Good afternoon....and a Happy New Year to all my friends and readers...Theo and I, and Freckles and Kitty Blanko (who may be re-named Kitty Bravo if he turns a little more petlike and not so wild)...do want to wish you all the happiest and most rewarding of New Years.
That is my Christmas picture taken on Christmas morning, wearing my new vintage strawberry ice cream pink sweater with a gorgeous cotton vest from somewhere in Asia. All those red flowers are embroidered, and there are wines and crimsons and scarlets in the mix, with a few little mirrors thrown in for fun. I love the ensemble, and it's great fun to put clothes together for effect, isnt it?
That picture is meant to replace my former picture wearing the beautiful French patterned apron. Soon it will be two years since the older photo was taken, and it is time for another one. I would like to put the new picture on the head of the blog, but I don't know how!!! In the meantime, I 'll continue on writing and trying to learn how to put the new picture up. It is time for me to find the I Ching so that I can throw my coins for the new year. I have never misplaced it before but hope I'll find it by tomorrow.
Tonight we'll lay our old heads down on our pillows early as usual. And in the morning I'll go to church to celebrate the Christmas Octave, as I didn't get to church when Ben was here. I'll tell you all about church when I get back, if it's interesting. Love to all. YAZZYBEL
Good day, and how are you?
I found some Pickapeppa Sauce, a bottle of it, at the Target recently, and I bought some. Haven't seen it for years...I don't know whether it's been around all this time or if I just never thought about it. But it is attractive, with that parrot on the label, and the West Indian look of the whole thing.
Mama never had sauces, bottled sauces, on the table. Meat was meat, and A-1, Worcester Sauce, and such were not at hand to alter the flavor of our plainly cooked meals. Mama thought that if it was good food and cooked well, no sauce, certainly no commercial bottled concoction, was needed. And it looked tacky.
I agree with all that, up to a point, but I just couldn't resist that parrot. I got a good use of it for supper last night, when my dinner consisted of brown rice, broccoli, and cauliflower, all admirable comestibles by all rights--but a bit dull. So out came the Pickapeppa and it was really good sprinkled on those items.
My Mexican cousins, the Basque ones, had oil and vinegar on the table, or the sideboard. Olive oil, and plain vinegar. That's all very well because I think it 's really kind of healthful to add a little of either to almost anything. But there is a caution. Every day, the little bottles have to be taken out to the kitchen, uncorked and unstoppered, dumped, washed, and refilled. Especially in a climate that's at eighty five degrees plus almost every day of the year. I have been in restaurants, in Brownsville, where there was a receptacle holding those two ubiquitous little bottles full of cloudy and obscure looking liquids. "Don't touch it!!" my mother would say, as if there were a venomous substance within reach.
If you must use commercial sauces, they should be decanted into a little dish and applied with a small spoon. Yes, they should. Or they should be ignored, their very existence should be ignored. Yes! But it was with pleasure and anticipation that I grabbed that parrot and opened the bottle and tipped it, and watched the thick fragrant brown sauce dotting my vegetable plate!!! YAZZYBEL
Good afternoon!
I am adding a postscript to tell about my Christmas dinner, which put itself together so easily that it almost appeared in a dream.
After a delicious breakfast of bacon, biscuits, oatmeal, apple slices, cinnamon, and raisins, we opened our presents.
After time had passed, I took out the roast to let it warm up a bit before cooking. Fanny Farmer said two hours at 325, but I set my unpredictable oven at four twenty five anyway. Two hours later the roast was done, and in the meantime I boiled up some string beans, made a salad, made a delicious salad dressing with raspberry vinegar, olive oil, and tarragon, and made a dip out of cream cheese and scallions to eat with radishes and strips of red bell pepper. I put the roast in at eleven fifteen and at 1:00 it looked like all was well, so I set the roast on a platter, poured off most of the fat, whomped up a fine Fanny Farmer Yorkshire Pudding flavored with rosemary from the rosemary I'd put on the roast...the pudding cooked, and we ate the salad and the veggies and dip. And drank a dclicious Merlot. And then brought out the roast and the Yorkshire pudding and the string beans. NO bread! Awe. All was very delightful. We had about a pound and a half of meat left over, and the bones cut apart frozen separately. The meat is in the refrigerator ready for delicious sandwiches on "fiber-rich" Pepperidge Farm Bread for those nutty enough to think they need a supper. I am going to try to put a picture or two on here so that those unlucky enough to have eaten elsewhere can see our dinner. YAZZYBEL
Good morning!
Words, memories, cooking, says the subtitle to this blog, so let's get to it.
