Pennsylvania – Life In A Word

Confection Objections

Have you ever taken a bite of something and thought, “Nope, doesn’t taste right”? Gluten-free foods come to mind. Or salsa on a tortilla chip after the salsa’s turned south. There’s nothing more unnerving than expecting one taste and getting another. But at least with gluten-free (and bad salsa) you’re sort of prepared to be disappointed. The same can’t be said with more “sacred” foods. Like chocolate.

I ate my fair share of Hershey’s bars as a kid but once Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came along I switched my preference. Reese’s somehow developed the perfect blend of peanut butter and milk chocolate into a convenient cup where you get both tastes in every bite. The two-cup packs never convinced me to save one for later, but they did give the impression I was getting more for my money.

Some things are better left alone… but Reese’s never got the message. Instead, over the years they’ve produced endless varieties on the original peanut butter cup. Before you knew it we had a choice of sizes (including “Big Cup”), fillings (peanut butter and banana creme? Yuck!), and candy coatings, as well as holiday shapes like milk chocolate hearts, eggs, pumpkins, and bells, all with the peanut butter filling. Finally, Reese’s Pieces joined the list, made infinitely more popular by their supporting role in the blockbuster film E.T.

The problem with variations on a Reese’s is the altered ratio of milk chocolate to peanut butter. I would’ve enjoyed standing in ole man Reese’s shoes back in the 1920s when he taste-tested his way to perfection. He should’ve put a patent on it, because too much milk chocolate or too much peanut butter just doesn’t taste right to me. But at least we’re talking about milk chocolate here. Now for the real injustice…

The H.B. Reese Candy Company became a subsidiary of Hershey in 1963. Their peanut butter cups instantly became Hershey’s bestseller (even surpassing the classic Hershey Bar). But recently, subtly, quietly, Hershey committed a mortal sin of the candy world. Rather than leaving well enough alone they changed the ingredients of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Soon to come, there will no longer be any milk chocolate in a Reese’s, at least not by proper definition. Instead, you’ll indulge in a “chocolate-flavored coating”. In the world of food, we all know flavoring is just another word for “artificial”.

This little con of Hershey’s was brought to the headlines by none other than a grandson of H.B. Reese (and who can claim better peanut butter cup credentials than that?). Brad Reese is taking on Hershey for straying from the original recipe. Granted, the price of cocoa beans – the basis of real chocolate – has gone through the roof the last few years, forcing companies to get creative with size, price, or ingredients. I just wish Hershey offered me the option to still purchase the real thing.

I’ve already noticed how Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are shrinking. The originals were 0.9 ounces. Then they went to 0.8 ounces, then 0.75, and finally to the 0.7 juniors they are today. If Hershey keeps this up, you’ll start thinking the “original” is a “miniature”. I can make peace with shrinkage as long as the milk chocolate/peanut butter ratio stays the same. But now the words “milk chocolate” will be removed from the orange wrapper. Ask the FDA and they’ll say, “Sorry, “chocolate-flavored coating” is not the same as “milk chocolate”.

I’m joining Brad Reese’s campaign to restore Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to their original composition. Some things are just worth their weight in gold. Not that I’d pay gold for a peanut butter cup, but show me the original size, ratio, and ingredients and I might just be tempted.

Some content sourced from the NBC News article, “Grandson of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is in pieces over missing milk chocolate”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

It’s (Not) Just a House

Let’s agree to disagree today (one of my favorite catchphrases). You see things one way while I see them another. Perspective, angle, viewpoint – choose your word – we all come to our conclusions on different roads. Which is ironic, because four of us came to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater on the same road three weeks ago.

I blogged about Fallingwater in Perfect Harmony a couple of years ago. The post was meant to be a primer on what makes the house an iconic work of American architecture. At the time I was also building LEGO’s version, which is as close as I thought I’d ever get to the real thing. Today I can say I’ve checked an up close and personal visit off my bucket list.

Fair warning: there’s no convenient route to travel to Fallingwater, which shouldn’t surprise you about a house hidden in the forest. You’ll drive ninety minutes southeast of Pittsburgh on two-lane roads, some in desperate need of repair. And watch carefully for the driveway entry; it kind of pops up out of nowhere.

You won’t get to see Fallingwater without booking a reservation beforehand. Despite my dismay in last week’s post about required reservations in Rome they make a ton of sense with Fallingwater. It’s a small house after all, so it’d be overwhelming if visitors just showed up and walked in. We took the final tour on a Saturday and our guide said 600 others had already been through the house earlier in the day.

Thanks to the resources of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy (which is still buying up property around Fallingwater), the experience begins before you ever see the house itself. The driveway wanders past a guard house to a modest parking lot. From there you walk to a beautiful Visitors Center nestled in the trees. A central outdoor seating area is surrounded by a small museum of Wright’s work, a cafe, and a gift shop that offers much more than shirts and postcards. Frankly, the Visitors Center is a nice little work of architecture all by itself.

