Do Murals Make Us Human?

Throughout the American West, Native Americans created many types of art work. The surviving works, dated long before contact with Europeans and European culture, often consist of petroglyphs etched into the rock faces of cliffs. I've been fascinated to view these works, which are hundreds of years old. A few photos from some of our trips west:

Petroglyphs at McConkie ranch in the Dry Fork Canyon near Vernal, Utah. May, 2016.

Petroglyphs at Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah. We saw these from a riverboat tour in 2003.

More petroglyphs at Canyonlands.

Petroglyphs at the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, 2011.

Petroglyphs by the Hohokum Indians, Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona, 2009.
Unfortunately, this site has been defaced by some modern yahoo carving his initials in the rock. This is a terrible problem!

Long before these American works of art were created, at the very beginning of human history, our predecessors made cave paintings. Little is known about the artists or why they painted, but their works fascinate everyone who encounters them. Because these works are very fragile, it's no longer possible to visit the caves with the actual murals. These works have been found in many locations, and much has been learned about them which I'm not going to try to duplicate here.

Lascaux, France. Cave painting of aurochs, horses, and deer. Dated 17,000 years ago. (Wikipedia Art)

A bison painted on the wall of the Altamira Cave, Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain.
Dated 36,000 years ago. (Wikipedia Art)

Each week, at a blog called Colorful World, I enjoy posts from art lovers throughout the world who share murals and street art from their own cities and from their travels. The more I think about these works, the more I see them as the current phase of a great human characteristic: wanting to represent experience through works of art: large works of art! I'm sharing this with these bloggers here:
https://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com/

2016 Year in Review, Part 1

At the end of last year, I consolidated my blogging about food, travel, and life in general into this blog only. As a result, all travel posts have been here -- and we traveled a lot. Many of our trips had birds and wildlife as a focus, sometimes combining birdwatching with visits to friends or family.

I read a number of books this year, but I think fewer than most years. I didn't blog about all the books that I read. My favorite books this year were the four Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante, blogged here.

We did many things, ate some memorable meals, and visited quite a few new and familiar places in 2016. Below I've picked some highlights from January through July. For a complete description of the trips, check out each month of blog posts as listed in the sidebar to the right of this post. In my review part 2, I'll continue with a summary of July-December.

January: At Home

Maybe the most colorful dish I've cooked this year: from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem: Roasted sweet potatoes with green onions, peppers, figs, and balsamic reduction. On our later trip to London, we ate at Ottolenghi's restaurant.

February: Panama

Our travels in 2016 began in February with a week watching birds and other wildlife in Panama.

A sloth in a tree in Panama.

February: Florida

After returning to Miami, we rented a car and drove around in Florida for around 10 days, visiting relatives and watching still more birds.

Clown shoes at the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum, Sarasota, Florida.

March: Cape May, New Jersey

We spent one day in Lancaster, PA, with my brother and sister-in-law, then met Evelyn and her family in Cape May, N.J. for a weekend.

Miriam and Alice at Lobster House in Cape May.

March: Fairfax, VA and Washington, D.C.

After Cape May, we drove to Fairfax and spent a week visiting the family.

We viewed the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. during our visit to Fairfax.

April: "Birds and Art in Provence"

At the end of April and the beginning of May, we spent two weeks in France. First a tour titled "Birds and Art in Provence."

In the Camargue region near Arles: a flamingo and some of the famous white horses.

We not only went on a number of spectacular birdwatching and art-oriented tours
near Arles, we also enjoyed the open-air market in the town.
Above is a photo of a market stall selling bread and 15 kinds of macarons.

May: Paris

From Arles, we took the fast train to Paris and spent several days visiting friends and seeing a few of our favorite museums -- and one new museum.

The Musée du Quai Branly has been open for 10 years, but this was our first time at this unusual building, designed by Jean Nouvel. We enjoyed the collections of ethnographic materials.

May: Dinosaur National Monument and Provo, Utah.

Soon after we returned from Paris, we went to Provo, Utah, for a birthday conference for our friend Charlie. Before the conference we visited Vernal, Utah, to see Dinosaur National Monument and some very interesting prehistoric rock art.

A dinosaur bone with me for size.

