Category Archives: family

What’ll You Have? A Brewed Awakening in 2014

Posted on June 21, 2014 | 1 comment

When a local pub ran an ad touting PBR for the special price of $1, I was puzzled. What was PBR? Peanut butter and raisins? Unlikely.

I turned to my 30-something daughter for help. She immediately knew what it meant: Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

Was Pabst Blue Ribbon still around? Really?

Growing up in the ’50s, I remember Pabst Blue Ribbon thanks to its incessant TV commercials and their memorable jingle: “What’ll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon…Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.” I associated it with a bunch of other blue-collar beers brewed in Milwaukee, and I even have a dim memory of touring a Milwaukee brewery with my family–either Pabst or Blatz—when I was a kid.

It seems that PBR’s sales slumped badly between their peak of 18 million barrels in 1977 and less than one million about 20 years later. But after this two-decade slump, sales began to revive in the early 2000s, largely because of its increasing popularity among “urban hipsters.” Who knew?

My re-encounter with Pabst Blue Ribbon inspired a host of other beer-related memories to emerge from my subconscious.

First, I remember watching my father occasionally drink beer. I once asked to taste it, and when he obliged, I was shocked to find that it tasted awful. Tasting Daddy’s beer is stashed among many treasured memories of my father, who died when I was 12. Among them: His singing “Peg o’ My Heart” or “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” to help me fall asleep. His leaning back on his favorite olive-green upholstered chair, leaving a Brylcreem mark that must have infuriated my scrupulous-housekeeper mother. His impromptu soft-shoe dance across our living room floor when he was in a particularly ebullient mood. His fondness for smoking a pipe–although he usually smoked cigars (probably why I’m a rarity among women; I don’t mind the smell of a cigar).

I didn’t learn to drink beer till my law school years, when I happily joined my male classmates in convivial gatherings over steins of beer. Suddenly I found it palatable. It must have been the testosterone-laden atmosphere that induced me to change my opinion. I’m pretty sure my taste buds hadn’t changed.

One male classmate took me out for a beer in the basement of The Wursthaus, a Harvard Square institution…until it wasn’t. (It closed in 1996.) Before the beer arrived, he told me it would taste like raspberries, and indeed it did. I’ve since learned that it was a German beer called a “Berliner Weisse,” a lightly carbonated white beer infused with raspberry juice. Although I could have drunk much more raspberry-flavored beer, which was vaguely reminiscent of soda pop, for some reason I never did.

After leaving school, I usually preferred a different beverage, but I occasionally quaffed a beer or two on dates. And when I met and married my husband, we often had a beer together, especially with pizza or Mexican food. But even before the PBR slump began around 1977, we chose brands like Michelob, Heineken, and Dos Equis, never Pabst Blue Ribbon.

When my daughters were born, I took up the challenge of feeding them the old-fashioned way, via my breasts. Folklore had it that imbibing beer was a good way to speed things along. Although I may have sipped on a beer or two, I found I didn’t need any help and abandoned the idea pretty fast. Luckily, as it turns out. Medical experts now advise against even a small amount of alcohol for breast-feeding moms.

Thanks to my travels, I’ve sampled unusual beers found in distant corners of the world. In Cardiff, Wales, for example, I tried a local beer called Brains. It tasted just fine, but above all, I loved its slogan: “it’s Brains you want!”

More recently, I’ve encountered a whole new world of beer. When I traveled to Alaska with a beer-loving friend, he introduced me to a hefeweizen in Anchorage, and we shared an Alaskan Amber and an Alaskan White in a small pizza joint in Nome (yes, Nome). On another trip, this time to Denver, we sought out Wynkoop Brewing Company, a brewpub founded in 1988 by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and friends, where we sampled deliciously spicy pumpkin beer.

Now my son-in-law has taken up beer-brewing. A techie with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford, he brews beer at home, then bottles it with his own labels. It works for him because it combines his interest in science with a complicated recipe that requires a dedicated focus to the task at hand. He finds it a welcome departure from his demanding computer-science work. And, like a chef who prepares fine food using a cookbook like Julia Child’s, he enjoys sharing the result with his family and friends.

I don’t follow the trends in beer-brewing very closely. But almost every day I read about new varieties of beer, from winter IPAs to nitros. All these new varieties had surely shoved aside the old blue-collar beers like PBR. Or so I thought.

