My perfect Sunday

I grew up spending most of my Sunday mornings asleep and entirely aware that most of my peers were in church. Now I work Thursday through Monday so this New Year’s Day 2012, was the first Sunday I’ve had off since Labor Day.

The day started at midnight, lounging around a bonfire behind my friend Chris’ parents’ house. We rang in the New Year with a few cheers and the echoes of fireworks and dynamite bouncing off the valley slopes from nearby celebrations. Walking back to the house after a couple more hours of chatting with friends I hadn’t seen for six months, I looked up at the stars. They shined through a hole in the low cloud cover and I realized I hadn’t seen stars for as many months. (A sacrifice of city living, I suppose.)

Rusting "stairs" to Pulpit Rock

Reclaimed coal mine

Woods walking, also known as hiking

After a few hours’ sleep, Chris, Norah, Richard and I woke up to a clear, brisk morning. A hike was on the agenda and since Chris spent grew up in the surrounding woods, we were given a guided tour of his childhood haunts.

The highlight for me was a look into a seemingly bottomless tunnel that was built from 1891 to 1934 under a coalmine for drainage. The tunnel itself was bizarre. Thick rebar lengths that crisscrossed to prevent people from climbing down blocked the 10-foot diameter entrance. It stuck out of the ground at a 45-degree angle like a giant worm from Dune. Looking down we saw rocks and trash that people had thrown but that hadn’t made it very far. About 50 feet down the lower half of the tunnel was caving in and a pile of dirt made seeing any further impossible.

Down the Jeddo

But even more compelling than a giant tunnel was the backstory. Chris told us that he had heard of people taking kayaks down into the tunnel. About three miles away there was an exit, but to get there the kayakers had to make it through pH 0 drainage water with no light and multiple rapids speculated at class 5. And depending on the recent weather the exit could be completely blocked with water rushing into the Nescopeak Creek. For those who make it out alive, the cops are usually waiting at the exit with handcuffs. And, Chris said, the Jeddo Mine Tunnel has a death rate worse than Mount Everest.

A great romp in the woods always needs a spooky story.

Out of the woods and on for pizza!

After hiking out to the car we’d earlier stashed, we headed straight for pizza and garlic knots. The cookies we ate out in the woods, called Million Dollar cookies, were delicious but calories from the butter and excess sugar were gone before we even ate them.

A morning of exploration and friends followed by too much food is my perfect Sunday.

And then the rains came

It’s hurricane season on the east coast. Every week or so the news outlets start mumbling about the next storm brewing off the coast of Florida or in the Caribbean. Most of them pass by without event, or even precipitation. The highly anticipated Hurricane Irene, which did serious damage further north, only brought some wind to Central PA. A few trees were toppled in the surrounding neighborhood. They landed on some power lines and we lost our electricity for a few hours.

But the greater, more lasting, impact so far came from an unassuming tropical storm named Lee. This weather system brought rain that sat on us for days. On Tuesday we had some mild leaks in the basement. We remedied the damp cement floor with fans.  Twenty-four hours later the water was dribbling with enthusiasm through holes we didn’t know existed. The storm water drains in the city were beyond capacity. Manhole covers were blown off and the excess water couldn’t be contained. The water had nowhere to go, but up. And it did, into basements, garages, homes, and businesses. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated in York and the surrounding counties. Roads closed, or had sections wash away.

Our basement took on a very small portion of the storm drain’s excess. Because our sump pump have given up the ghost years ago and was slowly decaying in the corner, we used our shop vacuum to suck the water off the basement floor. (I ventured out into the rain once in search of a replacement pump, but so did everyone else in the city. There was not a sump pump available for purchase within 75 miles.)

We rested the vacuum on the corner of the washing machine, sucked 16 gallons at a time into it, and then drained the water into the washer. After three vacuums full, the washing machine was at capacity. A quick turn on the spin cycle drained the water. After 10 hours of sucking and draining, we were just barely able to keep up with the flow.

Our neighbors were not so lucky. They had open drains to the sewer lines in their basement floors. When the storm drains overflowed, thousands of gallons were pushed up into their basements. Our two neighbors to the north got over three feet of water each.  While they lost most of their stored belongings, we mostly just lost time. Not a bad deal overall.

