Cheese Fit for a Poet

Editor's Note: There have been some technical difficulties over at Justin's food blog, but while our vacation is still fresh, I'd like to offer the food posts from my "Austrian Correspondence" series. Later, I'll re-post them on the food blog and include pictures.

It's all about dairy, my friends. The Alps, to use a messy example from the good ol' USA, are, as if the state of Wisconsin was dropped into the Rockies. Amazing mountains with a culture of hiking, climbing and all the other mountain sports, combined with the best dairy products I’ve ever tasted. I tasted some good food, here, but it's the dairy that's worth writing home (and blogging) about, starting with cheese.

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” G.K. Chesterton

You can always count on Chesterton for the good one-liners; I found the above quote while looking for a different one in a different context. But he has a point. Cheese is a wonderfully tasty and complex food, and the process of making good cheese is a journey of work and aging, not unlike that poetic beverage - wine. But Cheese gets such a bad rap that I really couldn’t imagine a poem about cheese that didn’t sound just silly. Cheese has so many connotations, from the farm all the way to the kitchen, that are more quaint than poetic. Smelling like cheese is not a compliment, and cheesy humor is associated with kitsch, cheapness and vulgarity.

Here in the Alps, just like other cheese-producing places, much of the culture is kitschy (or cheesy, if you’d like). Oompa music, lederhosen, quaint farmhouses and roaming cows with bells around their neck – I love it, but high culture doesn’t come to mind. But the cheese produced here is worthy of song and sonnet.

To my left, I have two cheeses, fresh from the farm. The first is called Komperdell “Village Cheese,” produced right here in Tirol. The texture is comfortable – moist and delightfully smooth. It has many tastes and would work well with a multifaceted wine, and wine is one of the flavors that jumps out when it touches my tongue. It’s a white cheese, and has many of the properties we Americans associate with good Swiss cheese, but much more savory.

The second sample could accurately be called Swiss Cheese, because we crossed the border and, aside from indulging in some duty-free shopping, visited “Sennerei Samnaun,” where the cheese is produced. The taste is both milder and deeper, as if it has more to say to you the more you eat it. The texture is much more firm to the bite and dry but in a pleasant way.

Both cheese sure beat the heck out of anything I’ve eaten from a supermarket. Naturally, they’re more expensive too, but they'd be even more expensive if we were not so close to the farm. If you’re not in the Alps, it’s worth the effort to take a weekend and visit the closest Dairy Farm, so you can eat this wonderfully complicated and delightful food. Who knows? It may even inspire poetry.

A Poem Worth Reading, Especially This Week

I randomly bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems at a used bookstore (a dangerous place for me to carry cash). Many of his poems are a chore to read and don't conform a lifestyle of glowing screens and busyness, but every time I practice concentration to read one, I find it well worth the effort. They were full of complexity - complex verse, complex thoughts, complex Christianity. I wish I could say I read him more often, and I won't see my book again for at least six weeks.

Fortunately, one of my pastors posted a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, both a chore and a joy to read, that is better than anything I read in my book. It's especially worth reading this week (which is why he posted it), as we remember death darkest, resurrection and new life. Read it.

Burns Supper II

This is over a month late, but regular readers (cough) may remember that I gave the Toast to the Lassies at the Robert Burns Supper party my Scottish flatmate threw two years ago. At the risk of being outdone, my sister gave the Reply on Behalf of the Lassies at event this past January. It describes the dating life in our own hometown of Washington (something I'm sure Robert Burns would have sampled had he visited), and is based on Burns' own poem, "The Rights of Woman."

This evening, I would like to read to you my adaptation of Robert Burn’s speech, the Rights of Woman. He wrote the poem for one of the many women he had his eye on, Louisa Fontenelle, to deliver at a benefit dinner. My version takes a slightly different approach, though one I believe our poet would have approved, to reflect the places and the means by which DC’s men and women carry out their romantic affairs. Please feel free to follow along on the papers provided, and then keep them for personal reference in the future.

