On the Menu Monday: Ham and Potato Chowder

German food may be the original comfort food.

When you think of what warms you up on a cold winter night, do you think of tacos? Or chow mein? Probably not. Do you think of a thick, savory soup filled with chunks of meat, potatoes, and veggies? I do.

When the Germans immigrated to the fledgling United States, one food item that came with them was potatoes, which were introduced in Germany in the 18th century and have become an important staple of German cuisine.

“In general, Germans emigrated to find adventure and greater prosperity. However, Germany, particularly, Bavaria, was hit by the potato famine in the mid 1800s. Some German immigrants sought political and religious freedom. In 1848 there were Germans fleeing political problems in Germany.

Although the Potato Famine in Ireland is much better known in America there was a similar problem in the Lowland countries and in Germany. In the mid 1840s a great parallel stream of immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived on America’s shores. Bavaria, which had become very dependent on the potato, was at particularly hard hit with the failure of the potato crop. Whole villages from Bavaria, most of them traveled by carts to La Havre, Amsterdam, Hamburg, or Bremen, set sail for America. Most left from Le Havre” (maggieblanck.com).

Today’s recipe is an Americanized and lightened-up version of Kartoffelsuppe, German potato soup. Made with fat-free ingredients and lean ham, this hearty soup will fit the bill on a chilly winter evening whether you’re of German heritage or not. I’d like to think that my German ancestors, who left Germany in 1849 to build a new life in Cincinnati, would have approved of my version of German comfort food.

On the Menu Monday: Ham and Potato Chowder

Rating: 51

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Yield: 8 bowls of soup

Serving Size: About 1 cup

On the Menu Monday: Ham and Potato Chowder

I used this blogger's recipe as a base for my chowder, lightening it up even further. I also added ingredients from the basic German potato soup found here.

Ingredients

  • Extra-virgin olive oil ( I use garlic-infused olive oil for just about everything I cook)
  • 8 oz. ham, cubed (can also use bacon)
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
  • 5 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 2 medium Carrots (yellow carrots if available), diced
  • 1 stalk of celery, diced
  • 1 leek, chopped
  • 1 pound cubed peeled baking potatoes
  • 1 pound cubed Yukon gold potatoes
  • 5 cups unsalted chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cauliflower, cut into florets
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups skim milk
  • 3/4 cup chopped green onions
  • 1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
  • 2 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 1/2 cup)

Instructions

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.

Brown cubes of ham; set aside.

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons oil to pan; swirl to coat.

Add onion, thyme, and garlic; sauté 5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally.

Add carrots, celery, leek, potatoes, stock, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and bay leaf; bring to a boil.

Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 35 minutes or until potatoes are very tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; discard bay leaf.

While potatoes simmer, combine remaining 1 tablespoon oil, cauliflower, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper; toss to coat.

Roast at 400° for 30 minutes or until browned, turning once.

Place cauliflower mixture and milk in a blender.

Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening (to avoid splatters) and blend until smooth.

Pour cauliflower mixture into a large bowl.

Add half of potato mixture to blender; pulse 5 to 6 times or until coarsely chopped.

Pour into bowl with cauliflower mixture.

Repeat with remaining potato mixture.

Place cauliflower-potato mixture in Dutch oven over medium heat.

Stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/2 teaspoon pepper, diced ham, 1/2 cup green onions, and sour cream; stir until sour cream melts.

Ladle soup into 8 bowls.

Top evenly with remaining green onions and grated cheese.

https://gotmyreservations.com/2013/01/21/on-the-menu-monday-ham-and-potato-chowder/

Why not take your German heritage one step further and return to your homeland?

Visit the ruins of Heidelberg Castle or take a romantic cruise on the Rhine.

Great German food is only a plane ride away — or maybe as close as your city’s German rathskeller!

Linking up this week at Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm

 

The Sunday Review: The Greater Journey — Americans in Paris

After choosing this book for our Book Club, I had high expectations. David McCullough is a wonderful storyteller and has a knack for turning even the driest factoids into a compelling story. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris is no exception to this writing style.

