Edwin Way Teale’s Autumn across America

Today we’re celebrating another classic work by the famous midcentury natural history writer Edwin Way Teale: Autumn across America: A Naturalist’s Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Autumn (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956).




This is my third “book report” on Edwin Way Teale this year: I decided that in 2011, I would reread all four of Teale’s “American Seasons” books, in their appropriate seasons! To catch up with me, click here for my post on Teale’s North with the Spring (and an introduction to this remarkable quartet of books), and click here for my post on Teale’s Journey into Summer (including a discussion of the timing of the trips and the publication of the books).

The American Seasons Series: Spring and Summer

Each of the four American Seasons volumes chronicles the automobile travels of Edwin Way Teale and his wife, Nellie, as they traverse the continent for months, following the progress of a season in as many places and aspects they can.

In the spring volume (published in 1951 based on travels made in 1947), they rode the wave of the season from the southern tip of Florida all the way up to Maine: one big, long extended springtime of migrating birds and opening wildflowers—and lots more that you never would have noticed—all the way up the coast, ending as spring does with the summer solstice.

The summer book was published in 1960, based on their travels during the summer of 1957. For that project, they started at the summer solstice in New Hampshire, traced the northern edge of the United States clear to Montana, then wandered south through the Great Plains and explored Colorado and its Rockies. Thus they experienced “the summer of the shore, the summer of the forest, the summer of the Great Plains, the summer of the mountains . . . in vacation spots—along lake shores, on the mountain heights, in the cool north woods . . . [as well as] on salt flats and in corn country, amid swamps and in areas where falling rain would be sucked up by the thirsty atmosphere before it reached the ground.”




The Autumn Project

The autumn travels, and publication of the autumn book, actually occurred between the spring and summer projects. Autumn across America was published in 1956, based on travels that occurred in 1952. Their trip began in late August, looking east across the waves of the Atlantic on Cape Cod. Why in August? Teale explains at the beginning of chapter 3:

The season of summer extends to about September 21 but the summer season ends with Labor Day. Then the newspapers begin referring to summer in the past tense. Vacations are over. Schools commence. To the popular mind, September belongs to autumn as December belongs to winter. (p. 19)

Their autumn trip starts out rather like the summer one, for they travel west from New England taking a somewhat northern route, through Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. But here they continue west all the way to the Pacific, visiting Wyoming, Montana (and Yellowstone), Idaho, Utah, Oregon, and Washington.




Then they proceed southward into California, seeing the sequoias, Monterey, the migrating monarchs at Pacific Grove, and Yosemite. They end up on a very windy Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, facing westward across the Pacific, at sunset on the shortest day of the year.

Some Major Themes

Teale was an incredibly organized writer. Each book of the quartet offers about the same blend of topics. In each, there’s a chapter or two spotlighting individuals who make their living from the land, and he marvels at expansive agricultural endeavors, and their picturesque qualities.

And although he’s mostly interested in animals and plants, with chapters spotlighting particular species, he always includes a few chapters focusing on geological matters, on landscapes, on astronomy, and on notable environmental tragedies, or on disasters averted.

But in this volume, more than the others, there are certain subjects Teale weaves through the whole book:

Bird Migration. The Teales were avid birders! It’s no accident that their autumn trip took them across all four major flyways for migration, and Teale writes enthusiastically about the flocks they see. The map in the front endpapers has the four major North American flyways marked on it. Along the Atlantic Coast Flyway, there are “swallow clouds” at Cape May, where bazillions of migrating birds concentrate before crossing the Delaware Bay. The Teales trace the Mississippi Flyway in five states, and see the Central Flyway as they travel through the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana.




At some point, if you’re not really into birding, you either get weary of reading about the birds, or you begin to chuckle affectionately at Teale’s enthusiasm. At the Bear River delta on the Great Salt Lake, they experience their “Million-Duck Day,” where Teale, well, positively gushes at the thousands and thousands and thousands of birds they saw.

He keeps returning to his writerly style but always ends up helplessly gushing once again about the huge flocks: “For us who, among the depleted, overgunned ponds of the populous east, were accustomed to counting our flocks of migrant ducks in dozens and scores, the wonder never diminished in these thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of waterfowl” (p. 194). (Remember, Teale was writing at a time when conservation laws were still rather new.)

