Scents and Sensibility

The loss of smell brings an unexpected gift

By Bridgette A. Lacy

Maybe I should have taken more time to smell the fragrant rosemary in my yard. Or I should have soaked in my almond-scented bubble bath more often. Perhaps, I should have savored the sweetness of my Uncle Jack’s red roses instead of assuming they would always be there for me.

Nineteen years ago, when I lost my sense of smell, my ability to relish those simple pleasures went away. I never thought that at 37 years old, my olfactory nerve would be stolen by a benign brain tumor the size of a tennis ball.

Even when my neurosurgeon told me that losing my ability to smell was one of the side effects of brain surgery, the reality of what that meant didn’t sink in. How could it? After all, I was facing life or death.

Before the tumor — and the surgery that saved, but forever changed — my life, I was a smell-centered person. Smells resonated with me. They had the ability to set my mood or even shape my attitude about ordinary, everyday activities. A soak in that aromatic bath soothed me at the end of a long day.
A sip of orange, cinnamon-flavored tea calmed me in the evening. The sensuous waft of the lavender  growing in my front yard delighted me as I rocked back and forth on the porch. I appreciated the world so much more, in part through my nostrils.

At first, I thought I had survived the surgery with my sense of smell intact. I even complained to a nurse that my ICU room stank. Phantom odors, I guess.

I returned home from the hospital in October 1999 after five-and-a-half hours of surgery. I tried to recover and return to my old routine while also adjusting to the loss of sight in my right eye. It took me awhile to understand why my pot roasts burned to a crisp in the oven. I had always used the aroma floating through the house as a sign the roast was close to done. Sometimes my mother would visit to find a banana or some other fruit rotting on the countertop that I had forgotten about.

I didn’t truly realize I couldn’t smell until I received two gift baskets that included scented candles, a fragrant bubble bath and soap. As I sat in a chair, a friend commented on the wonderful aroma of one of the candles. She said it smelled like an autumn day. I inhaled to find no scent of anything under my nose. Nothing.

I ran into the kitchen and opened a bottle of Lysol. Nothing.

I ran outside and snipped a piece of rosemary. Nothing.

I was crushed as the realization of what this meant pressed upon me like the weight of a barbell.

At first, I hid the gift baskets in a closet. I couldn’t bear to see them and risk being reminded of what I was missing. I shoved them behind the door and tried not to think about them. 

Months later, when my scalp began to heal from the trauma and incisions of surgery, I realized I couldn’t even get my typical natural high from the hints of coconut and honey in my freshly-washed hair. Shampooing my hair had always been a reassuring, sensory delight. Somehow, it just made me feel better. My aunt would often say she knew when I was at my mother’s house visiting because she could smell my shampoo in the air. Now, that was gone too.

After all that had happened to me, I couldn’t even sniff my way through recovery. It was hard knowing I couldn’t smell my own body. I was changed. It was devastating but I knew I had to find ways to cope with the loss.

It took time, but eventually, I finally mustered the courage to retrieve the contents of those gift baskets. I needed the closet space, but also I was determined not to let perfectly good lavender-scented body wash go to waste. Even if I couldn’t enjoy the benefits of their aroma, I still wanted to use them.  I am a practical soul at heart.

I started to remember how much I loved it when people commented on how nice I smelled, whether it was from a scented soap layered with a matching lotion or a tiny dab of White Linen perfume behind my ear. The kind words from others about my personal fragrance became the ultimate compliment. I liked that family, friends and colleagues appreciated that about me even though the same experience was unfortunately lost to me. And so, I happily put the gift scents and soaps to good use as they were originally intended.

The hardest part of moving about the world without a sense of smell is explaining my loss to people. It just doesn’t seem to register to most that such a condition may even exist. In the course of any given week, some unsuspecting person may say: “Smell this. Ooh, that smells good, doesn’t it?” The same people are pretty shocked when I reveal that scent does not register with me. Yes, it is a little awkward. However, my loss of smell has actually forced me to relish and rely on my remaining senses.

