Fallingwater

My mother came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We had marathon house cleaning and packing sessions, which was such a huge help. Sometimes you need someone there to help you get started on such a huge project. We did find a little time to take the drive up to Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, two houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Both are only about a 30 minute drive from our house, so it was nice to go one last time before we move.


Fallingwater is an incredible piece of art. If you are driving through Western Pennsylvania, I highly recommend seeing this. I love going there and imagining what it was like to live there. I think going there a few times in different seasons is one of the best things we've done since we moved here. You see new details each time you visit.


It was our first time seeing Kentuck Knob, another Frank Lloyd Wright house just a few minutes from Fallingwater. It was really neat, as well. The kitchen is an octagon in the middle of the house and the hallways are narrow. I kept imagining what it would be like to live there in winter and decided that it wouldn't be a bad place to hibernate.

My brain must have developed new patterns for cilantro flavor

Here is a really interesting article on a topic that comes up with regularity in our household: the notion that, for some, the soapy taste experienced while eating cilantro is due to a genetic predisposition and sensory function.

I found this article to be really helpful in explaining why I used to think cilantro tasted like soap and now I find it to be delicious. It has become one of the top 5 constantly used ingredients in our household.

I had never had cilantro until I moved to Boston. The first time I had it I was like: "why would anyone eat something that tastes like soap?!" I kept encountering it, much like the author of the article, and it took about five years or more for the taste to change for me and just within the last three or four years, it has totally transformed into green goodness. Which seemed odd, as I knew I was supposedly genetically predisposed to taste soap, so why the change? Read the article.

This totally convinces me that my theory about taste is accurate: you create your palate. There may be things you might not like, but if you work on that, you can totally change your tastes. Something you don't care for or just feel so-so about can become a favorite taste if you practice.

I hate to harp on the WV thing as always, but I just find this so interesting. Some West Virginians, as far as I can tell, have the most sensitive palates I have ever encountered. Any slight recipe variation or addition is likely to become a tragic event. I've had to completely retool my old potluck/cookout standbys because my dishes haven't been touched a number of times. (Which, really, is okay with me because I get to take it home, but still....) Goat cheese? Forget it. Sharp cheese is even a deal-breaker. Remember that delicious pasta salad with the Gorgonzola and kalamata olives that I'm sure you've had if you've attended any bbq with me? I can't make it here. Green food is pretty much a no-no, but I still make spinach dip because there are at least two processed foods used in it. Anything sweet is okay. Salty is good. Processed is better. Lately, I turn to the backs of containers for recipes that might be acceptable at a gathering. Now, this isn't everyone, obviously. But people are really not afraid to hurt your feelings and say something like "oh, it has _____ in it? Eeeww."

But, I think it's just a comfort-zone thing. I struggle, because I know you can work to overcome these prejudices. If you want to.

Willy

Over the course of the summer, Aaron and I befriended a local farmer named Willy. Every Saturday, Willy set up a table in the Southern States parking lot. (Southern States is like the farm/garden supply store. It's where you get seeds, chicken feed, donkey bridles, etc. In the summer, you can buy local produce by the peck and bushel. It's probably my favorite store besides Gabes.) Each Saturday, there is also a farmers market elsewhere, which is great if you're feeling rich, but the majority of those vendors are over-priced and too fancy. I like the idea of buying something directly from the farmer for a price that is good for him and for me. Willy's price is typically $1 for almost any pint of produce or bunch of veg. His maple syrup was under $3. His honey was $3, but we'd get 75 cents back if we return the jar. But why would we want to? Look how cool it is:


I think that what people have forgotten is that to buy food directly from the farmer, it doesn't have to be fancy stuff. It can just be things that you didn't get a chance to plant yourself. Another difference between the farmers market and Willy is that at the farmers market, they don't expect you to grow your own food. They don't really want to talk shop from the farming perspective, and if they talk shop at all, it's only from the business perspective. Willy gave us great tips on our garden all summer. He talked tomato blight with us. He asked how things were coming along. I wish there were more Willy's in parking lots everywhere.

Scary Kid

Today, a four year old explained to me that she was having a Star Wars-themed birthday, then furrowed her brow and said: "but Princess Leia isn't modest."

