I haven't published here for over a year. At the end of our capital journeys, our travels hit a lull and our life became more involved with our son's family, especially their daughter, Paige. More travels are upcoming, we're by no means done yet. And blogging went by the wayside.
I've pulled out some recent writings, actually revisions of earlier sketches and stories. Should anyone wander by here, welcome. And feel free to read a story or two, leave a comment, and then go eat something.
Ronny
17 February, 2014.
Monday, February 17, 2014
In Search of Martha
April 1998
We walked the streets of Bad Wimpfen with a map and a list of privatzimmer homes--residences with a room and breakfast to rent. At our third try, we were greeted by Horst and Gabby and given a tour of the house and our room.
We decided on Bad Wimpfen based on a line in a travel guide: a largely undiscovered fairy tale mediaeval village, and for its proximity to Hoffenheim, ancestral home of the Quenzer family, Pat’s paternal line. Located on the Neckar River, 41 kilometers (25 miles) east of Heidelberg, the town center’s randomly curving streets are lined with half-timbered shops and houses, some dating from the 14th century.
Horst, a business consultant, was fluent in English but indulged our German, cringing behind his smile. Gabby spoke very little English. Our communicating was a slow and halting process of tying together remembered German words. Pointing also helped.
The breakfasts alone were worth the airfare. A variety of breads, rolls, and pastries (most of them home-baked) served with several different sausages and eggs, yogurt, and fruit awaited us each morning under a bouquet of fresh flowers from Gabby’s garden. She was an artist, and every Christmas for years afterward, we received a watercolor of her garden flowers.
The first two days of our stay, we explored the remains of the old wall, the Blue Tower, and countless shops. Following breakfast on our third day, we strolled to the station and boarded a red 1950’s local train. A slow, rocking twenty minutes later, we wandered from the graffitied Hoffenheim station, in search of the Friedhof, the village cemetery.
The setting was beautiful. The manicured cemetery extended up a hill and we wandered slowly among the rows of crosses and markers. Near the top, the remains of Heinrich and Katharina Quenzer rested, enjoying a pastoral view of their home town. They were both 91 when they died in the early 1990s. Kneeling at the tidily kept grave and marker, Pat introduced herself, “Heinrich, I’m your cousin Pat.”
In the early 1800s, several of the Quenzer families left Hoffenheim for the rich farmlands of the Russian Empire near the Black Sea, and, in 1828, another family of the remaining Quenzer clan moved south to the village of Bad Urach in the Swäbian Alb and established a brewery. Quenzerbrau was a respected local beer until 2001, when it was purchased and closed by Stuttgarter Hofbrau in 2002.
A young lady at the Hoffenheim bakery -- one of the few young Germans we met who didn’t speak English -- remembered Heinrich and Katharina from her childhood and described them as quiet people who tended a large garden. She went on, “You would always see them in the garden, working together.” All the other family members had moved on and no Quenzers remained in Hoffenheim.
* * *
October 2000
Our son Scott and I were on a DB Regional Express traveling south from Stuttgart. A cousin’s sketchy Quenzer Bräu story from the 1960s and a series of written inquiries pointed us to Bad Urach. Detraining at Metzingen, we boarded a red shuttle train to Bad Urach, the end of the line. At a bank of pay telephones in the city square, we called several hotels until we found an available room at the Gasthof Wilderman, breakfast, of course included. Not until we arrived and read the carved wooden sign on the building did we realize it was part of Quenzer Bräu. “Serendipity,” I muttered to Scott, “is the travelers best friend.”
Bad Urach lies in the Swabian Alb of Baden-Wurttemburg, south of Stuttgart and west of Ulm. As the Bad in its name implies, this is a spa town with a large health complex. Looming over the Nahe River valley and the village, the ruins of Hohenurach, a fortress destroyed by the French in 1688, was only a 45 minute hike. Up.
Each morning Karl brought a typical German breakfast to our table. One morning as he brought more coffee and a second platter of sausage, bread. and cheese, I asked about the Quenzers.
“None of the Quenzers are involved with the brewery anymore. When I was a kid, it was all Quenzers, the whole family worked.” He paused as I translated for Scott.
“You should have met Martha,” he said with a shake of his head. “She was the matriarch, the Queen Bee. Her word was law and beware if you disobeyed.” He led us over to a hallway wall and pointed at a large black and white portrait of a thin, stern woman whose white hair was in a tight bun. She wore a flower-print dress with a single string of pearls. “Das,” he said with mock reverence, “Ist Martha.”
