Pictures from Tucson

I think it'll only take three so they'll be, in this order, thusly titled:

1. Tucson neighborhood, one of hundreds of beautiful ones.
2.  The MOUNTAIN LION left his calling card.
3. I forget what the third title was, so will look for it after the others. If it will take a fourth, I'll put in my anonymous hosts...if they'll let me.

Eastward Ho and Back Again

Good morning!

I have been absent from this blog.

Precipitately we decided to go over to Tucson, and precipitately we went.

When I was first in San Diego, the freeway signs for East and West always confused me.  How could Phoenix and Tucson, two cities which are the epitome of the West, be towards the east? But they are, and it always took a momentary re-orientation and readjustment for me to decide which direction to take.

But this is San Diego. Everything's east of here and I guess I finally realized it.  Now I don't quite have the orientation problem. Quite.

The drive over was pleasant and easy. I was able to drive for about a third of the trip, which I enjoyed and Theodore needed. Coming back, I was too sleepy and didn't perform my duties well.

Tucson in the summer is not Tucson in the winter. In the winter, I can't think of a more perfect place. Sunny, clear, sparkling even.  In summer, which season is just beginning, it is hot (reached 109 while we were there), dusty-seeming, and subject to irritating winds which stir up massive storms sometimes.  But one seizes one's chance when one has it, no? I had a wonderful time.

My sister no. 3 and her husband live in the most perfect small house that's ever been.  It has ceilings of 12 feet, I guess--there's more space over our heads than there is around us.  But the little house is quite spacious and cleverly designed for maximum use and privacy.  There are two bedrooms.  There is a bathroom very near the guest room which is very near the laundry which is very near the kitchen. But--there's seclusion, discretion and privacy in these arrangements as well.

The master bedroom is spacious and its bath is just huge.  HUGE.  The bathroom is bigger than most bedrooms and if you figure cubic space, it's WAY bigger than most bedrooms.  Or living rooms.  There's a small paved back yard with a charming irregularly shaped swimming pool, surrounded by the stuccoed walls that surround everything in this complex.  It was on that wall that I saw, yesterday morning, a young mountain lion perched, staring into the shadows of my sister's back yard.  He was one hungry dude and his long search was unrewarded.  After a time he jumped down and ran to a house behind my sister's where he leapt onto the wall and began to scan for something to eat there.

Later we found that he'd left scat and urine on two cushioned patio chairs.  Was it a message or was he just caught out unawares?  Must have been a message: or why choose a chair?  I had my camera but didn't want to leave the cat to go to our room and bring it over.

Tucson is itself a masterpiece of planning, I think, One drives up and down the grid of streets amongst the mesquite and saguaro, with tons of subdivisions sequestered in there...all most well thought out. Driving at night is dark; civic rules keep out light and keep the stars open.  There are no crosstown freeways, so the drives can get long, but I am so glad they have opted not to use the freeway option for getting around.  Wonderful restaurants abound even in these poor times, and there are still the enclaves of delightful shops all over.

My sister is a wonderful cook of the Martha Stewart persuation.  She made vegetable soup at my request.  She made gazpacho.  At my request for "a Mexican dish" she made the King Ranch Casserole, a Texas favorite with chicken, tortillas, canned soup, and Ro-Tel tomatoes and chilis. We had delightful sandwiches of Boar's Head meats on Tucson (or Tuscan) Bread from an unbeliveable bakery. We had salads, vegetables, brownies, Blue Bell ice cream, fabulous oranges, good coffee, and our choice of breakfasts.  What more could a couple of lazy oldsters want?  We were happy.

Our brother in law no. 3 had a birthday while we were there.  We were happy to hear that they have some bugs over there because we'd brought him a spray bottle of Cedarcide, the organic pest control. I thought he'd like that as he likes things done right.

I got a few pictures so will put an addendum with pictures later on perhaps.  Right now I am going to publish this before it evaporates into the place where this vacation did...leaving only a happy memory. YAZZYBEL

Return of Tomas and other factors

Good noonday.

News this morning was an email from the Dean of our Cathedral that he is taking off for a new job in San Francisco.  What a shock.  Although I have felt that there was something in the wind for a time. I am not among the cognocenti of the church by any means and wouldn't have any way to know the facts. I called a couple of friends and they had heard nothing. It is very sad for St Paul's, because Dean R. has brought a great loving spirit into our congregation.

