The Rake Magazine

Month: November 2005

  • New Beginnings and Dead Ends

     

    The other day, we noticed one of those traffic-counting devices on the Cedar Lake bike path—the little black hose that crosses the trail and enters the silver lockbox. It tallies the number of vehicles that pass. We also noticed some kids jumping up and down on that hose, and we did nothing.

     

    This is the weather where we earn our proudest statistics. For example, the Twin Cities is now known as the American city with the highest number of bike commuters. Almost three percent of all commuters are pedaling to work here, and that is regardless of the season—if you believe the traffic counters.

     

    If that number is a lie, it is a white lie. If it reflects what we ought to be more than what we are, it still can spur public policy in admirable ways. For example, the recently passed federal transportation bill dedicated $25 million to developing more bike paths throughout the state, but mostly in the Twin Cities. That may seem frivolous. But long-range thinking always seems frivolous if you measure time in terms of banking statements. Since transportation is one of the “biggest challenges” facing our city and state, why sniff at such a simple transportation alternative—the modest bicycle? Why must we persist in the endless idolization of the automobile? Completing and linking bike paths along Hennepin from Loring Park to Eleventh Street, for example, should be considered money in the bank. It will insure against the inevitable lawsuit after a cyclist eventually gets killed trying to bike from Uptown to downtown. To a personal injury lawyer, that sign that says “Bike Path Ends” translates into “Big Money Ahead.”

    $$$

    A mile of bike path costs between $100,000 and $1 million (depending on the cost of acquiring land; thus more expensive in the city than in the suburbs). A mile of new freeway comes with a price tag of up to $75 million. One man’s pork is another’s beans. The cynic will say that bike paths do nothing to relieve automobile congestion, and that may be true. But the bike path completely relieves automobile congestion for one person—the person who switches to a bike.

     

    One thing we always liked about our newly re-elected mayor was his commitment to alternative transportation, and his enthusiasm for bike paths in the city. But we’ve had our disagreements with Mayor Rybak on other issues. Now that he’s secured another four years of public service, we hope he’ll seriously consider putting more police officers on the street. We’d like to see more cops downtown, walking the beat. Put them on bikes; there’s two birds in the hand. A cop on every corner, and the petty thugs on a road trip to Splitsville.

     

    Which for some reason reminds us of the Vikings. This year, we are all on the trail of tears with the—er, Purple People Eaters. We have nothing more to add to the huddle, other than to say it is much harder to get into trouble on a bike than on a boat. Even a bicycle built for two.

     

    The other day, we listened to a public radio program about the modern “Minuteman” movement. It is made up of persons who are deeply disturbed about illegal aliens. Minutemen voluntarily patrol the nation’s borders with Mexico and Canada. They are suspicious of our government, and the feeling is mutual; President Bush has discredited them as “vigilantes.” If it survives to the next election cycle, the Republican Party actually prefers open borders and the cheap labor they ensure. That whole terror thing? It is merely a tool to whip up middle-class fear, not to actually motivate the rednecks to get out there and patrol the borders in a spirit of manly camaraderie.

     

    We’re not sure where Katherine Kersten would come down on the issue of same-sex vigilantism. But we do know the Strib’s token exurbanite has drawn a line in the sand many times now as regards same-sex marriage. Obviously, the problem with drawing a line in sand is that it tends to keep erasing itself in the absence of any solid logic. The other day, Kersten wrote, “A proposal to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman in Minnesota’s Constitution is one of the biggest issues our state will face in the next legislative session,” and, “when marriage is redefined, other social institutions are likewise transformed.” By way of example, she notes that Canada passed same-sex marriage rights last year, and as a result Canadian society is on the brink of collapse. “If someone tells you same-sex marriage won’t affect your marriage, tell them to look north. The evidence is building.” (We wonder if the Minutemen have noticed from their post at the border.) Even if we wished to take her word for it, Kersten has the bad habit of impeaching herself. “Ironically,” she can’t seem to help herself from writing, “it appears that only a small fraction of gay Canadians have taken advantage of their new right.” An example (O rara avis!): “A church in Calgary offered a marriage-preparation course for same-sex couples but had to cancel it because only one couple showed up,” her sources tell her. Let’s see if we understand this correctly: Gay marriage is transforming Canadian society, though no gay Canadians are actually getting married. How odd. If Kersten’s prose were a trail, it would somehow manage to be both circular and end in a brick wall.