The word is my Chinese Word of the Day, from Transparent Language, who kindly send me a new word every morning. (Each one more incomprehensible than the previous, and harder to write, I may add.) Today's word is , "Cheers!", which seems appropriate and timely. So, Jiayou to all, and I hope your day is more merry than not. Though a shadowy contemplative Christmas is not a bad thing, taken in the right spirit. I expect ours will be neither shadowy nor contemplative, and it may not be cheery either unless you count football cheers. (I don't)....but it will be a good day because Taterton will be comfortably ensconced on the sofa with Benjamin watching whatever Big Game comes on today.
In memory, I remember the many Christmases of my childhood and some of my younger adulthood. I remember a perfectly magical day in 1950, when I went looking for a Christmas tree in Brownsville, down around the market square and finally found one in some little grocery lot. It was a scrawny and neglected little thing, but I was pleased to get it, pleased to be out shopping on my own, pleased to be learning my home town on my own. I was twenty one, but in mentality I was about--fourteen, I' d guess. I had led such a sheltered life, an incarcerated life really. It was a nice carcel, but it was a jail nevertheless, and it had not prepared me for quite a number of life's experiences, even some of the most basic ones. But it was a beautiful morning and a happy experience, out and about like a grown-up, learning about my very interesting town.
And now to food. For a person who's practically been eating like a vegan, trying to get my cholesterol down like every American, without taking pharmaceuticals unlike every American, I have drastically cut down my intake of beef and all other meats. But this last few weeks since Theo was in the hospital, I have been eating out whenever I could and that means meat in some form usually unless you eat tofu and I am not fond of tofu. I was going to roast a dry little turkey breast for Christmas, but Ben wanted a roast of beef. Well, I did ask him. So we went out the other day and bought the beef roast, two ribs (huge at that), and that is what we'll have. "Well-trimmed," caroled the butcherette, as she slung it onto the scale. Yes, but you'll see how much more I'll take off it today before slinging it into the uncalibrated but now familiar oven. I'll roast it at a high temperature, trying to melt down that excess white fat, and so what if it isn't pink inside? No, I have learnt the oven enough. The roast will be dark brown outside, and the inside will be tender and rosy pink, and it will be delicious. I hope.
So love to all, and have a lovely day, with cheers or with contemplation, or ideally enough of each to make it a good one. YAZZYBEL
Good morning! Here sit I, at seven a.m., having read my mail. And the paper.
I got up in the middle of the night to turn the furnace control up or down (it's never in the Right Place) and had a childhood sense of pleasure to see the little Christmas tree with its new LED lights or whatever they are, shining colorfully out into the darkness, and the little false tea-candle shining in the creche on the mantelpiece. There is something about the beauty of colored light, even non-incandescent light, that is super pleasurable to me.
It made me remember the night--well about seventy seven years ago--that I got up and went into the living room, probably about four a.m. The Christmas tree was lit up and lights were shining on presents sitting below the tree. The bear I'd requested--well, not quite the very one, but the bear I got--was sitting up in the shining fairy light, and I knew that the world was in its place and Santa Claus had come and that all was well.
I touched nothing and went back to bed.
Old as we now are, I often need the remembrance of such moments to spur me into the days we share.W're both aware of ever increasing inability to deal with our limitations in many things, and this knowledge leads us sometimes to squabble and quarrel when we are really not quarreling with each other, but with circumstance. A circumstance that everyone who lives long enough must encounter, but it isn't easy to be graceful about it.
Yesterday it was an afternoon appointment with the car people to have a check-up before arrival of guests Benjamin and then Miranda. We got out of there to the tune of a thousand dollars, which was not good for us at this time; but we also had to rent a car from the dealer to get home. I think we should have just postponed the job, brakes or no brakes, but we went through with it. Then I wanted to stop at Trader Joe's-Ralphs, a dazzling combination of 2 markets right together in Hillcrest. What can't be had at the one will surely be available at the other, the height of convenience. So Theo had the frustrating experience of trying to find a parking place in an unfamiliar car whose rear view mirror was not placed right and that he could not control. After a while I said, Let's just go home. So we did. We came home and had vegetable beef soup, crackers, and squares of cheese, but nerves and endurance had been strained by then.
Men think that food appears on the table by magic, I think. Even though Theo is present at every food-purchasing activity, he still doesn't grasp that food must be bought, transported, stored, prepared, cooked, served by me --or he doesn't get any. He thinks he doesn't care about food, and to a large extent that's true. But he'd miss it if it didn't appear before him magically twice a day. (He has to scrounge for his own lunch.)
This doesn't appear to have much to do with the magic of Christmas, but let me tell you that it was very gratifying to me to realize in the middle of the night that I still had it in me to be four years old and looking at the lighted Christmas tree in a silent living room.
