A Gmail Conversion Story

Ah, Microsoft, you have made Windows and Xbox by your great ingenuity and extended yourself with Windows Phone.   But compatibility with your own products is clearly too hard for you.  Selah.

This past weekend my Outlook stopped working.  More than the reboot three times kind of stopped working.   It completely freaked out.   Though my approach to technical problems can often be unsystematic and my commitment to regular backups arbitrary at best, I can usually figure things out. It just often takes a little time, and no one asking me “How’s it going?”  Because until it’s fixed, it’s not going well.

After four hours of troubleshooting  - repairing Outlook, cleaning registries, compressing pst files, and mumbling new plans to “start saving to the cloud” – with no success, I made one last ditch effort.  I decided to remove the Microsoft Office Outlook Hotmail Connector Add-On.   Because let’s be honest, any Add-On with that many words has problems.  This Add-On was required so that I could view my Hotmail account in Outlook.  Magic!  Not the Add-On, but the joyful deleting of the Add-On.  As soon as I deleted the Add-On (the Add-On from the same company who makes the product I was Adding-To), Outlook opened and new emails started flowing.  To Brett’s Comcast email address.  Of course, there was none of my Hotmail messages, but regardless - this was momentary cause for cyber celebration – at 1am.  The Address Book was there, along with the deep recesses of our Inbox Folders.

I then got a notification that a new version of Microsoft Office Outlook Hotmail Connector Add-On was required.  Really?  After four hours of email silence, it was an Update problem that I hadn’t been warned about, admonished for or held captive by in the normal course of Windows Updates??  Really Windows Update? You think to notify me of updates to the Bing Desktop but not to the one thing that vows to bring my Outlook to a crashing halt the day before Advent peace is supposed to reign in my heart. 

This was momentary cause for cyber hate.  (If you are a Microsoft employee, this is the part of the story where I need you to listen and not tell me the additional eight steps I could have taken.)  Through gritted teeth, I updated my Add-On from the same company who makes the product I was Adding-To.  I waited.  Still no Hotmail messages.  Oh, it found the account.  It just couldn't download anything.  <Insert 45 minutes of unholy troubleshooting and cookies at 2am.>  I then laid down my Hotmail arms, and pondered what if  I try adding in my Gmail account.  I set up my Gmail account around the same time I set up my Instagram account, when hope was in the air but intention was not in my heart.  (If you are a Microsoft employee, tell me honestly – do you still have your Hotmail email?)  GMagic.  It was all there, including all the forwarded email I set up from my Hotmail – which naturally I had to set up through the web browser instead of Outlook. 

I’ve been reluctant to change my email address from Hotmail to Gmail for over a year because it seems hard, but when they give you lemons, it's time for clementines.  

My new clementine email address: kateballbach@gmail.com

Some Recent Awesome Things: Thanksgiving Edition

In Anticipation of Thanksgiving: Some Recent Awesome Things

1. A Butterball Turkey procured in the US commissary in Ramstein, Germany by a local American friend. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Butterball Turkey, but I AM grateful … It is thawing downstairs in our storage unit. Chicken wings crossed its cold enough!

2. Another local friend and her dear family who has agreed to share in this Butterball Turkey Experiment on a Thursday school night, with crazy busy husbands and six children who should they say one wrong word, will invoke the crazy right out of their Mamas. Don’t let me tell you all the ways we have worked to secure molasses, figs, cranberries … and what I plan to do about finding a turkey roaster that will fit in my junior oven tomorrow.

3. An article called “14 Signs Cheese Is Your One True Love” where I wanted to tell the author that I have “10 More Signs that French Cheese is my Other Lover and He Loves ALL of me.”

4. My new, seriously puffy down jacket made in Germany for what I already know will be the coldest winter on record for a Seattlite who tried to make a go with a Patagonia Down Sweater last winter. As if.

5. An articled called “31 Things No One Tells You About Becoming A Parent” and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this would be the first Facebook quiz (sans scoring system) I aced.

6. My new Re:New bag made by refugee women who has resettled in America, transported by air from Chicago to Seattle, carried by personal escort via air from Seattle to Luxembourg and walked in its first outing by one-happy-camper in the streets of Paris.

7. Awesome photos of FB friends traveling to Burma, Iceland, all numbers of German Christmas Markets, and indeterminate places with children and pumpkins or children-of-over-achieving-parents and Santa.