But here comes PBR, rearing its foamy head among the new guys.

“What’ll you have?” Whatever you choose, bottoms up!

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Italy Was Amazing, and So Were We

Posted on March 24, 2014 | 2 comments

Have you ever watched the TV reality game show, “The Amazing Race”? It features a fast-paced race to destinations around the world.
Competitors are teams of two people who share the tension and the mishaps they encounter along the way, hoping to be the first team to reach the final destination. The teams must be in some sort of relationship, including friends and relatives, and almost every season includes one team composed of a parent and an adult child. The competition is tough, but the reward is great: the winning team shares one million dollars.
I never considered competing on the show myself, but my daughter Leslie and I lived our own version of “The Amazing Race” during our recent trip to Italy. Time and again, we went zooming from one place to another in an attempt to reach our destination on time. Hair flying, clothes flapping, our wheelies spinning behind us at a furious pace, we always got where we needed to go…but it wasn’t always clear that we would.
It all started when we arrived in Rome early on a Monday morning in October. We’d reserved online (with Trenitalia) two seats on the fast train between Rome and Florence scheduled to depart Termini, Rome’s central train station, at 2:30 p.m. Worried that our flight might be delayed, we allowed a long layover between our arriving flight and the train reservation. An Italian friend also warned us that the fast train would be packed with business travelers going to Florence from Rome on a Monday. Hence the reservation.
As things turned out, our flight arrived on time at Fiumicino, the Rome airport, around 8:30 a.m., leaving us six hours to connect with our train. We weren’t upset about the six hours—yet—because we weren’t sure how long it would take to get from the airport to Termini. A taxi would be expensive. Luckily, one of our guidebooks mentioned a new shuttle bus between Fiumicino and Termini, and hustling past passport control, we ran to find the shuttle. It was still boarding, with only a few minutes to spare, and out of breath and sweaty, we found seats across the aisle from each other.
The shuttle bus moved slowly through rush-hour traffic and stopped outside Termini at about 10 a.m. We retrieved our suitcases and entered through the door closest to the shuttle bus drop-off. We knew we had loads of time to kill, and we didn’t want to waste any of our precious hours in Italy sitting around Termini. So, hoping to learn how to get on an earlier train to Florence, we searched for a helpful employee. The first employee we encountered—in a surprisingly uncrowded part of the station–was rude and dismissive, making clear we had to keep our reservation because we had a special price we got online.
Disheartened, we envisioned a long wait at Termini, and the two of us set off in search of food and a restroom.
We walked down a narrow hallway and discovered a small snack shop, where we took turns using the few euros we’d brought from home to get something to eat. While Leslie ate, I headed for a nearby restroom. Employing the very useful phrase “Dov’è …?”, I followed the route described by a friendly clerk and was startled to discover an enormous and busy part of the station we hadn’t known existed. Hundreds of travelers were milling around, eyes focused on a huge arrivals-departures board on the wall above some ticket windows.
I went back for Leslie, and we quickly saw that several trains would be leaving Rome for Florence well before 2:30. But how to exchange our reserved tickets for tickets on one of those? Hopeful travelers like us were grabbing numbers to talk to a ticket agent, and we grabbed a number, too. But the numbers being served were hundreds away from new numbers like ours.
Even more disheartened, we resigned ourselves to hours in Termini, probably never getting on any train earlier than the 2:30 we’d reserved. Just then, an older Italian man suddenly appeared at my elbow. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Who was this stranger offering help? My first thought was that he was a con man hoping to take advantage of a pair of vulnerable American tourists. He seemed to focus especially on me, a woman of a certain age, rather than my attractive younger daughter. Hmmm…was he hoping to be Rossano Brazzi to my Katharine Hepburn?
I must have looked dubious, but I quickly explained our situation, and his English was good enough to grasp the problem. He instantly offered us real help, escorting us out of the enormous room to a Trenitalia office where a clerk immediately exchanged our tickets (for a fee I was happy to pay) and reserved seats for us on the 11:30 fast train to Florence.
But by this time it was nearly 11:25! We had to RUN. So moving even faster than we did to catch the shuttle from Fiumicino, we began running to the platform where the train was about to leave. The kind stranger grabbed one of my wheelies, and the three of us set off. Our wheelies spinning, our hearts racing, Leslie and I boarded the train just in time.
