Pinus Strobus

"When Winter has locked up the soil and dispersed the birds and denuded the hardwoods of their leaves, one needs to be assured that things will one day grow again.  At such a time a young pine, green above the snow, talks louder than many voices."

–"Pines Above the Snow," Aldo Leopold

The beauty of the high-country, so to speak, in the coulee area is that the landscape – geography, species and perspective – quickly changes from the low country.  Here in the La Crosse area, we are geographically defined / blessed by the Mississippi River Valley, which offers us both the low-lying marshlands and the relatively high-flying bluff lands.  For those who explore the high-country, we come to know a different, and dare say, less known pattern of rock and vegetation.  Glaciated sandstone meets pines; white birches meet the blood red dash of a solo cardinal; hackberry the barbed wire farm fence set from previous generations.

The favorite of all, though, has got to be the naturally occurring pine trees that sprout up at the rooftops of limestone displaying a hardiness, a rawness, that quickly transports you from suburb to the realm of real forest.

There can be hardly a doubt that the allure of the pine is that it's imperfect angles tell a story of ancient survivability and beauty at once.  To find oneself under the erratic dome of the pine stand, especially one that grows out of stone, is to find something, finally, peculiarly, purely natural.

One percent of old-growth white pine forests still stand in America.  Wisconsin used to BE white pines.  We eliminated those forests altogether through a period of lumbering history that might equal nothing short of a brief moment of earth time.  White Pines nationwide are now a species on the extinction list and a hand full of scientists have to work full careers just to conjure enough resources to study them properly out west so to even get them on the proper list.

Expose yourself to the gnarled beauty of the pine, learn that its Native American symbolism – that it was considered, once, the peace tree, and eaten during periods of starvation for its abundance of vitamin C – and it doesn't take much effort to find yourself in awe of pinus strobus.

Chicken & Apples in a Pot

The Sunday meal had to be Chicken & Apples in a Pot, you see, grandfather said, as he trussed the back legs of the fryer with the longest sprig of rosemary that he could find.  "There are things that you miss out on when you cook the chicken in pieces, only so many juices can be maintained."  To boil the harvest of the garden underneath the well-butchered chicken is, without doubt, the French peasant meal to end all others.

This was nothing more than one more lesson that had been imparted onto my memory.  I did not go to the culinary school proper, but I always wondered if that was quite necessary, surrounded, as we were, by the daily harvest of the growing seasons, the chickens, the cows, and the perennial attention of the 'growing' god itself, the sun.  Grandfather took few tasks lightly, but when addressing the "Old French Recipes," as he called them – often with a slight tear of sad joy in the corner of his eyes – he thought little and moved through the mechanics of a recipe as if he were the mother of an infant changing a diaper, wringing a cloth, or tending to a warming fire.

"You see," he said, "where we grew in Toulouse was a vineyard before that is what we called them.  We would hang our feathered chicken for a time over smoke in the smokehouse out back, the very same smoke that our ancestors used to infuse into the grapes of the wine itself, and let the extra drippings release for only a short amount of time.  Once you have the chicken inside into the kitchen, now we season it, like this, inside and out, cut up your two apples in fours then stuff the cavity with them, along with sprigs of rosemary and thyme.  Cut a head of garlic lengthwise and stuff that into the cavity as well.  Can you see the aroma?  Can you smell the sweetness and earth come together?

When you fill the cavity with the harvest, you understand that that will move its way up into the meat and into the skin.  The juices are more than the meat, but the vegetables as well."  The cavity had now been fully stuffed with the apples and the herbs.  "I want you to brown these pearl onions, then add the cut mushrooms and then the baby carrots.  We used to make sure parts of our patch of the garden with carrots were over seeded so that they would come up small.  Use these."  Outside the door of the kitchen the donkey brayed.  The herding dog came wagging up to the stoop of the entrance thirsty from a days work.  "Ahh, as I have said, hunger carries in the wind."  The full chicken was placed onto the vegetables then the chicken stock poured on the pot on the top of the stove until a boil came.  "I can see it steaming now.  Add a pinch of salt.  Some pepper.  Smell the thyme.  Now we will test the hunger of the farm by placing this into the oven for an hour and half.  Our test is to see which of the herbs we taste first."

