Author: JWF

Carolina Moments: Abroad at Home

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STAYING LOCAL

It’s October and this is usually the month when the Chief Penguin and I spend some weeks abroad:  in Italy, France, Chile, New Zealand, or even Madagascar in 2009.  This year, as newcomers to the area, we are instead exploring our new neighborhood and venturing into Raleigh, the Oak City, and North Carolina’s capital. Our goal is to try a new restaurant for lunch every week this month and likely into November.

RALEIGH RAMBLE

This week we had lunch reservations at Whiskey Kitchen, an industrial looking dining room, in the Fayetteville Street District.  

To make things stress free, we took Lyft in and arrived early to explore the few blocks around the restaurant.  

Some years ago, my niece introduced us to Videri Chocolate Factory.  We located it again and were able to check out the coffee roasters in this same building, the Raleigh Depot.  The chocolate shop wasn’t yet open, but we wandered around outside the building enticed by the fragrant smell of chocolate.   

The depot was built in 1912 to receive railway freight through large steel doors.  It also had a doorway for horse-drawn carriages. In 2003-2004, the building was restored. 

We heard a passing train and realized we were very close to Raleigh’s Union Station.  We picked our way around a bit of construction before we found a walkway to the station entrance. The station was almost empty, but modern, clean, and attractive.  

We consulted with the man at the ticket window and learned that the fare to ride the train from Cary to Raleigh is only $5 one way!  You can also ride the Piedmont line to Greensboro and Charlotte. 

Nash Square

We strolled into Nash Square, a compact green space with shade trees and perennials and crisscrossing walkways.   In the center is a bronze sculpture, North Carolina Firefighters Memorial, honoring those killed in the line of duty.  Plaques along a low brick wall around the statue list their names.  The work was dedicated in 2006.

Close-up of firefighters memorial

The square is named for Abner Nash, who served during the Revolutionary War from 1780-1781 as the state’s second governor and subsequently as a member of the Second Continental Congress.

Lunch at Whiskey Kitchen met all our requirements.  

Friendly service and delicious food in an attractive setting.  We both ordered the day’s special blackened mahi sandwich and had a side of cole slaw or a green salad.  We also sampled one of the wines on offer.

On Martin and Davie Streets, we discovered several other restaurants we want to try.  Across from Videri Chocolate is The Pit, a barbeque joint, and farther on in The Dillon are both La Terrazza and Barcelona.  La Terrazza is on the 9th floor and has an indoor seating area and an expansive terrace overlooking Raleigh’s skyline.  

Raleigh skyline from The Dillon 9th floor

This restaurant is only open in the evenings, but worth a return visit.  Down at street level, Barcelona Wine Bar serves tapas at night and is open for brunch on the weekends.  It beckons us to make a date soon!

READING:  ESCAPING ON THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI

James by Percival Everett

Author Everett (spectator.co.uk)

Percival Everett has written several notable novels, so I was surprised that I had not encountered his writing until now.  James is a re-telling of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, but from Jim’s perspective.  It is funny, perceptive, and a searing depiction of how one person’s appearance (be he be born Black or wearing “white face” over black skin) determines how that person is treated.

Knowing he is to be sold and moved to New Orleans, away from his wife and daughter, Jim runs away.  Huck, who was taken in by the Widow Watson and whose father is mean and nasty, also escapes.  Huck finds Jim and the two of them travel on the Mississippi River together, mostly by night, hiding by day, and catching catfish to eat.  Jim has multiple reasons to need to escape; boy Huck is mainly fleeing his violent father.  

They have adventures together and then get separated.  Jim makes a friend, Norman, who appears white and pretends to own Jim.  One of the funniest moments in the book is when Jim is recruited by a troupe of white men who perform in Black Face.  Their faces need blackening, while Jim needs some whitening around the eyes.  

Overall, it is a captivating and stunning portrayal of Jim, self-dubbed James, who endures physical and emotional brutality, while cherishing books.  The gift of a pencil enables him to begin to write his own life story.  Highly recommended and one of the best books I’ve read this year, it is a finalist for the Booker Prize. If I were a high school teacher, I’d assign in my English classes.

Readers may also be interested that Everett is the author of Erasure, the novel on which the Academy Award nominated film American Fiction is based.

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.). Header photo is a sign in the Raleigh train station.

Carolina Comments: Having Fun!

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KINDS OF FUN

With all the tension in the world and around the upcoming election, it can be helpful to have an outlet that distracts us, makes us laugh, or gets us up and moving around. This week, you get a TV series, a fun novel, and Olympics for the mature set.