On the positive side, our basement floor is very clean now. We dumped half a bottle of bleach into the standing water to prevent mold growth.

Help Tastes of Africa

Earlier this year I put together a sound piece about Tastes of Africa, a beloved catering company that has been a part of the Upper Valley community in New Hampshire and Vermont for 20+ years.

According to Friends of Tastes of Africa, "the company recently expanded their kitchen to accomodate a huge new contract to deliver their delicious food to West Point,  and to universities and hospitals around New England.  The flood happened literally days after completing expensive new electrical work on the new space, which was gorgeous and is now in ruins.  They are still working to assess their losses, but they have sustained heavy equipment loss (equipment they own outright) and will need to be replacing things as quickly as possible to fill their orders."

They are looking at the steep number of $150,000 to begin again.

Please feel to write to this e-mail address (helptasteofafrica@gmail.com) with suggestions, contribution questions, or  leads!  If you would like to make a financial contribution, it can be sent by check to: Taste of Africa; 52 Bridge Street, White River Junction, VT 05001
Or contribute via Pay Pal at the following web address: www.melsgourmet.com
Thank you for your support!!


If you are not familiar with Tastes of Africa, and the owners Mel and Damaris, please listen to the sound piece as an introduction.

Neotropical Rainforest of Panama

Thanks to Annette – Richard’s sister – Richard and I got a unique view of the Canal and the rainforest of Panama. Annette’s current research with Princeton University and the Smithsonian Tropical ResearchInstitute (STRI) has brought her to the Central American rainforest multiple times. This time, she spent her summer studying nitrogen fixation on small, remotely accessible islands, in Lago Gatun – a manmade lake created during the Canal construction to cut down on length and dredging needs. All the islands in Lago Gatun have only been there for a hundred years, but STRI scientists have made them the most intensively studied areas in the neotropics, says my Lonely Planet guidebook.

 Isla Barro Colorado (BCI), which houses STRI’s world-renowned research facility, is where we took a ferry early on our second morning in Panama.

From there, Annette donned her captain’s hat, and piloted us from BCI to another island where her field plots are growing. To be on a small, private boat in the Panama Canal alongside huge oil tankers and cargo ships was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. The sun was bright and warm, the breeze cool and swift. The half-hour boat ride could have lasted forever, as long as I was concerned.

At Annette’s sites we helped her distribute nutrients and then explored the island. There were lots of other sites speckled around the island, put there by other STRI graduate students, all looking at different, yet very specific, slices of the neotropic rainforest.

“It always surprises me that the rainforest isn’t that lush,” said Annette as we wandered along a muddy trail. On a dry, sunny day the forest floor looks not unlike most temperate forests I’ve visited, just with different flora. The rain can change that. But so can a trip to the canopy. Since we didn’t get rained on until the end of our trip, my opinion of the lush-factor changed the next day when we visited the Rainforest DiscoveryCenter in the Canal Zone. We climbed their 30-meter tower to be at canopy level. Up there, lush was the only word to describe it.

Fog sat quietly in patches on the dawn horizon with brightly colored flashes of feathers weaving expertly through the treetops, resting on occasion for a brief respite from the morning’s activities.

Three-toed sloths hung languidly in the sun. A howler monkey mother let her newborn climb all over her with its boundless energy.

The whole ecosystem was overflowing with life, from the birds in the trees to the epiphytes growing on their host plants to the millions of ants, cutting and harvesting leaves to march proudly home.

But this lively place was not free from human impaction. The most prevalent type of trash we found was shoes – in pieces or whole. They were floating in the Canal, scattered along roads, and covered in mud in parking lots. Like most countries in the last 100 years, Panama had not yet figured out waste management. This country’s economy has grown rapidly over the last few years, and with growth comes waste. According to the Latin Business Chronicle, Panama has the fastest growing, and best managed, economy in Central America.

 Boating in the Canal.

 Annette at work in the rainforest.

 Epiphyte in the canopy.

