CREAMERY

now brought to you by boingboing...

2009-03-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/02/secrets-of-orange-ju.html

hmmm....

2009-02-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

Is this possibly a coincidence????
You go little sista.

Boston Globe reports...

2009-02-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

Q&A with Alissa Hamilton

What you're really pouring from that carton of orange juice
By Devra First
February 22, 2009

What could be simpler than a glass of orange juice? The beverage holds a place in the pantheon of wholesome American breakfast foods, on equal footing with toast, cereal, and eggs. It's pure and natural, ads tell us, and we buy both the sentiment and the product. More than 620 million gallons of orange juice are sold per year in the United States, according to market research from Nielsen.

Author Alissa Hamilton would have us take another look at the glass on the breakfast table. That simplicity is actually the result of a complicated process - juice stored in tanks for long periods, then goosed with flavor packs to taste like fruit again. Her book, "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice," due out in May from Yale University Press, reveals that orange juice, with its image as a natural Florida product, bears the fingerprints of chemists and is often shipped from South America.

Hamilton traces the history of the drink, first processed in the United States in the early 1900s as a canned juice that was said to taste like "battery acid." World War II ushered in the age of palatable processed orange juice, with the military seeking a source of vitamin C that soldiers would readily consume. In 1948, frozen concentrate was born, too late for the war effort but in time to help revive an ailing citrus industry, which was struggling with a surplus of fruit.

A further boost from Bing Crosby, who crooned about Minute Maid in radio ads, and OJ was on its way to becoming America's favorite breakfast drink. Since then, the citrus industry and its technologies have changed. The FDA tussled with manufacturers to set standards for orange juice. What remains constant? Marketing - some of it deceptive, says Hamilton.

If orange juice isn't harmful, it also isn't what it's portrayed to be. Consumers have a right to know what they are consuming, Hamilton says, and that is at the heart of her story. Ideas spoke with the author, a Woodcock Foundation-funded food and society policy fellow, by phone at her home in Toronto.

IDEAS: You write that the first question everyone asks when they hear about the book is whether orange juice is good for us. So - is orange juice good for us?

HAMILTON: I tell people if you like it, drink it, but not because you think it's good for you. You'd be better off with a whole orange than a glass of orange juice. It has more fiber and more vitamin C. But I'm not a dietitian. The book is not about whether you should drink orange juice and whether it's healthy. It's about how little consumers know about how popular and - in the case of orange juice - seemingly straightforward foods are produced and the repercussions for agriculture.

IDEAS: What isn't straightforward about orange juice?

HAMILTON: It's a heavily processed product. It's heavily engineered as well. In the process of pasteurizing, juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn't oxidize. Then it's put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year. It gets stripped of flavor-providing chemicals, which are volatile. When it's ready for packaging, companies such as Tropicana hire flavor companies such as Firmenich to engineer flavor packs to make it taste fresh. People think not-from-concentrate is a fresher product, but it also sits in storage for quite a long time.

IDEAS: What goes into these flavor packs?

HAMILTON: They're technically made from orange-derived substances, essence and oils. Flavor companies break down the essence and oils into individual chemicals and recombine them. I spoke to many people in the industry at Firmenich, different flavorists, and at Tropicana, and what you're getting looks nothing like the original substance. To call it natural at this point is a real stretch.

IDEAS: Why isn't orange flavor listed in the ingredients on the carton?

HAMILTON: The regulations were based on standards of identity for orange juice set in the 1960s. Technology at that time was not sophisticated at all . . . I don't think the concern is so much "are these flavor packs unhealthy?" The bigger issue is the fact that having to add flavor packs shows the product is not as fresh and pure as marketed.

IDEAS: It reminds me of McDonald's adding flavor to its fries to make them taste meaty, or beef extract to Chicken McNuggets, as we read about in "Fast Food Nation."

HAMILTON: The flavor industry can lend diversity to products that aren't really that diverse. Soft drinks are a perfect example: They're corn syrup and flavor. With orange juice, it's masking the processing procedure rather than the diversity of ingredients.

IDEAS: So parse the carton for us. For example, what is the phrase "not from concentrate" really about?

HAMILTON: In the '80s, Tropicana had a hold on ready-to-serve orange juice with full-strength juice. Then this new product, reconstituted orange juice, started appearing in supermarkets. Tropicana had to make decisions. Storing concentrate is much cheaper than full-strength juice. The phrase "not from concentrate" was to try to make consumers pay more for the product because it's a more expensive product to manufacture. It didn't have to do with the product being fresher; the product didn't change, the name simply changed. Tropicana didn't want to have to switch to concentrate technology.

IDEAS: A battle of the beverages?

HAMILTON: Yes. This is the orange juice equivalent of the cola wars. Minute Maid is probably the most familiar reconstituted orange juice, and it's owned by Coca-Cola. Tropicana is owned by Pepsi.

IDEAS: To what degree is orange juice still made from Florida oranges?

HAMILTON: Most concentrate is now from Brazil. Shipping it is relatively easy. Until recently, you could count on [Tropicana] Pure Premium being from Florida, but shipping technology has advanced. Companies like Tropicana have started shipping full-strength juice from Brazil rather than buying and squeezing in Florida. The majority of not-from-concentrate is coming from Florida-squeezed oranges, but that's certainly changing. The orange growing is moving to Brazil, which grows the most oranges for juice by far. Land is cheaper, and environmental regulations are almost nonexistent.

