Hampton Roads Living (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Hampton Roads Living (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Work at the focus group firm was going well.  We had cool clients.  It was hush-hush, but I think we worked for the Red Cross, a big radio conglomerate, auto repair stores, and grocery store chains among other clients.

I learned how to change engine oil, windshield washer fluid, and anti-freeze if I had to when I found out how cheap it was to buy those products and do it yourself.

I even know how to measure air tire pressure, fill tires with air, and pump my own gas.  (Laurent and I taught Florence how to do these things and research new car prices in Consumers’ Reports and then compare prices online.)

When Father’s Day rolled around, Florence and I set out our cards for daddy on the dining room table.  We went to the NEX department store and bought Laurent another pair of Dockers Khakis to wear.  Florence got a kiddy sailor’s hat, and I bought a nice pitcher and glasses for lemonade or iced tea.

Laurent wanted burritos for dinner, so I made myself busy putting boiled black beans, grated cheddar and Swiss cheese, baby lettuce greens, and chopped tomatoes on large, warm tortillas in my Tex-Mex rendering of this dish.

After dinner, Laurent made crêpes, which we ate with a little Nutella and sliced up bananas.

I told Florence, we were going to have quiet time when we dropped Laurent off at the ship.  He had duty as one of the new “guys” on the ship.  I made sure he had a nice Father’s Day anyways.

Florence amused herself with Dr. Seuss books like Hop on Pop and the Cat in the Hat.

“This rhymes,” Florence kept saying as if she had discovered gold.  I read her the stories of David, Elijah, and Solomon from her Children’s Bible. 

I was reading the Bible myself, but not the kiddy version.  I was working on the doom-and-gloom prophets.  With those books out of the way, I had achieved a lifetime goal of reading the entire Bible.

The historical books were my favorites, reflecting my love for history.  I wanted to read some analytical studies of the Bible and be like our parish priest at St. Pius.

Our priest’s homilies always retained my attention, because he explained passages in their historical context.  I had to admit that going to church with him as the priest reminded me of going to a class at the University of Chicago and discussing how Biblical historical passages could be used as metaphors as well.

We decided to go to a beachfront crab house restaurant in Virginia Beach (Virginia) when Laurent got off work the next day.  (This was an independent restaurant, but the chain Joe's Crab Shack retains the ambiance - steam pots with key lime pie for dessert.)

They had a gazebo right on the beach, but that was mostly for cocktails.  The fine, white sand oozed through our toes as we walked along the beach.

Six crabs were netted while we were walking along the beach, making me leery about swimming in the water.

When we sat down in the restaurant, we luxuriated in the cool, air-conditioned interior.  The humidity in the hot air just made me want to sit in a chair and refrain from all movement.

I always felt like someone was pressing a warm washcloth all over me in Norfolk (Virginia) during the summer.  Air conditioning lessened the feeling, but every time you had to take your broiler-like car somewhere that feeling would return.

A sweet, corn aroma filled the cool air in the restaurant.  Would we be eating complimentary cornbread or hush puppies?

My question was answered as our waitress arrived with a bowl of steaming hush puppy balls to nibble on as we decided on our order.

Hush puppies, made from corn meal and onions, are deep-fried to make a crunchy crust.  To truly appreciate them, you must dunk them in melted butter.  (Obviously, you do not eat these all the time.)

Laurent ordered a seafood platter of broiled shrimp and scallops along with a crab cake.  I ordered a platter of broiled sweet scallops.

Laurent gave me the crab cake on his plate.  He was missing out on one of the Southeastern seaboard’s true delicacies.

Crab cakes are made with breadcrumbs and seasoned with mustard, Tabasco sauce, parsley, mayonnaise, cayenne pepper, and crab meat.

Despite the spicy ingredients, crab cakes taste sweet due to all the crabmeat.  Florence called the crab cakes “crab hamburgers” and ate them with glasses of Southern iced tea.

I was beginning to understand why “sun tea,” or Southern Iced Tea was popular due to its pick-me-up, caffeinated punch.  People in short-sleeved, Hawaiian shirts all around us were drinking gallons of it.

Beating heat-induced lethargy is a way of life in the southern United States.  Florence could not even finish the crab cakes, because she was so tuckered out by her ocean walk.

