Category Archives: Food for Thought

Sordid Realism: Jafar Panahi’s Taxi

February 26, 2016 Laurie Graves 6 Comments

Last Saturday at Railroad Square, we saw the Iranian film Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. (It was part of a film series—Cinema Explorations—that Clif and I help organize.) The filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, a gadfly of the Iranian regime, has for some years been under house arrest and has been forbidden to make films. His response? Make movies that pretend not to be movies but of course really are movies. Hence, Taxi, where he flouted house arrest to drive around Tehran in a taxi and film various passengers and their conversations.

Part documentary, part narrative, part cinéma vérité, this terrific movie explores different aspects of Iranian life and culture. Executions, women’s rights, imprisonment, repression, movies, and superstition are all discussed as passengers come and go.

I was especially taken with the section of the movie where Panahi picks up his teenage niece Hana from school. Hana is a budding filmmaker, and she carries her trustee Canon camera around so that she can shoot street scenes as her uncle drives through Tehran. Panahi and Hana talk about making movies, and she worries about the filming restrictions her teacher has placed on her. The teacher’s list is long, but “sordid realism” is a particular bone of contention for Hana.

Now, when we Americans think of the term “sordid realism” what might come to mind can be very nasty—graphic sex, graphic violence, disturbing behavior, bad language. I must admit that I tend to avoid movies that dwell too much on what I consider sordid realism. However, if a movie is very good, then I will make exceptions.

But to the Iranian censors, sordid realism means something quite different. Instead, it is a term—almost doublespeak—applied to anything that might make Iranian society look bad. In the niece’s case, it applies to a young street boy who steals money dropped from a bridegroom on his way to his car after his wedding. Hana has filmed the theft, and tries to convince the young boy to return the money. However, things don’t go exactly as Hana wants, and the boy ends up with the money.

After her uncle drives away from the boy, Hana frets about this at some length, knowing that her film won’t win any prize money if it contains such sordid realism as a street boy stealing money. And without the prize money, how can she go on to make a better film next time?

How indeed? I expect that Hana’s worries are also shared by her uncle. How can artists create with such unreasonable restrictions and censorship? As Panahi so deftly illustrates with this movie, it can be done. But at what cost?

As I mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of what I consider sordid realism, but unless animals and children are harmed in the process, I firmly believe that filmmakers have the right to make the kind of movies they want. For example, I have never seen the The Wolf of Wall Street. Too many friends have warned against it for the sheer ugliness of the sex scenes. But that is my individual choice, one that I don’t necessarily expect others to make.

And that makes all the difference.

Books, Food for Thought

Comfort Me with Reading

February 11, 2016 Laurie Graves 16 Comments

In Maine, winter is the perfect time for reading. The days are short, and aside from shoveling, outside chores are few. There are always inside chores, of course, but even so there are plenty of quiet opportunities for reading.

This winter, I have been thinking about the various reasons we read. On a pragmatic level, we read for basic information—manuals, how-to books, tutorials on the Internet. These can be a big help with projects as diverse as cooking to the most cost-effective way to fence in your yard for the dog.

We also read for intellectual ideas, and right now I’m slowly and with great difficulty working my way through Michael Lewis’s The Big Short. At times, I am absolutely stupefied by so much technical information about the workings of Wall Street, but still I read on, figuring that even if I only absorb a fraction of the book, I will know more than I did before I started.

We read for enlightenment and enlargement. For this we usually turn to the great novels—Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Crime and Punishment, Moby Dick. Often these books require effort on our part, but when we are finished, we feel as though we have gained a glimpse of something essential about life and human nature.

Last but certainly not least, we read for pleasure and comfort. The value of this kind of reading cannot (and should not) be underestimated. Life can be joyous, but it can also be hard, and the older a person becomes, the more loss she or he has endured. Loved ones die, illness comes. That is the way of things, and somehow we must cope.

When life becomes hard, I turn to books for comfort, often Miss Read. Somehow, reading about life in an English village in the 1950s has a calming effect on me. I am always absorbed by the descriptions of nature, the sympathetic yet shrewd take on human nature, and the humor.

Lately, I have discovered Gervase Phinn, another English writer. (Do you think there is a trend here?) Phinn writes memoirs of his time as a school inspector in North Yorkshire, beginning in the 1980s. He is not a great stylist, but his books have a wonderful narrative flow, with vivid descriptions of teachers, students, parents, and colleagues. And, he makes me laugh out loud, to the point where my husband looks at me with raised eyebrows as I chortle over a passage in Phinn’s books. How often do books make us laugh? In my experience, not very often, and a book that does is a little gem.

