Making 'kraut

[The "hobler," working up a sweat]

[Watch that blade!]

[Perfectly prepared cabbage]

[Don't spare the salt]

[Kraut-packin' fool]

Yesterday’s return to seasonal temperatures befitting fall were the perfect setting for reconnecting with my German-ness, via the preparation of a traditional, ethnic food.

Sauerkraut, the product of cabbage and fermentation evokes many happy memories. It helps me to think back to that time, each fall, when I got to hang out with my father, uncle and grandfather, as they prepared their supply of sauerkraut for the winter. I first witnessed the making of this German staple around the age of eight, or nine.

Many know sauerkraut merely as an ingredient on their Reuben sandwich, or possibly from purchasing it already prepared at the supermarket, or better, Morse’s, in Waldoboro. Most however, know little about how it is made.

While I had a bird’s eye view of the process as a youngster, once I became a teenager, I had little interest in family ways, or ethnic foods. As a consequence, when I married and became a father and got interested in perpetuating tradition, I realized I didn’t know how to make the dish I loved as a youngster.

Upon returning to Maine from Indiana, I found that my father and uncle’s batch of sauerkraut had a different and less pungent taste than when my grandfather used to make it. I wasn’t sure why.

At a family gathering of the Baumer clan, someone had cooked a batch of sauerkraut. I tasted it and knew the flavor was what I had been searching for. I found out that my cousin had made it and put up a batch every year. We agreed to get together the following fall and he’d guide me in making my own supply.

What I found out is that sauerkraut is easy to make, but you need a couple of key items and a little muscle-power. One such item is a special cutter that my father and cousin called a “hobler,” which I assumed referred to the company that made this device. I actually found this description, via Roots Web and it provides a bit of insight into this shredding device and the sauerkraut-making process.

A Krauthobel is a long board with three or four blades set at an angle in the center. There are grooves on each side which hold a rectangular wooden frame that permits the tool to slide back and forth.

The "Hobel" must be fastened to a stable base that would not buckle under pressure from the work. A clean cloth was spread out on the ground underneath so that the shredded cabbage would fall upon it.

"Hobeln" (planing or grating/mincing the cabbage) was very hard work. The "Hobler" placed pieces of a cut-up head of cabbage in the wooden frame and pushed the "Hoble" back and forth in a smooth, rapid motion with just enough pressure so that the cabbage would be cut into shreds. A pyramid of cut cabbage gradually grew on the cloth below. Because "Hobeln" was strenuous work and required alot of strength the "Hobler" often had to stop periodically to wipe beads of perspiration from his forehead to prevent it from "seasoning" the cabbage. It was more and more difficult as the pieces of cabbage became smaller and there was constant danger that the "Hobler" might slice his fingers. One had to be extremely careful. As the pile of cut-up cabbage heads became smaller the pyramid of shredded cabbage on the cloth grew larger. Finally the work of "Hobeln" was finished.

I can identify with the “strenuous” nature of being a “hobler,” as I was perspiring heavily, even though the temperature was in the low 60s. It’s rugged work and there is danger of slicing one’s finger, as happened to me my first time working the cutter, with my cousin. I nearly cut the tip of my finger off. Fortunately for me and my sauerkraut, I avoided an encounter with the blade, this time.

Adding to the physical nature of preparing sauerkraut, each shredded cabbage, or two, requires “packing” into the container (in my case, a large stainless steel stock pot, which is my alternative to the traditional ceramic crock, which I find are often cracked, at least used ones picked up at yard sales—stainless steel works well and doesn’t alter the taste), by pounding it down with your fist, after adding salt. Because this can be quite abrasive on your knuckles, I suggest using a rubber glove, which offers protection and saves the skin on your hands.

My wife and I prepared 50 pounds of cabbage, which we’ll be ready to cook, probably with a nice pork roast, in about four to five weeks. There’s nothing like entering the home where sauerkraut is being cooked, particularly on a cool, crisp, late autumn day.

While sauerkraut is an acquired taste, more and more people are coming to appreciate it, particularly now that others are recognizing the health benefits of fermented foods like sauerkraut.

If you’ve never had homemade sauerkraut, I recommend a fall trip to Waldoboro, particularly between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to Morse’s. Take a left at Moody’s and head north on Route 220 for about eight miles. You’ll see the farm on the left.

If you’d like to learn more about fermented foods, like sauerkraut, I recommend a great book, by Sandor Ellis Katz, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. My wife and I sat through a presentation that Katz gave at The Common Ground Fair and he’s a real advocate of many fermented foods, including Kimchi, Borscht and wide array of other live-culture treats.

In our germ-phobic, overly-sanitized world, there’s something to be said for the wisdom of the ages and fermentation.

Can we revitalize our downtowns?

It’s been a terribly busy stretch for me over the past two weeks. I’ve been involved with multiple projects, including the launch of a new WorkReady™ training in Lewiston, where I’m based in my day job.

