Caramel Macchiato, extra Caramel and other regional and cultural foods of note

Our son turned 21 on Monday. We officially have two adult children. w00t! For his birthday, I took elements of cakey-ness that I know are good and made a homage to our son's favorite Starbucks drink, using chocolate mocha cake, caramel glaze (used as filling) and mocha buttercream. Then our daughter made it perfect by putting whipped cream on top and drizzling it with more caramel. The fun part was I made it all from scratch, except the "birthday letters" we put on for fun. Man, was that one sugary cake. But good, especially warmed up a little. I was going to put a picture of it but you wouldn't understand. It looks like a mess, like it melted. But that's what the drink looks like. Oh, forget it. Here's the picture and you can think what you like.



I've been busy doing everything but making money lately, mostly eating. Let's see: Steph and I went to a "Sock Fest" in Portland (when she invited me, I said, "Excuse me, did you say 'suck fest'?"), where we wandered around a Sock Museum (I kid you not) and marveled at all the wide variety of fibers and colors you can knit with, and the wide variety of materials and colors and shapes you can use as knitting needles, too. We didn't win anything, even though I TOLD the man at the front door that he was to give me a WINNING raffle ticket. The day did include good food, specifically burgers: we met up with some friends and had lunch at Red Robin, where somehow Dawn managed to pick up the tab for everybody. So it turned out I spent no money at all the whole day, got lunch and had fun. Can't beat that.

Then Rick and I went to the Beaverton Farmer's Market a couple Saturdays ago, where I was completely unable to not spend money. I got a plethora of live herbs in little pots for my garden. So now I am the proud owner of parsley, rosemary and thyme, but I didn't buy sage. I don't use sage for much other than singing along with Peter, Paul and Mary. I've already snipped at the rosemary to make a focaccia. I've never made focaccia before - it was really good, if I say so myself. Among other herbs as well, I got a lovely ornamental oregano with bell-type green and purple flowers, and a huge fuzzy Cuban oregano plant which I have put out by the front door. I love it. We also bought dinner fixin's, featuring baby red potatoes, maitake mushrooms and fresh salmon with organic vegetables and strawberries. I'm afraid to cook fish, I've no experience, but Rick grills it amazingly well. Very fun, local and it made a delicious meal.

Last Saturday Steph and I spent part of the afternoon wandering around a "cultural fair" which was really a fundraiser for the local Orthodox churches - I didn't know there was an orthodox church on Walker Road, but there it was - and we enjoyed souvlaki and Russian pelmeni and Greek coffee while watching teenage Greekies dancing traditional dances. Opa! "Why don't we eat like this every day?" my daughter asks. Well, child, because it takes HOURS to prepare this stuff. But I could make pelmeni once in a while. Really, I could. I will. Eventually. You have to work yourself up to such things, you know. And I'm going to make her help me.

I've had many lettuce salads from the garden, nearly one every day for lunch. Good eats and emotionally satisfying. Something other than me is munching on the cabbage. I don't care too much because I'm not sure even why I planted cabbages, except they do well in the winter. I ate enough cabbage as a child to last my whole life. Though I do like a little of it in my borscht. I have an ambition someday to be able to make and eat borscht that comes entirely from my garden, except for the meat and sour cream. This winter I'll have about half the veggies I need from the garden: beets, parsnips, carrots, cabbage (if it survives). Garlic is going to be planted but it won't be ready until next summer, and onions and potatoes have to wait until spring planting, too. Did you notice borscht is basically all root vegetables that grow well in cold weather? Well, it's from Russia. Makes sense.

It doesn't fit in any way to this post, but for fun here is a Japanese clip of a little chimp being more amazed and entertained by magic tricks than any little kid I've ever seen: magical. I particularly like that, since I don't speak Japanese, I hear pretty much what the chimpanzee hears, and I can see how the animal follows the visual clues he is given, not the words. And I do hope they kept the rest of his day predictable and comfortable, after all those shocking surprises. :)

love,

cat

Greenish

I am a greenie in pretty much the same way some people are Christians: I am green when it is convenient, doesn't cost me anything and I feel like it. I'm greenish. I want to be green. I agree with the idea that we should be good stewards of the earth God gave us. I just want to have an Easy Button for it. A big, red, plastic Easy Button.

In Alaska, it was easy for me to feel very green. Green is not a popular concept there. Alaska has no weekly pickup of recyclables, no bin to toss your stuff in. Many people don't even bother with garbage service. They use burn barrels and a trash pile out on the back of the property. Businesses don't bother with recycling paper, even. You can have all the plastic Fred Meyer bags you want, no one talks about banning them, and no shop I saw posted that their coffee is served in compostable cups and lids. They wouldn't dare.

Rick and I found the recycling center, which is run by nice, graying volunteers who looked to me like they might have been hippies since it first became hip to be one. They were only able to accept certain items for recycling (no glass, for instance). It was kind of like going back in time for us, to about twenty years ago when our kids were little and we'd take our recycling down to the center on Denney Road and toss it all into the labeled dumpsters.

Last year, we quickly found it prudent not to talk much about recycling and such to our huntin', fishin', truck drivin' friends and neighbors. Alaskans blame greenies for ruining everything from the local fishing to the economy. In fact, I found that making a statement like, "Look at how much garbage we created from this one fast food lunch," after church on Sunday would get my friends, people I love and who love me, asking me if I am a greenie, in a carefully neutral tone that didn't fool me one bit. I figured it prudent to say with perfect honesty, "Not very." I didn't have to explain that I'm ashamed of my green failures. It's perfectly legal for Alaskans to carry concealed weapons. In fact, several times over the year we lived there someone would point out to me in church on Sunday morning that in a crowd this size he/she could guarantee me that at least five people had guns on them at that very moment. This was in the way of reassuring me that we were safe in case a crazed gunman rushed in, threatening people. Hmm.