I have been thinking that I should start collecting “comfort” books for my home library. (I already have several Miss Read books.) That way, the books will be right there when I need them, and I can also let friends borrow them when they are going through their own hard times.

Food for Thought, Movies, People

Blasting through the Holidays with Moving and Movies

January 4, 2016 Laurie Graves 9 Comments

I love Christmas and New Year’s Eve, but as I’ve gotten older, I must admit I find them a tad hectic. And this year was especially hectic. First, Clif and I got nasty coughing colds that were mostly gone by Christmas but like unwanted guests stayed far longer than they should have. (It has taken me four weeks to completely recover.)

Then, on the Monday after Christmas, Shannon and Mike packed a U-Haul and headed to North Carolina, where Shannon will start a new job. We went to South Portland to help them clean and pack, and we bid them a sad farewell. (They made it safe and sound to North Carolina and have moved into their new town house. Movie buffs that they are, they even found the energy to go to a film—the excellent Big Short, a must-see movie.)

Dee stayed with us until after New Year’s Eve, and as we are, in fact, a family of movie buffs, we watched plenty of movies, at home and at the cinema. We saw the new Star Wars movie, which I liked but did not love. For me, it was far too derivative of the original—A New Hope—but it was still worth seeing, especially on the big screen.

Also of note was the movie Concussion, starring Will Smith, who plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the real-life pathologist who made the connection between football players’ repeated concussions and the resultant brain damage. A sobering story where those in power yet again tried to deny the truth and intimidate those who uncovered the evidence. After seeing this movie, it’s hard not to argue that the game should be played very differently.

As good as Concussion was, the best movie was The Big Short, based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis. In the New York Times, A. O. Scott gives this movie a critics’ pick and begins his review with this description, which is too good not to share: “A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, The Big Short will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.”

The Big Short is a movie about the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse. Some in the industry saw what was coming and decided to try to make money on the housing collapse, and the movie follows three groups of these people. The film is snappy, fast-paced, and satirical while at the same time informative and moving. I think it’s fair to state that not many films about the financial collapse manage to combine all those qualities. In addition, there are devices such as a narrator speaking directly to the camera and celebrities, as themselves, explaining various terms, including subprime mortgages and CDOs. These devices could have fallen flat, but in The Big Short they work with hilarious effect.

As I noted above, The Big Short is a must-see movie. The Great Recession was a world-wide event, where many, many people suffered devastating losses. It could have been worse, of course, but in the U.S. the American taxpayers bailed out the greedy financial institutions that wreaked such havoc and harm. Do I resent them? You bet I do, and you should, too.

Those of us in the United States need to be mindful about how politicians feel about regulations and banks that are “too big to fail.” The Great Recession wasn’t an act of nature. It was an act of men and women, which means it was not inevitable.

But enough wagging the finger. Onward to winter and the New Year.

Food for Thought

Giving Thanks for Our Library

November 25, 2015 Laurie Graves 19 Comments

Tomorrow, in the United States, we will celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday where we get together with family and friends, stuff ourselves silly, and give thanks for all the good things we have in our lives. Quite often, we have Thanksgiving at the little house in the big woods, but this year, Gail, our son-in-law’s mother, is hosting the big event.

I must admit I’m a little relieved. Between the new stove—more on that next week—and a craft fair on Saturday, where we have a table, we are as busy as can be. And to add just a little more hectic fun to the holiday, at the last minute, we agreed to be part of a pop-up holiday sale in Hallowell, a small, arty city not far from where we live.

Busy or not, I can still find time to be thankful, and this year I am especially thankful for our town’s newly-expanded library. (Full disclosure: I am a trustee, and I worked on the library campaign.) Our community raised a million dollars for this project—no small feat for a town of 6,000. We had our ups and some very big downs, but in the end, the expansion was built.

And what a jewel it is! We now have a large events room; an airy, expanded children’s area; a teen area, where there are intense scrabble games most afternoons; events galore; movies; and books, books, books. Add a wonderful staff—Richard, Shane, Ann, Nancy, Kat, and Cindy—and you have a library that is absolutely central to the town.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration for me to write that the library is essential to my intellectual and creative life, Most of the books I read and most of the movies I watch come from the library. I would be lost without it.

So this Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful to have such a terrific library a mile from the little house in the big woods. Long live libraries!

