Fun with Gud Fud

Cooking and baking are perhaps my favorite distractions/adventures. Sometimes it is a catastrophe, but it is mainly successful, and sometimes astonishingly so. Like almond butter cookies. Using my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe, I substituted almond butter for peanut butter and absolutely love it. I wonder how substituting the melted butter with olive oil would work out . . . Hmmm.

I've been on a bit of sauté kick . . . okay, so it's just about the only way I cook anything, stove top. Maybe it has to do with Spain: stove-top with olive oil. A la plancha. Even artichokes. I find it to be so much more flavorful than steaming. But Spaniards also boil veggies . . . ick  : P And of course, I love love love the colors. 

Zucchini-Shroom-Black Bean Quesadilla à la Dublin

Corn Tortilla, Dubliner Cheese, Black Beans, Sautéed Mushrooms and Zucchini . . . mmmm

Lemon-Ginger Stash Tea

Although I wasn't quite able to capture the colors, the orange radiated like the sun from the middle into the bright yellow.

Sautéed Vegetables

Aren't they so pretty?! I threw in the broccoli, then the onion, then grey squash and shrooms, and for the last bit the spinach (to keep it from wilting too much). Cut up a tomato for the top and grated a bit o' parmesan, and ate with a heated whole wheat pita spread with baba ganouj.

¡Buen provecho!

Call of the Kitchen

Back home, so where do I go? To the kitchen. (At home and for employment. Work starts Saturday.)
Annie, what's for dinner?
Who me?
Once the big bro gets home:
So, uh, Annie, I noticed there aren't any cookies . . . hint, hint.
And I do enjoy it, so I have been fairly productive without many hints. Actually, I just kind of took over. But here are some highlights:

Bread--flour, water, leavening, salt

Pizza--the grody piece with the bites taken out was pear, onion and garlic, mushroom, and gouda. Generally I prefer pear with brie, but with the heat the flavors of the gouda and pear come together quite nicely. And I had a mushroom excess or I wouldn't have added those, but it worked out well, says I. The full pizza is veggies (spinach, onion, garlic, zucchini, mushroom, tomato) and goat cheese.

Biscotti--currants heated in orange juice, the dough flavored with orange and lemon zest, lemon extract, and cinnamon, mmmm. Breakfast: coffee and biscotti and fresh morning air.

Cooookies. This izAmerica. Home of cookies. Peanut butter cookies a la Annie: plus oats and cinnamon.

 

¡Buen provecho!

Santa Semana Murcia

Why Murcia for Holy Week? For Santa Semana en España, people think Sevilla, not simply because it also starts with an S and is an emblem of Spain for its colors and life, for the bull fighting and Flamenco, for the hot spring and summer days filled with música gitana and stereotypical slides of Spain but for the emotion that accompanies the heat and music and holy week processions.

But I chose Murcia, which is home to the great baroque sculptor Salzillo, much smaller, and much closer. And I think I chose wisely. This year many processions were cancelled due to weather, but in Murcia only one was rained out, and I could actually see without being suffocated these beautiful scultpures in their full glory with fresh flowers on the shoulders of the penitents.

What did I write in the moment??

23 abril 2011

Spring Break--for the first time since high school, spring break is where it belongs, Easter. So where is Waldo? I don't know (and frankly don't care, he was always a little too stripy for me) but I am in Murcia, in a grossly overpriced Taperia, so I'm going to get all the mileage possible out of this setting.

So why Murcia. Because it is home to the works of the baroque sculptor Salziollo, which you can see in full glory during Semana Santa (holy week--it just sounds better in Spanish with the alliteration), in the midst of awing processions. This evening was cancelled due to rain, unfortunately, but even if they lack the characteristic charisma of Cordoba, Cádiz, Sevilla, and Granada, there is something overwhelming and awing in the beauty of the colors, the care, and the countless steps.