Weeknight Cooking

A little bowl of sunshine is this simple but tasty recipe for Chickpea Soup with Spiced Pita

Chips.  The base here is softened celery, carrots and onion, then add to it 6 cups of water, two cans of chickpeas, some fire roasted diced tomatoes, a pinch of cumin and coriander, then let it simmer for a good 20 minutes.  Put a quick bake on two hands full of cut pita pockets and sprinkle those as well with the same spices as the soup.  Although I could easily see adding some fried ham or bacon, this soup is already hearty, the chickpeas holding up their crispy shape (unlike, say, butter beans in soup)

well and adding a potent protein.  The pita bread over the top serves as a sort of spicy-edged crouton or cracker.

When you have a panini-maker, it's never far from your mind when dinner time arrives.  Virtually anything you have on hand, fresh or otherwise, can be turned quickly into a crisp and textured sandwich.   I almost always look to it when it's soup night in order to round out the meal.  So I mixed together the traditional ingredients for a tuna fish sandwich, then added diced celery, one clump of kale for greens texture, and then thought that maybe a mere hint of fresh grapes would sweeten the mixture, placed a couple of scoops into a flour wrap, rolled it, then let it crisp under the weight of the hot hood.

Who would identify the secret ingredients in this meal this time around?  Julia knows a chickpea when she sees one now that she enjoys a spoon of hummus here and there; and it was Abby who

looked up from a quick bite of the sandwich, "are there grapes in here?"  Yep.  The next I looked the sandwich was gone.

Nature Journal

"Even in the wilderness one must wait until all evidence of civilization is erased.  I felt it not long ago while sitting at the end of a long glaciated spit of rock in the Quetico-Superior country.  It was perfectly calm, the lake glassy and mirrored with the deeply colored sunset, loons calling as though possessed, and because it was spring the hermit thrushes were singing.  I was alone with a sense of such completeness, I desired nothing more."


– Sigurd Olson, from Reflections from the North Country
                




There are pockets of pure silence you can still find even up above the great suburban tracts of Greens Coulee homes.  On a good two hour hike up along the MVC land conservation, old gnarled oak and thorn patches litter an upward lifting bluffside trail which leads, as almost all of them do, to a wild rocky-spined ridge

where you can straddle at once two coulees and where homes have yet to find enough hospitality to build.  It was a fine sunny winter day.  A warmish breeze at 40 degrees.  All of Onalaska was under our eye level as we moved to the top where the birches do find hospitality inside the icy rocky nooks of limestone shared by rough pine.

Although we could see boot tracks on the path, there were no other people not so astonishingly.  On such days, and there are many, you are left to wonder if folks below have ever really found that quiet of the ridgeline, that quiet of the rock, that Olson speaks of eloquently above.

One of the things that Olson spoke of so often, even back in his own day, was that what people crave now most is to experience mystery in a world that is thought to be all too known; now, more than then, a world thought to be created by the touch of one kind of screen or another.  To look down onto the vista of the entire coulee region, over the dual valley blufflines which seem to guard the great river can't be replicated by the two dimensions of any screen. The glaciated pile of stone you stumble across by accident can't be replicated either by a screen, not really.  To climb onto its icy top, hold tight to its rigid creases for security, and breath in the snow mist can't be outdone by the press of a  pinky and thumb.

Chasing the Crepe

"Quimper has a quaint charm, with narrow streets, timber framed houses, and enchanting little footbridges that span the three rivers flowing through it.  At the train station, I picked up my rental car and headed toward the center of town with one destination in mind: Place au Beurre.  Translation: Butter Square."  – from chapter "Brittany / Crepes"










Passion for celebrating local flavors is a simple reversion to tradition and common sense. After spending so many generational years in America celebrating nothing more than the convenience of canned, processed, and fast foods, we now backtrack to simplicity and realize that whole foods, unprocessed, must come from somewhere close enough to find relatively fresh.  France is an original

case study in regional cuisine.  Brittany, for example, as Ann Mah traveled to find out, has been known for buckwheat and butter since at least the 15th century.  Leave it, then, to nothing more than the genius of necessity to combine these two products into a thin pancake so to clothe any number of other fresh-to-market ingredients such as cheeses, poultry, eggs, butter itself, or caramel.  As America currently chases its local scene trying to answer the question 'what is this region's food,' France has grown through hundreds of years of agriculture and sustenance to offer up landscapes, buildings, markets, cafes and, as is the case in Quimper, Brittany, a long line of authentic creperies.

