Fall Potpourri

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NEW BEGINNINGS

As the saying goes, you can’t go home again.  But you can go visit.  We spent a wonderful day in Bethlehem at Lehigh University celebrating the inauguration of Lehigh’s 15th president, Joe Helble.  The campus looked lovely, and the ceremony had the requisite pomp prompting misty eyes.  The Chief Penguin and I were pleased to see and chat with so many former colleagues and friends.  The experience was simultaneously a trip down memory lane and a day of optimism for the future.  Go Lehigh, cheers for the Brown and White!

RECENT READING–SUPER LIBRARIAN

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Belle da Costa Greene (history net.com)

Marie Benedict writes novels focused on strong women, usually ones who have been ignored by history or not fully appreciated.  I’ve read several of her works, but this one stands out as one of the best.  Bella da Costa Greene was initially hired by financier J. P. Morgan to catalog and document his library of rare manuscripts and books.  Over time, her role expanded.  She became his chief negotiator and agent in the purchase of new items, even traveling to England and the Continent solo.  Their relationship was a close one, both professionally and personally, and after Morgan’s death, she was named the first director of the library.  All of this would be remarkable enough for the early 20th century when few women had such prominent positions, but Greene had a big secret.  Born Black, she had lived as a white woman since her teens.  Benedict and Murray’s novel depicts the stresses and challenge of maintaining this façade at a time of more rabid racism.  

This book will delight my librarian friends and is a welcome tribute to one woman’s determination and accomplishments.  Partly due to her efforts, the Morgan Library transitioned from a strictly private library to a library and museum open to the public.  Now I need to make another visit!  (~JWFarrington)

COMPELLING LIVE THEATER!

To Kill a Mockingbird

After a long Covid hiatus, Broadway is back.  The other evening, we went to see To Kill a Mockingbird, and it was simply marvelous!  The entry lines for checking vaccination status moved along efficiently, and masks were required in line and everywhere in the theater.  Theater staff enforced mask wearing, citing individuals with a reminder if they weren’t complying.  We had third row seats and the hall was full.

Like many, I first read Harper Lee’s novel when I was a teen and then again later in life.  I recalled upright Atticus Finch and Scout, his curious, frisky little girl.  Set in the 1930’s in a small Alabama town, multiple strands are interwoven with the main plot.  Atticus’s willingness to defend an innocent Black man against death penalty charges is consistent with his belief in the goodness and decency in everyone.  Later, his belief is tested when events spin out of control.  His two children, Jem and Scout, and their friend Dill don’t always understand or agree with him, but they defend him.  It’s a powerful play, set in a different time, yet with messages that resonate today.  Despite its seriousness, there are occasional bits of humor, often provided by the children acting as chorus and interpreters.

Jeff Daniels as Atticus and Cecilia Keenan-Bolger as Scout are both superb, while Michael Braugher is convincing in his Broadway debut as the accused Tom Robinson.   Highly recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

CRAFT IN THE KITCHEN

Fanciful Halloween pumpkins

Clementines for Halloween

My older granddaughter loves to bake, but she also enjoys just puttering in the kitchen and inventing creative ways to make edible food items.  In anticipation of Halloween, she devised a clever way to showcase clementines as jack o’lanterns.  

Peeled clementines are decorated with a banana slice and some green colored yogurt for the top and the stem.  Eyes, nose, and mouth are devised from slices of prune glued on with molasses or honey.  Sprinkles or other decorative touches can also be incorporated.  This was a fun activity for both granddaughters and me.  E also has her own blog, but since it’s available by invitation only, I’m unable to share the link.  Suffice it to say, she wrote a detailed recipe complete with a photo. 

Note: Header photo of Lehigh’s University Center (Packer Hall) and clementines ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). 

Just Food: Philadelphia & New York

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TRAIN TRAVEL

Earlier this week, we took Amtrak from the new Moynihan Train Hall to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.  Constructed within the classic old Farley Post Office building, the Moynihan Train Hall is stunning and beautiful!  So new, it’s pristine and spacious with elegant arching struts and the occasional wash of magenta light.  

The train schedule boards are both numerous and easy to read.  The ticketed waiting room has both counter height seating with outlets for those who want to work and rounded soft benches.  It’s a long space with restrooms at either end.  My only quibble with the whole experience of departing and arriving is that the basement connections to the subway lines and Times Square need better wayfinding signage.  We made it work and got to Line 1, but not without some to-ing and fro-ing.  

