I think people love to talk about themselves. I know parents love to discuss their kids. If you ever have two hours to spare, ask a woman about labor and delivery of her child or children. (My bragging right: second child, breech position, back labor, no pain killers at all).

You know those forwarded e-mails that require you to fill in info about yourself, then send on? I get about one or two a month, sometimes more, I always have. I’ve fessed up some pretty interesting things on those forwarded personal summaries, and why? Well, we get to project an image of ourselves to our chosen recipients, I think that’s why. We get to build a more interesting us, then distribute ourselves - and after all, someone did ask.

When my kids bring home their “All About Me” posters or info sheets for filling out and sending back to school, I get more excited than they do. I love watching them sort through and pick the best moments of their lives, then drawing them, printing them on photo paper, and cutting and pasting them. Observing that  in-my-own-skin-satisfaction and giddy self-discovery in my children is a rewarding experience. Why should I feel any different?

I think I’ll make my own list. A new summary sheet to pass on. Answers, memory, list-form. Just ’cause. 

The strange thing is, I avoid this kind of thing with people I have actual physical interaction with. At soccer games I sit further and further away from the other parents, and this suits me fine. At my kid’s schools, I’m content to never say the word ‘play date’ lest I get roped into an obligation of small talk and an afternoon of snacks at the park with energy-draining socializing. Yet, I’ll fill out an electronically distributed list of personal information, no regrets. I recently filled out an online personal questionnaire for a writing position, and it was the most fun I’ve had in 14 months.

So I’m going to do it again, silly as I feel interviewing myself.

Here is my list for e-mailing. For copying, replying, for finding interest in ourselves. For smiling at the answers. No matter who we are, the life we’ve built thus far is a story. Book-worthy. Beginning with a list. 

THE LIST
Favorite song lyric right now: The space between what’s wrong and right is where you’ll find me hiding waiting for you. - Dave Matthews Band, “The Space Between”

Favorite comfort food: pasta puttanesca, mac and cheese, chicken pot pie, potato in any form

Favorite concert/concert moment: Seeing Don Henley do “Wasted Time” on one of his solo tours, or Scott Stapp sing “Torn” on a T-shaped stage, the first time I saw Creed….damn.

Best vacation: Disney Cruise with my family

Favorite place on Earth: Kona, Hawai’i

Interesting fact pertaining to me: my great-great grandmother from Russia ran a house of ill-repute in the Midwest when they immigrated here (you gotta make a living somehow).

Something I think is cool: prayer.

Favorite show on tv: Diners, Drive Ins and Dives on the Food Network

The world is better off without: judgement. And skinny jeans.

The world shouldn’t be without: classic drive ins of yesteryear.

I can’t live without: metaphors.

Favorite sport: fly fising. KIDDING! Baseball is. But I do like to fish in the California Sierras, specifically, Lake Sobrino.

If I could go back in time, it would be to: the Italian Renaissance or the Civil Rights movement in the South.

Favorite movie: I’ve done this list before. Jaws/Bull Durham/True Romace/Gone with the Wind/Bram Stoker’s Dracula/West Side Story/The Big Chill

My dream: that’s a secret list. I’m still working on it.

For two weeks now, my husband and two daughters have taken turns being sick. Luckily, I got sick and better before them, two days after my youngest started preschool (big mystery there). So I’ve gone from sick mom, to nurse mom, to my current state of Zombie mom.

You see, I’ve been in the house with everyone, foregoing daily sunshine, forcing hyper kids to rest, making soup, taking temperatures, administering medication at all hours, for the better part of fourteen days, give or take. At first I really enjoyed the caretaking part of it, then maybe I was a little resentful (my muse left because she didn’t want to get sick too), now, I have become the walking dead.

I’m not sick, but my state of mind has become that of an ill person who is accustomed to doing nothing, in aims to get better. I am a casualty of my own attack. I’m tired of these four walls that echo me back to me, “Lie down and rest!” “Drink that Gatorade!” “Mommy is bored, too!”. This has happened before - my hair stuck to my face after the humidifier ruan all night, feeling Sylvia Plath-ish around 3:00 p.m. when my serontin dips as well as my energy, or wondering if I did all I could to prevent my kids from getting sick, then a minute later endorsing the flip side, “germ therapy.” It’s depressing to vicariously experience your normal life through your kitchen window - people walking their dogs, kids riding their bikes, barbeques wafting smokehouse scents.

Sigh.

Truth is, though, as I complain, I am, in my own dual way, aware that things could be so much worse. I look worse than I feel, I can deal with that. To my surprise, I have - in a very healthy way - gotten through these sick days every way I could…I’ve been singing Ring of Fire or Walking After Midnight repeatedly, and I have no idea why. I’ve read three cookbooks. Also, we’ve been taking lots of vapor baths (I tried using a few drops of eucalyptus oil, but it made their little tushies red). I gave Zoe manicures and pedicures, and let her put on the makeup she’s always begging me to try…no one will see it, anyway. Oh, and we’ve watched every Caillou ever made. It’s okay that my intermittent sleep is showing and my summer tan is gone.

Because not surprisingly, my kitchen has again offered me sanctuary. 

My reliable, unconditional, hot or cool as need be kitchen. 
love is a burning thing

I took some leftover roasted chicken, begged the neighbor for a couple cans of beans, and decided to make chicken chili.

