Category Archives: Friends Along the Way

Friends Along the Way, Social Justice, Writing

An earth-shattering Kaboom

Leave a comment

There’s a great Looney Tunes character by the name of Marvin the Martian. He was always trying, unsuccessfully, to blow up the Earth. Usually, his equipment would act as a dud, until he walked over to it. In a little nasal, strangled voice, he’d say, “Kaboom… There was supposed to be an earth-shattering Kaboom…” Then it would blow him up.

Whenever Barry and I send out a big important e-mail, one of us will say, “Kaboom… There was supposed to be an earth-shattering Kaboom…”

A big important e-mail can be a resume for a job you really, really want. You’re praying that you didn’t misspell your own name when you hit Send. It can be a party invitation for Friday the 10th, only half your friends show up on Friday the 9th and the other half show up on Saturday the 10th. It can be a holiday letter to 50 friends that says “Had a great trip to Fart Rock this summer.”

I’ve been volunteering down at the Bahia Street office for about a month now, and I’ve had several “Kaboom” moments. One of my first projects was sending out our quarterly update e-mail, a delightful letter written by co-director Margaret Willson. That went to about 575 people, mostly by e-mail. Then I wrote a brief e-mail to our Seattle area donors and volunteers, about 400 people, asking for volunteers for an event. I got a number of friendly and positive responses.

Yesterday, I worked on my most earth-shattering project yet. Once a year, we send out a real letter in the mail, asking for donations. I was brainstorming with Margaret Willson about it, since she has always written and signed such correspondence since we started in 1998. Somehow, we came up with the idea that I, as a founding board member, should write and sign the letter. It sounded like a fun writing challenge, so I said, “Sure!”

I sat down at the computer and mentally pictured a couple of friends who are on the mailing list. Then I started typing what I would say to them. It wasn’t all that difficult, and the letter was done in an hour or two. I showed it to Margaret and Nancy and Barry, and each of them suggested some good edits. I listened to each suggestion, thinking, “Would I use those words if I was speaking? Then I made changes carefully, being sure to keep the letter in my own “voice.”

That’s where a letter is different from an article or a book. As a professional editor, I believe everything written can benefit from editing. But a letter is a special case: If it’s too polished, or if there are words the author wouldn’t normally use, it can actually lose credibility. It’s the difference between having your name at the top of the paper, and having your name (and signature) at the bottom.

I didn’t give it a lot more thought until I arrived at the office yesterday morning, ready to do the actual mailing. Nancy had done all the printing, and boxes of envelopes were stacked three and four high on the table. The letters themselves sat nearby, a pile of almost 700 pieces of paper with my name at the bottom.

Stuffing envelopes all day was not like hitting “send” on an e-mail. It was much worse. During the hours of envelope stuffing, my mind was free to really worry. Was the letter OK? Would our supporters mind that I had written it, instead of the usual Margaret? Would someone find fault with my grammar or spelling? Would anyone be offended?

I suppose that’s one reason people are often intimidated by writing. There’s a fear of putting your words on the line, such that you can’t take them back or soften them. I’m never been intimidated by that before, but then, I’ve never sent a letter to 700 people.

Was there supposed to be an earth-shattering Kaboom, or is that just the sound of my confidence cracking?

By the way, if you aren’t on the Bahia Street mailing list, and you’d like to receive my wonderful letter, let me know. You can also go to the site and sign up for the mailing list. While you’re there, please make a donation — thank you!

Friends Along the Way, Living in New Orleans

Update on the Beans Gang

Leave a comment

When I posted that last piece, I really wondered what had become of Dave and Simon and all the wonderful Monday night bean-eaters. Luckily for me, the Internet is a small world.

Simon read that piece and used the “comment” feature to give us a quick update — the storm blew him to Austin, Texas, about 450 miles from New Orleans, where he’s starting over. He also let us know that Dave had landed in Illinois.

A few days later, an e-mail from Dave appeared, entitled “Moored in Champaign.” His mother, who lives outside Champaign, Illinois, opened her house to 11 refugees. In the weeks since the hurricane, they’ve rented a couple of houses there, where the kids are in school and several of the grownups are working in a local chocolate store. According to Dave, “I’ve still got work from existing clients, which I’m very thankful for. Now just to find the time to start working again (being a refugee is a lot of work!).”

In response to my offer to replace the crockpot, Dave wrote, “As far as I know, the crockpot and rice maker are OK.”

