Il Vento

There is a forceful wind blowing outside today. The wind has always unnerved me. I want to hide from it. In Tirrenia by the sea, where I lived for most of my youth, the water was always inviting but the strong winds perturbed me to no end. When the Libeccio came through from the South or the Tramontana from behind the mountains, the green shutters, on the windows of the houses on the sea, were quickly closed to ward off the commotion, literal and emotional, that the wind brought with it.

  I was not alone in my distaste for the winds of change. The old women, the grandmothers, lamenting the sand and the dust that would inevitably seep through the doors and the windows, even into the food left for unruly children, they too were annoyed. Cranky and nervous, eyes squinty and kerchiefs blowing they planted themselves at the market stands; both vendors and customers complaining. Wind pissed the women off, e chiaro. Pretty sales girls in high end boutiques bothered by their dresses flying up and noses red, hair billowy and standing up, like strega hair tends to do; also pissed off.

The only person I remember who was not pissed off was my friend C. who relished this type of thing. Made her feel free, she said.  When you are sixteen, freedom is your only desire and since in those days I loved her the most, I would allow  her to cajole me to the beach in the middle of winter storms 'to be free'.  She would luxuriate in the wind pelting her face and I would sardonically put up with the same. Invariably she would pull the hair brush from her bag and beg me to brush her hair. Daunting as it was, I did it.  This was our ritual of sharing, instinctual in nature,  balancing out the differences between us. Looking out into the horizon and the violent waves, she traveled in her mind to some other place that made her broken heart free for a moment, trusting me to brush back suspected invaders.

In myths and fairy tales at least, the wind brings change:  turbulence, emotional upheaval, visitors we are not expecting. Some people invoke the Holy Spirit and others the stirring up of the unconscious that strives to move to consciousness. In my grandmothers mythology the Slavic Baba Yaga and the Italian Befana, both travail the arc of the Austro-Hungarian and Holy Roman Empires, and are present in superstitions relating to New Year's day. These customs  converge most conveniently in  frightening old hags slashing through the skies on  handmade witches brooms.  They are always throwing up dust and havoc so that you have no choice but to clean house or settle with the most unpleasant aspects in relationships, whether material or emotional. Hence the traditions that tell you to 'sweep out the old'  in order to let in the new. The promise of a new beginning, in Spring.

My Tirrenia times long gone, I  have learned a bit more patience and am certainly  more sure of myself than in the early days of 'wind hating'. I will always think of C. and her far away eyes when the wind kicks up. I could not have known then that it takes a while to build a strong foundation ensuring that the wind can hardly blow your house down, at least not 'just like that'. I could not see that the complaining old women were showing me the way and that all I had to do was shutter the windows and wait out the crazy making Sirocco.  Couldn't suspect that  I didn't have to sit on the frozen dunes in the biting air to see the horizon because access to freedom began at home, in my own secret sea.

  By the end of today I will have made peace with the Wind Witch. I'll have swept my house, as is the custom of our multi-cultural lineage and bid her goodbye as the New Year approaches midnight. Ultimately, I will have released the pent up pleasure of annoyance at the Wind Witch knowing that anyway, she is the twin sister of the Gracious Mother, the Sexy Soil Goddess, the Wise Earth Woman, the Cherished Grand Mother that I love. In the New Year, she will be the one who tells wondrous life stories and sometimes, when in a good mood,  will give magical gifts to those that are pure in heart and ready to fly.

Stardust

Yesterday afternoon a bit later than our usual afternoon hour I sat with the Queen to partake in our daily ritual of drinking Bosnian coffee. It ended up a harried day. I had met with various friends and with these casual meetings came talks of dreams and plans - ruminations really, not much of substance. Girl talk I suppose. As interesting as it seemed at the time, I came home so thoroughly exhausted that even though it was later than normal to take coffee I ran to the stove and boiled the water. I put an extra spoonful of ground coffee in the dzezva, thinking it might wake me up. The table set, the fildzans out, the cookies in a tray. I spooned out the toss in each little fildzan, spooned it out into the bottom of the cups, as is the custom,  lit a cigarette and poured the steaming liquid into the tiny bowls of porcelain.

Relax.

Talking and laughing about something, I picked up my cup to drink from the dark, delicious liquid, knowing we would eventually turn over our cups to let the coffee grounds stream down the white of the white porcelain, onto the silver tablet where the magic symbols will sometimes reveal our hearts. I held the cup between my thumb and my index finger because it was hot and as I moved it to my mouth, the cup fell out of my fingers and onto the floor.

