Lake View, Q. Cassetti, 2010Another day in the Adirondacks. Someone thinking about where we need to be and what and when we need to eat, talk, perform. Bliss. It really is a landlocked cruise boat experience where all you need to do is either go with the flow or do what you want to do. Its crazy, but just over the few days we have been here, you can literally see the trees changing color in the landscape as the evenings are cool/cold and the mornings just a bit warmer to give us mist rising over the lakes, these mirrored lakes that dot the horizon around here.
The words and ideas of James Fennimore Cooper seem to pop up even here. Not just Cooperstown, but points north with Sagamore and Uncas being characters in his books. I guess the Leatherstocking nomenclature and reach is part of this culture here—east and north of Cooperstown and Otesaga…but I hadn’t linked the two. Niagara Region, the burned out zone all have names and brands. The Finger Lakes with the lakes and waterfalls really do not capture any sort of romance or nod to anything beyond natural history…something with some toothiness that we could work with (I am thinking this with regard to Farmer Ground Flour and Stefan’s bakery). Where is our history with the plumb line county maps, the Greek named towns with the Greek Revival Buildings? Where is our history beyond that of fossils, salt mines, and deep cold lakes with the avian flyover? Where are our icons like the Adirondacks of pine trees and cones, snowshoes, loons, baskets, quilts, fishing gear, chairs, birch trees and the like? I am looking and cannot find a link. What is the key? How do we capture it? Time will tell. Often just letting it simmer, something will pop out.
Today is work on the Feline and Baker and then a trip to the Adirondack Museum for a talk by John Buchinger, Associate Director of Education at New York State Historical association and Program Development Consultant—on the cycle of community/individual that Rob has told me about so many times. We are applying this good thinking to localvore food…and I am anxious to hear it from the conceiver of this big idea.
More later.