A Goat of a Vendor

When Marash Girl's young grandson Raffi asked the farmer (selling goat’s cheese at the Takoma Park Farmer’s Market) if he (Raffi) could visit the farmer's farm to see the goats, the farmer rudely answered in the negative. Not wanting to hurt the farmer’s feelings, Raffi gently replied, “That’s okay. . . I can visit the goat at my grandma's in Wilbraham."

Lorig Charkoudian - Relentless Forward Progress

Driveway Into The Past

Walking along Ethan Allen Avenue into the town center of Takoma Park, Maryland, Marash Girl spied a scene that took her straight back to her childhood.  The only difference was the downward slant of the driveway.  The driveway to the garage of her childhood went uphill!

Do As I Say; Not As I Do!

                   Yard sign in front yard of home on Maple Avenue, Takoma Park, Maryland.  

                                          Does Marash Girl hear the pink flamingo objecting?    Photo by Marash Girl

$31,000 raised for the Takoma Park Community Kitchen

Visiting blogger Lorig writes to share the good news:

Thanks to all of you who contributed towards the building of the Takoma Park Silver Spring Community Kitchen.  $31,132 was raised from 216 donors, money which will be part of the required match  for the state bond bill, meaning that the $31,000 that the campaign raised leveraged another $31,00 in State of Maryland dollars.  We have now raised the full $400,000 we need and can begin construction! 

Once completed, this kitchen will create economic opportunity through micro-enterprise development:  it will increase access to fresh healthy food for our neighbors at risk of hunger; and it will provide a space for cooking and nutrition classes.  In all of these ways, the Kitchen will also build community. . .

YOU CAN STILL HELP BUILD A COMMUNITY KITCHEN!

Last month, Marash Girl wrote a post in support of an effort to build a community kitchen; as many of you were unaware of what a community kitchen is, she posted the following link:

http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2013/07/you-can-help-build-community-kitchen.html

To help raise money for the community kitchen, Lorig ran a 31 mil race up mountains and over treacherous landscape.  At her request, I am posting her description of this race, and her effort at raising funds for this worthy cause . . . Please continue to read, and if you so wish, please lend your support!

Lorig writes:

In the days approaching the 50K trail run, the self-doubt demons began to rear their ugly heads and voices.  What was I thinking?  31 miles?  4500 feet of climbing?  Would I make it before the 9 hour cut off?  Did I remember to pack my running shoes?

In those same days, the messages and support from the community poured in - in words and in money.  We raised several thousand for the community kitchen, bringing us up to $19,000.  I received public and private messages about the run.  On Tuesday, we had covered the entire front of my running shirt with supporters’ names.  By Friday, we had so many more we had to cover the back with names. 

By the time I arrived at the starting line, the community supporters were starting to win out over the demons. 

And then I got to start running.  First the 2,000 foot climb over the course of the first 6 miles.  Then a section of glorious trail that just begged you to run it.  It felt so good I kept telling myself I should probably slow down and save myself for later – but I couldn’t resist the trail’s invitation.  Then 2000 feet downhill.  Then another (rather rough) 2,000 foot climb and back on the glorious section.  Several miles passed in the proverbial “runner’s high”.  Other’s passed in the body’s amazing ability to keep functioning even when the brain does not.  I did not realize I was in this state until I reached the aid station and could not form a coherent sentence.  At one point I was moving a little too fast downhill, hit a root, and actually took flight.  The landing was not so glorious.   The last few miles were a bit rough.  I suddenly felt like I had nothing left to give.  I looked down at my shirt - ink was starting to run, I was covered in dirt – but there you all were, running along with me.  And it was enough to suck it up, dig deep, and get over the finish line in 5:36:10.  Community -1; Demons -0.

Thank you for your generous donations and your encouraging words. 

Now we have one more finish line to get across together.  On Aug 14, our Indiegogo campaign ends.  We have another $11,000 to raise between now and then to build the community kitchen.

As you know, the kitchen will support micro-enterprise development, cooking and nutrition classes, and food preparation for people at risk of hunger.  Please share this site and your excitement about this project with your circles.

Your support got me through.  Together we can build this kitchen.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/build-a-community-kitchen/x/3602753

Lorig

You can help build a community kitchen!