While listening to The Greater Journey in the car, I kept thinking back on the photos I took from the top of the Arc de Triomphe in 2010. Sometimes people skip going up into the Arc (an easy climb and short lines) and choose the Eiffel Tower instead, but I found the view from the top of the Arc to be breathtaking.

McCullough has chosen a representative group of Americans who went to Paris between 1830 and 1900, where their experiences helped to make them better statesmen, artists, musicians, and writers. He sets their very personal and sometimes mundane lives on the stage that was Paris in the 19th century, a turbulent and fascinating city.

As McCullough says in his author interview on youtube.com, Americans in Paris is a kind of guidebook to Paris and the history of Americans in the City of Light. It’s an accessible and intimate look at a different set of American roots.

The audiobook on The Greater Journey is voiced by Edward Herrman and is easy to listen to, but I also ended up buying a book as there were many photos and references I wanted to come back to. I’m struggling with whether to keep this one in my library or to pass it on to Paris-loving friends!

 

 

If you are interested in getting out of your reading chair and actually visiting the City of Light, please feel free to contact me to help you with your travel plans.

The Sunday Review: I Want to Dance with the Man Who Danced with the Girl Who Danced with the Prince of Wales

Somehow I just can’t get enough of “the 20th century’s greatest love story,” which is apparently what Madonna called the romance of the man who was on his way to being king and his American girlfriend.

You probably already know the story about how the future king of England fell in love with the already-divorced-American who was still married to her second husband. Despite which film-maker’s version of the story you accept, it’s fact that Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Windsor became Edward VIII with the death of his father and eleven months later abdicated his throne in order to be able to marry Wallis Simpson. His brother Bertie became George VI and was the father of Britain’s current monarch, Elizabeth II.

I was excited when Netflix finally had Madonna’s film, W/E, available for streaming. I missed it in the theater (perhaps because it was here and gone in a box-office failure flash), but really wanted to see it. Madonna chose to tell Wallis and Edward’s romance as a story-in-a-story with a modern-day heroine providing opportunity for flashbacks to a companion story about the Windsors. It was only somewhat successful, as reviewed here and here, but I loved the costume drama elements and it piqued my appetite for more about Wally and David.

When the Netflix gods found out I was interested in Wallis and David’s story, they started sending me suggested movies as companion pieces to W/E, and from there comes today’s Sunday Review post. I got hooked on watching a seven-part imagination of the lives of Wallis, David, and the people around them. Whoever wrote these scripts wasn’t quite as sure about “the 20th century’s greatest love story.”

As this article from The Guardian states,

If you want a less sugar-coated take on it all, try Edward and Mrs Simpson, the classic Thames TV series from 1978. The seven-parter offers a fascinating look at an extraordinary chapter in British history. Even if we do know how it all ended, it still makes for compelling drama. Love? Barely mentioned. Ambition, duty, jealousy, selfishness? Got them in droves.

Once I started watching the hour-long segments, I couldn’t stop, and they increased my understanding of a situation that I knew only as a person fascinated with human behavior and its historical impact.  Armed with my greater knowledge, I fully intend to watch W/E again,  and last night I watched The King’s Speech (also available on Netflix) again.

In The King’s Speech, we see Colin Firth’s take on Bertie and the struggle to become king (while having a speech impediment) in the wake of his brother’s romantic tidal wave. Firth won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of George VI.

And then there’s Hyde Park on Hudson, the newest entry into the Bertie-on-film category. This film brings George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Hyde Park in New York state, where the two discuss the United States’s possible support of Britain in World War II. (That’s a simplified version of the issue, but you get the point.) The story’s not really about Bertie, but is written cleverly and is reminiscent of Downton Abbey and the social clashes between American and British ways in the early 20th century. Although not well-reviewed, I fully enjoyed it and so did my viewing partners. This photo is the only one I could find that showed the main cast, because the film is a tour-de-force for Bill Murray as Roosevelt, although he was denied an Oscar nomination AGAIN.