I fired up my gas range.
and it makes a fiery ring

Zoe was feeling better, was still way past bored, so she helped me.
I fell for you like a child

I had the burner set hot as it could go and the flames went higher when Zoe said “the garlic is gonna burn Momma!” I’ll miss her when she goes back to school after two sick days. 

After the garlic sauteed, I added two cans of drained beans, a drained can of diced tomatoes, a cup of chicken broth, then the diced, roasted chicken. I added the carefully chosen spices (chili powder/poultry seasoning/oregano/mustard powder), Worchestshire sauce, and of course, a little bit of brown sugar. the taste of love is sweet

But the chili seemed like it was missing something. Since this dish is a combination of leftovers and pantry items, I went back to the pantry to look for that last addition to perfect my impromptu get-well food…ah, there it is. Artichoke when hearts like ours meet

Simmering now and ready for grated parmesan cheese, sliced avocados, and sour cream is the chili of this ending week. This week and the one before, when the finest points of my mothering were, like always, revealed in the embers left glowing at the end of the day. love is a burning thing

Since I could cook, I’ve shown it with food. and it burns, burns, burns, that ring of fire

And as we enjoy our meal together, my little babies on the mend, although we’ve scratched the walls with cabin fever, and I had to borrow food from the neighbor because I haven’t gotten to the store, life is still magical, charmed…lyrical.

In fact, that chili smells so good I think I may sneak out, zombie style, to the kitchen and eat some after checking Zoe’s temperature in the wee hours.

I go out walking, after midnight, just hoping you may be…

The first round of sickness this school year has stuck around far too long!

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will get nothing - not a damn  thing - done today. I will be taking care of Zoe, whose fever spiked at 103.6 at 1:44 a.m., and her Dad, whose fever finally broke but he is still bedridden, poor guy, all he is capable of right now is laying on his side and moaning. Melia is along for the ride today, my junior nurse.

Strangely, I don’t seem to mind this caretaking, my only regret today is that the weather does not match these seasonal illnesses…it’s in the 90s today outside. The usual Indian Summer, southern California wanting to dissent from the rest of the nation (shocking). If it were just cloudy, maybe drizzling, I’d feel completely in place.

If it were just a little blustery, 100 Acre Wood style, I wouldn’t dread the hours ticking by so slowly as mandatory rest becomes unfortunate boredom.

Boredom, heat…I thought summer was over! Just when I get used to productivity and silence, they all crash my goal-achieving party with sniffles and neediness.

How typical! How wonderful.

I do have one thing scheduled, one thing I will not compromise. But out of superstition, I can’t mention it. It starts at 7:10 p.m. PST, and it could change history.

Today will just be one of those days you get through in order to reach a better one, for the people in this house who don’t feel good, that is. This is sentimental of me - warning - but I know that making chicken soup for the sickies today is every bit as important as the Motrin dosage, fever patch on the forehead and lukewarm bath.

Could be autumn, could be the sick people, could be me sublimating again, but last night I pulled my casserole cookbook out of my food library and fell asleep reading it. There are fantastic recipes in this book, The Big Book of Casseroles by Maryana Vollstedt, but the best thing about this book is that the author informs you what makes a casserole successful - the starches, vegetables, proteins, lipids, cooking times and cookware. Casseroles are the ultimate comfort food. And comfort food was comfort food before the term was ever coined. Ask any mother who has taken care of needy people.

Chicken soup, yes, that’s a given. But a casserole, I hope to accomplish amidst my expectations of only waiting hand and foot on my husband and daughter. The balance of gratitude and ambition manifests in my kitchen yet again. 

chicken sausages, check
items for bechamel, check
penne pasta, check
some kind of cheese, check
garlic, check
frozen spinach, check
herbs and spices, check
breadcrumbs, check

Change in the weather, inevitable. Sickness, on it’s way out. Comfort food, here to stay. Baseball outcomes, we’ll see.

Some days it’s so nice to have something to look forward to, which, in contrast, is just as nice as being needed in the present.

Today didn’t start out melancholy, it just got that way.

I remember a couple of weeks ago I said I was dropping dread. But here’s the thing: my heart is still beating, therefore, vulnerable.

Like when I hear of a school shooting in Finland, or read a submission to MWLM about losing a child, see a photo from the PSA crash 30 years ago, or smell a brush fire miles away.

Someone once told me, in order to live without fear, you must transcend into this knowledge…that even if your worst fears are realized, you’ll survive. Unless, of course that worst thing happens to me in which case I won’t survive, but me dying isn’t my worst fear.

I have felt that way at times - that I’d survive what I see happening around the world or what I’ve read about in books and essays - but then I quickly retract that emotion, afraid I’m inviting these things, that a bad spirit will hear me and test me. I play crazy, crazy games with myself.

Here is what I’m going to do…wash the dishes. Put away laundry. Make clam chowder. Call my girlfriend and tell her I can’t go to her company’s food show because I’m afraid to leave the house (just kidding - I’m afraid of over-eating).

Maybe around dinner time, I’ll burn some sage and light some candles. Every good thought is a prayer. Every minute is sweet and important.

And I am not, NOT watching the news, Cold Case, CSI, Law & Order: SVU, or Without a Trace. I’m gonna kiss my kids and tell them I love them.

The most important thing I can do though, is the hardest. Not let my mind wander into the “how it must feel”, the “what if”. I know it when I do it. If self-knowledge begets self-possession, then everything I see and hear is aiding me in getting that stealthy, everyday composure I covet.   