And then later, they visit the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (on the Pacific Flyway) and see more zillions of birds: “Wherever we went the roar of waterfowl wings preceded us as mallard and pintail and baldpate and green-winged teal—perhaps some of the very birds we saw at Bear River—shot into the air from behind the curtain of the tule rushes” (p. 316). But the big deal there, that day, for the Teales, was the swarms of blackbirds! (But I’ll let you read about that yourself.)




Tracing the Paths of Explorers. Their route took them west, but they do more than just intersect with the paths of some famous explorers: They trace them. They first join the trail of Lewis and Clark at the juncture of the Knife and Missouri rivers, where, at Fort Mandan, the explorers had met Charbonneau and “his amazing squaw, Sacajawea” (p. 127).

Wait a minute—a note on that loaded term: The word squaw was not a loaded term in standard American English in midcentury. Americans didn’t know it was a deeply offensive term in the Native American language from which it was adopted. As far as any of us knew, it was a Native word for “wife” or for “woman”—same as you might refer to a young French woman as a “mademoiselle,” or a Spanish man as a “señor.” The Russian king was a “czar” and a Muslim sovereign was a “sultan.” I’m pretty sure that nearly all Americans who were not First Nation peoples had no idea that squaw was an offensive term, and Teale was simply using the pleasantly widened vocabulary of an educated man.

So let’s cut him a break, and acknowledge that the word came to have a different meaning in American English than it had in its original language. And, yes, now that we know how offensive it is, let’s please quit using it.

At any rate, it is clear that Teale admired Sacajawea, for he speaks directly about the importance of her contribution to the expedition. He mentions her often and notes places where she has been memorialized in place-names.

And so their path leads them along the Missouri, through the Rockies, all the way to where the Columbia joins the Pacific. Teale quotes from the Lewis and Clark journals, and he notes several plants and animals named for the explorers. He keeps the famous expedition in the reader’s mind as well as his own.

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(By the way, this is not the "Lewis and Clark" we've been talking about! --Just a bit of humor to see if you're still paying attention!)

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Another explorer whose path the Teales keep intersecting is less well-known, except among biologists: Thomas Nuttall, and his assistant John K. Townsend, traveled the interior of America in the early 1800s not long after Lewis and Clark, botanizing and collecting biological specimens. Nuttall was the curator of the Harvard Botanic Garden, and as a result of his travels, he added “more new species to the lists of science than any other man in America” (p. 28). The Teales follow Nuttall’s path, off and on, from Cape May on the East Coast all the way to Vancouver and to Monterey. And yes, the parts about Nuttall are more fascinating than those about Lewis and Clark.




Autumn Color. Well, of course, Teale had to write about this subject. But perhaps the most surprising thing about Autumn across America is that the Teales, who lived in New York at the time, began their fall trip by promptly leaving New England! Remarkable, since New England is the official place to see a glorious riot of autumn foliage, picturesque white-painted churches, and so on. But the Teales have big plans—they’ve got to get across the continent, and through Rocky Mountain passes, while it’s still “fall.”

Teale gets around this problem by relating the splendor of New England’s fall color from memory! Then, he proceeds to witness and describe all the different colors of autumn, all across America. Autumn looks different in the Dakotas, in the treeless plains, in the Rockies, in the Pacific Northwest, in Northern California, than it does in the entire eastern half of the country.




One chapter focuses on “dusty autumn”—this is the dustiest time of year. (The early fifties, I understand, were drought years throughout much of America.) Though it is the bane of anyone trying to keep a place tidy, atmospheric dust, Teale points out, is what gives us our brilliant sunrises and sunsets, and it is what forms the nuclei of every single raindrop and snowflake: No dust, no clouds, no rain.




In his ruminations about fall color, Teale provides an especially insightful paragraph about the way we “feel” about autumn—how the lower humidity, the crisp air, the generally clear skies, and, especially, the riots of color in the landscape serve to exhilarate and uplift us:

In the forest, fall is the season of light. The aureate leaves, the golden carpet of fallen foliage reflecting rays upward from the ground, these fill the deciduous woodlands with a luminous radiance unknown at other seasons of the year. Henri Amiel noted in his Journal Intime: “The scarlet autumn stands for vigorous activity; the gray autumn for meditative feeling.” Later in the season there would come slaty skies, brown leaves, gray autumn. But now we wandered in the multicolored early days of fall, the time of vigor and elation. (109–10)

I truly appreciate that distinction between “red autumn” and “gray autumn,” for it helps me to conceptualize this Janus-faced season, so intensely colorful at one end and depressingly drab at the other. It’s almost hard to “picture” autumn for this reason. Thanksgiving usually looks very little like Columbus Day! (The dividing line, of course, is usually the Abscission Wind!)