A couple of paragraphs from Dave’s update give an inside glimpse at the refugee experience:

In addition to the work, we’ve also received a lot of charity. FEMA has given us some money, as has the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and Champaign County Public Aid (food stamps). We’ve also got a host of public services being offered for free to us here in Champaign-Urbana (as they are to evacuees everywhere). And then there’s the font of cash, gift cards, clothes, food, etc. we’ve been receiving from family and friends. Wow. It’s really been amazing, this outpouring of support from everyone from complete strangers to close friends. As traumatic as this all has been, the love, kindness and generosity we’ve experienced has been downright inspiring and deeply touching. We feel profoundly appreciative. Thank you all.

So we are settling in here and trying to make the most of being here. We all miss our home very much. We want to go back as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. Ana still has her job at Tulane and they sound like they are determined to re-open in January. If so, we’ll probably be back by then at the latest. Our house fared very well in the storm, considering some of the experiences of others we know. I’ve attached a picture taken on Thursday of last week by the intrepid David Martin. You can see the waterline on the garage door. Thankfully, it didn’t get high enough to damage our main level (where most of the red beans and rice congregating happens). We have likely, however, lost some personal, irreplaceable things which were stored on our ground level. We hope to go back to New Orleans for a couple days soon to recover a few things we didn’t bring in the evacuation. We also want to try to arrest the mold growth as best we can.

Home of red beans and rice

Dave Martin, who took the photograph of the house, commented that he was currently in New Orleans dealing with “floody mattresses” in his “poo stained” house. Lucky for us, he was inspired to write some beans lit (or maybe it’s no-beans lit) a couple of weeks ago:

Totally unauthorized beanetry to be sung to the tune of “The Old Cotton Fields Back Home”, more or less:

After this damp hiatus
Dave’s beans shall again cause flatus
and I will cross a sea of crestin’ foam.

Cause when the crockpot is a hummin’
them folks’ll all be comin’
to Lapeyrouse from wherever they may roam.

When Brad’s rice cooker is poppin’
well on Dave’s door we’re knocking
cause y’all all know New Orleans is our home

It all comes down to that concept of home. Your home is in your community, and the folks who return have to reconnect with their community. All over the country, people are wondering why New Orleans residents would return to such a place, where nature has destroyed the infrastructure and may do so again, as evidenced by Hurricane Rita. It comes down to community, which requires people to live near each other: How can you get together for Monday night supper when your friends have been blown all over the country?

From exile in Austin, Simon commented, hopefully, “Someday there will be Monday night beans again. :)”

I was hopeful, too, that someday I can make it back to New Orleans for a bowl of beans with Dave. After reading the following paragraph from him, I’m certain of it:

Of all the things I miss about New Orleans, it’s my friends I miss most. And the center of gravity of my longing is our weekly red beans and rice gathering. I know many others miss it too. To me, I won’t really be home until I’m crocking up a pot of beans again and opening the door to greet my friends on a Monday night.

Awfully Funny, Friends Along the Way, Living in New Orleans

The Best of Beans Lit

2 Comments

Another Monday has come and gone. Still no message from Dave Cash. I could cry.

The night before Hurricane Katrina came ashore, I sent a tongue-in-cheek e-mail to Dave, in New Orleans. The subject line was “World’s largest bowl for soaking beans” and the text read: “If the whole city fills up with water, you could soak a LOT of red beans! Good luck with the storm — we’ll be thinkin’ of you and the Monday night gang.”

Looking back at the message, I cringe at my attempted humor. Even with the warnings and predictions, we all thought that the storm would bring only minimal damage to folks like Dave.

We met him at a birthday party in New Orleans. We’d been nervous and unsure, not knowing anyone at the party. The only other private party we’d been to had involved a lot of drinking, and someone had thrown his (not-quite-empty) daiquiri cup on my head. But Simon and Kalleen put on a low-key, fun celebration, with Lebanese food and a Mexican pinata. Guests took turns hanging upside down from Simon’s inversion table, with much hilarity.

Finally, they brought out two birthday cakes, ice cream cakes from Dairy Queen. Then Simon looked over at Dave, with whom I’d been chatting, and looked abashed. “Oh, sorry about that, Dave,” he said. Dave just smiled. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’m used to it.”