Then Easter Sunday's lunch/dinner--

Swiss chard, tomatoes, eggs, bell pepper, eggplant, olives, bread, Murcian wine, queso manchego, garlic . . . mmm . . .

post Easter--El Camino de Santiago, give me a bit, I am a student, you know :)

Mi mamá

By starting a blog, one obtains certain rights, the majority of which I have not used or abused—such as the political rants right, the this country rant, etc. Today I choose: the bragging right . . .

I have the best Spanish mamá on earth. Not questionable. Her name is Elena. We laugh, we mimic eachother, we rub off on each other, she cooks expertly . . .

[This here is the paella we had up at the casita Sunday (with the wine we drank)

 and the almuerzo valenciano—peppers, fish, eggs]

. . . she has her own shop, she takes Sundays to work at her casita, taking care of the fields, the house is delightlfully decorated with paintings that she has picked out over the years, she only buys produce from the market on Fridays because its fresh (as opposed to the supermarket that has produce everyday), she takes pride in who she is and how she presents herself but does not obsess . . . I could go on and on.

She’s not perfect—there are times I wonder what she is smoking (other than nicotine)—but she is so genuine and open and above all alive. She glows with life, even when it smacks her in the face, her anger, disappointment, hurt, etc. is alive and honest.

She told me the other day that she sees me as a writer, not as a teacher. I succeeded in not scowling at her, because for all my antisocial tendencies and lack of vocal projection, it’s a bit of a dream I’ve had (why I don’t know) for, oh, the past eight years. Don’t tell me you don’t see it. Of course I can be a teacher. Bug off.

The other day her sister Pepa was over and Elena told her I always tell her that in a couple of years she’ll remember me in her country . . . oh, that woman in Spain, she wasn’t well. But she’ll remember . . . and then after reminding me that she’s anti-technology so the letters had better come by regular mail, said that she’d come to my publishing when I’m an author. My turn to laugh—ha ha, I write circles, darling. It is rare that anything important comes out understandable (like essays for final grades—instead of that A I was hoping for there is a note asking what on earth I was trying to say and that I please explain it soon). Tsch tsch tsch—you can do anything you want in this life, isn’t that right Pepa?

The following morning I actually felt that way. I had this lovely image of writing and owning a restaurant in my mind. Will it happen, probably not. But maybe some day, you’ll find a restaurant with one cook who happens to be an author :) When I’m not cooking or wandering about in my underpants drinking coffee and writing, I’ll be off biking or surfing (I’ll learn someday), or simply floating in the big blue sea.

To come:

--Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Murcia (Holy Wednesday through Sunday)

--an attempt at the Camino de Santiago between Pamplona and Logroño . . . which, if the walking doesn’t go well, La Rioja isn’t a bad place to be stranded . . .

Castell de Castells: La Casita

This weekend, Sunday actually, Elena, her son Vicente and his wife Adriana, their children Alisa and Vicente, and I went to "the casita," in Castell de Castells, where Elena has olive trees, orange trees, and etc. To be brief: it was lovely. Elena made arroz al horno (rice cooked in the oven--with all sorts of tastiness) and I made bread--which was also cooked in "el horno," and we worked together cleaning up the fields, picking violets, cooking . . . lovely. Check it out:

Not the everyday oven, eh?

Calamares y Caña: El ser madrileño

Okay, so I’ll never be madrileña (a Madrid native), even if I were to move in tomorrow and spend the rest of my life working on it, it would take more than the luck of the Irish, dynamism of California, and a blessing from every other label I have ever fallen under: Mount Hermonites, Christians, Baptists, cyclists, bookworms, Calvinists, etc. It is a different world. Fascinating. Frightening. Wow. And trust me, I saw nothing.

