4. Indoor soccer

One of our favorite pastimes is watching Billy play indoor soccer on a Sunday afternoon. If you've never been to an indoor soccer game, the field is much smaller than an outdoor pitch. Consequently, the game is played at a faster pace and the halves are shorter, too.

Here we are at the Springdale All Star Sports Arena. Springdale is the town just north of Fayetteville, and while we are separated by just a few miles along the Hwy. 71 corridor, Fayetteville and Springdale are as different as night and day. Fayetteville is hilly, Springdale, flat. The University is the largest employer in Fayetteville while Tyson's chicken (an international poultry processing company) is the largest employer in Springdale. Demographically, students make up a large component of Fayetteville's population while Hispanics compose a significant portion of Springdale's population. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to have constructed the sports center in Springdale. While soccer continues to grow as a sport in "white-bread" America, it has always been the sport in Central and South America. As a result, a number of the teams against which Billy and his friends play are composed of Hispanic players.

As for the architecture of the building, what can I say. It is very utilitarian and serves its purpose well. So what if the side of the building dents easily (it has a corrugated metal facade), lots of people use the building for a variety of purposes.



Here are Emily, Jordan's girlfriend on the left, and Sarah, Billy's girlfriend on the right, on their way to watch their boyfriends play soccer. Sarah had been wearing stiletto heels and her shoes hurt her feet, so she took them off. Mind you, it's winter here! I called her a "barefoot contessa." Notice the "classical" lines of the blue columns!



This is the lobby of the sports center. Lots of family entertainment--TVs, arcade games, refreshments, soccer, dance, basketball, and volleyball.



Northwest Arkansas is located in the Bible belt, the heartland of America where fundamental Protestant churches outnumber Catholic, Episcopalian, or even Lutheran ones. There is a lot of proselytizing in the Bible belt as Protestant churches compete for members. Obviously, no place is exempt from the message of the Gospels. This sign was hanging on the inside of a stall door in the women's restroom.



The facilities at the sports center include this space for playing either volleyball or basketball. Below is a picture of one of the two indoor soccer fields. There's Billy in the light blue jersey.



Billy was playing defense yesterday for the team he manages, Freedom. Freedom has been the name of his team and pale blue has been the color of their jerseys since his junior high days when Bill coached Billy and his friends. Back then I called the team AP Soccer because Billy and his friends all were taking Advanced Placement courses. Because Billy and his friends were on the small side, they were not selected for either the premier or varsity teams in the area. However, what they lacked in brawn, they made up for in brains!

Yestderday, their regular goalie was absent, and they had no substitutes on the sidelines. There are supposed to be six players on the field, including the goalie. They were up against a scrappy red team who had three substitutes.



Here is Billy in action looking a bit like the Tazmanian Devil. Sadly, shortly after this was taken, a quarter of the way through the game, he was clipped from behind by one of the evil red players and had to sit out the rest of the game. So now Billy's team was down to five players. Later on one of Billy's teammates got a yellow card, so that player had to serve a two minute penalty leaving the field with four Freedom players to compete against six from the evil red team. Freedom lost 1-0.

As a post-script, I'm happy to report that while Billy was overlooked in the early days by one particular coach who shall remain nameless, Billy now plays for the University of Arkansas club soccer team, the top men's team at the U of A. And he doesn't just warm benches!

3. Powerhouse Seafood

This is the approach to Powerhouse Seafood, one of three seafood restaurants in Fayetteville. The restaurant is down in the "holler" ("hollow" is the correct spelling and means "valley"), wedged between the railroad tracks to the east and the power transformers to the west.

Frequently, you can run across bumper stickers on cars that say "Keep Fayetteville Funky." Because it's a college town, Fayetteville has more character, at least in my humble opinion, than some of the other towns along Interstate-540, and Powerhouse Seafood is just one example of this. The owners of the most prestigious jewelry store in town decided to invest in this property. When Bill and I first moved here 30 years ago there were only a couple of restaurants worth visiting and none of them specialized in seafood. Our geography has us landlocked here so aside from ordering trout and catfish there wasn't much we could do except eat frozen fish.



This is what the restaurant looks like during the day. The restaurant is called Powerhouse Seafood because it occupies the former powerhouse for the electrical plant and it specializes in seafood. If you look closely behind the screen of Bradford pear trees, you can see the transformers, etc. We met one of Bill's former students there last night for dinner. They don't serve "fizzy" water like Perrier, alas, but their fresh Orange Roughy was delicious. I ordered mine "blackened" which means that it was coated with Cajun seasonings before it was grilled. Our daughter, Catherine, likes to sit on the patio during summer months and listen to live music while sipping on a Long Island tea (or two).