8. My teenager asking if he could read to me the “really nice” text that his Dad sent him. Totally. I mean if he wants to.

9. Snow tires. On my car. On time.

10. An article where the author’s byline included “world traveler”, and I was like “yeah, me too … so how bout we trade your Entrepreneur for my Pushed Three Babies Out and call it a draw.” There’s a Facebook quiz I aced …

Happy Thanksgiving Week! Keep up the T-day and T-day prep pictures ... your across-the-pond friends appreciate them!

Cracking Shins

I’m not a natural born pay attentioner.  As a case in point, once when I was a new driver I came in the house soaking wet after driving through a rain storm complaining, “DAD.  There is something seriously wrong with the sun roof.”  I had not observed that there was both a sun roof and a sun roof shade causing some serious interior rain.   There are many stories like this from my childhood, and now closeted ones from my adulthood which are being routinely outed by my children.  Ask me if a place looks familiar, and I’m apt to tell a white lie and say yes.  My powers of observation are so weak that I have actually concerned myself thinking that if ever I was asked to give a description of a criminal, I would royally screw up the investigation.   I have never known the first day of my last cycle.

Given my propensity towards cluelessness, paying attention is something that has required practice.  I have always been good at paying attention to my calendar, my to-do list, and now most excellently – all manners of things involving my iPhone.  For instance, I always know how much battery I have left (83%.)  While those things are important to attend to in order to manage our life, it also seems important to give consideration to the things and people outside the centripetal force of me.  Granted this has become much easier as my calendar has lightened and no one dangling a paycheck is watching me tick off my to-do list and flagging things urgent.

Insert here my monthly trips to Paris.  These trips started out as a gift to me from my husband, and they are, but they’ve also become these unexpected opportunities to practice paying attention.  Normally I blindly follow where my map lovers lead, but being alone has required me to navigate for myself – attending to my geography by marking my spots.  Noting places where I feel safe and other places where I feel like I need a personal bouncer.   With each trip to Paris, aside from the general approach of circling a different neighborhood on each visit, my agendas are getting looser and less planned.   Yet, I feel like I’m seeing more of Paris between the lines – the softer, sentimental Paris. 

Giving yourself permission to take detours has this way of opening you up to things you didn’t have time to create expectations for.   Without a tight agenda, it’s also easier for people to not be in your way.  There is never a subway ride in Paris that isn’t crowded, and when you aren’t in a hurry – you have time to look twice at people.  To guess who might be having your same thought bubble – or a creepy one.   To sniff out someone who could use a smile with your double take.

On my most recent trip to Paris last week, I planned only a few things: a) explore the 1rst arrondisement, b) check out the Palais Royal and maybe the Museum of Decorative Arts c) having read this recent story in the NYTimes, listen to some musicians perform live on the stages of the Metro.

One of my habits on these trips has been to start the day (after coffee, which on this trip was a lovely place I walked past on Rue Saint Honore called Verlet) in a church.  For me, a church – especially the ones in Europe with layers upon layers of history -- is a reliable place to enter into stillness, but for others that may be somewhere else.  Normally I visit a church to walk through in transient awe, maybe pause for a moment or two to pray, but this time I decided to sit still for twenty minutes -- in a straight backed chair in St. Roch’s, the church in the neighborhood I was canvassing. 

Twenty minutes in the normal course of day of doing pretty much anything flies by, but twenty minutes of being mindful of the small space – even an exquisite space-- around you is quite another thing.  It’s long enough to make you feel a wee bit self-conscience but not quite long enough to take a cat nap.   As a Yoga flunky and as someone who can’t read in bed for more than ten minutes, the centripetal force in me wants to confess that I did set my iPhone timer (and notice when I heard the first footsteps at minute 14) but also encourage you that sitting still for “longer than comfortable” can be a really useful exercise.   I know it wasn’t just for me, but hearing a lone violinist fill the cavernous space just as my timer was going off felt a little like a special benediction.

At the Museum of Decorative Arts, I lost myself in a special exhibit on the graphic design of Phillipe Apeloig called “Typorama”, to the exclusion of the treasure troves of fabulousness on eight more floors.   I walked beneath the perfectly clipped pleached trees of the Palais Royal, but shied away from the exclusive boutiques with their fancy doorbells in favor of resurfacing to a place I’d been once before.  Jumping from the 1rst to the 2nd, I followed my freezing nose back to the idyllic covered passageways of Galerie Vivienne and passed through other lesser revered, but equally inviting passageways.  I stopped when I was hungry or thirsty, and when I saw a piece of carrot cake calling to me from the window.