The walk to the house begins down a kind of woodsy nature trail, so you can see the rocks, trees, and other materials used to construct Fallingwater in their native forms. What impressed me most about the tour is how you never see the house until you’re practically at its front door, making for a dramatic reveal. Your walk descends through the canyon of Bear Run (the river over which Fallingwater is perched) until the house’s signature cantilevered forms emerge from the dense forest.

As I described it in Perfect Harmony, Fallingwater looks like it was “constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches”. After seeing the house in person, I wouldn’t change a word of that statement. The design is a marvel, not only in how the indoor/outdoor spaces integrate with their natural surroundings, but also in how it was built as if floating over the waterfall below.

Enough with the fawning over Fallingwater, am I right? After the four of us took the tour we had a chance to process what we’d seen, and my wife’s and brother’s reactions were clear: it’s just a house. It’s not even a nice house, with its low ceilings, dark spaces, and anything-but-cozy use of rock, concrete, and glass. Fallingwater is hard to get to, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. And with its hundredth birthday not far off, everything about the house has a decidedly dated feel.

I did my best to explain why I love Fallingwater. My sister-in-law, who appreciates everything about the arts, understood the significance of the house. She “got” what Frank Lloyd Wright was conveying in the design, and allowed the sacrifice of comfortable living for the sake of the indoor-outdoor interplay. She probably took in the house the way she would a painting at the Louvre. My wife and my brother, not so much. For them the ninety minute tour was probably sixty minutes too long.

Fallingwater promotes the thought: “one person’s junk is another’s treasure”. My treasure is architecture (so much so I studied it in college). Yours is probably something entirely different. It fascinates me how my brother spent years and years of research, consulting, and money to restore a 1960s vintage Ferrari in his back garage. To me, cars get you from Point A to Point B; a mere convenience. My brother could spend hours explaining why his Ferrari goes worlds beyond that statement.

Still lingering on my bucket list is a visit to Paris, where among the city’s many wonders stands the Eiffel Tower. I want to see this engineering/architectural masterpiece from far and near, and of course, ascend it’s many levels to fully experience the structure itself. For now however, I’ll have to settle for building LEGO’s version. As with Fallingwater, we can all agree to disagree. The Eiffel is (not) just a tower.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Perfect Harmony

In the toe of my wife’s Christmas stocking this year, I nestled a small gift to help her sleep. It’s a travel version of one of those sound machines, where you can dial up anything from rain to ocean waves to lull you off to Never Never Land. You can even mimic a waterfall, which would be my personal choice. After all, it’s the same sound the Kaufmann family enjoyed for years at their stunning retreat in the Pennsylvania forest, southeast of Pittsburgh. Seeing this famous house is an entry on my bucket list. Yes, one of these days I will make the trek to Fallingwater.

If you’re old enough to remember, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, you know the song’s about more than just apple trees and honey bees. It’s about “perfect harmony”, which is how anyone would describe Fallingwater. This beautiful structure is exactly as named: a house on top of a waterfall. It is considered one of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest achievements. The design is a melding of interior and exterior spaces, a principle borrowed from the Japanese. Fallingwater is a building, yes, but it’s more often described as “… harmony between man and nature”.

If you know anything about Wright, you know he was an eccentric architect. When the Kaufmann’s called to stop by his studio for a progress report, Wright hadn’t even begun the drawings. Yet by the time they arrived two hours later, Wright had completed the entire design. This production under pressure reminds me of author Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a novel written in just nine days and considered one of Bradbury’s greatest works.

The genius of Fallingwater’s design is in the details, or perhaps the lack of them. The house is constructed of reinforced concrete, stone, and glass. Its interior spaces are small and dark, encouraging more time spent outdoors. The sound of water can be heard everywhere, whether from the stream and waterfall below or from the natural spring allowed to drip along one of the hallways. Fallingwater’s distinctive cantilevered terraces are meant to resemble nearby rock formations, extending in every direction to the forested surroundings. Its dramatic perch on top of the waterfall is hidden from the approach to the house, lending to a sense of modesty.

Fallingwater brings the outdoors in wherever possible, and its best example may be a ledge-shaped rock in the living room, left undisturbed in its original location. The surrounding stone floor is waxed while the ledge is left plain and dull, creating the look of a rock protruding from a stream. A stair descends from the same room, several steps down to a platform whose function is to simply admire the stream. From photos, you’d believe Fallingwater was constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches.

Today, Fallingwater is a National Historic Landmark. You can tour the house and grounds with the purchase of a ticket at the visitor’s information website. If I were to visit, it’d be a ten-hour drive from where I live. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Instead, I will build Fallingwater; literally. It is a model in the LEGO Architecture series and I am lucky to own a copy. As I tell my family, there are only two LEGO models I’ve ever wanted to build: the Grand Piano (completed last year and blogged about here), and Fallingwater. It’s a new year and it’s time to get started.

I’ll bring you along for the ride as my miniature Fallingwater takes shape in my home office. You can look for updates at the end of the next several posts. Eight hundred pieces from now, when all is said and done, I may borrow that little sleep aid I gave my wife for Christmas. After all, no house built on top of a waterfall would be complete without the sounds to go with it. Remember, we’re talking (er, singing) about perfect harmony here.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.