Dave Cash is a vegan, the only healthy-looking person I’ve ever met who eschews all animal products, including dairy products and eggs. (Most vegans I’d met were teenaged girls who live on peanut butter and celery.) At Simon’s party, Dave invited us to his house for red beans and rice. “I do it every Monday,” he said. “Give me your e-mail address, and I’ll add you to the invite list.”

The following Monday, the first e-mail arrived. The subject, “Red Sea’s Cleft Wide,” made no sense to us, but the salutation, “Hello, Hungry Person!” got my attention. The message included the time, address, and directions. At the bottom was the recipe for the beans.

What makes the weekly invitation special, and the reason we asked Dave to leave us on the list when we left New Orleans, is something called “beans lit.” Friends and participants in the weekly dinner send poems — limericks, haiku, songs — and Dave publishes one of them each week with the invitation.

The first invitation we received was especially fortuitous. It included a piece by Mike Hahn entitled “The Ballad of Bean Night,” and it actually explained Dave’s tradition:

(to the tune of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” with apologies to Paul Henning and props to the late, great Buddy Ebsen)

Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Dave
and the celebrated legend of the weekly feast he gave.
He came from Californy went on down to New Or-leens,
where his roommate Chris started cooking up beans.

Red beans and rice that is. Big Easy style. Nice and spicy.

Well, afore too long Chris moved outa town,
But Dave up and said “I think I’ll stick around”.
So he loaded up a pot with his special recipe
and started serving beans out for absolutely free.

No cost that is. Gratis. Everybody’s welcome.

Well the next thing you know Dave’s got a million friends
And folks might think this is where the story ends.
But the legend carries on, to everyone’s delight,
Beans are on at Dave’s place every Monday night.

Bean eatin’ and jawbonin’. Come on in and set a spell.
Take your shoes off.

Y’all come back now, y’hear?

We later found out that Dave had been doing this, every single Monday, for almost ten years. It’s not a potluck, although people occasionally bring a salad or some wine, and Dave never asks for money. Over the years, he’s built a small community around the weekly dinner.

At the time, the three-person crew of Cayenne was no stranger to red beans and rice, since Brian had discovered a 10-minute mix made by a local food company, Louisiana Fish Fry. He loved the stuff and could have eaten it every day. When I provisioned the boat for long-distance cruising, I tucked dozens of packages of it into every locker and crevice.

On that first Monday at Dave’s, I felt like I’d found an oasis in the middle of the desert. For me, the boatyard where we lived was a lonely place. I couldn’t converse with the men who worked there, all of them sexist, racist, or both. The people I ran into at the grocery store and the post office were from east New Orleans — black folks with their own social structure, not interested in friendly banter in the checkout line.

Suddenly, I discovered a whole new group of New Orleans people: People who were open-minded and liberal. We stood around the kitchen, grousing about politics and the war, and the conversation drifted to music, psychology, and books. It was an old kitchen, functional but not beautiful, with a long table along the wall for the crockpot and rice cooker. An open cupboard held dozens of multicolored handcrafted bowls, and there were plenty of mismatched spoons for everyone. A shelf over the beans held bottles of hot sauce, the variety looking like a grocery store display.

Dave explained that Monday beans is a tradition in New Orleans; in the old days, women who worked on plantations did laundry that day. The beans would simmer on the fire all day and be served up with minimal fuss in the evening, when the laundry-workers were tired. The same technique worked for Dave, whose beans simmered all day in the crockpot while he worked, too.

Barry and I tried to start a similar tradition in Seattle, while we were refurbishing our house. We sent out an e-mail invitation, cooked up a mess of beans and rice, and waited expectantly. From the message I sent Dave, the first week wasn’t much of a success:

“Well, it was a total bust, here in Seattle. We sent the e-mail out over the weekend, but nobody got it until Monday morning. Since Seattlites are notoriously un-spontaneous, nobody showed up! I think we’ll have better luck next week. We might be a bit tired of red beans & rice by next week, since we’re gonna be eating the leftovers ALL week, at EVERY meal.”

On week two, luckily, some of our Seattle friends came by. That inspired my first Seattle-based beans lit:

Way up here in Seattle we thought
We would cook Dave’s red beans in a pot
All the chickens are glad
And the cows are not mad
Now we hope our friends come eat a lot!