By late afternoon it was time to chase the subway musicians.  I walked to Châtelet — the world’s largest underground station – and hunted the halls until I heard this.  Most people were too busy to stop, but I was most definitely not. 

“Earth is so thick with divine possibility, it’s a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

3 Days in Chianti, ITALY

In last weekend’s NY Times Travel section, there was an article about Chianti, Italy.   It was one of those 36 hour travel stories.   If you are contemplating a trip to Chianti (the Tuscan region between Florence and Sienna) without children, this is the article you should read.  If you are contemplating a trip to Chianti with children, you should expect to do roughly half of this list in double the amount of time.

Our family travel brand is becoming one where we like to mix city and rural travel in the same trip.   That combination isn’t possible without the luxury of a car or time, but when we get both – we find ourselves gravitating towards a balance of urban sightseeing and the active boy version of quiet retreat.  With that in mind, we decided to stay in a redone old farmhouse in Strada in Chianti (the circle closest to Florence.)  Too far to be a suburb, more like an exburb of Florence, the farmhouse was in the middle of vineyards and olive trees with enough grass to play football (Mama joined in too) and a nearby forested area teeming with wild boar hunters.

There is not much to suggest in Strada itself, save for the one recommended restaurant, the Padellina.  Known for its Bistecaa alla Fiorentina, we choose it among the four restaurants in town for our inaugural Tuscan dinner.  Arriving just before the dinner rush at 8pm on a Saturday night, we were turned away (rudely I might add) because we did not have reservations and they were “full” although there wasn’t yet a single patron in the restaurant.  If felt spurious in the moment, but upon reflection – it was consistent with other experiences we’ve had in Europe.  With value placed on unhurried dining instead of turning tables, the results are often only one to two seatings a night.  I just wish he could have been less patronizing about it so as not to cause even a hairline fracture in my certainty that Italians are the continent’s most warm and friendly people.

The irritation of that miss dissipated exactly 20 minutes later when we took a seat here.  Located up a steep zigzagging road from the town of Greve (also circled) is a hamlet called Montefioralle, population 100, with this small family trattoria called La Castellana.  With only ten tables, a prudently placed call from the car got us a Saturday night seat for what was not only a memorable first Tuscan meal – but one of the best meals we’ve had so far in Europe.   There was most definitely wild boar on the menu, and complimentary house-made grappa and limoncello to encourage us to linger long enough for our youngest to fall asleep.  By night, I was dreaming of spending a month in the kitchen of La Castellana working alongside the chef matriarch and her daughter learning how to make traditional braised beef, gnocchi with wild boar ragu, taglierini with fresh truffle, and squash blossom ravoli.  By morning, I was calling to make a reservation for the following night.  Eating at the same place twice in a row is not our family travel brand, but there are exceptions to every rule and this was one.

Day 1:  Florence

After some pointless discussion about driving or busing into Florence, we made the decision to drive the 30 minutes from Strada and park.  Totally the right call.  If you have a car and there are plenty of parking garages, best not to roll the die with Italian public transportation.  With only one day in Florence, we decided to “plaza hop”, tour The Duomo, walk across the Ponte Vecchio and past the Uffizi, and find the best pizza in the city.  I don’t know if was, but Gusta Pizza had us and crowds of other people eating out of the palms of their well-floured hands.   The boys unanimously rated Rome higher than Florence, but that could have been because we were packing everything into one day or we spent a smidgen too long in the colorful but gritty outdoor market near the Church of San Lorenzo.  Even children can sniff out cheap leather, clothing, and souvenirs.  With a second day, we would have gone into the Uffizi … but instead we moved to the countryside.

Day 2:  Spin the Bottle and pick a Winery

So there’s a lot of Chianti in Chianti.  Chianti has apparently evolved a lot since the 70s where it used to have a reputation of being low quality, but nowadays with the modification of the DOP grape mix (80% sangiovese grape + rest as you like) you can find a huge range of it.  There are eight Chianti regions for starters.   Without any predestined organization, it turned out that we were in the classified region of Chianti Classico – the most highly regarded of the eight regions.  Designated by the Black Rooster trademark, there are more farm houses/tasting rooms making/serving Chianti Classico per capita than Dunkin Donuts in Boston.  Given this abundance of opportunity, you need a guiding principle.  Ours was to listen to our Italian host Lucca who recommended a guided tour and tasting at Carpinento in Dudda (circled on map).  Learning from the previous day’s failure, we called ahead to make a reservation and confirmed that yes, of course, children would be welcome – it’s Italy!  Given the time of year, we were the only ones there and so were able to get a well-informed and generous private tour in English.   The boys especially liked seeing the bottling production in process and absorbing all the stats and figures (export to 70 countries, 2.5 million bottles per year, etc.)  The highlight for Brett and I was leaving with two cases of tasty wine (12 bottles) for just over 100 euros.  

