Farmhouse Fit for a Prince

As it turns out, just last week Prince Charles himself was mucking around the estate of Count K. in the Hungarian/Romanian village of Miclosoara, where we hung our hats last night. Ever since we arrived in Romania, the Bacchae have been looking hard for the kind of agritourism gigs that are easy to find in places like Italy and France (and more recently Greece): sustainable, more or less working "farms" where guests can experience traditional culture as it was (or as it still is) by living and eating with a host family. This kind of tourism, oddly enough, doesn't require huge amounts of money or fancy accoutrements to pull off--in fact, all that's needed is for a "local" to take a leap of faith and believe that wandering strangers might want a glimpse into their lives, as they live it, rather than the imitation, kitsch, over-priced comforts that pass for tourism almost everywhere. I'm willing to give up scalding hot water and satellite television for a stroll through a Transylvanian meadow any day. And so at last, that's what we found (even if the English royalty had discovered it before us): a very beautiful side of Romania that had seemed impossible to access. We were greeted with tiny cordials of palinca (plum brandy) infused with caraway, which made it rather exotic and soft upon the tongue (it is usually very much like fire-water), then shown our rooms, some of us in a guest house (once a stable, now decorated tastefully and comfortably) and some in the farmhouse proper. After the kids rolled up their pantlegs and ran around barefoot chasing the chickens for an hour or so (freed from the confines of the car at last!), we strolled down through town, across a few meandering streams, up to the top of one of the preternaturally green hillsides that streak past our speeding rental car all day. From there we posed for some "Sound of Music" family shots and admired the fecund corrugations of our Saxon Land environs. Parched from our little exercise, we retired for beverages upon rough hewn benches and tables back at the farm...even tossed down a few hands of sheepshead (the Bakken/Seibel family card game, which Kerry has now picked up) along with some smoked local cheese and slightly sparkling white wine. Dinner was served downstairs in the Count's gorgeous wine-cellar. The culinary offerings were not exactly overwhelming, but the atmosphere (with "Medieval" music piped in, candlelight, and a sweet musty dampness emanating from the old casks) made it delightful nonetheless. We stepped from that lovely dungeon only to find a full moon hovering over the orchard, wrapped in a skein of ominous clouds, leaving us all thankful that tidy bundles of garlic had been nailed over the entryways to our sleeping quarters...thankful too that Count Kalnoky was watching over us rather than the other famous Transylvanian Count...

C

Transylvania, the Spring Version

During our drive through the Prahova Valley north from Bucharest to Brasov this past March, everything seemed one of two colors: grey or more grey. Mud was everywhere. The famous Carpathian mists hung about the valleys and hillsides mournfully. The inhabitants seemed categorically depressed, as if they all knew winter would never end. By contrast, what produndity in the lanscape of Transylvania in the spring! At least eight colors of green comprise the lushness of every hillside. Up around the ski resort town Predeal, the Carpathians begin making their own weather and we were treated to a perfectly spooky bit of fog and rain, just as we made our approach to Peles Castle, which caught the occasional blast of sunshine. Finished only about a century ago on behalf of the Saxon kings of Romania, the castle was tastefully opulent and gorgeously tucked into one of the slopes behind the village of Sinai. Even our kids were impressed (what's not to like about rooms full or armor and Medieval weapons?), mouths agape the whole time while we took in the rooms full of Murano glass, Klimt friezes, and Moorish finery. We decompressed yesterday afternoon with big Austrian beers in the sun-flooded central square of Brasov (my love affair with this fair city continues), girthing up for another round of castle touring tomorrow at Bran. Then into the hinterlands of Transylvania for a night in a traditional village house. We'll let you know how that turns out, provided we survive the horse-cart ride through the mountains! Enjoying this dose of shameless tourism? Yes, indeed!

C & All

Porcine Interlude

For your salivary pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen, a panorama of pork!

