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Books Food
Stories
and Poems SCENT OF CEDARS: PROMISING WRITERS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. Edited by Anne Schroeder. Russell Dean & Company, 2002. Paper, $14.95. I like to smell the rain and trees as much as the next person, but I have to admit the title Scent of Cedars had me worried. Would this new anthology be packed with featherweight fantasies of some pristine region filled with frolicking gastropods? As it turns out, no. Editor Anne Schroeder has assembled a vibrant mix of stories and poems from the work of 32 writers with ties to the Northwest. Contributors hail from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, northern California and the Canadian borderlands. Although many of the works are set in the Northwest, others take place in Korea, Venice, the Southwest, Florida and points in between. Kris Christensen's elegant poem, "Memory of Sage," describes the collective memory of sage, one that reminds the plants of a time of "scaled bodies" and other surprising incarnations. Brenda Shaw's "Stilling the Water" presents a conversation between a mother and her grown son that deftly reveals their struggles and a promise of an improvement, if not an end, to the lack of understanding between them. In Debra Brimacombe's "Journey," the poet is standing at Keats' grave. In a mere three sentences, the poem captures a rush of emotion: "I once saw / a white moon rise / above its steely ripples / quivering on the body / of a lake / like silver fabric / tumbling from a bolt." Quinton Hallett's lovely "Snow Angels" shows us the fierce love between sisters and how it allows them "to move freely within a known and trusted boundary" and beyond. Candice Favilla has a story and a poem in the collection. Her use of words is crisp and textural, like sifting through a bowl of brightly colored stones. From her poem, "Seedtime," consider this excerpt: "My sister, filtertip / Marlboro peeling off carbon snakes of poison from her hand / as she negotiates some wheel, half turns to slap / at scrambling kids in the back, who all have / filthy noses and hard candy smears bought at the Disco." Milt Cunningham's "End of the Line" is a solid story about an old man's last ride on the rails. Cunningham handles the situation with grace, giving readers a vivid idea of what it's like to ride in the cab of a steam engine. Carla Perry's "Hard Drive" crackles with wit and intrigue and a sparkling, inventive type of dialogue. "Razbliuto," the title of Carla K. Johnson's story, is a Russian word that means "nostalgia for an old lover." But the story covers much broader territory, showing how other people's friends and words can enrich us and uncover new strengths. Irene Wanner writes about two women who visit a monastic sect in Montana. Wanner weaves the intrigue of a mystery into this simple plot, then lets the mystery speak for itself, without explication or enactment. In "The Laundry Quandary," by C. Lill Aherns, an American woman in Seoul tries to find a place to wash her clothes, and discovers a chasm of cultural and linguistic differences that she learns only to negotiate, never to cross. "Dead Children" by Valerie J. Brooks depicts a woman who has traveled to Florida to care for her convalescing mother and stepfather. While there, she's haunted by a dream whose images mesh and contrast with her daily chores and the clash of family life, making a multi-layered, realistic story that resonates with sadness and humor. Jeff Fearnside's "Going for Broke" is a first-person story narrated by Joe, whose potential baseball career is thwarted because of anti-Japanese sentiments rampant in 1949, when he was pitching for the Nisei All-Stars. Fearnside packs a lot of history into his story, and not much of it is pretty. It opens a window into another time that feels surprisingly less alien than it would have two years ago. Judith Barrington's six-part poem, "Passages," takes a hard look at death and regeneration from both a personal and a universal perspective. And in this season of excess, Suzanne Edison's poem, "Artifacts," wonders what future societies will make of ours, based on what we leave behind in our dumps and garbage barges. Give yourself the gift of an afternoon off from your usual routine, and peruse this hearty collection of stories and poems from writers who live in your neck of the woods. You're bound to discover something to satisfy your soul. Book Notes: Cartoonist Jan Eliot (Stone Soup) will speak on characterization at Mid-Valley Willamette Writers at 6:30 pm on Jan. 9 in Baker Downtown Center. Free to members/$5 donation. ..."The Copy and Destroy Zine Tour" arrives at 7:30 pm on Jan 9 at My House (1136 W. 5th Ave.). Suggested donation $4. ...Author Jerral Sapienza talks about his guide to caring for a dying friend or loved one, Urgent Whispers: Care of the Dying, at 2 pm Jan. 18 at Barnes & Noble Books. ...Oregon poet William Stafford's birthday celebration begins at 4 pm Jan 19 at Tsunami Books. Bring a favorite Stafford poem to share and watch Haydn Reiss's hour-long documentary, A Literary Friendship: William Stafford and Robert Bly. Free. ...Acclaimed writer Ursula K. Le Guin launches the Windfall Reading Series in the new Eugene Public Library at 6:30 pm Jan. 21. Seating is limited, but free tickets will be available after Jan. 11. ...Writer, editor George Plimpton will speak at Portland Arts and Lectures Series at 7:30 pm Jan. 22 in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. ...Ursula K. Le Guin will sign books at 12 noon Jan. 22 in Tsunami Bookstore. ...Sylvia Hart Wright (When Spirits Come Calling) reads at 7 pm Jan. 23 in UO Bookstore. ...Prize-winning poet Ellen Bryant Voigt will read from her work at 7:30 pm Jan. 24 in Corvallis Arts Center. Free. ...Melissa Hart (Long Way Home) reads at 7 pm Jan. 30 in UO Bookstore, upstairs. ...Robert Moss will read from his book, Conscious Dreaming, at 7 pm Jan. 31 at Barnes & Noble. ...Editors and writers Carol Craig, Candy Davis, Elizabeth Lyon and Ratina Wollner will speak on "Raising Manuscripts from the Dead" at Mid-Valley Willamette Writers at 6:30 pm Feb. 6 in Baker Downtown Center. Members free/$5 donation. ...UO visiting Prof. Cai Emmons reads from her new novel, His Mother's Son, at 7:30 pm Feb. 6 in Browsing Room, Knight Library. ...Alan Siporin reads from his first novel, Fire's Edge, at 7 pm Feb. 11 in the Browsing Room, Knight Library, as part of a communitywide "Readin' in the Rain" event, Jan. 27 - Feb. 28.