Dudda is tiny, but also home to a small trattoria, with the unexceptional name Casa Al Chianti.  Lucca, our host who has several rental properties throughout Italy, told us that it’s the one place he eats every time he comes to Chianti because of the quality and price.  Having just dropped the 100 euros on vino and seeing that Lucca had been right about everything so far, that sounded good to us.   Fittingly we were served by a couple of Italian grandmothers where there were no printed menus, only a portable chalkboard (in background of photo below.) 

Fueled again, we then explored the bigger town of Greve – enjoying the beautiful triangle square that was written about in the NY Times article.  We also stopped in Le Cantine (also written about in the article) – perhaps the biggest wine store in Chianti.  The boys were able to taste test olive oils for free as Brett and I went to look for specific Chianti we had had for dinner the night before.  Had we not just come from the Carpinento tasting with boys winding down in endurance and understanding (“Didn’t you just buy wine?”), we might have stayed for the sheer enjoyment of using their automated system where you insert a card you purchase the register and press the button for the wine you want to taste.  It was a lovely, if not Americanized, version of a modern tasting room.  By the end of the afternoon, the boys were piled in the car while Brett and I did our best to choose a sausage from the overwhelming huge butcher shop also mentioned, Antica Macelleria Falorni.  The plan was to leave the boys at home with the sausage and other antipasti while Brett and I returned to one of the many enticing looking restaurants in Greve for dinner … but that was before we got the fireplace fire going back at the barn … 

Day 3:  Countryside Villages

By Day 3, it was time to check out and continue our trip further south into Umbria.   We had a late check in in Umbria, and so we wanted to take our time experiencing the village life of Chianti by driving along the Chiantigiana Road (SS222).  I should qualify that the “we” is this scenario was Brett and I.  The older boys made sure we knew exactly how much time we would save by taking the motorway.  Our first village stop was Panzano (circled).  This is what the 36 hours writer had to say about Panzano:

“A hilltop village may be an unlikely location for stylish fashion, but at the leather-specialty shop Verso x Verso, in the small town of Panzano in Chianti, that’s exactly what you’ll find. Even more surprising is that all the beautiful clothing and accessories on display can be made to order. So would you prefer a rounded or square toe on that handmade pair of caramel-hued oxfords? Or would you like to be fitted for a bespoke jacket — the double-zippered style in orange goat suede is gorgeous — by the Florentine-trained designer herself? After placing your order, stroll down the cobblestone alleys of this medieval village and indulge in the sunset views.  Remain in Panzano to partake in the evening’s carnivorous feast at Officina della Bistecca, a restaurant owned by the eighth-generation butcher Dario Cecchini…”

There was no strolling down the cobblestone alleys of this medieval village.  In fact, we didn’t end up getting out of the car in Panzano.  Someone (I don’t even remember who now) was in a mood and at 10 am it wasn’t exactly prime time to see a butcher.  As a substitute, we took this moment to clarify with everyone that a) yes, we would be getting out the car at the next village, b) we would all have good attitudes about it and c) no one would mention the motorway again.

By the time we got to Volpaia, everyone was on board with the reiterated plan allowing us to relish this unspoilt village -- now used exclusively as a wine estate.   Evidence of the wine production is in all the ancient houses, deconsecrated churches and all the village inhabitants are directly involved in the winery, osteria or lovely café where we stopped for an espresso and piece of coffee cake.  It felt like something out of a movie.  We learned that they have guest houses nearby, host weddings and offer cooking schools (which I bet are fabulous given the surroundings.)  We wandered in and out of the cobblestone streets, making up for missed time in Panzano, spotting vines of the berries we had just enjoyed in our pastry treats and forgetting that we had any place to be.  Brett declared it his favorite Italian hillside village thus far in our travels ...