In return for his help, our kind Italian stranger asked only that I look for him at Termini when I returned from Florence and have a drink with him. I’d have gladly done that had I returned to Termini at a time when that might have worked. But I never did, and I departed Termini hoping he knew how very grateful we were for his help.
Our seats on the train were excellent, and our arrival in Florence went smoothly. A taxi took us to our hotel, where we settled in for four wonderful days and nights in that extraordinary city. On our last day, we were hoping to travel by bus to Siena. The weather forecast the night before predicted heavy rain, so we figured we’d stay in Florence instead and hit some museums we’d so far missed.
We left our hotel at nearly 11 a.m., prepared for rain, and were instead greeted by sunshine and wet pavements. The rain had come and gone. We instantly decided to head for Siena and set out on foot for the bus station. We knew it was very close to the train station, so, consulting our map, we aimed for the train station, assuming we could find the bus station from there.
We made tracks and quickly arrived at the train station. But where exactly was the bus station? Its location was NOT obvious, and we frantically searched the area till we found it. We then rushed to the ticket window and somehow managed to explain what we wanted. Cash was required. Did we have it? Rummaging through our wallets, we came up with enough cash to buy the tickets.
The next bus was scheduled to leave within a few minutes, so we tracked down the right bus and clambered on, finding seats just in time. If we’d missed this bus, we’d have been stuck at the bus station for over an hour, losing all that time in Siena. Once again, we barely made our connection. Once again, I felt like the parent in an Amazing Race parent-child team.
The hours we spent in Siena were joyful. Lunch outside, on the terrace of a restaurant facing Il Campo (where the famed horse race, the Palio, takes place every summer), was delightful, and our trek uphill to see Siena’s cathedral was worth every arduous step. But when we checked the bus schedule, hoping to get back to Florence before dark, we found we had to get to our bus stop within minutes. Quickly making our way downhill, relishing the Siena street-scene as we went, we arrived at the bus stop and discovered we had to buy tickets at an underground location beneath it. Down the stairs we went, and again cash was required. I’d used an ATM so cash was no longer a problem. But the adjoining restroom, which we both needed by this time, required not merely cash but correct change! More rummaging, more frantic glances at our watches, till we came up with the right coins and made our triumphal entrance into the restroom. Finally we emerged into the sunlight and climbed onto the bus just in time for our ride back to Florence.
The next morning we were off to the Amalfi Coast by way of Naples. We’d planned to take a fast train from Florence to Naples, then get to the port in Naples to catch a ferry to our destination, Sorrento. The fast train arrived late, but we weren’t worried about making our connection in Naples. Surely there would be more than one ferry going from the port of Naples to Sorrento. Or would there?
Arriving at the Naples train station, we tracked down a tourist office where we were assured that ferries would leave from the port to Sorrento that afternoon. So off we went in a taxi through the chaotic streets of Naples, arriving at the port and eventually finding a ticket window to purchase tickets for the ferry to Sorrento. This time we were actually early and found ourselves waiting outside on the dock. The weather was beautiful, so we didn’t mind a bit. When the ferry arrived, however, we were disappointed to find that we had to sit inside instead of outside on a deck. So we sat inside, defeating the real purpose of taking the ferry instead of the more convenient, and cheaper, train from Naples to Sorrento. Oh well….
The ferry arrived at the port of Sorrento, and we emerged to discover another setback. We had to drag our suitcases uphill to get to the taxi stand. But we made it, and our taxi deposited us at our hotel, a delightful place where we spent four wonderful nights before taking off for Rome.
We ran two fairly frantic “races” before leaving Sorrento. First, we left our hotel early one morning and walked downhill to the port to catch a ferry to Capri. The ferries didn’t leave very often, and we wanted to get an early start. Down by the water, a crowd had gathered, waiting in a long line to board the ferry. We got in line and patiently began to wait. But we soon noticed that everyone else in line was already clutching a ticket for the ferry. We queried others and learned that the ticket booth was a long distance behind us, near the stairs we’d descended a long time before. I stayed in line while Leslie ran back to buy our tickets. Nervously, I watched for her till just about everyone else had boarded the ferry and departure time was only a few minutes away. At last I saw Leslie running toward me, waving our tickets, and at the last possible moment, we boarded the ferry. It left the dock a minute later. An Amazing-Race minute? You bet!
