Romance of the rails

I’ve ridden the train more times than I can count, yet this is the first time I’ve found myself on an Amtrak train. Offered the chance to head south to my Alma Mater for a choir reunion, I took it: I have not returned to the campus for a good fifteen years or so, and wanted my kids to see where Mommy studied. Of course, with school and orchestra in session, I’ll spend much of the weekend on my own, but I think I can manage eating and sleeping on my own terms.

The problem is, I’ve never been good with distance driving. Any more than a couple of hours, and I tend to veer off the road. So if I was going to Salem, I was going to have to find a different way. There is a range of options, from the Green Tortoise bus (tempting, but they’ve moved from a sturdy bus to charter only), Craig’s List rideshares (no one quite matched up as far as dates were concerned, or they didn’t plan ahead), to flying. I opted out of flying early on. Sure the fare was a bit off-putting, but the whole burning huge amounts of fossil fuel to go 200 miles clinched the deal. As it turns out, I made the right choice: at this writing, Horizon has grounded a goodly number of its fleet for emergency flight inspections, so it’s very likely my flight would have been cancelled. Like any good European, I turned to taking the train.

I am happy to report that the romance of train travel is alive and well. Once in the train, the seats are comfortable, the scenery spectacular, and I can even plug in my laptop. Riding along the Puget Sound, under the new Tacoma Narrows bridge and through Steilacoom and Tacoma’s waterfront make me want to bring the kids along, and get off and explore. The rather large people who struggled up the steps are smiling, comfortable in their seats (“Oh, this is soooo much more comfy than the plane!”), and the elderly couple in front of me are truly relaxed by the end of the trip.

But all is not well. Once again, Europe has it right, and we remain amazingly clueless. The strong point of Euro-train travel is its convenience: buy a ticket anywhere—travel agent, train station, online—and board your train when you get to the station (some countries even let you buy the ticket for the route without specifying a date—you go when you need). If you’re traveling on a busy day or taking a long trip, you could opt for a reserved seat, but that’s about as complex as it gets. Even airlines in this country do this—why not Amtrak?

Now, I did go to Amtrak and book (and pay) online, but my real ticket had to be issued at the station. I tried to use the QuikTrac machine to print out my paid ticket, but it wanted me to insert a credit card. For a paid ticket. Hmm. I wasn’t the only one to be baffled by this, and joined the line for a real person. It took less than a minute for the clerk to print the ticket, once I found one whose computer was working, and then I was instructed to join the queue for my seat assignment. I scratch my head, but it’s the shorter one of the two, so I take it. It takes two conductors with really cool hats to man this booth: one punches my ticket, the other issues me a paper chit that instructs me to sit anywhere in Car 2. Well, that’s one decision taken care of. By this time, the long line for boarding is moving, as they have finally opened the door to the platform—even though the train has been in the station since I arrived half an hour ago. Finally, I think to myself, all I have to do is climb aboard. But once on the platform, I am greeted by yet another line, this time for boarding Car 2 itself. Hmm again. Once in the train, there are plenty of seats, and there is no problem finding a window seat facing forward.

It is my understanding that Amtrak is losing money and ridership. Now, I’m no economist, or even a rocket scientist, but it doesn’t take much to figure out why. If it’s the same amount of hassle as flying (though it’s nice to be able to bring a water bottle and knitting needles on board), and the same amount of time as driving (though admittedly cheaper), then people aren’t going to opt in. Let me buy my ticket online and open up the platform so I can board the train when I get to the station. Not to mention being able to wave to the men in my life as the train pulls out of the station.

Cups that runneth over

This morning’s San Francisco Chronicle, which always has excellent food coverage, had an article on really good home cooks. Of course, it caught my eye, since I really want to count myself as one of them. A read through validates: we work with what the good stuff that comes our way (or is in the fridge), we cook a lot (and subject our families to plenty of mistakes along the way), we taste as we go, and we read cookbooks (but we don’t slavishly follow the recipes in them).

So I guess I am one of them, just not in a California sort of way. Ever since the apples started falling from our front yard tree (I admit I favor this Gravenstein tree over the eating apples and Asian pears in the backyard), I have been dreaming about pork chops. I absolutely adore the pairing of apples and pork, and last night was the night. I found some lovely pork chops at the co-op, and decided to top it with butter-sautéed apples, together with fresh cauliflower from the Redmond Saturday Market and some brown rice from the larder. A salad (also from the market: the head was so big it’s given us two dinner salads and two lunches) would round things out, topped with Trader Joe’s new sweet & salty crunchy nuts. I threw in a tomato from the market for color.

As I was deglazing the chops with some of the hard raspberry apple cider I was drinking, in walked Darling Husband with his ample hands full of tomatoes. Seems the neighbor was out in her garden when he walked by on his way home, and unloaded some of their bounty on him. With a silly grin, he handed them to me, because he knew what was coming: these beauties were going to be our entrée. The new bottle of balsamic vinegar beckoned, and I immediately started a vinaigrette (today’s jar of French mustard sports cartoons of “Le monde de Narnia”). I pulled a knife from the block and cut into the biggest tomato, purply-red and lobed, clearly a heritage fruit. Its flesh was still warm from the sun, and I could smell the sweetness. Three others joined the plate, Number One picked some parsley from the garden (too shady for basil here), and Little One helped set the table.

