Ruminations – 15nov14

George Rebane

Random thoughts on a Saturday morning.  The beautiful fall foliage on our trees is now on the back side of the power curve, but still saying ‘look at me’ as the last leaves drift to the ground.  At our house I make a big breakfast on Saturday morning.  It is always a panful of vegetables sautéed in spices and olive oil, and then my piece de resistance Eggs Rebane.  The latter is a multi-layered frittata that has all kinds of goodies in it of different kinds of meats, cheeses, spices, layered squashes in season, etc.  During the summers starting about the end of June, Jo Ann’s ‘farm’ starts pumping out veggies of marvelous varieties that overwhelm our table and larder, and become a steady supply to friends who are similarly addicted.  Sunday was the last harvest of late tomatoes and squashes.  Now the farm will be readied for the long winter with just a few ‘perennials’ like chard and parsley left to weather the weather.

This morning was double duty for me since it was also Bread Day at our house.  When Jo Ann decides we need more bread, she takes out my two jars of sourdough starter from the bottom drawer of the frig, and sets them on the counter.  That tells me that the next day I make bread, a process that begins with recharging the starters in the evening and letting them bubble up overnight.  First thing in the morning I start my process of making two to four loaves of the requested breads, usually of two types.  I am now into my 17th year of being the family’s baker of literally all the bread we have eaten.  I use only my own natural leaveners and make the whole thing by hand, not even the KitchenAid mixer gets to play.   Our neighbor has also caught the baking bug, and we often ‘talk bread’.  Some day I threaten to make an outdoor baking oven that I can pump up to 700+F for that awesome oven spring.

We eat breakfast with our print copies of The Union, the WSJ, and the everpresent iPad for online news, commentary, and answers to reference questions served up by the very responsive Siri, Ms Google, and WolframAlpha.  This morning’s WSJ front page had the nearby picture of Germany’s Angela rubbing noses with a Maori dancer during her New Zealand visit.  I thought it wonderful how a European head-of-state (OK, Chancellor) can easily pay her respects to a foreign culture through such ceremonies and observing other local customs while on their travels.

Our presidents and diplomats have also shown such deference in similar situations – I always note how our guys and gals awkwardly keep both feet flat on the floor when sitting with Arabs and other Muslim notables.  Showing the soles of your shoes communicates disrespect in the world of Islam.

But these thoughts always remind me how asymmetrical are such international displays of cultural sensitivity.  On our part, we don’t ask or even expect our foreign guests to reciprocate our American customs.   From less developed countries their diplomats almost always arrive wearing some trappings of national or ethnic dress.  And when we feed, entertain, lace their palms with cash, or sit with them, we continue to defer to their sensitivities.  There is no reciprocal ‘When in Rome …’ behaviors required of or extended by our visitors (save wearing the odd cowboy hat at a ranch BBQ).  It is as if we were ashamed of our own cultural customs both overseas and at home.  For some reason we have to be the ever-sensitive ones while they bear no such burdens.  I don’t much cotton to such kow-towing because it brings us no profit here or around the world.

You are spared more because my bread dinger-ding just went off.

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane, your culinary adventures sound marvelous, simply marvelous. Breakfast and bread day is no place for idle hands. I surmise that no digits were nearly cut of with all the chopping and slicing going on, proving once again that alcohol and swords or knives do not mix. :). BTW, how's that pinky doing? Sounds like it is fully recovered judging by its use during Bread Day.
Why do some of our elected get all a'twitter over other cultures (non-European) yet show disdain for ours? Time to slap some up the side of their heads with the soles from our removed shoes. Better yet, rub the bottom of our shoes across their eyeballs so they get the message loud and clear.

[George Rebane]

BillT 634pm - The finger is pretty much healed and the numb area is getting smaller by the month. Thanks for asking Mr Tozer. Am very careful with knives when I cook, and have been since I really did cut a piece off the side of my left middle finger in a cooking accident about five years ago. Here's a picture of the loaves I baked tonight. The bottom is a 'nut and twigs' wheat bread, and the top is a loaf of rye made with dill weed and Clausen pickles water - very delicious combination of flavors (even the sourdough comes through).