DC’s Romantic Undertones

An Occasional Address

While the Nation’s eye is fixed on mighty things
The fate of health care and the fall of left wings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp Afghanistan
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
DCs romantic undertones merit some attention.

The first, in the sexes’ intermixed connection
Happens in the heat of presidential election
The tender flower, who delivers her debate
Makes helpless the man, and seals his fate
He may think partisanship renders their nexus a fling
Until it’s yearly rekindled at State of the Union bing-o.

The second connection – but ladies please take caution –
WMATA can offer the most thrilling option
Each man who embarks on his morning commute
Can be sure he’s observed and deemed unattractive or cute
There are, indeed, several different types
From politician to hipster, a lass can choose what she likes
Furtive glances over the top of a book
Shy smiles, batted lashes, sweep him away with a look
Now, foolish man, if you choose not to act
It is only your loss, for she’ll keep her posture in tact,
She doesn’t fret (though you find yourself quite the catch)
For at the next stop, there’ll be a whole new batch.

Our third and our final, could happen to any Washingtonian,
So never underestimate what could happen at the Smithsonian.
A man who gazes at the Hope Diamond so bright,
Or a woman “admiring” the work of the Wrights
Neither is present for their respective exhibits
There’s only one goal, and that’s to gather some digits
As on the train, the same tactics apply,
A smile, a wink, a flirtation, a sigh.
Whenever we use our museums to charm
It takes only a moment for us to completely disarm.

So in a city split upon party lines,
With do-gooders and cynics, and many great minds
To what really unites us we must all raise our glasses
And toast the romance, the seduction, of DC’s lads and lasses.

Love Songs for Grown Ups

Not quite a decade ago, Over the Rhine was finally coming to Orlando, my hometown. I was still there at the time, and I couldn't wait. The state of Florida can be a geographical inconvenience for smaller indy-bands, not worth the gas and the effort to travel all the way down the peninsula somewhere between Atlanta, Athens, Birmingham and New Orleans. Besides, Orlando doesn't quite have the cool indy reputation for such acts. This time, however, with the wind of their epic record Ohio filling their sails, husband and wife duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler were heading to the sunshine state.

Then, before the tour came to any palm trees, they sent an email out to all of their fans. Their marriage was suffering, and that was more important than concert-hall serenades. They cancelled the remaining shows went back to their southern Ohio home to work, to talk and to reconcile. Once again, no Orlando concert (and when they finally came a couple of years later, I was across the sea and literally over the Rhine), but ever since that season of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemptive love, Over the Rhine's music aged like French wine. Their love songs, already some of the best on the market, grew up, taking on new dimensions of desire, regret, pain, healing and beauty.

There have been several albums since, and the latest manifestation just came out on February 8. Some albums, I like at first listen and then later realize we have less in common. There are other albums that feel uncomfortable at first but win my heart as the CD spins and I begin to understand. I have loved The Long Surrender since I first heard a few clips on an NPR interview and continue to do so after saturating my work and my leisure with every track (you can listen for free by clicking the "record player" link on their website. Let me know if you agree - hopefully my enthusiasm hasn't damaged impression by way of expectation).

Working with producer Joe Morgan for the first time, The Long Surrender is full of musical adventures not previously explored on Over the Rhine records. Keys are pressed, strings are plucked, percussion instruments are tapped, tickled, pattered and beat in places new and refreshingly unexpected. The feel of the album is an old Paris nightclub full of smoke and expatriates. Or perhaps a 1920s Cincinnati speakeasy, full of jazz, smoke and women in flapper hats. In fact, I think that cities and municipalities should lift their smoking bans whenever Over the Rhine roles into town, just to give their concerts a proper ambiance.