If you are intrigued by this story, I encourage you to put these movies in your instant queue and settle down for a historical love fest. And, if you’re desperate for even more, here are IMDb’s lists of portrayals of Edward VIII and George VI in film versions. Ahhhh… Thank goodness I’m retired.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to revel in the charms of Maggie Smith and the rest of the rascals at Downton Abbey. Just in case you were wondering, it wasn’t just in English country homes where dinner jackets were considered to be inappropriate for a formal evening. You’ll find the bit about the wearing of a dinner jacket over tails to be part of the wry humor of Hyde Park on Hudson, too.

P.S. The theme song for Edward and Mrs. Simpson is a popular tune from 1927 and you will not be able to get it out of your head. I’m just warning you.

 

The Royal Collection: Christmas Tours of Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace

Is my excitement showing?

An after-hours private small-group tour of Windsor Castle decked out in its Christmas finery — what a fun thing to do for Christmas if you’re a royals watcher like me. If you act now, you might still be able to score tickets; December 14, 15, and 21 are sold out, but Saturday, December 22 still has openings.

But wait! It does get better.

You can also tour Buckingham Palace during December and January when the Queen’s not there. There are lots of dates available for these tours, so make your reservations now!

I’m putting the Christmas tours on my Bucket List. And I’ll be pleased to toast the Queen with my free champagne.

Don’t they look like fun people? 🙂

 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Photographers do the craziest things.

I chased these white horses around the field in Sauder Village trying the get the perfectly synced photo.

It turned out that the first one I took was the best… isn’t that always the case?

P.S. After I prepared this post, I realized that those rocks in the corner were actually little horse pies and was aghast. Then I decided to keep them in as proof of a photographer’s folly in not cropping one’s photos. 🙂

I’m linked up today with Project Alicia. Be sure to stop by and visit the work of these talented bloggers and photographers.

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Book Club: Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall came heavily recommended — it won the Man Booker Prize, and all that.

Image Credit

Hilary Mantel’s 672 page first installment of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy met every expectation. Once I sat down to finish it, I could barely put it down. I spent most of a full day devouring the last 400 pages. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a good one.

Does the name Thomas Cromwell ring a bell?

Not Oliver Cromwell, who was a distant relation and was also important to English history. Thomas Cromwell rose from impoverished beginnings to a post working for Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII’s chief minister. When Wolsey was unable to secure a dispensation from the Pope so that Henry could divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell deftly insinuated himself into Anne’s favor and became Henry VIII’s favorite minister. This resulted in a rapid rise to power and riches, which lasted until his execution in 1540 over the poor choice of Anne of Cleves for Henry’s fourth wife.

Wolf Hall tells the story of Cromwell’s rise to power along with Anne Boleyn and her family. It’s a triumphant book, in which we can’t help but cheer for the success of Thomas Cromwell and his family. Hilary Mantel has created a new paradigm for Cromwell in this lovingly crafted piece of historical fiction.

We already know the story, but what makes Wolf Hall exceptional is its attention to detail.

The book is full of characters, and if you aren’t already familiar with Henry VIII’s court, you will be by the time you’re done — be prepared to read with your Wikipedia open :).

For example, Mantel vividly describes Thomas Cromwell’s relationship with Hans Holbein, who painted at Henry’s court. This painting shows the turquoise ring that Mantel tells us was given to Cromwell from Wolsey — it’s the little things about this book that give us a human picture of a statesman who was also a man.

In this interesting article from The Telegraph, Hilary Mantel talks about how she decided to write a trilogy about this time period.

I was kind of surprised how the book ended and since I already knew there was a sequel, I felt that the book came to a sudden stop.

When she completed Wolf Hall, she realized she had too much material to just put it into her planned two books. Between Wolf Hall and The Mirror and the Light, which will be about Cromwell’s final downfall, Mantel added Bring Up the Bodies, which covers the year prior to Anne Boleyn’s execution.

“When I came to write about the destruction of Anne Boleyn (a destruction which took place, essentially, over a period of three weeks) the process of writing and the writing itself took on an alarming intensity, and by the time Anne was dead I felt I had passed through a moral ordeal,” the author told the newspaper.

“I can only guess that the effect on the reader will be the same; the events are so brutal that you don’t want to take a breath and turn the page, you want to close the book.”