IDEAS: How is this affecting Florida growers?

HAMILTON: They are really struggling because of the growth of the industry. This product designed to help them has now effectively made them redundant. The groves are disappearing. They're being turned over in favor of condominiums. That was my ultimate aim, to show the connection between how processing does affect growing and how we as buyers - our lack of knowledge - does have implications for agriculture.

IDEAS: It strikes me that this is a timely book, with the Obama administration promising a review of FDA operations.

HAMILTON: I do think there's an opportunity. . . . It's been going on for decades with misleading marketing campaigns; I don't know why anybody isn't standing up to this. It's a perfect place for the FDA to start.

Devra First reports on food for the Boston Globe.

street art as status quo

2009-02-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Shepard Fairey is supposedly on a "quest to challenge the status quo and disrupt our sense of complacency through art." He was after all, arrested on his way to the opening of his retrospective at the I.C.A in Boston. As Peter Schjeldahl says "What isn't status quo about political rage? And have you met anyone not heavily medicated who strikes you as complacent lately? The retrospective is dated on arrival. Oddly, Fairey's splendid tour de force for Obama anticipated a new national mood, of serious-minded pragmatism, which makes ideological extremes seem sort of quaint. I found myself regarding the show as strangely wholesome, like a vaccine that defeats the virus it imitates." Obama personally thanked Fairey for helping him get elected. Where does all the White House and white box condoning leave Shepard Fairey with his countercultural street cred?

location location location

2009-02-17T16:03:00.000-08:00

Maybe now that everyone is poor and terrified, industry will consider staying home.....

The Creamery on location

taking back public space...

2009-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

Just days after our adventure on the streets outside the New School (see Jan.29), one of our guest critics known as Poster Boy, was sent to Rikers. My understanding is that this article in the New York Times makes it all worthwhile....

Poster Boy

is it time yet?

2009-02-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to springtime upstate with Tommy...

Apache-Tommy Seebach

Complexities of daily life

2009-01-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

Country life at the Creamery seems to be riddled with new challenges almost everyday. Today my tenants called to say there was an electrical short. Yesterday I had to shovel myself out of about a foot of snow (good for the abs). Last week the boiler blew minutes before I arrived back from a couple weeks away, I guess it missed me. Friends and family suggest I might want to return to the more familiar challenges of urban life. In an effort to make urban life equally rich with complication, I took my students out today to learn how to post illegal signage in public space. The police drove by seconds later. I wonder what the heat situation is like in jail.

2009-01-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

photo by Stephanie Diamond

Bienvenue Michelle.

2009-01-21T11:44:00.000-08:00

Black First Lady

a couple overcoming the odds.

2009-01-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

2009-01-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

glass

2009-01-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

The reflection is murky.
It should be moving anyway.
The train used to run here.
A good place to ski and know where you have been.

before the rush...

2009-01-02T18:41:00.000-08:00

At the new year my good friend J encouraged me to consider writing a memoir in 2009. He suggested however, that I may need to do some truth twisting in order to make my story plausible. 2008 was a CRAZY year. The truth is, this kind of smashing one's face against the glass makes one hyper aware of the critical stuff.
Dig in dad.

spreading the love for '09...

2008-12-30T06:07:00.001-08:00

Funky Kingston - Toots and the Maytals

The best gift ever.

2008-12-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

And now I share it with you.
Thank you Adam, I'm crying on Christmas eve.
David Attenborough as Santa Claus:

the lyre bird

sheets of ice.

2008-12-22T14:24:00.000-08:00

Then there was snow. This was a very mysterious phenomenon to arrive home to yesterday. It mostly looks like a potential lawsuit now that I have tenants. The runaways we call them. Matt, the boy half, is a volunteer firefighter across the street so maybe he will save the day before anyone is decapitated. The blacksmith says that it will sound like the subway is going by when the temperature changes since the sheets will likely crash in tandem.

Ice Storm

2008-12-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Talking about the weather is not small talk when you live in the country. The weather defines physical and mental economies much more directly in a rural landscape. Basically, the weather determines what is in the field which then defines the kind of activity taking place on the roads and at home in the kitchen.
Over the past year my personal relationships with friends and family may have been tested by distance, but I have definitely developed a more intimate relationship with the weather since moving to the country. It is easy to see how ice storms and swingers mingle.

"CITRUS SHOCKER"

2008-12-11T12:46:00.001-08:00

My little sister is the most dedicated, wise, insightful, generous and intelligent woman I know. Despite her movie star good looks (no resemblance), she is also the LEAST likely subject for the gossip pages of the New York Post:

December 7, 2008 --

IF you love orange juice, stop reading now! In her upcoming book, "Squeezed," Alissa Hamilton bares some of the less-appetizing secrets behind the breakfast favorite, including revelations that "most orange juice comes from Brazil, not Florida," and that even " 'not from concentrate' juice is heated, stripped of flavor, stored for up to a year and then reflavored before it's packaged and sold." The citrus shocker from Yale University Press hits stores in May.

SQUEEZED - Yale University Press

2008-11-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

also seen on my morning run...not in chelsea

2008-11-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

In my backyard quarry where the coyote was spotted, we recently stumbled on a graveyard of California redwood roots.
I can only hope these are not the remnants of some kind of experimental underground (sorry) currency.

