By JIM KEVLIN

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SHARON SPRINGS

except for the dead bats in the sink.
…except for the 50 ratty mattresses thrown throughout the house. (What had been going on there?)
…except for the wallpaper. (Remember that pattern with the Eiffel Tower and a lady and her poodle sitting in a sidewalk café?)
…except that every tourist thought the place was open to the public. (Michelle Curran got Bouviers, and that was that.)
…except for the time in the dead of winter when, hurrying to the front door to encourage the UPS guy to come around the side, one of the dogs nudged the door closed, the deadbolt snapped and she was stuck, in her bathrobe, in the icy space between the two doors for four hours. (In the end, though, she did escape, kicking out a ¾-inch plate-glass window.)
Well, marry in haste, repent at leisure.

“The view is what sold me,” said Michelle, who has owned the Stone House since 1993, when she wandered into “this weird little town in upstate New York … I was only outside of it before we bought it.
“It was one of those really crazy things you do once in your life, then you live with it.”
But how could she have resisted the Stone House, abandoned though it had been for more than a decade, overgrown with trees as it was.
Italianate is a charming style, and this was a romantic version, with pillars, a long flight of steps, floor-to-ceiling windows on the front, arched windows on the second story, an ox eye in the front gable.
Michelle came to this “weird little town” in a roundabout way. (She now says, “I love Sharon Springs. It’s like finding your family away from your family.”)
She was born on the Pittsburgh end of Ohio, raised in Clearwater Beach, Fla., went back to Ohio State and the University of Ohio, ending up with political science and journalism degrees, then just wandered hither and thither.
The early ’90s found her back in Clearwater Beach, “unemployed as usual,” looking for a summer house. Maybe in the Shenandoah Valley, where she had a time share.
This gets a little complicated.
Michelle’s cousin’s boyfriend, Sal Belloise, was a musician and had gotten a gig in Lake Placid.
He invited Michelle along for the ride up the East Coast, with the plan of stopping along the way in a place called Sharon Springs to visit his sister, Dawn, then associated with Dennis Giacomo, owner of the Roseboro.
“Dawn and Dennis walked us up to this house,” said Michelle; they thought it was for sale.
The 230 acres included an overgrown nine-hole golf course – her then-partner, Michael Lauder, had always wanted to run a golf course – and an old T-bar ski lift powered by a Model A Ford engine.
Compared to Florida real estate, the price was nothing. Michelle called Michael. They offered half the asking price. The deal was closed.
“Then we started to pour money into the money pit,” she said.
That fall – 1993 – the couple could do no more than board up the windows and install an alarm system.
The next year, “I came up around Mother’s Day and it was snowing. I thought maybe I’d made a mistake. Sharon was a ghost town then. Nobody wanted to come anywhere near Sharon Springs.”
(The “Sharon Springs Renaissance” began a few years later.)
The house lacked functioning heat. With a 50-amp system, if you plugged something in here, something blew over there.
Still, by the end of the first summer, the plumbing and electrical were redone, the bathrooms were functioning. “We had basically ripped out all of the carpets and ripped off all of the wallpaper.”
Summer Two, “what we really needed to do was get some heat.” They were stuck with hot air: The interior walls are brick; the exterior limestone. So they installed a system designed for a warehouse. “It heats beautifully; it just costs a fortune.”
Little by little, the home got better and better, and it got harder and harder to go back to Clearwater.
“Around Year Six, I decided I wanted to stay for Christmas. I wanted to decorate the house. I put up seven Christmas trees, a woodland scene in the front entryway.”
The news hook for this story was the Sharon Historical Society’s House Tour 2008, Saturday, Aug. 9, which brought throngs to this former spa resort on Route 20, and the Stone House was one of the 10 properties open to the public.
“We had 260 people go through,” said Mary Ann Larkin, realtor and president of the Sharon Springs Chamber of Commerce. “It was better than past years.”
Pavillion Street is buckled and, in places, completely worn out. About halfway up, a “House Tour” sign pointed past the “No Trespassing” one, up a dirt driveway through overgrown gardens.

Halfway up – are we there yet? – what looks like a rooming house appears on the left. (It turned out to be all that remains of the once-mighty Pavillion Hotel, which hosted Orson Welles and other Hollywood luminaries of the day. The village has received a sizeable grant to convert the building into six townhomes.)
The shrubs close in and suddenly open up, and there’s the house. Everything is spectacular, but most of all the Sharon Springs version of the view you see driving along Route 20 near The Tepee; you can indeed see all the way to the Adirondacks, 100 miles north.
Michelle was acting as a tour guide. So was Dorcas Comrie, curator at the Sharon Historical Museum, with Marjorie Parsons and Ann Adams rounding out the cadre.
The home was built between 1850 and 1854 by Dr. John Gardiner, first promoter of the healthful qualities of the sulphur-spring baths.
Gardiners lived in the house until the 1940s, when Homer and Roz Spofford bought the White Sulfur Company and moved into the mansion.
On their deaths in 1980, the White Sulfur Company was sold. But the investors, who had intended to start a water-bottling company locally, soon had a chance to buy Vermont Pure, which was fully equipped and ready to go.
“This all became an asset they didn’t need,” said Michelle.
Four years ago, Michelle decided to stay year ’round. That’s when Michael decided enough was enough. The golf-course idea never materialized, “and it’s not going to happen now on my watch.”
Despite the years of neglect, “this house can withstand Armageddon,” says its proud owner. “You could never build this house again … I have pocket doors that, after 150 years, you can still move in and out with one hand.”
Recent years have been fun ones. A couple of weddings have happened in the mansion. Michelle had one REALLY big party, 700 people and a big band one year.
But, Michelle said, she’s coming to the realization that maybe this is enough of one person living in a huge house.
Next year, maybe, she’ll redo the smaller club house (2,100 square feet) out back and move in there, selling the mansion (7,100 square feet).
Money pit, anyone? But a delightful one.

Labels: Glimmerglass, Sharon Springs

SAM GOODYEAR

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ART BEAT

In the shifting sands of the arts, when organizations sometimes falter and even suddenly disappear altogether, it is always good to learn of the rekindling of the creative flame somewhere else in our midst.
When one considers that there are some 50 performing arts groups of one kind or another in our immediate tri-county area (Chenango, Delaware, Otsego), the emergence of a new enterprise is not all that surprising.
Is it the clean air we breathe, the seductive landscape, the magic vapors of the lakes?
Whatever it is, citizens in this Garden of Eden of ours seem driven to put their creative juices to use for the good of others.
The most recent impresario to appear on the horizon is Oneonta actor/lawyer Andy Puritz, a man of singular congeniality who radiates what are known among the hip as “positive vibes.”
You may have seen him in productions of Orpheus Theatre and Leatherstocking Theatre Company. You will have the chance to see him in the role of Atticus in the Foothills Performing Arts center production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” this coming October.
He is now taking his love of performing and art one step further with the creation of White Knuckle Productions.
White Knuckle Productions will present plays, readings, dance, debates, musical performances, variety acts, performance art and more. The organization’s promotional materials state the goals as follows:
“Reliable output, every six to eight weeks something good in live entertainment.
“Low prices, to expand the audience of people who enjoy live performance.
“Pay for the performers, who shouldn’t have to give of their time, talent and energy, and be expected as well to support the arts out of their own pocket.
“Can Puritz do this? Well.. that’s the White Knuckle part.”
The first test is coming up at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, in the Belden Auditorium of Oneonta High School. Norman Fox and the New York City-based Rob Roys will charge the air with original soulful ballads, sweet harmony doo-wop and R&B.
In the mood for “Tell Me Why, Pizza Pie,” “Dream Girl,” “Blue Moon”? Show up at OHS. Tickets ($12) will be available at the door.
Looking ahead, WKP (let’s go ahead and acronymize it; why not?) will mount a debate before the elections, featuring real people with informed opinions, given the time to make their case. This will be novel.
“Thirty-second sound bites needn’t apply, “ says Puritz. Also on the drawing board, a production of “Twelve Angry Men,” a superb play about jurors locked into a room as they deliberate the fate of a young man convicted of murder.
So, what do you say? Support a brave new venture? Nurture the artistic spirit? I vote YES.