I cherish the fact that I can still taste. Bitter, sweet, salt and tart still delight my tongue. My love of good food and my affinity for sharing it with others inspired me to write my first cookbook. Sunday Dinner, a Savor the South Cookbook from UNC Press, published in September 2015, was a triumph for me. It’s been very well-received. (Editor’s note: It was a finalist for the Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize awarded by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.)

I set out to make Sunday Dinner a life-affirming celebration of recipes, as well as a tribute to the value of meals shared and prepared with those you love. It highlights some of my most endearing memories, many of them intricately and lovingly tied to smells and thoughts of home.

The recipes call to mind my time spent in the garden and kitchen with my maternal grandparents. When I was young, I spent many a Sunday afternoon taking in the familiar smell and sizzle of Grandma frying chicken and the sight of Papa’s Nilla Wafer-brown pound cake cooling on the back porch. His cakes always released their own distinct, irresistible aroma that filled the air.

When I’m standing in my own kitchen recreating these time-honored dishes I grew up with, I sometimes think about my sense of smell, or rather the lack of it. As quickly as those thoughts appear, I redirect them to focus on the loved ones who originally created these meals and how much my family continues to influence me in and out of the kitchen.

As the years have passed, every once in a while, I experience a smell memory. It’s a curious thing. Once, in a grocery store, while walking past a display of country ham in sealed vacuum packs, I remembered the smell of country ham frying in a pan. It was so real I could practically taste it. Another time, driving home from a day spent with a male friend and his mother, I suddenly felt like I could smell spring in the air. The car windows were down and I remembered how the scents of that season came rushing in with the crisp smell of freshly-cut grass combined with the sweetness of one of my Tropicana, long-stemmed roses. These smell memories come flooding back with such crystal clarity, I almost feel like I really did smell something.

When that happens, I’m not mad. I’m not upset. I just remind myself that while that part of me is gone, so much more remains. Then, I simply and resolutely smile, take a very deep breath and thank God.

Come íní Get It!

The following dishes are one of many evocative of home and family:

Mamaís Meaty
Crab Cakes

I request my mother’s crab cakes almost every time I return to my childhood home. These meaty crab cakes flavored with Old Bay Seasoning are far better than any I’ve had at a restaurant. They are crunchy on the outside from the cornmeal and moist on the inside. My mother serves them on Martin’s potato rolls with potato salad. There will be no leftovers with these. In fact, get to the table fast. These won’t last.

Makes 8 servings

1 pound fresh jumbo lump or lump crabmeat

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

1⁄2 medium white onion, finely chopped

1⁄2 green bell pepper, finely chopped

2 tablespoons Hellmann’s mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning, or more, to taste

1⁄3 cup Italian-seasoned bread crumbs

Cornmeal for dredging

2 cups vegetable oil (more or less, depending on the size of your skillet)

Place the crabmeat in a large bowl. Remove the cartilage (lump crabmeat doesn’t have much). Add the celery, onion, green pepper, mayonnaise, Old Bay, and bread crumbs and stir together gently with your hands so as not to break up the crab too much. Add more mayonnaise if the mixture looks too dry.

Shape the mixture into eight patties about the size of the palm of your hand. If you are cooking the crab cakes immediately, dredge them in the cornmeal. If not, you can store the crabmeat mixture in a covered container in the refrigerator until ready to cook (up to 2 hours) and dredge them just before cooking.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Don’t use too much oil; it should reach only halfway up the side of the crab cakes. Gently place the crab cakes in the pan and fry on one side until browned, about 2–3 minutes. Carefully flip over the crab cakes and fry them on the other side until they are golden brown. Drain the cakes on a paper towel and transfer them to a warm platter. Serve with your preferred sauce.

NOTE * Buy the crabmeat the day of or the day before cooking because fresh crabmeat perishes quickly. Jumbo lump or lump crabmeat makes for the best crab cakes. The meat is pricey, but it’s worth it for this special meal.