To not die from loving someone so much, I think you have to close your eyes, proceed, and hope you don’t fall into oblivion. To survive, you have to love in the dark.

A lot of people fear the dark, my kids do. Here’s what I tell them - it’s okay sometimes not to see.

Since the first week of school, when 1st grader Zoe and her class made applesauce and did apple crafts, she has been tugging at me in the kitchen, or poking me in the arm at the store…”Apples, Momma, APPLES! I wanna. Make. Apple. Sauce!”

Yesterday I noticed the five remaining apples I bought in a bag (against my better judgement, but the bag said “Ginger” and “Washington” on it, so I caved) needed to be used. I stood in the kitchen last night, pen in hand, writing to Zoe in her “Write Me Back” book that goes back to school on Mondays, and I promised, “We’ll make applesauce soon, I promise, baby.”

Solstice food #1, homemade applesauce with my daughter. On the menu and planned.

Fall just makes me want soup. It’s a seasonal phenomena. Yesterday as I prepped burgers for hubby to grill, I set aside some ground sirloin to blend with a package of ground turkey I had on hand. And after I’d made the burgers, I rolled meatballs out of the turkey/sirloin, with ground oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs, egg, dried oregano, sea salt, white pepper, garlic powder, and Worchestshire sauce. The meatballs stayed in the fridge overnight, waiting to be cooked in beef broth, pearl barley dancing around them in the soup pot. What a delicious vision.

Solstice food #2, barley soup with meatballs and homegrown vegetables. Half done and highly anticipated.

Even though my husband is sick (but went to the Chargers/Jets Monday Night Football game anyway), and my kids crave hearty food, no one but me expressed a desire in the soup (my Mom, however, drove over to pick some up. Soup is sharing food, ya know). Knowing I hadn’t many takers on the soup, I took a few of the browned meatballs added them into a quick scratch tomato sauce to finish off. Tossed the sauce and meatballs with some whole what pasta and parmesan.

Solstice food #3, impromptu spaghetti and meatballs, enjoyed by the kids and all set for lunch tomorrow. Leftovers rock, anytime of year. And my Dad, who is also sick, loved the soup so much he called me twice to tell me. 

I celebrate the solstices with food. Harvests are symbolic to me, ritualistic to my tummy and psyche. I like to feel everything go around again, it means we’ve all come through another year, and the recipes wait for me like an old friend at an airport terminal as I step off a plane.

The barley soup is a new one for me, and I improvised a lot. It seems I am always out of carrots, onions and celery for the base I need for soups, stews, etc. That deficit due to overuse just brings out the resourcefulness in me, though.

BARLEY SOUP
for the meatballs:
1 pkg. ground turkey
handful ground sirloin
1 egg
1 tbsp. dried oregano
1 cup oatmeal, ground up fine in a mini-prep processor
1 tsp. Worchestshire sauce
1 tsp. garlic powder
coarse grain salt to taste
white (or black) pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients and form into balls.

for the soup:
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, divided use
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 green cabbage (I used a very small homegrown cabbage)
2 stalks celery, diced
1 tbsp. dried oregano
2 sprigs fresh thyme, dried is okay too
(2) 32 oz. cartons good quality beef broth
coarse grain salt to taste
black pepper to taste
1 cup cooked pearl barley (follow package instructions)

In a heavy stockpot with taller sides, add 2 tbsp. of extra virgin olive oil. Add meatballs and brown them on both sides over medium-high heat. If the meatballs stick to the bottom of the pan, they need more time. When they’re done (about 3-4 minutes per side), they’ll pull away with tongs or a spatula.

Soon as meatballs are browned on both soides, remove rom pot and set aside. Add additional tbsp. of olive oil and scrape the browned pieces of meatballs from the bottom of the pan. Add a little bit (1/3 cup or so) of broth if you need to, to shake these flavor pockets loose. Add salt and pepper.

Add garlic, cabbage, and celery. Stir around these veggies, coating them with olive oil. When the veggies are softened, about 3 minutes, add ALL broth.  Add oregano and thyme. Bring to a boil.

When broth is boiling, add browned meatballs (and whatever juices have dripped from them) into pot, reduce to simmer. Simmer for ten minutes or so. 

Cut open one meatball to make sure they’re done. Add barley. Soup’s done.
###

AUTUMNAL APPLESAUCE
I did a little research online prior to making the applesauce with Zoe. Canning and preserving and food milling is much more than I wanted to take on today. Turns out, the potato masher and determination of a 6 year old sous chef work just as well.

5 medium sized apples, pelled and chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. sugar (we used raw cane sugar, but brown sugar is fine too, or granulated if that is all you have)
1 tbsp. cinnamon (Zoe went a little heavy on the cinnamon)
couple of grinds nutmeg

In a stockpot or heavy saucepan, add salt to about 6-8 cups water and bring to a boil. Add apples. Boil mellow/simmer agressive until apples are tender, about five minutes (check by piercing with a fork).

When apples are soft, drain. Place cooked apples in bowl, or add back into pot.  Mash the apples with a potato masher. Add butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Serve or refrigerate.

I bet honey would work in place of the sugar, adding an additional earthy element.
###

If you’d like the scratch tomato sauce recipe, let me know! I’ll post it. It’s so worth the time to do yourself. When you can buy organic, preservative-free diced tomatoes in a can, scratch tomato sauce doesn’t have to be an all-day-event-only-Sunday luxury.