Madrid is llenísimo of people: brimming, dripping, weaving. And with each person comes sound—sonido y ruido—even if it is nothing more than the shuffling of feet or nothing less than setting off a noisemaker that could be likened to an invisible firework. And Madrid is big. Chicago is big. So what? Climbing out of the subway in Chicago, one looks around to orient the station entrance with x, y, and z buildings, and then, looking at the base of the building, begins to follow it up . . . and up and up and up . . . and up. Scared of heights anyone? Madrid is not exactly skyscraper row, but the buildings are not only tall (anything over four stories is tall in my book, and these were at least twice that height), but wide—grandísimo in all respects. Stately, elegant history, everywhere . . .

and everywhere, culture. Culture in every sense. The Palacio Real with baroque madness popping off the walls, street life all day and all night, Indian food, museums: El Prado, La Reina Sofía, Thyssen-Bornemisza; discotecas, “El esplendor del románico” exhibit by Mapfre, calamares y cañas . . .

Who doesn’t want to eat a bocadillo de calamares with a caña? How can’t one be madrileño? Well, I don’t know. I can’t even begin to describe the ambience of Madrid—it was awesome. As in awe. As in overwhelming. Honestly, it scared the living daylights out of me and left me exhausted. But in contemplating the vivacity that keeps the life pumping through the veins of the people and the people pulsing through the city, I started to like it, to be tempted by it . . . tempted to swim through the wakes and ride the waves as if it were the Nor Cal coast. I didn’t have time to put that to the test, but the taste lingers . . . calamares y caña.

Before the adventure in Madrid:

Thursday morning we headed out from Denia to Toledo—I love it, I love it, I love it. Toledo is roped in by the Tajo river (pronounced the same as Tahoe), brimming with history, and surrounded by rolling, rugged hills.

 We visited:

The Cathedral of Toledo—which is awe striking . . . I only saw half before we had to hope onto our next visit, but I was amazed.

La Iglesia de El Salvador (an ancient mosque converted into church, the original pillars are still intact, pretty darn sweet—to be eloquent about it).

La Iglesia de Santo Tomé—where we goggled over El Greco’s masterpiece El entierro del Conde Orgaz.

El Museo Sefardí—a Sephardic Museum (the Sefardí are the Spanish Jews who were expelled various times from Spain—Sephardic communities still exist throughout the world, and families still have the keys to the homes left behind).

Whew! Throughout all of Toledo (which I spent the afternoon wandering through with some friends, because we could, and it is simultaneously cute and wowing with the picturesque streets weaving in and around history) there are Sephardic shops that specialize in el arte demasquinado. It is gorgeous. Generally not one for jewelry, especially not anything fancy and not usually big on gold, I was oohing and awing at every window of these artisans. But I didn’t want to pay fifteen to twenty or so euros for earrings, so I simply bookmarked Toledo as where I spend a bit of money on something superfluous (but so intricate and . . . wow . . .) and selfish when I’m rich . . . ;)

Friday, first stop: Valle de los Caídos. A monument constructed under Franco to himself, really. I’m not up to writing a historical essay here, so I’m going to trust my audience to do the research—but I will say the monument is controversial and if not frequently visited by the tourists, is less visited by the Spaniards, it is part of a rather widely ignored history: the civil war, the dictatorships, the mass graves to which both sides contributed . . .  but it is history, as Ricardo, our bus driver commented (I love hearing him talk about history, current events, lo que sea, he has well-formed and informed opinions built on a foundation of knowledge that is wowing in and of itself), no matter what one thinks of it. The inside of the monument was, like the cathedrals, big and awing, but in a very different way. Perhaps due to the lighting (or lack thereof) and dimensions (it was huge), or the knowledge of how it was construed and to whom under x circumstances, it was not a desirable “wow.” The aura was heavy; the feeling of smallness was a little crushing: directing the vision more to feet than up and around. It was a relief to step outside.

Second stop: El Escorial—I don’t remember it terribly well right now; I’ll have to muse about it later. The library was pretty sweet—I remember that much. And it was huge. It’s where all (well, not all) the Spanish royalty are laid to rest.

