Mr. Kim Blogs - Chanteuses

A friend sent me a link to a youtube clip of Keiko Touge. I had never heard of her and watched it without any expectations. As soon as she opened her mouth and started singing, nerves and emotions I had not touched in decades were immediately exposed. Teenage angst and possibilities and dreams were with me once again. The woman has perfect pitch.

More importantly, Keiko sounds 98.6% like Karen Carpenter.

When I was young, I listened to the angelic alto that was Karen Carpenter in her pre-illness prime, just a girl of 19 when she hit the charts. She had what I still to this day believe to be one of the five most incredible pop female voices of the last century. Karen was, in my mind, in the same league with Judith Durham, Rosemary Clooney, Eva Cassidy, and Ella Fitzgerald. (Yep, I said it, better than Barbra, Judy, Diana, Judy, Cass, or Jo. "My ladies" were in a class all by themselves.) And like the other four, Karen could absolutely embrace the texture and timbre needed to own a song, to make the listener sniffle in sympathy or bop along in childlike joy. I have always heard perfect pitch, even if I could not sing it. Hearing a singer claim a note just an eighth of a note flat or sharp still sends me climbing the walls. Each of these ladies could nail it. I bathe in their music each time it finds me.

The Carpenters’ music itself has been described by some, including at least one woman I have married, as insipid. As may be. God knows, I lost enough bus stop fist fights with “friends” for admitting I listened to “faggot music”. Ah, youth. All I can say is the songs helped articulate the emotions of an unpopular, gangly boy struggling to define what was important in life. For that, I am still grateful. Add to that the voice of an angel, and you have a shrine, lovingly locked away in my inner psyche. Here is an admittedly lip synched sample of her voice. Pure tone. Beautiful. I wonder to this day what she would be singing today if she had lived, whether she would have survived the transition from 30ish pop artist to adult entertainer, whether she would have left her persona and her duo act in the dust and moved on to something else, or whether she would remain as she is – a footnote in music history and an example of how bad 70's music was, for some.

So Keiko. Keiko Touge apparently has a one-track career. She plays the part of Karen Carpenter reborn. A woman of some lucky talent, she sounds a bit like The Lady herself and indulges in the comparison. Here is a sample. (Please try to ignore the awkwardness of Richard Carpenter in the clip. He is a lost soul, and perhaps the lessons of his post-Karen public life are worth a post on its own merits.) It is obvious to me in this clip that it was really important to Keiko that Richard approve of her interpretation. I hope she got the approval she wanted.

And I hope she finds her own muse so that she can own her own soul and can learn to live without Karen’s.

Listening to Keiko, then listening to other clips by both women, I felt like I was eating butter. It is such a gift to be able to touch memories and find that they still mean something. Even if they mean nothing to anyone else. The songs carry emotion, and the voices themselves are pure joy. I hope you find them to your liking.

And Donald: if you are still out there somewhere and want to resume our bus stop discussion about my musical taste, I warn you -- I have developed a wicked right hook.

Day Five – England/Paris Trip – The Incomparable Cotswolds

(Internet picture)

I am almost dreading putting this part of the trip down in words. I know that there is no way that I will do it justice. I will use the same descriptive words over and over and I fear that folks will tire of my repetitiveness. Ah, well – I can only try, I guess.

Wednesday, May 18th

We woke early, eager to start our first day in the Cotswolds. We had tea and toast in the cute little snug at the cottage:


Our hostess, Anna, had supplied the cottage with a few basics – bread, milk, butter, tea, etc. I mentioned before how much better even ordinary grocery store bread was than ours. I later found the exact bread in a grocery store that we stopped at and it was just plastic bag mass produced bread. But it was so good – big (I had a hard time getting it into the toaster), firm, thick slices that were so much more substantial than our white bread. We ate and wrote some postcards and then hit the road.

The first stop was a Tesco (grocery store) in Stroud. I know that to normal people, it sounds odd to spend part of my first day of my much anticipated trip to the Cotswolds of England in a grocery store. But, then, I’m NOT normal – I’m a food-obsessed whackaloon. I adore grocery stores and always love to visit them in a new place. Visiting one in a new country is a special treat. Also they are a great place for take-home gifts. We got one of our favorite gifts that day – Royal Wedding commemorative tins of cookies that we each took to our offices. We also got a good stash of our favorite English candies: Crunchies, Flakes, Smarties, Jelly Babies, Maltesers, etc. While some or maybe all of these are available in the USA, the chocolate that is used on the British versions seems better. At least to us. I love the stores because they offer something different from what I see every time I walk into a Kroger or a Food Lion. So what do we see first thing?

(sigh)

We DID see some satisfyingly odd and unusual things. This gave us a giggle:

Do you think it was intentional?

Also, England wins the award for most bizarre chip (crisp) flavors:


Stroud was the scene of the recently infamous and inadequately marked pedestrian mall that we tooled through in the Toyota rental car.

