Wild Rice Soup : Taste of Fall

You know it's fall when I get to eat Cream of Wild Rice Soup!

Here's the recipe :

1 large onion
1 large carrot, shredded
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
8 cups chicken broth
3 cups cooked wild rice
1 cup chicken breast, cooked and shredded
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup snipped chives

In a large saucepan, saute onion and carrot in butter until tender. Stir in flour until blended.
Gradually add broth. Stir in rice, chicken, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and sir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Stir in milk; cook 3-5 minutes longer.
Garnish with chives.

This is great with roasted acorn squash with brown sugar!

Note : There is no white rice in this soup! It's 100% real Wisconsin-Native-American wild rice.
I used parsnips in this batch, as we were uncharacteristically out of carrots. Parsnips look like white carrots.

In northern Wisconsin, we can purchase broken wild rice which is not as expensive as the pristine, perfect whole grains.

September in the Baraboo Hills

For me, the woods is wonderfully rejuvenating. Let me tell you about one fall day in 1994 with my friend Sandy. We went out to Durward's Glen in the Baraboo Hills near The Wisconsin Dells. It's absolutely beautiful there! I can't quite describe it with all the changing colors of fall. A stream has cut through the rock for the past 12,000 years and left a geological record behind, visible in the layers. You'd never think that such seemingly calm small springs could do so much erosion work, but they do!

I had a great day out there! In those days, Sandy was a budding naturalist, self-taught. She showed me the middons of worms. Did you know that earthworms like to eat oak leaves? These leaves are heartier than others (like maple) and take longer to decompose, so they need a little help from the worms who like to roll them up and drag them down into their holes, where they eat them and turn their fibers back into dirt. Sandy says we're all just temporarily NOT dirt. Anyway, if you look down at a dirt path that might be covered in leaves, and if you look closely enough, you might see these tufts of leaves in various states of decay, rolled up like a lily and sticking out of the ground. And you might wonder, "Well--how did that get there?" Earthworms! Isn't that remarkable?

At the edge of a wild prairie, we spent some time with the Aspens. Their leaves are yellow now and they shimmer in the wind because the stems of their leaves are flat and catch the air just so. Sandy had me put my ear up to one of their trunks and listen. Just listen. I heard a sort of gurgling sound--like plumbing--due to all the motion up on top. That was neat--my favorite part of the whole day.

We also found a fallen log that had turned RED and soft with age and decay. Sandy took a piece in her hand, crumbled it, and brought it to her nose. "Mmmmh! This is humus. This is new dirt." And so it was.

Before we left the Glen, we sat and ate our lunch over-looking the river valley from a field. It was a spectacular view! All those rolling hills and the river cutting through and the changing colors of the leaves. Makes you wish every day could be like that! We also sat underneath a huge 400-year-old oak tree that the priests who take care of the Glen wanted to cut down. There is nothing wrong with this old tree--it's till in very good health. I don't understand what these old coots are worried about. It's a tree that has been here longer than our own country, even. What that tree has lived through and seen is truly remarkable!

There's a whole cycle of life out there in the woods.

[This was from a day in 1994 with my friend Sandy. I miss you. I don't get out to woods nearly so much anymore. I hope you are well, my friend!]

Magic : Rise and Fall of National VB2

Watch this short video (only 13 seconds).

I am experimenting with adding video clips to my blog. I thought this subject would be perfect : short, sweet, simple, and really cool!

When I was a kid, playing with and exploring Great Gramma's old treadle sewing machine was really neat. Watching the machine head gracefully rise out of the case really was MAGIC for me, then. And it still is today. In fact, nostalgia for that old machine (now gone, unfortunately) made me go out and purchase an old treadle so I could relive that experience. I thought others might enjoy it too, so here it is.

Read more about this particular treadle.

Roast Boar Stew in The Ardenne, France

NPR did a story this am on The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII. It made me think of an incident on our last trip to France this past April ...

We were invited to a family reunion in the village of ??? in the Ardenne, Northern France. We were the last to arrive at about noon; Dinner was at 2 pm and again at 6 pm ; We left at 10 pm, and the party was still going strong. They served a delicious wild boar stew that some of the family members had hunted and killed in the surrounding Ardenne Forrest. These wild pigs forage on chestnuts, so they have a rich flavor! Food IS the national pastime in France.

There were only a few English speakers there, and they managed to seek me out to practice their English. Although my husband grew up speaking both English and French, I still understand and speak only English (though I've studied Latin, Ancient Greek, Yoruba, and Zulu).

In the opening remarks for the family gathering, the speaker said in English, "We want to offer a special welcome to our American friends here today. We are especially grateful to America because they rebuilt THIS village after World War II."

I was really moved and choked up by this--
1) because I wasn't expecting to hear English where most people in attendance were NOT English Speakers (She said it for MY benefit out of the nearly 200 people in attendance).
2) The family and people of this village are still grateful after 50 years!
3) In the US, we were such jerks after 911 renaming French Fries, Freedom Fries. (Those really were dark days that I would sooner forget!)

