My daughter, Diane, received about one thousand pounds of kale from a friend. She offered it to me and I quickly took it off her hand. I found an authentic New Bedford, Massachusetts, recipe for Portuguese Kale Soup and I spent a couple of hours today making the best smelling kale soup I have ever had the experience of smelling.
I had to change the recipe a bit because Elaine doesn't do garlic. I love garlic, so I sneaked in some garlic powder. Also, I couldn't get linguica, so I got a similar sausage to use. The great thing about Kale Soup is that you only have to cook it for 30 to 40 minutes, after sauteing the meat and onions.
We usually have fun on a Sunday night making special food that we can't get at the restaurant we use on other days, so we will now enjoy our kale soup with some nice red wine.. Elaine will probably have milk instead of wine. Perhaps, as we eat, I will regale Elaine with some Portuguese phrases that I learned as a child in New Bedford.
New Bedford is a great place for people who like good food. Some of the food: Quahog chowder! Twin lobsters! Lobster rolls (even McDonald's serves them)! Portuguese wine.. Madeira, Port, etc; Portuguese rolls; Linguica/curica (sp?); mussels; clams, scallops, etc etc.
I talked to my daughter, Elizabeth, and she reminded me that my late wife made kale soup quite a bit. The first time that Elizabeth ate some, her mother asked her if she liked it... Elizabeth said.. "Oh yes! Except for the green stuff!"
My daughter, Diane, accompanied me to New Bedford for my uncle Allen's funeral recently. After the service, we had supper at Davy Jones' Locker... we had New Bedford seafood and Diane loved it. I would highly recommend a trip to New Bedford, and a sampling of the great food.
New Bedford is a great place for tourism. However, the Fisherman's Union for years has downplayed the tourism issue because they want the city to be known more for scallops and fish instead. I always wanted to offer my services to advertise the city around the world. At least the city finally was able to get the cobblestoned area declared a National Park.
There are still scores of beautiful homes in the city.. most were the homes of Whaling Captains. I lived in one of them for a couple of years. It was a beautiful building.
After the demise of whaling, because of the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania, the textile industry took over in the City. However, when the union movement bothered the mill owners, they moved down to the South and New Bedford became a poor place (after being the richest US city during the whaling era).. until fishing took over .. I think that New Bedford is now the largest fishing port in the US.
If you get a chance to visit New Bedford and/or try kale soup... bon appetit!
...........................................................
Showing posts with label whaling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whaling. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
New Bedford
I've written a lot about New Bedford, but I don't think that I've included web addresses. So here goes:
The New Bedford Whaling Museum .. Without a doubt, the best museum in the world dealing with the whaling industry, the famous City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the current preservation of cetaceans. Visit this site and take all of the tours and I am sure that you will want to visit New Bedford and the Museum on your next vacation.
Most people think about New Bedford (if they think about it at all) as the home of the famous "Big Dan" case. But that is only one part of New Bedford's history.
01. It was the richest city in the United States for many years.
02. It was where the Lizzie Borden trial was held.
03. It is the biggest fishing port on the East Coast and probably in the whole U.S.
04. Herman Melville worked there and was inspired to write Moby Dick there.
05. The famous painter Albert Pinkham Ryder lived there.
06. Frederick Douglass took the "Underground Railroad" to New Bedford and worked in the whaling industry there.
07. Major Roberts wrote his parliamentary procedures manual (Robert's Rules of Order) while stationed in N.B.
08. The richest woman in the world lived there and made her money from the whaling industry. Hettie Green, the so-called "Witch of Wall Street".
09. Joe Vaughan grew up there.
10. For many years it was the Textile capitol of the U.S., until cheap labor lured the industry to the southern part of the country.
11. etc etc etc
Visit the website for the museum and browse the features. You will like it.
http://www.whalingmuseum.org
If you do have an interest in the whaling industry, you might also like to visit
The Nantucket Massachusetts Whaling Museum ..
While in no way as large or inclusive as the New Bedford museum, it is very interesting to visit. Some people think that the whaling industry was centered in Nantucket.. not so. New Bedford deserves that honor. But.. it is a very interesting place to visit, and its also a wonderful place to live if your income tops one million dollars a year.
http://www.nha.org/sites/index.html
Now, if you have gotten this far, I'm sure you will love this site.. this is where you can read the whole novel Moby Dick online.
