Joyeux Anniversaire. mon amie!

Today, Bounthong would have been 59 years old.

Merci aux ciel bleu et clair, merci au vent doux et frais. Vous m’avez rappelé les moments que Bounthong a passé sur ma terrasse à prendre de l’air, toute couverte d’un poncho et d’une couverture, Patica à la côté, les deux en plein sourire. Reconnaissante que j’ai eu tellement de chance connaître cette femme -- ma mère asiatique -- je prie pour l’âme qui a touché la mienne d’une manière si incroyablement profonde.

Banh cuon for lunch

I'm on a Thai/Lao cooking binge ... again! Maybe it's because Bounthong's birthday is coming up, and my strongest association with her is this wonderfully fragrant and flavorful cuisine; maybe it's because the food is just damn good, and work is slow!

Today, banh cuon (savory rice-flour crepes with pork filling) were on the lunch menu--and I took play-by-play pics for your voyeuristic pleasure!

First, I whisked the crepe batter (rice-based baking mix, coconut milk, salt, and oil) and set it aside. (Note: My homemade gluten-free mix contains almost the same ingredients as called for in the recipe, so I used it.)

Next, I started the dipping sauce: dissolved the palm sugar in water and rice vinegar on the stove. Then, I heated up coconut oil in the wok to cook the filling: shallot and garlic, ground pork, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms and the eponymous Dried Black Fungus, bean sprouts, cilantro and green onion, salt, and fish sauce. Meanwhile, I finished up the dipping sauce (added fish sauce, garlic, chiles, and lime juice) and set it aside to "steep" and cool.

Finally, I started making the crepes. As usual, the first couple of crepes were not beautiful ... but they still tasted damn good. I made two Thai-/Lao-style (white) and three Vietnamese-style (yellow, with turmeric) crepes. I prefer the turmeric version, even though Bounthong didn't and said it wasn't traditionally Laotian (désolée, mon amie!) -- and FWIW, the yellow ones show up better in the pictures. :-)

I just may have to make green papaya salad to accompany my leftover banh cuon for dinner ...

Sweet dreams?

I forgot to mention that as an old lady (at least in this weekend's company), I can be set in my ways. My fellow would-be campers knew ahead of time that I was an air mattress kind of camper … I can handle pit toilets and going without showers, but I cannot sleep on the ground!!

So, Saturday night after the garlic fest, we set up camp (just my tent, really), and I started huffing and puffing (to blow up my mattress). I took a break about half-way through but persevered despite the ridicule I endured from the younglings.
After what seemed like ages, I had done it—blown up the mattress and looked forward to a comfortable night's sleep in the tranquil fields of Four Springs Farm, lulled by the songs of crickets and other little beasties.

Then the valve broke off. Gone. Something that not even duct tape could fix! I was beyond consolation; the prospect of 2 nights on the ground was more than I could bear. I recalled camping trips to the White Mountains when I was a child, when I would try to sleep and just lay awake all night from discomfort. After a few trips like this, my parents broke down and purchased cheap blow-up rafts for my brother and me. But because those rafts weren't made for 8 hours of over-the-ground use, they typically went flat (slow leak) on the first night, sometime during the wee hours. And I would cry and wish for my bed.

Well, the upshot is that I survived. Thankfully, a matted-down hay field is lots more comfy (and I use that term loosely) than the hard-packed tent pads of the national forest parks.

Labor Day

Because a driveway is for parking and a parkway is for driving, because seeding can mean removing or planting seeds, and because of so many other linguistic anomalies that I can't think of right now … it only stands to reason that on Labor Day, we must jump in cars and speed home from wherever we have been doing anything but working!

Today, I drove home from central Vermont with Karin and Ann. We stopped for brunch at a sugar shack near the farm, where "laid-back" didn't begin to describe the quality of service. We were anxious to get on the road, not looking forward to any traffic jams we might encounter. The actual ride, however, was uneventful and swift! Before we knew it, we were back in Salem to drop off Ann, visit my parents, and collect Patica. Just over an hour later, I had transferred my gear (and dog) from Karin's car to mine and arrived at home.

All in all, it was a great day. Not laborious at all.

Fiddles, pipes, and guitars—oh my!

Today's sole activity was attending the New World Festival, which offers a whopping 12 hours of music for just $25—a bargain no matter how you slice it! So after we "did our farm chores" (i.e., followed Jinny around as she watered and fed the fowl, all the while telling us about the heritage breeds she had chosen and answering our many questions), we headed about 20 minutes away to Randolph.