Next stop was only 7 kilometers away in Radda in Chianti, another hub of Chianti tourism.  We bypassed Castellina in Chianti ( a stop in the 36 hour writer’s visit) in favor of Radda, a smaller but more charming (and probably more touristed in high season) version of Greve.  While we only had another yummy lunch (it’s hard to miss with fresh pastas) and a quick walk through in Radda, we decided that if we were to come back to Chianti we would lean towards staying in this area.   Without the need to do Florence, Chianti gets more and more appealing the further south you go and Radda is a good hub from which to visit Volpaia again, Siena (a place we didn’t get to on this trip) and would also be more convenient to Montalciono and Montepulciano  for a full Italian wine experience. By midafternoon, it was finally time to high tail to the motorway for Part 2 of our fall trip to Italy ... but that is for another post.  Now I need a lie down and perhaps ... a small glass of Chianti Classico.

If you go to Antwerp (this seems unlikely, huh?)

I’m going to assume that should you be afforded the opportunity to travel in Europe and you’re not in the market for diamonds, there is about a 1.5% chance that Antwerp, Belgium will be on your must see list.   It would be like someone traveling to the US with a burning desire for a Midwest stop in Indianapolis instead of Chicago.  On the website versus, when comparing Indianapolis to Chicago two of the ten reasons for Indianapolis were possibility of drinking in public places and substantially more Facebook users.  Antwerp is to Amsterdam what Indianapolis is to Chicago in terms of proximity and size, except I’m pretty confident that unlike Indianapolis, the opportunity to humiliate oneself on social media is far greater in Amsterdam.  Two pluses for Antwerp versus Amsterdam:  appreciably less rainy days and has mountains somewhere nearby.

My sister and brother-in-law came for a visit last month.   My brother-in-law stayed for ten days while my sister Beth stayed a few extra days.  With those extra days, we wanted to have some sister time away from Luxembourg just the two of us which was close and accessible by train (of which Amsterdam doesn’t qualify) with mountains of shopping (of which Germany does not qualify unless you are looking for a car, household item, or solid parka.)  Paris, of course, was the natural first choice – except Beth and Matt smartly decided to take the romantic route by building in a few days of their trip together in Paris.   They also did the evening Paris Fat Tire Bike Tour, which you should add to your travel wish list.

This is Beth and Matt in all their Parisian meets Hitchcock glory.

Antwerp was the second best choice.  Not Brussels because nobody likes Brussels.  And not Bruges, because with all due respect to medieval architecture and UNESCO World Heritage status, this was a Jimmy Choo Choo Choo kind of trip.

Boarding the local train on a Sunday afternoon, our first order of sisterly business was to photograph our being together.   The great thing about sisters is that you can insist on as many retakes of this photo as you want without any fear of being called high maintenance.   We have the same nose.  No, actually hers is bigger.  I can say that because I have more wrinkles.

This is the one we decided on.  There are only two people in the world that know how many photos preceded this one, and where to find the really good ones from yesteryear.

Four hours and one train change in Brussels later, what might have felt like finally but felt instead like already? in the presence of someone you adore, the train rolled into Antwerp Central Station.  It’s a super cool train station – some say the most beautiful in Europe – and it has a Starbucks with lots of seating and local college students.  The youth vibe is present wherever you go, making the small town of Antwerp feel more cosmopolitan.  Naturally we both had to go to the bathroom in the train station were the toilets cost one euro in contrast to the free toilets on the train, but here too there was no fear of someone not understanding your bladder.

It was raining.  Appreciably.  This condition continued for the duration of our stay, spasmodically with high winds, and never did I see anything aping like a mountain.

In a city of youth, it felt wrong to hail a cab – so with map in hand, we soldiered on in the rain from Central Station to our hotel in the heart of downtown Antwerp. I use the word "soldiered" intentionally as my feminine sister Beth was previously a US Army soldier and knows her way around a map.  (As an aside, it tickled me proud with understanding to see her husband write this on her Facebook wall yesterday for Veteran's Day: "Happy veterans day to the most beautiful women to ever wear army boots and shoot an M16." )

As it was a Sunday, most of the stores were closed along the main shopping street of Meir.  The Chocolate Line, a famous Belgian chocolate shop we had read about, was however open.  We stopped in for a taste, as you would if you were to see an old palace that had been converted into a scrumptious looking chocolate shop.   We also bought a chocolate bar for later.  Fifteen minutes after that, we found ourselves at the Fritkot Max, an also famous Belgian frite place, overlooking the Cathedral on the Groenplaats.  Trying to kill two birds with one calorically overloaded day, we devoured our first (but not last of the trip) Belgian frites.  Max, if it was the real Max, was the only unfriendly person we encountered during our Antwerp stay.  No mind though – we had curry ketchup to bring a smile to our face.

