Musings

From the very beginning, I didn't plan to be an obsessive blogger. I planned to post when I felt like it, when the urge to write, to spill the words out, was overpowering. I can't deny that in spite of those feelings, I'm disappointed in myself for letting months slip by without a word, even though I know that it's only one or two people who even check to see that I've written. Blogging, for me, was just supposed to be something therapeutic, where I shared something that I'd cooked or a book I'd read, purely for me, really. My circumstances as of late, however, have made me wonder whether or not blogging is something that I SHOULD be doing, all the time! Maybe I'm made for blogging! At least, at this point in my life, I might be made for it...

I've been living in California now for just over two months. It's always been a place that I felt "suited" me. I love where I come from, and that I'm a Texan at heart will never change. I've always been something of a wandering soul, however...it's as though I knew that I would end up somewhere different from what I'd always known. It is rather arrogant of me to assign such a romantic description to myself, I know.

To return to my contemplations of my new life-I love California. Just look at the picture above! "Is this Alaska?", one might wonder. "Colorado?" Actually, it's not. It's in Yosemite, in California, with all its glory. Northern California, in particular, is a place of beauty, golden hills studded with stalwart redwood trees and all manner of foliage, turbulent grey-blue waves crashing onto wild shores, the scent of every lovely plant known to man in the air (oranges, rosemary, fennel...the list is seemingly interminable!). I understand why the land is so valued-it is essentially because a precious little has been left for any sort of human development and the rest is untouched. This is a place where I can thrive, and I certainly consider myself fortunate.

What is new for me is the experience of not working. For the first time since I've graduated from high school, I do not have a job to start in these few days that mark the advent of autumn. What was I thinking?! How could I have imagined that I would ENJOY the time off, that I wouldn't miss the crisp air, freshly sharpened pencils, and acrid smell of wax on the school floors? I can tell myself a hundred times over that it's an opportunity that doesn't come along every day, but I am saddened and a not a little bit lonely when I think of myself sitting at home instead of laboring at school. Of course, I've recognized this mistake, and I now have plans in place-all of my paperwork should be arriving soon from Austin, I've begun to fill out many applications for substitute positions, and I'll be taking a California certification exam soon. However, for these days until I (hopefully) start receiving calls, I have to ponder what it's like to be out of work.

Now I'm led to my blog, once more. I could be one of those people, who don't let a day slip by without an update, who feel more complete because they've posted, who, at times, have supplemented a career with blog writing. I'm not sure if that's the path that I'll commit to, but it's certainly not a bad option. It's certainly better than sitting and checking the updates of other bloggers relentlessly.

Future topics for my blog: my reviews of "The Thorn Birds", the "Twilight" saga, and "Bleak House." I haven't been totally useless all summer.

A Sampling of Edna St. Vincent Millay

One of the first books I read in the summer that I moved to New York was "Savage Beauty", a biography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. As was often the case with artists of the Jazz Age, Edna lived a rather tempestuous life: she had many lovers, drank heavily, and eventually died at a relatively young age from a heart attack, though she suffered from the symptoms of alcoholism and morphine addiction. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer, however, and her talent and influence remain uncontested.

Edna is most well known for poems such as "Renascence" and "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver", and many of her verses were penned in taverns and cafes in Greenwich Village, the exclusive, beautifully historic neighborhood where Dave resided (and where I was fortunate enough to join him once we married). That first summer in New York, the biography and a street map provided me many enjoyable afternoons. I strolled through Greenwich Village, seeking out Edna's former apartment and Chumley's, a speakeasy well known for the attraction it held for writers and artists. Chumley's is still serving, believe it or not! I loved stepping in, for despite the dinginess and faint smell of smoke, it is truly incredible to be sitting or standing in the same spot as a famous writer of the 20's.

"First Fig" is one of Edna's most oft-quoted poems:

"My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night. But ah my foes, and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light."

A sonnet I particularly enjoy:

"Love is not all; it is not meat or drink
Nor slumber, nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And risk and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolutions' power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would."

Finally, a simple poem that I hold very close to my heart. I have sent this poem to a very few precious people in my life, changing the color of the eyes to match them individually. The poem embodies the kind of person that I want to be, someone who seeks out the wisdom of loved ones, who provides for her family and friends a warm and comforting haven, who knows the value of spending time with each other (preferably with food and drink :) ), and the simple pleasures of life.

"Tavern"

I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.

There shall be plates a-plenty
And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the hill.

There sound will sleep the traveler
And dream his journey's end
But I will rouse at midnight
The falling fire to tend.

Aye, 'tis a curious fancy-
But all the good I know
Was taught me out of two grey eyes
A long time ago.

A delicious breakfast, if I do say so myself...

One of my new cookbook acquisitions is "Eat What You Crave," by Ellie Krieger. Not only is it a beautifully photographed cookbook, it's full of healthy, flavorful recipes that don't seem to require vast amounts of effort. So far, I have made 4 of these recipes, and all have turned out splendidly.