Cheeseheads, Movie Stars, and Diamonds

The Wisconsin invasion of Bucharest has begun. My family arrived from the U.S. a few days ago and that's given us the opportunity to go from lonely expats to expert tour guides here in our adopted city. The first night started off with a bang: we made reservations for my sister's 30th birthday and Mother's Day at French Bakery, a groovy little neighborhood spot. Josh Hartnett and Ryan Gosling and their Hollywood entourage had a huge table there, but that didn't much interest us (though it is a little surreal to be surrounded by American actors in the middle of Eastern Europe) since before we'd even hit the first appetizers, Heidi's boyfriend Kyle had dropped to his knees and proposed to Heidi. Yes, she said "yes," giving us plenty to celebrate in the coming months. Horray!

After roaming about here in the city for some time, we'll head off for a weekend in Transylvania, which you'll read about soon enough if you tune in here again.

C

The Stray Dogs of Bucharest

While previous posts might suggest that what we miss most about home is the bourgeois comfort and largesse of our American kitchen (those gleaming racks of immaculate All Clad pans and the hundred gadgets that clog our hundred cabinets), the truth is, what we miss most about home is the quiet, but utterly faithful presence of our remaining dog, Daphne, and our affectionate calico cat, Delilah. Granted, we get weekly updates on the state of their appetites and bowels, their state of animal happiness in the American springtime, which makes leaving them behind more acceptable. But the feeling that we’ve left two family members behind (since that is, in the end, how we think of our beasts) is irrepressible at times.

With regards to Delilah, we have every faith that she is just fine without our presence: except for around feeding time (when we are indeed the center of her universe), we typically feel a little superfluous around our haughty, independent little cat. But Daphne, like most canines, makes it her life’s business to melt into the emotional lives of her human companions, utterly dependent and needy, trapped within the domesticated halls of our big house, sprawling about on the Turkish rugs.

Knowing this, imagine how utterly defeated, selfish, and also very inspired we feel while studying the thousands of stray dogs populating our neighborhood. We are frequently astonished at their ingenuity and endurance, their ability to adapt to a world we find nearly impossible to navigate ourselves. To our surprise, it’s rare to see a dog here that looks under-fed. They drink from the public fountains. They hang out next to the beer gardens and meatball stands for tidbits to drop beneath tables. They cross the streets on crosswalks at the correctly appointed time, when the human herd crosses (I have yet to see one come close to being hit by a car...though I've seen enough looking hobbled to know that it probably happens a lot). If there’s a patch of green grass on a boulevard, it’s not unusual to see a few dogs romping there, oblivious to the hum of urban activity around them. And they sleep everywhere, just underfoot most of the time, tucked in next to the ATM machine in the sun, or under the bench of a bus-stop, or in the expensive landscaping of Belle Époque mansions. They set up camp within the blossoming precints of the botanical gardens and the city parks. They are resilient and hilarious, and often heart-breaking. Only one in twenty wears the yellow “tag” in its ear, indicating that it's been properly vaccinated and sterilized, that it has official permission to survive.

Undoubtedly, behind the scenes and the cover of dark, along back alleys and in vacant lots, their lives are violent and awful. Yesterday we approached what we thought was a gorgeous black and brown mutt sleeping in the sun. “Oh look,” one of us said, “that dog is dreaming of chasing rabbits.” When we got closer, however, we saw that the dog’s eyes were wide open, that he was having a seizure right there on the sidewalk. What could be done for such a dog? Hope is about all we could offer. And, to our great relief, about three hours later we saw the same dog frisking about behind an apartment complex in the neighborhood, bright-eyed, tail high in the air, exploring a garden with his spotted nose.

It's said that the population of strays in Bucharest is a hangover from the Communist period here. When Ceascescu "nationalized" housing (kicking families out of their homes and apartments only to relocate other families, and often several at a time, into those homes....so there were twelve people now living where there had been four), the canine "comrades" were not part of the plan... so family pets were simply set loose upon the streets to fend for themselves. Several generations later, these diasporic dogs are still looking for homes; lucky for them, the new capitalist era comes with certain benefits. Now the locals have enough food and money of their own to afford a bag of dog food now and then for the "neighborhood dogs" (it's not uncommon to see bowls of clean water and kibble set out by some samaritan in the local parks). They are ignored, but not entirely unnoticed.

