Victuals and cider: in Warren’s Malthouse with Gabriel Oak

“And here’s a mouthful of bread and bacon that the mis’ess have sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of victuals. Don’t ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and may be tis rather gritty.”

Weeks ago I bought a pint of English dry cider from a local liquor store and intended to sip it while eating bacon and bread as they did in Warren’s Malthouse (Chapter VII, Far From the Madding Crowd). The bacon and bread, however, morphed into a condiment-loaded BLT and the connection to Gabriel Oak’s first meal with fellow workers on Bathsheba’s farm seemed lost. Too fancy. We’d more bacon though, leftover from holiday meal preparations, and so I’d a second shot at reliving a bit of Hardy literature through food.

Sadly, I forgot to get loaf of bread on the way home from work, so on my second shot-determined to eat bacon and drink cider–I grabbed the only bread–like product available, rye crisps.

The bacon looked lonely on the crisp once assembled. Upon reflection, I decided not to be so stringent in my food plan and dressed up the bacon crisps in three ways: bacon with mayo and dijon mustard, bacon with mayo and arugula, and bacon with arugula and homemade green tomato chutney. In the spirit of the homemade chutney, I added a homemade green tomato pickle to the plate.

Even without the dry English cider–which was sparkling and light–each crisp was surprisingly tasty. Surprisingly. I ate the mayo and mustard combo first and anticipated it to be my favorite. (Mustard is one of the world’s great condiments.) Next I nibbled on the arugula and mayo number which took over the top spot; the peppery arugula and creamy mayo balanced the crunchy bacon. Finally I ate the chutney and arugula option, pleased with my efforts in using every one of those green tomatoes I was left with this fall.

All in all, the pimped up versions of the malthouse bread and bacon were more fulfilling than expected. In fact, I’d make them again, with or without thought of Oak’s malthouse victuals.

First snowfall

We had our first real snow of the season this past weekend. It came slowly, first as drizzle, then as soft rain, then soft rain and slush, then slush, and then, finally, snowflakes. I stood in it and—despite the upcoming Christmas holiday and the excitement for a season of wood fires, boots dripping with melting snow near the front door, and the metallic scrape of my neighbor’s shovel—found myself thinking of a late July morning where the Midwestern heat came rolling over the farm fields to where I stood in a trout stream amidst a flurry of tricos.

I never expected to be so fond of the trico spinner fall (the tiniest of mayflies, spent from mating and falling to the river’s surface in the wee morning hours), or to spend so much time fishing it. I’d prefer to sleep, particularly after a week of rising early for work, linger over a cup of coffee and hard-boiled egg, and check the backyard tomatoes to see whether critters have taken a bite. But the expectations of my Labrador and the memory of previous mornings when the river seemed to boil with fish, kicks me out of bed.

On this first morning of my trico season, I got up later than intended, fed the dog, made a cup of instant coffee, and grabbed a few slices of cheese for the drive to the stream. Once there, I looked to the sky above the stream for a cloud of swarming tricos, hurried into my waders, dug my vest out of the duffle, grabbed my fly rod, locked the truck, unlocked the truck to get my hat, locked the truck again, swung on my vest, waded the river at the tractor crossing and hoofed it down the path to where I had a good day’s fishing the year before. In our haste—me and my lab—we missed the point of easy access to the river, instead whacking our way through hemlock and stinging nettle to get to the river’s edge. We popped out just where I had hoped, but the trip getting there wasn’t pleasant.

While my lab splashed in the water near the bank, looking for submerged sticks to chew, I judged the state of affairs while quickly assembling my rod. Upstream near the car, a thick cloud of tricos hung above the stream. Here, downstream, they were filming the water’s surface and trout were starting to rise at alarming frequencies. Thrilled, rod assembled, I looked down to sort out my leader, forgetting that I had removed the whole lot a week before, including the loop at the end of my fly line. Panicked, I searched my vest for a new tapered leader, snipped off the corresponding loop, struggled to tie leader to line with a blood knot—a knot I’ve tied many times before with great success—screwed up, watched rises, started again, screwed up, tried deep breathing, and resorted to tying the biggest ball of knot I’d ever seen, a knot far too big and unshapely to get through any of the guides on my rod, but a knot sufficiently strong to get me fishing. So, somewhat satisfied, I turned attention to my vest, to the flies, and to my box of trico spinners. Which I left in the truck. In the truck.