Estherís Summer
Potato Salad

My mother started making potato salad when she was a girl. The oldest of four children, she made it Sunday after church and would make enough to fill the large vegetable compartment at the bottom of the refrigerator. Her father, my beloved Papa, a blue-collar worker, often carried the potato salad in a mayonnaise jar for his lunch. My mother was a Moore, and many Moore family gatherings were marked by this classic summer salad. “My love of potato salad came from watching my aunt Shirley make it and smelling it in my grandmother’s kitchen,” she says.  The scent of fresh-cut celery, onions and pickles drew her closer to the bowl. “We always ate it when it wasn’t ice cold. That’s why I like it today when it’s just made.”

Makes 6-8 servings

6 medium white potatoes

1 cup chopped celery

1 white onion, chopped

1⁄2 cup pimentos

5–6 sweet pickles, chopped

3 hard-boiled eggs, grated

5 tablespoons Hellman’s mayonnaise

2 teaspoons prepared yellow mustard

2 teaspoons cider vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt and black pepper, to taste

Paprika for garnish

Wash and peel the potatoes and cut them in small, uniform chunks. Put the potatoes in a pot and cover them with water. Boil until fork-tender, about 20–25 minutes. Drain the potatoes in a colander and let cool, about 30 minutes or so. You want them warm but not hot.

Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl and add the celery, onions, pimentos and pickles.

In a separate bowl, combine the grated eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, and sugar. Taste it. Adjust the seasonings to your taste.

Gently combine this mixture with the potato salad.  Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with paprika and serve.  OH

Recipes from SUNDAY DINNER: a Savor the South Cookbook by Bridgette A. Lacy. Copyright © 2015 by Bridgette A. Lacy. Used by permission of the University of North Carolina Press. www.uncpress.org

Bridgette A. Lacy served as a longtime features and food writer for The News & Observer in Raleigh. She is also a contributor to The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

All the Pretty Horses

Jolly holidays on our regions local merry-go-rounds

By Annie Ferguson

It’s hard to deny the magical aura of carousels. Their sheer beauty and craftsmanship harken back to times long gone, bestowing upon them an other-worldly aspect. And who doesn’t remember the Disney film version of Mary Poppins, where Mary’s, Bert’s and the Banks children’s steeds break free from a roundabout to join a foxhunt? Add a little enchanting music, some twinkling lights and the mechanical whir of going round and round, and suddenly you’re transported back into a simpler, gentler era, if only for a few minutes.

On vacations, my family makes it a point to seek out carousels whenever possible — even if it’s just a family visit to my hometown of Salisbury, location of Haden’s Carousel at Dan Nicholas Park. We’ve gone round in circles in farther-flung places such as Boston’s common, Disney World in Orlando, Florida; Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. We’ve even ridden the carousel in Hersheypark, the largest I’ve ever seen.

Leading up to our trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, my then 4-year-old innocently asked, “Will the carousel be made of chocolate?” No, but it rotates to the soundtrack from a Wurlitzer model 153 military band organ.

For our children — and many others — carousels offered life’s first theme park rides. Our oldest has graduated to seeking thrills on some of the more heart-stopping roller coasters at the amusement parks we visit, yet like her parents, she’s still drawn to merry-go-rounds everywhere we go.  As luck would have it, we don’t have to wait to go on vacation from the Triad to enjoy kinder, gentler rides now that warm weather has rolled around. An abundance of carousels await merry-go-round lovers within a 40-mile radius of Greensboro. Transport yourself to a footloose and fancy-free time this summer on one of our area carousels

One of my favorites is the Three-Row Dentzel Menagerie Carousel at Burlington’s City Park. I’ve ridden it dozens of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the same song played twice (though I never tire of hearing “Carolina in the Morning”). The exact date of the carousel’s construction — or its first location — is unknown, but it was likely built sometime between 1906–1910 at the Dentzel Carousel Company on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia. Its mirrors are stamped March and April of 1913, and the bottom of the wooden platform reads May 1914. Another fun fact: One of the rounding boards is a copy of a 1903 Remington painting.

The early 1900s were known as the Golden Era of carousels, and it was common for an older model to be sent back to its manufacturer to be refurbished or recycled. For this reason, it’s difficult to authenticate official dates for many carousels still operating in the United States. Their familiar construction, a series of horses or animals mounted on poles to a rotating board, are a revision of the earliest carousels that appeared at fairs in the early 18th century. These usually consisted of flying horse figures suspended in the air, while some poor beast of burden — or groups of people — generated centrifugal force by pulling the contraption from a chain while walking circles, or even hand-cranking it. The entire concept has roots in Middle Eastern jousting and cavalry drills from the Crusades that required a high level of equestrian skill.