The beauty of Wolf Hall — and why we as readers care about the essentially despicable Thomas Cromwell — is Mantel’s genius at drawing us into Cromwell’s mind. Her plot structure allows us to trust Cromwell’s plan and we believe that he will be successful.

It’s all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.

I can’t wait to read the next installment; I’ve already got it on hold at the library! I hope I don’t have to wait six months.

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Friday’ Rant about Facebook

Any time you want to yell back at me, just refer back to the title; I promised you a rant and rant I shall be doing.

I’ve been seeing a lot of “cleaning out my friends” posts on Facebook recently.

I am cleaning up my Facebook friend list. Please let me know if you wish to remain active by answering… with Yes please.

It made me think about why I would want to eliminate friends from Facebook and about whom I would eliminate. Surely one can pick and choose for herself whether or not to continue being “friends” with someone in her life.

The social media platform provided by Facebook gives me a  look at what people in my life are doing and I really enjoy and appreciate updates — even the ones that tell me someone isn’t feeling well and has retreated under the covers or has checked in at Starbucks. I’m glad to see that all is normal in that friend’s life and things are progressing as usual. It’s not stalking; it’s caring! 🙂

And then there’s the obvious missing comma between Yes and please. Enough to drive me crazy.

I’m also pretty tired all of the photos people are posting showing old-school household equipment, such as a manual ice-cube tray with the flip lever.

I’m finding myself increasingly annoyed by these photos. Nostalgic or of historical import? I’m a fan of both, but glorifying these objects seem silly to me, although this blogger does bring up a good point about using stainless steel over plastic trays if one doesn’t have a built-in ice maker in the fridge. I REMEMBER the fractured ice cubes and chunks that come out of these trays. I’ll stick with my auto-cuber in my freezer, thank you, and I don’t want to wade through junk like this to get to the nuggets of information you are actually sharing about your life — the ones I want to see.

Political crap? OMG, will you stop already?

It’s one thing to post a thoughtful article which allows the Facebook friend to decide to read or not. One of my relatives curates and shares lots of political articles, and his commenters are both supportive and antagonistic about the positions presented. I love that. I MADE THE CHOICE to read it.

Please don’t just slap up your unresearched and sensational opinion about something. Link the article where you found it so that I can make an informed decision for myself. You claim to be patriotic and looking out for the best in our country. Isn’t being an informed voter important to our democratic process? Save your inflammatory rhetoric for your friends who already agree with you. I promise; it’s not changing anyone’s mind, and certainly not mine.

These links to other sites that people are putting up also drive me to the nuthouse.

Yesterday a Facebook “friend” posted a photo link of an artist’s rendering of Jesus bleeding on the cross. Really, was that totally necessary? I get that you want to proselytize about your personal faith and I support your right to do it. But can we think a little more carefully about how such a photo will affect your reader?

At the risk of you defriending me, I’m also pretty tired of your animal photos. But that’s just me; everyone else likes them. 🙂

What I do love about Facebook is the personal photos.

Among the pictures of  little kids doing cute things and adults doing things they probably shouldn’t be putting on Facebook, my friends share photos of their vacations, photos of their beloved relatives, and photos of interesting ephemera that they find along their way. I love seeing their point of view, and I learn something every day about new camera applications and photography techniques.

I’m closing today with a photo a friend took in St. Louis. Yes, there’s a little gentle political sarcasm involved, but this is what I want to see on Facebook.

Something that actually makes me think.

I am the Queen after all, and I can make my own rules.

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Book Club: The Women

Read The Women by T.C. Boyle. It’s really good. End of book review and on to the juicy stuff.

Image via http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OrSWhs5g-6w/SirG2CjbkBI/AAAAAAAAALQ/H5HwnoVuHcs/s400/TheWomen.jpg

Boyle’s tale of Frank Lloyd Wright’s relationships with women is intriguing — a pastiche of story-telling based on solid factual research.

I’ve been a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright for many years. I’ve visited his home and studio in Oak Park many times and I’m always happy when a visitor wants to take the tour. I’ve been intrigued by his story and the depth of his magnetism. It’s kind of amazing how this arrogant and self-centered man was able to inspire love and almost slavish devotion from the people around him.