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in Otsego County appears weekly.

Labels: Andy Puritz, Art Beat, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

There’s a little of everything going on this weekend.
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Saturday, Aug. 9, is “Miss Mary Day,” 10 a.m.-11 p.m. at The Barnyard Swing, Route 28, Hartwick Seminary, a benefit for Mary Turi, the Cooperstown Pre-school teacher who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. All proceeds from mini-golf, laser-tag and food sales will go to help Miss Mary.
Or take a trip to Sharon Springs for the annual Tour of Homes, including the Beekman Mansion and Stone House. It’s 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Buy the $10 tickets at the Sharon Museum, Main Street.
Or get an answer to the question, “Got Green?” 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Fly Creek Cider Mill, part of its Taste of Fly Creek Series.
Or in the evening, sample Stone Soup, a four-piece band that plays fiddle music, jazz, folk, and popular tunes. It’s at 7 p.m. at Pathfinder Village, State Route 80, two miles east of Edmeston and 15 miles west of Cooperstown.
More music: 7:30 p.m. Chords & Strings. The Farmers’ Museum. Concert Artist Guild winners Soprano Sarah Wolfson and the Brasil Guitar Duo offer a dynamic program ranging from Baroque to Bossa Nova. It’s an innovative offering of the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival.
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If you’re not exhausted, there’s Sunday, Aug. 10, when the Middlefield Historical Association is offering antiques’ appraisals from noo to 3 by Bob and Margaret Becker, Becker & Becker Antiques. $3 per item, maximum three items. Free refreshments. Old Middlefield Schoolhouse, Co. Hwy. 35, Middlefield. I
In the afternoon, the Tea & Music series resumes with singer/entertainers Joe Rossi with Rob Hunt at the piano at 2 p.m. at the Barrymore Cafe at Cooperstown Theatre Festival. Tea dessert and sandwich buffet accompanies the show. Visit adjacent Will’s Gardens and view new John Belardo’s sculpture ”A Figure Skater Taking A Bow.” Admission $12, limited seating. Reservations, information 547-2335.

Labels: Glimmerglass, Weekend's Best Bets

By JIM KEVLIN

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COOPERSTOWN

Seriously, guys, how many of our wives STILL consider us “brilliant” after a decade of marriage?
But spend any time with sculptor Torsten Gipperich, and you suspect spouse Abby Amols may have a point.
Drivers who’ve been braking lately and slowly passing by Glimmerglen Cottage on West Lake Road to see the voodoo-like totems, this one reminiscent of ET, that one of the stone statues of Rapa Nui, might suspect the same.




Torsten is working behind the main house, sanding away at an assemblage that looks like the heavy frame of an antique barn, only pregnant. A chain saw is over there on a log.That sculpture, still unnamed, is being installed in the next few days in front of 22 Main, Cooperstown’s village hall, which also houses the Village Library and the Cooperstown Art Association.
It will be there for a year, part of a program that has made the stone sculpture of Fly Creek’s Walter Dusenberry and the silver-ribbon-like camel of Hartwick Seminary’s Don Gialanella (recently departed for New Mexico) a surprising part of walking down as traditional a Main Street as any in the country.
Torsten, who was born in Ghent, and wandered with his family through Belgium to Vancouver and Toronto before finally settling in Watertown, up on the St. Lawrence River, at age 4, has been immersed in art since third-grade fingerpainting days.
That was long before he met Abby in the 1990s. He was working in Ellen Weir’s Homescapes, (where Alex & Ika’s is today), and she – then Cooperstown Art Association executive director – followed her mother, Jacqueline, into the store. They’ve been married 12 years now; (son Peyton Reid, 18 months, is the latest novelty.)
Back to voodoo.
Abby, an art historian, toured Cameroon in 2001 while researching her doctoral thesis on the topic of voodoo art, which strives to put life into inanimate objects, and Torsten embraced and was inspired by the concept. The fecundity of his latest work in a case in point.
“He takes the garbage that people make, and the garbage that nature makes,” Abby said, “and fills it with a magic breath. He tries to start the pulse, to bring back the life force.”
Or as Torsten puts it, “I take dimensional lumber and add organic shapes.”
As far back as he remembers, Torsten has been “doing art.” Seriously, his third-grade teacher did send him to the back of the classroom to continue his fingerpainting while students went on to multiplication tables and similarly exciting topics.
His father, Rudy, was an architect with Bernier Peck, the Watertown firm, and his mother, Ursula Mickle, was a potter, so creativity was all around him.
He studied art for two years at Munson-Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, then three more at SUNY Purchase, then another few wild years on Dingman’s Point, barren and remote during the long winter, when the population of nearby Alexandria Bay dropped to a few hundred.
Here was a neighborhood where there was plenty of room, “a spontaneous place to be,” and no one around to complain about the noise. Torsten found himself ranging the woods near his one-room cabin, creating his art from stumps, logs and standing trees.
He and a painter, Christine Tisa, adopted the “open studio” concept, and people began wandering in and around while the artists were at work.
Suddenly, it was enough. It was too isolated. He rampaged through the woods, chainsaw in hand, destroying his creations.
“They belonged there,” he said. “They needed to stay there.”
Stints in Rochester and Albany followed, before Torsten found his way to Otsego County, and Homescapes, and Abby, and a home/studio in Westville, where the family lived until returning to Glimmerglen Cottage a year ago to help her mother prepare the property for sale.
Torsten is a carpenter as well as a sculptor, or perhaps a carpenter-sculptor. He works at each, although commissions – most recently, columns installed at the First Landing Foundation in Virginia, to delineate the theatre area – keep coming.
Like many artists, Torsten is resistent to telling you what he’s “trying to do.”
“Just respond to it. Don’t think about it. Just respond.”