The Dentzel, which the city of Burlington acquired in 1948 from Carl Utoff, owner of the Forest Park Amusement Park in Genoa, Ohio, exemplifies the uncanny craftsmanship that German and French artisans applied to carousels in the 19th century. It features forty-six animals — horses, cats, ostriches, rabbits, pigs, a deer, giraffe, lion and tiger, as well as two chariots — hand-carved out of bass and poplar wood. The Dentzel carvers, like their predecessors, achieved a high level of realism, carving the veins and muscles into the animal figures and fashioning their eyes from glass. Their tails are from real horsehair. The precision mechanism of the Carousel, like a cuckoo clock or Volkswagen Beetle engine, is a testament to German engineering with its battery of bearings and gears and an unusual clutch system.

In the early 1980s, as part of an extensive restoration, an army of artists and volunteers was dispatched to strip and repaint the animals and the rounding boards, which revealed original tableaus underneath cracked outer layers of paint. With its made over exterior and rejuvenated gear system, the Denzel bears the moniker of one of the “newest old” carousels around, and entices new generations of riders when it opens Easter weekend through the fall, its season culminating in a two-day Carousel Festival every September.

Opening a little later in the spring is the merry-go-round in City Lake Park in Jamestown near High Point. Built by San Antonio Roller Works in the early 1960s, it was designed as a traveling carousel, and rests on a trailer that can be moved from site to site. But why move it, with picturesque City Lake as its dramatic backdrop? Though not as historic or elaborate as the Dentzel in Burlington, High Point’s carousel still draws legions of kids, who line up for turns with an all-day pass on the roundabout’s wooden deck, bearing sixteen horses, and two benches. From May to October, the number of riders has swelled to 25,000 people annually, since High Point bought the carousel in 1979.

Farther afield, you can take a spin on the Endangered Species Carousel at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, which was designed by The Chance Morgan Ride Company and opened at the park in 2006. The polar bear figure was specifically designed for our zoo, and the rest of the ride features lights, old-time music, as well as zebras, bears, sea lions, elephants and gorillas. Among other animals, you can go round and round accompanied by a spinning tub shaped like a bird’s nest or a swan in a bench seat that accommodates wheelchairs. All of the animals are shaped from fiberglass and hand-painted. It’s a great place to take a break from your North America and Africa walkabouts.

Unless you’d like a taste of Venice at Winston-Salem’s Hanes Mall, of all places. On the exterior panels of its Venetian Carousel are scenes of canals and gondolas from the confection-like Italian city. Ride on any of the three rows of horses and a spinning tub. Winston is also home to Wayne Ketner, who during his retirement years has been carving all kinds of figures including carousel animals. “I always liked carousels because they’re colorful,” he recently told an interviewer. The more intricate and detailed the project, the more the self-taught artist enjoys it. Some take as much as six months to complete.

And where does Greensboro fit into this merry-go-roundup? Well, hold your horses: A year-round, custom-made carousel illustrating the Gate City’s history has been in the works for about ten years. Now possibly targeted to open within the next year. Initial plans are to make the Greensboro ride enclosed in a glass structure during winter months, similar to Jane’s Carousel in New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park. The force behind its creator is the Greensboro Rotary Club which plans to give the carousel to Senior Resources to operate, and proceeds will go — fittingly —  to the organization’s Mobile Meals program. Though a permanent site is yet to be determined (somewhere downtown or at the Greensboro Science Center are leading candidates) the ride will feed not only hungry mouths, but the imaginations of the young and young at heart — just as carousels have for centuries.  OH

One of the oldest carousels in the nation, the Watch Hill Flying Horses, is on Annie Ferguson’s vacation bucket list. Located along the seaside in Westerly, Rhode Island and originally powered by a horse and built circa 1894, the carousel’s horses are suspended from above instead of being attached to the floor.