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/
Finally, here is the address of the blog for a wonderful place in Melbourne, Australia.
http://whitewhaletheatre.wordpress.com
I may as well sign this edition of my blog with one of my nom de plumes that seems appropriate.
AHAB
The New Bedford Whaling Museum .. Without a doubt, the best museum in the world dealing with the whaling industry, the famous City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the current preservation of cetaceans. Visit this site and take all of the tours and I am sure that you will want to visit New Bedford and the Museum on your next vacation.
Most people think about New Bedford (if they think about it at all) as the home of the famous "Big Dan" case. But that is only one part of New Bedford's history.
01. It was the richest city in the United States for many years.
02. It was where the Lizzie Borden trial was held.
03. It is the biggest fishing port on the East Coast and probably in the whole U.S.
04. Herman Melville worked there and was inspired to write Moby Dick there.
05. The famous painter Albert Pinkham Ryder lived there.
06. Frederick Douglass took the "Underground Railroad" to New Bedford and worked in the whaling industry there.
07. Major Roberts wrote his parliamentary procedures manual (Robert's Rules of Order) while stationed in N.B.
08. The richest woman in the world lived there and made her money from the whaling industry. Hettie Green, the so-called "Witch of Wall Street".
09. Joe Vaughan grew up there.
10. For many years it was the Textile capitol of the U.S., until cheap labor lured the industry to the southern part of the country.
11. etc etc etc
Visit the website for the museum and browse the features. You will like it.
http://www.whalingmuseum.org
If you do have an interest in the whaling industry, you might also like to visit
The Nantucket Massachusetts Whaling Museum ..
While in no way as large or inclusive as the New Bedford museum, it is very interesting to visit. Some people think that the whaling industry was centered in Nantucket.. not so. New Bedford deserves that honor. But.. it is a very interesting place to visit, and its also a wonderful place to live if your income tops one million dollars a year.
http://www.nha.org/sites/index.html
Now, if you have gotten this far, I'm sure you will love this site.. this is where you can read the whole novel Moby Dick online.
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/
Finally, here is the address of the blog for a wonderful place in Melbourne, Australia.
http://whitewhaletheatre.wordpress.com
I may as well sign this edition of my blog with one of my nom de plumes that seems appropriate.
AHAB
Monday, April 13, 2009
More Easter Stuff
When my son was about 4 years old, one of his sisters said: "Look at the Easter basket that the Easter Bunny has left you." My son said, "Dad is the Easter Bunny." "Why do you say that?"
"Because I saw him with his bunny ears on."
That Easter Bunny sure gets around. Lately, some of our red leaved plants show signs of being eaten by some creature.. Yesterday the culprit was seen running through our yard.. its large ears and white tail gleaming in the sun. (Since it wasn't one of our elderly neighbors.. it had to be the Easter Bunny.)
I wonder where the custom of colorful eggs began. Perhaps in Russia? The Merriwether Post museum in D.C. has a very large collection of Easter eggs.. some of which fit inside of each other. Most are encrusted with precious jewels. The Czars and Czarinas and their children received them from each other or from their subjects every Easter. I've never seen them outside of that museum except in Art books. That is, until I went to my Aunt Mary's viewing at a funeral home in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. They had a whole case full of these eggs!
I often wonder what would have happened if the Vaughan Funeral Home had survived the Depression. It, too, had a Mattapoisett connection. There was a kind of "Vaughan Compound" in that town. There were plenty of Vaughan's and a few were involved in the Funeral Home. I have done a lot of genealogical research on the family and this is my take on why the business failed. Others in the family have a different theory.
The Vaughan's all had farms and plenty of produce. When the depression hit, people in Mattapoisett kept dying, but their relatives had no money for burial expenses, so they brought in produce, that the Vaughan's didn't need. So the funeral home wasn't able to meet expenses and folded.
This theory has lots of holes in it. Questions that I need to resolve: Why were there Vaughan funeral home ads in the newspapers during the Lizzie Borden trial in New Bedford? Where was the funeral home located then? In what year did the funeral home "go bust?" Did the family live in Mattapoisett when the business was in New Bedford? etc.
In New Bedford, there is a statue dedicated to the men who went out in whaleboats to harpoon whales. It shows a large muscular man in a very small boat preparing to throw a large harpoon at a whale. This represents the days when whales had a sporting chance of escaping capture. (Read Moby Dick) The caption on the statue reads: "A dead whale or a stove boat!"