Case in point: just as I am writing this, sitting here in a blast of sunshine in a sidewalk café on Dorobantiler Blvd., a bedraggled blonde retriever pup—no more than six months old, her fur slightly dread-locked with tar, her yellow coat streaked with street dirt, has plopped down right in the middle of the sidewalk. Pedestrians must walk around her to make progress down the street. She is staring intently across the boulevard and two lanes of clogged traffic at, yes, another dog. I see her sniff the air to try to catch a whiff: friend or canine foe? Then, two old ladies step down from the curb to cross the street with their canes, parting traffic in their wake. The puppy jumps up clumsily to join them at their heels, using their slow pace to make a safe crossing, looking warily from side-to-side at the multi-colored bumpers and massive tires that loom about her, off to some adventure in the secret world of the Bucharestian dog.

C

(P.S. Double-click on any of the photos to see these impressive curs up close)

Adventures in Our Post-Communist Kitchen

in our little kitchen, we have exactly:

-1 usable "Dutch Oven" braising pot, of inferior quality
-1 unusable "Dutch Oven": the cheap faux-ceramic finish became, well, unfinished after the first attempt to put good color on some chicken about to be braised—hence, this pot is a “way station” for cooling soups, leftovers, and draining spinach. We are terrified of eating the paint chips, lead chips, enamel chips, metal chips that flake off with each cleaning...of coming back to the USA with liver and brain cell damage. Of not making it back into the USA at all, because our bodies won’t pass the security check points but instead, will vibrate, setting off the magnetized sensors.
-1 pasta pot.
-1 small non-stick frying pan (brought from the local "Quality Market" at home, and the only piece of equipment that is fully functional).
-1 little blue vessel used to boil water for coffee and tea, steam peas and broccoli, and melt butter and chocolate for the half-baked (literally) attempts at brownie baking.
-1 small sieve (overflow pasta inevitably tumbles out into the sink)
-4 plates, 4 sets of silverware, washed 20 times a day. Alexander likes to run around the house playing a game he’s invented: EEE! Knight! The spoons are his swords which he then hides under his mattress, in the spooky back cupboard, or behind the meant-to-be-diaphanous-but-are actually-gray-and-filthy curtains.
-A stack of plastic cups we inherited from a former Fulbrighter (some of which, coincidentally, have University of Wisconisin logos).
-A very dull butcher knife.
-A bendable serrated bread knife.
-A 12 inch x 5 inch cutting board that is already splitting in half.
-A cheese grater that does not work except to accidentally grate knuckles and thumbs.
-We’ve gone through 2 vegetable peelers—both broke on first use. So—the dull butcher knife it is.

What we don’t have?
-Measuring spoons or a cup. (All recipes are approximations which explains why my brownies won’t rise or rise too high.)
-A temperature gauge for the oven. Two settings: on "FULL BLAST" or "NOT REALLY". (Which explains why my brownies are either charred or goopey).
-Water hot enough to wash the dishes and pots and pans clean.
-Counterspace. There is a two foot workspace on which all prep work must be done. The other possibility? A precariously balanced counter-ish wedge (deceptive as it is made from the same “laminate board” as the counter) that sits on top of the radiator.

What to do? Invest in stupidly over-priced "real" furnishings, or rough it? Eat in restaurants for every meal...or attempt to be our Bakken kitchen-centered selves? The answers are pretty self-evident.

