cattle tales

When it comes to cows, I'm with the Hindu faith--there is something god-like in cattle. I don't know if it's their supreme docility, in combination with their massive strength and size that makes them seem worthy of reverence, or whether it's the magical way they occupy a farmer's field like an art installation or piece of sculpture.

This lesser quality has obsessed me ever since I was a little girl. Riding in the backseat of the car, as we drove through the countryside to my grandparents, I remember being transfixed by the quiet beauty and power of cows in the landscape. My mother taught me the various names and breeds of dairy cows. By the time I was three, I could rhyme off and identify Jersey, Guernsey and Holstein. Creamy Jerseys were the prettiest. But the graphic black and white of Holsteins were always my favourite.

This giant toy replica of a cow has a sweet face, a working head and tail, a bell that rings when you move its head up and down and a convincing rubber udder that used to work. I found it at one of my favourite antique dealer's in Toronto--a place called Abraham's that recently burnt down, but according to a small sign out front , is supposed to rise again one day from the ashes. Abraham is a mysterious individual, with an odd taste for things that I too find compelling. He had taxidermy on the walls and old medical supplies long before it was fashionable. Once when I came in looking for a beat-up Persian library style carpet, he led me into a back room full to the ceiling with rugs that looked like props from a Merchant Ivory film. Anyhow, Abraham had found this large plastic Holstein from an old kindergarten, where it was an instructional tool for presumably big-city children like me to learn about cows and how they worked.

When I told Abraham that I just had to have it, he was pleased because he loved it too. Now it sits on my family room credenza, guarding the books and family photos like a visitor from the country and another, gentler time. Here, in this photo, Susan has given him his field back, and it's a lovely one, with gently rolling, tilled hills of wrapping paper and a friendly paper sun.

KvH

after the champagne

Champagne is a puzzle. Effervescent and frothy, it's also the stuff of ritual, tradition and ceremony. My father picked up a trick in London for opening a bottle of champagne that involves swiping the neck off the bottle with the edge of a kitchen knife. The idea is to emulate the Napoleonic soldiers, who supposedly opened it in this dashing way--presumably often, maybe on horseback?, in breeches?--but with a swashbuckling sabre, as opposed to a kitchen knife. The practice has rather taken off amongst our family and friends. Whenever it's a big occasion or birthday, the birthday child or honouree is now obliged to sabre off the champagne into the yard in a dramatic decapitation of the green chilled bottle that is followed by a triumphant and ecstatic fountain of bubbly. My son, Philip, is always close behind with a flute to catch the drops.



After the champagne, and there should always be as much champagne as possible, my husband's family, who is famously restless and likes to fiddle at the table after long dinners and lunches, has a practice of crafting tiny French chairs with the fine, braided wire casing of the cork. Here are four tiny interpretations of a cafe chair, which of course means four bottles of French champagne.



My 85 year-old mother in law, born to an old family in Riga, who is still famously fiddly and restless as a teenager, has the family's best gift for this practice. In the old days, they had to amuse themselves with such tabletop challenges. She knows more games than anyone--and never lets one of her grandchildren win. She is also prone to making tiny, fairy-sized golden goblets with the champagne foil.


KvH