Yes we did!!!

2008-11-04T20:11:00.001-08:00

wild coyote

2008-11-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

photo courtesy of NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Seen on my morning run. A good sign I think, I named him Obama.

Nada Nader

2008-11-01T12:44:00.001-07:00

Nader seems to have lost his voice. Here he is trying to explain it to us in a tiny Quaker house in New Paltz. Apparently no one wants to talk (or listen) to him which seems rather unfortunate since he has plenty interesting to say. In recent years Nader may have single handedly given the independence cause a face...while simultaneously defacing it. Some press guy in the audience asked what kind of personal responsibility Nader was willing to take for the war. The poor crazy guy was nearly tarred and feathered right there in a Quaker sacred place. "This is what I get in New Paltz???" Nader responded. Apparently upstate New York has consistently been his best support in the whole country. "Gore won that election, period." he continued. As Nader humbly pointed out, Obama likely will have at least a 24pt lead in NY so we can safely vote our conscience here. The thing is, Obama could be truer to his principles if there were another party with a face. What is clean coal anyway?

2008-10-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

hearts still afield...

2008-10-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

glad I have a passport...a Canadian one

2008-10-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

If she becomes VP

Blog Action Day for Poverty.

2008-10-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

"Poverty" was so 80's. Live Aid really hit home since it was the first year I was buying my own groceries. Wow, I can't believe I just said that. But isn't that just the (North) American way? Except that on a national scale awareness usually happens in reverse, when the western economy is good the guilt kicks in. Now what? I don't think we are thinking Ethiopia when we say "Poverty" today. My architect/farmer/carpenter neighbor is "desperate" for work. I can't hire him to help me bring the Creamery up to code until I figure out how to pay my property tax. And my health insurance. And my various oil bills. Listen, I am not claiming poverty, not yet. But I am considering hoarding some of the scrap gold left over from the crown set. The band boys may not find pharmaceuticals stored in that hatch out front, but they might find gold. Sarah Palin says it is bourgeois to study abroad (or carry a passport?). So walk or take the bus, Greyhound or Metro, if you want to study "Poverty" up close.

P.S. My local naturalist says the squirrels are also skinny this year so I put a few locals in my budget plan...they are easier to feed than Alanzo (the carpenter neighbor) who still weighs a good 240 I'd say.

hearts afield...

2008-10-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

Whoever conceived of this die hard romance, thank you. Each day it is a deeper red and a perfect gauge. I dread the winter version.

Shaman

2008-10-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

Algerville has a blacksmith. He is also my shaman. One needs a shaman when one lives in the country.

2008-10-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

2008-10-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

the band is back.

2008-09-27T13:46:00.001-07:00

This time fully enjoying cozy corners.

"cozy corners."

2008-09-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

I nearly got kicked out of architecture school for questioning the likes of Christopher Alexander and his manifesto of modular coziness. My teachers were his students. Christopher Alexander wrote a text called Pattern Language which defines a series of architectural moments meant to be pieced together to create universal 'comfort'. I always questioned the arrogance of attempting to define my experience in such a specific and dogmatic way. Architecture is arrogant by nature but this 'style' was created under the pretense of being completely democratic, nuts and berries style. In my (somewhat) humble opinion, corners clad in wood with six foot ceilings were a righteous and potentially dangerous interpretation of democracy. Twenty six foot ceilings and white walls leave much more space for negotiation. So much space that I have nearly lost friends in my living room. "Do you have something against comfortable chairs?". Just to prove my friends wrong, and to be able to invite them for tea, I have worked on this corner. Maybe I learned a thing or two from Chris after all.

Eat your beans.

2008-09-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

Just don't take them for granted. I decided to work for my dinner tonight, just to make sure I am fully appreciating the effort behind the ingredients before they are refried. When I asked Ralf Swenson Jr. what needed to be done around the place he didn't hesitate. The black beans were an experiment and they needed to be harvested a.s.a.p. When I was given a tiny container I thought maybe Ralf Sr. was mocking me. He said it would hold a pound. That quart of beans took me over an hour to pick and shell, and I didn't move a foot. My hourly rate is generally pretty high, I am treating these beans better than I do my stash of scrap gold.

Canadians also swim.

2008-09-16T21:22:00.001-07:00

Despite popular myth, we Canadians are not born with an extra layer of insulation. Cold is cold. It is the end of the season but my visiting family still braved the chilly water.
I would like to keep this new spot quiet for special guests, hopefully these rocks aren't too recognizable.

Red Hot Ballroom

2008-09-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

My good friend and fairy godchild, Dexter, has moved home to Canada. Before Dexter left he needed to prove that even Canadians can dance. He was a finalist in the tango representing P.S.58. Watch for the swing hair flip.

meet Ralf Swenson.

