Here’s a rather stern holiday address from our Forager-in-Chief, Bart the Bear, thumbing some thoughts our way from his cellphone in the woods. It has been translated from the original Usurs Textish.
Hello, Bart here.
Just a note to everyone coming to the woods for Labor Day weekend.
You’re on holiday, but I’m at work. Don’t forget that. I don’t get time off.
A bear’s job is survival, every single day.
I know your song and cartoon bears dance and play and eat picnic baskets, but that’s a make believe life and I can’t afford to live it. I’m real. Really real. So if you see me in the woods this weekend, give me a little room to work. Getting too close is a hazard for me and you, and in case you didn’t figure it out, I smell bad. Really, really bad. And my breath is even worse. Trust me, you don’t want to get that close.
But if you HAVE to get my picture, why don’t you at least leave me a generous tip? Yeah, a tip. I’m just like a waiter down there in the Twin Cities – working hard while you relax and have a good time. I suppose you could imagine, like some people I won’t name, that I’m pampered and overpaid. But trust me, you’d be floored if you had to live the way I do, dressed in a thick fur coat all summer, dragging my big bear butt through the thicket and getting feasted on by mosquitoes and ticks. Yeah, ticks. I got some the size of chipmunks.
So drop me a bag of Fritos, OK? Or Pudding Pops. Cold stuff is good and I can get to it before it melts if you ditch it in the hollow log and get out of the way. You’ve got plenty, we all know that.
Maybe you’re thinking you don’t want to encourage us bears to eat people food. Maybe you’re thinking by not tipping us you can keep our lives more “natural.” Well, I say, thanks to you, “natural” is no longer a possibility. A newspaper blowing through here the other day had this article that said the North Woods are “retreating” to the north and east, so with climate change I’m gonna have to think about a very expensive move. Ever hear the saying “There’s a Bear in the Weeds?” Me neither. It’s “Woods”. Always has been. That’s what we like – trees. I won’t stay on the prairie. So as long as you’re changing my world and uprooting me, why don’t you do a little something to provide for me too?
Don’t have any extra junk? I’ll also eat healthy foods. I know you get to have blueberries year-round, and blackberries too. How about it? Share the wealth. I’ll even take a bruised banana. No big deal. What else are you gonna do with that stuff? You sure can’t take it with you. And if eating your Fruit Loops rots my teeth and kills me, well, it won’t do me in much quicker than the starvation I’ll face if I have to spend my days posing for pictures with you and your kids while your exhaust makes all the trees around me die and fall over.
My main point is this – have a nice weekend and enjoy the woods. It’s a wonderful place to visit. But while you’re having a good time, don’t forget to pay the help!
Your friend and host, Bart.
We all want to help Bart AND to do it responsibly, but leaving a package of Ho-Ho’s in the dwindling forest is probably not the best way.
What’s your favorite host/hostess gift?
Trail Baboon 
wine, i usually bring 3 bottles. 1 to drink, 1 to share and one to leave.
bears and critters and the change of the ecosystem do have my attention though. the warming of the woods and the area in general is the beginning of the bad news i am afraid, me and al gore are not looking forward to the demise of the anarctic and the warming of the tundra and the rewriting of all the climatological maps. i am very frustrated. the level at which this is being done today is amazing, part is getting the other shoe to drop from past sins but while the us has put strict guidelines on pollution and has super fund cleanup sights for paint manufacturers and steel plants of old, the rest of the world does not. the water and air pollution that will kill the oceans and turn the skies to gray acid filled clouds are going unchecked.
so i will drink my wine at parties and leave my grass clippings on the yard and feel like i am doing a better job than most as the world goes to hell i a handbasket. maybe i should ask for a tip too
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Good Morning Visitors,
I agree with Tim on his choice of wine as a gift for the host or hostess and also agree with his comments on pollution and the environment. His plan of three bottles of wine also sounds good, but there may be times when I wouldn’t drink all of the wine in one of the bottles, even though that would be tempting. As one member of my family says, “it’s a joke Jim”. You are joking about one bottle for you to drink aren’t you Tim? Well, that doesn’t have to be a joke, a bottle of wine might go down good on some occaisions.
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no one to dringk is the right amount. usually 2 per bottle for two people but you cant stop there. two more is the correct amount. the 5th glass is the warning glass. if i go there i am going to become profiundly intellegent and witty. watch out.