ADVENTURES IN WINE MAKING, KIWI STYLE

Under the Vines, Season 3 (Prime Video)

William, Louis, & Daisy (primevideo.com)

In this latest season of Under the Vines, Daisy and Louis, co-inheritors of Oakley Wines, are challenged by the arrival of obnoxious William, who claims to own part of the winery.  Their focus is on scheming both legally and otherwise to get him to leave, while Daisy plans her upcoming wedding.  

The supporting cast includes the mostly silent, but talented winemaker Tippy, their local friends Nic and Vic who are awaiting the arrival of twins, and Gus, who returns when his relationship with movie start Griff collapses.  Add in their chief competitors Don and Marissa and the somewhat flaky Hilary, fortune teller and devotee of the occult, and you have a spirited ensemble.  

 This comedy-drama is fun and occasionally silly, an energizing change from crime shows.  It’s best to start with the first season, but I think this one is the best.  Recommended!

FINDING ONESELF THROUGH FOOD

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

Reichl (austin.eater.com)

Ruth Reichl’s The Paris Novel has a bit of everything: scenes of Paris, that famous bookstore Shakespeare & Company, and appearances by literary figures like James Baldwin, John Ashbery, and Allen Ginsburg. And of course, food and cooking.  Knitting it together is Stella’s somewhat delayed coming-of-age story.  

At her mother’s death, Stella is left with money and the directive, “Go to Paris.”  She has lived a sheltered, controlled life.  She wasn’t close to her mother, she works as a copy editor, and she hasn’t ventured out of her comfort zone.  Paris overwhelms her, and Stella flounders a bit until Jules, a kindly older art collector and widower, takes her under his wing.  

She discovers the bookstore, drops in there, and reluctantly becomes a Tumbleweed, those who help in exchange for the privilege of staying overnight in an alcove.  Stella’s main quest has to do with finding out about a piece of art (Jules is helpful here). Secondarily, she wonders about the mystery father she never knew or was told about.  In the process, she samples all manner of French dishes and is pleased to learn that she has a discriminating palate and perhaps even talent in the kitchen.

There’s a lot going on in this novel, probably too many strands, but it’s a fun adventure—watching Stella expand her horizons while vicariously savoring all those luscious French meals.  For those who might not know, Reichl was the editor of Gourmet magazine for ten years. Bon appetit!

MATURE OLYMPICS

Brightspire Olympics

Who would have thought that senior living communities would host an annual Olympics?  Well, to my surprise and skepticism, four Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) in North Carolina compete each fall in a host of activities, both physical and mental.  There are some obvious events like bocce ball, pickleball, and walking races, but also timed puzzle contests and a quiz bowl.  Residents sign up in the summer for their preferred event and practices are held.  There are even cheerleaders, decked out in short skirts and tops with pompoms ready!

For those of us, like me, who were spectators only, highlights included cheering the arrival of the other teams midst band music, the opening parade of all the competitors (lead athlete with a torch, of course), chair dancing and line dancing performances, and witnessing the nail-biting last round of the quiz bowl competition.  A spirit of fun and camaraderie reigned all day at Glenaire.  It was hard not to get caught up in it!

Showcasing Olympic smiles

Note: Unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Carolina Comments: Park, Drama, & Book

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OUT AND ABOUT:  POCKET PARK IN CARY

Kay Struffolino Park

The Meeting Place

Initially, this parklet on the edge of downtown was named “Meeting Place Park” for the sculpture in its center. Later it was renamed in honor of Kay Struffolino, a long-time Cary resident and active volunteer with the town’s parks and recreation and the cultural arts. 

The Meeting Place is a ceramic sculpture house by Danish artist Nina Hole (1941-2016) commissioned by the town.  Building and firing it involved 36 volunteers and 175 hours over three weeks from mid-October to early November 2012.  

From the town website: Her method of using slabs as modular building blocks enable her to make very larger sculptures which she raku fires in situ wrapping the structure in a blanket of high temperature refractory fabric that acts as the kiln during the firing. She uses a number of assistants and considers the process, including the stimulating communal experience of working with a group of people, as important as the final product. Fired through the night, the spectacular effect of the glowing form as it is unwrapped is the peak moment of the event. 

Kay Struffolino Park

VIEWING: A BROTHEL IN WARTIME

Madame K (Prime Video & PBS)

Mr. Metsla and Mrs. Kukk (rmpbs.org)

In this dramatic series, a group of young women with diverse backgrounds work in an elite brothel run by Mrs. Kukk aka Madame K.  The setting is an elegant villa in Tallinn, Estonia, beginning in October 1939.  Foreign Ministry Counselor, Mr. Metsla, friend and suitor to Mrs. K., is instrumental in moving the brothel to this house.  Their clients include Baltic Germans and then high-ranking Russians.  New girls are added, the war intensifies, dark secrets are revealed, and events at hand take on a deeper, somber tone.  

The 10-part series is in Estonian with subtitles and presents yet another facet and face of WWII. Recommended!