 Toucan in flight.

 Butterfly on Birds of Paradise plant.

 Tree defense strategy.

Leaf cutter ants.

As my first taste of the tropics, I was very happy with my visit to Panama.

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

I wholeheartedly believe that we should ban DihydrogenMonoxide.

Well, not really. This compound is vital for all life forms. Without it, I wouldn’t exist to write this on a computer that also wouldn’t exist. So I hereby admit that the stuff is pretty nice to have around. But that which giveth life can also taketh away. I actually find it to be the scariest, most powerful, and intimidating substance in the world. (We all know that I am talking about water, right?)

My first experience, that I can remember, with water involves only outwardly benign encounters: baths of warm, soapy bubbles; glasses cool and wet with condensation on a hot summer afternoon; jumping through a sprinkler in the backyard; exploring the creek at the bottom of the hill. Happy memories, right? Sure, but no one warned me that missing my esophagus for my windpipe when downing that refreshing glass of H2O could be the end of me!

I don’t mean to be melodramatic here, but a lot can go wrong around water – drowning being the first one that comes to mind. But the thought of death from drowning doesn’t cause me to hyperventilate as much as losing the battle of control over the forces that power water. I’m talking about giant ocean waves and currents, white water rapids, frozen lakes and rivers that break beneath your feet. These forces are hard to interpret, tough to control, and beyond most of the population’s understanding - I don’t get plumbing, let alone the physics behind hydraulics in a class five river rapid.

My most recent freak out caused by water was a couple of days ago at Playa la Barqueta in Panama. What I thought would be just another fun afternoon of our tropical vacation turned into Stephanie getting beat up, thrown around, and altogether dominated by the Pacific Ocean. Those waves were down right mean. It probably didn’t help that I was nervous as soon as I got in over my knees, but they didn’t make it any easier to get a handle on things. The goal was to play around and body surf. I only got as far as a painful sunburn and a sore ass. One wave picked me off my feet and threw me down on the ocean floor hard enough to cause abrasion, a brief limp, and a flash, ultimately speculative, of fear that I might have injured my spine.

After some perfectly toned urging (a combination of seize the day, don’t be such a wuss, and you’re so close to getting it right) from Richard – who was having a great time in the water, I might add – I tried again, and again. All attempts ended in me running, swimming, or crawling for my life from the next unpredictable wave that I was convinced was directly behind me ready to swallow me whole.

I survived – duh – but only because my preservation instincts to get-out-while-you-still-can trumped my prideful impulse to get-it-the-F-right-or-die-trying. Fear is a great motivator.

But I’m not the only one who has experienced the terror that water can inflict. Take, for instance, the recent scare that the “brain-eatingamoeba” has caused. That single-celled pest swims up your nose when you’re just out for a dip. Or cholera in Haiti, giardia in streams, or botulism in canned foods. Even mosquitoes use water to breed. This stuff is bad news.

In all seriousness, far more people will die this year fromcar accidents than all of the aforementioned water borne illnesses combined – PSA, always where your seat belt – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be chilling.

Basically, what that means for me is that because I wear my seat belt, I will always be scared of water. If you don’t follow that logic, don’t worry; it's just the fear talking.

Eat, or Be Eaten

For the past four years I have moved three times to three different cities in two states. I have also thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and started and completed graduate school. Amid all this change and growth, one thing has remained reliable and constant: every time I open my kitchen cabinets, no matter what state I am in, I get a face full of moths.

While their numbers have risen and fallen depending on the season, and their food preference is remarkably diverse, I am always able to find at least one soft-winged bastard (or its poop) in my house.

In 2008, when the initial infestation began, I can’t say I was surprised. Richard and I were living in a budget apartment that was frequented by multiple residential pests. With the occasional cockroach scuttling across the counter, and houseflies venturing in from the all-too-near compost pile, what’s one more winged invader? Their original interest was brown rice. They chewed through the plastic and had their way with my future dinner.