We arrived at Capri and looked around the port for a short time, then purchased tickets (for cash) for a boat trip around the entire island. If weather conditions permitted, we would be able to visit “the blue grotto,” a remarkable spot where small rowboats take four people at a time into the grotto to see the astonishingly “blue” water, a natural phenomenon. So off we went on our tour around Capri. Luckily, conditions allowed us (lying perfectly flat in the rowboat) to enter the blue grotto, our rower singing “Volare” at the top of his lungs while we surveyed the very blue water surrounding us. One of the other passengers in our rowboat was quite hefty, weighing maybe 300 pounds, and I worried about capsizing, but nothing untoward happened, and we made it safely back to the larger boat for the rest of the trip around the island.
Back on the island, we spent the afternoon strolling around its sites, relishing beautiful vistas from various perches above the water. As evening approached, we decided to head back to Sorrento. That meant descending to the level of the port and taking a ferry that would return in time for dinner. As we made our way to where the ferries departed, we saw we had only a few minutes to make the next ferry. Missing it would leave us in Capri for another hour, and we’d seen all we wanted to see. So another race began, and we ran as fast as we could to catch the next ferry. No wheelies spinning behind us, but the race was frantic just the same. We made the ferry with no time to spare and got to Sorrento just as the sun was setting. We trekked back uphill to our hotel, changed for dinner, and selected a charming restaurant, followed by a stroll up and down the busy shopping streets nearby.
No other frenzied races happened during the rest of our time in Sorrento. Our boat trip to and from Amalfi went well, and we easily got to Pompeii and back on the circumvesuviana train (a local line that goes around Mt. Vesuvius on its way to Naples). We left Sorrento on the same train line, leaving lots of time to get good seats on the train (which originated in Sorrento) so we could stash all of our suitcases before anyone else could grab those seats. Arriving in Naples, we again had plenty of time to await our fast train to Rome. The train got to Termini as it was getting dark. We emerged from the train and immediately hopped into a taxi to get to our hotel.
I’ll skip the nightmarish arrival at our hotel in Rome (it’ll appear soon on TripAdvisor). Once we settled into our room, we wandered around the surrounding streets till we were hijacked into eating at a mediocre place for dinner, but we were too tired to find somewhere else. We soon felt energized enough to go elsewhere for gelato. The rest of our stay in Rome, including gelato at least once every single day, was wonderful.
We had only one “race” in Rome, but it was memorable. On our last morning, we had a reservation for the Galleria Borghese, the fabulous art museum in the Borghese Gardens. Patrons are warned that they must arrive on time and are allowed exactly two hours to see the museum before being compelled to leave. Relying on my memory (from a trip 12 years earlier), I optimistically thought we’d have enough time to walk to the museum…but we didn’t start early enough. We set out after breakfast for the Spanish Steps, a relatively short walk from our hotel, planning to make our way to the Galleria from there. But we didn’t walk as fast as we thought we would, and we kept checking the time on our watches as we approached the Spanish Steps. We climbed the seemingly endless stairs to get to the top, but by the time we arrived there, out of breath, the chances of getting to the museum on time seemed unlikely. Suspecting that we might need a taxi, we darted into the posh hotel at the very top, the Hassler, to ask for advice. A charming doorman who spoke English (of course– it was the Hassler) checked his watch and the time on our reservation, and he confirmed our suspicions. If we continued on foot, we’d never get to the museum on time. He led us, looking mighty shabby for patrons of the Hassler, to a waiting taxi, and off we went to the Borghese Gardens, arriving at the museum with only a few minutes to spare before our entry time.
The museum was worth the anguish it took to get there, and the rest of our day was filled with a multitude of wonderful sights and sounds in Rome, ending with dinner outside at a delightful restaurant in the Campo de’ Fiori. We staggered back to our hotel and headed for bed, knowing we had to be up early for our flight home. You can be sure we allowed plenty of time to get to Fiumicino without needing to race there! And we did.