The above picture was taken last night from the parking lot. It's either a really bad photograph that demonstrates that I don't know what I'm doing with my camera or it's art. I like it so I'll call it art. Of course in reality the restaurant doesn't glow like this but since it rests at the base of the transformers, the image is appropriate to its namesake, I suppose.



Here is a view of the interior of the restaurant. It's got that quirky warehouse-meets-memorabilia-meets-kitch look to it. I like the hanging fish because they're silly.



This little guy hangs on the brick wall opposite the entrance. I think he's adorable, and it reminds me of my childhood when logos like the Sinclair dinosaur and the Mobile gas Pegasus illuminated the skies.

2. Going to a Saturday matinee

Here we are at the Malco Razorback cinema complex. It's a Saturday afternoon in Fayetteville. Bill and I along with Rhonda and Chuck Adams have come here to see Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise. You can tell you've arrived at a suburban movie theater because of the sea of cars in the parking lot.



This is the Malco Razorback marquee. Architecturally, I'd have to call it post-Modernism. From here you would think that the parts painted in gray and taupe were stucco but actually it's dryvit which is tantamount to painted styrofoam. A soccer ball kicked against a dryvit wall would dent it. A good reason why our buildings don't last 2000 years!



This is the ticket counter. Matinee tickets in Fayetteville sell for $6.00 a ticket. An evening show is even more expensive. Movies have become so expensive that you now can charge them to your credit card! Currently, there are 13 different movies showing at this theater complex. That's a lot--at least for Fayetteville.



These are the lines for refreshments. Typically, you'll find popcorn and candy for sale. Of course, folks have to buy a soft drink to go with their popcorn and in "oversized" America you can even buy a 64 ounce (1.8 kg) Coca-cola! Notice in the following picture that the arms of the chairs are equipped to hold such a huge drink. My personal favorite at the movies is a box of Junior Mints. However, despite the name Junior, the box of Junior Mints is also oversized. Since I know I'd eat the entire box, I do without.



These theater seats are special. We call it "stadium seating." What I like about stadium seating is that the rise from one row of seats to the next is at a much steeper pitch so that your view is not blocked by the guy's head in front of you. For a short person like me that's really critical to enjoying a movie. Also, because the incline is much greater you don't have to look up at the screen unless you choose one of the lower seats. I like sitting up high which allows me to hold my head at a very natural level, similar to the way I hold my head when I'm working on my computer.



Here we are with Rhonda and Chuck Adams after the movie. We're in the parking lot facing the movie theater. The background gives you a sense of "urban sprawl." Americans excel at this form of urban design because of our reliance on the automobile.



I took this picture and the following one when we were in Berlin. This building also appeared in the movie as the headquarters following the coup attempt. It was designed by Ernst Sagebiel and originally served as the Reich Ministry of Aviation; there were over 2000 rooms in this complex. In 1949 the German Democratic Republic was founded in its great hall and the building housed the Soviet Military Administration.



This portico was in the movie but the set designer must have covered up the mural because I didn't spot it.

We enjoyed Valkyrie. I'm always amazed when movies based on true events manage to sustain suspense throughout the movie even though everyone knows the outcome. This one certainly does.

1. Old Main

Most cities have a recognizable landmark: Rome has St. Peter's Dome, Paris, the Eiffel Tower, New York, the Empire State Building, and Fayetteville, Old Main.

Old Main marks the historical heart of the University of Arkansas campus. The building was erected in 1871 shortly after the end of the Civil War. Its two towers, one on the north and the other on the south, do not match. The north tower is nearly three meters higher than the opposing one. Several rumors circulate as to the reason for this but my favorite one is that the building's architect was from the North, the side that won the Civil War or, as Southerners like to say, the War between the States. If this is true, then I guess the architect was just rubbing the Southerners of Arkansas' noses in the loss. After all, Arkansas seceded from the Union and sided with the South, although there will be more on that in a later blog.

The picture above was taken from the arboretum, the green space to the east of Old Main, where native Arkansas trees are planted. People like play frisbee with their dogs here. That starry sculpture on the right side of the picture is obviously some form of a student art project. It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments mentioned several blogs ago.