* * *
January 2006
Returning to Bad Urach five years later, we took a room at the Buck Hotel and Cafe on the stadtplatz. We were nearing the end a month’s travels following Hildegard of Bingen, J.S. Bach, and Luther with only a few stops in the Schwarzwald remaining before returning to Frankfurt and our flight home.
Marshmallow clouds drifted in the morning sky as we carefully picked our way along the ice-crusted and snow-bordered lanes of the Friedhof. The winter-lighted snow was dazzling and we shielded our eyes to read the grave markers.
The sound of a brass band starting a slow dirge pulled our attention. People, mostly elderly, all dressed in black wool coats and hats, were moving toward the reddish brick chapel on a small rise behind us. After watching their procession a few minutes, we returned to our search, but now with a somber musical score.
The memorial granite of the Quenzer family plot was partially buried in snow, but its size and large letters made it easy to find. Listing 19th and 20th century descendants of the family that left Hoffenheim, the marker proudly announced their roles in Bräueri Quenzer.
We have in our guest bedroom framed coasters from the Quenzerbrauerei, and an empty Quenzer Brau bottle stands proudly in a closet. I don’t remember what happened to the beer.
Flexible Flyer
The farm was twelve miles east of Napoleon, a mostly easy drive. All but the last 1.5 miles of road was well maintained. Highway 34 between Napoleon and Gackle was cleared usually within a day of a snowstorm. The county road intersecting with 34 and the road to the farm was open within another several days. The problem was that last mile and a half: The two-rut prairie road would drift shut with hard packed snow and could be impassible for weeks. Sometimes when they were running out of food or coal, the parents would worry and dad would take the Case tractor and try to break a path through the snow.
Al and Ronny didn’t concern themselves with being snowed in. The brothers had plenty to do and were good at amusing themselves. They walked to school anyway and could follow a path that was mostly swept clean of snow by the blizzard wind. And both knew, the same weather that isolated the farm behind the blocked road often created awesome sledding conditions.
South, across a rambling wetland stood the farm where cousin Allen lived. Typically, prairie lakes grew and shrank, dependent as they were on snow runoff. In high precipitation years, it was a real lake with a reedy shoreline and large, open patches of water. With little snow pack, it became a mucky swamp dotted with only a few water holes large enough for a duck to attempt a landing.
At the lake’s west end, a gentle slope descended from the shoulder of a higher plain. It wasn’t much, but add snowfall and a 40 mile per hour wind blowing for a day or two and the structure changed. Now, rather than a short prairie hillside, it had character. Now it had cliffs, drop offs, and cornices. Al and cousin Allen found the sled jump years before and had ridden it often. A rider sledding down the hill could become airborne more than once if it was done at the right speed and angle.
The North Dakota winter of 1948-1949 was one of the snowiest in memory. A series of storms dumped ever more snow onto the prairies, feeding the perfect sled jump.
On a cold, crisp, sunny day in January 1949, Al and six year old Ronny stood at the top of this hillside. Al placed the well-used Flexible Flyer sled he had been carrying on the snow, sliding it back and forth a few times. And don’t think for a moment that Ronny wasn’t simultaneously scared and excited as he looked at the waiting sled and the long way down on the brilliantly white untouched snow. With a little luck I can make it all the way onto the lake, he thought and barely noticed a parallel thought underneath, I’m too young to die!
He lay down on the sled and put his hands on the wooden cross-piece, pulling it each way, testing the steering. He wiggled his body to get comfortable and balance his weight on the sled.
“OK,” he said.
“Are you sure you’re ready? Now hold on tight.” Al slid the Ronny laden sled back and forth several times and then gave it a mighty shove.
The first thing Ronny hadn’t anticipated was the layer of fresh light snow that sprayed up as he flew through it, blasting his face and burrowing deep within his brown coat. He had no idea where he was or what was coming towards him at supersonic speed. He heeded his brother’s words and held on as tightly as he could.
Al was on all fours after pushing the sled. What he saw was a moving cloud of snow scurrying down the hill toward the drop off. For a brief moment, the cloud dissipated and he saw the Flexible Flyer and its cargo reaching for an orbit. Instead, it touched down in another massive cloud of snow, traveling even faster than before. The runners left the snow several times in the next three seconds and Al thought of a rodeo rider on a wild bull.
This is like riding a wild bull, thought Ronnie. And he held on.
Al stood up, his eyes fixed on the moving snow cloud. He’s going to get killed! He held his breath as he watched Ronny headed directly for a snowed-over rock pile at the edge of the lake. A loud scraping sound and he saw the sled cart-wheeling off to the right as a brown bullet shot through the air for a perfect landing on the lake’s ice and skidded to a stop.