I tied on an olive CDC emerger and started fishing.

Happily I can report that I caught fish, enough fish. First I cast the fly so that it drifted downstream, submerged in the film. I picked up trout at nearly every point on the drift. Next I cast the fly upstream, dry, where it managed a perky attitude in the ripples. I caught a few trout there too.

At this point my lab had explored every stick within a decent radius and was getting antsy to move. We waded upstream, along the riffles edge, until I spotted sporadic rises in the flat water above the riffles head. My darling lab, now heeling at my right, watched with me.

And as we watched, we slowly found ourselves enveloped by a cloud of tricos. The sunlight, caught in their crystalline wings, transformed the spinners into a million minute snowflakes which were falling all around us. I put out my hand as I would in a winter flurry and they landed tenderly, exquisitely. I almost expected them to melt as a cold flake on a warm hand. Standing there, even the water’s rushing seemed silent. I turned to my darling Labrador upon whose black coat snow-white tricos had reposed. “Wow. Wow. What about this, huh?”

I’ve told that story a few times since it happened and I never get the beauty of that moment adequately painted. So if you’re able, stand in the midst of a soft snowfall, hand outstretched. It was like that.

Far From the Madding Crowd

Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure” was so depressing that the LBTS (one member particularly) procrastinated from starting another Thomas Hardy novel, despite mounting guilt for snubbing the 2010 RMBLI goal: read more British literature, specifically the novels of Thomas Hardy and the Bronte sisters. One of our members started and finished a second** Hardy novel, “Far From the Madding Crowd,” this past June.  Others, well, they lost their copy of that book, and subsequently tried to assuage their procrastination-fueled guilt by reading another British author, Charles Dickens.  Dickens, however, was not named in the 2010 RMBLI and so, upon receipt of a crisp new copy of “Far From the Madding Crowd” (sent by the LBTS member who finished reading the book in June) the procrastinators started reading.

The LBTS was going to wait until all members finished this novel before posting our collective thoughts, but the society was tipped off that a patient, very patient, LBTS blog reader was looking for a book suggestion. Here it is: join us as we read our third Thomas Hardy  selection — his fourth novel which was published anonymously in serialized form.

A map of Hardy’s fictional county in England, Wessex, in which all his novels are set.  Wessex is modeled after the geographical area of Dorset.  Many of the fictional place names in the imaginary Wessex correspond to actual towns in the Dorset region.

In the crisp 2005 Barnes and Noble Classic edition of this book, Jonathan Cook (a man with a few acronyms behind his name) has some interesting bits to say.  Rather than tackling Mr. Cook’s analysis at the outset, it’s been reaffirming and illuminating to read through his thoughts after every few chapters.  I’ve found his following insights quite helpful thus far.

1. Hardy wrote this novel both indoor and outdoor, claiming that he used leaves, wood chips and pieces of stone to jot down his ideas.
2. The novel is part of the literary pastoral tradition in which rural life is idealized.
3. The characters, particularly the love interests of Bathsheba, the primary female character, embody the pastoral which is considered good (Gabriel Oak) and anti-pastoral which is considered bad (Sergeant Troy).
4. The novel’s drama is comprised of misdirected and thwarted desires.
5. The large cast of supporting characters, the farm laborers, act as a chorus throughout the book.
6. The forces of chance, circumstance and coincidence in shaping human destiny are not as relentlessly destructive in this novel as in Hardy’s later novels (Jude!)

