The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

Of cabbages — and kings.

—Lewis Carroll, from “The Walrus and the Carpenter”

An embarrassment of riches

But first let’s talk about Thanksgiving. I hope whatever choice you made was a safe one for you and yours. I missed sister Starla who stayed home and enjoyed a meal for one: nonetheless she made herself an elegant table with candles, decorations, and a full place setting. She roasted a Cornish game hen and still managed to provide herself with all the usual trimmings: gravy, green bean casserole, spinach wild rice cheese casserole, Waldorf salad, mimosas, and pumpkin pie.

In my Peninsula pod, we cut our numbers to five, bundled up and feasted outside on a front porch. We had enough food for the entire block. In fact, the eating went on into the evening, featuring our favored part of the meal — three kinds of pie: rhubarb, cranberry walnut and pumpkin. We had an embarrassment of riches: turkey with three kinds of stuffing: traditional, wild rice and cranberries, and one honoring our new vice president Kamala Harris (her spicy cornbread and sausage stuffing: recipe at tinyurl.com/yxvac7o4); Brussel sprouts in cheese sauce; two kinds of cranberry relish; mashed potatoes and gravy; yams; homemade dinner rolls; and an appetizer plate. There may also have been some cognac involved.

Given the dramatic rise in covid cases in our county, several friends counseled against any pod gathering, while other folks threw caution to the wind. Everyone has their own idea about what constitutes “safe enough.” At least none of us pod-mates got on a bus, a plane, or a train; masks were used on and off throughout our gathering. It all seemed a reasonable compromise. I hope others were as careful; we’ll watch our county numbers now and see how well we all did.

Cabbage heads

Now on to cabbages heads! I ran into Andrea and Kim Patten a couple weeks ago in the Golden Sands parking lot and was invited to come over to help myself to cabbage for sauerkraut. “Don’t be shy,” Kim said. Several years ago I was spoiled by Andi. I brought over my crock and she filled it with kraut-in-the-making; then I picked it up weeks later all ready to eat.

This time I’m going to try it myself. I cruised around online and I like how Emma Christensen describes it, “Homemade sauerkraut is a world apart from the stuff that comes from the grocery store. It’s crunchy and delightfully sour, perfect for topping a round of beer-braised brats or layering into a big sandwich. Don’t worry about needing a special crock or making so much you’ll be eating it for months.” You can actually make it in any quart jar.

Basically you just wash your cabbage, slice it, then submerge it in a salty brine solution. Andi says about two to three percent salt, that means for every pound of cabbage, you use 1 ½ to 2 teaspoons of salt (pickling salt preferably). This brine activates the Lactobacillus bacteria on the surface of the cabbage to convert sugars to lactic acid, which both preserves the cabbage and softens it. How long you leave it to brine determines how crunchy it gets. Not only is it yummy but it provides probiotics (like yogurt with live bacteria) and is super healthy for your gut and your immune system; it can help regulate blood sugar and releases phytonutrients that support cellular health.

Anyway, when I stopped by the Pattens, Kim met me at the door. I insisted on taking a picture of him in his new svelte self (as he says, “It’s just a matter of limiting your calories and walking 15,000 steps a day!”). When I asked if I could use his photo for the newspaper, he said, “Only if you take all these cabbage.” Ten enormous heads! “We grew about 150 cabbage this year and we’ve only given away 50 so far.”

So I left the Pattens with the back of my station wagon full of cabbage heads and decided to make a few surprise cabbage deliveries to friends around the Peninsula. It was a good excuse to pop in for quick hellos on what turned out to be a glorious sunny Saturday: Glenn Leichman and Sylvie Willeman, Phil and Nancy Allen, Rosemary Hallin, Nanci Main, and Bette Lu Krause all got a cabbage. And now I’ve got to clear the decks and get ready for my sauerkraut production.

Singing for the King of Kings

Catching up with Andi gave us another reason to chat. She’s in the Bayside Singers, and they’ve been trying to keep up their musical connections during this pandemic by employing some music technology that allows singers and musicians at a distance to sing/play together.

You may remember the Skagit Valley Chorale practice in Mount Vernon, a choir super-spreader event in early March before the details of the virus were known, in which 52 people were infected? Bayside Singers certainly didn’t want to replicate that, but director Milton Williams was still interested in rehearsing his arrangement of “O Holy Night,” by Adolph Adam, for a virtual Christmas performance. Now we know, as singer Andi says, “that group singing is one of the hazardous activities during the pandemic because of all the extra droplets we spew forth while wailing away! But Milt still wanted to consider how we could possibly sing as a group and do it safely.”

What Milton decided to try, with some exploratory help from Clay Nichols, was the use of a synced mass choral effects software that requires singers via ear buds to listen to musical accompaniment and at the same time record their own audio and visuals to the music. These separate, individually recorded sessions then get braided together into one performance. It’s so very different from a typical choir practice.

As Andi describes it, “You listen with an ear bud in one ear, then you put the recording on and you have that going for 10 seconds before you start singing to what you hear — so you can’t expect the best pitch always. It’s very tricky. And, you know, Bayside Singers has many older members so not everyone was able or willing to try this.”

“Some of our singers have never recorded themselves or heard themselves singing alone before and they were kind of aghast. And even I’ve been surprised when I watch my recording afterwards seeing myself doing all these gyrations!”

The singers have been meeting in smaller virtual groups on Tuesdays practicing the piece, but not everyone is up to the technological challenges involved. Andi said they have been winnowed down to around a dozen willing to give this new technology a whirl. Needless to say, it’s not the same heart-warming experience as vocalizing together. The social aspect of simply gathering together is missing — also missing is that satisfying feeling you have when a chord of multiple voices crescendos, or the magical group stillness after that final note fades at the end of a piece.

Well, it’s just another aspect of our lives that has had to change as we adjust to living with a pandemic. There is no doubt that people will sing together again. We will gather for barbecues and weddings and game nights. We’ll be able to hug our friends and return to theaters and have close conversations again.

Be patient — the vaccine is just around the corner. We just need to continue to be cautious while the world rights itself. In the meantime, you know that old saying. “When life gives you cabbage, make sauerkraut!”