2008-09-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ralf Sr. might be my life hero. He makes the impossibly romantic notion of farm life seem possible. This is a man who sparkles. You never catch Ralf without a charming grin unless he is about to try and pull a fast one on you. His rosy cheeks and inspiring optimism may be because he eats fresh cut spinach and new eggs for breakfast each morning, but it seems more likely that the sparkle comes from his relentless life passion. He has a hard life I imagine, the kind of hard it takes to maintain a small boutique farm in a pretty uncompromising climate. The Swenson farm was passed to him by his father and was one of the first in the state to be certified organic. This farm did not become organic, it just never became anything else. When I go to pick up my stash every few days, Ralf Sr. always attempts to introduce me to a new culinary experience straight from the ground. Each time he picks something for me it is done with the care and enthusiasm as if were his first time.

local architecture

2008-09-08T21:57:00.001-07:00

2008-09-05T20:42:00.001-07:00

country life.

2008-08-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a year and Bob still claims to be bored by country life. He was born and raised near the docks in Brooklyn so I understand his apathy. Just to remind Bob (and me) why we are here, we put him in the basket and went for a bike ride.
First stop was the estate sale in town where I found, and quickly bought up, an old work table the size of my ex-Brooklyn apartment. I talked Ed into fixing it up and delivering it to my studio for a total, including the table, of two hundred dollars. Ed in Brooklyn would have charged that much just to deliver it. The next stop in town was the potter's studio where we agreed to have a teapot workshop tomorrow morning at 11am, open invitation.
A quick ride up the hill then brought us to the new found swimming hole...holes actually. There are a series of deep spots cascading down river, mostly hidden in the trees and perfect for skinny dipping. A long follow up ride on the most perfectly cliche country road led to a mysterious sign in hebrew suggesting there was a public yurt down the drive. It was true, must be some kind of kabbalah training center. We meditated on the idea for a few moments (mats were provided) and then carried on our way. After stopping a serious rider to ask how far to hwy.6, we realized his concept of "not far" may well be vastly different from ours. Luckily, there was an organic farm stand on the way, the kind where you put money in the box and take what you need. We needed a couple of perfect red tomatoes to get us to hwy.6.
At this point it was getting close to dusk and I was unsure how far to the blacksmith. The blacksmith shop is a landmark in the area. To be honest, I didn't think it was for real until I met Jonathan a couple of weeks ago. Jonathan was at the Swenson's farm looking to fix Ralf's old hoe that had come over on the boat from Sweden at the turn of the century, "my dad had this hoe in one hand and his banjo in the other". Jonathan invited me to visit his shop that day and it seemed like a good marker for our ride. Once finally there we were playing poker with the daylight. After an extensive tour of the shop we were getting hungry and there were at least a few miles left to get home . Jonathan gave us a couple cold drinks and sent us on our way. The final detour was the Swenson farm. You can't pass the Swenson's and not stop by for fresh cut collard greens and eggs straight from the bird.
Dinner was perfect and just in time for scarlet skies. Bob didn't even have to pedal.

snake water

2008-08-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

for andy in munich who doesn't believe I live in the mts.

2008-08-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

This is the view from the end of my property.

room 8

2008-08-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

no joke...even the surgeon remarked.

08•08•08•08:00

2008-08-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

• 8 is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2, and 4.
• 8 is a power of two, being two cubed. It is the first cubed prime number.
• As of 2006, in our solar system, 8 of the bodies orbiting the Sun are considered to be planets.
• All spiders, and more generally all arachnids, have 8 legs. An octopus has 8 tentacles.
• In the middle ages, 8 was the number of "unmoving" stars in the sky, and symbolized the perfection of incoming planetary energy.
• There are 8 notes in an octatonic scale.
• In chess, each side has 8 pawns.
• The 8 Immortals are Chinese deities.
• Feng shui says 8 is the luckiest number of all because it sounds like the word "prosper" or "wealth".

The Beijing Olympics will open this Friday because of the very lucky date 08•08•08. They will begin at 8pm.
I have my very own Olympic challenge, inadvertently scheduled on the same day at 8am, and am actively seeking sponsors. I was officially told, not by the puppy lady, to request good vibes from friendly sponsors at that time. So here I am, breaking blog etiquette and asking for something back. Vibes and comments will be especially appreciated this Friday 08•08•08 at 08:00.

squatter's rights?

2008-08-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Someone is trying to make his point...and mine. You see, I do in fact use the bbq. This new string and leaf nest appeared overnight. Not sure, but I don't imagine 24hours gives him much legal recourse as a squatter.

country convergence

2008-08-03T14:55:00.001-07:00

Looks strangely similar to the gold scrap...?
I guess someone was making a home in my bbq. Not as meticulous as a bower bird, but somebody who was very resourceful. They found Bob's fur in the compost and combined it with a shredded bbq instruction manual.
A bower bird nest!!!!!!!!

diamonds are forever....

2008-08-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a sample of what 4,604.00 USD buys you at your local scrap yard these days. There was no trace of my stuff being dumped this week, but I did battle for some prize goods. I had to battle because there is a pecking order. Although I was there first, the guy with the yamaka took me for a rookie and decided to "help me out" by going through the bins first and passing me crap he thought I'd like. His true motive however, was to get to the diamonds first. You see, the price of gold is so outrageous that it is not worth some people's time to bother separating the stones. Good thing I wasn't interested in the diamonds, they creep me out. We all know by now, thanks to Hollywood and beyond, that diamonds represent eternal love only by way of arms exchange and civil war. Gold is equally disturbing. Since the resource is so fine and scarce, it takes cyanide to separate it from the ore it lives in. The extraction process leaves traces of mercury, arsenic, lead and cyanide in our water systems. The nice thing about gold is that, unlike diamond, the old stuff can be reshaped and reformed ('I love Jesus' is not an uncommon charm) while maintaining its material integrity. My goal is to keep some of its formal history in the process of re-building. You can actually visualize the dead guy's story whose teeth are hanging from your ears...if you feel like it. Anyway, occasionally a diamond gets in my mix and this time it was a 12 pointer. We know it is a diamond because my local setter took a dremmel blade to it and it didn't even mark. This could be big business, but I have a better idea, I will work on a piece (not a skull) using these bits and donate it back to the cause....or the Iziko museum of South Africa.