This member is about half way through the novel and it has been nothing but enjoyable.  The language is rich and descriptions of place and people are seductive. The story so far:

Bathsheba — beautiful, vain, smart and emotional — has inherited her uncle’s farm.  She hired Gabriel Oak, a former suitor, to tend sheep on the farm after he saved it from being lost in a blaze. She then fired him for giving his honest opinion of her conduct toward a stoic, wealthy neighbor, William Boldwood, whom she teased by sending him a Valentine sealed with wax in which the phrase “marry me” was imprinted.   A short time later, after her flock of sheep broke through a fence and gorged on fresh clover, she was forced to request Oak’s help to save the sheep from their subsequent bloat.  Simultaneously, Mr. Boldwood proposed and Bathsheba, disinterested but knowing it would be a prudent to accept him, was going to take five or six weeks to convince herself she could love him.

But this reader senses more trouble.  Bathsheba has just met Sergeant Troy.

**Only after reading this post did we remember that a second Hardy novel had already been read by the society.  “Far from the Madding Crowd” is our third Hardy selection.  Blame the poor memory on the lingering Jude-induced ennui?

Far from the river

Ladies Books & Tackle Society / Eattoast

Here it is summer, and nary a fishing or literary post from any of us. What goes on at the Ladies Books & Tackle Society? Well, some of us have apparently been too busy fishing to post a blog — and some of us have been too injured to hike about in the high and mucky waters of Minnesota and Wisconsin this spring.

We busted our middle-aged bums training for a half marathon in Stillwater and have spent the better part of spring reading our way through the Maisie Dobbs series. Maisie is lovely even though she doesn’t fish. We have also been promoting our book, “Minnesota Lunch,” which is about sandwiches of all things, but does include a rather long-winded chapter about walleye that goes beyond the fried sandwich to talk about the fish itself, as well as recent efforts to rescue the walleye population in Red Lake. However, we have not forgotten the club altogether.

No indeed! The clubhouse has a brand new chair and footrest, the better to admit all members and supply a ready resting place for weary feet and tea sets — though not at the same time of course. In fact, we will avail ourselves of said chair this very afternoon when we return to reading Thomas Hardy with “Far From the Madding Crowd,” which we remember as being slightly more charitable towards its characters than some of Hardy’s other novels.

And, with the good doctor’s blessing, we hope to be out fishing in a week or so.

(The above photo was captured on a hike, during which a fisherman hooked a trout in chocolatey water with this bright pink bait and then hung the whole fandango in a tree. We rescued it, but the fisherman was so grumpy he declined to take it back. Happens to the best of us.)

CDC emerger from Hardy’s Dorset

Thomas Hardy, we’d like to think, threw a tight loop.

But we don’t know. We don’t even know if he was a fly fisherman.

What we do know, however, is that he grew up among the trout- and grayling- filled chalkstreams of Dorset. One of these streams, the River Frome, has an active fly fishing club that writes a bit about what they’ve been up to, whether it’s fishing, conservation/restoration projects, fish monitoring, or parties. So, in honor of Hardy and his Dorset connections, the LBTS tied up a fly that was featured on their blog in 2008, an in-the-film CDC emerger from Ed Engle’s book Tying Small Flies.

The CDC emerger is crafted from four items:  hook, thread, peacock herl and cul du canard (CDC).  Cul du canard, from which the fly gets its name, is a delicate feather found near a duck’s preen gland.  If you’ve ever seen a duck scratching his backside, he’s probably just gathering up some natural oils secreted by the preen gland, later transferring those oils to other feathers.  The cul du canard feathers (meaning a duck’s bottom in French) that surround the preen gland have a high concentration of natural oil which makes them particularly water resistant.  In addition, cul du canard is unusually delicate and lifelike as it moves in the wind or water.  It whispers.  

Our version was tied on a Tiemco hook size 20.  As we don’t tie as much as we should, it takes a fly or two to get the knack and even longer to get a nicely finished head and evenly proportioned wing, as evidenced in the attached photos.  The initial flies are worth saving, though.  The fish don’t seem to mind, and we were thrilled to prove it on a day trip to a local stream. 