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Flowers. I come from non-drinkers and have no trust in my ability to pick a good wine-I just know what I like. I figure flowers are something most people don’t buy for themselves and fewer and fewer are growing for themselves. If I can find a nice blooming plant, so much the better.
We recycle and conserve and just don’t buy a lot of stuff and try really hard not to think too hard about what a drop in the bucket that is, while the moose up North are overheating.
Bart, whenever I think of moving onto my land on Madeline, I take a look at my bank account, think of you and yours and think, maybe I should just leave that bit of woods alone until I know what kind of damage I would be doing.
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Rise and Drip up here In The North!
I feel like I should take your comments personally Bart. Hmph. However, right now I don’t like the weather in your neck of the woods–it is pouring rain. You are not being a gracious host. It will be a Madeline Island art gallery/Museum day . And a nap.
I bring one of several things as a hostess gift. During the summer I take flowers from my garden (or at certain times, a bag -o- tomatoes). I buy vases at garage sales for $.05 to $.25, put the flowers in it, and just give them away. During other times of the year I take jam or jelly that I make during the summer or a bottle of wine. But like MIG, I don’t trust my ability to choose a good one.
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I just pick a wine that I like which might not be the best choice, but should be okay. There seems to be a fairly large selection of moderate priced
wine that is very drinkable these days, including many produced in Australia and even some that are good and not too expensive that come from France. The Minnesota wineries are also starting to produce some wines that are good in my opinion.
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beer or wine for us also. or some bread if i’ve checked ahead of time to make sure that fits with the menu. or some chevre and olive tapanade if they are goat-cheese eaters. or some soap if they need cleaning 🙂 or a goat if we have extra.
there’s a lot of farmland around here but also a LOT of wild areas. gradually, the trees are coming down, farms are split for small acreage and houses go up. all of this development has slowed almost to a stop because of the economy, so some good things have come of that.
rainy here too, Jacque – so you’re probably going to have a wet day because our weather usually goes to NW WI.
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If I’m showing up for a meal, I’ll usually bring a bottle of wine that is a bit more expensive than the usual swill. I know just enough about wine and people to make some decent guesses about matching them up. But for the many occasions where wine isn’t appropriate, my usual gift will be a bag of Minnesota wild rice or locally produced maple syrup. Lunds sells an appealing package of wild rice that carries wild rice recipes and instructions for cooking it.
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For me, it depends on where I’m going. If I’m visiting people in Minnesota, I’ll bring pasties, Trenary toast, or Sayklly’s chocolate. If I’m visiting up here in Michigan, I generally bring a bouquet of flowers (bought, as I don’t have a garden) as my gift. As a non-drinker, the option of wine doesn’t occur to me. Of course, most of the people I would be visiting are non-drinkers as well.
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Forgot cudighi 🙂 My dad and brothers always want some.
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cudighi ?
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It’s a spicy Italian sausage, usually in patty form. It’s a staple food in the Ishpeming/Negaunee area, haha.
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Yay cudighi! Miss it! We would get ours from Russo’s market in downtown Negaunee, or a homemade version from a friend of my husband. Whoa – maybe next year we have cudighi on a stick at the MN State Fair, Alanna. Whadaya say?
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If I know the people well enough, I will bring them a book to their taste… Everything from Barbara Kingslover essays to Crop Circles, depending on the person. And if appropriate and the people are fairly adventurous, we’ll bring some of our Hassing Orchards Apple Mead…
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Apple mead? I may have to clean house and invite you over!
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That would be fun. 🙂
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I’m generally a wine person, too – or flowers if wine doesn’t seem right. I have a couple of favorites that I know are good, versatile, most-people-like-’em wines that I tend to bring. When visiting Lanesboro I got a few bottles of a really yummy cranberry wine – that was the hostess gift for that fall.
If I am traveling out-of-state the gift largely depends on where I’m going, who I’m visiting, and how willing I am to either go hunting at the destination and/or how much I want to pack.