HEIST

2008-07-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

Brilliant.
The exemplary author Lawrence Weschler wrote a book called Everything that Rises. A Book of Convergences.. Here is a convergence of a different genre.
I had a meeting to propose a book project this week. There were ideas, but just before leaving for the city I received a call: "I have something to tell you Kara, your work was at the warehouse being photographed and there has been a burglary". Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art and collectables everywhere and yet all they took was my stuff. Kiki Smith had a tray right next to mine. I'm pretty certain that this was an uninformed thief who has been following the outrageous gold standard, now hovering just below a thousand an ounce. My work must have looked delicious since it intentionally resembles a heaping pile of gold trash. When I go to 47th street to buy scrap it is a full on adventure. There are usually long lines of people emptying their pockets of misdirected wedding rings, dead relatives' gold teeth...or carefully lifted junk from a Brooklyn warehouse I'm sure.
I will spend the next weeks attempting to retrieve my trash since it will likely be re-dumped in the yard where I found it. There is a better story (and a new crown) in there somewhere.

"There's no place like home"....?

2008-07-20T18:10:00.001-07:00

I have clicked my heels home more than once in these shoes, sometimes lucky. It is hard not to imagine there is some kind of significance here.
Kansas has apparently developed a serious moisture problem. Town legend says that the building was literally filled with water to cool the cream, hence the lovely brick floors. Yet there was never a mold problem before. Maybe the infamous "endless aquifer" under the Creamery has finally run wild? At least we're prepared for the impending water crisis, maybe I should also try to harvest the fungi?

p.s. the insides of the shoes were meant to be fuzzy...sorry trace, for the unintentional design alteration!
tn29 shoes

chiclet?

2008-07-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

before
after

Encounters at the end of the world - the movie.

2008-06-30T14:50:00.001-07:00

film still

This time in Antarctica, Werner Herzog examines life from the microscopic to the hyperreal. We travel with him to McMurdo station where the over qualified staff gets panicky when Mr.Softee runs low. I had heard somewhere before that the drive to get off the base is imminent once you land, preferably to get into the landscape without a bucket on your head. The landscape, even in the movies, is profound. Above ground and under the ice Herzog captures the insanity in a way only he can. Determined not to make another penguin movie, Herzog has taken all the penguin movie prerequisites and craftily made them work. I laughed, I cried and I'm ready for tickets to his next adventure.

oh, and...

2008-06-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

"...if that doesn't work there is an American Kennels around the corner...."

filled with cute little leukemia riddled puppy farm dogs.

retail therapy

2008-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Seems like a lifetime of struggling to understand the meaning of "living in the moment" has led to serious side effects such as profound short/long term memory loss, as well as the inability to concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time. In two very long weeks this has all changed. I get it. I just hope I get to keep it, since it is not the first time I've felt a subconscious breakthrough.
September 11th 2001 was a similar experience. This day was riddled with conflicting emotions exemplified by the fact that I witnessed the entire disaster from my Brooklyn rooftop with two of the most gorgeous french men I'd ever seen, while they smoked Gitannes in their underwear. I'm not kidding. They lit their cigarettes with flaming World Trade documents which landed on the roof while we quietly watched the universe come to an end. Jean-Marc and Nicholas rode their rental bikes to my place the day before having heard that I leased my top floor to handsome strangers, and we all woke up to Armageddon. The week following was amazing, the three of us ate and drank and talked about what would happen if we were the only ones left on earth. It was terrifying and beautiful and sad and thrilling and hopeless and dreamy.
Once again, serious adversity doesn't feel as much like a sentence as it feels like a second lease on life. I say this even after I was given an important list of instructions yesterday which included a "mandatory trip to Bloomingdale's...even if you just go in one door and out the other...the colors and smells will transport you"....to the local asylum maybe.

beyonce bought my crown today.

2008-06-17T15:43:00.001-07:00

I hope it helps her complete her fairy tale.

fairy tales...

2008-06-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

My Snow White story may be over but it's just in time for a different kind of Grimm tale to unravel.
Today, after the storm, I feel is essentially the first day of the rest of my life.

deer & moose picnic

2008-06-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

After a long fruitless search for deer meat last year, we roasted a pig at the August picnic. This year, a new contractor stopped by on Friday with a bag full of venison steak he had butchered himself. Maybe he was trying to make good for not showing up all week. Just to mix it up a bit, my friend Ron brought local moose meat. Though both went over very well, I still have enough meat in my freezer for winter, which makes me feel closer to fitting in up here. For entertainment, the band tested a few songs from the album they cut at the Creamery. There was lots of positive feedback, but the kids and the old people thought it was too loud.