Food for the Soul, Food for Thought

Circle of Compassion, Trees Against the Sky

November 19, 2015 Laurie Graves 8 Comments

On Tuesday I went to visit my friend Esther. A visit with her is always a delight, and the time just rushed by as we talked, our conversation ranging from topic to topic.

Two parts of our conversation especially stood out. As to be expected, we discussed the recent bombings in Paris and the refugees from Syria. We then broadened the conversation to people fleeing extreme poverty and violence in Central America and Mexico. Esther spoke of how some of her friends are not sympathetic with the plight of the immigrants who make their way to the U.S.

I said, “No matter who you are or what your beliefs, it is easy to love those around you, family and friends.”

Esther agreed. “A small circle.”

“But it’s harder to extend that circle of compassion outward, so that it goes beyond those you know to encompass the state, the country, the world. I sometimes have a hard time with this myself.”

“But that’s what we have to do,” Esther said. “Think of those kids in central America who are leaving home at fifteen or sixteen to come here. They live in slums. They don’t have any opportunities. And when they come north, they are not exactly traveling first class.”

“No, they aren’t. They walk. They ride on the roofs of trains. They rely on smugglers.”

The conversation continued. What if those children were our children or grandchildren? How would we feel to have a son or daughter leave home to go on a long journey he or she might not survive?

“What a terrible thought,” Esther said, no doubt thinking of her own grandchildren.

Yes, a terrible thought. Can we widen our circle of compassion to encompass all children, to acknowledge their basic right to have enough to eat, clean water, shoes, clothes, decent housing, education, health care, books, and even a few toys when they are young? And, as they get older, a positive way to support themselves. (To my way of thinking, digging in dirty, rat-infested trash heaps does not count as a positive way.)

From there, the conversation turned to poverty in general. Esther grew up on a subsistence farm in rural Maine, and she doesn’t mince words—she and her family were poor. When they had baked beans, there often wasn’t enough money to buy hot dogs to go with them. One year, around the holidays, her father sold a steer for $10, and they had “a good Christmas.” They never went hungry, and the taxes were always paid, but there wasn’t much left over. The family just scraped by.

“But,” Esther said, “Every day after the chores were done, my mother and I would take a walk. We’d admire the trees against the sky or what was in bloom.”

“Everyone needs beauty in their lives,” I said, and Esther nodded.

Food for the body, food for the soul. Both aspects need to be fed.

cooking, Food for Thought

First Bread

November 13, 2015 Laurie Graves 12 Comments

Yesterday, I baked our first loaves of bread in the new oven. My fears— or concerns, if you will—turned out to be completely justified. In my old oven, it took thirty-three minutes to bake the bread to golden perfection. I decided to see if the same was true for my new oven. It was not.

The bread, although not burnt, came out a little too dark, a little overbaked, and thus a little dry. As Clif and I mostly think of bread as toast—oh, how we love toast—this dry bread is not as bad as it sounds. However, next time I make bread, I will bake it for thirty minutes and go from there.

The next challenge will be gingersnaps, which I’ll be making on Monday to bring to my friend Esther when I go for a visit on Tuesday. In my old oven, eleven minutes gave you a perfect cookie that had a little snap and a little chew all at the same time. I’ve decided to try nine minutes.

All this fussing about time reminds me that my old oven and I were quite the team. I knew just how long it took to bake family favorites. Now, I will have to recalculate the times for many of the things I bake.

No wonder the old stove seemed like a friend. People and their tools, their equipment, and their appliances can form quite a bond.

Food for Thought, Recipes

Tilapia Fish Casserole for an Autumn Supper

November 5, 2015 Laurie Graves 6 Comments

Nowadays, in central Maine, it is dark by 5 p.m., and the days of barbecues and drinks on the patio are over for another year. I must admit that I miss those lovely warm evenings where we could sit outside and listen to the loons, owls, and other night noises.

Still, autumn has its consolations, and one of them is that the nights are now cool enough to enjoy warm, bubbly casseroles for supper. Over the years, I have developed several sauces for casseroles that don’t involve canned cream of anything. (In the past, I’ve written about my aversion to casseroles with canned cream of mushroom soup. Enough said.) The results, as my Yankee husband Clif might put it, are not too bad.

Chicken and vegetables are my usual choice of fillings for casseroles, but recently I started wondering how a fish casserole would taste. What would be the components?

First, of course, the fish, and here I am going to be somewhat of a noodge and urge readers to stay away from wild fish, which we humans are eating at such an alarming rate that the fish populations are seriously depleted. According to the marine biologist Sylvia Earle, “The few fish that really are good choices, I think, are catfish, tilapia and the variations on the theme of carp, the plant-eating creatures that…grow fast. They taste good.”