LUNCH ON RITTENHOUSE SQUARE

Street near Rittenhouse Square

After Manhattan, the sidewalks of Philadelphia, as we walked from 30th Street Station (a grand station in its own right), seemed quiet and mostly empty of pedestrians.  The Rittenhouse Square area, on the other hand, was lively, and Parc, where we had lunch, a beehive of activity.  This French bistro has an attractive outdoor structure.  We had a lovely table and made our choices from a very appealing menu.  Our friend had mussels and tarte tatin while the Chief Penguin ordered tuna carpaccio followed by chicken paillard and then the baba au rhum.  I began with a sinfully rich celeriac soup topped with truffle duxelles followed by a warm shrimp salad.  The butterflied shrimp were perfectly cooked and set on a puddle of lemon beurre blanc alongside mixed greens with avocado.  It was delectable! And fun for us to be back in this familiar city.

MANHATTAN MEALS

Salt Mediterranean

Salt, a new Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant on the Upper East Side, opened several months ago.  We believe it inhabits the space left by one of our old favorites, El Porron, a tapas place.  Thinking that might be a good omen, we chatted outside with the owner one evening and decided to return for a meal.

Mostly, we were delighted with all the dishes we ordered.  The Turkish salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, and walnuts was done chopped style and was simply delicious!  The lamb kebab with rice and greens was also excellent as were the baklava squares and the delicate almond pudding.  The only slight disappointment was the manti, meat-filled tiny pasta bites in a yogurt sauce.  We first had this dish in San Francisco at Troya, a neighborhood favorite, and then at A La Turku here in Manhattan. This version was a bit too doughy so the meat inside got lost.

Tri Dim Shanghai

We’re grateful to our co-grandparents for introducing us to Tri Dim Shanghai several months ago.  This spacious Chinese restaurant is a welcoming venue for lunch, dinner, or takeout.  We returned for lunch and were delighted with the Peking duck spring roll, the hot and sour soup, and the barbecued spareribs.  Leaning toward the tried and true, we ordered kung pao chicken which, while labeled spicy on the menu, seemed to have been dumbed down for Americans.  With the addition of some chili oil, it was tasty!  A Tsingtao beer completed the menu.  Next time we’ll explore other dishes. 

SWEET TREATS

William Greenburg Desserts

To top off a meal or just a long afternoon walk, the black and white cookies at William Greenberg are a must! Fancy cakes and sticky cinnamon rolls also fill their cases.

TABLE TALK

How often do you talk with strangers?  Recently, we had two engaging conversations with nearby diners.  The first was at the very popular, family friendly Tony’s di Napoli.  A lined slightly rumpled dark-haired woman at the next table smiled at us and asked us where we were from.  Later, she commented that we looked tanned and that the young woman with her was her granddaughter.  They had spent the day shopping, gone to lunch, and now were having dinner.  We heard about the achievements of her successful grandchildren and the arrival of her first great grandchild.  Slowly, the granddaughter warmed up a bit.  She is a student at Baruch College, and the Chief Penguin was able to tell her we know her president, a former dean at Lehigh.  A connection.

Last evening at Sel et Poivre, our comfort food French restaurant, two women had the table next to us.  The more voluble one announced, all in the same breath, that she had had her Covid booster that day and had just turned 80!  From that followed a lively conversation about her late husband, a literary agent for Steven King, and her accomplished extended family. Then, could I recommend a book to read.  Having just finished Great Circle, which I loved, I told her about it. 

Somehow, I mentioned having lived in Bethlehem. The second woman said her grandson was a freshman at Lehigh!  That led to more conversation about our past life in Bethlehem, the Lehigh campus, the upcoming inauguration of Lehigh’s new president, and where we stayed in Manhattan and why.  The first woman spends six months of the year in Venice, Florida, and the other woman knows a staff member at our granddaughters’ school.  More connections.  The whole experience made our evening memorable. And, since I gave her my card with the book title on it, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear from woman #1 in Florida!

Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Manhattan in the Fall

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RETURN TO MANHATTAN

Manhattan in late May was quite lively; Manhattan in October is brimming with energy.  Yes, there are a sad number of empty storefronts, but people are out and about and bustling here and there.  Outdoor dining structures remain popular while many restaurants seem to have been re-discovered.  Having to show proof of Covid vaccination to eat inside provides a welcome sense of comfort.  Waiters also are masked. 

Before arriving, we downloaded the NYCCOVIDSAFE app to our phones and added photos of our driver’s license and vaccine card.  Easy to do and easy to show this when entering a restaurant.  So far, we’ve dined at several favorite or familiar restaurants and one new to us. We also ventured to 34th Street to eye the old post office building, now transformed into the grand and soaring Moynihan Train Hall.  Such a magnificent improvement over tired Penn Station!

RESTAURANT REPORT

August

August’s attractive dining room

This small Upper East Side restaurant is cozy and welcoming. With mirrors on the back wall and above the bar, the space has a bit of an Art Deco feel about it.  Patrons were a mix of ages and gender with several couples, a table of four, and a single woman diner.  

Service was efficient and the menu intriguing.  Tempted to try several new dishes, we over ordered.  The warm cornbread came cut in pieces in a cute square cast iron dish.  A wire basket of zucchini strips looked like the world’s best skinny fries.  Both were very good!  