Yesterday was a particularly frustrating, perfectly ordinary day for cooking in the Bakken kitchen. I used the usable pot to attempt to make Lemon Shortbread bars. Try zesting a lemon with the dull edge of a knife. And baking shortbread cookies in a pot rather than a sheet pan or even a baking dish. Of course, without any real measuring implements, it was mostly guess work (far too much lemon topping—so the shortbread was more curd than cookie). But this also meant that as soon as possible, when the bars were just cool enough, I had to chop them out of the pot (yes, they candy-fied) so we could then transfer the Vegetable soup to that pot to reheat. Forgetting, of course, that we were also going to make Baked Ziti (with the remnants of a very passable Bolognese Sauce scraped together by trips to 4 separate supermarkets and the local Halal butcher). Which meant transferring the soup from that pot to the unusable pot. Forgetting that we had to heat up the soup for the kids—which I dumped into the pasta pot. Forgetting that we had to boil water for the pasta for the ziti. So transferring it back to the usable pot for another turnaround (feed kiddos quick!) then putting the soup back into the unusable pot. Post-ziti noodle boil, transferring the soup back to the soup pot so we could heat it up for ourselves for a first course.

Today; the leftover Baked Ziti is in the fridge in the usable pot. But I am going to make Hershey’s Cocoa Perfectly Chocolate Cake (or attempt to) which means….and then, post-cake bake, needing to use the usable pot to sauté spinach which means trying to lift the cake out of the usable pot and transfer it to…what? A puzzle once again. It's a wonder we haven't give up completely and just moved into McDonalds down the street.

Thank god, of course, we haven't. Christopher does manage to produce between eight and twenty respectable cappucinos a day (old espresso boiler, plus whisk, plus elbow grease) in that space. Alexander is robust and healthy as ever. And Sophia BEGGED for MORE SPINACH today, the kind of sign something good is happening in the kitchen in spite of all the arcane pot gymnastics.

Kerry

Some Things Along Strada C. Rosetti

Some Things Along Strada C. Rosetti


Far too quiet last night out on the street.
Dreams of police. Today we hog four chairs
in a café off Revolution Square,
where solitude and expensive coffee
agitate our collective memory.

The man in the blue bathrobe, he is ours,
blabbering, twisted like an ampersand
on his perch between bank and bar: one hand
on his cane, the other held out for beer.
He hasn’t had a shave in nineteen years.

We claim the palaces and museums,
the royal portraits on the Atheneum,
but blame the stray dogs and immigrant scum
on the old regime, whose blank bravado
still hardens all the faces in the Metro.

This week the diplomats and presidents
will affirm Europe’s doctrine in the East;
the yellow stars of the Union will increase
another star or two, new flags to cover
the old murals, the sickles and hammers.

Still, some things along Strada C. Rosetti
blur more than they clarify: budding trees
compete with wide Ottoman balconies
for the right to make shade. Light, meanwhile,
stagnates in a satellite dish. All style

is sacrificed to communication,
all music to the traffic’s cloying hiss.
The beautiful civil servant knows this,
since she works with facts, and yet her high heels
and headphones imply there’s something she feels

we all feel—we want to hear ourselves think,
we want to rise above the uniform
sidewalk blocks. The old cobblestones were torn
up years ago, along with the mansions
and monasteries. The old city was done

being old, we were informed. Not that we asked.
Those who were shot have had twenty years
to make peace with the silence they silenced here,
the dictator’s noise muffled with a noose,
his concrete horizon left to remind us

what it takes to scare the mind out of a man.
We want to see ourselves too. The police
block every street today, but they are our police.
Neither gypsy dogs nor glue-sniffing teens
can take that from us. We know it means

something now to sit and read a book,
to read something true. Yes, we want to be
seen, but don’t want to be watched—this, the relief
of a generation who couldn’t say, but knew
the National Library belonged to them too.

There are five real newspapers to read now
and a sign across the street can advertise
LEGAL TRANSLATIONS, but it’s still not wise
to have speech handled by professionals.
Better now to just shut up, pay the bill,

join the amateur rabble on the street,
or claim our place along the balustrade.
Just outside, the uniformed riot squad
is shoring up its bulletproof phalanx.
The anarchists will refuse to break ranks,

will affirm their faith in all disorder.
Yes, we’ve had disorder here. On this square
in fact, here on display, the souvenir
of a body politic that has a soul:
our library, still pocked with bullet holes.


Bucharest, 2008

[A poem written on the eve of the NATO Summit here last month.]

Christopher Bakken