My grandfather liked to tell everyone that the model for the statue was a giant of a man.. 6 foot 8 inches tall (or so) weighing close to 400 pounds. He said that when the man died, he got to embalm him. That went ok, but they could not find a coffin that he would fit into. They finally had to stick him into a piano case. I wonder how many pall-bearers were required.
Did I tell you about the harpoon that my uncle Allen made for me? I'll check my blogs to see if I mentioned it.
Oh.. I wanted to tell you about Captain Andy. My son, Chris, has always been very artistic and one year when he was 6 or 7 years old, he helped his mother boil eggs for Easter egg painting. They left the eggs in the refrigerator to cool off and after a while Chris went in and drew faces on all of the eggs. They were very well drawn. One was of a whaling captain and Chris named it "Captain Andy".
Captain Andy was so well done that I put it into my lunch bag and took it to work to show everybody what a great artist my son was. One and all, they were impressed. At lunch time, I decided to make a big show of sacrificing Captain Andy for the good of my stomach, and, with several people attending, I said some appropriate words and then cracked Captain Andy right over my work-piled desk. You guessed it... Captain Andy, although looking like a tough whaling Captain, was not as hard-boiled as I thought!
Happy Easter Monday!
"Because I saw him with his bunny ears on."
That Easter Bunny sure gets around. Lately, some of our red leaved plants show signs of being eaten by some creature.. Yesterday the culprit was seen running through our yard.. its large ears and white tail gleaming in the sun. (Since it wasn't one of our elderly neighbors.. it had to be the Easter Bunny.)
I wonder where the custom of colorful eggs began. Perhaps in Russia? The Merriwether Post museum in D.C. has a very large collection of Easter eggs.. some of which fit inside of each other. Most are encrusted with precious jewels. The Czars and Czarinas and their children received them from each other or from their subjects every Easter. I've never seen them outside of that museum except in Art books. That is, until I went to my Aunt Mary's viewing at a funeral home in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. They had a whole case full of these eggs!
I often wonder what would have happened if the Vaughan Funeral Home had survived the Depression. It, too, had a Mattapoisett connection. There was a kind of "Vaughan Compound" in that town. There were plenty of Vaughan's and a few were involved in the Funeral Home. I have done a lot of genealogical research on the family and this is my take on why the business failed. Others in the family have a different theory.
The Vaughan's all had farms and plenty of produce. When the depression hit, people in Mattapoisett kept dying, but their relatives had no money for burial expenses, so they brought in produce, that the Vaughan's didn't need. So the funeral home wasn't able to meet expenses and folded.
This theory has lots of holes in it. Questions that I need to resolve: Why were there Vaughan funeral home ads in the newspapers during the Lizzie Borden trial in New Bedford? Where was the funeral home located then? In what year did the funeral home "go bust?" Did the family live in Mattapoisett when the business was in New Bedford? etc.
In New Bedford, there is a statue dedicated to the men who went out in whaleboats to harpoon whales. It shows a large muscular man in a very small boat preparing to throw a large harpoon at a whale. This represents the days when whales had a sporting chance of escaping capture. (Read Moby Dick) The caption on the statue reads: "A dead whale or a stove boat!"
My grandfather liked to tell everyone that the model for the statue was a giant of a man.. 6 foot 8 inches tall (or so) weighing close to 400 pounds. He said that when the man died, he got to embalm him. That went ok, but they could not find a coffin that he would fit into. They finally had to stick him into a piano case. I wonder how many pall-bearers were required.
Did I tell you about the harpoon that my uncle Allen made for me? I'll check my blogs to see if I mentioned it.
Oh.. I wanted to tell you about Captain Andy. My son, Chris, has always been very artistic and one year when he was 6 or 7 years old, he helped his mother boil eggs for Easter egg painting. They left the eggs in the refrigerator to cool off and after a while Chris went in and drew faces on all of the eggs. They were very well drawn. One was of a whaling captain and Chris named it "Captain Andy".
Captain Andy was so well done that I put it into my lunch bag and took it to work to show everybody what a great artist my son was. One and all, they were impressed. At lunch time, I decided to make a big show of sacrificing Captain Andy for the good of my stomach, and, with several people attending, I said some appropriate words and then cracked Captain Andy right over my work-piled desk. You guessed it... Captain Andy, although looking like a tough whaling Captain, was not as hard-boiled as I thought!
Happy Easter Monday!
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