It may not be Tuscany, but we did have our little moment of late summer bliss, sitting outside under the grape arbor, eating tomates vinaigrette, followed by a dinner starring cider-glazed pork chops and buttery apples. I must remember to drop a jar or two of plum jam at the neighbors today.

Lower the bar

Number One Son will be playing with the Seattle Youth Symphonette for a third year. Make no bones, he is not pleased and tears were shed. He had hoped to advance to the Debut Orchestra, but his audition didn’t stand up to the stiff competition. It is a difficult thing to not be able to protect him from this kind of pain, but I know this is the kind of life experience that will give him an opportunity to grow. The adults in his life have made it amply clear that just giving up is not an option. So he will play, and we will make sure he has many opportunities to play in chamber groups and solo as well.

And then I read a couple of newspaper articles: one about airlines’ miserable on-time performance and this morning’s offering about the FDA’s newest labeling proposal. If airplanes are coming in late, we simply make the day 30 minutes longer (how many times have you wished you could do that!) so that the company doesn’t get dinged when the Federal statistics come out at the end of the quarter. And yes, these same airlines have to raise fares to pay for it, sorry.

And now the FDA is looking into whether symbols on the front of labels will make people pay attention to what they eat, thus ending the obesity epidemic. I know that common sense isn’t the government’s strong suit, but this is utterly ridiculous. If people really want to loose weight, the label is the least of their worries. It takes far more effort to eat consciously than is exerted in turning the package over to read the nutritional information. Right now, these symbols can be found on things like diet Pepsi and baked potato chips. I would propose the radical suggestion of reserving “smart spots” or green lights for wholly unprocessed foods, but I’m afraid my comments would fall on deaf ears. And of course, the whole label smokescreen does not address the issue of consuming fewer calories.

That’s right, when they fail, the answer is to lower expectations. But this does not apply here. Where I live, if we don’t get what we want, it means we have to work harder. So I’ll be driving my kid to rehearsal every Saturday morning. If you’d like to see the results of hard work, tickets are available at http://syso.org/. And you don’t need to lower your expectations: the cello section will be sounding pretty darn good.

Dance of the Plum Fairies

When we bought our current home, the sellers boasted that the plum tree in the front yard bore incredibly sweet plums. We had had a plum tree in the backyard of our first house, which yielded exactly enough plums each year for one plum tart, so the prospect of more tarts and maybe some jam was exciting. What we didn’t realize was just how much of an over-achiever this tree is.

Along about mid-August, the green fruits start blushing the palest of lavender, then darkening, until the first week of September. Inevitably, we have a single autumn-like storm, and in its aftermath, we go out and gather plums that have fallen. We know it’s time to start harvesting.

Over the years, we have developed a system. Firstly, we call over an extra kid, usually Nose in a Book, since she’s a natural extension of our family, a hard worker and a pleasure to have around (she also eats a fair amount of plums). Then we dig up an old theatrical backdrop from my other life and stretch it out under the tree. We get containers, many of them, and put on grubby shirts. Darling Husband dons thick gloves, flexes his burly arms, and walks up to the tree, crouching under the low, gnarly branches. He calls, “Ready?” We give him the green light, and he reaches up to the chosen branch and shakes until we scream, “Stop!” The next few minutes are spent frantically gathering fallen plums, trying not to step on any. After the obvious fruit is found, it’s a bit like an Easter egg hunt, finding purple ovoids hiding under leaves and putting them in a basket.

Our small collections empty into a large bucket, which is run upstairs to the kitchen sink when it can’t hold any more. The process continues around the tree, each branch getting at least three good shakes, until Darling Husband and the gatherers can’t take any more.

This year we have a bumper crop: my oversized sink is nearly full. I inherited two boxes of jars from my Mother’s move; I dig in the garage and find another partial box, but I can tell they will not suffice. The kids set to work layering pitted plums with sugar in a big pot (thank goodness I found a 25-pound bag of organic sugar at Champion Foods), and I start lining jars up in the oven to sterilize.

We get one batch of jam simmering, then a second, and then a third. In between stirring pots, I whiz up a two wheat-free tart crusts. I top one with Dijon mustard and fresh tomatoes from the Redmond Saturday Market, and then squeeze as many cut plums in as I can into the other. In the end, we have over two dozen jars of plum jam, a plum tart, and a sink that is still three-quarters full. The fruit flies are organizing at the kitchen window: we have to do something, and soon. As late afternoon winds down to suppertime, we roast some weenies over a fire and discuss our options. We could buy more jars and make even more jam (we still have half a bag of sugar left, but there’s little shelf space in the garage); we could give away fruit. We have to take Nose in a Book home after supper and s’mores (we’ve got to use up those leftover marshmallows!), so we decide to bag up plums to drop at friends’ homes along the way. I call and leave a few messages, letting those lucky folks know that the Plum Fairy may stop at their house, We also throw in a few jars of jam to sweeten the deal, figuring they will be so happy about the jam that they won’t notice that we just gave them way too many plums.