Statue of Brigham Young at the Provo library where the conference was held.

May and June: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel.

Just a day after coming back from Utah, we flew to Tel Aviv, Israel, for a memorial conference for a friend. After the conference, we visited Len's cousin for a few days, and did some sightseeing in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Caesarea.

The city of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. We walked along the sea front from
our hotel to the tower in the distance in this photo. Jaffa is the
oldest still-active port in the world.

Falafel at a restaurant in Abu Gosh near Jerusalem.

The second half of my Year in Review will be posted tomorrow!

Enlightenment

An Irish blogger named Ailsa Prideaux-Mooney wrote recently about her chagrin at the American election. She wrote: "To counteract this bleakness, I have resolved to actively seek out all that is enlightened, noble and beautiful about being human – and that’s what this week’s travel theme is about. I hope you’ll join me in celebrating the joy of the human condition."

I accept her challenge: to post photos from recent travels that make one think of enlightenment, and help to look forward from the current election season to what one hopes will be an enlightened woman in the Presidency. I am linking to her post, Travel Theme: Enlightened. 

My selection of photos I've taken in the past 6 months that have that meaning for me:

Paris, Museè D'Orsay, Statue of Liberty (one of various copies by the original French sculptor
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi).

Gutenberg's Printing Press. Printing Museum, Provo, Utah.

Woman doing Yoga by the Pacific Ocean. Kauai, Hawaii.

Hawaiian Rainbow.

Native Hawaiian Owl. While it denotes wisdom in our culture,
in Hawaiian culture the owl is a protector.

Chinese Scholar's Study, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

What I Want to Cook

Well, here I am back in my own kitchen, after three long trips in around 6 weeks. I've eaten fabulous meals in Provence and Paris; surprising meals at ethnic restaurants in Provo, Utah; and delightful and typical Israeli foods. I'm definitely thinking of learning some new dishes from the various cuisines that I've tried on my travels. In fact, on Wednesday I already made Ottolenghi's Israeli-style lamb meatballs -- which I've blogged about before. But I also crave food from other cuisines that I haven't had lately or foods I tried on other trips.

Here are some recipes that I've found around the web and in my cookbooks that I hope to make some time in the not-too-distant future:

New York Times Key Lime Pie. For some reason my Facebook page has been directing me to this recipe. It reminds me of trips to Florida. In fact, this recipe is very old-style: made with raw egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and lime juice in a graham-cracker crust. So it's different than the pie I made when I came back from Florida. Question: do I have the nerve to use raw eggs?

Sunset Asian Soups. I have had the famous Pho chicken-noodle soup in Asian restaurants various times, as well as many other Asian soups such as Chinese hot-sour soup, Vietnamese beef Pho, and others. This Sunset magazine article points me to several very simple ways to prepare these. The portion size of such soups at restaurants is always totally overwhelming to me: there are so many noodles that I can never finish. So I'd like to put these soups in my repertoire. Alas! hot summer weather is on the way, and this might wait until another season. Again, my Facebook feed made me think of these.

A Banh Mi sandwich. My first one ever was at a Vietnamese diner in Provo, though I meant to try it long ago. The combination of flavors -- especially pickles & cilantro -- was really appealing. In an article titled "Expert tips for building the perfect Banh Mi sandwich" I found a list of Banh Mi components instead of a single recipe. Clearly, the pickles are something you should make at home, yourself. Other ingredients aren't that hard to find: roast meat, fresh vegetables, cilantro, chiles, Maggi seasoning sauce, mayo, and good bread. I've read elsewhere that Vietnamese bread was influenced by the French occupation (which ended over 50 years ago). The tips in the article are from a book titled The Banh Mi Handbook, which sounds so good that I ordered it from amazon.com.

Rhubarb! This photo is from my own blog a few years ago. I think I have all the rhubarb recipes I need, which are the ones I included in that post. I really want to cook some rhubarb-strawberry sauce like I did in this photo. I also want to make some rhubarb crumble. 

Beebop-a-reebop Rhubarb Pie! 

Julia Child. I noticed on the shelves of Janet's kitchen in Kiryat Ono (photo at left) very new copies of both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her old copies were worn out, she said, so her daughter bought her new ones. However, each time she cooks from them, she needs to consult her notes from the worn-out volumes.