I'm not sure what to chalk these words of wisdom up to. You learn something new every day? Kids say the darndest whatever? Modesty is a hot-button issue for the four year old set? Just not sure.

To re-cap:

1. Princess Leia: Not Modest
2. Child: Kind of Scary

Change is good

We've lived here for a year. That's insane. The time went by so fast. We moved far away! We bought a house! Got pets! Got married! Planted a garden! Spent a month abroad! Got wisdom teeth removed! Went back to school! Got various crappy jobs and one good job! Wow, what a year. I'm exhausted. Seriously, I am ready for a long, uneventful winter in hibernation.

But, I am happy. I am more happy than I've ever been, I think, thanks to living here. We've been so busy and it's been nice to live in a place that...isn't busy. There are things we miss about Boston, but also new things that I've always wanted that I wouldn't get there. Change is good.

Things I miss about Boston:

• Great food - I didn't really think of it as a food-capital or anything, but there is some dang good food in Boston and that is something to mourn the loss of. Darwins, Indian food, good sushi, good coffee, good coffee shops (1369, oh how I miss thee), good tea, great pizza (trust me...even your crappy pizza is good compared to what they make here), great markets (International, specialty, and otherwise) and a million other great foods. I could go on and on.
• Cobblestone (never thought I would miss this deathtrap...)
• Great beer almost everywhere (who would have thought it would be so hard to come by?)
• Close friends
• Lots going on all the time
• Shopping
• Culture - at times, very missed.

Things I like about here:

• My house - I love my house. I love it.
• Nature
• Mountains
• Pets - we never could find an apartment that would take pets. They are a key ingredient.
• Yard/garden - the windowsill just didn't cut it anymore. I love working in the garden more than I ever thought I could. It is so rewarding. I feel about my garden the way I imagine some people might feel about their career. It feels like a calling.
• Time - I always felt like I was running around in Boston. Even though we've been busy, it just feels like we have time now. (The friends thing has way more to do with this than anything else...our base is just much smaller here, which can be very nice and, to be honest, I've tried to maintain that aspect of our time here to some degree. I think of it as Our Hermitage.)
• Gabes! - Best store ever invented. Seriously, I could start a blog based on my Gabes Finds.
• Monte Cristo - one thing I can say about the food here is that they know how to make a mean Monte Cristo sandwich. "Turkey, ham, cheese double-decker, you say? And you'd like all of that battered and deep fried? Coming right up!" S&S, eat your heart out!

Things I don't particularly like about it here:

• Bad drivers - yes, I think they're worse than Boston. Everyone talks on their cellphones and make really stupid mistakes. They all drive huge trucks, too.
• Bad food - what is the obsession with chicken wings around here? Seriously, it's a problem.
• Frats
• Walking - almost impossible here due to lack of sidewalk. Also, when there are sidewalks, I'm pretty sure they're made of a 1:1 mixture of vomit and broken beer bottles (see previous bulletpoint).
• Lack of literary discussion - it's probably out there somewhere, I just can't find it.
• College sports
• no public hang outs - we share a car, which means always waiting around for the other person. There isn't anywhere we can just plop down and wait outside without buying something.
• the homeless are more scary here

All in all, it's been a great year. Thanks, West Virginia.

Speech Patterns in Northern WV

In early December, I got a letter from a Meghan Chiampa, of the Island of Somerbridge/Camberville, MA, asking: "Do people talk differently there?"


Well, yes Meghan, there is a dialect.


I am not going to do this justice, but it's something I've been wanting to write about for several months (my first attempt to blog about it was on 9/25/07, a little more than a month after moving, however, I felt that I didn't have enough to work with and banked it for another time). I had a big plan to collect data and evidence, but it's hard to stop someone mid-conversation so that I can jot down their unusual way of speaking so that I can point it out later on in a public forum.

But, there is a specific dialect and vernacular here in WV that deserves a bit of attention. Wikipedia calls it Pittsburghese. However, I think what people speak here is just a little set apart from Pittsburgh English, simply because here most people speak with a pretty distinct southern accent. However, the specifics are nearly identical.