Cursing and pushing from the table I bent down to pick up the cup that had  shattered on the floor at my feet. Coffee grounds everywhere including the white table cloth, Queen a tad perturbed but laughing at my clumsiness, I picked up the pieces. The top of the cup and the bottom of the cup split right in half horizontally, in an abnormal way so to make me think bad luck things - I don't know where it comes from, but I can, on occasion,  be superstitious.

Two pieces - the sky and the earth, the head and the body, the soul and the breath. What was I supposed to understand here?

Calm down, girly. Say something like this to yourself : 'Thank you universe'. And a long silence.

There is a lesson here, I say quickly to the Queen, who is a little unsure how to respond.

Fucking lessons. Of course there is a lesson .

So,  the year ends, with the broken crown, the cracked open egg as it were. I had secretly felt it would all along. It culminates in this very vivid and tangible manifestation- this drama of the cup, split in half.   This is my world, exactly as the universe would have it. Opened up and raw. Ready to inspect and reconstitute. Decisions must be made. There is no confusion as to the message.

The bottom of the cup, my soul, cut off from it's true mission.  My feelings splintered from my thoughts -  my common beliefs, no longer in sync with what really is.

I poured myself another cup and drank it. The Queen has the Fool in her cup, {must have migrated over from my cup, I say to myself  as it's my sign, the liminal state - the all and the nothing} and I also spy a fellow with a heart where his groin should be. Lucky.

These in-between days I am 'a casa', inside, in the womb of the bottom of the cup. Back into my very own Garden. A perfect Solstice place to be.

I am Stardust. And I am Golden.

Holiday Heritage in the Denver Post

Inside & Out

Decorating with a world of inspiration

Posted: 12/10/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

By Elana Ashanti Jefferson
The Denver Post

 

"Holiday Heritages" is this year's theme for decorating the Governor's Residence.Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

Battling sale crowds or scouring stores for the year's hottest toy will seem about as significant as a snowflake in a storm after viewing the "Holiday Heritages" decorations unveiled this week at the Governor's Residence at the Boettcher Mansion.
This year, "Colorado's Home" at East Eighth Avenue and Logan Street is "decorated to reflect the diverse heritages and history that have shaped" the state, Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a statement.
The mansion opens for free holiday tours today.
In addition to paying homage to the American winter holiday melting pot, this year's decorations draw from Asia, Africa, Europe, American Indian and Latin American traditions.
First lady Helen Thorpe chose the "Holiday Heritages" motif.

From left, menorahs adorn a table in the dining room; objects from India decorate a room off the entrance; and items representing Ireland fill another room. 

 The job of bringing that theme to life fell (for the third year in a row) to Denver artist Karen Bozik."This house and its furnishings are extraordinary," Bozik said Monday about using the 1908 mansion as a conceptual canvas for an international take on the holidays. "It's quite an honor."
Bozik enhanced the mansion's modest permanent holiday-decoration collection with donations from the likes of the Mizel Museum, the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys, the Denver Kwanzaa Committee, and her own handmade ornaments.

Visitors are now greeted at the door by Bozik's paper snowflake and icicle tree display. And a table of collectible dolls selected to interpret the song "It's A Small World (After All)" stands near the grand staircase, opposite the Kwanzaa-themed family game room.

That room is punctuated by works from the Rocky Mountain Wa Shonaji Quilt Guild and a kinara, or Kwanzaa candelabra, that once belonged to the well-known, late storyteller (and Denver Kwanzaa Committee co-founder) Opalanga Pugh. The decorations underscore that "there is diversity in 'Colorful Colorado'," said Thedora Jackson, executive director of the Denver Kwanzaa Committee.

Masnur Tambunan, left, Erwina Silalahi and Saleh Lawrence Frey play Christmas music with a taste of Indonesia.   (Photos by Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt assembled an Eastern European display outfitted with traditional service ware and museum-quality heirlooms, including an antique Slovenian accordion. She said the tablescape underscores the essential role of food to the holidays."Political and national differences melt away when you invite someone to your home and break bread with them," said Vukadin-Hoitt.

Elana Ashanti Jefferson: 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com
Take the tour

A Passion for Taste

My first article for The Denver News. September, 2011.

