Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Since 1968, I have been intellectually and politically absorbed by the issue of Middle East peace. The only way to achieve real and lasting peace between Israel and the Arabs will include:

1. An independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza

2. This state must be neutral politically and not have a standing army

3. Both Israel and Palestine must have their respective capitals in Jerusalem

4. Palestinians must give up their idea of a right of physical return for those refugees who fled or were expelled in 1948. In return, Israel must recognize a right of financial compensation for the properties confiscated from its Arab neighbors inside the Green Line

5. For a time, international peacekeepers will have to patrol the border and maintain peace between Israel and Palestinians until each side has confidence that the other wishes to abide by peace agreements.

Currently, I believe that both sides are on the wrong road and will never achieve peace with their respective agendas. The Palestinian Islamists must renounce terror. It gets them nowhere and is not a legitimate means of resistance. Israel’s settlements are an obstacle to peace and should not be enlarged. In a final peace agreement, Israel will have to dismantle and downsize some of these settlements. The settlers who lose their homes will have to be resettled within Israel.

Until each side recognizes the inevitability of making painful and difficult compromises, there will not be peace.

Jewish Peace Resources: If you’d like to learn more about Israeli-Jewish groups working to promote peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, please visit the following sites:

American Friends of Peace Now–A U.S. group that supports Israel’s Peace Now movement

American Friends of Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam (Oasis of Peace): An Israeli communal village which contains members who are Jewish and Arab. Their mission is to educate the world about the possibilities for Jews & Arabs living together honorably and peaceably

New Israel Fund: An international group dedicated to promoting social justice and equality within Israel. It supports projects both in Israeli Jewish and Arab communities within the Green Line

Brit Tzedek V’Shalom–Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace: A U.S. Jewish group devoted to Mideast peace which supports a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

In spite of everything I’ve stated here, I believe that peace can and will come not in decades, but in years–perhaps less than five years.

When we moved into our home in 1998, we decided to furnish our main floor with Arts & Crafts furniture. We saw Tom Stangeland’s Greene & Greene dining room table (modeled on one in the Blacker House in Pasadena) at NW Fine Woodworking here in Seattle and this was (to quote Casablanca) the “beginning of a beautiful [creative] friendship.”

While we bought several of Tom’s “set” pieces, the most exciting part of our partnership involved asking Tom to make pieces he’d never made before. He’d never designed a sofa, so we sketched out a Chinese-influenced settle with pencil & paper. Lo & behold, it turned into the beautiful piece you see below.

As a wedding present, we bought Majolica dinnerware crafted by Ubaldo Grazia of Deruta, Italy. We needed to showcase these magnificent ceramic pieces so we decided we needed a China hutch. Tom researched an Arts & Crafts hutch, drew the design in pencil on a cardboard cutout, then placed it in the dining room space where the hutch was intended. This eventually became the amazing piece you’ll also see below.

Steve Helberg (509) 228-9342] of Eastern Washington created the beautiful reading lamp (which we helped him design for this space). Yes, it has a fern frond encased in mica sheets for the lamp “shade.” He is an amazing craftsman in copper, metals and wood.

The entry lockset is in the Eastlake Style, a late Victorian design style that anticipated the richly intricate geometric shapes of Art Deco. It is stamped with an 1885 patent which dates its manufacture to sometime after 1885.

If you love Arts & Crafts and Greene & Greene as much as we do, like magnificent craftsmanship, and need a new piece of furniture–do think of Tom (206 622 2004). By the way, Tom designed the furniture in two of the Arts & Crafts suites in Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.

For photos of Tom Stangeland’s magnificent Greene & Greene reproductions and other home interior details visit Madrona interior.

We live in a 1906 Craftsman home in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood overlooking Lake Washington. We have a gorgeous view of the Cascade Range which lies about 40 miles east of us. We are also just across the lake from Bellevue, a Seattle suburb. The home was featured in the 2000 Madrona Home and Garden tour.

We moved in in 1998 after moving here from New York. We bought the house just before we were married. Although a previous owner had done a remarkable renovation (though unfortunately not a restoration), we have been able to make our mark on the house in other ways.