Enjoy autumn, before you know it, all the golden leaves will have fallen. Cook while you can.

So, I collect menus.

I’ve done it for years. It started when I noticed a menu had a date printed on it. I thought it’d be a great way to remember the special occasion I was out for - maybe it was an anniversary. Who knows. Anyway, menus are like photographs for me. Menus are like letters written by someone who didn’t know me but had the same passion for food that I do. Menus are culinary “What Life Was Like…” publications.

Depending on the date of the menu, you can get a sense of then and now, as told through food. That sucks me right in.

I have a spiral notebook full of menus. Some of my menus are in sheet protectors, some are even laminated. Some menus have red wine or chocolate stains, some have wine corks taped to them. I like the ones printed on parchment, that is so romantic.

When I need a new way of making something, or I feel unimaginative with raw chicken, I pull out a menu from years ago. It’s like taking a refresher course in food pairings and seasonal match-ups. If I have some sea scallops in the fridge, I look at a menu from a seafood restaurant here in San Diego. If it’s steak I want, I’ll go refer to the “SIDES” section of a steakhouse menu. On the same menu, I’ll take a peek at the demis the chef was fancying at the time I visited the restaurant.

I have only been refused a menu once. It was at a restaurant in Vegas. However, they treated me - and my 18 month old child - very well in that restaurant when an expensive glass of Chardonnay was spilled and broken by my son’s little foot. Within seconds the staff had replaced the glass of wine, and the second glass of wine never appeared on our bill. So they get a pass.

Now, I know I can look up any recipe online and find probably anything I want. But that just takes the fun out of it for me. I’ve been known to take cookbooks into the bath and disappear for a) hours or b) as long as my kids let me be absent. I meticulously place a sticky on each page with a must-try recipe (desserts-yellow sticky, dinners-pink sticky, starters-green sticky, beverages, blue sticky).

Also, I can look up pdf menus online of almost any restaurant I’d like to visit. But that feels almost like estrangement to me. I’d rather be tasting, and the flavor of the food may far surpass the description. (Plus I always get prompts to update Adobe and that bugs me.) You can’t get the aromas, atmosphere or ambience, or sound of a place online. A menu held in your hands reveals an honest culinary experience.

Cookbooks thrill me, but menus remind me. My friend Yvette is in Northern California this week - while talking to her on the phone (about what else, food) she told me she had to leave for a dinner meeting at a restaurant. “Oh! Get me a menu!” I said. I could her her shaking her head at my obsessiveness over the phone.

She knows, though, as long as she’s friends with me she’ll be fed well.

Next time you go out, look at the menu, really, look at it. Notice the sides, sauces, seasonal offerings, specials, preparations. That is all someone’s work, someone’s livelihood, someone’s heart, another person’s soul, all made to order for your special occasion - anniversary, birthday, just because dinner date.

You can remember it anyway you want it, but menus take up little space and don’t disintegrate.

Menus, like memories - they keep. No substitutions.

Here are some dishes from different menus I’ve collected.

From Merriman’s, Kona, Hawai’i, May 2004
Ninole Hearts of Palm Salad-Hirabara Greens, Maui Onions, Lemongrass Vinaigrette. Coconut Glazed Scallops Extra
Wainaku Corn, Macadamia Nut & Shrimp Fritters-Bean & Tomato Relish, Cilantro Sour Cream
Big Island Poisson Cru-Freshest Fish marinated in Lime, Coconut, and Onions
Mauna Kea Goat Cheese Baked in Phyllo-Hirabara Farm Organic Greens, Waimea Strawberry Vinaigrette
Stirfried Vegetables over Cake Noodle-Peas, Sweet Peppers, Broccoli, Mushrooms & Onions in Chinese Black Bean Sauce

at Merriman’s, I talked at length with one of the servers. She told me she named her daughter “Kauluwehiho’opilialohaikealapono”, which means, “The beautiful adornment that encourages unity and love on the righteous path”. I still have this written on the back of a Merriman’s comment card, I love it like a menu.

From Roy’s, Pebble Beach, California September 9, 2001
Cassoulet of Wild Mushrooms garlic spinach, brie, truffle mash
Seared Kauai Sweet White Prawns stir fry basmati rice, thai chili-lime vinaigrette

From Mille Fleurs, Friday, June 29th 2001
Pickled Herring on Sliced New Potatoes with Dill Cucumbers with Fresh Horseradish Vinaigrette
Lobster Salad on Garden Greens, Avocado, Papaya and Lemon Dressing
Broiled Loin of Lamb with Black Olive Crust and Saffron Couscous
Stuffed Chicken with Fresh Herbs, Steamed Asparagus and Madeira Wine Sauce

From Top of the Market, San Diego, California, February 14th of some year
Fresh Rosemary Capellini with Maine Lobster in Champagne Cream Sauce
Fresh Washington Dungeness Crab Cioppino topped with Locatelli romano cheese

From Bistro Jeanty, Wine Country, California, Summer 2000
Salade de Betteraves et Mache (Beet and Mache Salad with Feta)
Soupe de Poisson (Fish Soup with Spicy Aiolli Croutons)
Daube de Boeuf (Beef Stew, Mash Potatoes, Peas & Carrots)
Moules au Vin Rouge (Mussels Steamed in Red Wine)
Cabecou au Miel (Goat Cheese with Honey)
Frites
Spinach au Beurre
Buttered Egg Noodles, Yummy with Coq au Vin (the menu says that, it’s not my footnote)