And where's my camera when I need it??? It is LOST. YAZZYBEL
Good morning!
Again, it's a long time since I wrote. I wonder, am I running out of steam? Nothing more to say?
We'll see. Perhaps I will write once a month or so in 2012.
Who knows?
Speaking of dark and light, today's the shortest day of the year. That is nothing unusual; it happens every year at this time. Tilted as we earthlings are, we experience once each year one day on which we are tilted out as far as we can go from the sun, and that's our short day. I am glad it happens at Christmas time. Otherwise, what would Christianity have been built on? The mythical and ceremonial part of it I mean.
I've sometimes thought I could live in Australia or Argentina, but for the fact that Christmas comes in summer. Always summer, but never Christmas, is a despairing idea,--even worse than Lewis's "always winter, but never Christmas....," which is a phrase that strikes to the heart. At least, the heart of me.
Christmas is so important. It is a glow and a joy in the midst of deepest coldest darkness. Even the word "Christmas" is lovely: crisp and bright and rich, hinting at stars and snowflakes and the deep red of blood and flowers.
When San Diego changed the name of its winter festival from "Christmas on the Prado" to "December Nights"...well...how DUH can you be? "Christmas on the Prado"" sparkles in the dark, in the arboreal and architectural splendor of Balboa Park. You can't cater to everybody. Christmas is Christmas, and those who don't like it should say,Bah Humbug and go their own way.
All this means that tonight will be shorter than last night, and very shortly the difference in the light will be easily perceptible at the hour in which I usually wake and arise: 5 to 6 a.m. A little more light might be desirable at that hour; this a.m. while bending over to put some kitty food into Freckles's plate, I hit my head smartly on the glass tabletop. And I have the goose-egg (bird's-egg) and blue skin to prove it. Perhaps I would not have my vision problems if I'd get that operation to put a piece of plastic lens in my right eye instead of a defective cataracted one.
Well, this is all for today. We have before us a visit to Kaiser, our second this week and I hope the last for a few weeks. And I am going to keep on writing this blog if I can muster some gumption, until the end of the year at least. YAZZYBEL
Good morning!
Breakfast is extra good today because I made biscuits.
I didn't use my mama's recipe today because I purchased some "self rising" flour not too long ago and thought I might well use it all up as soon as I can. It is very handy to have self rising flour (which is flour, baking powder, and salt) but also it is a bit confusing if you are trying to follow a regular recipe. So I got this one off the web.
2 cups self rising flour
1/4 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 cup milk
What could be simpler than that? Using Gold Medal Flour, I just whomped those biscuits together this morning in the dark and cold. And they baked into nine delicious biscuits, plus another panful of the extra dough which are baking right now. I don't roll twice, as a rule, so the second batch is twisty and turny, and often doused with sugar and cinnamon before baking. Better yet.
I decked my Wt Watcher's one allowed biscuit with 'I can't believe it 's not butter' spray (which is not bad at all) and with Smucker's Red Plum Jam. My mama would have approved of the red plum jam, and she would have approved of the biscuits too. They are really delicious. So much so that I have already fallen off the Wt Watcher's with Day One, Meal One, and am having another biscuit. YAZZYBEL
Good morning. Tomorrow is Dec. 12, the anniversary of the day when innocent little Juan Diego, Mexican Indian peasant, had a chance encounter with a beautiful vision--the Virgin Mary. It's been about five hundred years or more, but things have not changed that much for Juan Diego in Mexico I am sure. But he has a beautiful vision. That's a lot.
My church has a section for Spanish-speaking people. That's harshly said, but true. The kids in that section are lucky to have a talented leader who is trying to help them understand their place in this world and finally perhaps realize some of the good things that will come of this collision of new and old worlds, civilizations, and religions.
One of the best things I know is the Guadalupe Project, which aims to show the girls that they are all Guadalupes...and to show the boys --and this is so important--that within each girl is a Guadalupe, an image of the Virgin Mary. Boys have to have something to venerate in women, or they just go crazy following their own built-in instincts and drives. Am I being ridiculously old-fashioned in having these ideas? I don't believe so. I believe there is a huge need in young boys and girls to have something offered to them other than the rapacious exploitation of each other's existence that seems to be what our 21st Century USA offers. The generation of parents of these adolescent youngsters seems to be the generation totally without inner resources, and they just pass all their ignorance on to their starving kids and tell them|: Go at it. That's what I see on television, for sure. I avoid most television, especially reality TV and family squabble shows. But five minutes a day of skimming is enough. It is sad. Remember, girls of America, within each of you resides the Virgin of Guadalupe or whatever color or class of Virgin you wish to identify with. You have the right to honor her. Draw her picture. Put it on your wall or in your notebook. Just don't forget she's there for you to call on, no matter what happens to you. YAZZYBEL
Good day on Saturday, December 10, 2011.