READING:  CARRYING ON AFTER A SUDDEN DEATH

Us, After:  A Memoir of Love and Suicide by Rachel Zimmerman

When Rachel Zimmerman’s 50-year-old husband, without any warning, jumped off a bridge, she was both devastated and worried for her two daughters, ages 8 and 11.  Seth was a noted and driven robotics professor; Zimmerman a seasoned reporter who worked for the Wall St. Journal at one time. 

Trained to be observant, Zimmerman becomes hyper focused on looking for answers to why he did it: contacting experts, raising many questions, and, along the way, excavating the layers of their courtship and their marriage.  Simultaneously, she embraces parenthood and seeks to be both mother and father to her girls.  

In part, the book is an exploration of one’s public persona versus one’s private self, Seth’s especially, but also her own.  A no-holds-barred discussion of their lives, it describes how she and her resilient girls re-surface and re-engage with the world.  It is raw reading at points, but ultimately uplifting as this threesome moves forward. (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo is a close-up of the sculpture in Kay Struffolino Park. All unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Maine to North Carolina & Books

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GOING HOME

After our wonderful week in Sweden, we enjoyed ten more days in Maine. The air was cool to chilly, there was an occasional stiff breeze, and we felt that fall had already arrived. We left behind our view of the ocean water, our favorite botanical garden, and good friends. At our last dinner, we tucked into one more lobster roll—lobster makes Maine Maine.

Back home in the Triangle Area, we had several days of constant rain, an unnamed tropical storm which flooded southeastern parts of the state, and then a return to sunshine and 80 degrees.

Carolina sunrise

READING–WAR FICTION

AMERICAN CHARM AND DONUTS FOR SOLDIERS

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea (nytimes.com)

One might rightfully query, do we need yet another historical novel about WWII?  There are many good offerings out there.  I too wondered, but I ended up being captivated and engrossed in Good Night, Irene.  

Inspired by his mother’s experience in the Second World War, Mexican American poet and novelist Urrea focuses on the Red Cross clubmobiles, something I’d never seen referenced before.  These vans or buses traveled around Germany and France and even to the UK where soldiers were based, serving up American warmth and charm along with coffee and donuts.   Two young women, Irene from New York. and Dorothy from a Midwest farm sign up, not having an inkling of what they will see and experience in their tour of duty. 

Irene is escaping an abusive fiancé, and Dorothy is in it for the adventure.  With their vastly different backgrounds and life experience, they are an unlikely pair.   But they become close friends and each other’s strong support amid challenging living conditions, occasional bombs, and the sounds and sights of battle.   

Urrea is a wonderful wordsmith. His descriptions of battle conditions and these women’s travels and travails are punchy, graphic, and simultaneously mesmerizing and haunting.  Named by NPR and others as one of the best books of the year (2023), it received high praise from critics and is well worth reading.  Recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

BRINGING THE LIBRARY TO CHILDREN

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

Janet S. Charles (simonandschuster.com)

You may have noticed that libraries and librarians feature in recent fiction and nonfiction.  Examples include The Personal Librarian about J. P. Morgan’s librarian, The Library Book (fire in the Los Angeles Public Library), That Librarian (dealing with book banning), and The Paris Library, also by this author.

Jessie Carson, nicknamed Kit, was a young New York children’s librarian, chafing under the constant correction of her work by her boss.  In 1918, she applied and was accepted for a 2-year post to France to create children’s libraries in war torn Blérancourt in northern France.  CARD (Le Comité américain pour les régions dévastees) was started by heiress Ann Morgan, daughter of J. P. Morgan. Young women, usually affluent ones, volunteered and were assigned to serve villages that had been destroyed.  They lived not far from the front midst the noise of guns and the sight of injured soldiers.

With no intact library structure and no chance of one anytime soon, Kit and her compatriots improvised.  They visited women and children camping in huts and other makeshift shelters bringing them food and provisions.  Initially, Kit created a roving story hour taking books to the children, reading to them, and coaxing traumatized adults to sample a book.

Linking Kit’s experiences to the present day is Wendy Peterson, an archives librarian and aspiring writer who becomes intrigued by a newsletter published in 1918 from Blérancourt and the CARD project.  Her determination leads her to dig deeper into the archives to ferret out the story of these women and Kit’s groundbreaking work in establishing an actual children’s library. (Note, in the France of that day, a library dedicated to children was a radical proposition.)

Charles’ work is refreshing; it unearths yet another aspect of wartime service.  It’s a novel of relationships among colleagues, lofty goals, and coming-of-age, both for Kit Carson in the early 20th century and for Wendy Peterson in 1987.  Midst the horrors of 1918, friendships are fostered, some goals realized, and strong support provided to these French communities.  Thanks to my friend Alice for this recommendation! (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo of the Maine coast and all unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)