I spent today in 1921 and considerably enjoyed it.
After grocery shopping and while waiting for Ge. to return from his second vaccination, I baked a Sacher torte, dressed in a purple tunic with my hair in a low sideswept bun (feeling daring and brash if only in comparison to my everyday wear).
I detest The Great Gatsby and didn't think I was a big fan of 1920s aesthetics. But in the context of my experiment, it feels a lot better than the First World War and I actually like the vibrant colours, the freedom for women, and the general comparative lack of people dying. Trying to resurrect something of the careful aesthetics and cultural references of the David Suchet Poirot series that I grew up with does have great charm, too, minus the murders.
(Although there was a lot going on that was terrible. From a labour standpoint, considering also that wages were being lowered massively in the US and UK because the demobilization of soldiers made the pool of workers plentiful and cheap again, it wasn't that great. And 1921 was the year of the brutal Tulsa race massacre, for example. It's really maddening to see how amidst some progress, the seeds of World War II, Nazism and the rule of Stalin were already being steadily sown, and the Ku Klux Klan era of racist violence still throve in the US as well as in Canada and elsewhere.)
To descend to trivialities: For breakfast we had the following menu, adapted from an American menu and served on some of our fanciest plates.
T. visited us for breakfast, and we exchanged friendly insults over the meal, as always.
To rest after breakfast, I played one and a half or so of Brahms's Hungarian Dances arranged for the piano, as well as a few Strauss waltzes, and tried but failed to find Saint-Saëns scores (he died in December 1921) aside from the French horn concerto that Mama has played from. Since I'm still recovering/grumpy from the last attempt to sightread part of Beethovens's Hammerklaviersonata, which is admittedly a 'First-World'-y problem to have, the lovely dark powder-blue edition of Beethoven's later sonatas seemed to look at me reproachfully — in vain; I refused to play more. Besides I sewed: mending part of a pillowcase.
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To ramble about my culinary mishaps: Although the Sacher torte was burned at the edges, using beaten egg whites as the only leavening agent in a cake generally is not my preferred course of action compared to the reliable lift of baking soda, and beating 10 egg whites by hand after fishing out drips of egg yolk made me perform a few metaphorical Munch screams in my imagination, it turned out surprisingly well.
That said, even the topping made me sweat: the sugar syrup in the chocolate topping also crystallized while I cooked it. But pouring in a little milk and letting the chocolate-sugar rock formation dissolve, then stirring it until it reached a smoother texture and smashing the leftover lumps, turned it into more of what Bob Ross calls a 'happy little accident.'
By fortuitous accident, the Mediterranean cookbook that I recently bought for myself has an apricot jam recipe that, recast as an Austrian 'Marillenmarmelade,' was exactly what was needed for the torte.
It seems to me that I need to make as many summer recipes as I can — the emergence of the first oval purple plums (Zwetschgen) in the stores has made me feel that, like Hannibal with his elephants crossing the Alps toward Rome, autumn too is before the gates.
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Lunch:
Because Prohibition was in force in 1921, and the cookbook is American, wine and liqueur pairings are conspicuously absent. We made do with the coffee, cocoa and tea instead.
We are so unused to eating as much as rich people did in the early 20th century that, to be honest, I still feel like I swallowed a cannon ball after the lunch. And none of us could face the thought of dinner.
After playing Galuppi on the harpsichord (probably anachronistic, as I think that the popularity of harpsichords was revived by Wanda Landowska a decade or two later), reading more of Bertrand Russell's autobiography to get an idea of the late years of World War I and the early post-war period, and playing more Strauss waltzes on the piano, etc., I finally gave in and set off on a bicycle expedition to Tempelhof Airfield.
It felt like I should have gone to play tennis or badminton, but the siblings were intent on doing something cozy indoors and were therefore not available as partners; and due to my not having the second vaccine I'm still not too keen on going to see an art exhibition (preferably Dadaist) or a film, which feel like very 1920s things to do.
It was already getting darker, although it was only around 7:30 p.m. I liked seeing my very long shadow in front of me. The sky was still very blue and a few puffy clouds ranged on it; the trees are still very green; and it was so nice seeing lots of people out and about.
On Tempelhofer Feld, an electric car racing track had been set up behind a chainlink fence and concealing posters. The circus set up by refugees was alive with children and music, instead of empty and sad as it is in winter. An outdoor roller skate disco — the first I've seen — was well visited, mostly by onlookers as well as skaters who seemed more focused on staying vertical than on dancing. I liked the 80s beat of the track they were tottering around to.
The thick smoke of family barbecues (always amazingly intense) rose like woodsman's campfires in the foggy early morning hours, or like steam from a 19th century boat's smokestacks, from the grass elsewhere in the park.
The sluggish lift of the few kites that people were ambitiously trying to fly was also peaceful and dozy.
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The atmosphere reminded me of Richmond, Vancouver, near the international airport, on a lazy summer's day as we returned from or started on a journey: the endless freedom and the feeling of the grass and the sea and lots of homes and forests beyond, as the golden sun poured over everything. Also, the ocean near our grandfather's place on Vancouver Island in the evening, when everything was in its place: the people on the shore, the birds in their nests or twittering a last farewell to the day, the ships in the harbour, Opapa in his condominium with his fluffy slippers on his feet and listening to classical music, and the sea creatures like the crabs scuttling or resting beneath the sea. I was really happy to feel this feeling again.
It confirmed the sense I've had in the past months that I want to visit the familiar places in Canada again. (Even if one of my favourite things about Richmond — the endless chain of rusty-red CN freight trains passing under the highway along old-fashioned railroad tracks that reached from one end of the horizon across to the other — has vanished since we left Canada in 2006, replaced by another highway.) Now that I've saved more earnings than I had in 2018, I feel less nervous about travelling from a financial perspective, and I figure I can offset the CO2 emissions from my travel too.
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Returning to Tempelhof Airfield, cycling is of course rather quicker and a lot more fun than walking in such a vast expanse of asphalt. Especially since I tend to go with my brothers — who are more long-legged and also more ambitious than I am, and enjoy going on long circuits around the park, while I try not to whine or feel sorry for myself and in the end do enjoy it in a mildly footsore sort of way. It is lovely that I have my own bicycle now; and I felt like the monarch of all I surveyed, the lord of the scene and the route.
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