When I got up at five a.m. today, I set the water to boil for coffee, let the cat out of the garage, and proceeded outside in the dark to get the paper. I remembered that there had been an eclipse a couple of hours earlier, but thought it would be worth looking for. I looked to the northwest in an open space of black, starry wintry sky, and this is what I saw.
I saw a huge beautiful clear white slice of moon lying horizontal in the sky, and just above it, the entire rest of a circle in rusty red. The eclipse was passing slowly away, leaving an ever larger slice of brilliant moon surface in its wake. I must remember this, for this is the last full eclipse I shall ever see unless I go to live in another time zone when I get old.
I remember the last one I saw. I looked out of my bedroom window at Lyndon Road, and watched the full eclipse come and go (at a more convenient hour that time)...I remember how strange it looked when the whole moon surface was painted with a dull rusty red, how solid it suddenly looked up there, how very present and heavy to be there in the sky. No wonder people saw such visions as charged with portent. Made a believer out of me for sure.
That was the only significant thing I did in the last twenty four hours. Saw the moon leaving full eclipse, for the last time it'll be visible in this longitude and latitude for many a long year. But--who knows? I may be living somewhere else, and see it somewhere else, the next time it happens. Maybe this isn't the last time for me after all.YAZZYBEL
Have I not gilded the lily on here, before? If so, this is Gilding the Lily, II.
Tonight I made the best "Mexican Rice." Wow. It was very good. No animal product was used in the making of that rice, even a false
"soup base" product. I made it as usual, toasting the rice, toasting the garlic, adding the onion, green and red pepper, and then the tomato, and cooking it down. Then water, plain water, was added, and then I added about three carrots cut into about four pieces each. these were not very big carrots, and if they had been large I'd have had to cut them thinner because they barely got cooked as it is. I added chile powder, cumin (if I cd have found it), salt, pepper, and some dried oregano. I don't have any Mexican oregano that I know of, but as a matter of fact it may be oregano that I have, because I tend to buy it in supermarkets in little cello packets...who knows? I read on the web the other day some Mexicans bewailing the disappearance of the native Mexican oregano plants in the wild. Along with the chile pequin. Just wait, companeros de mi vida. When the rains come again, the plants will return.
Anyway, I cooked it until the rice was done and the carrots done in the modern way--almost soft, that is. Then I added a small handful of arugula leaves on top...enough to make a small green veggie serving for each. Then I put a lid on it. I'd made some fresh frijole beans today, and served together they were a Good Bite indeed. Very very delicious. And nutritious. There were seven different veggies in that dish, not counting the raw jalapeno bits in the cold salsa I served on the side. Yummy. And good.
We are watching evening TV as I write. I have put away all the food in the refrigerator. Even though I made very small quantities of beans and rice, there was plenty left over for another day. I found myself thinking about Gregory as I put things away. I wish he'd been here to eat his share. Rice and beans and tortillas were probably his favorite things. Me too. YAZZYBEL
Dear Everyone,
Yes, I am being reminded that I'm not writing. It is just that I have been so busy in other places. All is well. I shall try to write more later, but just want the people who do look for me on this blog to know that I am just procrastinating. My mother's word. "Linda, you are a procrastinator." Am I? Guess so. Always looking for a better time to settle down to the task at hand. Sometimes, NOW is the only time, ideal or not!
To church today, where I sat in a slightly different place and saw things from a different perspective. Slightly. It's the Second Sunday in Advent, and the readings are grim and gloomy. During Advent, we are permitted to think that things may not be coming out all right. Once the Christ Child is born, we are on our path, and not permitted to think that way, no matter how bad things get (Good Friday.) The whole message of the church is, it's going to be OK. Just like your mother always told you when you were afraid in a storm, or in the dark. Believe, praise God, and be grateful for His grace in giving us this incredible world.
My Christmas missives are almost ready to be mailed, and the house is getting a little bit decorated. Theo has already completed his share of the Christmas letters, and we should have them all out early this week. We bought 2 huge poinsettias at Trader Joe's today...one is a bright striated rose-color, and the other is an unbelieveable red and white streaked thing. I love them both, and they are both out on our new brown-tiled front stoop in a big flower pot at this moment. If I knew what I was doing on this new laptop, there would be a picture of them on this page. But no. Not worth losing the whole thing and getting even more atrasada. YAZZYBEL