Last week, I spent a bit of time in Waterville and met Faye Nicholson, from REM, a wonderful, community-based organization. Faye and I got a chance to chat and she invited me to contribute an article for their quarterly publication, Local Voices. I happily complied, putting the finishing touches on it, last night.

It appears to me that Maine has a number of communities like Waterville, possessing solid infrastructure and potentially viable downtowns, which may prove to be attractive to young professionals and boomers, whose children have left the nest. Both groups have begun looking for alternatives to suburban sameness. The former Hathaway Shirt property, now dubbed the Hathaway Creative Center, could become a magnet for downtown revitalization.

Other communities in Maine with long term potential might be Skowhegan (if you overlook perspectives from outsiders) and even Augusta. Sadly, most Mainers know little or nothing about either community and people visiting the state rarely venture up Route 201 to Skowhegan and if they do, they are apt to buzz through downtown, on their way to Jackman and points north. Augusta, as seen from I-95, is a nightmarish scenario, with the Civic Center area and now, the Western Avenue exit, veritable advertisements for how not to build sustainable economies. If you manage to make it downtown however, you’d be struck by the architecture and the beauty of the Kennebec, while also noticing the lack of much vitality in our state capital’s downtown.

I recently found the blog of Jack Schultz, a fellow with some interesting ideas about economic development, particularly as it applies to rural America. Schultz has my dream job—getting paid to travel the country, speaking to groups and discovering pockets of vitality all over the contiguous 48 states. He really is an advocate for small-town growth and the revitalization of downtown areas, the antithesis of most of what passes for economic development in much of our own state.

For my readers in Maine, I’m putting in a plug for the upcoming Summit 2007, which will be happening in two weeks, on October 19th. This should be an interesting day, at least for those of us who are interested in the recommendations of the Brookings Report, Charting Maine's Future, which fits well with my own ideas for smart growth that I developed long before it became somewhat fashionable to talk about sustainable development. Ironically, the event is being held at the Augusta Civic Center, which is the antithesis of smart, sustainable development, as well as the mess across the street at the Augusta Marketplace, with its Wal-Mart Superstore, Sam’s Club, Home Depot, Old Navy, Kohl's and other big-box monstrosities, where the locals come to offer their sacrifices at the alter of mass consumption. (I actually blogged about this and included photos, but can't find it in my archives?)

I’m hoping to get a chance to do some photo-blogging in two weeks and I’ll certainly report out from my time spent at the conference.

The Beans of Maine

If Maine has an employer that is synonymous with the state, particularly to those coming from away, LL Bean would be probably be the one. The company began humbly, with Leon Leonwood Bean first developing products in his brother’s basement; later, he would open his small hunting store in Freeport. I doubt he ever imagined the company's meteoric rise, to where it sits today, as a world-renowned retailer.

More times than not, dropping an LL Bean reference elicits recognition, particularly when talking to someone in another state, or even country. Most tourists have visited Bean’s for shopping when visiting the Pine Tree State.

There’s a famous story that gets told to new hires, during orientation that might be apocryphal, but it’s been told so often that it is now considered part of the holy writ of the company.

When LL Bean developed his waterproof boot and had outgrown his brother’s basement, he acquired a small storefront in sleepy downtown Freeport. Legend has it that LL lived upstairs, above the store and had installed a bell outside the street level entrance, so when hunters came through during the night, headed north, they could ring it and he’d come down and wait on them, as they stocked up on supplies and other items for their hunting expedition.

Like many Mainers, I’ve done numerous seasonal stints for the company, picking merchandise, packing and during the winter of 2004/2005, I worked at their Peck Building phone center in Lewiston, taking calls from eager holiday customers.

This was my winter spent organizing my research and completing the final draft of my first book, When Towns Had Teams. I wrote each day from 5 am, until around noon and then headed in for the evening shift on the phones. I have fond memories of that winter stint, tired from my early hours at the keyboard, but flushed with excitement as my book took shape. This seasonal job helped supplement my meager income of that period, as I labored to get my book out the door.

The hours spent on the phones were a welcome reprieve from the isolation that accompanies the craft of writing. Many callers were thrilled to find out that they were talking to an actual Mainer, located in Lewiston, Maine. They’d ask about the weather (if it was snowing) and other aspects of Maine. While Bean’s is production conscious in all it does, it still allows phone reps the chance to chat a bit with customers. And the customers love it, too!

Maybe that’s why the company saw such strong results during their “spring season,” running from March to August. While other retailers are running flat, or even downhill with their sales, Bean’s continues to track upward, showing an eight percent increase during this period.

As a result, employees are looking at distributing $1 million in profit-sharing bonuses to employees and its customers will have free shipping on all orders until December 21st.

Will Populism still play in Peoria?

[The piece below made me decide to run a back-to-back on "Horserace '08." It was penned by Jack McEnany, editor of Lost Nation.TV, a solid political site. Plus, anyone who drops a Fightin' Bob LaFollette reference is ok in my book.-JB]

It’s impossible for a true progressive not to be moved by John Edwards’ new stump speech. We’re suckers for that Fightin’ Bob LaFollette, eat-the-rich, take back the country, kick some corporate ass oratory.

