Flour, Yeast, Salt, and Water -- The Basis for Magic

When did bread first appear? People call it the staff of life. And I suppose it is. Bread goes with everything, that's for sure. While the Biblical folks were chewing on their flatbread, or even their unleavened bread, which is probably the same thing, the Chinese certainly were making steamed buns. The Ethiopians probably were pouring their teff batter on a hot rock to bake it, and then they likely topped it with simmered meat and vegetables, as they still do today.

The bread I grew up with came from <Columbus Bakery>, which was about four blocks from my house. Mom would give me a quarter and tell me to pick up a hot loaf "cooked good," which meant with a dark crust. I'd climb the Hickory Street hill, go down the other side, and cross over the four-lane State Street, with its truck traffic and no signal light. You just had to look both ways and dash across.

The bakery looks exactly the same as it always has.

Down one more block, and then a right turn on Pearl Street to the bakery. You smelled it before you saw it. That aroma of fresh crusty hot Italian bread could not be mistaken for anything else. The shop was small - a long rectangular space with a sales counter and bread racks at the front end, a collection of dough tables in the middle, and a huge wall oven at the back.

This wasn't a kitchen-style wall oven. This was huge, with a big fire inside and dough that had been shoveled inside to bake. All the bakers wore white pants and t-shirts, white aprons, and white caps. Oddly, none of them was Italian. They all were Greek. But they made the best Italian bread in town. Actually, they still do. The place has been going since before my grandparents arrived in the US.

Nothing has changed - not even the recipe, which still consists only of flour, water, yeast, and salt. That's it. No preservatives are necessary because the bread disappears before the day is done.

Pointed loaves are pulled from the oven and arranged for sale.

After picking up my chosen loaf, I would walk home, trying hard not to bite into it. I was not always successful. Sometimes I would gnaw off the pointed end, which looked like an elbow, and then, before reaching the back stairs, I'd turn the loaf upside down so the bitten end was at the bottom of the bag.

Besides the pointed loaf, I loved the flat loaves that were scored, like tic-tac-toe, into nine pieces that could be torn apart for individual rolls. Stuff those with some copacolla, dry-cured salami, provolone, and prosciutto (all from Donze's Market), and you could live the rest of your life on those few ingredients.

If you wanted, you could just go to the bakery and ask for a loaf of dough. That 25-cent loaf could be turned into a pizza or two for Sunday supper.

Not even the logo has changed.

When I go back home to Syracuse, I always stop at Columbus Bakery on arrival and again when I leave so I can take a couple of loaves back to California. Once I went through the TSA inspection, and the agent opened my carry-on. He found three flat loaves of bread. "This bakery must be really good," he said. "You're probably the sixth person who came through with bread in their bag."

My siblings do the same thing. In fact, when my brother would have a layover in Syracuse, he and the flight crew would stop at the bakery for a supply of bread on their way back to the airport.

But even so, that is not the best bread I've ever had. That honor goes to the tiny bakery in my grandparents' ancestral village in Italy. In the middle of this little mountain village, there is a bakery that produces the best bread on Earth. And thanks to that dough, they also make the best pizza. Just topped with fresh tomatoes, a bit of cheese, and some olive oil. Food of the gods -- that's what it is. I think they must be using the same starter from the original loaf.

As I was extolling the virtues of this lovely chewy bread, my mother's cousin Nicola waved his hand and said, "No, no! If you think that bead is good, you should try the one in the next village."

I can only imagine.

A Time to Reflect on World War II

It's funny how we call it World War II. Did people name the first one World War I, assuming there would be another? No. It was just called the World War, or the Great War, or even The War to End All Wars. Well, we can see how far that got us.

Many people will debate that Germany should have been crushed at the end of that first war. Then they wouldn't have gone away with a sense of revenge and the ability to have a charismatic demi-god convince them that they really were superior to the rest of the human race. Deutchland Uber Alles!! Germany over all! So, if you were not blond, blue-eyed, and Teutonic, you'd better pack your bags while you could because there would be Hell to pay.

I recall seeing films made by propaganda minister Josef Goebbels in which he portrayed Jews as rats -- which everyone recognized as vermin, pests, or nuisance animals that threaten human society. Germany must rid itself of the vermin that would threaten the Master Race with their impurities. It's a testament to Goebbels' talents that he could so skillfully manipulate an entire nation.

That made it easy to convince the German people to invade Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia... all the way to Russia on the eastern front. They had France. They tried to take England, but the British fought back too hard, with America as its ally. The goal was to have a world dominated by Germans for a thousand years.

Even Americans were carried along by the Nazi fervor. In New York City, a Nazi rally was held. The US already had restrictions on Jewish entry into colleges. Jews were also restricted to certain neighborhoods. We justified it by saying that the Jews killed Christ, so this is their payback. A boatload of Jewish refugees tried to enter Cuba, but they were barred. They were also turned back from the United States. They were taken in by Belgium, only to be killed later when the Nazis invaded.