At the Matelote Hotel, a charming ten room hotel that felt more B&B than hotel, the person who showed up us to our room said: “Please help yourself to anything in the mini frig at no charge.  For legal reasons, we can’t have any alcohol in your frig – but we are Belgian, so when you come downstairs to the lobby – the first drink is on us.” After putting our bags down and umbrellas up to dry, we got that free drink and peppered our new friend with questions on where we should go to dinner.  Reading us like the tea leaves we are, he picked a great bistro for us called Le Zoute Zoen. Our friend later gave us a free breakfast just because.

The free drink. 

In a beautiful library style dining room, Beth and I enjoyed a delicious Belgian three course meal at Le Zoute Zoen for 35 euros a piece. Yes, there were mussels.  I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but I’m fairly sure that over half of it was about our food.  Then there was the banter with the next table – a drunk but entertaining-to-everyone-but-the-staff Romanian hair dresser with his friends and a tiny dog.  We passed on a chance to go somewhere with them after.  We had THE chocolate bar waiting.

Watching my sister eat her first soft boiled egg by trying to peel it was the highlight of the next day’s breakfast.  (You are supposed to tap the shell while in a cup and lift the top off. I may have been an evil sister and known something of this, but watching Beth manage the yoke in her hands was too good to pass up.)  Day two was all about shopping – mostly in small, non-chain stores.  I was all kind of a blur.  Had someone GPS’ed our movements, it could have easily been a 10k.  Many of those steps were around the Groenplaats – the central hub of the downtown corridor that we always seemed to get slightly turned around in. 

Some favorite spots were Paleis – where Jess from New Girl would totally shop with all their bright clothes, an Eileen Fischer like store called Sandwich, Sweet Soda – an Antwerp designer who I may have fallaciously believed to not lean toward the matronly, and Let’s Go Bananas where Beth did go bananas with some interesting jackets and tunics in the middle of dense forest of oddball and super inexpensive merchandise. We got the exact same brown jacket for 10 euros each.  Mine is a little snug, but for 10 euros and a chance to tell everyone “My sister has this exact same jacket.  We got it together in Antwerp.”  -- you understand.  We never intended to go to Jimmy C$oo, but on the morning on Day three we did hit the sales at some of the big chain stores.   

The second night there was Belgium beer and an interesting conversation with the bartender about the abundance of cheap faith in America and the lack of any faith in Europe.  There was also a dinner that we didn’t bother much to research – we were knee deep in laughter and topics of substance.  Aging parents, parenting boys, parenting the one girl between us -- Beth's fierce four year old daughter Rae Rae who famously told Matt when he asked her to take her hands out of her pants: "Daddy, it's my 'gina and I can do whatever I want."  The food was fine, but the vigor of a conversation with someone who knows all your nooks and crannies left us both fully satiated but also sad to be so geographically far apart. 

I had a Corsendonk.  Beth had a ?? This is where a man could have been helpful.

We all need people to share our stories with.  We also need nonpartisan fact checkers; people were there for some of most formative stories to make sure we don’t spin them into mountains or let us twist them into unnecessary corkscrews.   It’s also nice to have that person to tell us when something doesn’t fit right, or when we have three versions of that same shirt sitting in our closet.  My sister is that person for me, in Antwerp or an outlet mall somewhere in the middle of America.

 And, I’m glad she didn’t tell me the brown jacket was snug.

What kind of Salt are you shaking?

One of the advantages of living in Europe is access to affordable Fleur de Sel, the revered French finishing salt found off the coasts of Brittany.  Not only does it make everything it comes in contact with taste better, its name – unlike the ordinary Table Salt - encourages you to season with a flourish.  

Salt has often been used as a metaphor for words we speak.   It got me thinking about all the different types of salts and how they, like words, have the ability to enhance or bring out the best when used in the right context.   They say women speak close to 20,000 words in a day in contrast to a man’s 7,000.  I don’t know what they say about American women living in a French speaking country, but I do know that word count takes a massive hit.  Either I’m delivering fewer but more potent words, developing my masculine sensibilities or simply creating space in my head to think about things like Salt.  It’s still early in the day, and already I’ve launched some careless, gossipy and impatient words so the former can’t possibly be true. 