However, I do think that when people want to move on it's best they do so.  Concentrating on the positive, we'll have an Interim Dean for a while and the goings-on surrounding that choice will be interesting.  Change is hard but it is also sometimes fun. Diverting, that's the word.  We shall be diverted for a while.  And we'll be further diverted by the choice of a new permanent Dean.  Wild.  Just when we thought there was nothing to shake us.  Didn't we?

Tomas is here with an assistant, Osito, and they are putting in undercounter lighting that was supposed to be put in before but came in wrong or something.  Our kitchen will be lighted up like Times Square when it's over.  We will have more light than we need in that tiny space.

If Tomas isnt done by two I must kick him out so that Taterton and I can go for a visit to his diabetes techie.  She will, I hope, be gratified by the results of his urine and blood tests done yesterday.  If not, then we shall know what my skills at doctorin' actually are, as opposed to my autoimagen.

In further news from the front, Theo-Taterton was gratified by many cards and calls on his birthday. I took pictures and thought he looked awful. He looks much healthier than that in the flesh, thank goodness.  His cake was from scratch, chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing and a filling of apricot jam. Yummo.  He is now 78 years old, an age which I don't think he expected to attain.

Tangled Webs

Good noon.

Yesterday was the birthday of Theodore Neff. He turned 78 years old.  He actually looks better than shown in the photograph.  You see there his home made birthday made from scratch by me in the new kitchen.  Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, and apricot jam in the middle.  Yummo.  Three fourths of that cake is now in the freezer, awaiting daily inroads until it disappears. We had green tea too.  It was a nice little teatime and he was gratified by the phone calls and cards he received from friends and family.  All good.

Tomas is here finishing up the kitchen, maybe. Some electrical stuff.  I do hope they get done (Osito is his worker) before we have to leave for Theo's diabetes techie appt.  Otherwise they'll be back tomorrow.  Adios for now. YAZZYBEL

P.S.
This is the picture I thought I was putting on at the end of today's blog....Photos are important, angles and lighting and elements are all important. This is a better, warmer picture. YAZ

Another Country Heard From

Good morning!

This morning, one of my sisters responded to my blog about our mother, and I asked her if she'd mind my publishing her remarks.  She gave me permission, and gave me permission to use her name. She's no.2 and her name is Olive.

When someone would add a remark to an ongoing argument, my mama always said, "So!  Another country heard from!" So here's what Olive had to say today.

Yes Yaz--our mother was something else.  I thank God for her selflessness.  It was needed to raise "five ungrateful girls" -- all of whom had something of the prima donna in them.  Haul to piano lessons.  Haul to dancing lessons.  Haul everywhere.  Settle endless arguments.  Wear the same dress so we could have new.  And how admirable of her to tackle WW II with such aplomb.  Armed with not only a mammoth grocery list, off to Pace's with those vile stamps to decide what to buy with them--round steak or ground beef.  She opted for round steak and pounded them with a real hammer because her mother had done it.  She had moxie too:  Before ending the shopping, she always asked Jimmy Pace if he had put any goodies aside for her.  He always had done so, because she paid her bill on time and "with all those kids, she needs this laundry soap or sack of sugar."  

    Rest in peace, Mama

Thank you, Olive!  It give another facet of the big globe of love we all feel for both our parents.  Wonderful to have another sister chime in and be heard from.  YAZZYBEL 

Happy Mother's Day, Mama!

And have a happy day, everyone else, too.

I am cooking up a nice arroz con pollo in honor of my mother's Mother's Day...Where am I cooking it? In the garage, of course.  I still have the electric skillet in there so it's the logical place. The new kitchen is too nice to cook in.

Anyway, I have been thinking about my mama today, as everyone else in the US is thinking about theirs.  She was, as I've stated here, the most remarkable person.  I was just in the bathroom looking for some nail polish remover to clean the label glue off the new oven window (why do they put that stuff on there?) and I noted how many boxes and trays of misc. make up items I have sitting around there.

My mama had one of those old fashioned dressing tables with a long triple folding mirror in the middle of it, and two small chests of drawers on either side...As long as I knew her and she had thta dresser, I knew what would be in her right hand drawer when I opened it.  In that dresser were one box of Coty's L'Origan  face powder, one velvet puff, and one Tangee natural lipstick.  Period.