"During the fifteenth century, Duches Anne of Bretagne first planted crops of buckwheat in the region.  A Breton noblewoman, Anne loved her native country with a fierce loyalty, so deeply that–despite marriage to two kings of France – she fought to maintain its independence as a duchy.  Part of this independence was self-sustenance, and as a wise and prescient ruler she encouraged the

cultivation of buckwheat, recognizing it as a nutritious plant that grew quickly and easily in the area's poor soil.  Thus buckwheat spread throughout the region, and Anne established herself as a beloved ruler."

For those have been participating in the regional cuisine of Brittany, it is known that a fine mixture of buckwheat and white flour produces the perfectly thin, savory wrap.  The only thing missing to finalize the promise of the perfect crepe is what is known as beurre de barratte: Breton butter.  It is

here, at this point in coming to understand French cuisine, how critical time and process is to the culture.  In the old days, entire days might be set aside for crepe making; butter, such a crucial staple in all cultures, had been taken quite seriously by the peasant farmer of old, "it begins, she told me [dairy farmers wife], with cream, which is fermented so its thick and slightly tangy.  It is beaten in the butter churn...to whip the fat out of the liquid 'until it forms grains.' She then drains the thin liquid and washes the butter, dousing it with water at least three times."  More rinsing, then salting, all of which takes about two hours from start to finish, from buckets of soured cream to molded sticks.

 If we watch and listen closely to trends in modern American cuisine, we find that chefs right now are not only harkening back to their own respective regional or local roots, but the concept of slow food is taking shape before our eyes, in which patience in process is actually now in vogue.  For the French peasant of old, patience was essential to sustenance, trade and culture; for the modern American patience in the process of looking to tradition in an exceedingly impatient culture is an intellectual exercise, but one that is well worthwhile.  How oddly ironic it is that the contemporary traditional Frenchman now complains how impatient (Americanized) their own food system has become.  The

Frenchman's contempt for all things American can be traced directly to what they perceive as a loss of ritual in food, language, and romance.

Restorative Bouillon

It wasn't until the long reign of Louis XIV (the 'Sun King'), that a true 'investment' in the glory of an enormous meal was fully documented in history. His lunches (le petite couverts – 'the little table')

Louis reigned for 72 years, 110 days, the longest in European history

"would typically consist of four different bowls of soup, a whole stuffed pheasant, a partridge, chicken, duck, mutton with garlic gravy, two pieces of ham, hard-boiled eggs, three enormous salads and a plateful of pastries, fruit and jam (and on top of all this the king would go on to demolish a further forty dishes at dinner). On Louis' death, his stomach and intestines were found to be twice the size of an ordinary man's."  In our own age, it's mind boggling to consider the cultural images and icons we have to look to for our own 'food styles.'  Diets now carry along with them anti-diets, so that the low carb watcher or the vegan is now countered by what is called the Paleo diet, which in essence means eat what our ancestors ate, all whole foods, nothing processed.  There's a conceptual food plan for every eater out there.  In these early days of the gourmand, however, the infamous French food we have come to look at as the epitome of world cuisine would have been galvanized by the sole leadership of one icon, the Sun King.  Chefs became considerably important people; cookbooks established rules; and restaurants began to take root around Paris.

First Bouillon Restaurant founded 1765

"The word 'restaurant' originally referred to a type of soup called a bouillon restaurant ('restorative bouillon'), served in the world's first such hostelry, founded by a Monsieur Boulanger in Paris in 1765. Previously, guests at Inns would partake of a meal together at the innkeeper's table, but Boulanger introduced the innovation of guests dining at separate, small marble tables.  The idea caught on, and soon restaurants were mushrooming all over the capital."  From this scene food journals blossomed and food philosophers wrote meditations about the pleasures of gourmandism.  The icon, the writing,  the thinking, and the eating 'scene' in place, all that was needed to fill-in the last puzzle piece of food culture was celebrity, something modern American eaters know and understand very well.

