don't fall down

How often do we senior citizens hear those words!

We hear them and quail inside because we know all too well that we have heard an injunction with which it's beyond our power to comply, endeavor as we may.

Nobody falls thinking about it, until in the split second as we are falling, we may think, This time i am falling. Then we hit and with a bang, and think , "This time it is serious."

I fell in my garage at 2:30 in the garage on May 16.
I was alone and really hit hard flying through the air headfirst into the pantry shelves.  I felt my head and felt a wound and lots of blood. I immediately realized that my left wrist was broken and that I had to get into the house and the phone, so I inch-wormed my way up the steps, flipped onto my back and pushed into the living room in pools of blood, to the phone. I pulled the cord, phone fell down, called 911 and within 5 minutes was in the hands of the most capable very young First Responders you could want. 
     They sent me to UCSD Trauma Center for an evening of patchwork.  Thank God that I did not get worse injured, that I did not lose consciousness, that the phone was on its hook as it almost never is---and for the wonderful young lifesavers. Since then, with wonderful neighbors, friends, and nurses, i have been eking along okay.  What an ordeal. Thank God.  YAZZYBEL

Something I Forgot about Tortilla Soup

 I forgot to say that chicken tortilla soup should be made from simmered whole chickens, or at least big chunks of chickens with bones, and the meat falls off the bones and is shredded into the soup.

Chicken tortilla soup made of boiled chicken breasts that are cubed into the soup is just plain not as good. The shredded texture goes so well with the bits of drowned tortilla and vegetables and cheese (not too much) and the broth should have a rich quality of tortilla and Mexican spices within the rich chicken caldo.

That's all I had to say.  Cut up cilantro and plenty of garlic and onion and tomato are good with me, and I love a hint of comino in everything.  Some zucchini is not amiss but no fillers like potato or rice or frijoles, por favor.  That's all.  Shredded, not cubed, chicken meat and I like some dark meat. YAZZYBEL

Tortilla Soup and Shrimp Cocktails

Good morning. I thought I'd write about a few delicious things I had to eat in Texas...tortilla soup, and shrimp cocktails today.

Shrimp cocktails used to appear on American menus in one form.  There was a cup of rich, thick tomato sauce, spicy and sweet. Sometimes there was horseradish in the sauce.  And there were big fat shrimps hanging over the edge of the bowl to dip into the sauce.  These were simply very tasty, and all of course depends on the quality of the shrimp. I am glad to say that good shrimp can still be had, though I'd avoid farmed shrimp at all costs and still would vote for wild Gulf of Mexico shrimp if possible.

Nowadays, the Mexican Shrimp Cocktail is finally taking over on the US side.  This cocktail still depends on fat huge shrimp to be excellent, but the rest of the picture has changed.  Most often served in a large-bowled goblet, the sauce is now an "agua," tasty and thin, in which the shrimp are immersed.  Chunks of avocado, and bits of chopped radish, are in the sauce. The seasonings are pleasant but incisive.  Chili (jalapeno?), vinegar, tomato, hierbas..You fish around for your next bite and when all the bites are gone you drink your agua and sigh with pleasure. I drink it anyway. Couldn't leave it. Which cocktail do I prefer? The Mexican, I guess, though I must say I never complain about any well put-together shrimp cocktail. Low in calories, high in flavor and satisfaction.

My first tortilla soup long ago was made by my mother, with a whole chicken making the broth, and each ingredient adding to a full-flavored chicken soup graced with sliced fried tortilla strips. I had a few tortilla soups on my trip, and there are the common ones (the stock was something other than whole-chicken based) and a very exceptional one I had with a rich, chicken-ful broth and just the right vegetables and chicken. I have had no chicken tortilla soup compared to the good one I had on this trip and I'm sorry I can't remember just where it was!!
YAZZYBEL

Two Strawberry Cakes

Listen! say my hordes of listeners. Weeks away from the blog, and you come back with tales of cake?

What better say I? I have spent the last few weeks in Tucson and San Antonio eating delicious food. Came back weighing one pound more than when I left. Not bad, not bad. And I am going to talk some more about the food of Texas among other things.

The two strawberry cakes were eaten in restaurants in El Paso and San Antonio. They were very different from each other, and very different from the fake flans and fake lava cakes that are proliferating in our middle class restaurants now.

The first one was eaten in a tiny restaurant outside of El Paso in a market/antique mall kind of place. Can't remember its name but the food was very good. I ordered Strawberry Cake for dessert.  This cake was a very pink strawberry-flavored cake as in a cake mix, but very tasty.  Between the layers was spread a generous layer of strawberry jam; over the top and sides was a pale pink strawberry buttercream frosting.  The cake was huge; I'd guess the slice was nearly a pound in weight. I ate it all.

Then in San Antonio, at Crumpets, I ordered Strawberry Cake again. I prayed it wouldnt be shortcake, and it wasn't.  The cake was white and pleasant; there was a creme anglaise filling and a whipped cream filling (three layers) with whipped cream covering all. There were mashed strawberries in the cake batter, baked in. The whole thing was moist and rich and refrigerated and was just scrumptious.

So there. I could not wait to tell people about that delicious cake.  I rarely see cake offered in a restaurant and of course I hardly ever make one any more; last one I made I think I mixed up my gluten free biscuit mix with flour so the whole thing was coarse and tasted like garbanzos.  Not too good.

I ate several tortilla soups on the trip and will discuss those later. Also ate my favorite meal: shrimp cocktail, which makes a surprisingly satisfying lunch all by itself. And makes you feel virtuous too when everyone else is eating fried things with fries on the side. YAZZYBEL