After dinner, we discovered that the temperature outside had subsided.  A cool breeze caressed our skin.  We walked along the ocean again and watched the skies fill with cherry-colored and yellow-colored bands as the sun set.

We let Florence cool off some more when we arrived home.  I filled the bathtub with some cool water and let her splash as much water as she wanted.  I would clean up the swimming area.

Laurent and Florence also played with snorkeling equipment the next day to cool off.  They both had snorkeling equipment and were walking around the apartment with it on and pretending to be Star Wars characters.

While the Hollywood-in-the-House skits were going on, I began to read The Koran, which was another one of my lifetime reading goals and just blocked out the big eyed, tube-nosed people.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Breton Pirate Lunches in Norfolk-Virginia Beach (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Breton Pirates Lunches in Norfolk-Virginia Beach (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Using my Pirate Platter Strategy to get kids to eat vegetables, I told Florence, “The Bretons from Northwestern France can be pirates, if they do not have enough to eat.”  All Navy children do know that mutiny and piracy are very bad things for dad and the country.

“The Bretons make their living from fishing (for the men) and harvesting oysters (for the women).  They eat those things, but if the eggs run out, things can get very bad,” I said.

“Why is it bad to run out of eggs?” Florence asked.

“You use eggs to make pancakes.  In Brittany, they make pancakes called crêpes, which you can fill with all sorts of delicious filings that are both savory and sweet,’ I said.

“What kind of crêpe pancakes can you make?” Florence asked.

“Well, first, Bretons make crêpes with milk (which contains protein and calcium), eggs (which contain protein), and flour (which contains carbohydrate).  There are other kinds, but this kind of crêpe is my favorite,” I said.

“What kinds of fillings are there?” Florence asked.

“There are several including:

-Grated gruyere from Switzerland or Bavaria (Germany) or Wisconsin Swiss with slices of prosciutto, baby greens, and vinaigrette

-Sliced mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and butter with chopped garlic and parsley

-Ratatouille, a vegetable stew made with garlic, onions, peppers (green, yellow, and red ones), zucchini, and eggplant seasoned with rosemary

-Chopped ham with melted, aged cheddar or Swiss.  The commissary in Virginia Beach sold Westphalian ham.

(I always asked my mother to send Wisconsin Cheeseman cheese logs wrapped in wax for Christmas.  I got three, which lasted about 3 months.  Now Costco carries a brand called Tillahook, which resembles Wisconsin Cheeseman.

You can use cheese log cheese to make cubes for bar trays, grilled cheese sandwiches, and homemade mac ‘n’ cheese.)

-Garlic shrimp sautéed in olive oil and minced garlic

-Garlic scallops sautéed in olive oil and minced garlic

-White asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce

-Sautéed cabbage and fried, crumbled sausage with ranch or blue cheese dressing

-Sliced strawberries with whipped cream

-Banana slices with 1 tablespoon of Nutella

You can serve crêpes with Southern iced tea, homemade fruit salad, and a pot of Lavazza coffee.

While Laurent worked on the crêpes, which you can make ahead of time and take to work, Florence worked on her art projects with the art box I made for her.

Art box supplies for a box you create yourself for your child can include:

-coloring books of famous ballets (Bellerophon Publishers)

-coloring book of famous composers (Bellerophon Publishers)

-Well-illustrated origami folding books with origami paper

-Insect and flower drawing books, using geometric shapes

-basic color mixing books

-lots of white and colored copy paper

-crayons

-pastels

-colored pencils

-water-based paints

-horsehair brushes of varying sizes that you can clean yourself

-electric pencil sharpener

We made butterflies with paint and folded paper and snowflakes with paper cut-outs to decorate Florence’s bedroom before eating.

For a Sunday crêpe lunch, we usually had:

Mushroom Crêpes

Sautéed Garlic Shrimp Lunch

Sliced Strawberry with Whipped Cream Crêpes

Baby Greens (Mesclun) Salad

Southern Iced Tea

Lavazza Coffee

We listened to reggae music, read a bunch of magazines and newspapers, took walks along the ocean on a nice cement walkway after eating, and felt quite happy in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach Navy quarters.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Dancing to Caribbean Music at the Norfolk (Virginia) Cottage by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Dancing to Caribbean Music at the Norfolk (Virginia) Cottage by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

While my family read through magazines and tried to distinguish between who would buy gin versus cognac, we would listen to CDs of reggae music from Jamaica and Chicago Blues. 