The Pacific Coast. Of the quartet of books, this is the only one that explores Northern California, Oregon, and Washington, and it’s clear the Teales glory in these travels. About a third of the book focuses on this leg of the trip. (Here's a photo from the book--the Teales are seeing a group of sea otters, which were then just beginning to come back along the Pacific Coast.)




They’re easterners, writing for an audience that viewed the West Coast as a spectacular vacation destination. So if you like places like Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, Monterey Bay, the Redwoods, Mount Ranier, the Olympic Peninsula, tidepooling and skirting the coast all down the length of Oregon . . . you will love where this book goes.

End of the Trip

Teale really wraps it up nicely; their autumn travels began in late August, with them standing on Cape Cod, staring eastward across the Atlantic, watching the tide rise to its fullest point and then start to go out—and they complete their journey facing west across the Pacific, on a windy crag at Point Reyes, watching the tide ebb on Winter’s Eve, the shortest day of the year. (Here is a photo from the book, of the lighthouse at Point Reyes, taken that day.)




They return the next day to watch the hands move on Teale’s wristwatch as the minutes slip away from autumn: “The sun, shining from farthest south in the heavens, ‘stood still’ before beginning its long, slow climb to the zenith of June. One instant it was autumn, the next it was winter. In this moment in the sunshine, between breaths, fall had slipped away” (p. 363).

I have to admit, I got a little choked up as I read aloud the final passages of the book. At some point, you just feel like you’re traveling along with Edwin and Nellie, and when their epic adventure—their incredible, once-in-a-lifetime autumn trip across America—draws to a close, you can’t help but feel a pang.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Sue and I have been reading these books together, aloud, in the evenings, or when we have some driving to do. We react to it, comment on it, discuss it. It’s very pleasant to share a book this way, and I heartily recommend it.




So now there’s just one more of Teale’s American Seasons books: Wandering through Winter, based on travels that took place during the winter of 1961–1962, and published in 1965. (That’s the year I was born—how about that! This is also the book where Teale visits Jefferson City!) Wandering through Winter was the book that earned Teale the Pulitzer Prize, when Teale was sixty-six and had some thirty books to his credit.

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve read Wandering through Winter, so stay tuned for the final installment—I’ll probably be blogging about it about three months from now!

Teale’s North with the Spring: A Natural History Classic

At some point when I was in college, my inveterate book collecting transitioned from “literature” to “natural history literature,” and it was about that time I discovered the prolific Edwin Way Teale (1899–1980). (Follow this link to see the Wikipedia entry about him.) His manuscripts and papers are archived at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut.


Here is a photo of Teale that appeared in his book North with the Spring.

It bugs me that he seems so little-read today; in the middle twentieth century, his writings and photographs were everywhere: In bookstores and libraries, in magazines like Natural History and Popular Science, and in the glowing reviews of his books in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Scientific American. He was the author or editor of more than thirty books.

He won the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing in 1943 for one of his early books, Near Horizons, “the story of an insect garden.” Some other authors who have won the Burroughs medal are David Quammen, John Alcock (who also wrote of his own insect garden, in Tempe, Arizona), John McPhee, David Rains Wallace, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez, Aldo Leopold, Ann Zwinger, Hal Borland, Loren Eiseley, Joseph Wood Krutch, Rachel Carson, Roger Tory Peterson, Ernest Thompson Seton, and William Beebe. And these are distinguished authors indeed.

Teale also won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, which puts him into a category of even more famous authors. His book that won the Pulitzer, Wandering through Winter (1965), was an offshoot of the book I’m focusing on today.





North with the Spring

Teale was an established nature writer when he began the North with the Spring project; it’s not clear to me that it even started out as a book. Instead, it began with the simple human desire to escape winter. But during the years of planning, his desire to remove himself to a warmer place intensified: Teale and his wife, Nellie, lost their only son, David, in action during World War II. I think at that point the Teales just wanted to get away, to go driving. But it had started with a late-winter yearning for an extended road trip, one that would give them a grand tour of the North American spring:

Bare trees imprinted the black lace of their twigs on a gray and somber sky. Dingy with soot, snowdrifts had melted into slush and were freezing again. Behind us, as we drove south, city pallor was increasing. Tempers were growing short in the dead air of underventilated offices. . . . February, at once the shortest and the longest month of the twelve, had outstayed its welcome. The year seemed stuck on the ridge of winter.

