Fotos from Foodie Heaven and a few comments on Creativity

Last night we were served a little bit of heaven.

The main course.

The appetizers.

Last night we entertained Glenn and Emily Swanson, owners of the Oldenburg House in Carlton. The 3-course meal was designed and executed by our son, Chef Micah, a cook at the New Scenic Cafe up the North Shore. The photos here are totally inadequate to convey the sumptuousness of the meal, which began with goose confit appetizer, a to-die-for gazpacho and a main course of goose breast. Most of the embellishments, as well as the goose, were grown here on our property. The shiitake mushrooms and a few of the other ingredients were foraged by our chef.

Our goose was cooked.

A better journalist would have more details here but I wasn't taking the notes I should have been. Instead, Glenn and I were talking about music and creativity. Glenn's a premiere jazz drummer whose career includes playing with many of the greats. When I put an Ahmad Jamal CD on for background music and asked if he'd ever gotten a chance to hear Ahmad Jamal, he said, "I played with Ahmad Jamal."

At one point we talked about the way a group of musicians gets into a groove and they're playing off one another until "it reaches a level of pure joy, you're inside a fire of joy."

We compared various creative forms and how the great ideas come from a single kernel. You download it and unpack it, he said, "exploring all these varying ideas from one seed that is infinitely blossoming." Many people who live in that moment fail to take the next step. "The takeaway is the seed, so I can revisit it, reproduce it and have it be available to other musicians. If you just hang on to the flower you can lose where it came from."

Creativity is an expression of joy that is best when shared. We're grateful for our son Micah, who has shared so many wondrous culinary experiences with us.

Gazpacho, with embellishments.

Glenn Swanson, Susie, Emily Swanson and Micah. It was good.

If you are a writer or artist in need of a getaway, check in to Oldenburg House. Their motto is "Find Your Nature." One of the guests who stayed with them recently wrote this in their guest book: "We came as guests and left as family." It doesn't get much better than that.

Hint: if you are coming to the Northland this fall for the changing of the seasons (note the autumn colors in our dining room) you will not find a better place to stay than Oldenburg House, adjacent Jay Cooke State Park on the edge of Paradise. Few places offer more direct access to our spectacular Northland.

Meantime, creativity goes on all around you. Engage it.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Snapshots from the Oldenburg House

Something's happening here. 

The place has been renovated and there's music in the air. 

The back of the property sits adjacent to Jay Cooke State Park 

and there are no fences. Paradise is literally but a stone's throw away.

Their Carlton Room has become a venue for live jazz, blues and great food.

Will I see you there?

Learn more!

SHORT STORY MONDAY

This is a very short story about the origin of the blues. It was inspired by Mark Twain's Diaries of Adam and Eve. I only recently learned that Twain only wrote Adam's diary initially, but then wrote Eve's thirty years later. Or vice versa. The two were blended eventually and you can purchase it at Amazon.

BLUE

Blue began when the world was new, but not so new as the very beginning. The original world was black and white. Eventually, God decided that color should be added to His wonderful creation.

In an effort to protect His integrity (He had already declared all things good) He broke white light up into sections and called it color. This was how the color blue came into being.

At first, Adam and Eve were so enamored by their new experiences with color that they never even thought about why the world was originally created in black and white. But after a while, when they had settled into their new technicolor paradise, they began to wonder. "Why did God originally create the world in black and white? Was He trying to withhold something from us?"

It was at this point that they doubted God’s goodness. Was He really concerned for their best interest? What was the point in making a black and white world if He had been capable of making color right from the start? Had the black and white version of the world been a mistake? Does God really know what He's doing?

Such questionings, it would appear, led directly to Eve's being seduced by the serpent. (Though it may have been that forbidden Red apples are more enticing than forbidden black and white ones.)

After the Fall, Adam and Eve became acutely aware of why God had been so reluctant to give them a full-spectrum technicolored world.

As a result of the apple incident, Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise forever, which put them both in quite a bad mood. Adam sank into a depression. The following evening, (a time of day which he also blamed on his significant other) he lay on his back feeling particularly mournful and low. As he lay staring at the deepening twilight sky it entered his mind to compose a poem, soon to be published in an early anthology called Man's First Poems, Volume One. The poem was rather inferior in quality, but still maintains its historical significance. Whether it was the color of the sky he was trying to name, or the feeling he was analyzing at that moment in time, the word has forever become associated with grief and sadness.

This is the true origin of the blues.

EDNOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the paintings and illustrations on my blog are my work alone and available for sale. If you see something here that makes you say, "I gotta have it," be sure to let me know and we can negotiate a price. Feel free to click on images to enlarge.