LaFollette, a Wisconsin congressman, governor, and senator once said:

“Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely. It is commercial, imperialistic, ruthless. It tolerates no opposition. It is just as arrogant, just as despotic, in London, or in Washington, as in Berlin. The American Jingo is twin to the German Junker…If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another.”

He died months after losing his presidential bid as the Progressive Party candidate in 1924. Some things never change.

My wife once said to me, Can you change the baby? And I replied, only if the baby wants to change. As much as Edwards’s extols us to change, Hillary’s popularity among Democrats indicates a strong sense of what he calls “nostalgia” for a time that never was. And he’s right. American politics, especially the presidential variety, lists hard toward the cult of personality – we’re always looking for the Kennedy, the Nixon, the Reagan, the Clinton who will fix what we don’t like about modern America. But genuine, fundamental change will take an active movement of free thinkers, not just a president friendly to the cause. A progressive leader as president would help, of course, as would a responsive congress and a media that isn’t owned and operated by the same gits we have in our cross hairs. Currently, none of these situations exists. Our best shot at any of them is electing a progressive president, if only because Bush has screwed the pooch so arrogantly and so thoroughly that the Democratic nominee has a huge advantage in this cycle. From Adlai Stevenson to George McGovern to Mike Dukakis, progressives have proven that they can deliver when the passion moves them. This time it might work in November.

There are those who will make a case of Edwards’s recent corporate dalliances (but as a trial attorney he stuck it to them good and often), he opposes gay marriage (he has a pro-choice-to-be-gay position, which misses the point), and he voted for the goddamn war (which he now freely admits was a mistake). So as Hillary’s husband used to say – don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Edwards’s domestic agenda is ambitious and necessary, and while social and economic justice issues are at the heart of left-leaning populism, so is peace. Health care is key, ending the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the rich is duh for everyone except the top 1% and a few self-hating, middle-class Republicans, but the organizing issue of the day is Iraq. Morning in America is always a powerful trope; this time sunrise comes when the war ends.

If Edwards bangs hard on bringing the troops home now, and raises hope by offering ways to improve the deteriorating conditions of the middle and working classes, he’ll steadily pick up support. But enough to catch Hillary? Not going to be easy.

Whether Edwards can get the disaffected to vote at all, much less for him, is the question. That there are a lot more us now than there used to be works in his favor – but it’s also the subtext of Hillary’s Clinton II gambit.

Edwards needs a creative and very active voter registration drive with plenty of follow-up field and telephone contact; a fearless and aggressive GOTV team willing to drag what’s theirs to the polls, and; and an inhuman amount of retail vote trolling by Edwards between now and primary day. It’s all uphill, but as things stand, given Clinton’s commanding lead in the polls, if Obama can still win it, so can Edwards.

[Reposted from Lost Nation. TV, 2007]

Access fees

Barack Obama is coming to Portland on Tuesday, September 25th, at 4:00 pm. He'll be speaking at one of Portland's storied venues, The Expo. In my opinion, if you have a chance to see a candidate in person, definitely take advantage of it. Often, something they say, or how they say it, can tip you off on whether or not you want him/her as your candidate for the White House.

While Obama isn't my guy (to be honest, I'm at a loss right now as to who I'd vote for, if I had to make a decision), I've somehow ended up on his fundraising list. It seems I became a target for the BarackObama.com folks when I sent my blog/article about Gary, Indiana, along with a few suggestions I had for dealing with urban America's problems. Rather than respond, I just became another name on the list of people to target for funds.

While on the topic of fundraising, if you are planning to head down to the Expo, you better look closer at the fine print; attending this event, another one of Obama's "Countdown to Change" exercises will cost you $23.00 a pop! Apparently, just for the privilege of hearing the candidate, you've got to cough up cash, whether you've made up your mind, or not.

Now I know running for office cost boatloads of cash, but I've seen countless other candidates for free. Personally, I'm somewhat offended by being asked to pay to hear the candidate. In 2004, I saw Dennis Kucinich in Bath, John Kerry in Portland and John Kerry/John Edwards in Lewiston and I didn't have to fork over a penny. I guess it's a new day in America where access to political wannabes requires payment.

I probably would have attended the Portland event, if it was for free. But being charged to hear what the great Obama has up his sleeves for America doesn't sit well with me. Then, I hear from my wife that she got an email from the campaign, justifying their policy of charging, when she expressed similar reservations about paying for political access. I've definitely soured on Obama for 2008. In my opinion, our pickings for president are pretty slim.

Need to raise funds? Have a fundraiser and bring out your well-heeled supporters and shake them down, which is what everyone does. But don't charge admission for your first event in Maine, open to the public. It doesn't make you seem very inclusive and it does nothing to attract those on the fence who might come see you, but resent being asked to contribute to a campaign that they haven't yet decided to endorse.