Getting out of Stroud (all pedestrians and baby carriages intact, ta very much), we made our way to Painswick. I should say that this was my favorite place in the entire trip. And if I ever win the lottery, my first expenditure will be a cottage here. Painswick has about 2000 residents, feels completely in the country, but is only about 10 minutes from Stroud (a good sized town, with all the amenities) and only a couple of hours from London. And this is what it looks like in February:

(Internet picture). Could heaven improve upon that?

Some Painswick scenes:










These are some of the 99 yew trees in the churchyard of St. Mary’s:

We met a delightful 90 year old gentleman who was the host at the Visitor’s Centre in the Town Hall. He explained the significance of the 99 trees to us. It seems that it is traditional to only plant 99, because legend has it that the devil will kill the 100th. This fellow was so friendly and willing to chat; he told us that the town hall used to be a workhouse (during the wool days) and then a schoolhouse. The Visitor’s Centre was on the second floor and he led us to the window to show us the sites from there:

He was also anxious to share his own history – a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and the father of a one time resident of Austin TX. He’d been to Texas and liked the US very much. He seemed anxious to talk with us, almost lonely. We could undoubtedly have spent the afternoon talking with him, and it was only the draw of the town itself that pulled us away.

We had a pub lunch in Painswick – at the Royal Oak Inn. Lovely place:

We had a good lunch – a selection of local cheeses: stinking bishop washed with pear juice, also with nettle rind, stilton local, Hereford hop cheese (with hop rind) and a good, crunchy baguette. That was great, but what was truly lovely was our visit with the locals. You always hear, at least in America, about the British reserve – how stand-offish they are. We never saw it. True – we never had anyone introduce themselves to us by name. But chat??? Good God, they chat! The owner/chef came out to bring us our lunch and told us about each cheese, what order they should be eaten in and where they all came from. The server told us she’d lived in LA and brought us a fresh blackberry sundae on the house because she’d accidentally made an extra one. How this could be true is a mystery, since we were at that point the only patrons in the place. It may have been a gift to apologize for not having the blue cheeses we originally ordered, or the spare could have been legitimately a duplicate of one that was intended for the proprietor. Who knows? It was delicious, no matter the provenance. Another local couple came in to eat and chatted about their trips to the US (Washington, DC especially) and Paris, when they heard we were going there, too. This little pub lunch was what I’d dreamed about back home and here it was happening exactly as I’d hoped. The only thing that was missing was the offer of a fabulous job for Mr. Kim (thatched cottage included, naturally). Sigh.

I don’t think I’ve talked about England’s post offices yet. In the little villages, at least, they are VERY different from our post offices. You can, of course, purchase stamps and mail packages and all that. But they are so much MORE. Every one that we went into also were little shops with postcards, maps, souvenirs, snacks, etc. I believe that they still have saving accounts also. The Painswick post office was probably the most beautiful and charming one that we saw:

(Internet picture) This 15th century timber framed building is the last surviving building of its type in the village. No other PO in England is housed in such an old building.

I had read about a Roman Villa ruin near the village of Chedworth that I thought sounded like something that Mr. Kim would love, so we headed there next. The villa was a bust (they were almost at closing time and besides were renovating – odd, that, renovating a ruin???), but the drive there was gorgeous:




This little fellow was doing some sightseeing of his own:


The village of Chedworth was lovely and hilly and picturesque and I couldn’t resist taking this picture:

The two of them with their wellies, him in his shooting coat and the lurcher were just so VERY English.

Chedworth has a beautiful church, St. Andrew’s, with a graveyard in a bit of a state of disrepair:



and overlooked by these folk:


The church:


And this rather unexpectedly posh domicile next door:

NOT the vicarage, certainly, but the gate is between the churchyard and their garden.

More flowers:


Sadly we didn’t get to Bibury this day. We had driven through it on the way to the cottage from Oxford and were captivated:

(Internet picture) This completely charming place, called by William Morris “the most beautiful village in England” is home to the Bibury Trout Farm where you can fish, eat, tour and shop. I was sorry not to get here, both to see the lovely village and to get some smoked trout.


Went ‘home’ via Cirencester – called the ‘unofficial’ Capital of the Cotswolds. Cirencester, with a population of almost 20,000 people is small to us, but a good sized town still, and too big for what we wanted to do. Nevertheless, we ended up driving around it at least once a day – looking for ‘regular stuff’ – gas, drug stores, etc. (apparently all Cotswold roads lead to Cirencester). It has a beautiful church (yes, ANOTHER church – and we aren’t done yet, my dears) – St. John the Baptist:


With a gorgeous graveyard:


We thought about trying to find somewhere for dinner, but decided to go back to the cottage. We’d picked up some goodies in Stroud and I was LONGING to prepare even a simple meal in our little cottage. We had some cheese (blue Stilton, Laurel Farm Red Leister), some of that great bacon, crusty bread, lovely little tomatoes, Cox apples and strawberries:








Everything was delicious and I had the best BLT of my life (minus the L):



Dessert:

Dark chocolate shortbread and a raisin scone. Lovely.