It opens with a call of sort: in "Laugh of Recognition" Bergquist sings out: "C'mon boys! Time to settle down/What do you think you'll gain from all this runnin' around?" The journey of love, relationship, pain, hope and brokenness continues. And of course, a major theme is their own marriage: honest love songs to and for and about the other. Yet their story, unique as it is, is full of universal thoughts and emotions, left unexplored in so much of today's art about love. In interviews, Bergquist and Detweiler remark that while most love songs are about the beginning of a relationship, theirs are about what happens next. And the truth is, what happens next is a majority of the time. Those of us in what happens next need songs, stories, support and celebration.

It would be easy for such art to be lovey-dovey kitsch. It would be just as easy to focus on the darkness, to despair of marriage, relationship and long-term love. As I've alluded to before, the art that appeals to me is complex enough to include for better and for worse. Thankfully, somewhere between Disney and films like Revolutionary Road stand mature songs like "Undamned," "Oh Yeah, By the Way" and that deliciously wordy history of the Berkquist/Detweiler marriage, "Infamous Love Song." These songs are balm for those of us who believe marriage is so much more than a piece of paper from the city hall, for those who believe marriage is beautiful, earthy, spiritual and sacramental, for those of us who believe it is God's artwork: wonderful, full of depth and sadly tainted by the fall. We rejoice with relief when in "Days Like This," we hear Bergquist sing:

"All I wanna do is live my life honestly/I just wanna wake up and see your face next to me/Every regret I have I will go set it free/It will be good for me."

Given all of this, it shouldn't surprise us that grace is another reoccurring theme. The album's closing anthem, "All My Favorite People," is the sort of song you can sing waiving a Bible or a bottle of beer. Book or beverage, we sing along:

"All my favorite people are broken/Believe me, my heart should know... All my friends are part saint and part sinner/we lean on each other/try to rise above/We're not afraid to admit that we're still beginners/We're all late bloomers/When it comes to love."

One of the most honest lines you'll ever hear is the title and chorus of the song: "Only God Can Save Us Now." The song is inspired by the nursing home where Karin Bergquist's mother lives. "Only God can save us now" was the exclamation of one of her mother's fellow residents. The song describes the crazy antics of the seniors and reflects that there's a good chance that will be our final stop as well. When we get there, we remember there are some things only God can do.

The Long Surrender navigates the joy and pain of love honestly and carefully. With its detailed production, I will say it lacks the spontaneous power of Drunkard's Prayer, the 2005 album that was born when they stopped their tour before I could see them in Florida. Drunkard's Prayer, along with the German worship music of Andrea Adams-Frey and Albert Frey (another married music duo), helped me to take courage and begin the journey of my own marriage. (The title track if that album, incidentally, has one of my all-time favorite lines in song: "You're my water, you're my wine/You're my whisky from time to time.") But, The Long Surrender makes me root for Over the Rhine as a band, because their songs speak to thing in ways so many others don't express, in ways that continue help me. It since they lay it all out there, The Long Surrender also makes me root for their marriage, for my marriage and for other marriages, infinitely more important than any music a marriage may produce.

And whenever I root, I pray. I can't help it. I believe, as much as I believe the chair on which I sit will continue to hold me, that our Lord entered this world and sympathizes with our weaknesses. All his favorite people are broken, because, we all are. We lean on each other, and we all lean on Him, to rise above. And He, the ultimate lover, love incarnate, intimately understands the joys and pains of love, in marriage or otherwise.

Baby Song

Allow me to brag a little bit.

My daughter sings. She sang to me this afternoon before her nap.

She sang to me while I was watching her, like a hawk. You she, she has a scrape on her face that my wife rubs ointment on and covers with a band-aid - doctor's instructions to pulverize the bacteria and ward off a potential infection. I had to watch my daughter while she was in her swing to make sure she didn't rip the band-aid off her face and devour it, the ointment and the bacteria. Not an easy task, believe me.