From Mum’s, Long Beach, California, 2000 when my brother in law was Executive Chef
Grilled Shrimp with Chile Beurre Blanc and Black Bean Cake with Wasabi Creme Fraiche
Sushi Special - Daily Cut Roll, Tuna, Yellowtail, Salmon, Tuna Tataki, Inari, Halibut, Jumbo Clam, Albacore, Shrimp, Sea Clam & Miso Soup
Baby Spinach with Orange Spirals, Goat Cheese, Kalamata Olives and White Balsamic Vinaigrette
Chilean Sea Bass over Sauteed Spinach with Lobster Curry Sauce and Mashed Potatoes
Miso Poached Salmon with Caramelized Onion, Israeli Couscous and Asian Vegetables
Cilantro-Jalapeno Taglioni with Blackened Shrimp, Peas and Red Pepper Cream Sauce

BTW: What I made last night, below. The menus of home cooking are called “Mom.”
herb crusted chicken, seared and drizzled with lemon oil; haricots verts and new potatoes in a rich tomato sauce with fresh parsley (yep, a lot of it’s spin).

My girls speak a language all their own. Before Melia could say Zoe’s name, she called her “Baby”. She just knew Zoe was the one in the family closest to her.

I am an only child. I don’t understand what I am seeing, I only know it’s happening. And I never knew it until Melia started talking. She would say things I couldn’t understand (she still does).

Like this: “I wanna seh levan!” Melia said in the car last week. Bread levened? Huh? “Baby, I don’t know what you are saying!” I reply to her. Zoe sat next to Melia in the car, looking out the window. She didn’t bat an eye when she said to me “She wants to go to 7-11, Mom.” Oh, okay. Sorry.

I drive in the direction of the convenience store, thinking about all of the women I know who are so close to their sisters. I don’t know any woman with a sister who doesn’t speak to her sibling almost daily. I know twins who won’t take leave of each other, even when one went on her honeymoon.

Lying in bed last Friday night, family snuggling as ritual dictates, Melia said what I interpreted to be “I want monkey cheese.” “You want…monkey (monkey?) cheese?” She wants monkey cheese. Is that like head cheese but more exotic? Could be fatigue, could be I am losing my hearing like my father and his brothers, but I couldn’t decipher “monkey cheese.” “Mom, hello! She wants mac and cheese. Why can’t you even understand her?” Zoe asked me, a little too teenagerish for my liking.

I guess because I don’t have a sister, I don’t share the bond you two do, I wanted to say. She wouldn’t get it, but she already knows. This is why Zoe insists they wear matching clothes whenever possible. This is why Zoe takes so much time and care drawing Melia into the family portraits she does at school. This is why Zoe charges me like a pissed off bovine animal and kicks me like a mule when she feels I have unjustifiably scolded her 3 year old baby sister.

I’ve given birth to two girls - sisters first, daughters second, or so I think it will go. So I am hoping. I don’t mind if they don’t call me everyday when they’ve left the nest. But I want them to maintain their current supernatural, psychic sense about each other. It starts with language, it becomes identity. It’s one of the things I am discovering and loving about what I’ve created.

It was a humorous moment when I discovered Zoe was Melia’s translator. I had taken my lip gloss away from Melia (I see them sharing makeup for sure), and she hid behind the couch, saying what I thought was “stupid hassle.” Yes, indeed a hassle, I thought. Always trying to keep you two out of my makeup. I’ve surrendered my Italian heels to you, what more do you want? But why, who am I kidding, why would a toddler say “stupid hassle”?

I paused and asked Melia, “What did you just say? I missed it.”

“She called you a stupid asshole,” Zoe told me. When Zoe said that, she had a look on her face, like she wasn’t afraid she’d be disciplined for saying a bad word. Like she was just…doing her job.

Where did Melia hear “stupid asshole”? I wondered.

Well, my two little girls may be closer than I can ever imagine, but they sure display traits of the people they came from.

And the language of sisters may not always be G rated, we’ll find that out in a few years undoubtedly…but it will always, effortlessly, be understood.

I was twenty years old, maybe nineteen. I worked in an office comprised of mostly college students at Sea World of California. We worked on weekends and some weekdays. We worked late, we worked hung over, we worked at each other (oh, we also sometimes did our jobs). I had unknowingly resigned myself to simply having fun at this time. Responsibility was the fringe of everything I did. I had a shiny red truck that was programmed to drive in the direction of the beach.

I guess it’s accurate to say, I hadn’t yet discovered I had any real potential. I was in college, yeah, but the only curriculum that held my interest was literaure. In literature, creative writing or poetry class, it was easy to be serious, pensive, and it felt natural to be solemn. 

Back in the office, though, I didn’t think much. At least, when I was around other fun-loving people my age, I don’t remember thinking at all.

There was one quiet guy who kept to himself, though - he was always observing, processing, carefully commenting, and I was certain he didn’t talk to me because I was acting out a different role. This quiet guy, he didn’t go to most parties, nor clubs, he didn’t surf, and he drank Guinness. In the early 90s, especially when Anheuser-Busch was your employer, that was considered strange.