Sometimes what I write doesn’t end up where I intended it to go when I began.

Clearly this is more than a book review because I’m a history nerd.

After we read Loving Frank in book club, we decided to do a pilgrimage to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to visit Taliesin and I wrote about it here. We have also visited Taliesin West in Arizona, Falling Waters in Pennsylvania, and the local FLW shrines, including Unity Temple.

When I read books about Frank Lloyd Wright and his designs, his houses become characters on their own.

Blue Balliett’s YA novel, The Wright 3, is a good example of this. Wright’s Robie House near the University of Chicago is the setting of this novel, and I couldn’t wait to go visit it after reading the story. The physical connection I get to the houses through the text is hard to resist and apparently I’m not the only one. If you’re going to be in the area with your children, read the book together and then take the house tour designed to connect with the book — or just do it yourself cause it’s worth it!

Given all that history, it’s not surprising that I just lapped up The Women hungrily. Told through the reflections of a fictional Japanese apprentice, T.C. Boyle has given us another intense visit with Wright and the women who loved him. He traces the stories of Wright’s three wives and his mistress backwards, and as the story unfolds, questions are answered and links become clear. It’s a difficult narrative construct to do effectively, but it didn’t drive me too crazy. I wish there had been more about first wife Kitty and how she really coped with Wright’s desertion of her.

I’m a firm believer in the power of chance and there are several chance encounters that led to the writing of this book and the writing of this post.

Image via http://0.tqn.com/d/gocalifornia/1/0/D/T/3/20110522_010-a.jpg

T.C. Boyle bought and renovated Wright’s George C. Stewart house (1910)

T.C. Boyle is the author of many successful books as well as being a professor at UCLA, and apparently he had enough money to purchase and renovate Wright’s George C. Stewart House in Montecito, California. In this interview, he talks about how his fascination with Wright grew after living in one of his homes. I can truly see how that would happen.

On our recent trip to California, we visited the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. I was deep into The Women, visualizing FLW striding around in his cape and hat, and suddenly, there he was on the wall of the Claremont. Of course I took a photo (as I do incessantly).

Wright loved the Claremont, and designed a wedding chapel for the hotel in 1957 at age 88. It was never built, but its design was organic yet modern, as all of his work was.

In researching the wedding chapel design, I ran across the website of this Italian architect, who has redesigned Wright’s work using specific design principles.

I’m a great reader, but a lousy book reviewer, as you can see.

I get too caught up in the human stories surrounding authors and their subjects to ever make a living writing book reviews. I’m glad you stuck with me through this visit with Frank Lloyd Wright, and I highly recommend The Women if you have been intrigued by my story today.

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Views of the Thames

While watching the Golden Jubilee coverage today, I got inspired to do some research about the paintings of the Thames that the television presenters were referring to, and I discovered some gorgeous views of the Thames.

The River Thames with St. Paul’s Cathedral on Lord Mayor’s Day, c.1747- 48, was painted by the Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto).

The Thames above Waterloo Bridge c.1830-35, by Joseph Mallord WIlliam Turner, shows an impressionistic view of the Thames, Turner “shrouds the river in a blanket of pollution, with chimneys belching out smoke” according to the Moderna Museet website.

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902) was a French painter who spent much of his career in Britain. This painting, The Thames, c. 1876, gives the viewer a vision of a jaunty little group out for a pleasure trip on the crowded river.

Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge in Grey Weather, c.1903, shows a “crowded heaviness. Behind are the chimneys, dirt, smoke and steam of London and in front the bright dark flow of the Thames. Monet has parted them with his clever use or placing of the bright, red and green splashes on the vehicles crossing the bridge” according to the How Stuff Works website.

Finally, my 2011 photos of the Thames taken from the Tower Bridge show a modern London and a modern river. I hope you enjoyed today’s journey through history.

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Thunderstorms, Wild Turkeys and Broken Glass: A History of Glass Preservation at the Philip Johnson Glass House

This a fascinating history of a fascinating structure. I wish I could take my own photos of it…

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