At such a time, when you look with dread upon the winter weeks that lie before you, have you ever dreamed—in office or kitchen or school—of leaving winter behind, of meeting spring under far-southern skies, of following its triumphal pilgrimage up the map with flowers all the way, with singing birds and soft air, green grass and trees new-clothed, of coming north with the spring? That is a dream of the winter-weary. And, for nearly a decade, it was, for Nellie and me, both a dream and a plan. (1)

They had been contemplating a springtime-long trip for years, but had put it off. “And while we waited, the world changed and our lives changed with it. The spring trip was something we looked forward to during the terrible years of World War II, during the strain and grief of losing David, our only son, in battle.” The book (plus the three other “seasons” books that followed) is dedicated to David, “who traveled with us in our hearts.”

It was on Valentine’s Day in 1947 that the Teales loaded up their Buick with maps, binoculars, field guides, notebooks, and camera equipment, and departed from their New York home for the southern tip of Florida, where “spring” is more of a concept than an observable event.




Starting in the Everglades, the Teales drove a widely zigzagging route all the way to Maine. From February to the summer solstice in June, they “witnessed the defeat of winter” in twenty-three states, and put 17,000 miles on their Buick.


Here is the map printed on the endpapers of North with the Spring; a similar map appears in each book of the quartet. Once Wandering through Winter was done, it and each reprint of the others included a map showing all four routes together. There are only a few states that get short shrift.

And they took excellent notes; they met fascinating people, both famous and unknown. They visited a gracious Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of The Yearling) at her Florida home (now a historic state park)—the visit Teale documents, it turns out, was only six years before Rawlings died; she treated them to a lovely picnic lunch out in the Florida scrub at a cool sinkhole that had inspired a location in her most popular novel.

Teale documents equally well a day spent with a Mrs. Toy Miller, a snuff-using backwoods herbwoman in Kite Hollow, North Carolina. She showed the Teales how she collects medicinal plants for the Greer Drug Company, which at that time was a wholesaler of pollen, ginseng, goldenseal, and all manner of other wildcrafted botanicals (today, the company has become Greer Laboratories; look here).

Each chapter is a snapshot of a time and a place, all revolving around nature and the way human lives were interacting with it at midcentury. The book is a travelogue by an insightful and knowledgeable pair of travelers. Reading the book in 2011, sixty years after the publication of North with the Spring, fills me with curiosity about “the rest of the story.”

Teale tells of viewing a lone whooping crane at the zoo in Audubon Park, New Orleans, likening his experience to what people must have felt upon viewing the last living passenger pigeon at a zoo in 1914. As of 1941, there were probably only about twenty-one whooping cranes in the whole world. But, Teale writes, not long after he saw this individual crane, it was used in a captive-breeding program and became the mother of the first whooping crane hatched in captivity. In the sixty years since Teale saw this bird (named Jo), the cranes have rebounded somewhat; today there are some four hundred in the wild. It is still one of the most endangered birds in America, but it’s much better off than when Teale visited the zoo that day in 1947.

Teale mentions details that make me nostalgic for the Americana that was disappearing when I was a little girl—they spend the night in “tourist courts”; they purchase gas at service stations, where attendants pump gas into their car for them and offer up friendly, colorful comments. It was America before interstate highways, when driving faster than fifty was “careening.”


Here is a photo of Nellie Teale (and their nifty 1961 Oldsmobile) that appeared in Wandering through Winter. The caption notes that she is identifying a desert plant.

So much has changed since Teale wrote. In some ways, his “seasons” books are sadly “out of date.” But by now, we can read them knowing full well that science has marched on and refuted some of the knowledge that had been gained at midcentury; meanwhile, we can appreciate the America of the past, despite its faults and naivety. Reading North with the Spring aloud to Sue, I kind of choked when I came to this passage, describing scenes they witnessed in South Carolina: “With green, freshly cut bamboo poles, Negroes were out for the spring fishing, angling for ‘stump-knockers’ in brimming roadside ditches” (136). I don’t find the diction as thought-provoking as I do the scene of people fishing with the crudest of implements in flooded roadside ditches. There are clues to the past in these books that I’m not sure Teale quite intended to provide.