But my attempts were nothing like the real, New Orleans-based beans lit. We had asked Dave to leave us on the list, so every week an invitation appeared in our e-mail box. The first one of 2005, by someone named “Dapper Dave,” read:

I have never been one to believe in a higher power. However, after I started reading and writing Beans Lit. I started getting a glimmer of belief. How could it be just coincidence that “beans” rhymes so conveniently with one way of pronouncing “Orleans”?

A couple of months later, Dave was desperate. He had no submissions from his friends, and was forced to write the following himself:

I sure wish I had some nice penneds
From my bean-eating, scribbling friends
But alas I have naught
So I whine in this spot
And hope this sad word drought soon ends

This was so successful (or so awful) that Dave subsequently received five new submissions, including this winner from Tom McDermott:

One night, when low on his means,
Hunter Thompson came over for beans.
He smashed all the glasses
offended the lasses
then wrote up all of these scenes.

A few weeks later, McDermott had me on the floor, laughing:

One week when they tired of rice
Dave and Ana served red beans and mice
Their guests were appalled
Overwhelmingly galled
But both their cats thought it was nice

Laundry, one of the two cats, made a guest appearance in this poem, one of the last we received:

Laundry is in a quandary; she knows not what to do.
Should she stay with Dave and Ana, or start her life anew?
Eight more lives of eating cat food is an outlook horribly bleak
Compared to being able to eat red beans and mice once a week.

Not all the poetry rhymed. Dave Martin provided this lovely haiku:

How can seventeen
Syllables suffice to praise
The glorious bean?

Most folks wrote about the beans, this piece, from Dapper Dave, gave a different perspective:

From “A Liberation Manifesto from Friends of Oppressed Grains”:

Too long has a certain delicacy been called “red beans and rice”, for red beans would be nothing without the support of the noble rice grain. Red beans are totally dependent on rice to be edible. Not so rice, which is a delicacy when combined with many of the world’s finest foods. Demand that from now on this dish be referred to as “noble grains of rice with a few red beans”!

My favorites were always the ones by Mike Hahn, who Dave called “the father of the beans lit and the no-beans lit.” Hahn invented something called a “beanerick”:

A beanerick is a poem of five lines
With a-a-b-b-a ending rhymes.
Its strange sounding name
Derives from the claim
That at Dave’s we eat beans, not limes.

Hahn’s inspirations are varied, and he juxtaposes some weird stuff:

Hieronymus Bosch was uptight,
So he painted all the wrong sights.
Remove the sordid and doomed,
replace with tasty legumes,
For a Garden of Beanly Delights.

Not all of Hahn’s stuff was beanericks, as this piece illustrates:

Beans

I THINK that I have never seen
a poem as lovely as a bean.

A bean my hungry mouth does seek
to probe its form with tongue and cheek.

A bean that looks me in the face
And promises delightful taste.

A bean I measure head to head,
A prolate spheroid cloaked in red.

Upon whose bosom spice has lain,
That spark synapses in my brain.

Like all beans past and those to come,
To nourish us it will succumb.

For poems are made by fools and queens;
But only God can make a bean.

Dave only took a few Mondays off from red beans and rice each year. He had a stock message for those times when he was out of town:

“Regretfully, I must inform you that our usual Monday night beans and rice dinner will not be happening tonight. Unless you hear otherwise, we’ll be back at it next Monday. So keep your spoons sharpened and come see us soon!”

But Hahn was so inspired last year that he raised the bar. In addition to submitting beans lit, he also started writing no-beans lit, pieces Dave could send out on the rare occasions when supper was cancelled:

When Bean Night goes on hiatus
Dave emails to update the status
And his trusty bean pot
Stays stone cold, not hot
Cause he’s resting his bean apparatus

On August 22nd, we received the usual invitation with a subject line of “Rock Bridge O’er Tides” and a short poem by Rachel Watts. The following Monday, I didn’t expect to get an e-mail from Dave — I figured the power was out and he was “resting his bean apparatus.” But four Mondays have gone by now with no message to my in-box, and I wonder and worry. Where is Dave? Has he lost his computer and his e-mail list? Where are the rest of the folks who get together on Mondays? Will we ever receive another message?

I’m sure this is not the end of the tradition, and I’m keeping my spoon sharpened. Someday, I’m sure Dave will return, and the beans will bubble in the pot. Then Monday nights will again be like this (from David Martin):

‘Twas steamy and the garlic cloves
Did waft and tittle down by Dave.
All famished were bohemians
And auto mechanics raved.