Labels: Arts, Glimmerglass, Sculpture, Torsten Gipperich

JOHN KOSMER

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JUST A THOUGHT

There is a time for looking forward and a time for looking back.
For me, it is not a time in my life as much it is an oscillation of alternately looking forward and back, almost as a mechanism for keeping grounded.
When I look back it is usually rooted in people not places.
It seems a mystery why people lose touch with each other, a mystery that often is not comfortable or easy for some people to explore. “Let sleeping dogs lie” is a cliché that comes to mind. Indeed, there are times to simply let go. People change. Those are the tough calls in life.
The tough calls, however, should not stop anyone from pursuing reconnecting with others. Old friends are not solely friends, they are irreplaceable because they act as markers in your life, sort of
living bookmarks in the history of you through time.
Then why does it happen? Sometimes the middle of life, raising kids, and a carrier provides a focus that precludes other things.
People also stop calling each other because the think they have nothing to say – nothing new to tell. When we are young every year (sometimes every day) brings something new to tell others. After high school or college, usually your circle of friends drops like a stone. Imagine seeing a hundred new faces a semester as a college student and then, after graduation, that number dropping off to those you see at work, in your neighborhood and your friends. It is kind of a culture shock. Suddenly, you are pretty much alone compared to your school days and don’t have much new to tell people. You’re you in your job and maybe relationship. End of story.
Old friends and relatives don’t care if you have anything new to say. Many are happy to just hear the sound of your voice and feel happy that you thought enough of them to call. They may feel just as awkward about calling you as you do about calling them. Someone has to go first. It might as well be you. You may be pleasantly surprised at the social pathways it opens up to you.
What is stopping you – that they will not welcome the call? They will speak to you and not continue contact after that. Who cares? You would not have had contact with them anymore anyway if you hadn’t called them. Don’t let a possible cool reception inhibit you. It is not a rejection. Some people simply want to move on and not reconnect, and that’s OK. But you will never know which ones would enjoy reconnecting with you and which ones you would enjoy reconnecting with unless you make the call.
When I was younger I was often incredulous when, on one of those talk shows, hearing of people not speaking to each other for 30 years. Now I am one of them. It happens. I invited a couple that were my friends in college up here after not seeing them for some 30 odd years. I had spoken to them once or twice over that time. They came up. We now speak to each other regularly and have since visited them in Florida.
Wait. I can top that. My mother had two sisters, Anna and Antoinette. I used to play with my cousin Jackie (Aunt Anna’s child) as a kid over 45 years ago. Aunt Antoinette had two daughters, Mary and Joanne. I saw them as a child also over 45 years ago. I have not been in touch with any of them since.
A few weeks ago, as the story was recounted to me, Jackie in Monticello called Mary in Long Island and re-introduced himself. They now speak regularly.
Mary told her sister Joanne in Florida about Jackie. Joanne decided to Google me, found me, called me, re-introduced herself and told me that story. She gave me Jackie and Mary’s phone numbers.
I called both of them. Sometime over the summer, if all goes well, I will drive down to Monticello when Mary can have her son drive her up and we will meet after all those years. Imagine that.

John Kosmer ranges the Otesgo Lake region from his perch – the county’s “greenest house,” in Fly Creek.

Labels: Glimmerglass, John Kosmer, Just a Thought

SAM GOODYEAR

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ART BEAT

If you’re in the mood for some CHAI, KOPHE, KONFETI, BUTTERBROD and MUZIKA, then please note that the Cooperstown Theatre Festival, eight miles north of Cooperstown on Route 80, will be offering TEA, COFFEE, SWEETS, SANDWICHES and MUSIC 2-4 p.m. Sundays, Aug. 10 and 17. 
The grounds of the Cooperstown Theatre Festival contain several notable features, of which the unsurpassedly charming Barrymore Cafe is the venue for these leisurely Tea & Music afternoons. Gleaming and spotless, the cafe is presided over by Madame Bella Malinova (whose late husband was rehearsal pianist for the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow) and you will be afforded the enduring pleasure of cordial, old-world hospitality. Madame Malinova will welcome you with
a broad smile and exotically Russianized English.
Another landmark on the sprawling property is the barn/theater adjacent to the Barrymore. 
Inaugurated in the summer of 1984 for the Festival’s Equity plays over a period of five years, it is now used for productions of visiting theater companies, occasional concerts, and other public events.
On July 13, several scores of friends and guests of the Malinova/Sears families gathered for a somber and moving occasion.
Austin and Margarita Sears, son-in-law and daughter of Madame Malinova respectively, in the autumn of 2002 lost their son Will in a shocking and still not fully explained case of sudden death.
Will Sears, 19, handsome, charming and kind, was on his way to Olympic figure-skating glory, training rigorously and winning medals in important competitions when his life was cut short.
The memorial gathering paid tribute to the ill-fated athlete with music and poetry and the lovely rustic theater was filled with a combination of heartbreak and exaltation.
Following the formal proceedings, there was the dedication and unveiling of a statue of Will at the gardens on the south side of the property dedicated to his memory.
Sculptor John Belardo, whose commissions have included Lehman College in New York and George Washington University in the District of Columbia has caught the young athlete in an exuberant acknowledgement of the public following a skating program.
There are many reasons to go to the Cooperstown Theatre Festival on Aug. 10 (JOE ROSSI will sing and entertain, accompanied by ROB HUNT) and Aug. 17 (ARIELLE and DANIELLE, extraordinary 16-year-old duo-pianists from Boston who have been performing since the age of 2), for there will be sustenance for the ear, the heart, the body and the soul.
Please call me if you can find a better way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon.

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in and around Otsego County appears weekly.

Labels: Art Beat, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

August is shaping up as a month for galas and good times.
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On Saturday, Aug. 16, you’ll be able to take a trip eight miles up Otsego Lake to Havana, in the form of Hyde Hall’s third annual fundraising gala on the theme, “We’re Gonna Turn Up The Year, Cuban Style,” featuring romance, games of chance, hand-rolled cigars, ‘Floridita’ bars, “and mucho more.”
Dance from 7 to midnight to the 10-piece band of Jose Conde’s 10-piece band. For reservations, call 547-5098, or check www.hydehall.org.
Proceeds benefit the restoration of Hyde Hall, the 1817 National Historic Landmark mansion on Hyde Bay.
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To warm up for that gala, you can attend “A Gala Evening at The Otesaga,” honoring the Glimmerglass Opera Guild and hosted by Otesaga General Manager John Irvin.
The evening will begin at 6 with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on the veranda, with attendees participating in a silent auction. A four-course gourmet meal, especially prepared by Executive Chef David Lockwood, will be served at 7. The opera’s Young American Artists Program will provide entertainment during dessert.
Tickets for the gala are $85 for guild members or $100 for nonmembers. Call Dennis Banks for reservations at 432-5652, or e-mail him at banksdn@oneonta.edu
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Soprano Cindy Donaldson will sing popular hits at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3, at the Barrymore Café, part of the Cooperstown Theatre Festival on Route 80 south of Glimmerglass Opera.
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The Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival has two more offerings in the next few days. The Daedalus Quartet with David Shifrin performs at at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3, at Christ Episcopal Church/ At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7, a free “Flute Fest at The Otesaga” is planned.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to join The 200 Club, which is helping raise funds this year for the festival. Check Page 3 for details.