Accordingly, I chose tilapia, plant-eating fish that are grown in a closed system. The fish is mild but tasty and perfect for a casserole. (The leftovers are also mighty good as fish tacos. Thanks, Mary Jane, for showing me how to make them!)

Along with the fish there would be rice and petite peas. (Mushrooms, carrots, and/or celery would also be delicious, but for my first venture with this recipe, I decided to keep it simple.)

The sauce I would use for a binder would be a simple white sauce with the addition of garlic, dill, and cheese. I guess you could call it a cheesy dill sauce. For the starch, I used rice, which somehow just seems to go with fish.

A tip I learned from the chef Mario Batali was to heat the milk ahead of time before making a white sauce. This is an excellent tip and really cuts down on the time spent stirring the sauce.

As fish cooks quickly, I did not cook the fish ahead of time, the way I would with, say, chicken. The raw fish was cut into bite-sized chunks and laid on top of the rice. Next came the peas, some salt and pepper, more rice, and the white sauce. What about the top? Bread crumbs, of course, with gives a pleasing crunch to the casserole.

The results? “Pretty darned good,” Clif said.

Good enough for company?

“Yes.”

So there you have it—a fish casserole made with sustainable tilapia and a cheesy dill sauce that is not only a good supper for the family but is also good enough for company.

Pretty darned good, indeed.

Fish Casserole with a Cheesy Dill Sauce
Serves 4 or 5

Ingredients

For the white sauce

4 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of flour
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 cups of hot milk
1 cup of grated cheese (I used cheddar, my go-to cheese)
1 teaspoon of dried dill
Salt and pepper to taste

For the rest of the casserole

1/2 pound of tilapia, cut in chunks
1 (1/2) cups cooked petite peas (As noted above, many other vegetables could be added or substituted, as you like it.)
3 cups of cooked rice
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 slices of bread, torn into crumbs

Directions

For the white sauce

Melt the butter and add the garlic, letting it sizzle for about 30 seconds. Add the flour and wisk for a minute or two until the roux is bubbly.
Wisk in the hot milk then stir with a spoon until a line forms on the back of the spoon.
Stir in the dill.
Add the grated cheese and stir until melted.
Taste and add salt and pepper, as desired.

For the casserole

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a large casserole dish.
Put half the rice in the dish.
Arrange all the tilapia chunks on the rice.
Sprinkle the peas or whatever vegetables you are using on top of the fish.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Spread the rest of the rice on top of the fish and peas.
Pour the cheesy dill sauce on top of the rice.
Top with the bread crumbs.
Bake for forty minutes or until bubbly around the edges.

Food for Thought, People

Wish Boxes, Friends, and Joni Mitchell

November 3, 2015 Laurie Graves 14 Comments

The little greeter at Beth's house — The jolly greeter at Beth’s house

On Sunday, I traveled north to visit my friend Beth. Along with two other friends, I was invited for lunch and to work on a craft project—wish boxes. This was a gathering I had looked forward to all week long, and even though I didn’t know the two other women, I was certain that friends of Beth would soon be friends of mine.

How right I was. Within minutes we were all chatting like old friends, and the comment was made, “We are now new best friends.”

After talking for a bit, we settled around Beth’s dining room table to make wish boxes. Beth had sprayed matchboxes silver and gold. She also provided pretty paper, ribbons, glitter, stars, hearts, little flowers, and various other little decorations for our wish boxes. The chatting ebbed as we focused on making our wish boxes.

When we were done, we put them together for a group picture.

We were all pleased with our small creations, and I’ll be thinking of what little messages to put in my two boxes—the ones with hearts and stars in the upper left corner.

After we cleared up the craft materials, we had a lovely lunch that Beth had made for us—squash soup; zucchini bread; a carrot, coconut, and cashew salad; and various spreads. I brought an apple crisp, which we popped in the oven just before we sat down to eat our lunch.

John, Beth’s husband joined us, and there was more talk. When five kindred spirits get together, the conversation just flows.

The day had started rainy and gray, but as I headed home, the weather began to clear. The clouds skudded across the sky to reveal a deep blue. I listened to Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark and was transported to my senior year in high school when I was in the throes of unrequited love. So much time has passed—over forty years—that the pain has been replaced by a pleasant melancholy as I remembered the longing.

The teenage years are such a tumultuous time. Every emotion is felt so deeply, so intensely. Then there is the awkwardness. I remember saying what I shouldn’t have and not saying what I should have. Literature, writing, and love swirled through me in a rough mix, and I am now old enough to look back with sympathy on the foolish girl I was. (The line from an R.E.M. song comes to mind: “I’ve said too much. I haven’t said enough.”)

