Obama in Lebanon

Dave and I arrived 10 minutes late for Barack Obama's question-and-answer session in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and got stuck a block from the Opera House when the police shut down traffic in front of the village green.

I parked in the gap between two legal spaces and we went and milled with the overflow crowd: a mix of high-school students, moms with strollers, and retirees in ski jackets, with a few Japanese tourists thrown in.


Senator Obama came out and gave a brief speech and shook a few hands before returning to the audience inside. I think the words were probably ordinary but the impression was hopeful, even substantive.

We lived in Shanghai in 2004 and Tokyo in 2000, so it's been a while since I've shared any geography with a presidential election. When you're that many time zones away, the primaries seem like nothing more than the prelude to an abstract sorrow.


But in person, Obama is anything but sorrowful. He is the kind of guy I would vote for on gut instinct, neither an ugly American nor a quiet one. Just before he appeared, a man was hauled off the steps in handcuffs, muttering to himself. After Obama left, you could hear people talking about how glad they were to have been there.

Pumpkin Pie, Revisited

Last night I tried that recipe again. There was only a half cup of pure eggnog left, but there were a few swallows remaining in another bottle, fortified with rum, and then I topped off the 12-ounce measure with heavy cream. The result was an even better pie: tender yet firm, a steady companion in times of need.

Pie for Breakfast

We cooked together this morning, in a kitchen with a counter the size of a smallish cutting board. Sarah fried bacon on the stovetop, turning each slice with chopsticks until it reached the superbly-crisp-but-not-quite-burnt stage that our son prefers.

Then she used the leftover cubes of Italian bread from last night's dinner of fondue to make morsels of French toast, scented with cinnamon and served with maple syrup from our neighbor's trees. They were very good. So good in fact, and so appealing on the plate, that we predicted that someone would soon be offering them on a menu—or in a frozen-food aisle.


I carried a bowl of pumpkin to the table, a reminder of a warm October afternoon and our brother-in-law Alex Maclennan's generosity. (He grows them for market, along with corn, raspberries, and asparagus.)

We'd roasted the pumpkin, pureed the yellow-orange flesh in a food processor, and frozen it in two-cup batches.

This bowl had been defrosting in the refrigerator, in close proximity to a bottle of leftover eggnog, another gift, from Sarah's brother John. He and his wife make a much-admired organic cheese called Tarentaise. But their eggnog is not half bad either.

So this morning's breakfast represented a complicated convergence of good fortune, culminating in this recipe (with a nod to Libby's, in the can). The pie is fragrant, creamy, not too sweet, and intensely satisfying, with or without ice cream.

Pumpkin Eggnog Pie

one-half cup sugar
one-quarter teaspoon salt
one teaspoon cinnamon
one-half teaspoon ginger
one-quarter teaspoon cloves
two eggs
two cups pureed pumpkin
one and one-half cups eggnog

one waxed-paper package of graham crackers
seven tablespoons butter

Use your fingers to crush the graham crackers inside the package (if the paper seems fragile, dump the crackers into a sturdier bag first). Melt the butter, then mix with the crumbs and press firmly into a nine-inch pie pan.

Mix the spices with the sugar and the salt. Beat the eggs, then add the eggnog and beat some more. Stir in the sugar and spices, and finally the pumpkin.

Pour into pie shell and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 for another 45 minutes, or until a knife in the center of the pie comes out clean.

After Mongolia

I read this paragraph in the Style section of the Sunday New York Times:

“From where I sit,” said Nancy Novogrod, the editor of Travel + Leisure, "traveling to Mongolia now is almost cliché. Last summer, it seemed like everybody was going to Mongolia. The bar keeps getting higher.”

The story is by Allen Salkin, and he gives a thoughtful account of the climate in which we travel.

It does little good to wish that our vacations were not merely another set of indicators, social markers that enter our conversations for the purpose of conferring status, as if one could display an experience like a brand.

In this overheated atmosphere, where any voyage less exotic than Melville’s Typee risks relegation to the lesser ranks of adventurers, the truly irrelevant among us must find our way, unaided, to other sorts of journeys.

Nearer, slower. Less distant, more peculiar.

Places both familiar and strange, to be enjoyed rather than consumed: around the corner, the end of the block, the top of the hill, the other side of the river.

Christmas in Vermont

According to old custom, newcomers to Vermont are called “flatlanders.” Because our family recently moved here from Montana, where the elevation of many riverbanks is a good deal higher than the peak of Mount Mansfield, I consider that a peculiar term. But, since I’m undeniably an outsider, I’ll save that discussion for another day.

This is not our first attempt to set up house here. In 1988, a few months before we left New England for the second time, we scanned the real estate ads with eager eyes, looking for anything within 30 miles of Woodstock that might prove affordable on a teacher’s salary.

As you might expect, we didn’t have much luck, although one enterprising agent did show us a derelict farmhouse with running water in the cellar. It was more of a brook, actually, and made a pleasant sound as it burbled through the foundation stones.

I was tempted by the prospect of flyfishing from the basement steps, but we couldn’t manage the mortgage. Even then, average property values near Woodstock were unrelated to average income.