Labels: Cooperstown Area Events, Glimmerglass

SAM GOODYEAR

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ART BEAT

This week we are considering two barns: The Windfall Dutch Barn, a pre-revolutionary restored structure in Salt Springville about eight miles north of Route 20 from East Springfield, and Glimmerglass Opera, hard to miss on Route 80 eight miles north of Cooperstown.
The Windfall Dutch Barn was used as a resting and feeding place during General Clinton’s wagon march to the Susquehanna River.
Noted architect Hugh Hardy used the barn structure and aesthetic as the starting point for his ingenious and moving Glimmerglass Opera house, which has taken to its rustic setting with increasing familiarity over its 21-year existence.
The Windfall Barn offers an annual summer concert series that is varied, pure, seriously stimulating, and criminally inexpensive. Ticket prices never exceed $8 and $3 (or even non-existent).
And yet on Thursday, July 24, there were far too many empty seats for a genial concert by the Leonata String Quartet and guest flutist Kyle Yacobucci.
I wouldn’t have minded if it had been amateurish and cacophonic
(which it was not), for the seductive structure itself invites reflection on how good life can be.
The second of Bach’s orchestral suites, a Mozart divertimento, Gershwin’s Lullaby, and Dvorak’s Humoreske satisfied the ear and the heart. There are several events left this summer. GO.
(518-993-2239/dalter@adelphia.net)
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Why is it that at vastly more costly tickets, the barn at Glimmerglass is usually teeming with hundreds of patrons? Is increased expense the way to go? It beats me.
I do know, however, that you get your money’s worth there, too.
The fourth Shakespeare production of this season opened Saturday, July 26, with Vicenzo Bellini’s telling of the Romeo and Juliet story, “I Capuleti e i Montecchi.”
Attending any version of Romeo and Juliet is a bit like going to a retelling of the Titanic catastrophe. Both are so well known, there is no suspense.
But the powerful melodies and vocal lines of Bellini make up for any flagging interest in the plot.
One hears his operas (“Norma,” “La Sonnambula,” “I Puritani”...) but rarely, because they are almost unsingable. Rare are the voices that can do justice to this master of bel canto.
Well, you’ll be rewarded and enriched by the performances in general, but assaulted by pleasure and wonder by Sandra Piques Eddy (Romeo) and Sarah Coburn (Giulietta).
The vocal pyrotechnics for which Bellini is famous are a potential crowd-pleasing trap, successful and worthy of note only if they serve the emotion of the moment.
When it’s a “look at me” undertaking, it betrays art, and insults the public. In this production, there is integrity, honesty and purity, real Bellini.
Grumblers deriding the “modernist” and rock approach to some of Glimmerglass’s productions, need have no trepidation in this case.
Nineteenth Century traditions are reverently observed, and the music, deceptively simple but exaltingly lofty, will carry you with it, even if you loathe opera.
It is a joy to be able to hear Bellini in the Alice Busch Theater at last!

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in and around Otsego County appears weekly.

Labels: Art Beat, Columns, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

By JIM KEVLIN

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RICHFIELD SPRINGS

When Harriet was a 6-year-old in Middlebury, Vt., her mother bought her an Easy-Bake Oven.
“All I wanted to do was to bake,” she remembered the other day. “I’ve been doing it all my life. And I love it.”
When she retired from teaching in Utica public schools in 2004, she told her husband, Dick: “I want to do a bakery.”
In looking for a location, she heard about the one-room Hallsville schoolhouse in Pleasant Brook, east of Roseboom.
“Since I was a little girl,” she continued, “I always wanted a one-room schoolhouse: And there it was.”
It was meant to be.


Before long, she and Dick, a former B-52 bomber pilot who had retired as director of the Utica Refugee Center, were in the midst of renovations.
The schoolhouse was converted into a two-bedroom home, and the 1846 Methodist Protestant Church next door into the bakery.
Because of the location – Pleasant Brook, though delightful, is tiny – the Sesslers soon found a bakery could not fly on its own.
They added lunch.
Then they added what became one of the SweetTooth Schoolhouse’s signature features: Ethnic dinners, every two weeks.
The first was German – Dick is of German heritage and knew how to make sauerbrauten – but soon their offerings were ranging several continents.
Then Harriet remembered something else she loved.
Her memory was brought to the fore when she was in North Carolina visiting her daughter, who had a friend working at a place called La Teada’s, featuring afternoon tea and dress-up parties.
“I remember from my childhood how much I loved to dress up with my mother,” said Harriet.
Done.



“Dressing up brings out the little child, the little girl,” she continued. And, occasionally, also the little boy: She bought a couple of tuxedos and men’s hats when she discovered male patrons felt left out.
Last year, as the price of gasoline continued to rise, customers were less likely to hop into their cars and drive to Pleasant Brook.
Also, the Sesslers were driving back and forth daily from their home in Richfield Springs, 15 miles each way. It just seemed to make sense to look for something near home.
As it happened, Harriet had just the thing in mind, a former monument-company building on Lake Street, a high-peaked building made out of an unusual light-brown brick.
Harriet had heard it was tied up in an estate, but her Realtor made an inquiry, and within 24 hours they had an agreement to buy it.
At some point, someone had intended to turn the building into an Italian restaurant, and the fancy chandelier from a New York City hotel was already hanging in the middle of the room.
In the course of renovations, the Sesslers discovered the building’s foundation was made of stone from Belgium.
(Their mason told them ships used it as ballast, then the ballast was dumped at ports in the New York City area. Upstate folks would salvage it.)
If you’d driven along Lake Street over the winter, you would have seen Number 42 all boarded up. Little by little, the building brightened and brightened until, in early July, a bright pink sign went up by the road.
The Sesslers were back in business.
They’re serving lunch from 11 to 2, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There’s a lot of custom baking going on; lately, quite a few rhubard pies. Also, scones.
The private lunches and dinners are on the increase, birthday parties, showers. The Red Hats frequent the place.
There are dress-up teas and dress-up luncheons, just as Harriet envisioned.
And the ethnic nights are back. Friday, Aug. 1, French cuisine was featured. (The application is in for a liquor license, expected to be issued by fall.)
Friday, Aug. 16, there will be a Riggie Night, featuring that Italian-by-way-of-Utica specialty: breast of chicken in Alfredo sauce, with roasted red peppers, black olives, mushrooms, lots of Parmesan cheese, and “a few jalapenos.”
“Veeeeeeeeeery rich,” said Harriet.
Mini-strombolis, minestrone, antipasto and, for dessert, that crowd-pleaser, cannoli.
Saturday, Aug. 9, the Pleasant Brook era will officially end, as Lambrecht Auctions of Walton will be on the scene, selling off the two buildings and many of the antiques inside.
For now, Harriet and Dick are having a little too much fun to think too far ahead.
One thing’s for sure.
“We don’t want to get really huge,” said Harriet. “I don’t want to be mass-producing stuff. I want it to be small, cozy, so that people know us and we get to know our customers.”