As we were leaving the great state of Alaska (which really is a great state and I do miss it a lot, guns, trucks and all), I heard on NPR that San Francisco has passed a law making it illegal to throw compostable materials in the trash. No more eggshells, coffee grounds or carrot tops in the garbage cans, folks. I was intrigued. Both my grandmothers lived in The City (that's what you call San Francisco if you live in the Bay Area) and I know one of them definitely would have taken to this law easily because she never threw anything away if it could possibly have some use. She saved everything, and I mean everything. If someone had shown her that you can turn lettuce leaves and old wet paper into good soil for the garden, she would have taken to it. I think. As long as you made it clear it had nothing to do with hippies. Anyway, kind of in honor of San Francisco's new law, when we got to Beaverton I made a worm bin for our kitchen scraps. And then the Big Hot came and made us all miserable for a week and probably killed the worms. I still have to check to see if I need to start over or if the little guys were able to hibernate or something until the weather cooled off. I fear they're cooked, though, so I haven't looked yet. Do you do that, put off finding out if the worst has happened? I do it all the time.

Anyway, the picture I've attached demonstrates my current state of green: my first garden salad! It was a three-bite salad and it was delicious and beautiful in a bowl my daughter made. The lettuce will grow along with my greenie-ness. 'Cause in Portland, man, you had BETTER be green. Thankfully guns aren't legal here. No way Portlanders have the restraint of Alaskans when it comes to strong convictions.

love,

cat

Watching TV Can Do Strange Things to Your Mind

When we get tired of gardening and writing and looking for work, one of the things we do is watch TV. And we have lotsa cable now, so it is amazing the things we find. Our most recent find, last Sunday afternoon, is Cake Boss on TLC. Seen it? Ha-larious New York Italian family baking amazing cakes. They had me at "Forget about it."

And I am so jealous of everyone who gets to be on Yard Crashers. This landscaper named Ahmed hangs around at home improvement stores, looking for someone who is trying to fix something with their backyard with too few resources, convinces them he really wants to help (which is apparently hard to do - lots of people turn him down) and then he follows this lucky person home and completely remodels their whole yard. I AM SO JEALOUS!

But the hardest part of TV for me right now is the new series of Prius commercials. You know, the ones where weird people are dressed up as nature and dance around or whatever it is they do? All I can think is, "Soylent Green is people! Tell everyone!" And then I shiver. Go here if you really want to know what I'm talking about - but be warned: this is 1970's sci fi at its most ...umm... horrifically cheesy. There are certainly many things to miss about the 70's. :) Do you know the secret of Soylent Green? (Hint: I already told you.)

And if that was too weird for you, here is a video of a pug pushing a pink baby stroller around Portland: click here. Don't say I never gave you anything wonderful.

I made hot dog buns today. They look amazingly terrible. I was scared of them at first but now I love them. How are you doing?

love,

cat

Five degrees of Rick

A couple nights ago, Rick got a message that his friend Carl was in the hospital. Rick knows Carl because years and years ago Carl managed a book store near our house that I went to frequently and we got to know each other. Carl used to ask me to come work for him, since I was so clearly a book fanatic. I was never really in a position to say yes to that, so I played coy. A couple of years into our casual friendship, Rick needed a job and I went to Carl and said, “Hey, would you hire Rick instead?” and he did. They became friends. The person who let Rick know about Carl’s hospitalization is Brent, his son. Rick and Brent are friends as well because Rick started a guy’s Bible study – oh, years ago – and Brent was part of it.

Rick went to the hospital, where he sat with Randy’s parents, waiting for Carl to get out of surgery. Rick knows Randy’s parents because Randy was one of his students years and years and years ago when the world was young, back when my brother also hung out with Rick, back in the days when Rick was trying to catch my attention. (Naturally I played coy: it's what I do.) Randy’s parents were there because Carl’s wife and Randy’s mom happen to be sisters. Someone there tried to introduce Rick to them and they were all like, “Oh, no, we’re old friends.”

So then Rick was waiting for Brent (Carl’s son, remember?) to come up to the room. Brent finally does so and Rick asks, “What took you so long?” Brent says, “I was talking to Becca’s dad, ‘cause her grandmother is recovering from surgery here.” Rick says, “Vergene is here?” Brent and Becca are dating, which was one of those pleasant surprises for us when we heard about it. I remember shaking my head and saying, “Brent found Becca? What a small world…” See, Becca’s kin are people we have known for many long ages. Dave and Vergene, her grandparents, were pillars of our church for many years, and friends of ours. Kind people. Our kids ran around their farm growing up. As Rick stepped into Vergene’s room, Lori, their daughter (Becca’s aunt), greeted Rick with surprise. She was part of his volunteer youth staff team, also years and years ago. Rick visited Vergene, caught up with Lori for a while, and then came home.

Tomorrow, Rick is meeting Jordan and Amanda for premarital counseling. Jordan has been a friend of my son’s since they were both about five years old. And, you shouldn’t be surprised by this point, Jordan’s wonderful family lived next door to Dave and Vergene.

If we were in Alaska, all this interrelated stuff would not be surprising at all. Alaska's like that, just one giant small town. I used to have to remind myself to be extra careful and not talk about stuff I knew about people because like as not the person I wanted to mention would be the brother of the person I was talking to, or someone they used to babysit.

But we’re in Oregon, current population 3,559,596 (I assume that number includes us, if not: 3,559,598). We didn’t introduce any of these people to each other. I know, right? We're not good at stuff like that, but apparently it happens anyway, so it's ok. It had better be, 'cause you know us... If you haven't already, clearly you are going to fall into our vortex eventually.

We’re praying for Carl, that he recovers well. Be strong, Moose King.

love,

cat