All in all, Sunday was a special kind of day. Old friends, new friends, good food, good talk, a craft project, and a trip back in time on the way home as I listened to Joni Mitchell.

Who could ask for anything more?

cooking, Food for Thought, People

The Generosity of Apple Pie

October 23, 2015 Laurie Graves 15 Comments

Yesterday, I made two apple pies. One to bring to a potluck and one to share today with our friends Paul and Judy. To me, there is something very satisfying about making pies, especially apple.

First there is the peeling and slicing of the apples. Into a big bowl they go, and I stir in the sugar and spices.

Second there is the dough—the cutting, the mixing, the rolling out. By the time I am done there is a grand explosion of flour, a glorious mess, and why this gives me so much pleasure I cannot say. (I do want to note that this sort of mess did not give my Franco-American mother any pleasure at all, and her way of dealing with my messy habits was to leave the kitchen and read while I was cooking.)

Then there is the filling of the pie—in this case with fresh Maine apples. My favorite part is the crimping of the edges. I love pinching that dough. Finally, I cut a the hole in the middle of the pie, a trick my mother and I learned from Addie O’Keefe, a neighbor of ours in North Vassalboro. Lord, that woman could cook, can, and make preserves. Addie took my mother, a “city” girl, under her wing and taught her what she needed to know about living in the country.

The pie with crimped edges and a hole in the middle

From time to time, I think of Addie’s generosity. She was not a young woman, and she had her own big house and gardens to take care of. However, Addie found the time to teach my mother practical country skills. In turn, when Addie was dying, my mother sat by her side and held her hand. The wheel of generosity turned from Addie to my mother.

But back to pie, specifically apple pie. Its next gift is the lovely smell when it cooks, the bubbling of apple, the mingling of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Someone coming to the house, upon opening the door, would immediately know that apple pies were baking.

After all the mess, all the fuss, there is—ta dah!—the baked pie with its brown, flaky crust and tangy apple filling.

M.F.K Fisher, the great food writer, thought that food was much more than a way to nourish the body. It also nourished the soul and expressed a variety of emotions, depending on the cook and the eater. How right she was.

And how evocative something as simple as an apple pie can be, taking me back to my childhood, reminding me of generosity.

Food for Thought, Nature

The Poetry of Earth

October 13, 2015 Laurie Graves 8 Comments

“The poetry of earth is never dead….The poetry of earth is ceasing never.” —John Keats

I suppose the poetry of Earth thrums in all places, from the Pacific islands, where it is never cold, to Antarctica, where it is never hot. But it seems to me this poetry is especially strong in New England, where there are four seasons, each with a definite chapter. I have lived in Maine for so long that I can visualize each chapter and remember the smells, the heat, the cold, the sounds, and the silence.

For a gardener, fall’s chapter is always a little sad. The flowers and the hostas are way past their peak and must be cut back. But as Johanna, from the blog Mrs. Walker’s Art and Illustrations, recently reminded me, “And indeed better look at the glorious colors of fall and give the plants their deserved sleep whilst enjoying the harvest! Nothing melancholy about that!”

Johanna is right—those glorious colors; the golden light that shines even on an overcast day; and the harvest—the squash, the apples, the pears, the potatoes. There is indeed nothing melancholy in all this. In fact, the crops in Maine have been so bountiful this season that we can rejoice to have such plenty while keeping in mind that other parts of the country are suffering from drought. Nationally, canned pumpkin might be in peril, but fresh Maine pumpkins are not.

Duly reminded of the glories of autumn, I decided to see if I could scrape together a bouquet for the dining room table. In the gardens at the little house in the big woods, there isn’t much left to choose from. But here again, another blogging friend came to the rescue—this time Eliza, from her blog Eliza Waters. She puts together the loveliest arrangements and uses material, much of it dried this time of year, that I had never considered for an indoor bouquet.

So out I went with my scissors. I snipped some sedum, which is still a vibrant pink. That was the easy part. To the sedum I added dried, curling ferns, the stalks of astilbe, and the seed heads from black-eyed Susans.

While the results would never win a prize in a competition, I was pleased nonetheless with how the bouquet turned out. I had used what my gardens had to offer to bring a bit of fall inside.

It would certainly be a stretch to call the arrangement poetry, but with the help of a couple of my blogging friends, I have listened to fall’s poetry.

Notes From the Hinterland