It reminds me that the US has done some good around the world, along with the bad.
It also reminds me that we've really created a mess in Iraq, and as much as I would like to bring the troops home and leave it, the lessons learned from history (Vietnam, WWI, WWII) say that we have to set up some provisions for rebuilding it, or they really will hate us forever. I just don't think we can afford it ...

People forget (or never knew) it was with the support of France that the American Colonies won the American Revolution so many years ago.

Sorry--I'm trying not to be or get too political with Hidden Passages. I'm stepping off my soap box, now.

What's in a Name? - Matucheski, Pt.2

I didn't change my name on my wedding day, June 19, 1999. That last week, it became an identity crisis for me : Would I change it , or not? Would I give up the name I'd had for nearly 29 years to become Michele Long?

My mother was telling me, "It will make it much easier to tell if you're a family. What about the children?" She works in public health, and sees all manner of blended families where it is difficult to tell who belongs to whom.

Well, in my mind, in the family CL and I would create, the kids would KNOW they belonged. That was never an issue for me. Growing up, my best friend Janna lived in a house with 3 last names (Campbell, Kerska, and Bettis), and none of them seemed to have any kind of an identity crisis.

The morning of the wedding, my mother-in-law told me, "You should really change your name. You'll save a lot of time just writing your signature for the rest of your life."

The efficiency argument didn't move me either.

What did move me was losing my identity. I'd spent 29 years building up that name with good academics, good character, good credit, and a career as MM. It had been good to me.

Who was Michele Long? No one with no past ...

If I had gotten married at 18, it might have been a different story. My identity would not have been so precious at 18 years of age.

After I finally decided to keep my given name (at the very last moment of signing the marriage license), it was a tremendous relief to me. It's been almost 10 years since I made this momentous decision, and I know it was the right decision for me.

I did unofficially change my middle name from Leigh to Long, but the government doesn't know that.

There are benefits to having a long Polish-Americanized name :
* It's unusual.
* People HAVE to look at it, so they usually spell it right.
* They don't know how to pronounce it, so they usually ask.

What about the kids?
CL and I decided that boy children would take the Long surname; girl children would take Matucheski. We had a boy who we named Oliver Long, with eyes as green as mine. There is no doubt he is my child (and he knows it, too!).

What's in a Name? - Matucheski, Pt.1

Thomas Matucheski, my Polish Grandfather, had a small dairy farm in Deerbrook, Northern Wisconsin. He did the work, but his brother kept getting his milk check. He solved this perplexing problem by changing the spelling of his name.

Matucheski is the American phonetic (sound-it-out-and-say-it-just-the-way-it-looks) spelling of Matuszewski.

To this day, half the family still spells it the old way, and half of us spell it the new way. But we're all still related.

From the little bit of research I've done, the old spelling is a very common name in Poland. I think it may be translated as Matthews. If anyone reading this knows different, please tell me.

Fall Harvest : Apple-Picking Time!

Our "Little Apple Tree" has apples this year! They are beautiful from the top-side. We are so excited--this is the first year the tree is bearing fruit (after about 5 years of anticipation!) We got about 45 apples from this first harvest. Delicious!

We didn't spray or douse the tree with any chemicals or clay, or whatever. My husband is Mr. Organic is not a fan of "better living through chemistry." (Neither am I, really.) We do have some worms--so next year, we'll study up on what needs to be done. I don't really want to share these beauties with the worms, but I guess having to cut out 1 section of apple isn't so bad. The worms like these apples, too.

It was a slow start for this little tree. 5 years ago, our friend Kevin Bradley (of Edible Forest Nursery) gave us a sapling to plant. We planted it in the back yard. I put the white plastic around the truck to keep the winter sun from splitting th bark. I thought that would be enough to keep the rabbits away from it, but the critters managed to "ring" the bark. That first little tree died. Sigh! We got a second one soon after, and planted it--and fortified it. Around this little tree is a 4-foot fence to keep the dogs out. This spring, Maggie (the 85-lb Newfie) was jumping up to break off apple branch sticks to chew on! Not a good idea, Mags!

Here's the report from the Minnesota Extention Office on Honey Crisp. I think this variety was developed in Minnesota to do well in the colder climes.

Again, the season seems to be ahead of other years. Honey Crisp are considered a September apple. The color and sweetness are just about perfect NOW, and it's still August. It's got to be Global Warming ...

Made from Scratch - Bohemian Plum Dumplings

Riding bike through town recently, I passed a beautiful plum tree full of ripe luscious plums. Damson plums, or Italian Prune Plums : They're smaller than the regular plums you see in the grocery stores. They also have thicker skins.

I'd include a photo of that tree, here, but I haven't been able to find it again ... Sigh!

Here's a picture of the plums we purchased :
You can only get these in the fall. Most other years, we have plum dumplings in September. But things seem to be about 2 weeks early this year ... Global Warming?

Plum Dumplings in the fall is a family tradition for me. It's one of those recipes handed down by doing--no one really ever wrote it down. Gramma Pickles finally bought me a little cookbook from their Bohemian Life Insurance Group that had similar traditional recipes in it (Recipes that used "oleo" instead of butter or margarine.)