 

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Go p(nuts)! PB is actually good for you

Posted on October 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

Peanut-butter lovers of the world, rejoice!  This humble legume, in the form of an easy-to-eat spread, has recently earned some noteworthy praise.

First, one of the food industry’s harshest critics, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), has just celebrated the virtues of peanut butter.  In the October 2013 issue of its publication, Nutrition Action, CSPI notes that peanut butter–a lunchbox classic and a staple in 90 percent of U.S. households–is loaded with unsaturated fat, vitamin E, and magnesium, and it supplies some copper, fiber, and zinc as well.  (Some must steer clear of PB because of peanut-related allergies, but most of us can eat it with abandon.)

True, CSPI acknowledges that there’s one small problem with peanut butter:  it’s also loaded with calories. Most people probably eat about 250 calories’ worth in the typical sandwich.  According to CSPI, that’s much more than the 50 to 80 calories in the equivalent amount (roughly 2 ounces) of turkey, ham, or a quarter cup of tuna.  These alternatives also offer more protein:  10 to 12 grams as compared with the 7 or 8 grams in peanut butter.

For the 90 percent of us who relish eating peanut butter, CSPI suggests some new ways to trim the calories.  For starters, there’s powdered PB.  It’s made by slow-roasting and pressing peanuts to remove 85 percent of the oil.  You just mix the powder with water and stir.  According to CSPI, the result is a creamy texture and rich peanut taste for just 50 calories per serving (with roughly the same amount of protein as regular PB).

Two other new products are whipped PB (fewer calories but less protein) and Better ‘n Peanut Butter (defatted peanut flour, mixed with PB and sugars, also cuts both calories and protein).

Traditionalists might want to stick with “natural” PB or even oldies like Jif and Peter Pan.  Happily, none of them have trans fat any more.  Just watch out for the new “artisan” varieties that add chocolate and other sweet ingredients, upping the usual 1 or 2 grams of sugar all the way to 9 grams.  Who needs it?  If you crave PB infused with chocolate, go for broke and have a candy bar instead.

But wait, there’s more good news for peanut-butter lovers!  In addition to CSPI’s focus on PB as a healthy sandwich-filler, the medical community has just declared an even more significant finding.  A study announced in September by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (along with Harvard Medical School) revealed that girls ages 9 to 15 who regularly ate peanut butter or nuts were 39 percent less likely to develop benign breast disease by age 30.  Although benign breast disease is noncancerous, it increases the risk of breast cancer later in life.

Over 9,000 U.S. girls were part of the study, which began in 1996.  The researchers followed the girls until they were 18 to 30 years old.  This study is significant because it’s the first one that actually recorded what the girls were eating during their adolescent years (instead of relying on their recalling later what they had eaten years before).

The senior author of the study is Graham Colditz, M.D., a disease-prevention expert at Washington University’s School of Medicine.  Professor Colditz is an epidemiologist with a longstanding interest in cancer prevention, particularly among women.

According to Colditz, the findings in the recent study “suggest that peanut butter could help reduce the risk of breast cancer in women.”  He recommends that girls snack on peanut butter or nuts instead of reaching for high-calorie junk food and sugary beverages.

Wow!  Lots of great news about peanut butter!  I feel totally vindicated.  My instincts were right all along.

All those mornings making countless peanut-butter sandwiches for my daughters may have actually led to their staying healthy longer.  My choice to eschew fillings like bologna and head cheese (what was that stuff anyway?) probably didn’t hurt either.

A personal reminiscence about PB:  When my husband had a month-long sabbatical in Paris during the 1980s, we brought a jumbo jar of peanut butter from home because we knew it wasn’t readily available in France.  We wanted our small daughters to have a familiar food to eat while we otherwise attempted to live like Parisians.  I can still see myself in our tiny Paris apartment, spreading peanut butter on scores of French biscotti so our unfamiliar surroundings would feel a little more like home.

Like almost everything I’ve done (and still do) for my daughters, it was worth it.

Thinking about peanut butter has, not surprisingly, made me want some.  I’m ready to munch on a PB sandwich right this minute.  Want to join me?

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“All in the Family” Revisited

Posted on May 9, 2013 | 1 comment

Are you old enough to remember the TV sitcom “All in the Family”?  Or have you managed to catch an episode or two on late-night TV?