One of my favorite songs remains 96 Degrees in the Shade by Third World, which sums up the experience of colonial Americans with regard to England for both black and white Americans.  (Anyone who did not give the king his taxes was in trouble.)

I played Bob Marley, of course, but also Third World, Jimmy Cliff, Steel Pulse, and Peter Tosh among my reggae favorites from my college days at the University of Chicago.

When I was over 21, my friends and I from the University of Chicago would go out to a reggae nightclub in Chicago called The Wild Hare and the Flaming Armadillo.  We would dance for 5 or 6 hours and drink rum and Cokes – a cocktail otherwise known as Cuba Libre (Free Cuba).

After dancing, we would drive down Clark Street and eat things like Mongolian hot pot (beef slices and turnip slices that you dunk in hot oil), Korean bulgogi, or a beer, weisswurst (veal and pork sausage), and braised red cabbage from various Eastern European cultures.

Then, we would go to the Smart Bar and drink a Bloody Mary or Screwdriver (orange juice and vodka.  Vodka can be made from potatoes or wheat).

Clubs operate for a profit, so I gave them cocktail money for providing dance music and a dance floor.  I ordered cocktails first and knew what the cocktails were, so I would not waste a cocktail waitress’s time.

We would dance for another 3 or 4 hours here to many songs by up-and-coming bands played hardened DJs.

Then, we would drive to another Clark Street destination to a Sonic-like place that served fast-food breakfasts like scrambled eggs, hash browns, whole wheat toast, bacon strips, and large cups of coffee with real cream.

If we were rich, we would go to Anne Sather’s  Swedish Restaurant for tons of muffins: banana-walnut, chocolate, boysenberry, and bran-honey with lots of sweet butter.  (I made these items in Norfolk for Florence and explained ‘secret’ protein-combinations that vegetarians use for these items.)

We would get silver-plated coffee pots full of coffee with pitchers of real cream and bowls of cinnamon-and-raisin oatmeal to eat at this restaurant, too.

I worked while going to school as a salesman and offered to buy my own drinks, muffins, gas for the driver, and even took my boyfriend out for his birthday to a nice restaurant like Hatsuhana for sushi, Thai 55^th for Panang Curry, or Gin Go Gae for Korean bulgogi.  I worked when I was in Norfolk, too, and could do these things for my husband.

I played tons of Chicago Blues music in our Norfolk-Virginia Beach cottage, too:

My friends from the University of Chicago paid tribute to Chicago’s strong Blues tradition and went to bars like Theresa’s, Blues Chicago, and the Kingston Mines and tried to do Rolling Stones’ sightings.  Buddy Guy and Koko Taylor were my favorite Blues musicians.  I worked with the sax player from the Sunnyland Slim Group.  

I also went to Deny's Den, a Greek nightclub with seats climbing the walls like a Greek village that was run by the Greek Pasok Party.  The bazouki music and singing was in Greek, so it could have been Greek blues.  Who knows?  

My Greek roommate told me her dad was a Greek Pasok member who was the travel consul for Chicago.  Her dad got a photo in the paper with Prime Minister Papandreiou, and we thought we were going to have to hide him from gold diggers.

I would dance through the seats with a white napkin like Zorba the Greek with my friends following me in a line, too, while eating moussaka, pastitio, and tomato-and-onion salads seasoned with rigani vinaigrette (like oregano). 

Laurent was Mr. Serious in Norfolk-Virginia Beach, but I would dance with Florence to reggae, Blues, and various ethnic music all the time to have fun and stay in shape.

I also played music for Florence by other artists or bands whose concerts I attended in Detroit and Chicago with my white friends and broke down the barrier between white-only and black-only concert arena shows that still existed in the 1980s for artists  such as:

-Michael Jackson
-Prince
-David Bowie
-Police - Sting's original group
-Luciano Pavoratti
-Run DMC
-Stevie Ray Vaughan
-UB40
-Johnnie Clegg and Savuka
-Wynton Marsalis
-U2
-Joan Armatrading
-The Cure
-Jean-Michel Jarre
-Ravi Shankar playing ragas - no Beatles music
-Beach Boys with our Japanese exchange student
-Tina Turner - I went in my gray suit from the work, because I took the El to the concert.  The suit got ruined from sweat from dancing.