Third stop: Segovia. Roman Aqueduct. Just look at the pictures. Isn’t that something? And El Alcázar. Ahaha. Yaz. I’m not sure where to start with that one either. There is a lot of genius involved, but I’ll pull on the pattern theme from before. In the arte hispano-musulmán one will find, rather than paintings of angels, intricate, geometric patterns. These patterns are busy, but not overwhelming, colorful but not clashing. And yall’ll just have to use your imagination, because I cannot put words to what my camera could not capture. These designs, like the Sephardic damasquinado and Celtic patterns, are genius and captivating, but indescribable.

Saturday: Madrid all day. El Palacio Real. Calamaris y caña. Annie wandering Madrid: an exhibit on el arte romanico; a floor of the Thyssen (impressionism, Geiger, Rembrandt, Pissarro, Dyke, etc.); El Prado; Indian food . . . good night.

Sunday: A stroll through el Parque de Buen Retiro and a stop at Segóbriga, Roman ruins. My descriptors are running out, and getting boring (“pretty sweet”), and sleep is in order. I do have classes (no, we don’t just play here, believe it or not). Cheers! 

Adventure in Alicante

Destination: Alicante, Alicante.

Actually, my destination was Valencia with some friends, but I missed the bus. But it was more important to me to sit and eat breakfast with my mamá than try to get out the door.

PS—breakfast was delicious. Pan tostado (she has a toasting pan that she toasted the bread on), which we ate with aceite y sal (olive oil and salt) y café con leche. Mmmm.

Realizing I had missed the bus, I reverted to my earlier plans (before having been invited to Valencia) and caught the 8:20 train to Alicante. Honestly—I did nothing all day. I was going to try to find the Museum of Contemporary Art but I was more concerned with not being concerned or focused having a schedule or list of to-dos. I’ll have to go back, because I would like to go, this weekend simply wasn’t designed for it.

Okay, nothing is a lie. I walked. Wandered. Went shopping. Gasp. Bought shoes—18 euros and of quality my friends.

Drank my first coca-cola. Ever. I kind of like that—my first coca-cola I drank in Spain. Ha. There is something funny about that.

Ate pan recien hecho (recently made) and Spanish cheese (there are lots of cheeses, I don’t know this one’s name, or any, really) for lunch.

When I came back to Denia Sunday morning, I went the ocean directly, put my feet for a bit, and breathed, later enjoying a croissant and café at a panaderia/pastelería, then sitting on a bench in the sun before returning home.

Home. I slept from 14:30 o pico (2:30 or something) until 20 y pico (8 pm and a bit).

Dinner: Ensalada de: purple lettuce (it starts with an r), avocado, celery, seeds, cheese, olive oil, lemon juice . . . mmmm. Huevos revueltos: scrambled eggs with egg plant and some other stuff, I believe—delicious. Sopa: soup, crema de verdura, veggie cream soup, except it tastes like veggies, not cream. Mmm. Happy Sunday. 

El Desayuno Diario

Siempre me ha gustado el desayuno. Siempre, siempre. En los EE.UU. y aquí en España. 

Aquí es sencilla pero los colores son geniales. Mira:

Zumo de naranja; tostada; aceite de oliva.

Café, claro, pero dedicaré un día al café, tengan paciencia.

[Breakfast: I have always loved it. So simple, so tasty, but the colors . . .]
[. . . fresh orange juice and rich olive oil . . .]

Fish, Fish . . .

I eat like a queen here.

Saturday, para almorzar (I love that meals come in the verb form: desayunar, to breakfast; almorzar, to lunch; cenar, to dine) we had a three course meal.

First mejillones, mussels, from the shell . . . mmm, steamed with lemon. ¡Come! That is what Alicia and Jaime tell me every meal, ¡Come! It means eat, in the imperative form. :) Outside of meals I am always hearing “tranquila.” Anyway . . .