Not that the place wouldn’t have made a good investment property. Although you can’t eat the scenery, there are plenty of folks willing to pay for it. By 2005, Woodstock’s median home value was $335,800, nearly twice the figure for Vermont as a state.

What do these residents get for their money? In December, it's the annual Wassail Parade: a cable-ready spectacle of horses, costumes, and costumed horses, in sizes from barndoor to wee beastie.

Still Burning Bright

I am partial to stories of people who triumph over long odds, writers who succeed after decades of rejection, no matter how small the triumph, how secret the success. Then, of course, there are the grand tales of genius unrecognized.

According to one authoritative website, the poet and engraver William Blake worked so hard that, for one two-year interval, he left his home only to "fetch his beer."


Whirlwind of Lovers (Illustration to Dante's Inferno) 
Birmingham Art Gallery

Blake’s work will repay your consideration many times over. Few clear memories remain of my visit to London in 1982, but I do remember reading these words on a page in the British Museum:

“Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, & they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals & is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.”

Christmas in China

If you live in Shanghai, the scent of Christmas comes alloyed with that of diesel exhaust and fermented tofu. You won’t lack for Christmas lights or Christmas sales, and you can buy Christmas decorations exactly like those for sale in any North American discount chain at your local Carrefour.

But if, like our family, you can’t abide an artificial tree, and were disappointed by the peculiar selection of conifers at the flower market in Hongqiao or the landscaping center on Cao’an Lu, then His Royal Highness Prince Joachim of Denmark is your man.

Never mind the environmental impacts of shipping Danish trees to China. At this time of year, you really don’t want to ponder all the thorny issues of globalization.

What you need is the crisp odor of fresh-cut fir, the caress of branches as you hang your new ornaments, a scattering of needles on your living room floor.

Call Maggie at Shanghai Blue Fish Trading (021 5045 4088 or 135 6442 3727). I met her last December and was impressed with her efficiency. She’ll arrange for delivery to your home, and even pick up the weary twig when the season is over. Prices range from 490 to 2360 yuan, depending on size.

Shanghai Update

The Complete Residents Guide to Shanghai is now available at Amazon. My assignment included the chapter on exploring the city’s neighborhoods, parks, tourist attractions, and historical sites. Most of what appears on pp. 168–194 and 204–224 is my work.

If you're in China now or going soon, see my post for Friday, June 29, 2007, which describes our favorite route for circumnavigating the Bund.

Still Life with Water Buffalo

When I look away from my desk, I can see a red barn, a weathered split-rail fence, one green corner of the upper pasture, and the gray stones of a small cemetery. It’s a traditional postcard scene, and appeared at least once on the cover of the L.L. Bean catalog.

This morning a quick movement caught my eye: our Shanghai cat, proceeding up the hill with all due speed, a limp mouse clenched in his teeth. And behind him—four water buffalo, looking as if they had just escaped from a Balinese rice paddy instead of a nearby dairy.


I don’t know anything about the practicalities of raising water buffalo on granite hillsides, but can report that Woodstock Water Buffalo makes real mozzarella and a densely creamy yogurt.

It took three guys holding big sticks to chase the four animals into a trailer, a tricky task that I complicated further by trying to take pictures. From the few words exchanged, I learned that water buffalo are not only headstrong and powerful, but naturally curious and easily distracted. In the end I was instructed to hide behind a truck.

Halloween in Vermont

After living in Tokyo and Shanghai, our family knows how bizarre and attractive our American holidays can appear to other cultures. You dress up in costume and ask strangers for candy? And they smile when they give it to you? Happy Halloween indeed.

There is something characteristically American about the trust required to ask, and the generosity necessary to give. Not to mention the penchant for disguise and the taste for sweets.



This year we celebrated in Woodstock, Vermont. It’s a beautiful town, with a traditional village green, an elegant and expensive resort (the Woodstock Inn), and an unusually high density of gift shops, real estate agents, and art galleries.


The elementary school’s afternoon parade was well attended and exceptionally good-natured, with much admiration exchanged from both sides of the curb.

What the Man Said

"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks." —Daniel Boone

The Limits of Landscape

Last week, looking north from Vermont’s Mount Ascutney, I really didn’t know what I was seeing. There were trees with leaves, trees with names that are hardly mentioned in Montana: maple, beech, ash, oak, and hornbeam.



From above, the landscape looked cozy and inhabited, with quilted patches of woodlot and pasture. It was a pleasant perspective, without the constant reproach of “No Trespassing” that I experience on the ground here.

Open space is better than urban sprawl, but I’ve been spoiled by Montana’s 32 million acres of public land—more than five times the area of the entire state of Vermont. An unfair comparison, I know, but consider these more impartial statistics: public land accounts for almost 35% of Montana, but only 8% of Vermont. No wonder I feel hemmed in.

Many locals seem to cultivate a healthy sense of ownership that extends far beyond the boundaries of their personal property. As a newcomer, I'm not there yet.