This sitcom was a number-one hit on TV in the 1970s (it debuted in ’71 and lasted till ’79), and it became an honest-to-goodness phenomenon.   Produced by Norman Lear, it featured movie and TV actor Carroll O’Connor as the irascible Archie Bunker.  Archie was a working-class bigot, openly racist and sexist.  Sitting in his favorite living-room chair (now enshrined in the Smithsonian), chomping on a cigar, he belittled gays and intellectuals and anyone else who lived outside his narrow world in Queens, New York.

Why did a sitcom revolving around this character become an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning hit?  Probably because audiences felt comfortable laughing at Archie’s appalling antics.  Audiences could watch Archie clumsily try to maneuver through a rapidly changing world, feeling smugly superior to him while we grappled with many of the same troubling issues in our own lives.

Archie was surrounded by a memorable family, notably his long-suffering wife Edith, whom Archie called “the dingbat.”  Edith was played by Jean Stapleton as a somewhat flaky but kind-hearted helpmeet who tolerated her husband’s offensive behavior because she truly loved him.  Archie’s daughter Gloria, portrayed by Sally Struthers at the outset as a miniskirted twenty-something with corkscrew blonde curls, and Gloria’s husband, college student Mike, played by Rob Reiner in much slimmer times, completed the family circle.  Without enough money to afford their own place, Gloria and Mike lived with Archie and Edith, creating a situation rife with conflict.

Archie and Mike (dubbed “Meathead” by Archie) constantly clashed, their different world-views colliding on a daily basis.  Gloria was caught in the middle, sometimes siding with Archie but usually backing up her husband Mike.  This dynamic provided considerable comic fodder for the audience.  When, later in the show’s run, Mike and Gloria left Archie’s house and moved to their own place, a lot of the comedy went with them.

A few years back, someone asked me which TV show I would choose to inhabit if I was suddenly transported into a TV sitcom.  My choice was easy:   “All in the Family.”

I knew precisely where I wanted to go: 704 Hauser Street, Queens, New York, plunked down in the Bunker household as a newly minted version of Archie’s daughter, Gloria.

In my version of the Bunker family, Gloria would no longer be Archie’s relentlessly cute but somewhat uncomplicated daughter, declaring “Oh, Daddy!” whenever Archie did something that baffled or annoyed her.  I’d be a smarter, savvier Gloria, bringing a dose of common sense and a measure of sensitivity to the Bunker household.

Instead of running off to Mike, as Gloria was wont to do, I’d give Archie a hug, then sit down with him and offer him my empathy.  I’d let him know I understood how hard it was to be a blue-collar white male in a world that was spinning around him, changing by the hour.  I’d try to reassure him that he still had his place in that world, and that nothing would ever change my daughterly love for him.

I’d empathize with Edith, too, trying to reassure her as well.  I’d let her know it was okay for her to be content–for the moment–in her current role, that of a housewife whose focus was cooking, cleaning, and helping her husband deal with his daily defeats at home and at work.  At the same time, I’d encourage her incipient efforts to become more assertive, no longer entirely dependent on Archie and therefore no longer the willing target of his insults and disparaging attitude.

As for the Meathead, I’d struggle to keep our marriage intact, constantly reminding myself how much he loved me, calming him down whenever Archie was on the warpath, serving as a buffer between the two of them more effectively than Gloria ever did.

In sum, I’d bring tranquility and order to the Bunker household, thereby transforming the Bunker family into the kind of family I always tried to create in my own home.

There’s just one problem: “All in the Family” wouldn’t be funny anymore.  The Archie that I loved to laugh at would be buried under a cloak of rationality, with only bits and pieces of funny stuff breaking through now and then.

My family shared a house much like the Bunkers’, but our dynamic was nothing like theirs.  We bounced ideas off of each other, not always in total agreement but open to what each of us had to say.  As my children grew and the world evolved, we evolved, too.  We shared a home full of love and a minimal amount of conflict.

So, although we had loads of fun together, we were pretty boring compared to the Bunkers—not at all the stuff of a successful TV sitcom.  I guess I would have liked to see the Bunkers become more like us, but let’s face it:  The result would have been much closer to “Little House on Hauser Street” or “The Waltons of Queens,” and nothing like the very funny “All in the Family.”

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