Part two: Sopa de Pescado. Dump a bunch of little fish (whole) and the head of a goosefish (? the fish name in Spanish is rape—rah-pay) into a pot with hot olive oil in the bottom and add onion, tomato, red bell pepper, garlic, fresh parsley, oregano, laurel leaves, paprika, salt, and water. But the water, and this is important, is added bit by bit—add some, wait for it to boil, add more, etc. Then cover the pot and let it cook for two hours, and vòila: broth. Of course, strain out the fishies and veggies and what not. With the broth, 4:1 ratio, cook rice, and that is it. It seems so sparse, broth and rice, but the broth has such a smooth and amazing flavor. Just believe me, fishies and veggies make the best broth I have ever tasted. Yum, yum, yum.

Part three: Fish. Yeah, umm, I should have taken pictures, but I didn’t, so trust me here: mussels, soup, fish. As in two pieces of fish, each about two centimeters high, six inches long, and two to three inches wide. Seafood, anyone?

That was amazing. But so was Sunday’s comida: pimentones rellenos. Stuffed bell peppers. Stuffed with rice. Alicia told me she’d teach me how to make them next time, but she did explain to me that the rice is cooked entirely by the liquids of the pepper. She puts the rice in raw with a bit of meat sautéed in garlic and olive oil, wraps it in tin foil, sticks it in the oven and it comes out cooked. I saw a handful of good sized bell peppers come home from the mercadillo, but on my plate was an enormous, swollen pepper, splitting and spilling out red rice which would form a mountain on the skin, covering my entire plate. I’m running out of descriptors for wow and yum and it is only week two . . .

Since I lack foody photos, the ones I included are of the view from the deck and a close-up of the ocean. 

La Paella de Arroz Negro

Okay foodie friends, here we go with something exciting and fun and riquísima! But first, primero, en español. Comimos en el domingo paella y arroz negro. Las ingredientes (afuera del arroz, lo que recibe su tinto de la sepia) incluyen el aceite de olivo, alcachofas, habas, ajos enteros, sepia, y tomate rayado. Todos comen directamente de la paella. Mientras esperábamos la paella, comimos de mejillones, tomates, aceitunas, y (claro) jamón serrano.

What we ate before, while the paella was finishing: olives, tomatoes, mejillones (the word in English, I don’t know, it is the meat from mussels), and, you guessed it, jamón serrano. People can eat pork, sure, and I’m not used to it, of course. And I am not being sarcastic or ridiculing, trust me, but I do find is surprising that the “dieta mediterránea” is considered so healthy, according to mi mamá. Perhaps it is because although pork and meat is here, there, and everywhere, as seen in the picture the plate is full of little slices that five people (not including me) were picking from rather than a hunk of meat in every person’s plate with a side of vegetables.

Anyway—paella. ¿Qué? What? Delicious, that is what. And why is the arroz, the rice, black? And what is sepia? I’m working on the sepia part. But the ink from the sepia is what gives the dark tint to the rice. Alicia, mi mamá aquí, told me how to make several hours ago—and I did not memorize it on the spot, but I have the general idea.

In the pan one heats up, of course, olive oil, nice and hot. Then the sepia (a relative to squid, I suppose—yup, “cuttlefish”) that one has cleaned is added and cooked almost entirely before adding artichoke (leaves and hearts). Then bit-by-bit one throws into the mix beans, whole garlic cloves, rice (not cooked), and grated tomato, then water, twice as much water as rice, and it is covered for twenty minutes. And magic. It is delicious. Truly delicious. 

