten a bit of time, I have spent it trying to recuperate energy for the next stretch. The guests have been amazing. If anything, I wish I had had more time to enjoy them more completely. But now it is time to put those thoughts aside and move to the other side of the equation.

Here are my current thoughts:

I have 3 wall tile art piece orders to fill.

I have several orders for platters, bowls, plates and cups which I need to design and work on.

I also have a project I will be introducing. I am going to be creating four art pieces which will be sold for donations to Ovarian Cancer Research.

I have about 6-8 paintings I need to make for both the existing and new rooms.

And I would like to, if I have time, make about 1,000 small tiles to complete a mosaic in the new room. I am not sure I will complete this one, but I would like to try.

This will be going on as the barn is once again under construction, creating that third new room, and a wine cellar where we can keep our ever-growing wine collection in some sort of order.

But first, I am going to take a couple of weeks off. I am going to stretch and do yoga every day, I am going to eat well, sleep well, and relax. I am going to switch gears.

Life is good.

What's Cooking Wednesday 2 - Preserved Lemons

Last week, our guests Paula and Angelo arrived with a basket full of gorgeous lemons from their home in Monterosso in the Cinque Terre.

The lemons are almost too beautiful to cut and use, but when Sue and Jeff arrived, Jeff told me that he had made preserved lemons at home and that they were fabulous as a marinade for grilled chicken. So I decided to dedicate a few lemons to this cause, and made myself a jar of them, using Jeff's recipe:

Several (depending on the size of your jar) untreated lemons
Sel Marin or Course Kosher Salt

Cut the lemons in a star formation, slicing from the nib top ALMOST through to the bottom. Try to leave the lemon attached at the bottom. Make the same cut at a 90 degree angle, so that the lemon is in four wedges, but still attached at the bottom. I had to cut mine completely in half to get them to fit into my jar, but left them attached, 2 and 2 per lemon.

Salt generously inside and out (see photo).

Push down into the jar, squeezing them into the jar base with a wooden spoon and extracting as much juice as you can.

Do salted lemon after salted lemon, pushing downwards, until the jar is full and until the lemons are completely coated with their own juice. If necessary, juice a couple of extra lemons and add just the juice to make sure that all the lemons are completely covered with juice. Cover tightly.

Shake daily for three weeks.

Your lemons will be ready to use in three weeks. To use, wash the lemons to remove the salt and remove the pits. Some say to remove the fruit of the lemon and use only the rind, but both Jeff and Sue say that they love to use the fruit as well.

The lemons will keep in your fridge for up to six months.

Preserved lemons are an integral part of Moroccan cooking and are used in meat dishes and in couscous.

When my lemons are ready, I will post a recipe using them!

What's Cooking Wednesday - Torta di Verze

Top: shaved savoy cabbage; Jeff grating the cheese; mixing the oil and cheese into the cabbage.
Bottom: The unbaked torta, with the dough folded over; a yummy piece ready to be eaten.

We've been doing some cooking here. We have wonderful guests, Sue and Jeff from Rhode Island who have come back to us this year, and that was reason to celebrate.

We made a first course of Torta di Verze, Savoy Cabbage Torta. This is a recipe handed down to my mother from her mother - in - law, who was from Bardi, a small ancient city in the Parma province of Emilia Romagna.

The torta is simple and delicious.

Preheat your oven to 180° C, or 375° F

The dough is simply 2 cups of flour -- in the mixer, and then add enough water to make it stick together. Then just add a tablespoon of olive oil, mix a bit longer, and place on a clean surface, adding flour and kneading until the dough gets a smooth consistency. Roll it out as thinly as possible. The shape really doesn't matter, as long as it overlaps the sides of a large baking sheet.

Shread a head of savoy cabbage by chopping it finely with a large knife, cutting out and eliminating the core. Blanch in boiling water for one minute. Drain and dry the cabbage thoroughly using kitchen towels. Put the cabbage back in the pot. Add 1/2 cup of olive oil, a cup of grated finest quality parmasean and peccorino -- we used 36 month aged Reggiano and Peccorino di Sardenia. Mix well, and taste to see if any salt is needed.

Place the crust, open and flat on a cookie sheet which has been greased with olive oil. Dump the cabbage mixture in the center of the dough and smooth out until it is about an inch thick. Stretch and fold the crust over the cabbage, sealing the edges with a bit of water.

Brush olive oil on the top and sprinkle with course sea salt.

Bake until golden brown for 30-45 minutes.

Note: I have been eating this torta for as long as I can remember. It was one of three which my grandmother made and it's the one that my mother makes most frequently. All three are exceptionally delicious, and I will publishing all three as the What's Cooking Wednesdays come and go. This one is my favorite, and the favorite of my niece Jessica, who has been known to steal the corner piece from my plate on occasion (kids!) (well, she's 26).

Wine: A younger Nebbiolo or a Grignolino works very well with this dish.

The Honeymooners

Mike peeling oranges for a dessert; Beth enjoying the moment...

Jayson and Amanda, our first honeymooners, in June 2006

This morning at 6 am I was a bit sad. I had a sweet, emotional girl in my arms. Our honeymooners had to leave to catch their Continental flight back to Newark Airport.

Beth and Mike arrived six days ago, and pulled every bit of enjoyment they could out of their days with us. It was so nice just to be able to be around them. There is always something special about having honeymooners come and stay with us. A certain kind of lightness, of promise, and of warmth. These two never stopped talking to each other. Their life seems to be one long conversation. I hope it continues on for a very, very, very long time that way. They cooked together in our new kitchen, they laughed at videos in their room, they walked in the vineyards together. I could sense that they felt at peace here, with themselves and in Italy.