Midwinter
Munchies
It is that time of the year, and has been for several weeks, when I gorge myself silly on mandarin oranges, those lovely loose-skinned fruits that appear like clockwork each December as if they were bred for the Christmas stocking. When the clerk at my grocery store was weighing the 10 pounds of mandarins I bought last week, she apologized for not having clementines yet, and I didn't understand why she was apologizing. "These are my favorite," I said with a shrug. "I've been waiting for them all year." It's true. I have been waiting. Not in a chomping-at-the-bit way, but with a subliminal, one-with-the-earth instinct, knowing that their season is coming on and subconsciously craving their taste. This instinct of mine works for many fruits, actually, so that I've gotten very good at waiting, and then choosing well. It's not a sixth sense, a supernatural power, although my partner, who has a knack for picking wooden oranges and soft apples, might say otherwise. No, it's just a matter of paying attention in the produce aisle. In our tomatoes-in-February, oranges-in-July consumer culture, in which each of our edible whims can be satisfied by a greenhouse or growing season somewhere in the world, it's easy to be taken in by the desire to be able to choose from everything at any time. We bypass our own better instincts, and end up being fooled by ourselves, with the pretty-colored fruit as accomplices. Winter is the time to be extra alert, because in summer it's easy to know: Everything is ripe and good, or will be soon, which you can tell if you just take some time and use the nose that God gave you. The more the fruit smells like what it is, the more it will taste as it should. Some fruit such as melon have a specific spot to sniff (stem end, dear reader, the stem end), while other summer fruits should almost reek with ripeness. Good peaches, for example, can be so perfumed, even from five feet away, that they'll make you want to climb up in the bin and roll around in them. Winter fruits, on the other hand, tend to be more subtle. They don't smell ripe as much as they look or feel ripe. The crisp brown Bosc pear, which shows up in late fall and early winter, I choose by assessing its color. The undertone should be bronze, definitely not green, under its rough brown skin. Feeling these pears will tell you nothing: They are the hardest pears I've met, and should be. Cutting and coring Bosc pears is a bit of a chore, but after I sit back and eat the first wedge following a bite of blue cheese, I remember how much they are worth the work and the wait. The persimmon, another winter guest, kicks in just when I'm ready to take root and sprout leaves if I have to eat another cold-stored apple. The firm, flattened Fuyus reveal some in their color — the deeper the orange, the more ripe and soft — but it's the contrasting textures that I savor. The sharp-edged skin falls away, and the succulent, slippery flesh emerges like magic from beneath my knife.
And mandarin oranges, that's where this whole thing started. Good mandarins are soft, almost unpleasantly mushy. Their insides will roll about a bit in their skins. When my partner and I lived in Russia, we feasted on the best mandarins one winter — humanitarian aid that "fell off the truck" — because the Russians, unaccustomed to the fruit, would request from the shopkeepers the hard oranges, while the soft ones would be set aside as spoiled. We never told anyone about the misconception, and loaded up every other day for a month with enormous bulging bags of perfectly ripe mandarins. It was in Russia that I began developing my mandarin-eating ritual. I use my teeth to free each segment from its slightly bitter membrane, getting the packaging out of the way, so to speak, for big juicy mouthfuls of the good stuff. If I'm not careful I'll find myself doing this in front of other people, nipping away with an inwardly focused gaze. (As rude as I know my way to be, I must take it as a good sign when a friend accepts the peeled segment that I absentmindedly offer and eats it with goodwill, if not outright relish.) I can eat mandarins this way for an hour, polishing off half a dozen without even thinking about it. So maybe it's a vitamin C deficiency that I'm feeling when I begin looking around the produce section wildly as winter sets in. All I know is it's a craving that must be fed. Excuse me. I think there are still a couple left in the bag. Marina Wolf of San Francisco was known for years as The Wide-Eyed Gourmet, but retired recently to organize dance workshops for large people.
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Citrus
is certainly a winter thing, and very much about the feel. Sure,
a pile of oranges will have a slightly orangey smell, but that's
the peel, not the fruit. You have to feel the peel, at least with
"eating" oranges such as navel, which will have a thick but tender
skin to signify being both ripe and easy to peel.