A burgeoning group of restaurants is bringing a more sustainable way of preparing and eating food to their customers and it just so happens that many of them are located in the Highlands district.  Eating locally and supporting sustainable practices is about preserving local food systems and  giving your money to the people that make sure you have food to eat, which ultimately means supporting farmers. In the Highlands, some restaurants are making sure that ‘going green’ is not just a slogan.

One of the most popular and hip to be seen at restaurants promoting sustainable food on their menu opened in 2008 on lower 33ed Avenue as Root Down. The menu touts a ‘field to fork’ mentality and states that they ‘prefer to stay as organic, natural and local as possible’. Chef/owner Justin Cucci just opened his second spot this summer, also in LoHi named Linger, a converted mortuary that has a killer view to the Denver city skyline.

A bit farther up the street going into Highlands proper, chef Patrick DuPays of Z Cuisine, serves classic French Bistrot food with an organic twist and talks about opening his restaurant six years ago before the Highlands transition from dowdy Denver outpost to the fabulous hipsterville that it is today. He will tell you that his passion for quality food comes from going to the farm markets with his grandfather in his native France.  Getting to know the farmers and their produce is how he learned that it’s all about following   the flow of the seasons.  Fresh ingredients are what ultimately ends up satisfying your taste buds at the dinner table.  "The food at Z Cuisine is only as good as the produce that I get from the farmers who I have come to know and trust like my own family", he says.

As a matter of fact, farmers markets are a theme that comes up often.  Chefs like Patricia Perry, of Highland Garden Café on West 32^nd Avenue, John Broening of Duo and Olivea, Patrick Horvath of Venue and of course the inimitable Mr. DuPays talk about their involvement with the earth and her stewards, the farmers. Patricia of Highlands Garden Café says, "I think there is, among cooks, a respect for the land and a mandate to preserve and feed the soil that produces the food we serve".

 Passion. Reverence. Value. Love.  These are the words used to describe a way of life that is available when we seek out establishments where we can nourish ourselves rather than just fill our need for fuel.

At the corner of 32^nd Ave and Zuni patrons wait in line at the venerable Duo, a Farm to Table restaurant owned by Stephanie Bonin and her husband Keith Arnold. Regular people come to experience the bounty of what Stephanie calls their ‘strong relationship with farmers, built over time’.  She also mentions that they can now comfortably say that they are at 80% in serving locally sourced food.  Like Z Cuisine, you can find the Duo chefs at the Boulder Farm markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, talking to the farmers, getting the scoop on what just came out of the ground and inquiring which ranchers sustainably raise their meat. 

At Venue, Patrick Horvath is dedicated to simple, natural food that he creates from scratch, like the handmade pasta in one of their signature dishes. "Doing the right thing" is important to him. He says that he keeps it simple, using the best local and organic product when it’s available.

Why do they go to all the trouble?  "Taste. You can taste the sun, the soil, the aliveness of the earth and of course, it’s better", says the owner of Z Cuisine.  "You don’t open a restaurant to make business, you do it because you love the act of making good food".

By going the shorter distance and sourcing our local farms for the food they serve in their restaurants, these philosopher restaurateurs create a special space in the nascent Highlands foodie scene that talks the talk and also walks the walk.

Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt is a contributing writer to The Denver News

Keep Your Food Money Local

This is my article for the November Go Green! column I write every month in The Denver News, a local newspaper.

Keep Your Food Money Local

Silvana Vukadin-Hoitt

Although I am a contributing writer to The Denver News, I also work as an advocate of sustainable urban agriculture through a local nonprofit organization named Feed Denver: Urban Farms & Markets.
Feed Denver’s mission is to teach people how to grow food in the city and make urban farming viable and profitable. It is no secret that our current food system, with it’s over processed products and reliance on industrial animal farming is no longer sustaining us in a healthful manner. We have become a nation of fast food connoisseurs and the news has spread in recent years that fast food is making us fat and sick. Advertisers spend billions to convince us that we don’t have to ‘waste time in the kitchen’ and that faster is better. They make a lot of money pushing that message into our consciousness day in and day out. And it is our money they are convincing us to spend.
We spend our money buying food from industries and corporations that do not have the infrastructure or the mission to care whether what they sell us will make us ill in the long run or not. In supporting their businesses we have willingly let them rob us of our food culture - once rich in diversity and simple goodness. Every day I hear someone say about some food product “it used to taste better”. Well, this is the reason for that.