I would say that the most common bit of creative phrase-work around here is need/want/like + past-tense, dropping the "to be." I hear this combination every single day and everyone originally from here uses it. Here are some examples I've heard: "My coffee needs warmed," "my oil needs changed," "Mike said he wants picked up at three," the best one: "I said, if he has anything that needs biopsy-ed, he should just buck up and get it done."

I hear stuff like this every day, and have jokingly let it into our home, most commonly with: "Aaron, the dang dog needs walked!" However, we tread a bit lightly here, because we both know that things like this can become a bit habit forming.

Another, less common, dialectical trait is the use of "anymore." I've only heard this a handful of times. It goes something like this: "He always takes his lunch early anymore." Meaning, lately he's been taking his lunch early. (Can you tell I do most of my linguistic analysis at work?)

I am going to try to be more diligent about taking notes when I hear something interesting and I'll report back.

ps - people also seem to use the word "choosy" here a lot, but I can't tell if that is a regional thing. They say things like: "I'm choosy when it comes to ..." or "she's real choosy about how she wants that."

Happy Halloween

Aaron and I usually participate in the holiday by going to some sort of dress up party. Last year we went as Margo and Richie Tenenbaum. The year before that we went as Annie Hall and Woody Allen. We went to a Halloween party last weekend. It was fun. Can you guess what our costume is?

We're Two Eggs, Sunny-Side Up.

We couldn't find any yellow hats, so I had to sew our little bonnets out of the only yellow thing we could find: car shammies from Family Dollar. No one ever gets our costumes, so we decided to go as something simple. No one got it.

Elf insisted on trying it on:

He's such a ham. Mmm...ham and eggs.

Violet went as God:

It was awesome.

The party was a little West Virginian. Late into the night two large pots of something called "soup beans" were brought out and distributed. After not getting much in terms of an explanation, a recipe, or a real description of what "soup beans" might be (the most descriptive reply to our inquiries was: "Oh, y'know, they're soup beans...with a ham bone.") we decided to try them for ourselves. They tasted like beans and tallow, which I'm pretty sure is what they consisted of.

But it was fun, and we didn't get too scrambled.

tap dancing their way into your heart

Last weekend we went to something called The Mason Dixon Festival. We were keeping our fingers crossed for southern food, but instead we found The String of Pearls.

The String of Pearls is a local dance troop of so-called elderly ladies. Now, as far as I could tell, there was really only one elderly in the group, and they stuck her way in the back on the right. As you can see, she wasn't exactly as mobile as the others. If you ask me, she was pretty careless: she didn't put herself into the moves like the others did, and frankly, she did a lot of mistakes. She often got lost in the dance, you could see the confusion in her face. "Why am I here? What's happening?" She was just a little cloudy is all. And I could tell the other women in the Pearls thought the same thing. They wouldn't exactly give her looks, but they pretty much pretended she didn't exist. Between each number (yes, each and every) they did a costume change:

and after a particularly bad spell, where poor Ethel (at least that's what I like to call her) lost her sense of direction and nearly tapped off the stage, they wouldn't let her appear in the next number (proof in the above cowgirl photo).

Watching The String of Pearls was one of those life moments when you learn what it means to keep a sense of composure. Aaron and I were falling out of our seats, shaking, with tears in our eyes trying not to laugh. However, the hardest part by far was the entertainment that came out between String of Pearls numbers:

Now. I want you to take note of the teal-bedecked elderly about to attack him. She had moves that put Ethel to shame.

"and you can say goodbye to your Precious Moments!"

I found this ad today in the Dominion Post (my new local newspaper):

DIVORCE Garage Sale: 1209 Avalon St. off Dorsey Ave., Fri. & Sat., 8am-5pm. Pool table, LR Suite, BR Suite, area rug. Collectibles - Boyds and Bearstones, Precious Moments, Dog Figurines, Pooh. Pfaltzgraff dishes, numerous house wares, electronics, adult clothing, infant/toddler clothing, and infant accessories.

Talk about laying it all out there for the world to see.

"Oh, how I love you, my little Precious Moment. I'm so glad those people got a divorce and I found you."