She lifted her heavenly-brown eyes to her captor/protector and sang. No words of course, she's just learning her consonants. But her little voice rose and fell, freely skipping along notes she herself picked out for a song that she wrote. The tune fell lightly, like a Rocky Mountain brook, flowing with freedom and logic between rock and stone. It was unmistakably a song.

My mother-in-law observed she loves music, however she perceives it in her little developing mind. I have sang to her since we were first aware of her existence, gently singing hymns through my wife's belly and then, how happy, directly to her face. In the first couple of months, the best way to get her to calm down was to hold her and sing, "Come Thou Found of Every Blessings," tapping her back in rhythm as I walked through our little apartment.

Now, she returns the favor. She looked right at me and sang her song. Unmistakably a song, but unmistakably praise as well. Whether she was aware of it or not, she praised God, joining the trees visible out the window right behind her, and the thunder I hear as I write this. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and in her own, little baby way, on this Sunday, she joined in.

I could not help but sing back. I sang a lullaby called "Oh How He Loves You and Me." It goes like this:

Oh how he loves you and me

Oh how he loves you and me

He gave his life, what more could he give?

Oh how he loves you

Oh how he loves me

Oh how he loves you and me

My mother would rock me in a big, leather office chair and sing that song to me. It's among my earliest memories. My mother once told me that my most-requested song during those times was "Away in a Manger." But "Oh How He Loves You and Me" is the one that stuck with me. It took root in the fertile soil of a child's heart and remained. I suspect it was the song God wanted me to remember. I pray that my daughter remembers it too.

Burns Supper

Last night, I gave the "toast to the lassies" at a Burns Supper. The text is below. (Everyone should attend a Burns Supper at least once. Haggis, whisky, poetry, song and camaraderie. What could be better?)

First of all, I would like to thank the lovely Fiona for once again hosting another successful, delicious and poetic Burns feast. I feel heartier, manlier, now that I’m “Haggis-fed.” A special thanks to Lisa and her roommates for letting this group of hungry Scots invade her house (for, after all, if everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, would it follow that we are all Scottish for the Burns Supper?). And, finally, biggest thanks of all to whoever brought the wine (whisky), without which no speech, for hearers or speakers, could be tolerated.

When I was asked to say the toast to the lassies, I knew I was in for a tremendous challenge. No man has ever been able to understand, much less explain, much less tame, the fairer sex. Now, I know that many here go to Church of the Resurrection. Rez is the first church I’ve attended to practice (it appears to me at least) ancient liturgy. And as part of a church that appreciates the ancients, I have decided to turn to the church father’s for wisdom regarding women. As we all know, as members of an “ancient-future” church, if a church father has said it, it must be holy.

St. Ambrose –

“It is just and right that woman accepts as lord and master him whom she has led to sin.”

St. John Chrysostom –

“Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman.”

St. Patrick prays against “the spells of women, and smiths, and druids, against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.”

Yet, St. Thomas Aquinas (who would flee any woman who approached him) aside, our very presence proves that throughout the ages, men have not heeded the advice of their church fathers. They have not avoided the fairer sex as they would vipers. Indeed, for venturing in this very room, where the lassies clearly outnumber the lads, John Chrysostom would have considered me very foolish man indeed. In sum, in spite the wise warnings of church fathers, we men continue to be attracted to women. We can discuss some other time if that is sin.

What is it about you lassies that intoxicates us so much, and in ways that strike fear in the hearts of ancient pastors? Is it adolescent hormones? Is it the biological and evolutionary need to make sure our genes are passed along to the next generation?

While there is certainly truth to these propositions, I would like to propose spiritual grounds for the perseverance of inter-gender relationships.

Look back at Genesis, before the creation of the first couple, we read of God speaking order into chaos. The culmination of his created order was:

“So God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God he created him; 
male and female he created them”

That is nice, isn’t it?