Here's the recipe :

Plum Dumplings (Sveskove Knedleky)
2 c. flour
dash of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
14-16 Stanley prune plums

Toppings :
Cottage Cheese
Melted Butter
Cinnamon and Sugar

Mix ingredients together to make dough that will handle easily. Wrap around fruit, covering all holes. Roll into balls. Drop into boiling water and boil 12-15 minutes. When they rise, turn them over in the boiling water. Serve topped with cottage cheese, yogurt, melted butter, and cinnamon sugar.
Here are the dumplings awaiting the boiling water (above).

Here are the plum dumplings in the boiling water. "Look, Ma! No sinkers!"

You just hope you don't have any "sinkers" when you put the dumplings into the boiling water. You want all of your dumplings to float. If you get one that doesn't float, you probably don't want to eat it--it'll be that heavy in your gut, too. When they're done, dinner is served! We eat them with cottage cheese or yogurt, plenty of melted butter, cinnamon and sugar :

Plum Dumplings are the ultimate in comfort food! Bet you wish your computer had smell-o-vision about now, don't you!

We'd have contests to see who could eat the most--evidenced by how many prune pits were left on a person's plate. The winner got a new car--well, not really, but that's what we always said. Usually, it was Grappa ate the most.

1886 Treadle Sewing Machine

I made a purchase this weekend : an antique treadle sewing machine in a 5-drawer cabinet. Nostalgia got the best of me. I've been thinking about Great Gramma's old machine that was around when I was a kid, but has since disappeared. That machine was the neatest thing to me as a kid :
* The treasures in the drawers (including Juicy Fruit Gum)
* Various and very strange feet
* The Treadle, moving parts
* The machine appearing and disappearing into the cabinet--like MAGIC

I'm not the only one fascinated with the mechanisms of this machinery : Oliver has also taken an interest in helping me oil and polish it. He also thinks it's pretty cool to open the lid and see that machine appear and retreat--not to mention working the treadle!

Sue Breier (The It's-a-Wrap Lady) is in my Quilt Guild. She just bought a Featherwight. She happened to mention to me that one of the local antique stores had an old treadle machine ... So I went to take a look, went home and slept on it, tried to figure out where I'd put it in our packed house. I went back the next day to purchase it. Sometimes, you just have to ask yourself, "Would I feel bad about letting this get away?" Yes, I decided ... I wanted to have a treadle in my life again.

I don't expect to actually use this old machine. I've got it too good with the modern sewing machines with auto tension, etc. I suspect, I'd be pretty frustrated with this puppy as a working sewing machine (Yeah--ask me about it when the lights go out!) It does need a drive belt, but other than that, the parts seem to be in decent working order, running smoothly. Maybe I'll try a small project--just to say that I did it!

At first, I thought it might be a Singer (They were everywhere, right?), but I need to do a little more research on the make and model. Although it had most of a manual, it was missing a few pages. Though it has beautiful decals, there doesn't seem to be a manuafacturer on it where the "Singer" always sits across the top ... Is this a copy of the Singer VS#2?

Nice decals around the base ... This is the view from the top

It's a beauty! Anybody know what I've got?
Here's what I know so far (testament to watching Antiques Road Show and History Detectives on PBS) :
National Sewing Company used to make generic machines that anyone could slap a brand onto (Sears, Montgomery Ward, etc.) That might explain why there is a noticeable LACK of a label or decal across the top.

The removable bobbin plate cover says "Patented November 30, 1886" but it doesn't say by who ...
Under the bobbin plate is what may be a serial number : 1287755
It seems to be a vibrating shuttle #2 type of machine. It has a long bobbin.

If you know anything about this machine, please leave a comment ...

Angels Among Us : An Encounter

When I was 23, or so, just out of college, I was trying to find my place in the world. It was a stressful time for me, and that stress was coming out as pretty severe acne on my face. For a while, my face looked like hamburger. My self-esteem was as low as it had ever been ... I was "frump girl."

Things were beginning to look up, though. I found a "stable" job with health insurance. With the steady income, I would treat myself to a new music CD on pay day. This meant walking down Madison's State St. through the record stores on Friday evening after work.

State St. is always filled with characters. It's a great place for people-watching.

This particular evening, I saw a 1950s throwback. Even on State St., he looked out of place. He looked like James Dean with dark hair, wearing jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket, with hair greased back. Cool, man. Out of the blue, he said to me : "You're prettier than you think." I said, "Thanks" and kept walking. When I looked back, he was gone.

He wasn't trying to pick me up, or buy me a drink, or anything. He didn't want anything in return. It was just the simple gift of encouragement said to a complete stranger. That was just what I needed to hear at that point to lift my spirits and start healing ... I haven't forgotten him--whoever he was.

We can be Angels for someone else who might need a little lift, a word of encouragement. We can make the world a better place that way ... Were you somebody's Angel today?

Other Angels
Iris video by The Goo Goo Dolls from the movie soundtrack City of Angels.