Afternoon trout fishing on a mid-summer afternoon is tough – slow, hot and still.  With temperatures in the upper 90 degrees Fahrenheit, steam rises from the stream, settles on the underside of water hemlock leaves, and jumps on the back of an angler walking amongst them. 

Overheated after a walk through the damp hemlock and brush, we approached the tail of a long riffle and spotted a few trout that were sporadically sipping.  Anxious to try our Dorset and Hardy inspired emerger, we tied it behind a size 16 parachute Adams and made a few short casts.  To our delight, the emerger was slurped up by a trout lying along the riffles’s outside bend. 

Unfortunately we didn’t have a camera and we wanted a photo for this post.  So, full of confidence, we tried it again the next day, wholly expecting to catch at least one trout which we could document. 

We learned a lesson.  Trout don’t necessarily do what we’d like them to do – i.e. take a fly to give us a photo opportunity.  While the conditions were exactly the same as the day before, we couldn’t coax a single trout to take our Dorset emerger.  Humility.  Lesson learned.

A Hardy primer: education, occupation and marriage

Extensive writing about Hardy’s life and work can be found online. The summary below merely peaks our attention and helps us get situated. A particularly exciting source for dabblers and scholars alike is the Thomas Hardy Society. Of special note is the Mayor of Casterbridge design bindings exhibit running from July 24th to August 1, 2010.

 
Hardy was born in County Dorset in 1840 to Thomas, a master stonemason and violin player, and Jemima, a former maidservant and cook. Jemima provided for her son’s education and instilled in Hardy a love of reading. He attended two schools from the ages of eight through sixteen, at which point he apprenticed to a local architect who specialized in church restoration. While apprenticing, Hardy traveled the Dorset countryside, met a local schoolmaster and poet who wrote about rural life, and established a close friendship with a Cambridge student who encouraged him to read Greek tragedies and contemporary British literature — both acquaintances that would prove influential for the young Hardy’s later work.

After roughly four years in the apprenticeship, Hardy left Dorset and moved to London. He spent the next five years working for an architect and exploring the cultural life of a big city — much of which caused him to reconsider the institutional Christianity with which he had been raised and educated. While there, Hardy also began to write poetry (which at that time was rejected for publication) and intensified his study of literature.

After tiring of London, Hardy returned to Dorset. He resumed work with the local architect and started writing novels. His first attempt was rejected by publishers, and so Hardy — who was passionate about poetry and viewed novel writing as a means to create a livelihood — conformed to their expectations. While publication of his early work was difficult, he eventually gained notice, rising in popularity. During this time he also met his first wife, Emma. They married after his first substantial literary success, Far From the Madding Crowd. For the next ten years, the Hardy’s moved between London and Dorset while a number of Hardy’s works were serialized in weekly and monthly publications. In 1885, Thomas and Emma moved into Max Gate, a house designed by Hardy and where he would live the remainder of his life. At the time of settling into their new house, Hardy was secure in his popularity and financial position.

Emma died suddenly in 1912, leaving Hardy regretful of the estrangement that had developed in their marriage. Two years after Emma’s death he married Florence Dugdale, his secretary who was 40-years his junior. Reports of his relationship with Florence vary. Some claim that she was unhappy in her marriage as Hardy continued to grieve the loss of Emma, neglecting his second wife. Other reports claim the marriage was a happy one, Florence helping with and contributing to his work.

In 1928, nearly 20 years after he married Florence, Hardy died at the age of 87.

Ennui in the clubhouse: Thomas Hardy

The LBTS is back after an extended break.  A recent club meeting to discuss the progress of our 2010 initiatives, established at the 2009 fall retreat, shamed us into activity.   Some members believe that Jude the Obscure launched us into a club-wide, six-month ennui. Since we have many Hardy novels left to read, we hope that’s not the case.

In any event, the next book in our 2010 RMBLI (Read More British Literature Initiative) is Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.