Monthly Archives: April 2012

April 29, 2012 · 9:43 pm

Keeping Iowa Weird: Grotto of the Redemption

Geodes, crystal stalactites, Catholic icons in a rocky hand-built cave. Entering the Grotto of the Redemption feels a bit like slipping into a dream, or finding yourself in a giant fish tank decorated by a particularly pious owner. It’s disorientingly beautiful and strange to walk through the Stations of the Cross while the rocks sparkle around you.

We visited the Grotto on Easter morning on our way to Church and an egg hunt in Whittemore, Iowa, where Joe’s grandparents live. Even if you aren’t seeking a religious experience, the Grotto of the Redemption is one of those sites in the state that every Iowan should check off a bucket list! I want to go back and do the full tour and everything at some point.

This June marks the 100th anniversary of the Grotto (there will be festivities!), which was the life’s work of Father Dobberstein, a German priest who built it as a shrine to Mary to fulfill a promise he made while sick with pneumonia and praying to get well.

If you go to the Grotto and aren’t the teetotalling type, I would be remiss to not advise you to stop by the watering hole in Whittemore for a “Whittemore Fog,” a local specialty shot that factors into the parties of the super fun family I married into.

Joe’s uncle Randy sweet talked the bartender into giving us the recipe, and she took me and Joe’s cousin Caitlin into a back room for a lesson in making them. It’s a combination I’d never put together, but somehow it works. Everything is walking distance in Whittemore, so after a few rounds we ambled back to the house under the full moon.

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April 23, 2012 · 9:15 pm

A baseball book

I finished “The Art of Fielding” on the flight home and had to let you all know, because it’s the first book in awhile that exceeded my expectations. Fielding is a debut novel that I wanted to read for book club (“The Marriage Plot” won, which was only meh) and that had a lot of buzz when it was first published. (Buzz has not equated with awesomeness in the last several much-fussed-over books I’ve read.) I bought it for the iPad, but I’m totally going to get a hard copy, too, because the script on the cover is so lovely, and because it’s one I’d like to be able to loan out to people.

I’m not a big baseball fan, but although the sport serves as the framework for the book, it’s not about baseball as much as it is exploring the idea of perfection, legacy and finding purpose. The writing was so good it made me want to go back and read passages over again just to roll them around in my brain, like when you taste something really delicious and want to relish it on your tongue.

There where no whys in a person’s life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite patience. Solomon and Lincoln: This too shall pass. Damn right it will. Or Chekhov: Nothing passes. Equally true.

If you’re looking for a quality book, check it out. I’d have given this a 9 out of 10 at our book club rating session.

Also, this is only semi-related, but for longform journalism, I’ve really been digging the site Grantland lately. It’s a sports site, so again, this is weird for me, but they have some fantastic writers and connect the pieces to larger life themes a lot of times, so it’s more context than pure stats, if that makes sense.

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· 7:01 am

Back in the Midwest!

Jet-lag hasn’t yet set in after a nearly 24-hour return trip from Middle East back to the Midwest.

In one of the "unconference" session tents

Much more on the experience later, but this “Why We Travel” essay shared by one of my new TEDxSummit friends resonated.

So travel, for many of us, is a quest for not just the unknown, but the unknowing; I, at least, travel in search of an innocent eye that can return me to a more innocent self. I tend to believe more abroad than I do at home (which, though treacherous again, can at least help me to extend my vision), and I tend to be more easily excited abroad, and even kinder. And since no one I meet can “place” me — no one can fix me in my rsum –I can remake myself for better, as well as, of course, for worse (if travel is notoriously a cradle for false identities, it can also, at its best, be a crucible for truer ones). In this way, travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the road, we often live more simply (even when staying in a luxury hotel), with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance.

TEDxSummit, 16 April - 20 April, 2012. Doha, Qatar. Photo: James Duncan Davidson.

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April 12, 2012 · 9:13 pm

Smiling into the wind

Early Friday morning, I’m bound for an adventure I never expected, chased after or planned for. In a few short days, I’ll be standing in a desert, surrounded by some of the brightest, most inspired strangers I never thought I’d meet. If all goes as the itinerary outlines, I’ll be engaged in workshops and explore art museums and lean into the warmth of a camel and cruise on the sea in a region I know only by news reports of unrest. In the coming days, I will undoubtedly travel beyond my comfort zone and I’m welcoming the opportunity to unbridle my imagination and ride it to the edge of the world. I’m excited and anxious and blissfully free of expectations.

The theme for the opening night talks is “The Power of Reframing.” It looks like you might be able to watch the stream, too!

I’m sure I’ll have lots to share when I get back. Until then, I hope the winds are fair here and there!

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April 9, 2012 · 12:44 am

Tried it: Peep Sushi

What to bring to the family Easter celebration when you have zero time to prepare anything of substance? Peepshi. I saw this hilarious recipe for Peep Sushi on Serious Eats and knew that since I wouldn’t have time to whip up a strata or experiment with this cool braided Easter bread, I could just bring something that would double as a craft project and make people smile. Sadly, this recipe might actually be the one I’ve attempted that turned out closest to the inspiration photo! All you need are Rice Krispies, marshmallows, butter, Peeps and Fruit By the Foot/Fruit Rollups.