Bart – you should know that I had friends up in your home territory a couple of weeks back, and while they were meticulous about keeping some of their food tucked away for themselves, I’m pretty sure they left some goodies behind for you. Knowing these friends, it was probably good stuff from the co-op. 😉
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Wine, bread, or fresh produce from our garden. I find people really like fresh raspberries. Once we were having a family reunion of sorts in Colorado and my somewhat pretentious mother-in-law wanted us to bring gifts for some illustrious guest (I don’t quite remember who) that would showcase the State we lived in. We wanted to bring a 50 lb bag of Dakota Maid flour, but mom-in-law wasn’t amused and want something more refined. I think we ended up bringing local chokecherry jelly. I killed the front lawn last Friday, and I am envisioning the vegetables we’ll be able to plant there next spring.
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Cheers to an abundant, productive garden for you!
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Bart, I’m afraid I have a bone to pick with you. I wonder if you heard what some of your Wisconsin relatives did on my 50th birthday. This was at my Wisconsin cabin.
The birthday dinner was prepared by my gourmet caterer friend, Nancy, who is the best cook I’ve ever met. The main item on the menu was duck terrine. That’s a dish consisting of duck breasts carefully prepared, port, cognac, cream, pistachio nuts, eggs and fresh herbs. It is lovingly cooked and then encased in aspic.
We heard a noise just outside the cabin. A bear was rummaging through a Coleman cooler. She finally left when I said some highly unflattering things about bears, but she took the duck terrine with her into the woods. I was amazed that an animal that eats grubs, garbage and cooking grease would steal the most exotic meal anyone ever cooked for me.
You are saying that I should leave food for you and your relatives in the woods? In your dreams, Bart! I’ll offer you a Twinkie the day I get that duck terrine back (in its original condition)!
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Maybe she was off to a dinner party and desparate for a hostess gift. Imagine the embarrassment if she had shown up empty-handed.
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Great story, Steve! But such a tragic ending to such a gourmet meal — opera material maybe? Did Nancy ever made anything else special for you to make up for the loss of your birthday meal?
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Joanne: Thanks. The part I left out (to shorten the story) was that we ate the meal before the bear hit the cooler, so I did get the whole sensational meal. The bear got the last half of the terrine, which was supposed to go to Bayfield the next day and went into the bear instead.
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Morning–
We’ve done the wine thing too, however none of my siblings are much into wine so none of us know the difference when we ‘re-gift’ a bottle we got. (Pleas don’t think less of me…)
However I have neighbors are are much better entertainers than us and they’re in the ‘Wine of the Month Club’ and get Gourmet magazine and all that stuff, so I wouldn’t dream of taking wine to their house. Definitely flowers in that case…
In the winter months I make an Amish Friendship Bread that we give often. However you have to be careful with that too; too much will kill a person. (It’s not the healthiest recipe;– oil, eggs, sugar, flour … and the extra chocolate chips I add).
There was a wayward bear around Rochester this spring? Was that you Bart??
Ben
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Recipe for the bread, please? I bet it’s yummy.
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It’s one of those things that uses a ‘starter’… you can create the starter yourself or get it from someone else… and then you have to bake every 10 days or so. I have found most people don’t want the commitment, just the reward, so I make triple batches and just keep starter for myself…
I’ll post both recipes later- they’re on my home computer.
It IS good Anna!
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Amish Friendship Bread-
(This is a pretty forgiving recipe… day 10 or day 13, it’ll be OK…)
Notice: Do not use a metal spoon and do not refrigerate.
Day 1 You receive starter. Do nothing.
Day 2 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 3 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 4 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 5 Transfer to larger bowel and add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Stir
Day 6 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 7 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 8 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 9 Stir with wooden spoon.
Day 10 Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. Stir with wooden spoon. Pour off three 1-cup starters.* Save one for yourself and give two to friends with recipe. To the remaining batter add:
1 cup oil 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour 1/2 cup milk
1 tsp salt 1 cup sugar
3 eggs 1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp soda 1 large pkg instant vanilla pudding
Pour into well greased and cinnamon-sugared loaf pans (2 pans, 4 1/2 by 8 1/2).
Bake 40 to 50 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool in pans for 15 minutes before removing.
Options: You can substitute a different pudding flavor, or add 1 bag mini chocolate chips or nuts.
*Or, if you’re like us and are selfish, save one cup for yourself and make 6 loaves with the rest by tripling the recipe.
**The starter can be refrigerated at any time to ‘stall’ the process. When taken out and left to warm it starts right up again.