     

    Or up a tree. This year, the DNR is so concerned about the proliferation of deer, and the extinction of the hunter, that it has increased the bag limit to up to five deer per hunter. That’s a lot of venison for one self-righteous, conservative columnist to haul out of the woods alone. Still, here is our prediction for this year’s hunt: We imagine the deer will lose, and one of the governor’s favorite concerns—the makers of ATVs—will win, with all those dead deer, and so few hands to haul them out of the woods. Put us down as people who feel this is a mild form of cheating. Hunting deer with an ATV is rather like golfing with a cart. If you can’t get out there on your own, the way the deer did, then you have an unfair advantage. We know of at least one person who does his deer hunting with a bow, and navigates the woods on his mountain bike. Now that’s the true path of manliness.

  • St. Petersburg, Russia

    Dan, of Edina, writes: I thought you would be interested to know they are still reading your subversive rag in St. Petersburg, Russia. This picture is of Dan and Amy Steinhagen and 8 year old Thor Sheinhagen at the Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

    Daniel Steinhagen

  • Zermatt, Switzerland

    Nancy Spannaus writes: I’ve attached a shot of Glory Kibbel and myself at the Matterhorn on a late September/early October trip to Zermatt, Switzerland. We waited anxiously
    for 3 days for a clear day and unclouded view of the Matterhorn. On the
    third morning, we opened our hotel room drapes to this view. Truly a breath
    taking sight! The photo was taken of us on the hotel room balcony, with
    camera on a tripod in our room, and using the camera’s self-timer mechanism.

    Nancy Spannaus

  • Nisswa, MN

    Randee Laskewitz writes: Here I am with my friend Sally Cleland, enjoying one of the last balmy days at Pelican Lake near Nisswa. MN. It was “some juicy tidbit” we were sharing.

    Randee Laskewitz

  • Statue of Liberty

    Hi, Attached is a picture of my son and I reading the RAKE at the Statue of Liberty in NY during our vacation last week. Marcia and Gabe Bethke

    Marcia and Gabe Bethke

  • Tour de France

    Sebastian Kruse (age 2) and his father, Corwin at the starting line of the
    2006 Tour de France at Place Kléber in Strasbourg, France.

    Cristy Kruse

  • Ugly, Expensive, and Very, Very Tasty

    The month of November is the prime of white truffle season. Never mind black truffles—the whites are where it’s really at. The most prized fungi in the world, they fetch up to fifteen hundred dollars a pound and look exactly like clods of dirt. Shaved thinly over a dish of hot pasta, their elusive flavor lies somewhere between wood smoke and brown butter, or roasted meat and overripe cheese. With a primal aroma that in its muskiness both seduces and repels us in the same instant, truffles hold a special, outlaw place in the collective taste. Unable to characterize the scent, gourmets throughout history were relieved to call it “aphrodisiac” and leave it at that.

    To that point, scientists have since discovered that truffles produce a chemical identical to the one present in the saliva of wild boars, the very stuff to which the wild sow is attracted. The chemical likeness to boar pheromone would explain the attraction for wild pigs and their usefulness in finding truffles amid the tree roots.

    Technically, they’re a kind of mushroom, species name Magnatum Pico. Most mushroom systems, or plants, reside beneath the humus layer of the forest, decomposing roots and such. At one point in this process, and in some cases in the space of an hour, they give birth to a fruiting body, which is the mushroom itself and the part we eat. Truffles never get that far. They remain below deck, compressing into something of such gastronomic value that it’s almost mineral. Like the first person to find the rust-colored ore so essential to making iron, the original truffle hunter must have had the same squinting ability to divine the hidden value inside a dirty chunk of earth.