Escoffier, himself with a dirt-poor background (like Ritz himself who would pair-up with Escoffier to run the Ritz-Carlton), streamlined old French cooking, "introducing revolutionary innovations still in use today.  It is to Escoffier that modern restaurants kitchens owe the 'kitchen brigade system dividing tasks between separate sous-chefs working under the direction of a chef de cuisine, while he was also responsible for introducing the a la carte menu, and worked on a new luxury liner."  Some 250 years later, beginning, one could estimate, somewhere around 2000, the U.S. is now following in the revolutionary steps of these French originals.

Patton, North Africa WWII

"When the great day of battle comes, remember your training...you must succeed, for to retreat is as cowardly as it is fatal.  Americans do not surrender.  During the first days and nights ashore you must work unceasingly, regardless of sleep, regardless of food.  A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.  The eyes of the world are watching us.  The heart of America beats for us.  God is with us.  On our victory depends the freedom or slavery of the human race.  We shall surely win."
    – General George S. Patton, upon the Torch Landings North Africa

For the Americans, there would not have been the same contribution to the Allied victory if it was not for the primary force of the Eisenhower, Marshall and Patton trio.  Marshall was the grandfather of

the American efforts in WWII, himself an old warrior and chairman of defense in America.  There came a point at the beginning of WWII – which goes a long way in understanding Marshall's significance – where it was assumed that he would be the only man who could likely lead the American troops on the channel crossing (D-Day Normandy) efforts against Nazi Germany.  FDR, however, finally gave in and elected Eisenhower as the Allied Commander of all efforts instead, because, "FDR did not think he would sleep well if Marshall was out of the country."  Eisenhower had gifts of military administration that ended up unsurpassed in all realms of all of the militaries in the WWII effort.  Eisenhower had never seen live battle and never would lead actual troops in any

battle in his life, but he was, as was unanimously seen by the British, the French, the Russians, and his own American counterparts, the only man they knew capable of sustaining an allied force, coordinating, smoothing over differences, making calculated judgements, and frankly, outsmarting, in many instances, all but Marshall and FDR themselves. (It is a very interesting sidenote that Eisenhower's eventual eight-year presidency would end up being the most peaceful two terms in Presidential history.  As the ex-Allied commander, he was committed in the extreme to peace, diffusing the Korean crisis, keeping the cold war cold and not escalating it, and moving toward some peaceful solutions in the middle east.  In military matters, Ike was his own greatest expert and could often by-pass the silly frenzy of politicians calling for war during his presidency, and thereby could act almost unilaterally toward peaceful solutions in crisis. Inaccurately, Ike is often perceived as a War President by many.  In complete truth, he held a fiery torch for peace, was a scholar of extreme talents, and was often the most tolerant of diverse views in his entire administration.)

If Marshall and Ike conceived of and administered the American strategy in WWII, it was Patton who best represented (besides maybe General Omar Bradley), the pure soldier as general on the ground...and who actually won the war.

His motto was shaped by two primary facts in WWII: 1) the Americans were fighting inside enemy territory; 2) The Nazi regime, justly, needed to be eradicated from power.  As he is often quoted as saying, "I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position.  We're not holding anything.  Let the Hun do that.  We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy."  It was this attitude of relentless attack which the Germans could not account for over and over again in North Africa, in France, and eventually in Germany itself.  Patton was the extreme case of the self-important General who believed so deeply in his own destiny that he created it as he went along.  His fellow commanders did not always trust that Patton was attacking out of commitment to the cause or commitment to his destiny, but it was this very enigmatic power that allowed Patton to understand and defeat his enemy (the enemy of course was almost in its entirety made up of such delusions.  The difference, as Patton would kindly point out, was that at least he knew and understood his own delusions of grandeur).

Because of the brilliance of this trio (and largely Churchill as well), the Americans saved Europe from generations of a new form of Middle Ages.  There was this moment in time when the combined powers of America, France, Britain and Russia held the world in their hands.  Russia quickly split from the cause; France nearly as quickly caved to pride and turned its nose to the prospect of American predominance, none of which would have been fully predicted in those early beach landings at Casablanca.    