I realize this: I need to try some new Julia Child recipes!

Finally: my new Moroccan cookbook! I bought it in Paris, but I have been traveling almost nonstop since that trip. Now I have time to try some recipes from this book. We had a great Moroccan dinner at a restaurant in Avignon, and I'd love to experiment with their delicious spice blends.

Maybe it's also time to try some recipes from my other Moroccan and Mediterranean cookbooks. I've never made as many recipes from these books as I would like to try.

Near Provo: Utah Lake

My friend Paula and I took a walk by a random part of Utah Lake near Provo this morning. Paula has been my walking companion most of this week, viewing streets, houses, the printing museum, and so on while our husbands attended a conference. From everywhere in town one gets views of the fabulous snowcapped mountains that surround the flat area. In the center of this area is Utah Lake, fed by the Provo River. We drove down the steep Provo River's canyon on Sunday.

A number of beautiful birds were singing in the trees and wetlands near the lake. We walked on a paved path
behind the homes in a subdivision, which we sadly think is built on former wetlands.

Swallows, like these violet-green swallows, were flying all around us.

A Bullock's Oriole in a tree.

The lake is beyond the trees and marshes.

This afternoon, Len and I drove on a dike near the river on a very hair-raising dirt road!
We also saw lots of birds like these white pelicans.

Another Bullock's Oriole.

Two grebes below the dike.

We saw many yellow-headed blackbirds along the dike.

Lunch: Banh Mi

Lunch at another of the many small ethnic restaurants
in downtown Provo. I had always wanted to taste
Banh Mi. It was delicious!

On the Street in Provo

Walking around near downtown Provo I actually didn't see as many really interesting houses as I had hoped for.
This was about the nicest one I saw. It's the Knight-Allen house, built 1899.

Many of the early 20th century houses look like typical midwestern architecture. They
especially resemble the neighborhood where I live in Ann Arbor and
the one where I grew up in suburban St. Louis.

Statue of Brigham Young in front of the Provo library.

The Crandall Historical Printing Museum

According to the Crandall Historical Printing Museum in Provo, Utah, the most momentous events in printing history are:

• Gutenberg's Bible printed in 1455.
• Declaration of Independence printed in 1776.
• The Book of Mormon printed in 1830.

The museum has an accurate replica of the printing presses and much of the other technology used for printing each of these documents. 

Replica of the Gutenberg press. On the table at left: devices invented by
Gutenberg for inking the press. The man in the apron inked the type
and printed a page to show the group how it was done.

Replica of press used for Declaration of Independence.

Replica of press from print shop in Palmyra, NY, used for Book of Mormon.

The one-hour tour of the four rooms of the museum includes a detailed explanation of the technology, which changed extremely little in the nearly 400 years covered. The casting of type; typesetting; placement of type and blank paper in the press; inking the type; drying, folding and cutting the printed sheets; gathering the signatures -- that is, groups of pages; sewing them together; and binding the books are all parts of the lecture-demonstration.

A replica of a Gutenberg Bible and of several of the other documents are on view, including a copy of the hieroglyphic plates that were translated by Joseph Smith and a copy of his manuscript that was sent to the printer in Palmyra, New York, in 1829 and completed in 1830.

Two quite elderly men who run the museum present all the material; both had a long career in printing before they established the museum around 20 years ago. The time it took to print the 5000 copies of the Book of Mormon ordered by Joseph Smith was seven months, which the lecturer says would have been impossible. He "testifies" that only an act of God could have made this timing possible.

Fonts with the "upper case" and "lower case" used by typesetters.

Replica of "gold plates with ancient reformed Egyptian characters"
as translated by Joseph Smith. Also a copy of the Book of Mormon.

This room of the museum has been created in almost the exact proportions of the print shop in Palmyra, NY.
The technology of the press has changed only in that it's cast iron instead of wood (thus able to exert more pressure).
Gutenberg's invented ink spreaders remained the same, as did the type-setting process.

Lunch: Cooked by a Navajo Chef

After our tour of the printing museum we had Navajo tacos for lunch
at a restaurant called "The Black Sheep Cafe."