Dave serves the beans on Banks, my friends –
these meatless beans they have no match.
knock and they will let you in:
there’s no doorknob but a latch.

Dave takes his kitchen knife in hand,
takes out the fixin’s he has bought,
not reading from some recipe
he chops into the pot.

And as a chopping there he stands
the red beans soaking e’er the same
the beans get spilled and get spilled good
a-burbling o’er the flame.

Two by two they’re through and through
Dave’s kitchen on a Monday night.
He leaves them fed and it is said
he does that very right.

Oh have you eaten Dave’s red beans,
vegan legumes: his fiendish ploy?
O Mondilicious-day! Callooh! Callay!
Dig in now don’t be coy!

‘Twas steamy and the garlic cloves
did waft and tittle down by Dave.
All famished were bohemians
and auto mechanics raved.

You can find Dave’s recipe on the recipe page of our site, under Red Beans and Rice from Dave Cash.

Friends Along the Way, Limericks, Messing About in Boats

Formerly known as Nereid

Leave a comment

Her shape is quite beamy, not narrow
Her mast is as straight as an arrow
With her Cap’n, named Jac
We are glad to be back
Aboard Nereid, now known as Sparrow!

We were glad to meet Jac, face to face
So we signed on as crew for a race
But the gods were unjust
“Around Shaw” was a bust
Of the wind, there was nary a trace

***
Of the 68 boats that started the Around Shaw race, we were among the 63 that did not finish. Still, a bad day racing beats a good day working, any time!

Awfully Funny, Friends Along the Way, Living in the Pacific Northwest

That’s me in the monkey mask

Leave a comment

New Orleans is a city known for parades. They pack hundreds of parades into Mardi Gras season, lining the streets to catch plastic beads and a glimpse of a bare breast.

Here in Seattle, we do it differently. We have a few bare breasts, but without as much alcohol, the spontaneous ones are more rare. Our summertime is a parade of parades, one in a different neighborhood every weekend.

For me, the best one kicks it off: Opening Day, the so-called opening day of boating season. Although we “open” the season, we’ve actually never “close” it — we sail year round!

Our first years in Seattle, we sat on shore with family members, munching on picnic fare. After the crew races came a parade of boats through the narrow Montlake Cut. There were classic powerboats with yachties on them, standing at attention in white pants and blue blazers. There were sailboats, flying huge beautiful spinnakers. But why were the sailboats motoring backwards? Oh – the wind was from the wrong direction! Barry loved the little floating Shriner cars, complete with round headlights. We all oohed at the fireboat, all hoses going, like an enormous red fountain.

My favorite were the decorated boats, true parade “floats.” Just like a land parade, there were people in costume on boats that were decorated to look like something other than boats. Gigantic umbrellas one year, coffee puns the next — there was always a theme to spark creativity.

Once we got involved in sailing, we started recognizing our friends in the parade. I grew envious, sitting on shore. What fun it would be to sail in the parade, waving and grinning at the crowd!

Last week, that’s where I was, aboard the sternwheeler Banjo. I wore long gloves and a garden hat, throwing kisses to the fellows onshore and waving at the children. Barry, in ascot, sleeve garters, and spats, waved at the ladies. The weather was perfect, the potluck was fun, and the boat’s owner, Sam Garvin, got a third-place trophy. It was my dream come true. My friends ashore probably wondered why I was frolicking, showing an inordinate amount of bosom, aboard a boat with a huge banner reading “Seattle Singles Yacht Club!”

Sam Garvin and Banjo
A gal and her sternwheeler: Sam Garvin and Banjo

Barry with Meps and Sam
Barry has his hands full!

The crew with the SSYC banner
Don’t tell ‘em we’re married!

Our Banjo invitation had come, not from Sam, but from Craig, a man with an amazing wealth of boating friends and connections. A few years ago, coming back to the lake aboard the Northern Crow, our engine died. Judging by the number of boats hurrying past us to the locks, Labor Day was the unofficial “closing day” for powerboats. I anxiously scanned the vapid faces on the Tupperware powerboats going past, and finally decided to hail an intelligent-looking fellow on a classic Chris Craft. Little did I know what an excellent choice I’d made.

I had the good fortune to choose, as our rescuer, none other than the infamous Captain Craig, Scourge of Lake Union and Environs. Tying alongside for the trip through the locks, he cast a practiced eye on our boat and asked us, “What have you got to drink?”