One Saturday, I came back from my lunch break and on my desk, I found a piece of college-ruled paper with a paragraph written on it. It was a passage from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. That was it, no “I thought you’d like this” or “from” so and so.

The only person it could be was that quiet guy, I thought, the quiet one who rarely spoke unless he was baiting the (one) ultra-conservative Christian office employee with talk of the Puritan ethic.

“I like you Samantha, you’re a free bird,” he had said to me once. I’d never known this guy to compliment people freely for any type of personal gain. He wore wool plaid in summer. He sang Irish folk songs, even though the rest of the people in the office were always singing about gin and juice. And best of all, I knew that if my Emerson parapgraph was from this guy, it wasn’t a way of hitting on me. 

Two weeks later, we began studying transcendentalism in American Lit class. The anonymous paragraph, my interest and maybe even potential were syncing up.

The quiet guy asked me once “Did you get the passage I left for you?” Yes, I replied. I really got it, that simple gift, and maybe just in time.

Today my Mom gave me a book called Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations because she got tired of me asking “What is that saying, Mom?” She is good with quoting literature and philosophers like I am good at quoting movies and songs.

And truth is, I really didn’t know what to blog about today, only that I wanted to write. So I randomly picked out quotes from this hardcover, fifth edition, 794 pages of quotations book and began listing them in my blog. Because I liked them. Because one of them made me laugh hysterically at age thirteen (though it’s not in the book), because my son came up to me and quoted a family favorite while I was writing this blog and it seemed meant to be included (that one is not in Bartlett’s either).

However, this blog ended up being kind of a tribute to Emerson. And why not? I like to think Emerson found me. Most of all, I just like to know that he lived, and he is still here.  

Here are some random quotes from today, Sunday, September 14th, and if you read one or all of them, I promise you that you’ll find what you may not have known you were looking for.

“Some men’s words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.” Emerson, Character
(that is my rationalization for using quotations of others rather than coming up with my own today)

***
“Thou art to me a delicious torment.” Emerson

“You and me, we’ve made a separate peace.” Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time

“Lie to me. Tell me all the years you’ve waited. Tell me.” Johnny Guitar (screenplay), spoken by Sterling Hayden

“It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an r in their name to eat an oyster.” William Butler, Dyet’s Dry Dinner
(I had no idea that culinary rule was 400+ years old)

“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point in which the soul may fixate its intellectual eye.” Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

“If he wrote it he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.” Ernest Hemingway, Fathers and Sons

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1961

“I say to you in all sadness of conviction, that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists.” The Profession of the Law, Oliver Wendell Holmes (1886)

“Gimme a whiskey - ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.” Eugene O’Neill

“The heart has its reasons which reasons knows nothing of.” Blaise Pascal

“I’ll note you in my book of memory.” William Shakespeare

“Calm of mind, all passion spent.” John Milton

“It’s not a tumor.” Arnold Schwarzenegger (per my son)

“Where ya goin’ Mr. Fat Jack?” Tom Hanks in Splash. I still think it’s terribly funny. 

“Can anyone remember when times were not hard and money not scarce?” Emerson

“‘Tis a gift to be simple,
‘Tis a gift to be free,
‘Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be” Shaker Song, Simple Gifts, circa 1848, st. 1

…where we ought to be. I couldn’t have said it better.

Doesn’t everyone eat Carne Asada burritos at
2:00 a.m.?

“When we travel to California, we make sure we go to Roberto’s,” I hear out-of-towners say. Roberto’s, Royberto’s Aliberto’s, and Mariscos are all euphemisms for the prototypical western United States taco shop where Mexican fast food reigns among other fast food.

Since I was high school – we had off campus lunches – the taco shop to me has been a sure thing, a routine destination, and an icon of youth and southwestern culture. My college campus had taco shops, because trips and purchases there cure pre-exam jitters, post-exam hunger, hangovers and deliciously filled the need of between class re-fueling.

In the days before children, when I worked (I should say, got paid to work) and had strict one hour lunch breaks, the taco shop read my urgency and hunger, and complied every time. When I began this mommy thing, and my first child had to be driven around at night to get to sleep, the taco shop once again became a destination, as many taco shops are open 24/7. A new Mommy with a good memory, I would sit in my Jetta, baby in the back, watching singles leaving the bars or parties to reunite at the taco shop in the wee hours. It was cute. Or it wasn’t pretty. But it has never changed. 

Taco shop food comes wrapped in a waxy yellow paper or styrofoam box. The goodies found within are representative of the many levels of our lives, now that I think and write about it. Tortillas filled with cheesy, gooey, meaty, sour cream and salsa, or the enticing crunch from a rolled taco - I’ll never stop eating this food. These days, I haul taco shop food to play dates, the park, soccer and baseball tournaments.

Or polish off the leftovers while everyone sleeps. (“Mom, what happened to my burrito?”)

The taco shop aroma, it’s just the familiar scent of home - grilled, spiced meat intermingling with salty sea air, smoke from a brush fire, or eucalyptus trees. It makes even the worst day better.

Every city in the United States has a McDonald’s, but taco shops in the southwest, I think, must be like delis in New York or Cracker Barrels in the Midwest. Rustic regional food  - it’s just comforting to know there’s one on almost every corner.

When they closed down the last Bob’s Big Boy in San Diego, the first taco shop I ever saw went up in its place, the smoke emanating from the roof somewhere. Plastic tables sat out front, nailed to the ground. It was a newly built establishment, this eatery that uprooted Bob (another blog), but it looked like it had been there for years. I gave it a shot. One taste, and I traded burgers for burritos.