Yet, as I study and learn more about the many Salt options that line my counter – all of which flavor whatever it touches – like words, we can all use different salts for different purposes to create a salty pleasure or a salty disaster.  None of us want to intentionally ruin a dish because we weren't paying attention to our salt shaker.  

First, let’s just agree to table Table Salt.  It’s not interesting as a flavor enhancer, and because it’s laced with additives it conjures up the disingenuous words we parrot, or use to embellish or hide what we really want to say.  It’s the words we say for an audience, but would have a harder time saying to a mirror.  Sadly, it’s the blather we hear when most politicians speak.

Chunks of Rock Salt, while not suitable for cooking, serves a specific function in ice cream machines and as a chilly bed for oysters on the half shell.  It’s those words we use only in specific situations that demand it.  These are not words that enhance as much as they are words that help lower the temperature or preserve safety.   It’s the “Look Both Ways” command we give our children.

Kosher Salt is used in all kinds of cooking as it dissolves quickly; its coarse crystals applied in rough pinches rather than precise measurements.  It’s like small talk – the words without staying power, the ones that don’t have to be measured.  It's permissible gab that can be flung far and wide.  Kosher Salt is also used (in abundance) for curing meats, but then rinsed off before cookery begins much like the permeability of mindless chatter of talking too much or about nothing at all. 

Sea Salt, the dancing partner of caramel and chocolate and anything in need of a burst of flavor, is most often used not during cooking but after.  Like the words we speak - context matters.  A word said in haste, before the thought was fully baked, loses its impact for pungency.  Sea salt comes in various textures and irregular sizes depending on its mineral makeup.  Our words too can be coarsely delivered or spoken with fine precision, and what we say won’t always be consistent.   But the beauty of Sea Salt is that it’s naturally occurring impurities can add a subtlety to a dish that may not be repeatable just like the arcs of our words in unexpected conversations.

Then there are the infused Sea Salts.  Lemon Salt, Rosemary Salt, Truffle Salt and a hundred other combinations you didn’t think possible.  Perhaps those lovely embellishments of citrus and herbs are the gestures of attentiveness we do as we speak, or acts of kindness that follow up to what we say.  Or, maybe when a combination is unsavory or imbalanced it’s like body language that doesn’t match our words, or when a flavor like truffle overpowers everyone in a room.

Some salts, like Sea Salt Flakes, are best enjoyed when you release the flavor by crushing the crystals between your fingertips.  Likewise, some of our words need to be massaged first in order for them to add the right flavor note.  An uncrushed Sea Salt Flake might be rendered tasteless, or worse leave a bitter after taste, when a slight adjustment could have made the difference between a word falling on deaf ears, or hostile ones. 

Concentrated Pickling Salts, made of 100% sodium chloride and not fortified with iodine, release their flavor over time, turning cucumbers into pickles and radishes into something almost edible.  These are the words we speak with a bite because they are true; the unfiltered words that can sweeten or sour for months under a tightly capped lid.   These are the words whose trajectory we may never know.

Finally, Fleur de Sel, the special occasion salt fit for a beautiful jar, the Caviar of all salts which has spawned a new industry of Finishing Salts like it.   The unevenness of the crystals which are harvested by hand which "bloom" with just the right mix of sun and wind means it lingers in your mouth – the smaller crystals dissolving first, making way for the larger crystals to then melt and follow with a punch of their own.  The resulting bite tasty, multifaceted, yet wonderfully balanced.  It’s the words we say that linger because they were spoken with thought and care.  It’s about allowing our unique experiences of growth from the sun and tumult from the wind to shape what we say into something real, maybe even vulnerable.  It’s about leaving room for a pause.  It’s the words of genuine interest or well-timed encouragement that travel from ear to heart, lifting that which was ordinary into something special.   But it doesn’t have to only be a special occasion salt.  It could be our everyday salt - because a little bit can go a long way.

“Let your conversations be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.”

(Note: I got some info on the types and tips for using salts from this Real Simple article.) 

NBA Beat, 10 year old style

You heard it here first.  My 10 year old’s NBA Scouting Report from the playground of Luxembourg.  Even an ocean can’t stop a boy’s love of the NBA.

The below is taken exactly as written by Colin.  The only modification is that I did spell out his abbreviations for positions.  I also confirmed that the word “stunnas” was intended.     