I was embarrassed by the question, because we’d been dieting. “Uh, water,” I stammered, “and a little soymilk, I think.”

“That simply will not do!” said Captain Craig. “Sara, fix these folks a gin and tonic.”

By the time we reached our marina, the experience seemed hilarious, and we were fast friends with Craig and Sara. We exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and that spring, I got a call. “Craig here,” said the deep voice on the phone. “Would you and Barry like to go on my boat for Opening Day?”

The theme was “Jungle Party.” When we arrived aboard Flagrante Delicto, our hosts produced animal masks, and we produced food and beverages. For about an hour, we milled around Portage bay with hundreds of other boats, waiting. A yacht club boat passed by, and a woman in a blue blazer and white pants called out, with a slight accent, “That’s a nice boat! What does the name mean?” We all turned to stare at our skipper, to see how he would respond. Meanwhile, the lady’s boat drifted farther away, and Craig had to shout. “IT MEANS ‘CAUGHT IN THE ACT!'” She called back, puzzled, “OF WHAT?” We were rolling in laughter. “OF SEX!” he hollered, loudly, because they were quite far now. “OF SEX?” she repeated back, then realized what she’d shouted. She clapped her hands over her mouth, aghast, and quickly disappeared below.

We did not win a prize for our animal act, which mostly consisted of seven people scratching themselves and hooting like monkeys. We should have won a prize for chutzpah, because just when we passed the judges’ float, the engine died. Craig tried gamely to restart it, then gave up, produced a battered bugle and played the most pathetic version of “Taps” I’ve ever heard. His monkeys were doubled over, laughing.

Unfortunately, as we were drifting, powerless, we were blocking the parade route. A police boat came out, grabbed our line, and towed us out of the way. “Can you fix it?” asked the officer. “Sure, I can try,” said Craig, looking as smart and efficient as that day I’d picked him out of the powerboat lineup for a rescue.

To my shock, the police officer took us to a navigational aid, the number 15 green can, and told us to tie up.

One of the first things you learn in any Coast Guard class is: Do not ever, ever, ever tie up to an aid to navigation. Who were we to argue with a police officer? I looked nervously over at Craig, expecting him to dive into the engine, fix the problem, and untie the boat. To my surprise, he poured himself a drink. “I, for one, am not going to disturb the food,” he said. It was true, the engine compartment was completely covered with salads, chips, cookies, and beverages. “Besides, we have the best seats in the house!”

Tied up to number 15
Do not try this unless a) a policeman says it’s OK and b) you are wearing a mask. Craig and Sara are in the rear. Barry’s the lion, and I’m the monkey with sunglasses.

We were literally across from the judges’ boat, alone on our buoy, not jockeying for space or tied to a bunch of other boats. Craig was right: It didn’t get any better than this.

At the end of the day, a friend towed us back to the marina entrance. Craig turned the key, saying, “Let’s see how this works,” and miraculously, the engine started! Was it really a fuel starvation problem, as he claimed, or a ruse to get the best seat in the house for the Opening Day parade? I’ll never know, and I don’t think I’ll ask.

Friends Along the Way

New Haggis Traditions

2 Comments

A couple of years ago, Barry came home from work and asked me, “Are we doing anything January 25th?” I was in charge of our social calendar.

“There’s a PSCC raft-up at Port Madison that weekend,” I replied.

“Oh well,” he shrugged. “My coworker, Dave, just invited us to something called a Burns Night party.”

I lit up like a Christmas tree and started jumping around. “Wow! Cool! Cancel the sailing! I have always wanted to go to a Burns Night!” Barry, understandably, was taken aback.

Somewhere back in the dim recesses of my brain, I knew about Burns Night, when Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, is celebrated. I’d read about it in my childhood, and had been fascinated by the poetry, pageantry, and haggis. I could go sailing any time, but a real Burns Night celebration was not to be missed.

When we responded to Dave with a positive RSVP, he provided additional instructions. Each of us was to bring a poem to read out loud and a chair. Dinner would be served in courses. The dress code was formal.

When we arrived and took our places, the only thing on the table was the Scotch. There was quite a lot of it, with different kinds to sample. Our host was busy behind closed doors in the kitchen, so we all entertained ourselves with the Scotch. It was destined to be a boisterous event.