We have had several honeymoon couples in the last years. Our very first, Amanda and Jayson, became our "kids" after a few days. We wanted to keep them here forever, just like Michael and Elizabeth, who left this morning.

So here's to our kids. Go off into the world and spread some of that love around! We certainly need it, kids.

Lighting

We've recently added some exterior lighting to our barn, highlighting one of the facades which can be seen from the road. The wall of the barn is not restored, and to be honest, with the effect that we achieved with this lighting, I might be tempted to leave it exactly as it is, peeling plaster and all!

I guess you can say I am a lighting freak. Well designed lighting makes all the difference in the world. You can create or crush an atmosphere just through lighting.

Years ago, in Hamburg, we were invited to friends for dinner. They lived very sparsely, and had little furniture. What my friend Carla did was buy a bag of tea lights, and in the kitchen, she placed lit tea lights on every possible surface. I still remember to this day. It was an optimal use of lighting to create a beautiful atmosphere.

I continue to play with lighting in the rooms and in our house, trying to find ideal solutions for aesthetics, reading, eating and working.

Schlep the Vote

Despite her professions of love for the State of Israel, I think that Henry Kissinger might be the first real Jewish person that Sarah Palin ever met face to face. For this reason, it would seem to me that this video is of particular importance in the race for the White House.

I love this. It's beyond. Beyond.

If you don't like swearing, don't watch it. Sarah Silverman is an adorable cutie pie with the mouth of a truck driver.

For my non-Yiddish-speaking-but-German-speaking friends: Schlep means the same things as schleppen in German -- Schlep the Vote? Sich nach Florida schleppen und stimmen!!


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Love Thursday -- Walking Away from Fear

Our house the day we closed on it.

You know, when we started this project in Italy, I was wracked with fear. Back then, we sold our condo in Germany, sold our second car, got rid of about half of our worldly possessions, and moved to a partially renovated four hundred year old farm house on a hill with a terrible dirt road during the rainiest December Italy had seen in ten years. But before we sold our condo, when we were "between lives" -- this one and that one, I could not see how we would ever, ever get to the point where a. we would be able to rent a room to anyone, b. would be able to convince anyone to come to stay with us and c. be able to make enough money to support ourselves. After all, the investment, at least for us, was monstrous. It would take everything we had just to get the place into reasonable shape. And we hadn't counted on the awful weather, which kept the moving trucks from making it up to our house, or the dampness in the house (new plaster isn't dry just because you can touch it -- stone and plaster can take months to really dry out) which meant heating and heating the place while the actual room temperature would never get above miserable. We hadn't counted on the chimney flues being blocked with centuries of resin and soot, and we had not counted on the mud and the fact that the telephone wouldn't function for weeks, or that the electricity would go out on a regular basis. If you had asked me in February of 2004 whether we would make it through the first year, I would have simply started to shake and would have gone back under the four down comforters piled on my bed. I had nothing left. Nothing but abject fear of the future.

Then one morning, in the shower, I had what was sort of a revelation (no, not that kind). As I was allowing the steaming hot water to loosen my joints, I thought to myself, OK. This project might just kill me. But if it kills me, then I want to a. have a good looking corpse and b. go down fighting. I started, in the shower that morning, to face the fear head on. So. If there were to be any guests at all, I better get busy.

So, for the next months, from February to August, we plastered, grouted, painted, spackled, and invested in exterior stone work and the pool. And the first guests came in September, and although nothing was really finished, they seemed to like it.

And so it continued, slowly, baby steps, and it continues today. I have been walking away from my fear for four years now and counting. Walking towards love. Because on the other end of the spectrum from fear is love. It's that simple.

And love is the food on which projects like this thrive.

In 2008, several in my circle became seriously ill. There is nothing like illness to bring on fear. But something strange is starting to happen to me.

When I took up the collection to get my friend's cats back to the states because she had been living in Italy but would be treated for cancer in the states, I was the recipient of a watershed of not only donations of money and time, but of love. People wanted to do the right thing to help this person. The motivation was pure. And we got something very concrete done, something which was very important for my friend. So many contributed, my mother helped, and Becky and Michele went and got the cats, and Kim and Marian brought the cats from the airport back to their mom. A massive group effort, fueled by love.

And now, people like my friends in the blogosphere have opened me up to a new kind of energy, an energy connected with giving. People like Michelle Fabio. Like Jenn from the Leftover Queen. Like Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy. Like Jerry with his O menu. They are showing me that if we connect together, then love grows exponentially. And there are tangeable results.

I am now working on an art project to support research for the fight against Ovarian Cancer. I am propelled by the love which I sense all around me. I will be posting more about this in upcoming days.

And I have noticed, with all of the giving, I fell less scared. I feel more boundless in my ability to give generously and lovingly. I can feel love more now, from guests who bring their worlds into mine, from neighbors who bring me the last of the garden bounty, from my husband, from my dog.

Love expands. Fear contracts. There is a time to give, and a time to take. Be aware of where you are in life, and what you have, and what you need. If it is your time to give, give knowing that the love will come back to you again and again. If it is your time to take, take knowing that it is energy you are receiving, energy which will make you strong so that one day, you will also be able to give again.

Happy Love Thursday, my friends.


Our home today.