Teale’s Quartet of Seasons


North with the Spring was the first book in a quartet that took twenty years to complete; after its publication in 1951, the Teales completed three more trips, each carefully planned to maximize their experience of seasonal progress across the United States. In 1952, the couple traveled from Cape Cod to Point Reyes (north of San Francisco) to experience Autumn across America (published in 1956). Their Journey into Summer took place in 1957, and the book came out in 1960; the Teales’ summer travels covered the entire eastern three-quarters of the United States, beginning in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and ending at the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado. Wandering through Winter, the final book of the quartet and the volume that won the Pulitzer Prize, was published in 1965, based on their 1961–1962 trip that stretched from the Silver Strand, south of San Diego, to the northeastern corner of Maine.

By the time they were done with their travels for the four books, including return trips to some places to check facts or obtain additional information, Teale states in his acknowledgments in Wandering through Winter that they had logged “well over 100,000 miles by automobile, airplane, ferry, mudboat, snow Weasel, scout car, Jeep, cog railway, canoe, on foot and on showshoes.” (If you don’t know what a snow Weasel is, you have to look at the winter volume!) (By the way, using the current IRS mileage reimbursement rate for business-related travel, that amount of traveling would count for $51,000 in 2011!)

These books represent America as it was, and America as it is (for much in the natural world changes little, even though human fashions change); the Teales are like gentle, reflective, knowledgeable grandparents. Sometimes, perhaps, Teale waxes a little too much about the birds they see (one reviewer on Amazon complained wearily: “He points out every single bird he sees!”)—but mostly, the reason I think Teale is not so popular today is that he simply takes his time. He reflects on the things they witness; he reflects on humanity. The Teales poke along on America’s back roads. Teale explains things well; he occasionally goes off on tangents. But all his tangents are interesting!




When I read these books, I feel as if Teale is speaking to me. There are occasional moments when Teale, in addition to addressing his contemporary audience, also nods to the posterity who would hear his voice in their minds long after his death. Here is one such passage from North with the Spring:

Later . . . we stopped by the wooden bridge once more. . . . The limpkins were snail hunting among the eelgrass of the shallow borders. The river rang with the wildness of their calls. Theirs was a voice that spoke for an older time, a long-ago time. . . . It was the voice of the dark, the swamp, the vast wilderness of ancient times. It links us—as it will link men and women of an even more urbanized, regimented, crowded tomorrow—with days of a lost wilderness. (93)

Reading this makes me want to hear limpkins, too, and not just on Cornell’s ornithology website.




Teale understood that he was placing himself at a distinct moment in time, that he was writing for the future, in addition to his many contemporary readers. This is most evident on pages 346–47, at the end of Wandering through Winter, the volume that finishes the quartet:

And so we came home at last. We came home rich in memories. We drove down the long lane to the 160-year-old white cottage under the hickory trees. We unlocked the door in spring that we had locked in autumn. We found calendars of another year hanging on the wall....

Another spring is coming in as these words are written. The white magic of another winter is gone. Another night is falling over our woods and fields and pond. I switch on the lamp above my study desk. Its soft light falls on typed sheets of fieldnotes, on marked maps, on odds and ends, mementos of our winter travels. I am nearly at the end of that self-imposed task that for more than two decades has been my work and my relaxation, my livelihood and my diversion. While I have been wandering across the country and writing of what I have seen . . . two new states, Alaska and Hawaii, have been added to the Union, the population of the United States has grown by 50,000,000 and the earth has traveled through space 10,000,000,000 miles.

I set down these final words in the dusk of an early spring day. You are reading them when, where, under what conditions? Now the light—my light here, your light wherever you are—falls on the last page of the last book of the last season. We have traveled far together. We have watched the successive seasons flow and merge and intermingle. We have seen the beauty of the land through the whole cycle of the year. To those of you who have journeyed so long, who have traversed the four seasons in our company, to all farewell.
For here ends the story of our travels
through the spring and summer
and autumn and winter of
The American Year.