down to up

2008-06-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

The band soon formed a theory that I was actually storing a big strong man in my hatch. They could not figure out how I was getting certain things done around the place. I told them that if I had a big strong man I'd put him on the roof like a hood ornament, not in a basement hatch. They were very helpful all week, from getting rid of rattle snakes to fixing my skylight situation. Their company was also very nice, even if I did start to feel somewhat like a youthful Mrs.Robinson or a rather mature Pennie Lane.

dig

2008-06-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Arrived home late last night after a long day in the big city. Good thing I decided to come back at all. I asked the boys nicely not to blow up the place while I was gone, and they didn't, but they did lock themselves out.
While getting ready for bed I heard a bunch of activity outside. Apparently they had taken their first break for air in many hours and the door locked behind them. They found me in my nighty writing emails and invited me out "for a smoke" before I let them in. We were all chatting out front when J discovered a hollow sound in the ground beneath him. He was convinced this was a passage to the basement that I insisted did not exist. There was a hatch however, with a soft floor, so they spent some time digging while creating many good stories (songs?) about what we might find. The preferred story of course involved discovering a stash left over from the previous pharmaceutical company owner who had also bricked up the windows for security. Needless to say this adventure remains incomplete.

staying alive

2008-06-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

"does the book say anything about what to do when a band of boys takes over...sound equipment and all...
and how not to scare the animals?"
-SS

2008-06-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

before

bob's barking at the mike

garage band

2008-06-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Teenage fantasy.
I spent a week cleaning out the garage to look like this:

In less than an hour it became this:

I hope they are respectful of Kiowa (the canoe).

pressure for updates...

2008-06-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

At about 4:30 this morning I was shaken out of a deep sleep by a loud chirping sound. Of course my first city girl instinct was that the band was experimenting with a new genre. Actually, something was going awry in the natural world. Not sure what the birds were talking about, but either they were very happy or very upset. I sure hope they did not disturb the band's beauty sleep. Those guys worked for 11 hours straight and "cut six tracks...that's really great for one day". Sounded like one track to me but what do I know? So far it's going well, I am only slightly worried about the plumbing since the bathroom I put in the front is pretty precarious. The sewage has to go up a two inch pipe and over my head to get to the septic tank out back. At least I know they don't eat much.

P.S. The band is "doing a show" at the Creamery on Saturday afternoon (yikes). I know little about the music except that it kind of sounds like the Strokes meets Velvet Underground. Stop by.

P.P.S. Sorry Lindsey, no pictures yet...I'm working on it.

Day 2

2008-06-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

Noon.
I hear some trumpet activity. Surprising that they quit before midnight last night, I guess they are on half country time ie. early to bed, late to rise. Just curious how they all slept in there with their mounds of equipment piled on every surface. Free love?

Creamery label.

2008-06-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

I promised I'd post regular updates this week from Creamery studios.
Today five young (under thirty I imagine) virile boys arrived at Creamery ready to play. Rock and roll I think they call it. They are sweet and well mannered but I have been warned not to be fooled..."they are a rock band after all". This is a new era I say, I trust they will not attempt to trash this virtually indestructible bunker, they are business boys. And if it is a land of hedonism behind the wall who am I to complain anyway? They told me I was "cool" tonight. It wasn't long before they were comfortable enough to march through my space on their way to grill shrimp on the back porch. In the land of free love I guess I should not have been concerned that I was just getting ready to jump in the shower...which is wide open and essentially in the middle of the dining room. I fixed the lock, for now they can go around. More later.

bower bird!

2008-05-31T20:01:00.001-07:00

Please watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA

I retire....and please tell me how I can find David Attenborough...?

since you ask..

2008-05-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

This was the water vehicle of choice...and time really did reverse going solo upstream. Just as it was getting dark, I feathered the stern to face home while taking full credit for the distance travelled in a relatively short period. Digging the paddle as far and hard as possible (wow) I realized the boat was at a stand still. The current in this narrow river is strong. After three attempts at rushing the river, it became painfully apparent that my yoga pecks need plenty more work. Bob thought he was in a gondola going downstream but hid under the thwart while I pulled him back through the "rapids".
Next trip we will be escorted by big Venetian pecks.

å la Peter Hutton

2008-05-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

"One of the great revelations of traveling by sea is how slow it is compared to airplane or even train travel. You can actually go backwards in time on a boat, you can sail into a storm and make no headway...One of the exhilarating and terrifying aspects of traveling by sea is the vulnerability you feel and the fact that you're not isolated from nature, but rather in the heart of nature itself....As I was turning around, a big wave dipped over the bow. It could have washed me over. I scurried up to the bridge and continued to observe the storm from up there...Being on the boat forced me to slow down, and allowed me to take time to look."

Peter Hutton, avant-garde filmmaker, works in the area making images of the Hudson and the Catskills region. See: Study of a River

2008-05-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

After sending the weekenders home, while sitting on the back deck eating leftover grilled asparagus from the farm down the road, I was bombarded by the sound of sirens and an announcer on a loud speaker saying something about this year's Miss.Accord.
All I had to do was open the front door to see a parade of local floats go by on Main st. and U turn right in front of the Creamery. Wow. Still acting like a tourist in town, I ran inside to get my camera. Welcome to America.
I hope this is not an indication of the bigger picture. Check out the scale shift in the political vehicles!
republicans
democrats

bird bath?