Un Poco de Español and English

Del Torre de Jarro (y sí pronuncia la “j” porque es Valenciano)

¡Dénia! ¡Bienvenidos a Dénia mis amigos! Llegue aquí, a España, del día que salí de San Francisco, he hablado más español que inglés (en Alemania fue más conveniente usar el español), y solo he perdido una cosa: el biscotti (con naranja, canela y cardamomo, no me di cuento de que esas ingredientes serían problemáticas) que había hecho para la familia. Hoy caminábamos por una ruta a lado de la mar Mediterráneo  . . . un pedacito de lo que había (y había mucho a ver), de lo qué recuerdo lo más (horita): la manera en que el viento corría por la mar, bailaba por la mar, contra las corrientes y olas (¡y que pequeñas fueron las olas!). Y un momentito de Valencia (donde me quedo con una familia bien amable de cuatro): la noche antes del día de los reyes Lara hablaba y hablaba aunque su madre la había dicho que fue la hora para acostarse pero Elsa (la hija menor), cuando su mamá mandó que se prepara para dormir respondió con cara de un angelito «Vale» y dobló a su hermana y dijo «Lara, ¿me acompañarías?» y las dos se fueron. Tal vez la razón que me hizo sonreír fue la amistad de las hermanas o la sinceridad de Elsa, no sé, podría ser, simplemente, que el verbo acompañar me parece formal (y vino de la boca de una niña muy joven y pequeñita) . . . De lo que he visto de España: hay un “hunk of meat” en cada cocina que he visto de que he oído. Jamón serrano. Sí, mis amigos, lo como, pero hay que saber, después de un semestre sin comer carne y después de evitar por unos años la carne afuera de pollo y pescado, es un poco raro ver carne y comer carne cada día así. Pero, vale, la comida ha sido riquísimo.

 [That meat is jamón serrano, and although I did not eat meat almost all last semester-two days exception of turkey and chicken, I do eat it here. It was suprising to me to see so much meat at once in every kitchen. Next time I'll have a picture of what I ate yesterday which is more appetizing to look at :)]

¡Saludos de Dénia!

Para mis anglohablantes . . . I’m here and alive! From San Francisco to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Madrid, Madrid to Valencia, the only thing I lost was the biscotti (with orange zest, cardamum, and cinnamon . . . I didn’t realize that was dangerous enough to be removed from my checked baggage) I had made for my host family.

In Valencia I spent the night with a family (many thanks to the family and my sister) with two adorable little girls. It was the night before el día de los reyes, which is similar to Christmas. “Los reyes” are the three magi, and they come and leave presents for the children who have behaved, so the girls where quite excited that night and the next morning they were all smiles. Ana made me a cup of coffee . . . and tell you what . . . coffee here is a whole . . . “nother” I just re-realized, is not a word, it is sloppy English, instead of another story, a whole nother story . . . do I speak this language? . . . anyway, coffee here is superb. Ana y Juan drink it watered down a little . . . coffee is espresso. So what they drink is what one would order as an americano at a café in the U.S. Except with less water and darn good espresso. Mmmm.

First impressions of Dénia now: wow. Between Valencia and Dénia one can see how parts of Spain and California resemble each other . . . and there are oranges everywhere. Brilliant orange oranges. Delicious oranges. Natural, freshly squeezed orange juice every morning. Two oranges in one glass. 

Sweet Potato Love and Home Grown Granola

Yes, yes, it is known: Annie loves sweet potatoes. And Granola. It might be a sin not to like the latter, being a rooted Californian from Santa Cruz to top it. Rooted: we have no clue when Grandma Joy's side of the family (Dake-Phares-Biggs) showed up in California (they popped out of the ground--like daisies!!)--and Grandma was the fishing, farming, composting, green-type. Grandpa Rex and the Williams-Kelly klan came over when he was in his teens from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is not remembered warmly. (Haha.) The Murray family is Texan. The Murray-Cheek-Ferrero-Rodgers side is Texan (isn't there some southern connection with Sweet Potatoes?). But Mom was born and raised in SoCal. And Mom and Dad (Mr. Arcata/Eureka) went to school at Humboldt (Big Trees and Hippies) and ate granola and yogurt. Then we were born. We being the siblings and I. Two down south, two up here in Santa Cruz. Granola and hippyish tendencies are in my blood. I can't help it. Potatoes. Hmm. I don't know where this obsession came from but they are tasty and cheap. So what happens when you take thrifty meal food (potatoes) and mix them with thoroughly ingrained tendencies (granola-making)?