Meditation and Metaphor

On my last day in Ulaanbataar, suffering from a spectacular abscess on my back, I walked to the Gandan Monastery. Like many monasteries throughout Mongolia, it was partially destroyed during the Soviet era, while its monks were forced out of service, jailed, or killed. This standing image of the Bodhisattva of Compassion—almost 90-feet tall, cast in copper, and covered with gold—was completed in 1996, a half-dozen years after the Soviet departure.

As a personal metaphor, an abscess takes the cake: a festering from within, a little haven of infection that your body nurtures and grows.

Slightly delirious with pain, I entered the Dechengalpa Datsan, where the monks awaited their noon meal. They sat on raised platforms, with their shoes attending faithfully behind them, a sundry assortment of sandals, athletic shoes, and cavalry boots.

In their chants I could hear a blend of the mature and the childish; some of the robed figures looked as young as seven or eight. In the air I could scent the faint tang of sandalwood.


Each monk received a flat oblong of bread on which was piled a package of cookies, another of candy, and then a layered procession of other small snacks. I watched, straight-backed on a low bench, famished and grateful.

More about Mongolia

One of the things I dislike about the New York Times’ travel magazine, T: Style (I mean, other than their disregard for my work) is its focus on getting and spending. They even call one of their regular departments “The Get.”

According to the Fall 2007 issue, “Greenland is the new Mongolia,” which means, I suppose, that Mongolia has been officially relegated to “last year” among travel destinations. As it happens, I did go last year, to work as a flyfishing guide for Mongolia River Outfitters. I returned this year, to the same magnificent—and therefore threatened river—along with scientists from the Taimen Project, the World Wildlife Fund, and a crew from AEG Media, also known as the Trout Bums.



Last year, I was able to bottle what I learned into a single story, which will appear in a forthcoming issue of Gray’s Sporting Journal. This year, the confusion has so far resisted all of my attempts at distillation.

Chatav Ectabit's own website

I posted a long story about Chatav Ectabit, a creative partnership between my brother Cliff Fong and Sandy Dalal, over a couple of weeks in April and May 2007 (see archive). In a world where fashion—according to author Dana Thomas has “sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers,” their clothing provides a thoughtful remnant of luxury.

Shanghai, revisited

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I wrote most of a chapter for Explorer Publishing’s Complete Residents' Guide to Shanghai. Most of what appears on pp. 168–194 and 204–224 is my work. As far as I can tell, the full Residents' Guide is not yet available at Amazon.com, but you can order the Shanghai Mini Explorer, due out this month.

Home from Mongolia

Now that the taimen season has ended in Mongolia, I’m back in Vermont sifting through notes and photographs. After each long day on the river, I didn’t read as much as usual, but two books deserve your attention.



David Malouf’s novel, An Imaginary Life, offers the sort of sentences that you’ll quote to yourself in times of trouble, such as: “What is beautiful is the way one thing is fitted perfectly to another, and our ingenuity is also beautiful in finding the necessary correspondence between things. It is a kind of poetry, all this business with nets and hooks, these old analogies.”

The other book, Harry Middleton’s The Earth is Enough, was taken on loan from an old friend. It’s nominally about flyfishing but rather more concerned with family, and memory, and the escape from memory. I found it frustrating to read, almost maddeningly in need of a close edit, and peculiarly moving.

Gone fishing

For the next five weeks, I’ll be working in the headwaters of the Amur River in northern Mongolia. If you’re curious about this odd interval of good luck, visit the website of Mongolia River Outfitters.

“Anyone would think I was Tolstoy, the value I put on writing, but it hasn’t amounted to much.” –Philip Larkin

Looking Back

10,000 copies of Explorer Publishing's guide to Shanghai will be given away to registered attendants at September's Expat Show. I wrote the chapter on exploring the city, which was a bit like writing a condensed version of War and Peace. If I neglected your favorite spot, please post a comment here.

For a good read, set in Shanghai, try Qiu Xiaolong’s When Red Is Black. If you’ve lived there in past decade, you’ll find plenty of illuminating detail about the city. If you haven’t, you’ll still enjoy the distracted manner in which Inspector Chen, the poet of the police bureau, solves this case.

Yellowstone yet again

As artist-in-residence, I curated an exhibit at the Madison Museum: letters from three eras of Yellowstone visitors (on foot, by horse-drawn carriage, and by automobile), a range of writing implements from the quill pen to the laptop computer, and a display of photographs by Mode Wineman, taken while he was a member of Calvin Coolidge’s party, in 1927.

I also wrote letters every day, to family and friends, and hung a different one on the wall each morning alongside the historical artifacts. It was fun to watch tourists come across the new letter amidst the old ones, then glance around guiltily as they realized that the personal details they were reading corresponded with a person who was living in the same moment as themselves. Twice my own letters were stolen from the museum, which I considered a gratifying critical response.

Here’s the most important sentence from the first recorded letter mentioning the Yellowstone region, from trapper Daniel Potts to his brother in Philadelphia, July 8, 1827 (courtesy Yellowstone National Park Archives):

“Write me immediately on the receipt of this . . . giving me the price of Beaver.”