Old Main defines the skyline of our little burg nestled in the Ozark Mountains. Although Fayetteville is scarcely a little burg these days and the Ozark Mountains are not really mountains.



The above picture was taken from the southeast corner of the building.



And this is a tighter shot from the same vantage spot.



While the South lost the war and the south tower has had to suffer the ignominy of being a stubbier tower, it was awarded the honor just a few years ago of becoming the clock tower. And who says the South won't rise again?

For Alessandra

My Roman friend, Alessandra Gotti, gave me a wonderful book entitled 101 Cose da Fare a Roma Almeno una Volta nella Vita or 101 Things to Do in Rome at Least Once in Your Life. It is a lovely memento of both my friendship with Alessandra and my love affair with the city of Roma. Of course, there is a very practical side to this book, too. It helps me with my Italian. The book is broken down into 101 short chapters, each of which contains either a topic or a site. For example, the first chapter is called Bere al Nasone. Now nasone translates into big nose or hooter but in the context refers to drinking from a spigot. With the strain of Puritanism in American sensibilities, drinking from a spigot says one thing but drinking from a big-nosed hooter of a spigot says so much more.

I've read six chapters of my Italian book so far. I read a chapter once through to get the gist of it because my Italian isn't very good. Then I re-read it and painstakingly look up the words that I don't know. Finally, I re-re-read it. Sometimes I even read it outloud to myself but I inevitably get tongue-tied and my comprehension dips exceptionally low. Of the six chapters, I have been fortunate to have visited all but one of the places.

Arguably, it's difficult to try to learn a foreign language in your 50s but I plug along. Alessandra, likewise, has little opportunity to practice the English she knows. Therefore, I'm embarking on a new blog endeavor to try to find 101 things about Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas to write about. This will provide Alessandra with some English reading material and for those of you who used to live here with an opportunity walk down Memory Lane. In the process, I might even learn something about my environment. My 101 entries will be numbered so that I (and you) can distinguish them from other random blogs that strike my fancy but that don't have any relevance to things one ought to do around here.

For Barbara

I know from Bill that professors derive a great sense of satisfaction at seeing their students move beyond what has been taught to them in the classroom. For that reason, I'm writing this blog for Barbara Spaccini who taught us Italian in Roma. Jonathan noticed that I had a book on Piranesi in Italian. He opened it and started to read it, well, perhaps more accurately, he sped-read it. I can't talk that fast in English let along try to read that fast in Italian, so I was greatly impressed. Also, Jonathan prepared this lovely chili-chocolate-cherry cake for us. It was delicious. And yes, chili and chocolate do taste good together.

Roma reunion 2009

Fulbright students from 2005 and 2008 gathered together to remember Roma. Of course, an Italian celebration wouldn't be a celebration without food. Kikka gave Bill and me a little jar of truffled honey. She told me to serve it on a salty cheese so Bill and I picked out some parmesan. This combination is absolutely wonderful. Finding truffled honey in the U.S. would be difficult but try a little regular honey on some cheese for a fabulous treat.



A group get-together needs a group shot. Here we are looking our best. A few shots earlier we were just plain silly.



Davide started something with the long-haired photos. After dinner Frances asked, "Where's the picture of Bill--Dr. Quinn (the students continue to be conflicted about what to call him)--with his long hair?" Well, here's the picture. Bill's reading in front of the Xavier University Student Union. This photograph appeared in the XU catalog some years back.



I snapped this picture of Megan right after she saw Bill's photo. She's in the process of turning towards Bill who was standing a few feet behind her.



While on the subject of photos, I pulled the wallet size pictures to show the kids. The boy in the suit on the right is Billy. The picture of the lad in the graduation garb is Bill. The resemblance is uncanny, don't you think? That's me with braids in third grade. Aawwww...aren't we cute?



Speaking of Billy, he and his girlfriend, Sarah, and two other friends dropped by after a swell-elegant dinner. Sarah will be in H2P4 next semester with some of our 2008 Roma grads.



For those of you who couldn't join us tonight, this is for you! Be sure to click on the little arrow below the picture.

Chocolate and more chocolate

I realize the irony of this entry following on the heels of my discussion of diets. However, Sharon Moore, our good friend from Bill's days in graduate school, asked for the recipe for the "grown-up brownies." The first recipe is for the Chocolate Grappa cake while the second is for pure, unadulterated brownies.