Labels: Features, Glimmerglass, Local Businesses

ART BEAT

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SAM GOODYEAR

In a paraphrase of a well-known plea, someone struggling to make his way in the arts once quipped, “If I become famous, please don’t forget me.”
Leatherstocking Theatre Company has not forgotten Ann Matthers Taylor, nor is it likely ever to do so, no matter how eminent she has become. She is director of LTC’s first production this summer, A.R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room.”
Ms. Taylor was born in Cooperstown(the plaque noting this fact has not yet been put up) and grew up in Morris, where her father was an Episcopal minister.
Apart from the normal, and not unimportant, dramatic presentations elementary school children participate in, she got her first “big break” at age 8 when Glimmerglass Opera founder Peter Macris engaged her to appear in the 1976 production of Flotow’s “Martha.”
Shortly thereafter, her family moved to a new church posting in Massey, Md. But the pull of Otsego County was strong and Dinah Matthers, Ann’s mother, returned summer after summer To be Properties Mistress for Glimmerglass, still in its early days. Ann accompanied her and found herself appearing in opera after opera, first in children’s choruses, then later in the adult chorus. When asked recently how many productions she was in at Glimmerglass, she was momentarily taken aback in puzzlement and perplexity. Thinking further, she began to enumerate this opera and that opera, and then there was a period when she worked backstage, then this other production came along... Quite simply, she has lost count. Not bad!
In addition to the opportunities at Glimmerglass, it was not long before Orpheus Theatre founder Peter Macris engaged her yet again, this time to play the role of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” She also appeared in “Annie” and “The King and I.” (Let us note that Ann not only has considerable stage presence, but a beautiful voice as well.)
She is now chair of the Arts Department at the prestigious St. Andrew’s School (her alma mater, Class of 1986) in Middletown, Del. She leaves the painting and music instruction to her colleagues and is, herself, The Theater Department. She not only conducts bona fide acting classes and courses in public speaking, she has to her credit (besides that stage presence and beautiful voice) expertise in set design, set building, lighting and sound, and all of the myriad other theater skills necessary for quality and success.
Her participation with Leatherstockoing Theatre company this summer is not new: she performed in LTC’s first season (“Harvey” 1991) and appeared subsequently in “On Borrowed Time,” “Foxfire,” and “A Talent for Murder.” She was Production Manager for the 2006 season and also directed two engaging one-act plays by David Ives. With all her experience, talent, and considerable skills, it was only a matter of time before LTC engaged her to work her magic as director of a major production.
Advance word on “The Dining Room,” opening July 17 and running for nine performances through the 27th, is nothing short of ecstatic. She has shaped and molded an excellent cast to provide a stimulating and thought-provokingly witty two hours of theater pleasure. No matter how much more eminent and famous she becomes, I can guarantee we won’t be forgetting Otsego County’s very own Ann Matthers Taylor any time soon.

Labels: Ann Matthers Taylor, Art Beat, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

By JESSICA GUIDO

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CHERRY VALLEY
This year, 21 sculptures by 18 sculptors will populate the third annual Cherry Valley Artwork Sculpture Trail, which opens at 7 p.m. Friday, July 18, with a reception at the Cherry Valley Museum.
Artist range from locals, to those halfway across the country. One of the sculptures unloaded last week is a one-ton, 18-foot sculpture shipped from Indiana by Gary Wahl, professor at Albion College in Michigan.
“This is the third year doing this, and it has just grown and grown,” said Jane Sapinski, Cherry Valley Artworks director. “It really has grown into quite an amazing show.”
The sculptures, which have been rising around the village in recent days, are made of everything
from wood, to metal, to neon. They can be found hanging from trees, resting on the lawns, and floating on ponds.
Returning artists include Terry Slade, Hartwick College art professor, and one of his students, Dillon Clarke, who sculpted “Tsunami” on the lawn of the former Tryon Inn. Rocky Pinciotti’s sculpture – in front of Cherry Valley Hardware – is a wall with four neon pieces that light up in order. As one goes off, the next one comes on, flashing the words “Lions, Tigers, Bears, Oh My!”
Lorilee Coleman hand-crafted more than 1,000 origami cranes, stringing “Peace Cranes” on trees near Clark’s “Tsunami” in front of the Tryon, where they reflect the sun.
Sapinski noted that it was a great community effort. Manylocals helped out.
Nathan Waterfield, who runs a tree-trimming business, helped Lorilee. Cherry Valley Memorials used one of its loading trucks to help get Wahl’s sculpture into place, and the Cherry Valley Museum was more than greatful to host the trail opening.
Many community members allowed their land to be used for the placement of the sculptures,
and the neon sculptures were created in a building that was donated to Cherry Valley Artworks specifically for the cause.
Cherry Valley Artworks received a grant from the Upper Catskill Council on the Arts that made the sculpture trail possible. The Otsego County Chamber and the Upper Catskill Council on the Arts are doing a county-wide tourist motion called “artQuest.”

Labels: Arts, Cherry Valley, Glimmerglass

The Cooperstown area’s five-day weekend of July 17-20 – count ’em, five days! – features music, art and food (accompanied by a beverage or two.) What’s not to like?
•
The weekend began Thursday with the Leatherstocking Theatre’s first offering of the season, A.R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room,” at 8 p.m. at Cooperstown Little Theatre on Route 80. Performances continue Friday and Saturday, and Tuesday through Sunday, July 22-27.
•
Friday, there’s more to do than anyone can. The Cooperstown Art Association’s 73rd National Exhibition kicks off with a 5-7 reception at 22 Main featuring James Taglia’s steel-drum sounds. At 6:30, its NYSHA’s annual benefit gala, “Buffalo to Broadway: Celebrate All Things New York,” at The Farmers’ Museum. At 7, Cherry Valley Artworks is launching its third Sculpture Trail with a reception at the Cherry Valley Museum.
•
S
aturday begins with an Old Airplane Fly-In and Breakfast, 7:30-11 a.m., at the Cooperstown/
Westville Airport. That evening, there’s a Luau at Glimmerglass State Park to benefit the new Friends of the Park group; $25 includes dinner and two drinks.
•
Monday the weekend finally winds down, if you can call it that. The Smithy-Pioneer Gallery opens an exhibit, “Photographers From An Otsego Day,” photos taken from dawn to dusk and beyond on June 21, the first day of summer. The 5-7 p.m. reception
at 55 Pioneer includes “Gold, Silver, Azure, Red, Pompeii,” Charles Bremer’s photographs of vintage art material.
•
Wednesday, July 23, the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival brings “Enchanted Baroque” at 7:30 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church, works by Bach, Purcell, and Telemann. (Incidentally, check out how to join The 200 Club, Page 3)

Labels: Cooperstown Area Events, Glimmerglass, Weekend's Best Bet

By ROBERT MOYNIHAN

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'KISS ME KATE'