    Although people are taking to the woods and hunting them down in Oregon, the bulk of truffles used by restaurants in the U.S. still come from Europe, mostly from Italy’s Piedmont region, where they claim to produce a truffle with special, delicate flavor. Although the demand for truffles has grown in recent years, the supply hasn’t, and the precious harvest has become even more dear.

    Just as a squirrel climbs to the tops of trees and gnaws off the freshest, tightest pinecones to add to his nest, it’s human nature to covet special, limited harvests. In New York, where everything is available for the right price, and where decadence never goes out of fashion, they clamor for the rare and hard-to-get. White truffles, trumping even foie gras, argan oil, and rare beef, are the bling of the food world. This explains why, though cost-prohibitive to most Americans, fresh truffles are so common in upscale Manhattan restaurants that cooks handle them with an offhand nonchalance which belies their price. A simple truffle sauce, from the French repertoire and common in four-star kitchens, begins with caramelized onions, garlic, a bottle of Madeira, veal sauce, and thick cream. It is finished with a generous grating of white truffle, costs hundreds of dollars to produce, and garnishes perhaps a mere two dozen plates.

    As if the kitchens weren’t hectic enough in the fall, what with cooks hustling to make it through the busy season, insert a bunch of flashy truffle salesmen into the mix. Starting in mid-October and continuing until just past the New Year, these purveyors of the delicacy tromp through the dining rooms and into the kitchens, trailing small black leather valises. For the most part they’re slick dressers and partial to very expensive sunglasses that they tend to wear well past the hour when they need to do so. Speaking somewhat brusquely, with (usually Italian) accents, they locate the chef and lift their mysterious black leather valises onto the countertop. Ducks and fish are pushed aside. A very fancy scale, generally shiny with chrome, appears. It conducts the business of measuring the truffle weight, gram by gram, with an exactitude usually reserved for the weighing of other controlled, precious substances. The black-clad European unzips the case and releases an unmistakable and essential truffle odor so strong that it takes perhaps ten seconds for the aroma to reach every cook in kitchen. Like dogs, their noses lift in the air. Sous chefs set down their knives and move in closer, as if they were needed in the bargaining process. Ambitious cooks peer over the pile and have something to say. Managers stop by in passing to offer their own vacuous observations. Meanwhile, everyone in the room is dumbly thinking, Wow. Truffles.

    The chef, however, is thinking about the sale and how to get the best price from the wily salesmen. He chooses the finest three of the bunch, the most firm and aromatic knobs, and signs an agreement to pay nearly two thousand dollars. Taking the stairs two at a time, he immediately begins to envision additional courses on the truffle prix fixe menu.

    That seven-course menu, at $250 a pop, begins to make a dent in the seasonal truffle debt. (I don’t think they make all that much on the truffles: Providing them is more like a service, or for publicity.) For that kind of money there are truffles tucked between the milky slices of raw, live, sea scallop; truffles with potatoes and brin d’amour cheese; truffles shaved over fresh tortellini in capon broth; truffles balancing atop tender pink veal loin.

    But it’s a telling irony that truffles are best with the plainest, most elemental ingredients: potatoes, eggs, bread. Any great chef will tell you this: If you have a great truffle, eat it with scrambled eggs. Shave it into potato salad. Or, to call up the image of Italian peasants in little stone houses, sit in front of the fire, alternately chipping at a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a crumbling chunk of white truffle. Mop up the bits with a crust of bread thickly spread with good butter.

    At the end of the night the chef stores what’s left of the gnarly globe in a small varnished cigar humidor, nestled into a bed of vialone nano rice alongside a half-dozen eggs. It doesn’t take more than a full day for the truffles to impart their fragrance to the eggs and the rice, which are then turned into “truffled risotto” and “truffled sabayon.” This truffling, now a verb, seems a wondrous trick of nature, but it really does work.

    Maybe it’s this trickster quality of the truffle that we desire. Animal or vegetable? Right or wrong? Like or lust? We like it because the first taste of a dish with white truffles never fails to unsettle us. During those first seconds, before you have determined whether it tastes good or bad, the brain nonetheless craves more. And we will pay good money for that.—Amy Thielen

     

     

  • Fraters knee RT right in his dignity

    rtjumps200x311.jpg
    You guys were supposed to catch me

    Their Latin sucks, but I have to hand it to Fraters Libertas for at least having a sense of humor to go with their conservative outlook.