She was beautiful but not vain. Or, more likely, had given up vanity long ago when she saw that beauty doesnt always play to the hand of the possessor.  She kept her hair permanented, which was too bad, because she had lustrous dark hair which would have been great these days in a long flowing mane. But that was not the way of her time and class.  She needed a quick, short, practical hairdo that could withstand a constantly blowing 30 or 40 MPH Gulf breeze whenever she was out of the house.

Or in it, for that matter. There was no A/C in the days of my entire childhood, and you had to keep those windows open and that crossdraft flowing in order to tolerate the extremely warm temperatures of Brownsville, Texas.  ("Not as bad as San Antonio by far!  And don't even mention Houston!")  So a short permanented hairdo was the answer for her and most of her cohorts.

Permanent or not, and just one lipstick and one box of face powder in your artillery, you were beautiful, Mama.  We, your daughters, 1-2-3-4-and 5==we'll never forget you as long as we live. Today, on your day, I'm out in the garage making a nice arroz con pollo in the electric frying pan in your memory. In your memory because I am thinking of you as I do it...Love,YAZZYBEL

Kitchen Really Is Finished==Almost....

Good evening.

Guys came today and put in the tile over the range area.  Could I have been happy without it? Probably.  Am I happy with it? VERY happy.  It is a beautifully-done job.  I designed and planned it all and I take responsibility for most of the mistakes I can see....They were very professional workers and did a great job.

The decorations are charming and appropriate to a small house in a middle class suburb. And yet they are individual and personal to me. I rather like them.  I can see mistakes, which are pointed up by the photos. I need to make some better photos....but there they are.

After the workers left we were emotionally exhausted and had to go to Kaiser to pick some refills from the farmacia, then to the grocery store to buy vegetables...after that we were so tired that we had to stop by Taco Bell for our supper and I had to eat a delicious enchirito.  And it was delicious, too!!! YAZZYBEL

Shoot

Good evenin'.

Yesterday or the day before I spent an eternity pecking out two salad recipes and then in the spastic flicker of a little finger, blew them both to heck--plus the accompanying tirade of text.

I got so mad.

Too mad to waste my valuable time copying them out again. But the point of the recipes need not be lost:  Neither of the salads, both from the pre-1980 era, had any sugar within a mile of it.  There was no sugar in the dressing.  There were no sugared walnuts nor sweet dried cranberries to augment their flavors.  Just look in any cookbook of the era. There was plenty of oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, mustard,--even paprika. But no sugar.

Just try to find any recipe now without sugar. Gravies, sauces, dressings now seem to have to have that certain level of sweetness to meet editorial approval.  And I'll tell you a little secret:  In order to balance that much sweetness you need an extra dose of sodium chloride.  It's a seasoning habit that has grown into our culinary lore with a big downside to it.  Where we once had thin energetic women like my Mama, we now have land whales.

Land whales, I tell you.  Plus a "diabetes 2" culture.  Bad. All Bad.

Imagine a cookbook with no hint of sugar in any recipe except for the dessert pages. That's ANY cookbook from pre-Depression to 1980. Then, a great fear arose among the populace, a fear of oil, butter, fat, grease.  Take all those out of the cuisine and you've gotta compensate with something, and that something in our case was sugar.

Bad.  All Bad. 

We need to get our old House and Garden Cookbook, our old Fannie Farmer, and follow them to the letter of the law.  Let the influence of sweetness in meat dishes, salads, vegetable dishes just slither away.  Taste what your grandmother tasted when she cooked the family dinner. It was good and it was healthy.  And even in a dessert loving family like MY grandmothers, nobody was a land whale and nobody got Diabetes 2.

It's true. And you do NOT get dessert unless you've had your supper and you do NOT get seconds on dessert even if fat old Uncle Bert gets them when he comes to call. YAZZYBEL

Whew !

 Whew!  

Suddenly realized yesterday or so that the kitchen is not finished. It cannot be finished, because the wall behind and around the cookstove is finished in plaster and paint. Sorry, that's not acceptable. So--we are going to have to find and install a different finishing material, stronger than paint and more easily cleanable.

My thoughts run to tile because I can do it myself. It is fairly cheap and easy to do. Plus, it's lots of fun.

The only definite decision so far is that the base or background of the tile will be black, to continue running up from the backsplash of black Corian....then I can play....yes, I can play.

