Recent cooking adventures

I really learned to cook when I was in Argentina and had no recipes but memories, and unfamiliar ingredients and utensils. I totally freelanced an Easter roast, a tuna casserole, and bread pudding. The bread pudding was one of my favorites. In Argentina, most of the bread we used was bought freshly made (without preservatives). As missionaries we only went shopping on one day a week, so I often had good (but very dry) bread left over halfway through the week. Solution: bread pudding. I made a lot of really good bread pudding throughout my mission.

Fast forward. We spent a lot of time on planes this summer. Sometimes there's really just nothing on the TV, and its not as easy to get up to go do something else. So I watched the FoodNetwork, and they highlighted a woman reinventing bread pudding. I was inspired. I have not been able to try my hand at anything like she does, but I had bread pudding on my mind. Fast forward again. Our school gets some donations from Costco to distribute to the kids and their families. It's usually some sort of bread, and sometimes the needy teachers take some things home, too. We had brought home some artesian sourdough loafs and some bagels, and after using what we could, the rest sat on the counter for a week. So then we had some (a lot) nice, dry breads that we weren't going to eat, and bread pudding wasn't really an option since sourdough doesn't really mix with nutmeg.

So, did you know that if you search for 'savory bread pudding', you will get a LOT of recipe results? Yeah, I was excited. So, I mostly followed this recipe, but also mostly winged it. The end result was a mix of the sourdough and bagels (note: bagels? Yeah, really good in bread pudding.) tomato, green onions, and spinach. Sorry, no pictures of that one, but here's one of a frittata. When I started making it, I wasn't sure if what I was making was, in fact, a frittata. It was. Finally got to use that awesome cast iron skillet we got for our wedding.

'Savory' is usually my thing, but last week I did have a desert craving. We had the Bisquick out earlier, so I searched for recipes using it to make scones. Well, this is what I came up with. Based on this recipe, I substituted chocolate chips for the pecans, soy milk for milk, and also stirred in a dollop of Nutella for good measure. Super easy. Really, really good.

OK, I'm sorry it looks gross. I had to take the picture with my phone.

Tonight I tried the same recipe, but with a variation. I did add the pecans this time, but instead of milk I used some natural apple cider. And instead of throwing in some Nutella, I added a good measure of honey.Wonderful. But I think next time I'll add some cinnamon.

Hope this pic is more appetizing!

I'll wrap up with some more savory dishes. We were gifted a number of zucchini, and had already made bread and cooked up what we could. In an old church cookbook there was a recipe for zucchini pizza crust. It doesn't really 'pick up' like a pizza, and it will win no beauty contest, but it was pretty darn tasty.

4c shredded zucchini     1c shredded cheese     2 eggs     Bake at 400 for 15 mins. Then top as you would a pizza, and bake until its ready.

The guy across the street moved out, and since our landlord also owns that property, he invited us to take advantage of the garden the guy left behind. After looking through the variety, all i wanted to do was make salsa. So, I got a recipe from my dad, and threw it all together in a blender, and just went with it. Here's some recommendations from the source: Use a food processor. Do the onions, peppers and fresh garlic from the garlic press and chop them up really small and then mix all of the spices and other ingredients. Do the tomatoes in the chopper, but not long so it's more chunky, and drain off some of the liquid from the tomatoes before adding so it is not as runny.

8 tomatoes

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

1-2 jalapeño pepper

1-2 Anaheim peppers

1 lime juice

2 T cider vinegar

1 T olive oil

1 t salt

1 T sugar

½ t oregano

1/3 c fresh cilantro or ½ t dry cilantro

I used some green onions and cilantro as well, and fresh oregano and tarragon, no cilantro. I just added it all into the blender. It was a little runny, and pink. There was a kind of tomato I'd never seen before, and it turned everything a little pink. But good flavor.

Once upon a time I got a laptop. It's been nearly 4 years, and it has often been in the kitchen with a recipe pulled up. I've had my iPod touch for about a year and a half, and it has been a convenient cooking companion. But over the past 4 years, and even more so recently I have had the idea of having a WiFi-enabled refrigerator. You can turn it into a digital picture frame, make a shopping list, and even look up recipes online. I was really excited when google came out with a special category of searches. And, then, I saw that I need not reach out to a manufacturer with my groundbreaking innovation. It already happened.

Blogging in absentia

I suppose it could be called 'journaling' if I actually wrote these thoughts down. But I guess it really comes out as daydreaming. Over the last couple months I've thought about a lot of things--traveling, education, family relationships, the state of the union, the state of the world, handcrafts, photography, growing up, teaching--the odd thing is that a lot of my thoughts turn to blog posts in my head. Not many of the blog posts in my head turn real-life, tangible blog posts.