Paris / Steak Frites

"I'm not a voracious carnivore, but there's something about being in Paris that makes me want to sink my teeth into a bloody piece of beef."
     – Ann Mah










Where food, history and fantasy meets is that special place the food writer tries to find for inspiration of understanding over and over again.  The Renaissance in American food and the restaurant industry is one of the truly great things happening in the U.S. today, but it is new and we can notice that it is drawing more and more not only on the history and tradition of place, but very often – as is so often the case with anything American – on other cultures around the world.  Mah briefly chronicles the fascinating history of Parisian cafes in order to understand the very concept of food prepared and served by others outside of the home itself.  "Cafes have existed in Paris since 1686, when an Italian named Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened Le Procope on the rue des Fosses Saint-German on the Left Bank.  The self-proclaimed 'oldest cafe in the world' still stands in the same spot."

What's interesting is how cafes began.  As people from the area surrounding Paris, the Aveyroannaise, came to the city seeking work, factory workers needed food choices and so often relied, essentially, on sandwiches or snacks, called le casse-croute.  "Every morning Madame Odette would slice an armload of baguettes lengthwise and fill them with butter and ham, or sticky slices of Camembert, or pate and coronations.  She'd stack the sandwiches like logs in a woodpile and sell them through the day to ouvriers, workmen or factory hands, who formed the base of Le Mistral's clientele."

Some of the other menial jobs of Parisian laborers were to deliver water and hauling buckets of coal to private homes.  "This gave way to coal shops, warm places where regular customers could indulge in a glass of wine while placing an order for delivery, which eventually turned into cafes."  At this point, we could use the tool of fantasy to easily picture a situation where the drudgery of a day of work finds people trying to find brief relief in a warm shop filled with the aroma of already prepared food and a quick drink.  Then some historical time passed. The clientele, as Parisian life cultivated, turned from factory workers to an increasing number of bureaucrats with time on their hands and more choosy stomachs.  It was a hot meal they desired.  What easier combination to make quick and hot than beef and potatoes?  Customers could bring their own beef portions from home to the cafe itself, whose cooks would prepare to the taste of the individual palate while a glass of wine could be enjoyed.  "Customers kept asking for a 'plat du jour' – a hot lunch – and cafes need something quick to eat and easy to prepare.  Et voila, le steak frites est arrive!'  It is the same spirit as the sandwich...except its hot."

When considering what exactly American food is, the idea often comes to mind that it is a hamburger and French fries, as though somehow this was an American invention which somebody one day invented in New York or somewhere down in Virginia.  Truth be told, one of the very conflicts we often see between the ideals of French and American food might very well stem from the fact that we did nothing more than make one of the purest and most original historic French meals into something even quicker, plus a bun, dumbed down by ketchup and mustard, that's all.  If we truly think about American food – other than the Renaissance mentioned above – we see that Subway and McDonald's are simple retreads of the quick French sandwich and hamburger served in easy-in, easy-out cafes.

The biggest difference, really, comes down to the fact that the French, over the centuries, have given themselves more time to sit down to eat.

Scenes from Lapham Peak

What better way to gain a little perspective than up on the highest peak of Waukesha county...then up

on top of a forty-five foot viewing tower?  As has been noted, while in Oconomowoc (all of midwest?), the weather was not particularly uplifting through most of our stay, but when the sun did start to burn through the seemingly permanent cloud cover, the city and some of its surroundings began to reveal its beauty.  Oconomowoc is named after the Native American (Potawatomi) term for waterfall, 'Coo-no-mo-wauk.'

In the dead of December – sunshine often accompanied by an Arctic plunge in temperature – jogging around the lake and waterfall, I thought I was breathing ice, but what beauty in the moving crystal water and the lone bench sunning itself.

Just outside of town, four miles east toward Delafield, the Kettle Moraine Forest was a pleasant find.   Cross country ski trails crisscrossed a number of well signed hiking trails, through deep oak forest and up through well-tended prairie hills,

Windmill at Homestead Trailhead, Lapham Peak

past a seasonal butterfly garden and up to the Lapham Peak Tower, where the broad and diverse power of nature reminds you of all things steady and just as they should be.