The first course consisted of cock-a-leekie soup, a simple chicken and leek soup. Of course, the guests were less than sophisticated. “Hey! What’s that?” someone commented. Admittedly, in the dim light, it looked a bit bug-like. But it was a prune, a standard item found in cock-a-leekie soup. Meekly, we ate our soup. More Scotch followed.

Our host’s attire was the subject of much conversation. Instead of his traditional tartan kilt, Dave was nicely attired in Seattle’s hottest new thing, a Utilikilt. Made of denim or khaki, Utilikilts are targeted at manly men, with big sturdy pockets and loops for hammers and tools. They’re a little controversial.

Dave had experienced the controversy first hand when he wore his outside one day. He was standing on a street corner when someone in a passing car shouted a rude comment, along the lines of “Kilts are for Scottish people!” Perhaps for an American, a Utilikilt is an affectation. But if they’d stuck around long enough for Dave to respond, with his musical Scottish burr, they might have been embarrassed to realize that this guy knew his way around kilts.

After the soup, it was time to pipe in the haggis. Since we didn’t have a live piper, someone hit “play” on the stereo and the room filled with bagpipe music. Dave ceremoniously carried the haggis out and placed it on the table, and we all drank to it (more Scotch) and stared at it. It didn’t look too appetizing, but then again, that might have been the dim light. The more Scotch we drank, the better it looked.

When I was a kid and I first heard about haggis, I thought it sounded like the grossest thing on the planet. But over the years, I’ve mellowed, and things that seemed horrible now just seem kind of …. tasty. Like raw oysters. Yum. What grosses me out these days is the way food is processed. Like Lutefisk. Now that’s gross.

A traditional haggis is kind of a stuffing, made from the parts of a sheep we don’t normally eat, chopped up with onions and oatmeal and packed into the sheep’s stomach, yet another part we don’t usually eat. It’s then tied shut and boiled for a long, long time.

Think of it as a kind of sausage, stuffed into a very, very large casing.

Dave had been on the phone for weeks, trying to order an authentic haggis. The deal fell through at the last minute, and he decided to make one. However, the parts of a sheep that we don’t normally eat are impossible to buy. He had to substitute lamb for the offal. And instead of a stomach, he steamed it in cheesecloth. Not the most beautiful haggis, not the most authentic haggis — but it was tasty, and we had plenty of Scotch.

The other dish served was neeps and taties, meaning turnips and potatoes. At the time, even the Scotch didn’t improve the neeps. But I’ve changed my tune on turnips since then. I was forced to change by my month in Newfoundland, where your only choice of vegetable is peas and carrots (canned, mushy) and turnips (fresh, buttery). Bring on the neeps, I say.

At the end of the dinner, we turned to the entertainment. Dave read us something by Burns, which none of us understood. Then he read us a poem he had written, which none of us understood. Then the rest of the group began to read poems they’d brought, which, fortunately, were in English. Some were serious, some were funny. With the amount of Scotch we were drinking, some of the serious ones were funnier than the funny ones.

The following year, Dave had refined the dishes and the ceremony. He’d also wisely bought one less bottle of Scotch. One of his friends got into the spirit of the event and wore Dave’s extra kilt. Barry wore a nice shirt and tie, but deliberately wore slippers instead of shoes. The poetry was even better, with some people writing original pieces for the occasion. Barry and I did a dramatic reading of e.e. cummings sizzling poem, “may i feel said he.”

This year, we didn’t get an invitation to the main event, so Barry and I had to come up with our own tribute to the Bard.

I made cock-a-leekie soup, complete with bug-like prunes. Before we ate it, I said Selkirk grace:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

And for the main course, I minced up some lamb and onion and oatmeal, put it in a greased bowl, and cooked it in the pressure cooker. It came out as a rounded gray blob, surprisingly tasty. Barry thinks I should call it “lamb loaf.” But considering that we piped it in and drank a toast to it, I think I’ll call it haggis.

Photograph below: The haggis is piped in. Now the chef gets to have a drink!
Meps and the haggis

Websites describing Burns night often list a sequence of events similar to the following.