I don’t believe that faster is better. I believe that slow is good. Slow down to smell the roses, the coffee, the earth and soil around us. Slow down to get in touch with nature. Food is nature. Not industry.

So what do we do if we want change? My mom always says that in order to change the world you start with yourself and your family. You make sure that you take care of those closest to you and you extend that to your neighbors and then your village. The ripple effect of investing in what and who is important and will resonate to the rest of the world by proxy. This brings me to the Slow Money movement.

Slow Money is a concept that ties together the food system, our economy and local entrepreneurship. Created by visionary economist Woody Tasch, it is a movement that is rapidly gaining attention all over the country as well as in Colorado. It has been named “One of the top five trends in finance for 2011” by Entrepreneur.com. Slow Money ideas are rooted in philanthropy and local investing, specifically advocating investment in agriculture, small farms, regional food processing and distribution, local and organic restaurants and individuals or organizations dedicated to educating about how to grow good food.
Slow money is about patient capital, socially responsible and local investment. While at the Slow Money conference in San Francisco last month we I met quite a few interesting people. There were investors, farmers, activists, educators, business men and women and people interested in learning about it all.
Together with Lisa Rogers, Executive Director of Feed Denver and Michael Brownlee, of Transition Colorado, both Slow Money proponents I listened to Wes Jackson, founder and president of The Land Institute, who has written several books on sustainability and the viability of new agriculture.
One of the most interesting and charming speakers was Mr. John Bledsoe, who with his son, raises pigs on a farm outside Woodland, California without using antibiotics or growth hormones. He was straight forward about why he raises his animals the way he does: “Because it tastes better”. He also mentioned that his advertising budget is “exactly zero dollars”. Since his meat is ‘good and clean’, his customers come to him by word of mouth advertising. An enviable position. But not, as I realized during the three days of the convention, one that is so uncommon anymore.

All of the small businesses that presented that weekend were convinced that they experienced growth because of their commitment to sustainable practices and because local people bought and supported their products. Think about bringing you food money home. Slow Money suggests to moving just one percent to projects and businesses near you. These will be projects and businesses you can also get involved with, volunteer at and mentor. I put more than one percent into local food through my advocacy with Feed Denver and their programs dedicated to making urban farming profitable.
I volunteer my time and I invest my resources in these programs which ultimately create jobs in underserved communities, with refugee communities and also budding entrepreneurs.

Visit www.slowmoney.com or www.feeddenver.com

Remeber Sarajevo by Roger Richards

You will want to follow this link and read Roger Richards version of his experiences in Sarajevo.

At the Residence

 Karen Bozik, Director/Designer for the Holiday Events at the Governor's Residence, invited yours truly along with other individuals and organizations to contribute to this years installations at Boettcher Mansion.  I saw some of Karen's pieces from last year's installation via Facebook - beautiful handcrafted Victorian type dolls, cards. collages -  already then I was smitten. Through talks we found out that we both have a passion for researching similar cultures and traditions -   music, literature, art, language.... and we both  love to delve into our Slavic heritage.  This often shows up in Karen's collages and art craft and is something that I have admired since I first laid eyes on her work years ago. Being part of this project would be great!

As a theme this year Madame Governor, Helen Thorpe,  chose 'Holiday Heritages'.  Brilliant for me! Here I am back to heritage and origins, which  I have  used as inspiration for my personal spaces and very often also professionally in my design themes,  fashion styling, or conceptual art. Karen knew that about me and asked if I would create something representing Eastern Europe. My dream!

I worked on getting information and loan pieces for the Eastern European installation through the month of November.  When last minute another local organization was not able to participate, I threw my hat in for the Central Asian table also and drew from my family's private collection. I finished up last week and it looks great.  Today, press day. It was very exciting to have people interested in the themes, asking questions about the provenance of the pieces, many of them antiques from local museums, others beloved personal objects on loan from friends and acquaintances.

I'll post some more specifics at the end of the week and for now show off a couple of snapshots of what the tours will be showing.

Bosnia

Jewish Sarajevo

Central Asia

Books I Want

Leisurely roam around the Tattered Cover on East Colfax today and I can't get enough of the books. If I didn't already have a thousand boxes in storage, full of books, longing for shelves I'd go bonkers buying more of them, especially in a book haven like this one.

Sometimes it's the tittle.....

Sometimes it's the Woman

Or the tragedy

 I  want them all. And more.