My friend, Michael Rose (co-owner of one of the Bay Area’s finest boutique bakeries, Semifreddi’s), inspired me in the early 1980s to love the Arts & Crafts architectural & design style (& wonderful food!). One of my dreams has been to create a home that is truly in that style. We did this with furniture we commissioned from Tom Stangeland, a renowned local furniture maker (for photos of Tom’s work go to http://www.nwfinewoodworking.com/artisans/stangeland/stangeland.htm). He designed an extraordinary China hutch, a settle, coffee table, entertainment center, and dining room table. The dining table is a reproduction of the one in the Blacker House in Pasadena. The captain’s chairs, with their curved arms & intricate cutouts and inlaid ebony pegs are an extraordinary exhibition of craftsmanship. Collaborating with him on the design phase of the hutch made us feel that we were helping Tom to create a truly wonderful piece of art. Now, we feel that we live in a Craftsman home with Craftsman furnishings!

I am a gardener too. I tried to make a garden that has a Northwest native plant influence. There are perennials and flowering plants in the front yard; fruits or vegetables on the side; and the same in the backyard with an herb garden. After four years of hard work this garden has come into its own. But it requires careful editing (as a gardener might say) to take out the disappointing, decomposing or just plain overgrown. You may view some garden photos at Madrona Home Garden

I should subtitle this post, “These are a Few of My Favorite Things.”

Seattle is an amazing food town, which somewhat contradicts its small town, provincial past as a Scandanavian lumber and fishing port.

These are a few of my favorite things here:

Harvest Vine: a Basque tapas bar & possibly the best restaurant in Seattle on one of its good nights (which are many). The mustachioed Chef Jimenez is an elfin genius. His wife is the extraordinary pastry chef. Her goat cheese cakes are divine.

Dahlia Bakery: dig those breads, chocolate kisses, chocolate truffle cookies and pop tarts.

60th Street Desserts: Joan Williams is perhaps the finest pastry chef in Seattle. Try the blackbotton cupcakes, ranger cookies, and any of the tarts.

Farmers Markets: we attend the Columbia City & University District Famers Markets. We prefer Columbia City because the clientele is more diverse and it has more of a “village” feel compared to the packed U District.

Fish: Seattle’s fish is legendary thanks to the proximity of Alaska’s frigid North Pacific waters. Copper River wild king salmon in June and July is the most amazing fish you’ve ever eaten. If you’ve only eaten farm raised salmon, you’ve eaten nothing compared to Copper River. Pure Fish in Pike Place Market serves uniformly excellent quality fish.

Arosa: a small cafe tucked into a shopping center between Madison Park and Madison Valley. It’s specialty is fresh waffles and they’re the best in Seattle. The owner is German and has a magnificent recipe.

Le Pichet: One of Seattle’s finest French bistro serving elegant, yet simple meals. The service is uniformly gentle & helpful. Prices are truly moderate considering that you’re eating such wonderful French food. The desserts are amazing.

Coffee: Try Queen Anne Thriftway’s house roast. It’s hand-roasted in the Tacoma store. Stay away from megasauras Starbuck’s coffee unless you like beans roasted well past bitterness.

Seattle Food Guide: Katy Calcott has written The Food Lover’s Guide to Seattle, the definitive guide to Seattle’s best food markets, bakeries, wine shops and ethnic foods. I agree with almost all of her choices of what’s best in food here. Another helpful feature is a food glossary for the various ethnic cuisines. My only quarrel is she intentionally omits restaurants and I don’t see how you can write a food book about a city & omit its restaurants.

Sooke Harbor House: One of our favorite hotels in the whole world. But it’s like no other hotel you’ve ever visited. First, it’s terribly relaxed and laid back. Staying here is like being invited to join the party of friends enjoying the great manor house in the seminal Jean Renoir film, Rules of the Game (Les Regles du Jeu). The hotel is in Sooke, B.C. just outside Victoria; on the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (where the Puget Sound meets the Pacific Ocean). Whales & seals bask outside your balcony door! Each suite has an ocean view and a view of the gorgeous gardens and grounds. Hiking along the coastline is magnificent. Now we come to the food: Ahhh! This is one of the five best restaurants in all of Canada. It’s certainly one of the best at which I’ve ever dined. All ingredients are fresh and local. Fish, of course predominates, but everything including the meats are unbelievably good. Sooke Harbor House maintains an extensive garden which provides much of its produce & fruit. Spicing of the dishes is unusual and creative (& delicious too). The wine list is very large and specializes in local wineries. For a romantic experience; for an amazing culinary experience; for great hiking: spend a weekend at Sooke Harbor House.