Chocolate Grappa Cake

1/2 cup (118 ml) raisins
3/4 cup (354 ml) flour
1 tablespoon (15 ml) flour
9 oz. (0.255 kg) fine quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 stick (0.113 kg) unsalted butter, cut up
6 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup (118 ml) granulated sugar
1/3 cup (79 ml) grappa or brandy
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla or 1 packet Paneangeli Vanillina
1/3 cup (79 ml) pine nuts

Let raisins soak in warm water in small bowl 20 minutes.  Drain raisins, pat dry between paper towels and toss with 1 tablespoon (15 ml) flour.  Line bottom of 9" (22.8 cm) buttered deep cake pan or springform pan with round of wax paper, butter the paper, and dust with flour or you can also dust with cocoa.

In metal bowl set over barely simmering water, melt butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally until the mixture is smooth.  Cool 5 minutes.

In large bowl, whisk yolks, sugar, grappa and vanilla (if using liquid vanilla).  Stir in chocolate mixture, a spoonful at a time, stirring well after each mixture.  Add 3/4 cup (354 ml) flour (and powdered vanilla, if you're in Roma), stirring until batter is just combined.  Fold in raisins and pine nuts.

In another bowl beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold soft peaks.  Stir 1/4 of whites into chocolate mixture to lighten.  Fold in remaining egg whites.

Turn batter into prepared pan, smooth top and bake in middle of preheated 350 degree Farenheit (177 degree Celsius) oven for 40-50 minutes or until puffed and small cracks appear on the top.  The center will be slightly moist.  Let the cake cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes. Invert, remove wax paper and let cool.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve with whipped cream.

Note: When I made this in Roma I made several ingredient changes using ingredients I had on hand. First, I didn't have chocolate squares so I melted butter and added cocoa (Lindt cacao amaro from Castroni's) and sugar. Second, I substituted dried cranberries for raisins. Finally, I used almond pieces instead of pine nuts.

Gourmet, November 1991, pg. 198



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Brownies

1/2 cup (118 ml) melted butter
1 cup (236 ml) sugar
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla or 1 packet (I think) of Paneangeli Vanillina*
2 eggs
1/2 cup (118 ml) unsifted all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (79 ml) Hershey's Cocoa
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) baking powder*
1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) salt
1/2 cup (118 ml) chopped nuts, optional

Blend butter, sugar and vanilla in mixing bowl.  Add eggs; beat well with spoon.  Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; gradually add to egg mixture until well blended.  Stir in nuts.  Spread in greased 8" or 9" (20 x 20 x 5 cm) square pan.  Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit (177 degrees Celsius) for 20 to 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from edges of pan.

Hershey's Cocoa Cookbook, “'The Best' Brownies,” pg. 51

* If you're in Roma, you can substitute Paneangeli "Lievito Pane degli Angeli-Vaniglianato" for the baking powder. Use 1.25 ml of the lievito but reduce the amount of vanilla to about 3/4 packet.

Note: I used Lindt Cacao Amaro from Castroni's for an even richer pan of brownies.

It's D-day!

It's D-day at the Quinn household. After years, OK, decades, of denial that Bill should go on a diet, he has finally acquiesced. I'm going to go on a diet, too, because this time I didn't lose weight in Roma. I'm not sure why I didn't lose weight. Perhaps it was because we were posted there for only two months instead of four. Or maybe because my metabolism has hit its stodgy middle-age stasis. Or perhaps it's because I did the cooking this time instead of Bill? Chissa'? Our doctor informed us that our ideal weight is what we weighed when we graduated from high school. That would put Bill at 165 and me at about 105. Hmmmm..... If Roma didn't take away unwanted pounds, at least I can thank Davide in Roma for serving as a poster child for sucessful dieting. Davide has trimmed up since we last saw him. As to why Bill finally agreed to go on a diet, I can't really say. Was Bill thinking 'if Davide could do it, so can I'? Or does Bill simply want an excuse for a new wardrobe? After all, last week he did purge his closet of unwanted clothes. So it's water, veggies, fruits, skim milk, more veggies, and lean fish and meats for us. But now what do I do with the leftover plum pudding, ham, and Cumberland sauce? And that's the skinny of it!