This is the year, I think, that I will reread all four of these books during their respective seasons. What a rich, pleasant exercise! I think the only thing that could be better than this would be to grab our binoculars, field guides, laptops, pack our bags, get in the Honda with Sue and her photography equipment, and disappear for some months, retracing one of the Teales’ seasonal paths, looking to see what’s become of the places and people his books today memorialize. . . . And finding all new adventures along the way.

Martin Luther King, "Beyond Vietnam," and Today

A few days ago I was driving around and listened to a radio program talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence." The conversation resonated with me, and I encourage you to look at the complete transcript of Dr. King's speech, which you can find online here.

This particular speech isn't nearly as well-known as his rightfully immortal "I Have a Dream" speech, but it's worthy of our attention, considering several of the discussions our nation is having today.

Some believe that this speech, in which MLK came out strongly against the war in Vietnam, and which was delivered exactly one year before MLK's assassination, was the reason for his assassination, and for the timing of it. In this speech, the activist for black civil rights came out as an antiwar protester.

But the speech was much more. If you read the speech today, you will find it rather chilling in its predictions about the course of US foreign policy and the effect it might have on the rest of the world. He questioned the fairness and justice of our policies in Asia, Africa, and South America, and he encouraged America to mend its ways.

Here's an excerpt.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing--embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate--ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

I find Dr. King's notion of a "revolution of values" a compelling idea. He was urging us to reexamine our paradigm, which, of course, is what Jesus did when he encouraged his followers to not demand an eye for an eye, but instead to turn the other cheek. When he washed the feet of the downtrodden, and dined with the outcasts.

It's a hard role model to live up to. We're animals--we're needy, we're afraid, we're hungry, we want to survive and to thrive. And we're sneaky; even when we think we're being completely altruistic, upon reflection, we find we may not be.

But we're much more than animals--we think ahead, we reflect on the past, we have conscience, we have free will--and that's where the revolution must originate.

King pointed out how government funds for helping the poor had been sucked away by the Vietnam War. Instead of being helped, the poor were sent in high proportions to serve and be killed as soldiers. And in the case of human history, that's how it's always been. But must it always be?

Our country--no, our species--needs the revolution in values King talked about. If not for the sake of the poor, then for the sake of the souls of the rich.

And meanwhile, the recent speech that President Obama gave in Tucson still rings in my ears. In fact, that whole episode--the madman whose sickness was "overlooked," a nation with huge problems with its health care system, the hatred that political candidates use to acquire funds and get people to act, the question about whether it should be okey-dokey for people to buy semiautomatic weapons that can fire off 15 or 30 rounds without reloading . . . it all makes you think about where we're going.

Obama had a simple request: Let's all try to act the way our children expect us to act. That little girl who was shot down would want us to act like the grown-ups she believed we are.

And over and over again, I think to myself that human culture is the biggest democracy there is. Culture is defined collectively, by the people. Every day, we each have a vote; we vote by the way we behave and speak. Human culture may resemble a school of fish, which all seem to move together as a unit. But even schooling fish are capable of moving independently, and so are we. No one is forcing us to follow the pattern.

I suggest that we not wait for television and our political or even religious leaders to shepherd us in whatever direction they think is best. Advertisers rule the TV; politicians answer to their funders. Ministers, sadly, too often follow their flock, who, sadly, too often follow their television. Instead, I think we should each strengthen our habits of big thoughts, fair thoughts, compassionate thoughts, and forethought.

I've recently been reading some of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, and I have been impressed by his expository powers. Did people in the late 1700s actually take the time to read paragraphs, and essays, and articles? If so, they are smarter than we are today.

There seems to be a great trend today to see things in black and white, good or evil, to make summary judgments. The quick decision, the simple thought, the pithy reply, the tweet, is valued over the ponderous essay that addresses many angles. To me, the trend away from seeing the "gray areas" is a trend away from true understanding. Big ideas require more than tweets and sound bytes. Take the time to read something "real," and reflect on it.

I wish that I could express myself as well as Dr. King, but I cannot, and that's why I'm not a writer. But I encourage you to read Dr. King's speech. It really made me think.

Felini Restaurant: Eat There!

This is one of my very favorite restaurants in Columbia, for several reasons. And I worry about them—Columbia has a very competitive restaurant scene, and I’m not sure many people know what to make of this restaurant.

So here is why I love Felini. The links I include below are to Columbia Daily Tribune articles; here is the Felini Restaurant Facebook page.