The taco shop era of my life began. From junior high on, I fell in love with cilantro, easily afforded quesadillas, and only recently, discovered carne asada fries. Carne asada fries - strips of lean meat marinated in spices (these vary), placed atop French fries. That alone make this meat-and-potato girl curl my toes in anticipation, but the toppings make this dish; first, you’ve got the fries, then the grilled and chopped meat, then shredded cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream, guacamole, cilantro, and salsa fresca. Potato nachos if you will, a meal that all three of my kids agree on. For pure indulgence, I get the California burrito - carne asada fries wrapped inside a tortilla with pico de gallo.

Many taco shops have up to 20 combination plates; enchiladas, tamales, rolled tacos, open tacos, with rice and beans. I usually get stuck deciding between rolled tacos - tortillas wrapped around shredded beef or chicken then fried - or chicken enchiladas. When I can’t decide on that, I’ll move over to the burrito menu and vacillate between macahaca, chorizo, pollo asada, or fajita. My husband never deters from his standard carne asada burrito. Everyone has a favorite.

In my experience in the food industry, I have met some masterful Mexican chefs who immigrated from south of the border. The best taco shops are backed by guys like them.

And I believe good food should be accessible to everyone, not just through a drive-up window.

“Macario, I need to know how to make the white sauce for fish tacos!” 
“Does the chef share his ceviche recipe?”
“How did your abuela make it?”
“You’re family is from Mazatlan? No kidding? Tell me about the beans!”
“Auntie, let’s talk menudo while the kids are swimming.”

When it’s a recipe I want, I know how to talk to people. With some luck and their spirit of generosity, I now treasure my archives of fifty plus original Mexican recipes from artistic, ritualistic, innovative chefs with roots in Mexico who displayed - in the kitchens where I worked - instinct, good ingredient choices, and common sense: the food must taste good. Period.

I see these philosophies demonstrated every time I drive by a taco shop, the drive-thru packed, the service lines deep. Sometimes, I just don’t want to wait in one of those lines. Sometimes - Quetzalcoatl forbid - traditional recipes are tinkered with and flavors thrown off.

So I made up my own. Macario, Mr. Gutierrez, and Aunt Rose Marie would be proud of me.

Here is my recipe for carne asada. I am reluctant to tell you that I used soy sauce which is probably not an original ingredient. However, I ran this by a friend of mine whose family knows carne asada and she seemed familiar with this addition. I need to do some more research on carne asada before I perfect this recipe, get it more authentic, but this was a good start. I grilled the carne asada last night before we went to Alex’s ball game, and when we got home, I served salsa, guacamole, sour cream and corn tortillas with it. Alex finished whatever was left on his sister’s plates (atta boy).

The meat is lean, the flavor is taco shop worthy, it’s the perfect cure for Mexican food jonesing, little bodies enduring growth spurts, and family re-grouping after each one of us goes in a different direction during the day.

CARNE ASADA
for marinade:
juice of one orange
juice of one lime
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup soy sauce
1-2 tbsp. cumin
1 tbsp. ground coriander
2 tbsp. chili pepper
2 tbsp. dried Mexican oregano
one bunch chopped fresh cilantro
one chopped yellow onion
1/2 cup honey
what I will add next time: tomato paste

2 lbs. flap steak

Let steak marinade overnight, rotate the meat within the marinade a few times to make sure flavor gets integrated. Grill about five minutes per side.

FOR CARNE ASADA FRIES:
carne asada, cooked and kept warm, sliced into strips
fried potatoes, either from scratch, or a good quality frozen brand, cooked according to package instructions
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
fresh salsa (recipe follows)
fresh chopped cilantro
sour cream
guacamole

Lay fries on a platter. Top with carne asada. Add cheeses (at this point, you may want to zap in microwave to get the cheese melting), then the sour cream, salsa, guacamole, and cilantro. Serve.

FRESH SALSA
4 tomatoes, diced fine
1/2 white onion, diced fine
tomato paste (little bit)
garlic puree (you can find this in the produce section, or puree a few peeled cloves in a mini-chop processor)
lime juice
serrano pepper, diced fine (remove seeds - handle and discard carefully)
jalapeno pepper, diced fine (remove seeds - handle and discard carefully)
white pepper
coarse grain salt
chopped fresh cilantro

I haven’t listed many measurements here because salsa is so subjective. Start out with small amounts of ingredients (except for those indicated with a specific amount), and add the other ingredients from there to your liking. For example, if the lime is particularly juicy, you needn’t squeeze it dry. If the lime is small, squeeze until the last drop is released from the fruit, and add the zest, if you like. Trust yourself. Act like you’ve been making this all your life. Sometimes mojo begins with an illusion.

I begin with half of a serrano and half of a jalapeno. I then set aside some of the salsa and add the additional jalapeno and serrano, making a “spicy” bowl for my husband and son. I like mine mild, with extra cilantro.

If you just don’t like how it looks, maybe the veggies are not diced fine enough, or whatever, puree the salsa in a blender. The chips don’t know the difference!

Make sure you clean that blender well before getting started on the margaritas. When you get into college and beyond, you need more than a Coke to wash this food down.