Most Overrated: for snooty French attitude, try Rover’s. Everyone says it’s the best restaurant in Seattle. Maybe they’re right. But of the two times I’ve dined there, once the service was incompetent (what do you call it when the waiter forgets to serve the fish course in a 5-course meal; and then disbelieves you when you politely tell him of his mistake?) and the second time it was uncooperative and somewhat snooty. No doubt, Rover’s food is elegant and incomparable. And dining al fresco on a summer evening is delightful. But the truly great restaurants don’t wear their greatness on their sleeves and remind you of it at every opportunity.

Pet Zagat Peeve: Why are the Seattle Zagat food ratings inflated? I always reduce the point rating by a few points to derive the true food quality. Most absurd Zagat rating: Le Pichet’s “23.” Seattle’s best French bistro deserves at least 26, if not more.

Best food writing: The best short story about food ever written (as far as I’m concerned) is I Was Really Very Hungry by M.F.K. Fisher, one of the world’s greatest food writers. You can find the story in As They Were, a collection of her essays.

I paraphrase Susannah Indigo’s description of the story, its setting and plot in her online review, M.F.K. Fisher: A Poet of The Appetites:

In 1937, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, a young girl spending a heady year learning all there is to know about France and its cuisine, is hiking through northern Burgundy. One morning, she arrives thirsty and ravenously hungry in her dusty clothes at an old mill that a Parisian chef has turned into one of France’s most famous restaurants. But it is off-season and Fisher is the only lunch patron

The servant girl who will take care of her is obsessed and passionately devoted to good food, wine and, more than all else to “Chef Paul.” During lunch, Fisher and the servant engage in a subliminally libidinous duel in which they egg each other on to greater heights of gustatory passion. In the end, the young girl with the “odd pale voluptuous mouth” triumphs over Fisher, the poor, sated culinary pleasure seeker. “Permit me!” the servant girl says near the end, “and I thought she was going to kiss me,” Fisher writes. But instead the servant pins a beautiful bouquet of snowdrops on her jacket, in one of the great scenes of sublimated culinary eros ever written.

tags farmers-market, harvest-vine, katy-calcott, le-pichet, pure-fish, rovers, seattle-food, sooke-harbor-house, tom-douglas

Over the past week, both June Carter Cash & Freyda Epstein passed away. Everyone knows who June Cash is…the writer of Wheel of Fire. I am a writer (though not a songwriter) & I sometimes think that if I could’ve written anything as powerful, vivid & profound as that song, I’d be a happy man & consider my life worthwhile. See this wonderful New York Times obituary cum music review describing the music performed at her funeral.

Kieran Kane, a founder of the O’Kanes and proponent of country music’s neo-traditional movement, pays high tribute to June Carter Cash in the toe tapping, “June Carter (Can Sure Sing),” at the same time taking a swipe at today’s contemporary, so-called “country divas”, with lyrics such as “in a world of country costume jewelry, she’s a real diamond ring.” This song is a gem. For more on the song and album it is on see Takecountryback.com. Or buy the CD Shadows on the Ground

Freyda Epstein was a founding member of the folk group, Trapezoid. Her warm, lilting alto voice graced many a wonderful folk ballad like Do You Love an Apple? on their recordings. A KBCS-FM (Bellevue, WA) dj announced yesterday that she died in a car accident. She left us far before her time.

Congratulations to these Congress members who have stood up courageously to support the Road Map for Mideast peace. As far as I can tell, this may be the first (and so far only) online site to make this bipartisan Congressional letter supporting the Road Map available to the public. It was signed by 44 House members. I am concerned that so few Jewish members of Congress have endorsed this letter specifically or the Road Map in general.

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I don't know about you, but I'm terribly relieved to know that Jeb Bush is upholding the moral health of Florida's young pregnant girls. Witness a story in last week's New York Times, Gov. Jeb Bush to Seek Guardian for Fetus of Rape Victim http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/15/national/15FETU.html, which describes how Bush appointed a guardian for the unborn fetus of a 22 year-old developmentally disabled pregnant woman. Governor Bush said in a statement that he believed it was appropriate to intervene in what he described as a 'uniquely troubling situation.' 'Given the facts of this case, it is entirely appropriate that an advocate be appointed to represent the unborn child's best interests in all decisions,' the governor said. Notice he didn't say a word ...

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