Happy Columbus Day! And No Sea Monster for You!

Back in grade school the art teacher, Mrs. Gardner, used to come into our classroom on Tuesdays, and teach us how to make art. Each week, the definition of art was pretty narrowly proscribed. If Mrs. Gardner was demonstrating how to make a plaster cast of your hand and spray paint it gold, for example, you can bet that the definition of art did not include, say, a plaster cast of your foot. If it was snowflake cut-out day, you’d better believe that none of those snowflakes was going to be any color other than white.

            This approach kind of went against what I was taught at home. There, my mixed media “think-outside-the-box” creations were not discouraged, in fact, they were applauded. You made a collage on a piece of newsprint, using modeling clay, ketchup, and toothpaste? How fabulous! (Well, maybe not the toothpaste part, because of the expense of that particular medium.)  And you’re calling it “The Angry Piano”? How brilliant! How creative! Never mind that the unsuitable media are too fragile to last, or that the picture itself looks nothing like a piano. My uncle had been a famous Abstract Expressionist and he started much the same way.

Angry Piano

            But back to second grade, a century ago. Almost. It was October, and Mrs. Gardner was getting us revved for Columbus Day. The project was “Columbus’s Ships,” the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. These were to be rendered in tempera on oak tag. Mrs. Gardner showed us how to create three masted ships sailing on a blue blue sea, using only the colors in our poster paint set: brown, black, white, yellow, red, blue, green. I always enjoyed it when Mrs. Gardner demonstrated a technique, because she would become very involved in what she was doing, and she would talk the whole time, but it wouldn’t make any sense. It was like her mouth was jabbering along its merry way, powered by the old dinosaur brain, while her cerebral cortex was focused on the demo. In this way, she gave me an unintentional introduction to the theater of the absurd.

            Anyway, we all started to paint, guided by Mrs. Gardner’s masterpiece, which she’d left tacked to the blackboard. Mrs. Gardner passed among us, offering words of encouragement. Until she got to the desk of Joel Perlmutter, where she gasped and clutched her chest. We looked up.

            “What is this?” she asked Joel, striving to be severe, but actually sounding more astonished. “Where are the ships?” She held up the offending painting. “Class, look at this. Do you see any ships?”

            We looked. The bottom of the page was engorged with a large swirling pool of blue and green. Across the top of the page was a dripping, turbulent purple mass—meaning that Joel had mixed his paints, which we were NOT supposed to do.

            “It’s a sea monster,” Joel explained, his face having gone slightly red. “After it ate Columbus’s ships.”

            Mrs. Gardner closed her eyes and shook her head. She looked the very picture of despair. “Oh, honey,” she moaned, slowly, “What a mess!”

            And she made him start over.

            Well, I was incensed. Clearly, this was an example of the bourgeoisie stifling the cutting-edge thinking of proletariat youth. Or something. I mean, that’s what I felt, although I wouldn’t have expressed it in those words in second grade.

And yet. . .  Now when I think about what Mrs. Gardner was up to, I have more respect for her. What was she striving for, in forcing us to color inside the lines? Her job wasn’t really to teach us art, was it? Yes she was a bit silly, and I still think she was part of the plot to get us to endure boredom so that we’d be able to grow up and tolerate employment.  But she was also teaching us things like motor skills, control of media, patience, and how to take on the perspectives of others. Perhaps if I’d been a more cooperative student in Mrs. Gardner’s art class, my handwriting wouldn’t be so lousy, I’d have learned to play the piano, and my language skills would extend beyond a comprehension of American English.

           But enough of that. Here’s a recipe for Mark’s Columbus Day Dinner.

Crispy Ginger, Beet, and Carrot Salad

• 2 raw, whole beets (farmers’ market)
• 2 raw, whole heirloom carrots, one yellow, one red (farmers’ market)
• A handful of parsley (farmers’ market)
• A knob of fresh ginger
• 3 tablespoons of peanut oil
• 2 tablespoons of lime juice
• 1 teaspoon of dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons of soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons of orange juice
• Several squirts of Sriracha sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder
• ¼  to ½ teaspoons of cumin powder

1. Wash and peel the beets. Then use the coarse side of a box grater to shred them up (the coarse side, not the slicing side).
2. Do the same with the carrots.
3. Rough chop the parsley.
4. Mix the previous three things together in a bowl.
5. Peel the ginger then shred up about a tablespoon, using the finer side of the box grater.
6. Find a small container with a top (a one cup Ball jar would be good), so that you combine stuff in it and shake it around. Put the ginger in there.
7. Add the next 8 ingredients to the jar and shake them all about. After they’ve been shook, and appear to be well mixed together, pour over the shredded veggies.
8. Mix well and chill. A vibrant fall salad will result.

And, no scurvy!