“Watch out for the Orlando Magic this season.  Here’s why.  They may be the most balanced team in the NBA and may have the best overall bench.  With their starting small forward Tobias Harris, after the trade from the Bucks, he averaged 19 and 7.  Also Harris is probably their best overall player and best clutch player.  The Magic have amazing young talent in Vuecic, Harris, Harkless, Moore, Nicholson, Lamb and of course new rookie from Indiana Vick Oladipo.  If all the young stunnas play well and work together, the Magic would possibly be a playoff contender.”

 “The Indiana Pacers are off to a 4-0 start and the only unbeaten team in the NBA.  If there is a team in the East to watch out for, it isn’t the Heat.  It’s the Pacers.  Personally I think the Pacers have a better roster and are more dangerous at the point guard position.  Hill is better than Chalmers, shooting guard Stephenson is still young and Wade is descending.  At small forward of course they probably have the first and third best in the league.  West and Scola are two decent power forwards and Haselem stinks.  Finally Hibbert is more talented than Bosh.  Pacers are the East champions for sure.”

And this is exactly why we have the rule that no sports talk is allowed at the dinner table.

(But I love that he loves it.  And I can’t wait for tomorrow’s write up.)

Mamma Bear Success #1

We all make a LOT of parenting mistakes.  We also like to share/air our failures.  But did you see that video circulating on social media called “These Kids Finally Say What They Really Think About Mom.  And Her Reaction?”  Turns out our kids like us and are rooting for us.  So, in an attempt to shift the conversation towards the things we are doing well as Mothers, I share this story …

One of my children hates school.  I like to think of it as “He hates school right now.”, but it’s also entirely possible that this condition will persist for years to come.  As someone who not only LOVED school but loved to play school after school, I have tried to talk him out his lack of enthusiasm like a Cheerleader trying to convince a Supreme Court Justice to join in a chorus of  “Go! Fight! Win!”  Untapped motivation isn’t easily stirred up by my words, or by his brothers who are humming along with me.  

Most days my above average student with below average motivation finds a way to muster the energy to get dressed and ready for school.   He’s always the last one out the door -- perhaps hoping without hope that this might be the day I decide to home school him.  Other days it’s harder for him to rally.  There are legitimate reasons for why he may not like school very much (learning styles, social dynamics), but those reasons are harder to discuss at 7am and even more challenging when laced with comments like “School is stupid.  What’s the point of it anyway?”  That’s when Cheerleader often goes Commander and I start to say supremely unhelpful things about going to college, and getting a job and other stuff that shouldn’t be mentioned before breakfast.  Or EVER when in Commander mode. Then begins a slow moving, steam-inducing, sometimes consequence-levied 30 minutes that ultimately nets in my son making it to school, and me furious.  As soon as the door closes, my fury melts into regret and yuck that not only did I blow another opportunity to practice patience but I’ve likely lodged an unkind word or facial expression that I won’t be able to retrace.

This morning was one of those mornings where Commander Kate was invoked, but I didn’t bite.  I didn’t revert to Cheerleader Kate either.  Instead, I took several deep breaths and followed the lead of my husband whose approach on mornings like these is less talking, more doing.  He’s all about forward progress – getting dressed, getting breakfast, and allowing the cyclone of discontent to do its thing without giving it any attention except to say the facts: “We are going to school.”

I can’t will my son to love school.  I can only tell him that he has to go to school. (And help him work through the legitimate issues at a later time.) Gently.  And guess what? Gently works.  I saw it happen this morning.  And while gently was doing its work, I left my post as Commander and took a seat at the breakfast table – clear headed enough to ask my youngest son, “Did you have any dreams last night?” to which he answered, “Yep.  I dreamed that there were all these hotels with nice pools, and I fell in to one.  It’s was deep, and I couldn’t swim.  But then you came in and saved me.  It started as a bad dream, but then it was a good.  You saved me, Mommy.  And then we stayed in one of the nice hotels, but one with a shallow pool so I could swim.”

See that.  If I was following the cyclone around, getting caught up in it's energy, I would have missed this.  This fleeting dream that likely would have been forgotten by noon.  This voiced over dream that connected me to who my children say that I really am.  A Mamma who loves them and would jump in a pool to save them.  A Mamma that is still teaching her children to swim.

It started as a bad morning, but then it was good.   And without any residual yuck.   A Mamma Bear Success.