This Kate is the anti-”lady” of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” She is almost domesticated by Cole Porter following the travails of put-upon heroines in literary history, Penelope, Dido, Griselda, and other almost forgotten remnants of repression.
It might be remembered that women in the Elizabethan age had the barest legal rights. Before marriage, papa controlled their cash absolutely. After the rite, their estates went to husbands who frequently gambled away the proceeds and drank the profits, should there be any. The only solution to this abysmal state was revolt.
Shakespeare with his penetrating wit and social awareness realized that women were not merely co-equals but often superior in intelligence and moral insight to their frequently stupefied mates. His plays are filled with women more able or sensitive than their fathers or husbands.
The often irrational impulse of desire. What can women do to make men behave? Withdraw. But in the practical world of narrow social options, men could erect their own hurdles to matrimony and eventual “domestic bliss” – perhaps one of the more cutting oxymorons in platitude-land.
In Elizabethan England, upper and even mid-class marriage was not for “love.” It was for profit. It ensured alliances to increase whatever power or influence was at hand. What if someone said “no” to this arrangement?
One of the most subversive writers in human history, Shakespeare bounces the character of Kate off the fortified superiority of the “Virgin Queen,” for the leading questions almost until her death were “does she, will she, how, and when?” Rarely, of course, women like Queen Elizabeth I could refuse to allow the moves in this social game of matrimonial chess – and this gives us the splendid character of the “shrew,” who wants nothing more than her independence. But in this musical and the earlier play, she is battered into submission – apparently.
Cole Porter saw this plot as an occasion for his own creativity – which was considerable. Beginning as an undergraduate at Yale, the Indiana-born Porter quickly took to wit, irony, and sophistication, all in academic short supply of both then and now New Haven. Porter, escaping Yale’s muscular pretensions, reversed repression and myopia, giving us the world of Kate, the scenes of social limits apparently incapable of correction.
Does Kate triumph either in the scenes of the Bard or the American Porter? Words, mere words, are the solution, for they move without the channels of literalism imposed by social convention. Even the imposition of rhyme, in the hands of genius, becomes a form of liberation.
When a skillful rhyme finally arrives after the cliches of most pop music and bad verse, an audience invariably responds with delight – for surprise is hidden in the promise of language.
There are many such delights in “Kate”: the promise of “Tex” who sends “checks” inevitably results in “sex,” but “I’m always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion.” As for “I hate men,” the high point was the parody of Donizetti bel-canto, with, of course, flute obligatto provided by Floyd Hebert. There isn’t room enough to list every manifold display of excellence in the Glimmerglass production. The choreographer was Darren Lee, the superb chorus prepared by Bonnie Koerstner. The cast, including Brad Little, Courtney Romano (a priceless comedienne by instinct), Lisa Vroman (as Elizabeth I manque), the unique Damian Norfleet, and Machale Mott and Bradley Nacht with their “Brush up your Shakespeare” (rhyming “bonus-Adonis, Alice-Pitti Palace, Lisa-Tower of Pisa” and the added stanza including “potent Liebesverbot”) only added to the delight of performance.
What is good, if not great, art but the reversal of pattern and expectation?

Robert Moynihan, retired SUNY Oneonta English professor, is record critic for Listener magazine; his writings have also appeared in the New York Times.


by JIM KEVLIN

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‘Giulio Cesare in Egito'

The first two acts of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egito” are like a roller-coaster’s tension-building climb. Act Three is the wild, roaring rush down the far side.
The curtain rises, Julius Caesar’s army has lost a battle with Ptolemy’s forces (which ensued during the intermission) and is thought to have drowned at sea.
And Ptolemy turns to punishing his sister, Cleopatra, Caesar’s recent lover: “I will see you humiliated, humiliated.”
Exit.
Then Cleopatra, “In a single day, I lose everything – cruel fate ... But once I am dead, I will torment the tyrant night and day!”
A rectangle of light appears at the top of the spare, Globe-Theatre-like set, and Caesar returns: “Breeze, heal me ... comfort me in my sorrows.”
Achilla, Ptolemy’s former right hand, appears, stabbed, and – as he dies – offers 100 men to Caesar to avenge him.
Sesto, whose father, Pompey, Ptolemy beheaded, also seeks vengeance: “The bow of justice holds the arrows of revenge.”
A delighted Cleopatra, reunited briefly with Caesar before he goes off after Ptolemy, sings: “The battered ship that survives the storm desires nothing more.” Right.
Sesto assassinates Ptolemy: “I heed nothing but my own desires.” And his mother, Cornelia, praises his act: “You are clearly son of the great Pompey.”
The survivors of all this carnage hail “the return of joy and peace” and the curtain falls.
The roller coaster comes to a stop and heartbeats begin to slow.
This particular reviewer has no expertise in opera.
So what you read here is simply Everyman-Who-Doesn’t-Know-Much-About-Opera’s reaction to a matinee at Glimmerglass Opera’s seemingly intimate Alice Busch Theatre – seemingly, because it actually fits 900 people, although no one is farther away from the stage than 70 feet.
According to the opera staff, there are usually several dozen seats available on the Monday matinees. So if, at the last minute, you want to slip away from whatever daily toils you face, go. It feels like playing hookey, sitting in the darkened theater, watching the orchestra and hearing marvelous sounds.
There are some dissonances in “Cesare in Egito” – purposeful ones.
Dressing the Roman soldiers in uniforms that echo the Mussolini Era – the “Indiana Jones” movies come to mind – shakes the imperial impetus out of the ancient setting. You can’t help reflecting on how American Caesars are continuing to play out that dynamic today in Iraq.
And there are racist parallels, too. Cornelia spurns Achilla, in part because she is a grieving widow, but also because “I am a Roman” and he a lowly Egyptian. Caesar and Sesto, Pompey’s son, are both played by women. Dragging an ear during the intermissions, the thinking was that the original cast may have been populated by castratos, and this was an effort to capture that.
But it might be argued that, as with the uniforms, this is an effort to shake the characters free of stereotypes, in this case gender ones. Is Carly Fiorina any less driven – and scarey – than Dick Cheney? And Ptolemy sings falsetto. A bit of a buffoon he; it plays perfectly.
When he squeekily sings, “I am not afraid of a woman,” it’s quite hilarious. “Take her away. I will see her kneel before my throne.” Again, no expert here, but Lyubov Petrova, as Cleopatra, delivers impossible rills effortlessly. And her depiction of the legendary beauty – brassy, sassy, tempting, infuriating, meddlesome, .rash – is perfect. A deft touch: The conquest of Egypt in Scene One is depicted metaphorically. Jack-booted Italians beat a turbaned peasant. Point made. All in all, “Giulio Cesare in Egito” will bring fi rst-timers back to the opera. What are YOU doing Monday afternoon?

Labels: Giulio Cesare in Egito, Glimmerglass, Glimmerglass Opera, Kiss Me Kate, Opera, Theatre

‘Cooperstown Stuff’ Abounds This Weekend

This is a weekend for “Cooperstown stuff,” tried and true perennials looked forward to with anticipation.

•Friday, July 11, is the Presbyterian Church Ice Cream Social, 5-8 p.m., the Brookwood Garden Plant Sale & Flea Market, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (also Saturday and Sunday), and the Pierstown Variety Show, 7:30 p.m. at the grange.

The Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival opens its 10th season with “Nature Calls,” animal-inspired pieces by Schubert, Saint-Saens and others, at 7:30 p.m. at The Farmer’s Museum. The same performers warmed up the same concert to rave reviews the other day at An Appalachian Summer Festival in North Carolina.

Here’s a new entry (a future tradition?): Band on the Beach, “Chalk Dust Torture,” made up of teachers from Canajoharie, 5-8:30 p.m. at Glimmerglass State Park.

•Saturday, July 12, is the not-to-be-missed Otsego Lake Festival, featuring the Stoddard
Hollow String Band and Ecology Barge Tours, conducted by the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station. Everyone involved in the lake’s preservation will be there in Lake Front Park, manning information booths.

The Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival continues its opening weekend with the Family Music Fest featuring the celebrated Parker String Quartet, at 11 a.m. in Templeton Hall. And the annual Fly Creek United Methodist Church’s country auction will be underway north of the blinker. 9 a.m. preview, with bidding under way at 10.

• Sunday, July 13, the annual Junior Livestock Show, always much-anticipated, will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Iroquois Farm, followed by a BBQ, then an ice-cream social.
Activities continue through Tuesday afternoon. Watch kids handle animals they’ve raised.

The Middlefield Historical Society, fresh off last weekend’s Community Day, is hosting tours of the National Register Historic District hamlet 1-4 p.m.

The music festival opening weekend culminates with the Parker String Quartet performing Haydn, Janacek and Beethoven at 7:30 p.m. at The Farmers’ Museum.