I’ve got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind
I’m just twenty-two and I don’t mind dying
Who do you love
Who do you love
Who do you love

Tonight, Greg Maddux takes the mound against San Diego. The Dodgers are now in first place. Who do I love?

Good question.

Anyway! Yesterday, after two baseball games and soccer opening day, three family members (including me) sick with a hi, this is preschool! cold, one loud, embarrassing toddler hissy fit in everyone-I-know public, all endured during one hundred degree heat, I wasn’t eaxctly ready for the dinner party I had planned for Sunday evening.

But I had a three and a half pound roast that needed to be cooked. I had fresh spinach waiting to be vinaigretted, red bell peppers to be grilled, couscous waiting for diced tomatoes and lemon juice.

“Just come over at 5, we’ll go out to eat, then come back here and the kids can play the Wii,” I said to Carolyn, my amiga of 22 years. Carolyn, poor baby, is suffering from a terrible Wii addiction and had planned to bring it over to my house for dinner, unable to part with it. Carolyn’s birthday was last month and due to the over-scheduling of lives, we talk every other day but don’t see each other as often as we should.

So as soon as Carolyn and I had a workable plan, I got my kids - my hot, sweaty, been at the field all day, worked over kids - into the bath and made the all important call ahead seating communication by phone.

The roast sat on my counter, the healthy red color of the meat starting to fade. My frugal, maternal self - though beaten down a little with a cold and sun/child exhaustion - sprung into action at the thought of waste. That and leftover roast beef, I love leftover roast beef, it’s September food.

A fight ensuing in the bathtub over I don’t know what because I blocked it out, my husband running around the house whining about the Chargers game, I took the roast lovingly into both hands (yep, I’m twisted) and laid it into a roasting pan. I dusted it with coarse grain salt, dried oregano, and black pepper. I poured over A1, Worchestshire sauce, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Between all of the pot roast recipes I’d read over the last three days as I waited for an opportunity to cook this roast, I combined all of said recipes and cooked it in a way I hoped would work.

I didn’t flour and brown it in oil, like foodtv.com suggested. I didn’t cook it for many, many hours like epicurious.com talked about. The most I did was chop up two stalks of on the softer side celery and half a red onion, and add them towards the end.

And I preheated the oven to 225 degrees, a temperateure right in between what all of the recipes listed.

I set the timer for 3 hours, figuring we’d be home before cooking time ran out. We made it by 15 minutes.

While the roast cooked, I, happily dining out, enjoyed heavy on anchovy Caesar, Malbec, and wood-fired goat cheese pizza with rosemary and red onion. I took a bite out of Carolyn’s birthday sundae. I drank a lot of water to rehydrate, and flush the cold. My kids and Carolyn’s chased each other around the table at dinner.

By the third child, though, and on my best day, I can deflect daggers. Life is too busy and short to be bothered with such things.

When we got home, the house smelled like roasted beef and piquant pan gravy. I took the foil off the roast as Carolyn set up the Wii, a look on her face I hadn’t seen since we were seventeen.

I’ll never grow up never grow up never grow up-Up not me

Then Carolyn said “Just one game per kid, and we’re leaving, Sam is done for the day.” Don’t you love a friend who knows you well, and will speak up for you when your mouth is full of food, denial, or pride?

When we got to bed, though, I couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe some of those daggers permeated my shield, rattled the game that I talk, maybe I was still hungry, maybe the cold medicine made me restless.

No, I admit this, I’m always restless. Since I was up late, I committed to memory the recipe I haphazardly created. I mentally wrote down how I cooked that roast beef because juicy it was, tender it promised to stay, and biting into that celery that surprisingly kept it’s texture, I tasted a seductive flavor of fall. Almost as if I had used poultry seasoning.

Here is pot roast on the fly…let me give you a garlic bread recipe to eat along with it. You need something to absorb the pan juices.

POT ROAST trust yourself
3 1/2 pound round top roast
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup A1
1/4 cup Worchestshire sauce
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2+ stalks celery, diced
1/2 red onion, sliced
dried oregano to taste
coarse grain salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Pour over roast: olive oil, A1, Worchestshire, and balsamic. Sprinkle over the roast: oregano, salt, pepper.

Slow roast for up to 3 hours, the internal temp on the roast I cooked was 140 degrees when removed from the oven. Let it rest 20 minutes before cutting, if you can wait.

GARLIC BREAD
1 french bread, sliced lengthwise
6 garlic cloves
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 
1 tbsp. butter, room temp
1/2 tsp. coarse grain salt
handful shredded parmesan cheese
optional: parsley flakes or chopped fresh parsley
smoked paprika if you like that reddish color on the garlic bread
note: I often double this, because sometimes I like my bread with extra garlic cheese topping, or I plan to use it in pasta the next day.

Preheat the broiler.
Pulse garlic, olive oil, butter salt and parmesan together in food processor. (If you don’t have a food processor, mince the garlic as fine as you can get it, then add olive oil, salt and parmesan to garlic in a bowl until you get a thick, spreadable consistency.) Pause the pulsing and look at the mixture. If it’s too thick, add more olive oil.

When the mixture is all blended and spreadable, add either fresh chopped parsley or dried parsley flakes, if you like. 

Spread garlic/butter/cheese/ parsley mixture over lenghwise sliced bread.

Sprinkle on some paprika if you want.

Put under broiler for about four minutes - check after three. I usually stand beside the oven while this broils. It burns fast, and to burn scratch garlic bread…what a waste.