    It seems RT hurt himself jumping from a Gay Pride float in last summer’s parade and the Fraters (or Fratres, if you actually know Latin) couldn’t resist the obvious joke.

    Today’s post, It’s Raining Men, is pretty funny, in an RT-phobic sort of way.

    Anyway, you have to admit R.T. left himself wide open for it…so to speak.

    si valetis, ego valeo, fratres.

  • This is not technically about Kersten

    todd.gif
    “Todd is the youngest and most impressionable member of the happy Flanders clan”

    I swore off writing about Kersten yesterday. I just got around to remembering the old proverb that goes something like “The only person more foolish than a fool is someone who argues with a fool.” So, this column is not about Kersten, it’s about her defenders, (although I’m not sure that exempts me from the “more foolish” category.)

    Today (hell, every day) the Strib editors scramble to find a way to justify their publishing of her drivel. Today they publish a letter from a high school student–a high school student, for God’s sake–in defense of their idiotic decision to continue to publish nonsense.

    The argument this student puts forth is that “liberals” scream louder than conservatives. Yeah, and we have more rhythm, too.

    But that’s not the worst. The worst was the “Letter of the Day” from Todd Flanders. First, having letters from Simpsons’ characters is bad enough, but letting him get away with equating conservative think tanks with legitimate universities is inexcusable. The unchallenged assertion that such think tank “scholars” work there because they can’t get jobs at liberal dominated universities is unsupported by anything other than conservative assertion, which I guess doesn’t differentiate it much from what the think tanks themselves turn out.

    Anyone who does a modicum of research can easily find out that “think tanks” funded by conservative groups are bald faced attempts to pass off junk science as the underpinnings of conservative economic and social dogma. There’s no peer review of their findings, no checks to what they’re shoveling. They just take the money and publish what’s expected. They count on the public, and the editors of the Strib, evidently, to not know the difference. And so far they’re getting away with it.

    That’s how we get Intelligent Design, Supply Side Economics, The Bell Curve, Social Security Reform, Gays as Destroyers of the Social Fabric, and the impending end of Public Education. And that’s how we get Katherine Kersten and a major metropolitan newspaper full of uncritical tripe published in the name of balance.

  • Why Don't We Do It in the South Atlantic?

    Yesterday was the 154th anniversary of Moby Dick. It was published first in Great Britain, then in the U.S. on November 14th, 1851. Longtime readers of this little cereal-box side-panel will recall my month-long rereading last year of what I still think is the best American novel, although I freely confess a fetish for long passages of baroque Victorian prose–and Melville’s style is so different from the moderns (from Twain to Hemingway and Faulkner) that comparing them does violence to both. Still, a sympathetic reader will see a lot of modernity in Moby-Dick, particularly the easy shift from dramatic narrative to pedantic philosophy and didactic science. The allegorical qualities of Moby-Dick (chasing that White Whale–truth–to the death of the Pequod–the world) may be what make it timeless in the literary syllabus. But as far as sailing stories, it also ranks among the best. It’s not a genre I know fabulously well, but Conrad’s “Typhoon” figures promininetly as a post-industrial interpretation, as does Gore Vidal’s “Williwa” (that author’s very first novel).

    Moby Dick did not do well in its initial printing. The standard line of thought is that the publisher accidentally left out the epiologue in the British edition–that’s the final chapter that explains how the narrator of the story managed to survive the wreck of the Pequod to tell the story. This supposedly led to bad critical reviews which negatively affected American readers. I have my doubts about that sort of reduction, but it is intriguing to think about how Anglo-centric the publishing world still was, eighty years after the Revolutionary War. If you read the allegedy negative contemporary reviews of Moby Dick, it becomes clear that Melville was a sort of reverse Beatles of his time. An American rock star storming the shores of Olde World, and this was his misunderstood White Album. Coincidentally, the book announced and recorded for posterity the moment when American commercial shipping surpassed the Brits, the Dutch, and even the Norwegians.