Labels: Glimmerglass

By JIM KEVLIN

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MILFORD

It’s a story of twists and turns, punctuated by coincidences.
It began with Chris Lord, as a boy in the 1950s, clambering on the lions that flanked the steps of The Major’s Inn in his native Gilbertsville.
In 1962, when Lord was 12, then-owner Jack Still sold the Tudor Revival landmark on Route 51 and moved back to his native Bradford, Pa.
“He took the two lions” – cast-zinc statues produced by J.L. Mott Ironworks, New York City, in the 19th Century – “which upset people in town, including me,” Lord recalled the other day at the Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley Railroad shed, Milford, where he works on the locomotives.
The news that Ed Landers had just repaired and returned two lion statues to the steps of his Landmark Inn, Cooperstown, brought the memories vividly back to Chris Lord’s mind.
As the years went on, as he left his birthplace for points as distant as Arkansas, the loss of the lions continued to rankle him.
In 1971, Chris found himself back in his picturesque hometown and living in The Major’s Inn, helping maintain the place for a Shakespeare dinner-theater that was operating there at the time.
What did he run across in the course of his duties but an old metal paw from one of the lions. Perhaps sensing he might need it some day, he tucked it away for safekeeping under the back stairs.
In 1976, that premonition developed into “a wild idea,” he recalled. “Let’s see if we can’t find the lions and get them back,” he said to himself.
Chris drove down to Bradford, found Jack Still, but was told the lions had been broken up.
“But he told me, ‘If you go to Cooperstown, you’ll find some there,’” Lord continued. “And sure enough, they were there, at The Lions Tourist Home,” at 64 Chestnut, where Ed Landers’ Landmark Inn is today.


Coincidence One: The paws were broken off.
So Chris Lord approached the manager – it was Howard Wrench, who now works at the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, who was tending the tourist home for his father, Stanley – with a deal.
If Wrench would lend him the lions to duplicate them – these were still the cast-zinc J.L. Mott originals, Lord said – he would repair the lions’ paws. Done, said Wrench.
“My father came by,” Howard remembers, “and he said, ‘Where the heck are my lions?’”
Those of you who were around then might remember the Novelty Nook, on Route 7 east of Oneonta, where Floyd Deane produced and sold cement lawn statues.
Approached by Chris Lord, Deane agreed – if Chris would help – to make a mold and create two new statues for Gilbertsville, just like the ones that were taken away 14 years before.
In return, he would keep the mold to make future lions for sale. It was something of a lengthy
process. Every day for a while, Lord would stop by the Novelty Nook and paint another layer
of liquid latex on the statues.
Over time, he built up a coat about a quarter-inch thick. The latex coat was removed and – reinforced with plaster and even Rebar – it was placed inside a master mold, a larger box that would hold the latex mold in place.
“It was all working out,” said Chris. “And no money involved.”
Floyd poured the cement and created the new statues. Chris hauled them to Gilbertsville and the originals back to Cooperstown. In the years that followed, he observed the statues popping up here and there – at The Fiesta restaurant on Oneonta’s River Street (now Bella Michael’s), in the East End Cemetery, and so on.
Soon, however, the Gilbertsville lions, subjected to the elements of Upstate winters, began to deteriorate. By 1996, they were in pretty bad shape.
Chris Lord returned to the Novelty Nook, but Floyd Deane had retired to Florida. He had
sold off all his molds, except the two lions – his favorites – which he took with him, intending to continuing casting statues in the Sunshine State.
“He couldn’t bear to part with them,” Chris said.
A dead end, until along came Coincidence Two.
The Gilbertsville inn, the lions’ home, was now owned by The Major’s Inn Foundation, managed by Cece Rowe, who with hubby John was in Endicott, heading out on vacation. She happened to glance down a side street, and there was a replica of one of The Major’s Inn lions.
Following up with the homeowner, she discovered the lion had been purchased at Tudor Statuary in Loman, near Elmira. It turned out that Tudor had bought Floyd Deane’s molds – all of them – with the understanding that when the Novelty Nook owner passed away, the lion molds would be forwarded to Loman.
Reenter Chris Lord, who went out to examine the molds, but found them to be in such poor shape that new lions couldn’t be poured.
“Everything was in a jumble,” he said.
However, if he could transport the Cooperstown lions – they were still in pretty good shape – to Loman, the molds could be fitted around the fairly intact statues, repaired, and new lions created.
So Chris returned to Cooperstown, where The Lions Tourist Home was now owned by Peter
Millspaugh of Falls Church, Va., who had converted it in to five apartments. The zinc lions, Millspaugh told Lord, had continued deteriorating and he had consigned them to a restorer
from the Syracuse area, who absconded with all his clients’ artifacts.
The original lions were gone, perhaps irretrievably. But Millspaugh wanted lions back, so he agreed to help pay for materials.
So Chris Lord took the ruined Gilbertsville lions to Loman, where – it turned out – they were sufficiently intact that the molds could be repaired around them.
This time, Lord attempted to place a layer of powdered zinc on the inside of the mold, to replicate the originals to some degree. He then poured a mixed of vermiculite – a natural clay
that can expand and contract without cracking – gypsum and a plastic polymer, and used chunks of Styrofoam to bulk it out.
Then he and a buddy, Dan Backman of Gilbertsville, loaded the four statues on trucks, dropped two off at The Major’s Inn and took the other two to Cooperstown, where they were guarding the steps when Ed Landers bought what would become The Landmark Inn in 1999.
In the fall of 2007, a ceremony was organized in Gilbertsville to officially welcome back the lions.
Meanwhile, CeCe Rowe made a deal with Tudor, and The Major’s Inn Foundation acquired the molds “because,” said Lord, “whatever happened, we would have the molds.” And so ended Chris Lord’s 45-year odyssey, launched by a boy’s perception of right and wrong.
“Originally, as a kid, I was just indignant,” he explains. “What right did they have to take our lions away?”

Labels: Glimmerglass

BRENDA BERSTLER

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ON YOUR HOME PLATE

Bill Elsey called the other day to ask if I had any use for his bumper crop of rhubarb. He may as well have asked if he could unload a few winning scratch-off tickets.
True to his tempting offer, he and his better half, Vi, appeared at my back step a few days later, arms laden with the coveted rosy stalks. In recent years, rhubarb has become a gourmet favorite and, while we may take the humble “pie plant” for granted here in our cool Upstate climate where it thrives, it is mighty scarce in Southwestern markets.
Versatile rhubarb mates beautifully with strawberries, apples, pears and most berries. It can also cuddle up with onions and peppers, combining for distinctive chutneys and meat condiments.
Sugar is included in nearly every recipe, to offset the plant’s considerable tartness. Rhubarb freezes easily, to enjoy throughout the winter.
Like tomatoes, rhubarb suffers from identity confusion. Just as tomatoes are fruits masquerading as vegetables, rhubarb is a vegetable that usually functions as a fruit. Unlike tomatoes and every other vegetable except asparagus, rhubarb is a perennial plant. Once established, it prettily heralds spring year after year, usually forgiving green thumbs that are a few shades off emerald.
Rhubarb’s broad (albeit toxic) leaves also make a showy addition to landscaping and help keep bedding soil moist. The stalks are the only edible part of the plant, their color varying from green to speckled pink to deep red. The flavor is basically the same, regardless of hue.
Rhubarb leaves and roots are heavy in oxalic acid which, if eaten in sufficient quantity, can cause tissue and kidney damage. This may explain deer aversion to them. The roots of a specific variety can be used medicinally as a laxative; yet another compelling reason to enjoy the stalks only.
Although rhubarb is an Asian native, the name is widely believed to be from the Greek words “rha” and “barbarum”. “Rha”, refers to the Volga River, where the plant proliferated on its banks; “barbarum”, means “barbarian”, indicating the esteem in which the Greeks held the Russians.
Here’s the recipe for a pink, sweet and refreshing rhubard cocktail on a hot day.