Blogging in absentia takes on a new variety since I have an account on a widely used social networking site, yet hardly ever use it. With certain "upgrades" it happens that you only see updates from people that you more often associate with on their site. They are doing it so that the online sociality reflects reality, but the whole purpose is to stay connected with people that you aren't associating with regularly. I choose not to participate fully on that site, therefore with the quid pro quo system they've created, I am isolated unless I dive in and spend the time 'poking' people and sharing small talk on the wall. My blog, the one that you're reading at the moment, is not linked to that network, so is therefore somewhat isolated. I want others to read my thoughts here, so sometimes I post the link to a blog entry, but is that selfish attention pandering? I doubt it would work anyway, because of the isolation factor.

Here is a thought in praesentia. New Mexico is amazing. When we were in Spain we felt at home in the landscape. There was red rock, sparse greenery, mountains, plains, red tile roofs, dirt roads. Now that we are back it feels right to be back. There is something magical, and I know I've written about it before, about waking up nearly every morning to see hot air balloons all over the valley. The days are precariously hot, but it is worth every degree when the monsoon winds bring in storm clouds to play backdrop to a sunset. The wind picks up the smell of the living desert. Saturday I was doing yardwork and found a wild cactus growing. For real! And driving around the city is a tour of the unknown. We went jogging in our neighborhood and ran past an old Spanish mission. Perhaps, with all enchantments, the effects will wear off. But the complete randomness of moving away to Albuquerque a year ago and the trouble we had finding our place here has been worth it.

Thoughts on America

Today in church we sang America the Beautiful. The first verse came on autopilot, but then the second verse hit me a little bit. I thought of the pilgrims beating 'freedom' across the 'wilderness', and how grossly skewed that view is. But then came the line pleading "God mend thy every flaw." This is not a perfect country, and we do NOT have a spotless history, so we require God's forgiveness - as a nation.

America, confirm thy soul in self-control. In light of recent months, self-control, one of the lost American values, is direly needed. Not just regular citizens driving aggressively, or maxing out their credit cards on cheap consumer 'goods', but politicians and public figures acting selfishly, and them and us expecting them to get away with it.
America, confirm thy liberty in law. I won't go into it, but I have been severely disappointed with some of the Supreme Court rulings. There have been rulings that I wished had gone another way, or that I disagreed with. But there have been at least three rulings I can think of that I believe to be both morally and legally bad decisions. Law is about good governance, not politics and on-upping the next guy.

Our true heroes are those who more than self, their country love, and mercy more than life.

Will we see the day where all success is nobleness? Where we honor the people who are striving to be good people? I think that's what it means by God refining our gold. The success is not the gold, but nobleness, and every gain, divine. And that's why a true patriot will see beyond the years, and his dream will not be for political gain, fame, or fortune, but for the future and his posterity.

And in the end, as in the beginning, the blessing of God's grace on the land is brotherhood. Not elitism. Not partisanship. Not class division. Fellowship. E pluribus unum. One.

America, the Beautiful - Katharine Lee Bates

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine!

O Beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Poetry Power

I again stepped WAY beyond out of my comfort zone at school on friday.

One of the English teachers has been trying to introduce the school to SLAM poetry, or Spoken-Word poetry. She has a local poet that has been coming in, and invited some kids to share their own poetry. She wanted us as teachers to encourage more kids to perform, so after pushing the thing for a couple weeks, and after watching another TED talk, I asked if I could perform. And I did. Friday we had an assembly with some professional poets doing their stuff. Luckily we (the kids, myself, and the teacher running the thing) went first. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but I got a lot of good feedback from the teachers, and some of the kids too. One even said I inspired him! The professionals that came out were really moving. One was a graduate of LADE who has gone on to win in national poetry competitions, and has performed on HBO. Hakim Bellamy and Carlos Contreras are part of Urban Verbs. During a conversation after the show, I still felt small in comparison (literally and poetically) but I responded to something Hakim said by quoting a line from one of the poems he had performed. It was amazing to see how that affected him. He, as a poet, tries to affect people. To move them. To connect through words soul to soul, and I guess that validated him. Proved that his work was working.

As for me, is this the last time I perform my poetry? Who knows. I don't anticipate being the next Taylor Mali, but I'll probably do more here at the school. For you, though, is the poem I performed below. It's there as I wrote it, not as it came out, because nerves will have their way with you, no matter what you do.