BURNS SUPPER – Official Sequence of Events
1. Chairman’s speech to welcome company, normally a few short sentences.
2. Then the Grace follows. Traditionally, Burns’s Selkirk Grace is used:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
3. First course of dinner now served, eaten and cleared away.
4. Chairman rises and invites company to rise to welcome haggis being piped in.
5. Once haggis is placed on table, chef and piper have drink then leave.
6. Address to haggis now given and company stand to toast haggis and it is cut open.
7. Company sit and meal continues.
8. Coffee served and Chairman announces an interval (usually 10 to 15 minutes), when company can relax before speeches etc.
9. Immortal Memory by speaker (average time 25 minutes approx).
10. Toast to the Lassies speech (no longer than 10 minutes).
11. Response to the toast (10 minutes).
12. Then usually an Appreciation of the Immortal Memory is given, (10 minutes). Some other toasts or speeches may now be given, depending on Chairman.
13. Now entertainment begins (songs and poems etc), after which the Chairman calls on company to sing “Auld Lang Syne”.

Here is the sequence of events that Barry and I used!

BURNS SUPPER – Amended Sequence of Events
1. Call to supper (“Hey! It’s getting cold!”)
2. Reading of grace, with inappropriate accent
3. First course, cock-a-leekie soup
4. All rise while haggis is piped in
5. Toast to haggis (“Here’s to you, Mr. Haggis!”)
6. Eating of the haggis
7. Clearing of the dishes and loading of the dishwasher
8. Putting away of the leftovers (do we have to pipe in the leftover haggis tomorrow?)

For more fun reading, here’s someone with a whole site describing their Burns Night celebration. It sounds like the Scotch is pretty important.
http://www.auldlangsyne.org/

Or this one, which is full of haggis recipes, sorted “in order of increasing use of animal parts that would normally be thrown away.” In other words, from lesser to greater grossness!
http://www.smart.net/~tak/haggis.html

A slightly easier mock haggis recipe.

Family Tales, Friends Along the Way

I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ but Christmas Spirit

1 Comment

Some years, I have a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. I hear Christmas music in the grocery store and think, “What is that weird music?” Christmas lights seem lost, tiny white bulbs against the glaring loom of the big city. People going into stores to shop seem unrelated to me, as though I’m adrift in an alien culture.

This afternoon, another day working on our house, was filled with plumbing and mini-blinds, difficult discussions, deferred decisions. I put on some Christmas music, James Brown singing “Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto” and the Roche Sisters’ wonderfully nasal rendition of “Fraaawsty, the Snowman.” Still no spirit.

Around 6 pm, we knocked off work and drove to Greenlake, where some friends of ours were planning to gather. On this one evening, the entire lake is lined with white luminaria, and thousands of people stroll around it, enjoying the lights. The e-mail from Tina mentioned caroling, and a friend of hers planned to bring a wheeled antique wood stove (I didn’t know there was such a thing!).

From where we parked, we had to walk quite a ways around the candlelit lake on our way to meet our friends. People were strolling in both directions, ambling along in small groups accompanied by children and dogs. Barry and I, being in a hurry, zoomed around them, weaving in and out like two-legged sports cars.

The problem with events like these is that it’s cold. And dark. So everybody is bundled up in hats and scarves, looking like shadowy Polar Fleece blobs. I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize Tina, who we’d only known in the summertime, in bathing suit weather.

When we arrived at the Bathhouse, there was a group standing under the streetlight, caroling. Yikes! I hoped that wasn’t our group — these folks were actually performing with a conductor! A bit further on, we found the wood stove.

The portable antique woodstove stood on the path on a wheeled cart with a pot of cider steaming on its top. A tall fellow in a fuzzy Santa hat was tending it. “Hello, are you our party?” we asked. Howard was a friend of Tina’s, and he invited us to pour some cider into the cups we’d conveniently brought along. A small group circled round the 2-burner stove, and Howard passed out songbooks.

What a blast! We belted out all the old standards, like “Deck the Halls” and “Let it Snow.” “Here We Come A Wassailing” was a big hit, and by the time we made it through all the stanzas of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” there was a small crowd, applauding. They left in a hurry when we did “I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas,” either because they were afraid of gettin’ nuttin’ by association, or because we sounded so bad.

Children kept coming by and making requests — always “Rudolph” or “Frosty.” One woman wanted to put money in my cup. When she realized we were just singing for fun (there was cider in my cup!), she gave me a hug (a total stranger) and thanked me profusely. Heck, all I was doing was standing around, drinking cider and singing off-key!

It was one of those heart-warming experiences, where you go out just to have a good time, and what happens? You end up making a lot of people happy. Somewhere along the line, I picked up that Christmas spirit I was missing. Maybe somebody slipped it into my cup when I wasn’t looking, but I definitely brought it home with me.