RHUBARB SLUSH

6 cups chopped rhubarb, with enough water to just cover
2 cups sugar
1 six-ounce can of frozen concentrated orange juice, thawed
1 six-ounce can of frozen concentrated lemonade, thawed
1 cup gin (optional, but if using get a gin with a pronounced juniper flavor, such as Tanqueray)
3 cups water
Sprite, tonic water, or club soda

Place rhubarb in a large saucepan. Add enough water to barely cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook until tender. Drain and puree in a blender. Stir together the rhubarb puree, sugar, orange juice concentrate, lemonade concentrate, gin and water. Freeze. Place scoops of the frozen mixture into serving glasses, and fill with Sprite, tonic water, or club
soda. Garnish with a New York State strawberry.

Brenda Berstler of Cooperstown, a partner in Savor New York, is author of Home Plate, a Cooperstown cookbook

Labels: Brenda Berstler, Columns, Glimmerglass, On Your Home Plate

ELIZABETH BUCHINGER

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THIS WONDERFUL LIFE

It is often said that money cannot buy happiness. It does, however, take a bite out of financial anxiety, a condition that seems to be blooming into a full-scale global pandemic.
And now there’s a little science to back up the money-happiness connection. A study that had been charting national happiness statistics worldwide since 1981 determined that financial prosperity and democratic government combined to make citizens happier.
CNN reported on the study: “Researchers at the University of Michigan said Denmark’s prosperity, stability and democratic government placed the country at the top of the rankings,
with Colombia, Canada, Puerto Rico and Iceland all in the top 10.”
The U.S. came in at 16, out of the 97 countries studied, and Zimbabwe came in last. So while you’re celebrating America’s birthday, get yourself one of those big foam hands with a #16 on it, and chant, “We’re 16, we’re 16!”
Every morning, as I drive 27 fuel-burning, carbon-footprint-spreading miles to work, I listen to National Public Radio’s daily account of just how bad things are. School districts face rising food bills and reshuffle their menu plans to economize.
Some schools – those with fullservice kitchens – are eschewing the frozen and pre-made
stuff for meals prepared from scratch at a much lower cost.
Stocks, consumer confidence and housing starts keep falling, while college tuitions, foreclosures
and blood pressures keep rising.
Fuel is so expensive that even the government is responding: Some state and local governments are moving to four-day work weeks, and the Pentagon is sweating armorpiercing bullets over the cost of keeping jets in the air, tanks on the ground and ships in the water.
It looks bad. But if there is one thing I’ve learned from The Greatest Generation, including
my grandmother (who continues to improve, thanks for asking), it’s that bemoaning your condition won’t put food on the table. Sometimes good, old-fashioned hard work won’t
put much on the table, either.
That’s why there were so many downright rollicking songs that came out of the Great Depression. When you can’t eat, sometimes it helps to distract your mouth by singing.
“Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.”
“We’re in the Money.”
“Happy Days Are Here Again.”
You can call it denial or irony or a plain old self-deception, but those songs have a common
thread of looking on the bright side of things, laughing willfully in the face of uncertainty
and wresting happiness from the jaws of despair.
I’ve decided to start looking on the bright side of the morning newscasts. For example, being 16th in world happiness is pretty darned good. At least we’re not in Zimbabwe, where their
leader bullied his opposition and his supporters in the election, threatened violence, gave
democracy the finger and stole the presidency.
Yay.
And that whole price of food thing? Maybe we can finally solve our national obesity crisis.
Good for us.

And economic collapse might not be such a bad thing. Families will have to move in together, just like in my grandmother’s youth. We’ll all be so much closer. And, with lay-offs and such, we’ll get to spend much more time with family. Aren’t we always saying we wish we could spend more time with the kids?
Problem solved.
Now for that fuel price thing. Hmmm. That’s a tough one. Our country is really dependent
on fuel, so one way or another we really have to buy it, no matter how much it costs. So
where’s the silver lining? I’ve got it – if you were smart enough to be born into a family whose wealth is derived largely from the oil industry, this is a total win for you!
Score!

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger has a lot of what it takes to get along. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@gmail.com.

Labels: Columns, Elizabeth Buchinger, Glimmerglass, This Wonderful Life

Labels: 062708, Glimmerglass

SAM GOODYEAR

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ART BEAT


Vladimir Horowitz suffered from such agonizing stage fright that he stopped playing in public for 20 years.
Gioacchino Rossini interrupted his prolific composing career for 30 years before picking up his pen again.
“Writer’s block” has been known to afflict countless authors.
Let’s face it, artists don’t necessarily have an easy time of it. By their very nature, they are outside the conventional box, and since each artist is “one of a kind” – there aren’t two Mozarts or two van Goghs, for example – the solitariness of their calling places burdens on them that are not always easy.
It is always good news when a Horowitz or a Rossini returns to the scene, and such is the cause for celebration of a recital to be given at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 1, at Grace Episcopal Church in Cherry Valley.
Agustin Anievas, born in New York City of Spanish-Mexican parents, had by age 8 performed at the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C., and at Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts, the youngest performer ever to achieve such a distinction.
Trained at the Juilliard School of music under the tutelage of Adele Marcus, he has played all over the world, starting with Carnegie Hall (where everybody else is trying to get to) and winning the first Dimitri Mitropoulos Competition along the way.
He spent 25 years as chairman and professor of piano at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, all of which adds up to a rich and rewarding life in art.
Then, after bypass surgery, he stepped aside for a bit. For five years, to be exact. But make no mistake, he didn’t sit at home brooding.
He launched into another form of artistic expression, namely photography, finding that considerations such as patience, composition, and the search for the correct tonalities were not unlike his approach to learning a piece of music.
He had kept his hand in musically by serving as judge at piano competitions all over the globe, and it was on hearing a young entrant’s performance of Bach’s famous “Chaconne” that he was inspired to resume his place in the public eye.
His big return appearance will take place at the Newport (R.I.) Music Festival on July 26, when he will appear at The Breakers, the famed Vanderbilt “cottage.”
But after such a hiatus it is advisable to ease back into the limelight rather than plunge in headlong, and we are lucky that he will be “warming up” to his come-back with a preliminary recital of the Newport program at Grace Church.
His choices are unabashedly romantic: some Schubert impromptus, some Chopin waltzes (as well as the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise), and Liszt’s Sonata in b Minor.
A few months ago we waxed lyrical about the acoustics at Grace Church.
The lustrous wood of the interior provides not only visual warmth, it generously reflects all the sound waves it receives. Mr. Anievas will have just the venue needed for his recital, and we are indeed fortunate to have such an important event to add to our increasingly crowded calendar of events.

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in and around Otsego County appears weekly.

Labels: 062708, Art Beat, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear

by JIM KEVLIN

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