I am a performer.

It’s “A Nite at the Improv.”

Six shows a day, five days a week. Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you very much! I’ll be here all year!

Any tips are greatly appreciated;

Please pass the hat.

I am a performer.

Playing an actor in my own life

Following the script I have written

Hoping to be the person I said I have been.

But playing myself to be younger than I am

When I start to feel old,

And pretending to be very old

When I’m looking for respect,

Hoping that you don’t put 2 and 2 together

And find out that 2 is how long I’ve been a teacher.

I am a performer.

I play everything’s cool, even if it’s not

And I get all riled up if you don’t talk

Cause I want to hear your thought.

I see something beyond that blank stare

Tempting you to speak your mind,

And I will not let you stay silent!

Because “IDK” is not the answer to a questions

But the beginning of a journey.

I am a performer.

I am a street corner preacher

Crying “Repent! Repent!”

For the end is near,

But finals are nearer.

And tik tik tock says the clock.

Time is passing, are you?

I am a performer.

But here I am.

Heart on my sleeve.

Telling you to look at me. Know me.

This is who I am.

But, in your mind,

 You will see me standing here,

And you will remember, that

I am a performer.

Podcasting power

I watch a lot of TED talks. I'll have to post on that another time. I also started listening to economics podcast so that I would get ideas for teaching my econ class. I shared one with my class once. And they really liked it, so, I'm like "Self, great day!" (to quote my favorite economics professor). But it's in a format that is hard to do in a classroom, so I wanted to make it work somehow. So, I thought about TED. TED is video, and has subtitles (the kids have a hard time with British accents), so I've shared a couple videos and had some success. But I still wanted to work in some of the audio podcasts, especially since the kids wanted me to. So again, I turned to TED. There was a talk on Changing Education Paradigms, and the cool thing was that instead of a fancy powerpoint, there was live illustration visualizing the things he talked about. It was a living storyboard for his talk. That gave me an idea.

I have a SmartBoard. So, I thought that I would live-illustrate a podcast. I proposed this to the kids, and asked if they thought it was a good idea. It was the last week of school for my seniors, so they didn't care. They thought anything was a great idea. So I did it. A little ways into it stopped and asked if it was working, and they said it was. I also admitted to them that this was WAY beyond being out of my comfort zone, but that I was doing it for them. I mean, it was NOT anything spectacular, but it wasn't distracting. So they either just listened, or they listened and watched.

So, here are the screen shots of my live-illustrated podcast, which you can listen to here.

Reverie

Reverie can be defined as: A state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream; a dreamy or musing state; absentminded dreaming while awake; an abstracted state of absorption.

Do you ever experience something that just stops you dead in your tracks? There is a song, that does it to me. Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission. I find it practically impossible to do anything while it's playing. I am overcome in reverie.

It happens to me often enough with music, but sometimes it hits me when reading a student's paper. I see some image of their future, and the stack drops into my lap, and I just think. Reverie to me is reminiscence of the future. Like starting a story "Once upon a time...in the future."

It also overcomes me with the smell of tree blossoms. It's subtle, unnoticeable, then you catch it and it's the only thing you can smell. Lilacs at night. You're caught up in everything, then you stop. Then your mind flashes through its register, and then there's that moment of recognition. Lilacs. And you have to stop. You have to close your eyes so that the only thing in the universe for one second is the smell of lilacs. Or the song of an oboe. Or a sliver of a moon, so faint its hardly there.

Sometimes there are moments that are so romantic, that you cannot help but be overcome. They are so perfect, so idyllic, so picturesque. But then there are the moments that are so unabashedly normal that when that little thing crosses your vision you are sweetly jerked out of your reality. A toddler's laugh, a sunset, shapes in the clouds. A whimsy, that if you don't give into it, it's gone. Sometimes you have to choose not to give in to the reverie. And there is a certain bittersweet sadness reserved for just that moment.

My duplicate

I was reading an article. You can read it, if you want to, but it's not important. The article had a picture, which you see, of my duplicate AKA my doppelgänger. You can see by the scene that you've got a high school teacher. You can see by the prominent placement of flags, the MLK picture, etc. that you're dealing with a high school social studies teacher. He has MC Escher and fractal prints and a calculator poster, so he probably teaches multiple subjects. He's using a projector and smart board, so he's somewhat tech-savvy. He also has longer, shaggy hair, glasses, and a beard kept short. He's wearing khakis and a blue button-down shirt, which I also was wearing when I saw the picture.


Creepy. But, Kamila says I'm better looking.