STARTER RECIPE:
One cup flour, one cup sugar, one cup milk. Combine in plastic bowl, stir, cover and leave on the counter- DO NOT REFRIGERATE. Stir daily for 20 days. On day 21, add another cup of flour, milk, and sugar and stir well again. On Day 26 use the recipe above to bake bread.
(Sometimes during the twenty days you’ll get mold on the sides of the container but the starter itself doesn’t mold… just transfer to new container.)
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I am intrigued by the chemistry of this – both because your essentially allowing milk to spoil for the chemical process, but also because it takes so darn long. Will have to give it a try.
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My sister, the food scientist, says this is basically making yeast; the sugar feeds the milk and flour. All I know is it works. And it’s pretty cool… once it gets going good you open the container and the smell of the yeast (?) or whatever it is, just blows me away! I have starter in the fridge that I’ve been carrying forward for the last 4 years. I’ll get it out around Halloween and bake until March or so… then back in the fridge. The bread freezes well too. (Once I left the beginning starter on the stove and it got extra warm and that cut about a week off the first step– I could tell by the bubbles it was making when ready…)
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A random thought on the way in to work this morning-
I remember hearing about cow tipping in my rural youth, but I can’t think that tipping bears would really be a good idea.
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You know what’s so bad about tipping bears? The goldurn things never claim the tips on their income taxes! Our schools are dying on the vine and yet the woods are full of bears as fat as William Howard Taft. I say we should unleash the ultimate weapon on these freeloaders: Tom Emmer. Be afraid, bears. Be very afraid.
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I didn’t think about what Bart would do with a bottle of wine. Given his complaints about the treatment he is getting, I think he could use a little wine. A little wine to end the whining. I wonder if he would need help opening the bottle or if he can do that himself.
I was not implying that Tim is a wino and I don’t think I fit this description. However, there are times when I wouldn’t mind consuming a “healthy” amount of wine, but probably not a whole bottle.
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I’m a little bit of a wino, if I get together with my neighbor Heather (across the street and married to the Frenchman). She’s coming over this evening, and we’ll probably do in a bottle of Cabernet.
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Greetings! Yes, food or wine usually go over well. For my family anything alcohol is appreciated and quickly consumed. I don’t drink, but my Catholic family are a bunch of lushes — not alcoholics, but they enjoy their various libations. Lori and her husband own a cool bar/tavern/restaurant in Fountain City, WI. Andy brews his own beer and wine, so do Ellen and Cathy sometimes.
At my LARGE family gatherings, they bring homemade wines and beer by the gallon which are easily consumed and make for lively and interesting events. The Christmas White Elephant Gift Exchange is the highlight of the year. We don’t buy each other gifts, so we wrap up something from our house. The rule is you can’t purchase anything. The item has to be something “you can’t believe someone paid good money for.”
When the moment arrives, we pick numbers as to who goes first. You may either choose an unwrapped gift or steal someone else’s opened gift at your turn. After a few are opened, it devolves into a market bazaar of some people trying to hawk their lame gift or attempting to hide the semi-cool item they got. Hilarity, chaos and a raucous good time is had by all. Another rule is that you MUST take White Elephant Gifts home with you — if host/hostess finds it left behind, it will be mailed to you. Missing a family Christmas puts you at risk of having ALL unwanted WEGs sent to you for being such a wormsweat. All in good fun!
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Love that word wormsweat, Joanne, haven’t heard it before – may have to look that one up.
Husband’s family (those of us still speaking) do that at Christmas too — it really is a lot of fun, enhanced by wine.
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Barbara – I’m not sure if you’ll find a definition of wormsweat anywhere. I thought it was something just my crazy family thought up on our own, but I could be wrong. Think of the worst slime on the lowliest creature — that’s a general idea of how my family defines it.
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DALE!
I am so mad at the universe. You, of all radio people, need to be on my dial. The world needs you. BLAST! Who were the geeks? Obviously daft in the soul.
Anyway, I’m sending warm regards to you.
Thanks for your blogs.
Thanks for being the divining rod to great music.
Inspirations,
Timothy Frantzich
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Hi Timothy! Glad you found us — hope you join us on the blog more often as the spirit moves you. And yes, a lot of us share your feelings on that matter …
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Tim,
I’ve always enjoyed hearing the Frantzich Brothers’ music. After reading this rant, I have more reasons to be a fan!
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Thanks for the kind angry words, Timothy! BLAST, indeed! But onward we go, and it’s great to have you along.
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