First: The Owners

Felini is locally owned and family run. More than that, the owners, the Canhasi family, are immigrants, Kosovar-Albanian refugees who are trying like nuts to live the American dream. Learning about their story makes me predisposed to wish them well. They came to America after a harrowing journey out of their homeland. They got factory jobs, worked their fingers to the bone, scrimped and saved, polished their English, and kept their dream alive in their hearts. They passed their citizenship tests and are now proud Americans.

They had been restaurateurs in Kosovo, before the war. Their restaurant there was also named Felini, after the Italian film director. The spelling reflects the Albanian spelling of the Italian name. The Kosovo Felini was destroyed during the war.

So if the Canhasis can make it, that means the American dream of “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is still . . . possible. Still alive. So if you ever think to yourself “God bless America” or “buy American,” make sure to patronize the restaurants and other businesses of people like our ancestors, who came here willing to work hard, to reap the benefits of their life’s labor.

Second: The Food

At Felini the food is wonderful. The Canhasis know their business. The food is excellent, although it may not be exactly what we’re used to eating. I don’t know about you, but Albanian cuisine is new for me. And at this point—I suspect because Columbia’s not quite ready for Albanian cuisine—the Canhasis have gradually turned the restaurant into a full-fledged “Greek” restaurant—albeit with a few traditional dishes from their own country.

Among the latter have been Tava Sautee, a rich, stewy blend of vegetables, tomatoes, chicken (if you want meat; or you can get it with just vegetables), topped with mozzarella and cooked and served in an oven-proof clay bowl. Another favorite is Qoftethes, which is seasoned ground beef filled with mozzarella cheese and topped prettily with thin, looping lines of mayonnaise, served alongside a mild rice pilaf, roasted potatoes, and (when the restaurant first opened), a small side of cooked beets.

Alas: The menu has recently changed again and the two dishes I just described are no longer on the menu—I suspect because they’re too heavy for summertime eating in Missouri. The menu has instead expanded on chicken and fish dishes, as well as sandwiches—the Greek kind, on pitas. They are trying to get more student business, I think. Although their prices have always been very reasonable, I think the sandwiches offer diners lower price tags.

I am hoping that when the weather turns chilly again, they’ll bring back some of their heartier dishes, even if it’s just for one night a week as a special. These dishes are one of the big things that set them apart.

At this point, the only dish on the menu that seems especially Albanian, and not Greek or Italian, is the Kebobs Appetizer. I have to tell you, though, that if you’re expecting chunks of grilled steak on a skewer, you’ll be surprised. The beef is ground, seasoned, and formed into link shapes. If you get it as an appetizer, they are artfully arranged like spokes on a small, homemade bread round similar to a thick-crust pizza, atop marinara sauce and with mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, feta, and parsley.

Another great thing about the food is its presentation—the meals are harmonious in terms of flavors, textures, and colors and are beautifully decorated with sauces, garnishes, relishes, and vegetables. My favorite meal there is the Rainbow Trout dinner, which includes a grilled, whole trout (minus the bones), rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, tzatzike sauce, a few dollops of their buttery-light flavored feta cheeses, and crispy potatoes. It’s so pretty it makes me smile when they bring it out for me.

Among the Greek and Italian dishes are gyros, chicken souvlaki, tuna calzone, chicken modiga, grouper primavera, Mediterranean salmon and shrimp (prepared en papillote), dolmathes, lasagna, lamb chops, and a Greek combination platter.

Each dinner table receives a homemade Albanian-style pita, which is something like a big, hot dinner roll—raised, not a flatbread—with olive oil for dipping.

Our favorite appetizer is the Greek Dip Medley—a simple combination of hummus, taramusalada, and tsatzike served with warm triangles of Greek pita bread—but so artfully presented that you can’t help but enjoy the view of it before you dig in. (And now I’m addicted to taramusalada—my first bite of it, and I was going, “What is this stuff? It’s terrific! I could take a bath in it!”)

There are two dynamite soups available, as well: Avgolemono (chicken, orizo pasta, egg, and lemon) and Domate Supa, which is an incredibly rich and flavorful blend of fresh chopped tomato, celery, parsley, oregano, romano cheese, and red wine, simmered slowly. Sue says she could take a bath in this: “Compared to Campbell’s, it’s like tomato soup from a parallel universe, where everything’s way, way better.”