Sweet Potato Granola!!
6 cups Oats of sorts
½ a large sweet potato, diced
2 cups almonds
½ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup wheat germ
2 T cinnamon
1 T ginger
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup applesauce
1 cup honey


325º For decreasing intervals of time (10, 8, 8, 6, 6, 5, 5, until it is done) , stirring/flipping the granola in between. 
I'd advise mixing the dry ingredients first. Measure the oil a liquid measuring cup large enough to accommodate close to a cup of honey on top of the oil. The oil can be swished around so that honey doesn't stick--which makes cleaning less of a hastle. Just plop the the applesauce directly onto the dry mixture. I'd err on the side of less in the spice department and more in the sweet potato--these are all estimations (I didn't measure the spices or the potato or the applesauce, I just threw it in). But it is so tasty. The applesauce makes for a chewier granola, so if you want more crisp, I'd cut down on it, or maybe just cook it longer. Mmmmmm . . . 

Exam Week Edibles

I am firmly against the readily spewed rhetoric asserting that one eats crud during exams. Sorry.
Okay, so last night I did. And I regretted it after one piece of pizza.

But tonight was not gross. Exam week is end of the semester, so it does mean some creative mixing to use the why-did-I-buy-this and make last as long as possible the favorites, seeing as the purchasing period has passed until next semester, or in my case, next fall. That means use everything that cannot sit in storage over the next semester and summer.

Yeah, the photo quality stinks, I'll need to fix that before I go to Spain. Peas! Except, I'm not that excited about them. I bought them to ice my foot, and now I'm eating them. Yum. But yum when mixed with carrots (which I always, always have), brown rice, red onion, garlic, curry powder, and ginger powder in a skillet with water and oil (or butter, whatever is available). Delicioso! Of course potatoes would have been a lovely addition, but I can keep that in mind for next year.

In Love with Simplicity

"Ohh Michigan" is one of the most over-used expressions of *sigh* of "I'm sick of college/Calvin/here/what you will," but I am using it as a phrase of endearment. The trees are on fire here. Flaming. Is it really October though? The trees are on fire AND the sun rays are wrapping around my skin as though it were a mild summer day. The trees are on fire and not all the flowers have withered or dropped--color, color, color. It is so simple, so ritual, and so irrevocably necessary to the cultivating of awe to pause and note.

If I were to wind up living here, and I would muchover prefer it to Los Angeles, my yard would be boardered with mixed wildflowers, tangled and tripping over one another with dandelions on the less trampled but always ragged lawn. The backyard would no doubt have a garden. And I would never miss ArtPrize. (I did not, unfortunately, make it down this year, and am very sorry for it.) This city is not a big, hopping, dynamic city, me han dicho, and suberbia is, suberbia, but it looses its monotony without overembellishment where the wild things grow near the soccer fields, in unminded lawns, in art.

The Farmer's Market again has done me well. Chard, swiss chard, was my splurge purchase, and it was delicious. 1 Tablespoon olive oil, 1 clove garlic, red pepper flakes, sautéed; 1 T water, a bunch of chopped chard, salt, added and mixed and covered about 4 minutes, served with fresh out of the oven, homemade pugliese bread (altered: half whole wheat flour, some corn meal, and white flour). MMMMMM!!!

Annie-ranjado

Me soprendo que mi piel no ha llegado a ser anaranjado. Todo lo que como tiene lo mismo tinto: jugo de naranja, zanahorias, camote, polvo de chili, maíz (es amarillo, yo sé, ¿pero que es la diferencia?) . . .