I have some ideas, but nothing has been decided or bought...Don't worry...something will be done. Theo wants to put it in the hands of Tomas but then it will be done professionally and be costly.  PLUS this is my only chance to really make this my project....so I am reluctant to let go.  It all depends on the availability of materials.

I did not go to church today for which I beg God's pardon. Theo would not go with me and eat breakfast afterward, and I was afraid that he would be frying bacon and spotting grease all over the still-pristine plaster and paint. They must be covered at once!!! YAZZYBEL

Pictures

Oh-oh!!!

Hi, it's Friday afternoon and the kitchen, to all intents and purposes, IS finished.

The undercabinet lights did not get installed because the wiring did not come in, says Tomas. But basically everything else is there. 

I can cook, in other words.

I am shy with the kitchen like a new bride.
We are going out to get sandwiches.

 YAZZYBEL 

Caldo!!!

Good midday.

Yesterday Carlos didn't come due to the illness of his wife, but the day before that we'd spent some time discussing where to eat out to get a good dish of caldo, which is basically meat broth and other good things added to it.  He suggested a place called Plazita's on Broadway near Anita, so last night we went to try it out, I being hungry for caldo.

The place is called Plaza's and  it's where he said it is.  And I got caldo, and it was so good.

Theo got beef tacos and I could tell they were ordinary. But the soup was not ordinary, or rather, it was --just what was wanted, an ordinary bowl of excellent beef broth, beef, and vegetables.

The size of this bowl of soup, for $6.49, was the size of the middle bowl of a set of Pyrex mixing bowls.  (I brought home half.)  The ingredients were:  plenty (at least a half pound) of good soup meat cooked to a tee,  a small red potato, 2 carrots, and half a chayote entire. And leaves of cabbage. There was a side of rice and I added that to the soup.

The classic way of serving caldo would be to make the soup and remove all the solids. On a platter you'd slice the meat, then you'd lay the cooked vegetables alongside it on the platter. When you served the dinner, the liquid broth would be in your soup plate and you'd add whatever you wanted to your bowl.  My mother, when she made vegetable soup, would explain to me that that is not how the Mexicans would do it.  She cut everything small (they don't) and served it all together.  She also put tomatoes in her vegetable soup and there were no tomatoes in the caldo. There was the usual restaurant side table at Plaza's, with jalapeno carrots, three salsas, lots of green lime quarters, a deep bowl of chopped onions, a bowl of dried herbs, and a bowl of green herbs.  You could doctor your soup with any and all and I did.

The soup was  flavorful and fresh; the meat was tender and savory, the vegetables actually short-cooked, especially the cabbage leaves. But not raw; they were just right. Of course, the potato was done.  It was a little master piece. Perfect for supper. YAZZYBEL

The Kitchen is Getting Finished

Good morning.

Waiting for Tomas and Carlos. This morning they have to physically remove  two installed cabinets and move them to the right about one fourth inch. That's to better accomodate the refrigerator...which they did squeeze in but now realize that we'd never be able to move it out, as to clean underneath it, etc.

I hate to tell them that we'd not ever be able to move it out under any circumstances no matter what.  But let them do what  they will, say I. They have had their way on everything else. I do not really care. (Can that really be me?)

Today there were no eggs in our mini-refrigerator so we had peanut butter and bacon lonches for breakfast.  A lonche is a sandwich en espanyol.  I had to put that Y in there because for some reason my ALT codes are not working.  I think it is funny that somewhere some Mexican saw an American eating his lunch (which was of course a sandwich, most lunches being without imagination) and so sandwich became lonche.

Just so this posting won't be entirely negative, here's a white cactus flower in the garden today. You know how I love white flowers, and cactus flowers are the purest:

This give me another chance for my tirade on bacon, which as cooked carefully by me this morning was thick (I told Theo not to buy the thick any more) , greasy, and when well done, leathery not crisp. Bacon as we knew it twenty years ago is no more. What have they done to the hogs? Whatever it is, I know they have shot water into the sides of bacon to increase their volume...but there is still plenty of grease to fill up the skillet when cooking. Ech...I do not like it, any of it.

Patricia is not coming today and I don't like that either.  The telly is roaring away in the living room and will stay that way when she don't come. There's a lot more changes than just a kitchen that need to go on around here. YAZZYBEL