The desserts include two traditional items that you just have to try: The Piano Cake and the Galaktobureko. The former is difficult to describe, but features interlaced vanilla and chopped-walnut chocolate cake to form “piano keys.” The latter is a chilled Greek custard baked with phyllo pastry and served in a small pool of sweet, light, cinnamon syrup. Mmmm.

Third: The Ambience

You already know that the feel of a place means a lot to me; it’s reflected in the way the servers treat you, the way the place is decorated, and how many distractions there are. At Felini, you feel like a guest in someone’s home. It’s a nice home, with nice furnishings, so you want to sit up straight, wear something casual but nice, and display good behavior—but because it’s someone’s home, you are encouraged to have a wonderful conversation and to have a good time.

That’s how it feels; it reminds me of my Grandma S’s house, where the food was fantastic, the conversation was sparkling and spirited, and where singing might erupt at any minute. Maybe I’m simply describing what others might call a European or Old World ambience.

They offer a substantial selection of wines and beers, but even with the flaming-cheese appetizer, the restaurant is absolutely not a rowdy college hangout. Hooray!

Sue and I love to come here after the symphony, to have a beverage and an appetizer or dessert. (Sue loves to have a glass of Macon-Lugny les Charmes Chardonnay; I love it that they offer Clausthaler n/a beer.) It’s comfortably laid-back, our concert duds go okay with the surroundings, and the libation and food is just right for a bite on a night on the town.

There are no obnoxious TVs hanging on the wall, and the music they play is from the Old Country. The Canhasis have decorated with dolls, costumes, rugs, and other items from Albania.

In general, they’ve put a great deal of themselves into the restaurant; they’ve created a little slice of their homeland for us to enter and enjoy. What a huge treat for us!

So eat at Felini—and pass it around.

Addendum (June 10, 2010)

I'm sad to report that Felini Restaurant has closed its doors. Man, oh man, am I going to miss them! I wish the Canhasis the best of luck in all their future endeavors, and I thank them for sharing a taste of their homeland with me, and for inspiring me to be a better cook and hostess.

And if they decide to open a new restaurant hereabouts, I'm going to be first in line to check it out!

--JS

Fourth Foods

It was and continues to be a surprise to me, to think that not everyone has the same food in mind for the Fourth of July.

For other holidays, it seems, we tend to get the same stuff. Turkey on Thanksgiving. You know what I mean.

To celebrate America’s birthday, the party food truly does vary from one region to another and differs with one’s ethnicity. But the basics are: You’re (generally) having an outdoor dining experience in the middle of summer, in some of the hottest weather of the year, so you tend to cook outdoors. You also tend to take advantage of all the farm-fresh produce that’s starting to become available. Beyond that, what does your family history bring to it? And your region? And what is good ol’ “American” food to you?

With my family, we have generally opted for the simple-to-grill hamburgers and/or hot dogs, with all the fixin’s to your heart’s content (BBQ sauce, ketchup, mustard, relish, tomatoes, pickles, onions, lettuce); potato salad (in my clan, this is often German potato salad); corn on the cob; baked beans; potato chips; a Jell-O salad; melon; homemade ice cream with blueberries and strawberries. Or anything with fresh peaches.

Sue’s family, in northern Ohio, often did the hamburger-and-hot dog thing, or—and this blew my mind—fried perch and/or walleye. Fried fish! And then, coleslaw, potato salad (the mustard kind), baked beans, potato chips, watermelon, homemade ice cream, fruit pie or cake.

Other folks grill steaks or ribs or barbecued pork steak. In the south, of course, it’s barbecue. But then also, fried chicken does it for a lot of people, too.

On the coasts, I see from Gourmet magazine, they have lobster sandwiches. Ooh-la-la.

And then there was that summer in San Francisco when I ate at a Chinese restaurant, which was busy with lots of Chinese American customers. . . . Or the year some Mexican-immigrant friends invited us over for a glorious fiesta with a huge pot of homemade chicken mole, fresh tortillas, and margaritas and sangria to make everyone happy.

I think the point I’m trying to make is that the Fourth of July, the quintessential “American” holiday, varies from region to region and from one ethnic root to the next. The coolest thing about this “melting pot” of ours is that the constituent elements (German, African, Mexican, Chinese, Norwegian, English, Irish, Korean . . .) stubbornly and gloriously persist across the generations, preserving the diversity despite our unity as citizens of the United States, the greatest country in the world.