Bored, Bummed, and Begging for “Biscuits”

Last night, I finally slept well. In fact, I slept in until 9 (yes, that is sleeping in). And I was quite thankful for it—home-oriented days can be unbearably long, and I had just cut out an entire two hours with sleep! As usual, I lounged my way through the morning: tea, slow-brewing Irish oats, and poetry. Although I was not particularly interested in changing out of my PJs or ready for the duel with my hair, I even forced myself to take a bath and wash my hair. Lunch came and went, and I really had not done much of anything. The Count of Monte Cristo? I tried. About fifteen pages. I kept crutching into the kitchen and toying with the idea of making something, then skulking out.  It is not as though I need the chocolate and butter or am doing anything to counter the buthighs they create (or the floatation devices betwixt aforesaid anatomical structure and the shoulders). But I wasn’t doing anything . . . so I did! I baked: Maple Biscotti and Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Cookies.

The latter indulgence is oh so typical of me; the previous, the mixing of “American” (maple) and Italiano (biscotti), is not so typical. At least, not in baking. Why maple? Isn’t maple a seasonal flavor? Seasonal—uh, I do not know, food is food and I work with what I have. My mom had made Oatmeal Maple Scones and there was left over glaze; so I figured I could make “candied” biscotti, just drizzle the stuff over the top. Maple biscotti would not typically be my first choice, but I dislike wasting perfectly good food (i.e. watching the frosting turn into an amoeba in the fridge) and it did turn out quite well. 

Tasty Oats

Alright--I am a sucker for oats. New Leaf sells this mix of barley flakes, oats, and I don't quite remember what else, but about a 1/3 cup of that, plus some steel-cut oats, quinoa, rice, dried currants, and wheat germ dumped into hot-hot-hot milk and soaked overnight equals a fabulous breakfast:

I chopped up some frozen cranberries to throw in with some frozen blueberries and heated it up with another splash of milk and/or water and topped it with granola . . . so it looks weird, but, mmm, scrumptious! No matter what el señor Ben Jonson has to say about oats--grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people--I will continue to eat them.

Stoves, Suds, and Smiles

This morning was one of those mornings . . . one that, for whatever reason, everything seemed amusing or pleasurable. Let me rewind.

This last weekend was nutsy: to have surgery or not to have surgery? For those who do not know, the navicular bone and cartilage in my right foot is weird and quite painful, as I discovered in the midst of training for a 25K run in late March. For that and a variety of other trivial reasons, I have been ridiculously cynical of late. Perhaps I was looking for the positive to counteract my moodiness.

Home cooking and baking. Okay, so it helps living at home and mooching off the padres cooking supplies, not so discretely hinting at purchases, volunteering to forge the way through the grocery stores . . . Nonetheless, soaking beans to make hummus, concocting spice combinations for fish, watching steam rocket from the combination of toasted steel-cut oats and buttermilk, the smell of fresh pugliese bread, experimenting with granola . . . there is a simple joy in kitchen creations.

Made by hand . . . and cleaned. Cleaning can be the horror of baking and cooking. An elaborate pizza with homemade dough, various cheeses, tomatoes, spinach, skillet cooked mushrooms and onions, fresh basil, and another with pesto and chicken, and the random brie and pear pizza . . . all are delicious, but the precariously stacked dishes are daunting. But the truth of the matter? I do enjoy the dishes. Steaming hot water and suds, a fresh wash cloth, and the consistent scouring and scrubbing is incredibly calming. And the end product—a drain-tray full of sparkling clean dishes—is so satisfying. The dishes are not always as cute as I have made them out to be; they can be the source of much frustration, the last straw, or simply a general nuisance. But for whatever reason this morning, I looked at the dishes dripping dry and the dirty blender and smiled.

Granola. Yes, my dear Michiganders, Midwesterners, Southerners, and New Englanders, this is soo California. Yogurt and granola. But my little made-at-SLV ceramic bowl with Trader Joe’s non-fat vanilla yogurt, my homemade granola with its latest twist, and local strawberries (maybe not Gizdich, but still pretty darn good) was a lovely sight, a fabulous meal, and a reminder of the itty-bitty, perhaps silly things that make life wonderful.