A friend of mine once said that his earliest memory as a boy in Holland was looking through the letter slot in his front door to see Nazi soldiers goose-stepping down the street. Audrey Hepburn nearly starved to death during the Nazi occupation of her native Belgium.

Now as we celebrate 70 years since the end of those terrible events, it's difficult not to remember the men and women who served as part of the wartime effort in the US. Every man who could walk and talk had been conscripted into military service "for the duration" -- until the end of the war, win or lose. It was literally a fight to the death. If Germany could not be stopped, it would have trooped on over to North America. Already, it was in an unholy alliance with the Japanese, keeping the US fighting to the east and to the west.

When I was growing up, we all knew fathers who had served, who had come back wounded, psychologically or physically. Sometimes both. Nearly all of them had seen the horrors of war -- not from afar, as we see it today, with our computer-controlled weapons. But up close, where the war became a personal thing. Where you saw the dead bodies. Where you saw your friends screaming for  help. Where you hoped you would not be the next to go down.

One of the men in our neighborhood was captured by the Japanese on Wake Island just after Pearl Harbor was bombed. He served the entire war as a slave in a Japanese POW camp, where they were known for their cruelty. He wore those scars for the rest of his life. Other fathers refused to talk about the war, saying it was in the past. They simply did not want to discuss what they had seen. My father-in-law landed at Anzio and watched as one soldier was machine-gunned in half as he ran across the beach. His legs continued to run.

My father died in 1993 from emphysema... the result of a smoking habit he picked up as an Army Air Corps lieutenant. He almost never talked about the war, having suffered from PTSD. His squadron of B-17s flew over France after D-Day, each mission with a nearly 100% chance of taking anti-aircraft fire. As a bombardier, he watched on one mission as the tail gunner bled to death. But you couldn't turn back just because someone had been hit. At the end of each mission, they'd patch up the plane and send it back out the next day.

I never understood my father's mood swings when I was young. But before he died, Dad and I talked finally about his war experiences. It was at that point that I realized just how much he and my friends' fathers had endured to ensure that the United States survived.

To all of them -- and to the mothers, wives, girlfriends, and children who waited behind -- a cheer of gratitude. Your sacrifice saved the world.

This Is a Good Year for Whine

What is it about Donald Trump's appeal? Ask people if they plan to vote for him, and they say no. But, some of them argue, he certainly touches a nerve. Well, yes... he does that. 

But why do they support him? Some say it's because he's bringing up issues that nobody else will discuss. You know, like illegal immigration. And health insurance. And the plight of the middle-class. (Was Donald Trump ever middle-class? How would he know anything about our plight?)

The fact remains that these topics, and many like them, are discussed every single day. And not just in private. We're talking about in the news media. Want proof? Look <here>, and <here>, and <here> for stories about middle-class decline. Want to find articles about immigration? Just Google them. Here's <one>. And here's <another>. And anyone who has missed the ongoing debate about health insurance has been asleep for a few years.

As for the outcry against military people who were kept as prisoners of war... well, that certainly is one topic that nobody else has been talking about until he brought it up.

So, if Mr. Trump doesn't really bring up anything new, then what value is he bringing to the debate?

Well, there's entertainment. If he stays in the race (and all indicators say he will), he does attract an audience that wants to hear his next outrageous, unfiltered outburst. I admit to being one of them.

And he is a talented whiner. In fact, he admitted to it during an interview with CNN: “I am a whiner, and I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win,” he said.

Maybe that's it. Maybe that's the real nerve that Trump has hit. He expresses the whining that some people wish they could have a national audience for. 

These frustrated whiners like to complain and point fingers at the other guy, blaming him for all our problems. Why? Because it absolves them of any responsibility or of any obligation to work on a solution to problems we all share. 

Does whining ever become a winning strategy? Unfortunately, yes. But the mature folks among us gave it up when we were three years old.

What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

A blog. I thought I needed a blog. Why? Because, first of all, I like to write. And I'm opinionated. And I like to get stuff down on paper... or in this case, onto a screen. I also like to hear what other people think. So if you have opinions, here's where you can talk about them. Or not. You can just read, if that's your preference.

You may find photos here, too. Old photos. Recent photos. Scanned photos. Other people's photos. Maybe your photos.

Oh, about the name. What's with the olives? And why on my fingers? Well, I love olives. I've loved them since I was very little. We always had them on the table for holiday dinners. And kids always wear olives on their fingers.

But for me, it goes farther. Olives are essential to Italians. Olives on my fingers... well, when I use my computer keyboard, my fingers are channeling that Italian influence.

It wasn't easy coming up with a name. I went through several, like Mostly True Stuff. (Already taken.) Pardon My Planet. (Taken.) Out of Focus. (Nah. I'm really focused.) Through My Lens. (Better for a photo site.) Snapshots of My Brain. (Too medical.) Happy Chicken. (Too... weird.) It's Hard to Be Queen. (Too snooty.) Mental Fireworks. (What? Am I on drugs?)

So, it's Olives on My Fingers. Unless you come up with something better.

Donna