A Passing to Mark

This post is not about food. It's about the passing of Edward Kennedy.

In my political reporter days, I crossed paths with Sen. Kennedy. He was middle aged then but still handsome, with the most beautiful blue eyes I'd ever seen. Certainly Irish eyes, they were a brilliant blue. He seemed a cautious man, a bit skittish perhaps. He had not yet grown into the old lion he will be remembered as in the hundreds of eulogies you can read online in the papers and on television.

I'm not writing about him as a politician, because we all know politics and food blogs do not mix.

But I do think his death - which yesterday seemed imminent, and thus comes as no real surprise - requires some remarks because this blog is and was intended to be as much about our culture and our world as it is about food. I cannot separate the two.

Whatever you think of the politics of the Kennedys, they have captured the imaginations of the world for decades because their saga is so bittersweet.

They loomed larger than life. A staunch Democrat (married to an Irish American), Grandma Annie took a keen interest in their lives. My parents, less politically inclined, were naturally excited when someone of their generation and religion was elected president.

And while my husband and I often tire of hearing about celebrities (can you imagine how we've loathed hearing about Michael Jackson all summer), we are pausing tonight to watch television tonight to remember Teddy. Bill Clinton and George Bush notwithstanding, he was the most famous person I've ever written about, a few steps above the high-flying attorney and the cabinet member.

The Kennedy brothers and their families shaped the views and ideals of an entire generation or two, in ways we recognize and in some we don't. Now the last of the triumvirate of our childhood is gone. There doesn't seem to be anyone in the next two generations of Kennedys to take their place.

Maybe we don't need any more Kennedys.

But clearly, we need something. And I don't think we've figured out what that is yet.

Note: The photo was taken around this time a few years back along the shores of a cove I love on the other side of town. I liked its brooding quality.

One-Dish Dinners as Nights Grow Colder

Part of me longs to be a sophisticated woman of the world, but another part of me is rather proud of my humble roots in a community that is largely blue collar and prides itself on being down-to-earth. Dollar stores thrive here and so do restaurants that offer down-home cooking. Most people here would rather drink beer than wine. If you grew up here, chances are you grew up eating casseroles.

As the daughter of a chef, I grew up in both worlds. Some nights I'd come home to lobster and other nights, we'd scarf down casseroles. Some meals were elaborate affairs: Italian night, French night, Chinese night, even Titanic night. Picnics in winter, on the floor of the living room. Made-from-scratch pizza on Saturday nights, with leftover sloppy-joe meat on top.

My husband grew up eating casseroles and meat-and-potato meals. His mother worked as a bookkeeper, and the way he tells it, meals were easy to prepare and vegetable were from cans.

There's nothing we enjoy more than a meal in a really good restaurant, whether it's a fancy French place or a steakhouse. We like meals at home just as well, and more often than not in fall and winter, that means a one-dish meal. Our favorite is browned Italian sausage, often cut with ground chuck, stewed tomatoes, onions and roasted red peppers with some sort of pasta. There's usually a dash of thyme and a dash of herbes de Provence. The meal is often accompanied by an easy salad of mixed greens and a humble merlot.

When I was a kid, my mother made a ground-beef-and-potato casserole with cream of chicken soup and onions. I can't think of a better comfort food! I love this stuff.

We often need comfort as the summer makes its slow slide into fall. While I am usually content to be home at nights during the winter months, this time of year I don't look forward to the long dark time ahead. It's dark enough at 8 p.m. now. We turn the lights on early these days, and we are sleeping under comforters and quilts. I feel out of place wearing whites and linens.

I feel a craving for hearty dishes already. Think I'll make that casserole tomorrow.

What about you?

The Signs are Here

There comes a day in August when you read the signs, the subtle little signs of a shift in seasons.

Today was the day. I sensed, rather than saw, a faint gold tinge in the landscape, and the bay gleamed like a thousand azure diamonds in the morning sun. I watched a trio of mallards float and dip their way across the cove. The traffic was heavy as my husband and I made our way to the farm market to buy onions, cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash.

The sunsets are saffron and misty. The crickets, slow to favor us with their song this year, are finally here.

I've been stocking up on wool and corduroy jackets in colors like burgundy, aubergine and pumpkin. The sales at the mall just now are incredible, and you can see the sunset there, unobstructed. The birds are flocking together on high wires, planning their trip south.