I was on the Major Activities Board (concert board) at the University of Chicago for 3 years and listened to everything as a possible concert choice as a possible concert choice from Bow Wow Wow to the Pat Metheny Group.  They both played to sold out shows.

The music I played for Florence at home, though, included Rai - North African club music (Khaled and Rachid Taha), Bhangra DJ Mixes and Videos (mostly by Bhangra Empire from the Bay Area), and "Latino" music by Mana, Ozomatli, Selena, and Ricky Martin.

My friends and I went to many shows of the film Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads and would get the entire theatre dancing as if we were at the concert.  

"Dance like David Byrne, and you'll stay slim," I would shout.  These days, Bhangra dancers could use his moves in the song Life During Wartime as a warm-up to practice their moves.  

I am sure you can still buy CDs and films by the Talking Heads.  CBGB nightclub in New York played Life During Wartime every night supposedly the hardened DJs at the Smart Bar would tell us.

These days I am listening to Eros Ramatozzi in Italian, Spanish, and English.

When I listen to radio now, it's the Hippos in Monterey, KCRW in LA, and World Village in Santa Cruz.  Florence listened to all these stations as we drove to and from school and on field trips.

We had fun in our brick-withstands-hurricanes apartment in Norfolk.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Ausone: The Bordeaux Region Touring Game Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Ausone:  Bordeaux Region Touring Game by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The ancient Roman poet Ausone from Aquitaine (ancient name for the Bordeaux region) lends his moniker to one of the region’s most famous château in St. Emilion – Château Ausone.

There are several different wine areas under the umbrella regional name of Bordeaux.  Many offer great photo opportunities for children and tasting opportunities for adults with a designated driver.

You do not need to be an expert on Bordeaux wines like Robert Parker, but you should have some knowledge of what you are going to see and taste, if you are planning a trip to Bordeaux.

Bordeaux wines from all regions are considered to be reliable luxury products with no rotten cork or off smell problems.

Without further ado, the Bordeaux Touring Wine Game could go like this:

Level 1 – Bordeaux Wine Background

Read The Essential Guide to Bordeaux Wines by the Bordeaux Wine School and Sophie Brissaud.

Level 2 – Bordeaux Area Recipes

Try making recipes from The Bordeaux Kitchen:  An Immersion into French Food and Wine, Inspired by Ancestral Traditions by Tania Teschke.

Level 3 – General Wine Reference Book

For general reference on wine read The Oxford Companion to Wine edited by Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding. 

This tome still reigns supreme as a great textbook to learn about all wine regions.

Level 4 – Médoc and Haut-Médoc Wine Regions

In this region, there is a scenic Route des Châteaux for family photos.  Make sure to have a designated driver, if you also go tasting in this region.

You can check in the Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson to find out information about the 1855 Classification of Bordeaux Wines, which is still a good guide to the very high-quality wines in this region.

Level 5 – Sauternes Wine Region

The châteaux here are hidden behind forests as if they were bees making honey.  Sauternes is a very sweet wine that sometimes becomes viscous with age.

Level 6 – St. Emilion Wine Region

Châteaux Ausone is the most famous winery here.

This village has many hills and caves that you can drive through around town.

Level 7 – Entre-Deux-Mers Wine Region

This wine region is on a peninsula with the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers on either side of the peninsula. 

The wine region’s name is translated as “between two seas.”

Entre-Deux-Mers wines go well with raw seafood platters, especially with raw oysters from the Bay of Arcachon near Bordeaux.

Level 8 – Graves Wine Region

This is a white wine region near the Sauternes wine village.

Its white wines go well with fish and seafood dishes.

Level 9 – Plan a Trip to Bordeaux

Use a travel guide such as the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Dordogne, Bordeaux, and the Southwest Coast by DK Travel to plan a trip to the Bordeaux region.

Level 10 – Learn Tourist French

Memorize a Dummies Guide to French and then translate yourself responses for the Intermediate and Advanced Level French Conversation Games on the Savvy Mom Ruth Paget blog.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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