Ushering in the New Year over several days

Here we are in our living room celebrating the end of the Christmas season. We got together for a near-Epiphany party. From left to right are Bill, Rusty Pang, Rob Billingsley, Roberta Billingsley, Caroline Cameron, Philip Cameron, Peggy Pang, and myself, seated. Rusty and Rob are both psychiatrists but Rob was an English major before he went to med school which makes him special. Caroline is the daughter of one of the professors who hired Bill 30 years ago. The other couples have children (boys) Catherine's age, and one of her laments as she was growing up was: "Why can't you have friends with daughters, Mommy!"



Bill can't cook but he can sure light a fire. Here he is igniting the plum pudding with cognac. He's really quite good at it but the first time he tried it, I had made baked Alaska, I had failed to put the dessert on a platter with an edge. Flaming alcohol ran all over the kitchen table. We do learn from our mistakes.



Before heading over to the Adamses, we paid a quick call on Cynthia and Max Parker. I don't have a picture of them but you can see Cynthia's handiwork in earlier blogs. She crocheted my hat that toured Europe with me.

In the above picture, you find us in the Adams' kitchen on New Year's Eve. From left to right are Sidney, Angie, Chuck, me, Rhonda, and Bill. Chuck and Sidney are colleagues of Bill's in the English department. Rhonda was my boss when I worked for the Law School this summer. We ate a fabulous dinner that evening; Chuck made a delicious boeuf bourguignon and homemade bread, Rhonda fixed a fabulous black-eyed pea salad, and I brought the bread pudding and whiskey sauce. Chuck and Rhonda's entree is featured below.



For my non-American readers, I'll digress on the differences between bread pudding and plum pudding and whiskey sauce and hard sauce.

First of all, whiskey sauce (or you can use bourbon or rum) goes with bread pudding; hard sauce goes with plum pudding. Bread pudding is very simple. It's made from day-old bread, raisins, a little butter, eggs, milk, and spices. You bake it in a loaf pan and it comes out tasting a little like French toast. I don't think it really needs a sauce but for company I make it anyway. The whiskey sauce is a thinner than a hard sauce and has a consistency similar to honey. It coats the back of a spoon and is basically butter, eggs, powdered sugar, and liquor of your choice. All the recipes I have read for whiskey sauce call for using cane sugar, however, this time I used powdered sugar which produced a vastly improved, non-granulated, sauce. Plum pudding, on the other hand, is composed of maybe 20 ingredients from carrots to raisins to bread crumbs to sherry to dates to eggs, well, the list just goes on and on. Unlike bread pudding which is baked, plum pudding is steamed...for 5 hours! Tradition calls for placing objects inside the pudding, some signify good luck, others not so good. Frankly, I think plum pudding has enough ingredients as it is, and there is absolutely no reason to hide dimes or buttons in the cake. Besides, we have a lot of friends who are doctors but none who are dentists (except for my dentist friend in Roma) and certainly no attorneys on either side of the Atlantic. There's no one to help me out when somebody chips a tooth on a dime from my plum pudding! Plum pudding is customarily served with hard sauce. I think hard sauce is a misnomer since sauce suggests some element of fluidity. Hard sauce is really just spiked butter icing: butter, powdered sugar, and cognac. Of the two, I much prefer bread pudding. However, if you want a show-stopper of a dessert, a flaming plum pudding is definitely the way to go.

We hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday season.

Bringing up baby

Catherine and Bruce


A silly dog


Daisy

Recently, we were discussing our favorite movies with friends in Roma. When asked, "What is your favorite movie?" it's often difficult to name one on the spot. However, Bill just walked into the family room to tell me that Bringing Up Baby is on Turner Classic Movies. This is definitely one of my favorite movies and is possibly one of the funniest movies ever made. Rarely do I think that English is a melodic language but the dialogue out of Hepburn's mouth is sheer music.

We have our own "Baby" of sorts. It's not a leopard but Bruce the Robert is nearly as large as one. This is the half-Lab, half-horse is jointly owned by Catherine and Jaycob, and he currently resides with Catherine. When we went to Roma, Catherine cared for our 15-year old Daisy along with "Bubby." Bubby, by the way, is Bruce's redneck nickname.

For a number of years, our dog has been suffering from OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, causing her to lick her forearms. We have tried meds but it seemed only an Elizabethan-type dog collar/cone actually stopped her from this habit. It's a cruel remedy.

Bruce's presence has helped Daisy's condition immensely. I guess his antics distract Daisy from her compulsive licking. For Daisy's health, it appears we may adopt a shared-custody arrangement with Catherine for both Daisy and Bruce. It looks like we're now going to be "bringing up Baby," or perhaps I should say "bringing up Bubby."