My first thought was to get rid of whatever they had managed to penetrate. But when you live with a person who believes that food waste is what will really send you to hell, dumping food with some bugs in it is not an option. (Side note: Richard is so opposed to wasting food that I got chewed out when I washed a room temperature, half-full cup of tea down the sink instead of reheating it and consuming it.) So we kept the rice, and they flour when they expanded and upgraded their accommodations.

When it came time to pack up and move to another part of the country for school, we brought along the dry goods from our pantry, and inadvertently, the moth habitat. While our rice and flour supplies had been consumed and replaced with better-protected contents, the moths had moved on to our sesame seeds, dried fruit, and corn meal. They particularly took to the gallon bags of dried apples that we had harvested and preserved from our own apple trees.

By the time we made it to our current city, we had permanently relocated some of the pantry contents to the freezer in an attempt to rid our selves of these pests. Unfortunately, it is summer. And they love the heat. In the past few months I have found them in unopened granola bars, cracker packets, and backpacking food rations. They have chewed through every plastic and paper bag that holds food that not too salty and not too sweet. They seem to stay away from hot chocolate mix and tortilla chips, but I have found larvae cocooned under the lip of the peanut butter jar lid. That’s not including the times when the adults flutter drunkenly around the house exploring their boundaries and testing my nerves.

Mediterranean Flour Moth and Larvae (Source: organicgardensite.com)

Indian Meal Moth (Source: bladesofgreen.com)

As best I can tell from a quick look on pantrypest.com, we’re dealing with the Mediterranean Flour Moth, or the Indian Meal Moth. Either way, I kill on sight.

I have tried to eradicate them as best I can without completely violating my partner’s food waste ethics. As of now the plan is to wait until winter and then move all our dry goods outside for a day and freeze any lingerers. I have also vowed not to take any more pantry contents on the next move. Eat it, or donate it, Richard. I’m not giving those guys any more free room and board.

Which came first, the chicken or the guilt?

When I go to the grocery store, two items on my list bring me to a complete stop in the aisle: ice cream, because it’s one of my major food groups, and eggs, because they completely confuse me. When the organic food craze swept over America, buying eggs went from simply checking for cracks to interpreting the complex language of labels designed to lull the consumer into thinking they’re choosing the “happy chicken” eggs. Labels like “natural”, “cage-free” and “free-range” sound nice and evoke images of curious hens scratching at worms and flapping their wings in the sun. But the lack of regulation in labeling means that those pleasant words can be used to describe a variety of realities.

I know that I am voting with my dollar in the grocery store, and I don’t want to support huge factory farms where the chickens are abused. So I shiver in front of the egg section long enough to read over every option and usually end up choosing the one that makes me feel the least guilty. I try to find a compromise between price, distance the eggs have traveled from farm to grocer’s cooler, and animal welfare labeling.

I completely ignore anything that tries to grab me with “natural”. Well duh, eggs are natural. That means nothing to me. “Certified Organic” can mean a few things. According to The Humane Society of the United States, this describes uncaged birds indoors, with some sort of outdoor access – the likes of which is undefined. “Certified Organic” eggs were laid by chickens fed an all-vegetarian diet, free of antibiotics and pesticides. But “free-range” is the one that makes me frown. The United States Department of Agriculture, which determines an egg producer’s organic status, has no standards for free-range egg production.

The United Egg Producers have been battling against the concern of high cholesterol levels in eggs for the last 40 years, says ScienceDaily. Now the market is shifting to include consumers who want to know that chickens are being treated humanely in the warehouses. Ninety-five percent of chickens used in egg production in the U.S. live in tightly packed cages that limit movement and natural behavior. The industry, however, still permits “cage-free” labeling to describe that living condition. Sheila Rodriguez, a clinical associate professor at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden, explains this inaccuracy in her article "The Morally Informed Consumer: Examining Animal Welfare Claims on Egg Labels."

After years of guilt-plagued grocery shopping, mooching eggs from friends with small flocks, and getting the occasional carton from the farmers’ market, I have finally made a real commitment to my own happy chickens. Today I welcomed three Americana hens into my backyard. At three weeks old they are not yet ready to produce eggs, but I know it will be worth the wait. 

I give you Sarah Palin, Liz Lemon, and Cindy Lou Who.