2008-05-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

This old doctor's tray has not attracted any bird bathing yet, but that may be because they have opted for showers lately.
How often do birds wash?

Off to the city for a dose...

Times.

2008-05-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Schools out.
This morning was about waking up to the birds singing on a beautiful Sunday morning and realizing for the first time that this is actually home now. Holly shit.
I was originally unclear why friends were suggesting it was "brave" to move to this bucolic paradise I saw as Accord (I'm still unsure of the town pronunciation, which may have to do with my reluctance to admit I really live here). The truth is I always saw myself as a compromised city girl. I grew up downtown but could have been diagnosed with Nature-Deficit Disorder at a young age. I wonder what kind of pharmaceuticals are they doling out for that one? This place seemed like the obvious drug to me, a huge dreamy city-like space smack in the middle of the country. Many fantasize about making the move out of NY and I was going to prove I could really do it. Was I right? Too soon to know, especially since a good part of the year was spent in the cities ie. Toronto/New York.
As of this morning, I am here with no specific plan to go back to the city until I leave for Toronto/London/Bilbao/Berlin in July. It is exciting to watch the birds and plant some flowers without sneezing non-stop, since ironically Brooklyn provokes more severe seasonal allergies than the country does. At least the pollen is distributed in relatively clean air up here.
There is no question in my mind that this was the perfect spot to read the Sunday Times, but since we were unable to make a quick jaunt to the Met show, as seen on pg.6, the day was eaten up by country chores.
I guess bi country is really the ideal.

flammable furniture

2008-05-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yet another application for the Brooklyn whiskey wood deck that is anything but a deck. It's sitting pretty on the new west dance floor.

FOR RENT

2008-04-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

In order to pay the winter oil bills, and fund a walk through the Pyrenees with my beloved family, I am renting the Creamery for the best of the season July.1-31. The whole damn place is for rent. Grow your own vegetables and have a pig roast.
Canoe included.

the way it should be.

2008-04-25T22:14:00.001-07:00

maybe like this?

2008-04-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

still working on the island aspect.

Brooklyn nostalgia.

2008-04-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

This new kitchen deck was made from remainders of the roof deck that a fire marshall made me remove on Summit St. I'm pretty sure this was the beginning of the end of my love affair with Summit St. The purchasers of the building actually withheld 10K for months because I accidently left some wood in the community garden behind the place. This beautiful recycled whiskey factory wood works perfectly inside, it is apparently a fire hazard outside. Equally nice to know we are protected from the flammability of our bedroom pillows with FDA approved teflon spray... or whatever it is.
This is most of what was left from my stash (the roof was 4x this size) so maybe they did build a fancy new sauna in the house with wood that was forgotten. Anyway, I am happy with the deck but still confused about the kitchen layout. Sink and stove have to stay where they are....any genius suggestions?

the birds

2008-04-11T21:20:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I decided to take full advantage of country living by making eggs for breakfast fresh from the bird.
Ironically on the way to Swenson's farm, Bob and I had a terrifying encounter with a freak Hitchcockian murder of crows. O.K. they were not crows, but a murder of crows sounds much more dramatic than a flock of starlings. And it was dramatic. Were they starlings? Maybe they were grackles. I was too terrified to pay attention since a premature Hitchcock experience caused an irrational bird phobia (is that an oxymoron?) Anyway, some exciting New Zealand bird watching last year supposedly cured me of my old fears. Not so. Running down the road to the farm, I imagined what it might be like if these thousands of noisy black birds surrounded my own house/creamery.

As we walked home I noticed the birds were no longer occupying the same edge of the forest. Frightened that they may be flying quietly behind us with their eyes on the dog, I picked up the pace. As we descended into the driveway the chipper became clear. The closest birds must have been only about 100ft away, almost exactly the length of the creamery. Once inside, I realized the birds occupied every branch in sight from the kitchen windows. Facing my fears, I stood on the new back deck attempting to capture the experience on video. When the birds finally decided they had tormented us enough, the sky was black and chattering with starlings/grackles in flight.

Breakfast, made from perfectly orange egg yolks, was not easy to digest.

these images really pale compared to the reality of the experience (all the feedback sounding noise is actually fluttering bird sound).

index

2008-03-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

big love to SF

2008-03-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

stuffwhitepeoplelike

happy easter

2008-03-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

This year, an annual easter hunt uncovered a veritable treasure at Ron's antique shop around the corner on Main st.
The bottle in this picture is inscribed DAIRYLEA Dairy Men's League.
According to Ed who has lived in town "a long time", the Dairy Men's League was the name of the creamery where I have now set up camp. This was a cooperative established circa 1907 by a group of dairy farmers in order to increase their marketing power in the area. Ed talked of a friend he made in the creamery who would sneak bottles of chocolate milk out the side window that Ed and his friends would drink behind the train tracks. One bottle has been returned.

and now a word from our sponsor...

2008-03-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

It may look like I'm about to spit at the camera but really the nuns were just cracking me up. It was easily the most honorable and surprising experience to spend the night with a couple of radical Buddhist nuns from Nepal.
Now, in return I would like to take a moment to promote their most nobel cause. These two nuns, Venerable Molini and Venerable Dhamma Vijaya, are building a school in Kathmandu to provide education and shelter for females at risk of becoming victims to human traffickers who sell girls, as young as six, to the sex trade in India: http://www.dhammamoli.org
I might exchange my pellet stove for a new wing at the school...or at least a few extra beds.