I explored the cabinets and found four or five boxes of tea bags. I tried them all over the few days we had, and decided that drinking tea in the evenings is a perfectly lovely thing to do.

When the sky finally darkened at ten o’clock or so, the temperature really dropped outside and in. We bundled up under the duvet and fell asleep listening to the sounds of the wind in the trees and our noses filled with the faint smells of the dust from the centuries old beams the mixing with the tang of the cooked bacon and the nectar from the flower garden.

England/Paris Trip - Food Blogging

I've made a start on a more food-centric report of our trip at eGullet. You can find the post here.

Bon Appetit!

We Interrupt This Blog…

I’m going to take a little break from my England blogging to post about a more recent excursion. Last Saturday was my 52nd birthday and Mr. Kim and The Child decided to do it up in style!

While I have been to some beautiful beaches in my life – Bermuda, Key West, California, the Bahamas, the Outer Banks – I have to abashedly admit that my favorite is still the beach I grew up going to: Ocean City, Maryland. I love the ticky-tackiness of the place. I love the boardwalk, the junk food, the souvenir shops, the carnival rides, etc. The sounds of the waves fighting with the loud music, the vying aromas of funnel cakes and French fries, the contrasting beauty of neon and endless sand. I love the variety and paradox. Being me, I also love that there are food stands that have sold only one or two items in their almost 100 year history. I love all of the hotels from the 1950’s with their Vegas-esque names. And I love staying right down in the middle of it all! As a kid, we mostly stayed farther up the strip – sometimes as far as Rehoboth, Delaware (a smaller, quieter community north of OC) as it was more family friendly in those days. Or, when I was a teenager, we had a place on Chincoteague Island and went over to OC for the day. This weekend, our hotel was at 1st and Philadelphia streets – a couple of blocks up from the beginning of the boardwalk.

As you can see, they chose well for my birthday celebration. We arrived late on Friday night and took a short walk down the boardwalk and out to the surf – just a taste as it was late even by the open-til-all-hours standards of OC.

Saturday morning, I let them sleep and slipped out early for a walk. Mr. Kim felt bad later that I’d been alone, but I told him that it was actually wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a solitary walk around there.



I finally got hungry and went and woke them up and forced them out of bed. We got a quick breakfast and hit the beach:


See how close we are to the action:


We fried in the sun for a few hours (The Child and I are practically albinos) and then grabbed some lunch. It is a truism that all food tastes good outdoors. And it is also one that foods from one’s childhood hold a special place for us. I know that I have tastebuds that just adore the not-so-great pizza I grew up eating. But there is a place in OC that even newcomers are stunned by. That would be Thrasher’s French Fries:

They have been open since 1929 and they sell French fries. No burgers, no hot dogs. And they offer two things to go with your fries: salt and vinegar. That’s it. If you want catsup with your fries, you have to go steal it from some other place. As a matter of fact the place around the corner from Thrasher’s has a funny sign up about that very thing:


Actually, I love catsup on fries. I dip and squiggle with the best of them most other places, but catsup on Thrasher’s fries is just wrong. I remember when Momma and I first met Ted and his girls (newly arrived from England), we laughed at them for putting vinegar on their fish and chips. How weird! How foreign. Didn’t they know what catsup and tartar sauce were for? Then we all went to OC together and they saw us sprinkling vinegar all over our fries. “What is THAT that you are putting on your chips?” they asked. “Um…” we replied. And never looked back – it was vinegar with fish and chips from then on out.

The best part of being a Thrasher’s aficionado is introducing new folks to them. The first time Mr. Kim and I went to OC, I insisted that we drop our bags at the hotel and RACE to Thrasher’s. He suggested that since it was after 11pm, they were probably closed. I told him to not be a fool and to shake a leg. We speedwalked the one mile down the boardwalk (I am a big girl and we big girls do NOT speedwalk), Mr. Kim pointing out all of the places that sold ‘Boardwalk Fries’ and me sneering at his naiveté. He balked again at the long LONG line. I held fast and waited. His face when he tasted his first salty-vinegary-crisp outside-tender potato-y inside Thrasher's was indescribable. Astonishment, joy, avarice and greed. I barely got enough for myself!

We actually met an adorable little guy who was obviously having his first Thrasher’s experience and not caring for it one bit! The Child was sitting next to him on a bench and we were all eating fries. She asked him if they were good and he said “NO!” He said they tasted like strawberry and vanilla. They don’t, of course, but he was probably four years old and trying to explain to her that these fries were NOT what he was accustomed to.