The town of Randolph was all but consumed by the festival. We traded our ticket voucher for hip green bracelets around 11:30 am (a half-hour before the first show was scheduled to begin), then walked down the street to find coffee. We soon came back to check out the fun stuff for sale, bought T-shirts and cool jewelry as souvenirs, sniffed out the food offerings, and settled in for our first show. Atlantic Crossing (a Vermont band that plays local contra dances, Jinny says) played the first of many great sets we'd hear before dragging ourselves out of the dance tent just before midnight.

When all was said and done, I had enjoyed the musical prowess of 11 performers! Some of my favorites of the day were Claude Méthé (an oldie but goodie from Québec), Réveillons! and Raz-de-Marée (also from Québec), Cantrip (not Catnip!; from Edinburgh, Scotland), and Nicholas Williams.

Although all the performers were worthy of a good round of applause, the prize for the most energetic, surprising, mesmerizing, get-up-and-dance sounds came from the McDades. Three talented siblings from Edmonton, Alberta—who play fiddle, various and sundry winds, and double bass (with backup by a percussionist and a guitarist)—have created a unique blend of music that won't let you stay in your seat. Spiced with unexpected twists in instrumentation and arrangements, what might have roots in traditional music is ratcheted up to a whole new level of consciousness. What's more, they make it look effortless! The sound almost defies description, but if I had to, I'd say that the McDades sound like a traditional Canadian-Celtic band that spent a long winter drinking vodka (straight up, of course) with the famous jazz greats in Eastern Europe—or something like that.

Do link through to some of the performers' websites; you won't be sorry. Check out some of their tunes, and buy the music if you like it!

So as not to omit the other catch phrases from the trip, I'll include them here. One of the concert venues was a church that clearly had ventilation problems; even early in the day, the sanctuary was stuffy and hot. After a couple of forays in there, Ann gave it her trademark description: SMELLS LIKE ASS. (So, it didn't really smell like, um, that, but it was unpleasant enough that I avoided that venue whenever possible.)

Also, an interesting outfit (a black bodysuit and skirt with red plaid accessories—including a bra worn over the bodysuit and a sporran over the skirt) prompted Ann to create a special moniker: TARTAN TITS.

And that is all she wrote! Till we go back next year, anyway …

Huge Tag Sale!

For this holiday weekend, I have planned a twofer of themed festivals and a farm camping experience that promises convenient, cheap accommodation with environmental value-added. Dubbed "Garlic and Gaelic," this minibreak is intended to provide me, Karin, and Ann some good food, fun times, many musical interludes, and maybe—just maybe—a bit of relaxation.

After more than our share of delays this morning (surprisingly, none due to the numerous self-professed HUGE TAG SALES that line Vermont's Route 9, which never were huge by our estimation), Karin expertly piloted us to the Garlic and Herb Festival in Bennington (c'mon, everybody say it: "Where Vermont begins!") midafternoon. We all agreed that "Garlic" was a bust—it totally didn't live up to its website description—but the garlic ice cream and garlic kettle corn were surprisingly good. We don't regret attending but wouldn't recommend it or go back.

To round out the anticlimactic Garlic Festival experience, I took uninspiring pictures of the Battle Monument (at 302 feet, the tallest structure in Vermont, sez the AAA guide, but I was too far away), then we piled back into the car. We traveled about 2 hours northeast to South Royalton (about as central in Vermont as you can get), which would be our home away from home for 2 nights.

Four Springs Farm is a working organic farm and CSA (which stands for Community Supported Agriculture—a way for customers to purchase a share of the farmer's harvest before the growing season begins and receive harvested produce through summer and fall) where owner-farmer Jinny Cleland grows vegetables, berries, herbs, and bedding and ornamental plants; raises pasture-raised laying chickens, meat chickens, and turkeys (Bourbon Reds and another); offers educational programs; runs an off-season bakery; and rents space to tenters or even offers "farm vacations" to families or groups. The farm was a nice alternative to the usual campground, and Jinny is a wealth of information!

Ephemera

Thought for the day: Stop to marvel at the ephemeral beauty of a dewdrop as it glistens on a blade of grass in the morning sun, because with every moment that passes, the sun hastens the dewdrop to its inevitable demise.