The finished tray of Peepshi

The giant knife I made Ellen use to decapitate the peeps was a nice effect, don’t you think? We found to make the rolls you really need to crunch the Rice Krispies Treat strip. #Protip.

A simple and actually delicious dessert that Joe’s aunt made were these butterscotch birds nest cookies.

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April 2, 2012 · 10:19 pm

Reading list, etc.

We hosted book club at our house tonight and it was nice enough out to bust out the fire pit for a rip-roaring discussion about diplomacy, sleeping around in 1930s Berlin and the essence of human nature, thanks to Erik Larson’s “In the Garden of Beasts.” (Larson will be in town this May for a free discussion as part of the DMPL AViD series.) Most of our group are big fans of “Devil in the White City,” but this book only garnered middling reviews. It’s interesting to learn about the leadup to World War II, but the consensus here was that the book is more of a slow burn that never really gets to a boiling point. Also, we were divided on whether it made us more or less likely to want to keep a detailed journal. Another of our nonfiction picks we thought would have been better as a long magazine article. (Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.)

In addition to a bonfire and braunschweiger (gross), Joe made these delish German Chocolate Macaroons from a recipe in a back issue of Cuisine at Home.

German Chocolate Macaroons

I know it’s a shameless plug for the husband, but I must say that this spring’s “Fresh and Fabulous,” which should be out soon, is pretty awesome. Joe re-creates a lot of the recipes they’re working on and I was a big fan of everything he made.

Anyhow, back to the books. In our typical caucus decision fashion, we chose “Girlchild,” by Tupelo Hassman. I’m going to give you the synopsis, and you’re going to think I suggested this book, but it was really Joe! It was up against Hemingway, which I voted for because I’ve honestly never read any Hemingway and that seems wrong. But I do think I’ll love this book. I’m just a little nervous to discuss it because I think I’ll reeeaally love it and I expect a divided opinion.

Rory Hendrix is the least likely of Girl Scouts. She hasn’t got a troop or even a badge to call her own. But she’s checked the Handbook out from the elementary school library so many times that her name fills all the lines on the card, and she pores over its surreal advice (Uniforms, disposing of outgrown; The Right Use of Your Body; Finding Your Way When Lost) for tips to get off the Calle: that is, the Calle de las Flores, the Reno trailer park where she lives with her mother, Jo, the sweet-faced, hard-luck bartender at the Truck Stop.

Rory’s been told that she is one of the “third-generation bastards surely on the road to whoredom.” But she’s determined to prove the county and her own family wrong. Brash, sassy, vulnerable, wise, and terrified, she struggles with her mother’s habit of trusting the wrong men, and the mixed blessing of being too smart for her own good. From diary entries, social workers’ reports, half-recalled memories, arrest records, family lore, Supreme Court opinions, and her grandmother’s letters, Rory crafts a devastating collage that shows us her world even as she searches for the way out of it.

Synopsis via IndieBound.

I know. A main character with the name Rory AND Girl Scout references?

In other Des Moines Arts and Culture news, the next Civic Center season is going to be amazing. As soon as I got the announcement in my inbox, I forwarded it to my mom:

This amazing season, plus cheap flights starting this fall between Chicago and DSM? Who else can I lure here?

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April 1, 2012 · 5:51 pm

Joe’s patio paver project

Spring took us a bit by surprise in Iowa, with a few unseasonably warm days that brought the skirts and sandals and dandelions out. I wasn’t ready to trust this change of seasons, and have been expecting to wake up to a cruel frosted over world. But the blossoms are out in full force now and so I took an armful of my winter wools to the dry cleaner today. (Which means, with my luck, that even though it was 85 degrees today, it will probably snow tomorrow.)

I love that for a few weeks each spring, our backyard features a wall a fuschia flowers.

Home improvement ambitions also popped up, along with the buttercups and tulips. Now that the fence project is done-ish in the backyard (we’re contemplating adding a few more sections), Joe’s turned to the patio pavers. He’s planning to take out one walkway and raise the dirt level to help keep rain away from the basement.

The paver project begins! Hopefully we'll finish this before the April showers turn it into a mud alley.

The old pavers will be put to use for a new walkway that will cross the yard, like we do when we’re headed for the garage. Besides, the old walkway becomes unusable in summer thanks to our jungle of ferns and hostas that leaf out with great zeal along that shady strip.

Sitting, because we went on an 11-mile run today!

I do love the moss that grows on the little bricks. It makes it feel like our backyard is a secret garden.

I’m going to leave most of that project to Joe while I finish up classes and go on my trip to the TEDxSummit, but I’m excited to turn my attention to our new garden area and grow things!

Maybe we'll get some raspberries this year? I just put this bush in last summer.

The apple tree is blooming, too, and a friend of mine with arboreal ambitions has offered to help me care for it, so I’m hoping the fall will bring some apple pies from the urban homestead.

We bought an apple picker like you use at orchards a couple of falls ago and I use it standing on the garage roof, like a crazy lady.

That’s how spring is shaping up around here! Hopefully this season we’ll be half the homesteaders that Amy and Josh are. Garden-sitting for them last summer was so inspiring!

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