When I was a kid, lunch was always at Thrasher’s corner. One adult would stand in the fry line and the other would go around the corner to stand in the fried chicken and corn on the cob line at the place next door and the kids would grab a table. Thrasher’s doesn’t have tables, so if you wanted to sit, you kind of had to get chicken and corn. Everyone did it. The funny thing is, is how GOOD the chicken and corn was. It certainly didn’t have to be. We all would have gladly eaten a McDonald’s burger just to be able to sit in the shade and enjoy our fries. But the chicken was amazingly crisp and tender and juicy and the corn was fabulous. [An aside: as much as fried chicken is considered a SOUTHERN dish, the best fried chicken that I’ve ever had has been in two not very southern states – Indiana and Maryland. Odd.] The chicken place is gone, but there is a good pit beef place. Lunch:


Back to the beach to finish crisping up and then to the hotel for a dip in the pool. I love the ocean, but like to finish up with a refreshing pool swim.

My perfect day at the beach is this:
Breakfast
Beach
Lunch
Beach
Back to the room for a shower and a nap
Hit the boardwalk for the rest of the evening

I didn’t get the nap, but did manage a shower.

Walking down the boardwalk in OC really is a stroll down memory lane. So many of the stores and sites and food stands are the same as when I was a little girl:














One of my favorite places when I was a little girl was Trimper’s Rides at the end of the boardwalk. They have an outside area with all the regular rides:




But what is really special, magical to the little girl in me is the inside area of Trimper’s. This area is for children. The centerpiece is a beautiful carousel from 1912:


It is one of the most gorgeous carousels I’ve ever seen and the animals are positively fantastical:




















The large carousel is the one inside ride that adults and children can ride, but the rest of the rides are all for the little folk, including this beauty:

This Lilliputian carousel, sized for the tiny, was dates from the 1920’s and is utterly charming.

There is even a calliope:


The rides are all vintage and entrancing:










This, though, is possibly the most charming item in the whole place:





The lovely lady on top of the antique ticket booth presided over so many of my favorite childhood memories. Trimper’s was THE goal of all my childhood trips to OC and this lady was the siren who lured me to the shivery pleasures of scary rides, the haunted house and the mirror maze.

It was time for dinner – Thrashers again and hamburgers this time. My peeps:

Replete with fatty, carby goodness.

Off to the pier to wander with all sorts of folks. Lots of weirdos – OC is great for oddball watching. The pier in OC is loaded with all of your basic carnival rides and games, complete with an enormous assortment of hucksters, cheats, pickpockets and clean cut, polite international students working for the summer. It’s loud and fragrant and the lights are INTENSE. Wonderful place:










My girl and me:


We wandered (not too far – yay!) back to the hotel – full, sleepy and ready for bed and some AC!

Sunday was much quieter. We had breakfast – another BIG, full breakfast. It’s a funny thing - but at the beach, when I’m getting ready to spend the day in unbearable heat and scorching sun, I should be craving a light refreshing breakfast. I should want fruit and juice and maybe cold cereal or a doughnut. Not me. I’m ready for the works – bacon, eggs, creamed chipped beef on toast (especially creamed chipped beef on toast!).

We wandered around a little more and admitted to one another that we just couldn’t face riding home in the car after another hot day on the beach. So we did a little shopping, had one last box of Dolle’s caramel corn, fed all of our leftovers to the seagulls (a family tradition) and headed out.

The drive home was full of talk and singing and eating (of course). We stopped for lunch on the road at a church that was having a pit beef sandwich fund raiser. Gorgeous sandwiches, but I was really hoping for some of that Maryland men’s club BBQ chicken. Anyone who has spent any weekends in Maryland knows exactly what I’m talking about. The Kiwanis, the Moose, the Elks, etc. raise money by selling BBQ chicken. You can smell them miles away. They set up these huge screens over charcoal and baste the chicken with, as best as I can figure, liquid crack. It is literally the BEST grilled chicken I’ve ever tasted. But we didn’t get one single whiff, so, Catholic pit beef it was.

We were sad to see that a MD institution seemed to be no more. This was sitting by itself in front of an empty lot:

Named Wall’s Bakery, but called the Wigwam by one and all, it was one of the highlights of a road trip down US 301. Fabulous cookies, cream horns, Napoleons and especially the largest, most delicious éclairs ever. Happily, I did some research at home and discovered that they have moved, not closed. But seriously, Wall family – could you put up a ‘Moved to…” sign instead of giving everyone a heart attack?

We stopped for dinner at Captain Billy’s in Popes Creek. Crabs, peel and eat shrimp (we actually heard some crazy lady berating the teenage waiter for telling her that she had to peel her own shrimp!!!), fabulous oyster stew. All enjoyed at sunset beside the Potomac River:


I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday. Thank you so much to my sweet family for thinking of it and making it happen for me.