Zucchini strips

For entrees, we sampled the ahi tuna on crispy rice and the sole meuniere over spinach and marble potatoes.  They were also tasty.  Based on this one dinner, we will return to explore more of the menu.

Glazed ahi tuna

RECENT READING

SCIENCE IN THE TREE CANOPY

The Arbornaut:  A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees above Us by Meg Lowman

Meg Lowman (canopymeg.com)

Decades before I knew Meg Lowman, I read a review of her first book, Life in the Treetops in the New York Times. I bought the book and read it and thought about using it as part of a presentation I was going to give.  We were in Florida around that time, and realizing she worked nearby, I contemplated contacting her to chat about her career.  I didn’t and the years passed.

Fast forward to late 2013 and I had the opportunity to meet Meg.  The Chief Penguin hired her at the California Academy of Sciences.  We got to know her and consider her a friend.  Early on, we celebrated New Year’s Day, January 2014, with a memorable picnic in Myakka River State Park.  Having grown up in winter climes, the idea of a picnic in January was unheard of, but appealing.  Meg was chief organizer.  We met some of her friends, ate well, and then climbed the canopy walkway she helped design.  On the tower, you are 75 feet up overlooking the trees and greenery below.

Meg’s new book, The Arbornaut, is partly memoir, partly science, and completely engaging.  From a childhood in upstate NY spent outdoors, to graduate school and research in Australia, to stints as a professor/single mom at two colleges, to field work and being an international ambassador for tree conservation, it’s a multi-faceted, varied life.  As one of the few, and sometimes the only woman, in class or out in the field, Meg faced discrimination, indifference, and occasional sexual harassment.  Yet her love of trees and her passion for saving this key planetary resource kept her plugging away, always creating partnerships for future collaborative work.  Along the way, she made it a priority to include and mentor girls and young women in her branch of science.

In person, Meg is exuberant and an enthusiast for her cause.  Her infectious spirit comes through on the page too.  I learned a LOT about the kinds of leaves in various tree canopies and about which or how many insects nibbled, chewed, or put holes in them.  Her explanations of the field work and her research studies are accessible and tinged with the occasional humorous bit.  

For her adventuring spirit, no challenge is too much.  Individual chapters on the treetop BioBlitz in remote Malaysia, preserving the church forests in Ethiopia, and tree climbing in Kansas with disabled individuals are all fascinating.  By the end, the reader is well acquainted with Meg the person and Meg the field biologist.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo of the Queensboro Bridge and the food-related photos are ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: A Novel & A Film

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A FORTHCOMING NOVEL

INDIAN WOMEN AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

Thrity Umrigar (esalen.org)

I received this novel as an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) through BookBrowse, an e-mail newsletter that I recently discovered.   It will be published in January 2022.  I devoured the book in a day and a half and loved it!

Indian American journalist Smita reports on gender issues and travels the world to do so.  As a favor to a colleague, she returns to India after 20 years away.  Initially she does not realize that she will be covering the verdict in a trial of two Hindu brothers who maimed their sister and murdered her Muslim husband.  Through her main characters, author Umrigar presents several differing perspectives on India.  The reader is kept wondering for most of the novel why Smita has such a scornful, negative view of her native land.  Affluent Mohan, a professional man, lives in Mumbai and loves it despite its complexities.  Meena, the severely injured wife and mother, lives in a poor village and chafes under her brothers’ dictates.  She challenges what is deemed allowable behavior for a Hindu woman by working in a factory and then marrying Abdul.

The novel unfolds slowly as Smita travels with Mohan, filling in as driver, to interview Meena and several others.  Smita questions why she feels so hateful toward her country while simultaneously both resenting and appreciating Mohan’s decency and kindness.  The concept of “honor” and what it means whether one is Hindu or Muslim plays out against violence, corruption, love, and sympathy in a multi-faceted society.

Some years ago, I read The Space Between Us, another novel by this author about class differences between two women.  I thought it was very good, but this new novel is more powerful.  (~JWFarrington)

A RECENT FILM

LOVE IN THE 1960’S

Last Letter from Your Lover (Netflix)

Jennifer & Boot (refinery29.com)

Based on a novel of the same name by JoJo Moyes, this romantic drama is schmaltzy, but good entertainment.  Jennifer Stirling is trapped in a loveless marriage, controlled by her husband and constrained by the times.  Enigmatic throughout, but elegant in dresses, hats, and gloves, she attracts the attention of reporter Anthony, aka Boot, O’Hare, and they begin an affair.  Decades later, one of his letters turns up in a newspaper archive.  Young reporter Elly Haworth makes it her mission to identify the correspondents.  

Of the principals, Jennifer is the least substantial character, and one wonders what other than her beauty has kept Boot’s interest.  I watched this while on the treadmill and it kept me moving!  (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header image of woman reading courtesy of readersdigest.co.uk