top of page
Search

United States

Writer: Karen DarnellKaren Darnell
Jul 11, 20235 min read

Updated: Jul 12, 2023

It started with the dishes. It was about 20 years ago when I found a set of china with a moose in the middle and salmon swimming around the edges. Gladys and I were at a garage sale and the price for the set was $8. I was amazed – you can hardly get a set of nice paper plates for $8! So I bought the moose china and planned an Alaska meal. I ordered sourdough sauce (it’s so good!) and various kinds of jams from this site: https://akwildberry.com/product/sourdough-sauce/. I made baked salmon (the first time I had ever cooked fish). I also made Baked Alaska, which isn’t from Alaska, but it was fun to make and eat! https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/baked-alaska-recipe-2125603


I invited Gladys, Liza, Lidia, and Joanie. Liza was then inspired to share her heritage with a Russian meal. Gladys followed with a Hawaiian meal, Lidia with a Brazilian meal, Joanie with a Korean meal, and we were off and running on this culinary adventure.


At another garage sale (garage sales were amazing before 2008), I found china with a farmer in the middle surrounded by goats, sheep, horses, and cows. We made a midwestern farm meal. I found a set of china with dogwood on it. We made a meal representing the Mid-Atlantic states. We made a southern meal and used my china with violets on it. What is American cooking? There are plenty of cookbooks split up by region. This webpage also has a lot: https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/regional-recipes-from-across-the-country/


To continue the American feast, last year I went out of my way to find Native American restaurants. Karina and I started with Bear Springs Bistro in Highland last June. The yucca bread was great. Karina grew up on yucca chips and she loved that they added Cajun seasoning to theirs. I had salmon with broccolini, carrots, and rice. Karina had the lobster roll. The lobster roll didn’t have the traditional bread and the restaurant is broader than these few Native American foods, so I continued to look.


In October, Kaitlin, Andrea, and I had a layover, so we took BART from Oakland Airport to Fruitvale Station to eat at Wahpepah's Kitchen. We ordered to go and caught an Uber back to the airport where we ate indigenous berry salmon salad (me), acorn crepe (Kaitlin), and wild native mushroom pumpkin seed mole (Andrea). I want to return to try the blue corn bean tamale, smoked squash tacos, three sisters veggie bowl, blue corn waffles, and prickly pear limeade.


It took me months to get a reservation for Café Ohlone in Berkeley. It’s at least a three-hour experience with each course described in its cultural context and the entire group eating on the same schedule. Bring a hat and dark glasses because you will be sitting in a beautiful sunny outdoor space with redwood stools and tables. When Suzy and I were there in February, they served a winter menu with rose hip and huckleberry tea, crab and oysters as an appetizer (vegan salmon was the alternative), a wonderful watercress and sorrel salad with berries and nuts, a seaweed sipping sauce as a palate cleanser, venison, mushrooms, a savory bread pudding, then rose hip tart and chia seed brownie for dessert. It was beautiful and meaningful.


I enjoyed these restaurants so much that I also looked outside of California and went to:

· Owamni by The Sioux Chef in Minneapolis with Allan. We had corn tacos (Allan's favorite), wild rice porridge with dried currants and hazelnuts, blue corn bread with Lakota squash preserves, and several other fun and unique ways of putting together American ingredients. More information on The Sioux Chef is found here: https://sioux-chef.com/about/

· Kai at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass in Phoenix with Carmyn. We made our reservations months in advance and enjoyed the tasting menu of pee-posh garden salad and pea & trout soup, braised rabbit with gnocchi and foie gras with cherries, bison and barramundi, a cheese course with fry bread, and desserts that we took with us because we had eaten so much.

· Off the Rez in Seattle with Michele, Yuh-Chi, Paul, and Carmyn. Michele had a bison Indian taco and a honey frybread. Yuh-Chi and Paul split veggie chili, BBQ pork, and bison Indian tacos. Carmyn had a breakfast Indian taco on frybread and lemon curd frybread. I had a veggie chili Indian taco. We all split the sweet potato salad, the coleslaw, and the quinoa salad. Then someone who worked there brought us three more tacos (bison and pork) because someone had ordered them and then not picked them up. This was such a fun and unique experience.

· Mitsitam Cafe at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. with Mom, Dad, Suzy, and Kristen. Suzy had the chicken quesadilla. Kristen ate the bison burger. Mom, Dad, and I tried the four different salads: wild rice, quinoa tabouli, Brussel sprouts, and three bean.

· I still have Native American restaurants in Colorado, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and New Mexico on my list to try and I would love to hear about more. For some Native American recipes, see here: https://www.powwows.com/25-favorite-native-american-recipes/


Most of what I read is from the United States, so I’m narrowing my list here to Native American literature and that from the American Renaissance. My first and favorite Native American author is Sherman Alexie. I heard him speak at La Sierra University years ago. He is so funny and engaging, so I read several of his books including The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Another book that touched me is The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. It’s the first book I have read set in the pandemic. It brought me back to how scared we were in 2020. While I was in Minnesota, I visited Erdrich’s bookstore and bought another one of her books, The Night Watchman. It was also excellent.


A shocking book has the true story of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. I read it with one of my book groups and I plan to see the movie when it comes out in October. Heidi recommends In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall III. Where the Red Fern Grows was written by a Cherokee and filmed in that part of the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_13AAdoVM


The American Renaissance is the time period in the mid 1800s in which Americans found a unique voice. Some examples are:

· Moby Dick by Herman Melville: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701

· House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77

· Walden by Henry David Thoreau: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205


For Fourth of July, I rewatched National Treasure and Hamilton, both on DisneyPlus. Then I watched Smoke Signals, based on a Sherman Alexie book (Heidi recommended it): https://pluto.tv/en/on-demand/movies/6231120aa46b5d0013f79180


Additional American movies that are available free online are:


For uniquely American music, I could listen to jazz, gospel, or country; I could find Elvis, The Eagles, or Michael Jackson on YouTube; but I’m listening to songs my grandpa used to sing, like:

· I Went to the Animal Fair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q3EmqLX7GE


There is so much to do in the United States! I’ve been to every state. Kaitlin and Andrea are trying to get to every state before they turn thirty and Kaitlin only has nine to go! Andrea has a life goal to make it to every national park. There are only 63. I think it is doable. Check here for details: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/us-national-parks-popularity/#more-41858


I always love to see more! I hope for a time when broad travel gives us new perspectives. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in the United States and throughout the world.

 
 
 

Recent Posts

See All

Comments

Post: Blog2_Post

©2020 by Travel the World (while staying at home). Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page