I love the smell of new school supplies, and although my student days are long past and I no longer teach at the university, I always make sure I buy a few new pens and highlighters and notebooks. Old habits die hard.

Labor Day Weekend is the real beginning of the year for most of us. For me it is a good time to make new plans, new resolutions.

Meanwhile, I continue to enjoy the best of summer food with samples of fall fare, too.

What are you up to?

The Lure of the Market

Our big community festival wrapped up yesterday, and I although I am still sleep deprived and foot weary (I hawked ice cream one night and helped keep a parade on track the next morning), I am happy happy happy for it has passed for another year with no problems or incidents to fret over.

The festival is a lot of work for the staff and the volunteers. But the community loves it. It showcases our wonderful location on the Great Lakes, and our stunning municipal marina.

The event has its roots in the summer festivals of my childhood, the summers before I became restless with the wanderlust that would one day cause me to flee this little town.

One afternoon I was heading back to my car, which was parked several blocks from the festival grounds. As I neared the corner where I would turn, I saw a young girl, 8 or 9 maybe, on a bicycle. She stopped at the corner and looked wistfully toward the waterfront.

"Is it there?" she asked the man walking 14 paces in front of me. He did not reply.

"Is that the festival? Is it there?" she asked me. "My parents won't let me go. I want to see it."

She brought me back to the days I stood at the corner of Dunlap and Belleville streets in Frenchtown, looking down the street six blocks to Ogden School where my adored but older friend Natalie attended kindergarten. With other kids. While I was only four and still at home. Alone.

"Oh, but you can have as much fun at home than you can at the festival," I told her. "I'm there because it's work for me."

She seemed disappointed. She turned around and pedaled her bicycle back down the side street. I followed. She looked back at me and then turned to pedal on.

"Ah, she already has it," I thought to myself. She already had the restlessness that comes with summer, the same restlessness that caused me to pace and wring my hands at 15, trapped at home on summer nights when it seemed all the world was out cruising the streets. I was sure that something - or someone - was out there waiting for me.

The restlessness increased when there was, as my Grandma Annie, always said, "Big doings down at the shore."

I feel the same restlessness myself on farm market days. I must go to the market. In lean times, I might have only been able to purchases fresh garlic. Today, I can buy what I please.

But I must go. I look forward to the first market of the year, even with its scant merchandise.

I've never met a farm market I did not like.

This year, the markets in our area are a bit behind previous years. Saturday I bought broccoli, beets, beans, herbs, lettuce, onions, scallions and green pepper.

How is your market doing?

Noises at Night; Julie and Julia

At night our neighborhood takes on a completely different persona.

It is no longer the leafy, hilly grid of late-19th century streets where people walk their dogs and their children, using the street, not the sidewalk as a walking path because not all the blocks have sidewalks. The mix of professors, teachers, bankers, laborers and health care workers who live in the houses here are sleeping (or like me, they are trying to).

But someone walks the streets dragging things around. And someone else yells things into a bullhorn.

The dragger first: For nearly a decade, on odd nights all year round, I hear the rattle of something that might be a wagon or cart being dragged or pulled down the street. It starts to the south and moves north toward the river. It is loud enough to wake me, and sometimes it takes a while for me to realize it is what I've come to think of as The Night Noise that has interrupted my precious sleep.

Someone is moving things at a time when they are likely to be unnoticed. Or, as I once suspected, perhaps someone is scavenging for things.

I cannot jump out of bed and rush to the window. Well, I could - were I lucid enough - but the cedar trees block my view. By the time I am awake enough to comprehend that The Night Noise is back, whatever is making the noise has traveled farther north and is out of view.

The Bullhorn is something else entirely. We have heard it all year round and at all times of evening or early morning. There was a time when I thought it was coming from a large mill located up the river, but the words projected by the bullhorn are not words that would be said over a public address system, if you get my drift.

I've asked neighbors about it. Apparently, my husband and I are the only ones who have heard it and it was only last year, or perhaps the summer before, when my husband finally heard The Bullhorn for himself.

Living as I once did in a series of urban apartments, I have heard many odd and alarming sounds at night. But these noises baffle me, and I won't be happy until I discover their source.

Tired as I am after a night of sleeplessness last night, I did see "Julie and Julia" tonight. It's been a long time since a movie has engaged me that much, even though I knew the outcome. See it, if you have not.

The photo is from May 2007: Rue de Monttessuy, 7th arr., Paris.