Always taking on the seemingly impossible, always   seeking ways in which  to help build community, Marash Girl's daughter Lorig has been working towards creating a shared use community kitchen in Takoma Park, Maryland, a kitchen that would make it possible for local groups to produce food and food products in an effort to support worthy causes. [A community commercial kitchen is a shared resource for safe preparation of food for sale at farmers markets and retail outlets and for distribution to shelters and to needful neighbors. Community commercial kitchens (CCKs) provide economic opportunity and play a vital service role.] She and her fellow community members have found a church willing to donate its kitchen, and together they have raised $343,000 in funds for the kitchen's renovation. Their need?  Another $31,000. In order to raise that $31,000, and call attention to the funds needed to complete this worthy project, Lorig has decided to race in an ultra-marathon trail run – 31 miles on hilly trails with roots and rocks. Impossible to run such an uphill race, you say? Impossible to raise such an uphill amount of money, you say? Not if Marash Girl's good readers and friends will help to support Lorig's and the community's efforts. Here’s the video in which Lorig talks about the project.  Watch it and learn about community kitchens and how you can support this effort. I support this initiative, and I hope you will also.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/build-a-community-kitchen/x/3602753?c=home 

The Finnish in Takoma Park

Around the corner from Forest Park (where, by the way, there was no forest to be seen), on Elm Avenue in Takoma Park, a resident shared a small piece of Takoma Park local history with Marash Girl.

My bungalow was built in 1929 by a man from Finland, she said . . . Finnish people settled in these parts.  Those little out-buildings in the back were Saunas.  The Finnish man who built this house first lived in the little building in the back while he was building this house; then, after this house was built, he moved into this house, and made the little back building into a sauna.  He first created a cement block factory in the yard, and used the cement blocks to build this house, and if you look, you'll see these cement blocks all over Takoma Park.

(Look, Marash Girl did, and see, she did! Decorative cast cement blocks at the base of many of the houses in the area, particularly in the neighborhood surrounding Forest Park.)

Quetzaltenango in Takoma Park

Indigena with coconut and machete.

Marash Girl's Spanish came flooding back to her as she chatted with the young man selling coconuts at the Farmer's Market in Takoma Park, Maryland.  

"The milk in the coconut is delicious!  Here . . . try it  . . . and then I'll cut the husk off of the coconut for you. . . . Yes, I'm from Guatemala.  I'm Indigena from Quetzaltenango . . . my people still speak their ancient language -- as I do...I'm here to help my family have a better life, 
because in Guatemala, jobs are few, and pay is less."  

Marash Girl remembered her years of studying Spanish -- how she had chosen to go to Antigua, Guatemala, to study Spanish, as the Guatemalan people she had met here in the United States had been kind to her, kind enough to slow down when speaking Spanish with her, had encouraged her in her efforts as she stumbled through her newly learned language. . . and this young man was no different.  "You speak Spanish well," he said, smiling as Marash Girl happily spoke to him in a language she once loved.

Enila Prepares Breakfast

Enila shows off the breakfast she prepared.

Directions by Enila

Ingredients            1 bagel sliced sideways in half
                              2 strawberries, green leaves sliced off
                              cream cheese

1.  First, cut the bagel sideways in half.
2.  Next, toast the bagel halves.
3.  Next, spread the cream cheese on the flat side of the bagel halves.
4.  After that, slice the strawberries into small pieces.
5.  Then put strawberries put strawberries on bagel.
6.  Enjoy!

The Promise of Spring: Takoma Park, MD

   Winter, 2013 -- Snowdrops and fallen pinecones keep company beneath the pine trees along Ethan Allen Avenue

Sunshine highlights the  promise of Spring among the leavings of Autumn.

Pajama Day?

A Takoma Park elementary school touts Pajama Day as one of the funnest days of the year -- a day when all the kids get to wear their pajamas to school.  "It's fun to see what pajamas other kids wear," said one of the students.  Yet that very same student admitted that she felt funny going to the YMCA for her swimming lessons, still wearing her pajamas.  

The stuff of nightmares -- that's what wearing pajamas to school meant to Marash Boy and Marash Girl -- the horror of suddenly realizing that you are in school, surrounded by all your friends, but you have forgotten to get dressed -- you are still in your pajamas -- that was our nightmare, one that we had often enough to remember to this day -- one never shared with each other before this day, the day we learned that our grandchildren were to go to school in their pajamas!  A special treat, a fun day, a special event for them; still a nightmare for their grandparents.

Marash Girl smiles to think of what her own great aunts would shriek at the slightest mention of such goings on:  Abow!  Amot!  Inch khent pun mn e! Inch aboushoutioun eh asiga!