Now, we read on to discover that there was a time, in the original Garden of Eden, where there was man without woman. Can you imagine what the garden must have been like? If there were any decorations at all, they certainly would not have matched. Likely the only furniture was a couple of inflatable chairs advertising Miller-Lite and an old pool table covered with beer-stains, and perhaps a TV leaned up against the tree of life with a random assortment of action and comedy DVDs lying half opened in the flowery meadows. We probably don’t want to think about the state of the Eden bathroom, for that matter. I can imagine God scratching his beard, adjusting his spectacles and musing, “it is not good for man to be alone.”

To bring order into this man-made chaos, an animal would not do. Pets are great, but they would not have brought about the created order. God created a human partner suitable for the task. As the story goes, when Adam first saw Eve standing there, he dropped his video game controller in the grass and said, “whoa, man!” And the rest, as they say, is History.

In short, God has given men few things other than woman to help us grow up. I have known the dirtiest scoundrel become the most proper gentlemen for the sake of the lassies. I’ve seen lads transformed into responsible, contributing men, bringing order into chaos, when they realize the bewitching eyes of woman have fallen upon him.

I am an example of this. This year, I married the fairest lass of them all, who, through grace and love from God only knows where, reached into my manly little world, beer stains (and mustard stains, and marinara stains, mysterious meat stains)and all, and brought me into a sense of things bigger than myself. Indeed, it’s no wonder that Ambrose and John Chrysostom feared something so mysterious and transformative. In one of his more positive poems on marriage, Robert Burns put it this way:

On Wedding Rings 

She asked why wedding rings are made of gold;

I ventured this to instruct her;

Why, madam, love and lightening are the same,

On earth they glance, from Heaven they came.

Love is the soul's electric flame,

And gold its best conductor. 

Whether we happen to be married or single, love of woman, received or given, changes men into something more courageous, orderly and adult.

Now, lassies, I warn you. All this does not mean you will be able to completely change your man (just ask my wife, and the stains she is constantly washing off of my shirts). The story of Adam and Eve does not have a happy ending, and we live in a fallen world. Our beloved Poet’s relationship with women was often over-abundant, to say the least. Yet I read Proverbs 31, the wife of noble character, perhaps, aside from our Lord himself, the best description of a real grown-up I find in the Bible. Liberated, yet committed. Working, in the family and in the community. Devoted, and true to her calling. Loving, in a way that was contagious, especially to her husband.  Much like my own wife, and much like the women of God in this room.

Lassies, this does not excuse you from savagery. This power you have over men has been wielded for evil and pain, and we must often take pity on the lads. But I look around the room, this table, this food, the decorations, the order and beauty – much of what works well in the world not be without the work of woman. It is truly not good for a man to be alone. So all ye rustics, haggis-fed, raise your glasses! I give you, the Lassies!

A Christmas Poem

I am still in the Christmas spirit. As I write, I am listening to my favorite Christmas Album, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Somehow a boys' choir combined with beautiful un-intrusive jazz music seem to me the best way to put an American Christmas to music. It seems to accompany all the emotions of Christmas. Joy to the world, spiked with melancholy, as if the Christ-child knew the violence that awaited him.

Anyway, I am also still in the spirit of sharing other people's writing. I am reading "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken. I have mixed feelings about the book - I'll sort those out when I'm done reading it. However, I thought this sonnet he wrote about the Virgin Mary was appropriate for the season.

"The Heart of Mary" by Sheldon Vanauken

Dear sister, I was human not divine
the angel left me woman as before
And when, like flame beneath my heart, I bore
The Son, I was the vestal and the shrine

My arms held heaven at my breast--not wine
But milk made blood, in which no mothering doubt
Prefigured patterns of pouring out
O Lamb! to stain the word incarnadine

The Magi saw a crown that lay ahead
But not the bitter glory of the reign
They called him King and knelt among the kine
I pondered in my heart what they had said
Yet I could not see the bloody cup of pain
I was but woman--though my God was mine