O-B-A-M-A

2008-03-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

viewed this on an old friend's blog and felt it would just be wrong not to share...

chamfers

2008-03-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

Finally warm and sleeping restlessly.
I had the stoves installed yesterday after long cold winter, but was up half the night worried about chamfered corners on this ugly pellet stove. I am allergic to chamfered corners. While defending my thesis in 1993, the main critique by a prominent architect boiled down to "too many square corners for an elementary school." Say WHAT?
Rudolf Steiner had some good arguments for curves in schools, but I was not designing a Waldorf school and this guy was suggesting castrated corners! Weak. I must have had a great project.

Someone tell me the chamfers are o.k.

lit my fire.

2008-03-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Ceci n'est pas un lac.

2008-03-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

If this looks like a tree farm under water, that's because it is.

After a torrential downpour yesterday, this poor farmer on rte.209 was flooded by the Rondout Creek (well situated across the high road from the Creamery).

The creek was moving fast today. If the We-no-nah ultralight was equipped for white water it would have been an interesting day for a paddle ...with many potential new detours.

confused dog

2008-03-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

"I'm pretty sure lunch is in there..."

snowed in

2008-03-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

(check windows)

I got a bill from the snow plow guy. Apparently he had come six times to shovel snow into my door and expected to be paid before continuing to do so. The softy that I am, I asked him to clear it away this time so I could get in and then negotiated half price for the previous visits. Although shoveling is great exercise and reminds us that global warming may be slightly slower north of Westchester, this Sisyphean task also seems illogical. My sister says to leave it, it will eventually melt.

just landed.

2008-02-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

A good friend offered up this kitchen unit he made (years ago) as a potential solution to an unresolved dream kitchen. My personal driving design philosophy could be qualified as 'accidentally intentional' but this alternative seems to be more 'intentionally accidental'?

poor spelling...but really I just liked the photo.

2008-02-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

It is a relief that they spelled my name wrong since I'd prefer not to be associated with airline food in ANY way. Particularly Air Canada's food which would compete for the worst, if that was not an oxymoron. Come to think of it, cutbacks on Air Canada wiped out the food service as far as I could tell...call security!

thanks?

2008-02-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

to the anonymous "friendly" neighbour who cleared the DRIVEWAY...but (un)fortunately I don't live in my car!

2008-02-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

2008-02-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

O-B-A-M-A

2008-02-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

On the 4 HOUR gas guzzling drive back to another work week in the city (as if New Yorkers have never seen snow before!!) I noticed that I am not completely alone in the oil indulgent back country.

Obama signs prevailed. He's real, he's real handsome and he doesn't owe anyone anything. O-B-A-M-A.

b.t.w. his autobiography is fun to read right now

Personal Oil Crisis

2008-02-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

a mansion from the other side.

I am beginning to feel like a closet alcoholic. At least what I imagine that might feel like. The irony of moving to the country to enjoy a better way of life only to discover that it is all quietly wrapped up in consumption of the worst kind. Oil guzzling.

Symptoms of bucolic withdrawal have led to a place with plenty of space and trees and birds and insane oil bills. The thermostat is glued below 50 so it is not exactly cozy country living, at least not until the wood stoves are hooked up. Cross country skiing in the Catskills yesterday was blissful until we went the wrong direction and spent nearly $40 in gas.

The best perks to come out of this so far are the gift of a beautiful handmade fat Argentinian wool sweater....oh, and new radical personal cause. The highly insulated roof and radiantly heated bathroom are clearly only the first steps on a new kind of 'greening' adventure. Or maybe there could be a different currency for this issue?

foodandwaterworkshop.com

2008-02-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

getting radiantly warmer

2008-01-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

before

now

(with rescued sink)

Home Depot Trail

2008-01-16T14:39:00.000-08:00

Though I hope loyal blog readers are enjoying my new found love for poetry, I am starting to worry about the context of appropriation being just for the likes of Emily Dickinson. Sometimes my verbal skills just are not up to par.

Here was the view on our way to Home Depot today. Kind of an oxymoron. I just wanted to make sure you all stay posted for the application of the Home Depot adventure. This included trying to talk the manager out of taking a jack hammer to the demo sink by selling it to me instead. And I didn't even really like it.

fete de maman

2008-01-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

chris and laura's apples
crown jewels

A Drop Fell On The Apple Tree by Emily Dickinson.

A drop fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

happy birthday maman (this necklace for you).

2008

2008-01-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

Apparently 2007 was a good year for wine, at least in Nappa. It was also a good year for anyone with a trunk full of gold bullion, although I guess any year could work with a trunk full of gold, depending on the context. Legend has it that my gambling grandfather used to store his gold bullion in the trunk of their Cadillac when the markets were fluctuating.
Seven has never been my lucky number and yet I seemed to have won the lottery on life challenges this year. One after another. Most significant of course was the loss of a parent, but also: moving to the country, aging (40), power, love, disease....lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride...you get the idea.
This blog has become an exercise in general personal catharsis and it seems I have strayed far from the original project. Although my personal challenges will not cease this year, I hope that 2008 may also bring a radiant heated bathroom and at least a couple of functioning wood stoves. Please stay tuned.
Happy New Year.