At a coffee shop in Takoma Park, Maryland

The little boy stood by her side, waiting for her to purchase his box of all natural apple juice and her cup of fair trade coffee.  Two years old,  his practiced hands  delighted in receiving his little box of apple juice.  Separating the (cellophane protected) prepackaged straw from the small box, he deftly removed the straw's cellophane covering, not so deftly dropped the straw on the rug in front of the check-out counter, and,  retrieving the straw from the ground,  started placing it into the tiny, yet unopened hole in the top of the apple juice box.  Observing this faux-pas, and before the little boy could begin to drink, Marash Girl called out to his mother:  "Your son dropped his straw on the ground."  "No problem," answered the mother, as she proudly glanced down at her son.
   
Marash Girl couldn't help wondering at this new method of childrearing . . was it the "2 second rule", or what?

Must we label everything?

Fall is Marash Girl's favorite time of year!

At the local food co-op in Takoma Park, MD, while waiting for the school bus, Marash Girl was enjoying the fall display until she started to notice the labels.  Join her while she shares a bit of her experience. 

 

 

What is it that is so offensive about fresh vegetables defaced by stickers?

Is it like our milk that now comes in cartons on supermarket shelves rather than clear glass bottles delivered daily by Ferndale Dairy?  Is it that the vegetables no longer seem to come from God?  Is it that the labels insist on reminding us of the commercialism of the day? Is it simply that the labels interfere with the beauty of the vegetables?  Or is it that Marash Girl remembers gathering tomatoes and cucumbers from her dad's garden, and her own, without man made labels announcing what it was exactly that she was gathering?

But there was hope.

Ah, finally squash sans labels!

As you may have read in an earlier blog, when Marash Girl walked around to the back of the Co-op, she found a farmer with crates of apples sans labels, the way it was in the old days!  And to be fair, most of the squash pictured here had no labels, unlike the supermarkets where every single tomato is defaced by a sticky label announcing its origins.  But the trick is to try to remove the sticky label from the tomato without causing an abrasion and destroying the beauty and longevity of the tomato . . .

Old Fashioned Apples: Licking Creek Bend Farm, Needmore, PA

In the parking lot behind  TPSS, Marash Girl found Farmer Mike of Licking Creek Bend Farm, Needmore, Pennsylvania, delivering his freshly picked apples to the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op in Takoma Park.That's Bridget in the foreground, helping the farmer unload.  She works for the TPSS Food Co-op. (Nelson escaped the camera!)

Do you know the names of the apple varieties pictured here?  These crates of apples remind Marash Girl of Peter and Paul, who harvested apples every fall from the orchard in their back yard in Newtonville, Massachusetts, and of Uncle George and the cabin on Wilbraham Mountain, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, where the June 1st tornado eliminated the apple orchard that had been there for half a century!

The farmer's favorite, Russets are a historic apple, one of the first apples grown in the USA,

This young lady has grown up on Farmer Mike's fruits and vegetables!  If you want to be healthy and happy, you can't be kinder to yourself than to eat Farmer Mike's fresh produce.  Especially his apples. Yummy!

You'll love the apples grown at Licking Creek Bend Farm, available at our local food TPSS co-op!

Peace, Paz, Pax in Takoma Park, Maryland

"Do you know Latin?"

Never know who you’re going to meet standing in front of the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Coop in Takoma Park, Maryland. While waiting for the school bus, Marash Girl noticed the license plate pictured on the right. When she stopped to photograph the plate, the owner  (who it turned out, is 82) stopped to ask her if she was photographing his license plate because she knew Latin -- No, she said, I don’t know Latin, but I know what your license plate says.  The gentleman explained that his initials spell peace as does the Latin word pax -- and so his message to the world: Peace and Peace, everywhere he goes. He continued.  I fought in the Korean War.  but because I could type, I’m embarrassed to say that I was relegated to a desk in Germany.  The army was so thrilled to have a man who could type; in those days, you know, only women took typing.  Wondering how it was that he knew how to type, Marash Girl asked, Are you a writer?  Yes, he answered.  My book, a human survival manual, is for sale at www.hpn.org/beyond.  There are many survival manuals out there, but mine is the only HUMAN survival manual.   So Marash Girl, curious, went to the website (the only place she could locate the book on the web) and found

 

                                                                      by Peter A. Zuckerman