With a half crying, half laughing “WHEEEE!,” Ronny struggled to his feet. Al raced down through the knee deep snow to grab the sled and help his brother back up the hill.
Taking his turn, Al carefully steered away from the pile of stones that had launched his brother into free flight. A second run and he aimed closer to the rock pile, but still with room to spare. That was enough.
A shivering walk later and back at home, they were crawling out of their wet clothing. Mother looked at Al, “I hope you weren’t down at the sled jump. Ronny’s much too young for that.”
9 January 2013
Farmers' Markets
Being people of peasant stock and temperament and being obsessed with food and eating, finding our way to farmer’s markets was a given. In the midst of walking the capitals of the United States and Canada, we found ourselves often at farmer’s markets, first accidentally and then deliberately. I claim that we have visited more markets than have most food writers.
In the frosty shadow of 8th century St. Ludgerus Church in Essen-Werden, Germany, we wandered with shivering locals and bought a kohlrabi the size of a bowling ball that fed us for three days. The Fredricton, NB market, rated among the top ten Canadian markets, was a short walk from our hostel, as was the Seaport Market in Halifax, both well-stocked with a variety of mostly organic local food, and, as the day progressed, filled to overflowing with shoppers. The St. Lawrence Public Market in Toronto stood out due to its very artistic fish head display, and the presence of local winery tasting areas. At Madison, WI, on a 26F morning, we talked with and supported several cheese-making farmers from the area. The shrimp and grits at the Baton Rouge, LA Red Stick (Baton Rouge) Market was both delicious and sourced as nearby as possible. Visiting farmers markets is not just a culinary event, it is the essence of the social and cultural life of a community.
The Forks in Winnipeg, Manitoba is now the site of a park and market place that includes a large and modern farmer’s market. This site at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, has been a gathering and trading place for at least 6,000 years. That would be several years before Safeway and Fred Meyer.
Farmer’s markets pre-date our commercial and industrial food system by thousands of years. Long before our white forebears arrived in the Lower Columbia Region, Native People gathered here to trade winter supplies they were unable to find for themselves. The Klickitat Trail, a trade route connecting eastern Washington with the the verdant and productive west end, has a several thousand year history. At trail’s end, people would gather and trade what they had for what they didn’t have. Branches of the trade routes parallel US 12 and connected with the Cowlitz Trail to the great, rich meeting junction of what we now call the Cowlitz, Coweeman, and Columbia Rivers.
Farmer’s markets connect producers with customers, providing first vegetable starts for our own gardens and then vegetables for our tables. As I write, cherries and other fruit both local and from central Washington, is availabe at our local market. A few weeks more and the wild abundance of local vegetables arrive on center stage. One of the recent additions to our local market is European style dry-cured sausages produced by The Beautiful Pig, a local sausage-maker. Goat cheese has been available in previous years and hopefully will again show up at our market. Local bread bakers, pastry vendors, egg suppliers, chocolates and a variety of crafts are regularly available.
I lament, LAMENT, the absence of seafood at our market. I know about the commercial markets and the difficulty of the catch seasons, but I think the market should do more to connect with suppliers to make seafood available. And deep in our souls we know there should be more cheese. One of the joys of the Wenatchee, Ellensburg, and Yakima markets is the presence of local cheese made from cow, sheep, and goat’s milk by area farmers. At Ellensburg a few weeks ago, I was delighted to listen to the Alpine Lakes cheese maker speak lovingly of his sheep and the cheese making process.
Farmer’s markets are also a social institution. Often the path between vendors’ stalls is blocked with groups of people being (and I have no fondness for the word) sociable. It is a place to gather and talk, to meet people not seen for months or years. And never mind the potential for gossip transmission.
By shopping at a farmer’s market, we keep the money local. Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, poet, and agrarian theologist, argues that it is far better and more responsible to buy local food with some non-organic inputs than to purchase organic food that has traveled a thousand or more miles. At least, with local production, you have someone with a face and a name at whom you can yell.
Some years ago, at the Sacramento Farmer’s Market, I talked with an olive grower. She sold much of her crop into the nameless olive markets. But some of her crop she processed herself. She spoke with familiarity of biblical olive metaphors and her life of growing olives. She said she felt the light of God when she was among her olive trees and would often go there to pray. It was about connection for her. She felt it. I left with a bottle of her witness. A gift of God in a jar with pimentos and salt.
9 July 2013
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