My favorite, thus far, are the Whole Wheat Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce. Normally, I don't turn much to breakfast recipes. For one, they are usually impractical during the week, and most weekends I'd rather enjoy a leisurely bowl of cereal or oatmeal and not have to do much work. The picture of the pancakes in the cookbook sorely tempted me to make a special Saturday breakfast, and I am surely glad that I did!

The light, fluffy side of pancakes that you see in pictures belie the difficulty of making them. They're actually quite tricky. The pan has to be at just the right temperature-too hot, the pancakes will burn, not hot enough, they won't cook properly in the middle. In the past, it has been a veritable comedy of errors for me as I've attempted to make pancakes.

This effort proved to be a wonderful change! I feel quite sure the reason for my success is entirely due to the buttermilk, which is commonly known to make pancakes especially light and airy. The pancakes cooked in record time, and I was easily able to watch the simmering strawberry sauce whilst flipping the little brown cakes.

I felt even better after devouring several of the pancakes. They were absolutely delicious, and made me feel quite responsible and healthy for using whole wheat flour. They reminded me very much of the wheat germ pancakes my Aunt Kathy whipped up for us once.

It was also a great feeling to have made the effort for a nice weekend breakfast. Dave and I sat in the sunny corner where our little dining room table resides and enjoyed piles of pancakes and hot coffee while perusing magazines. It was a really lovely breakfast, and I plan to make the pancakes often.

Creamy Chicken and Asparagus on Toast

Here is yet another dish from 365: No Repeats (otherwise known as the Rachael Ray cookbook that I rely upon the most) that was utterly satisfying and yummy. I have combed through this particular cookbook many, MANY times, and often my eyes lit upon the recipe for "Creamy Chicken and Asparagus on Toast." Somehow I always felt the ingredient list was rather decadent, including Black Forest ham, chicken, half and half, and (my mouth is watering thinking of it), Gruyere cheese (Gruyere cheese, like rice cookers, deserves its own special post). Needless to say, after dismissing it time after time with healthy eating in mind, I finally decided that I must give in and try it.

One of the best parts of the dish is the Provence-like flavors that result in the combination of sauteed onions, thyme, garlic, and salt and pepper. This central element delicately permeates the rest of the dish, in a wonderful, non-overpowering way. After the aforementioned ingredients are sauteed (until the onions are translucent-the "rule" for sauteed onions), they are removed from the pan to make room for chicken breast, which is then nicely browned in preparation for the toasts.

The "toasts" are created from a single slender baguette, which is split in half lengthwise and then quartered into 4 roughly even portions. The recipe calls for scraping a bit of the extraneous bread from the cavity of the loaf and discarding it, but as I had a rather small baguette to begin with, I dispensed with this instruction and used all of my bread. Each piece is then buttered with a delicious compound butter of sorts, which I made in one of my trusty green ramekins by churning a cold chunk of butter with chopped flat leaf parsley and freshly ground pepper and salt. The bread is then placed into the oven until it is a light golden brown.

While the bread is toasting, the onion mixture is tossed back into the pan with the chicken and dusted with flour. A bit of white wine, chicken stock, and half and half are added to create a thick, creamy sauce. Bright green lengths of asparagus and chopped ham are then stirred in. The toasts are removed from the oven, and spoonfuls of the creamy chicken are lightly settled onto each large piece. Each "toast" is topped with a mixture of shredded Gruyere and bread crumbs. They are promptly shoved back into the oven to melt and brown the cheese.

While the final result may not be the most attractive dish I have ever made, appearance most certainly belies taste. The toasts are delicious, with a heavenly combination of flavors-a bitter bite of asparagus, salty ham, hearty chicken, creamy sauce, all topped with sharp Gruyere....hmmmmm! I'm almost tempted to make it this very evening!

Les Miserables

I usually pride myself on my unwillingness to "quit" a book that has proved difficult to get through or is prone to long digressions that distract the reader from the central plot. There were times last year when I feared that Les Miserables would meet that fate. The French classic is quite the tome, and while I knew from its earliest pages that it was beautifully written, and utterly deserving of its literary notoriety, it was no easy feat to finish.

I began the novel sometime in March, which I remember distinctly because I visited New York and Princeton then, and I was able to enjoy the reading on the commute that I always cherished when I lived in Manhattan. Needless to say, I continued to plod through it in fits and starts, finally turning to the last page on our family vacation to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. I don't know that I have ever felt quite so victorious! Not only was I overwhelmed with a certain pride in myself for persevering, I was rewarded immensely by the emotionally satisfying conclusion and utter certainty that I had just finished one of the best novels that I had ever encountered.

The protagonist Jean Valjean will be forever cemented in my memory as an incredible example of humanity, a perfect representative of someone who has struggled against injustice and the inevitable turn of the soul towards blackness and triumphed over it, finding a way to reconcile terrible circumstances with a peaceful life. He is perfect proof for a myriad of life lessons: that one can forget past mistakes; that one can make life better, even if resources are few; that hard work and conscientiousness are virtues that will result in some rewards; that love is powerful enough for sustenance...

There are an abundance of passages and quotes from the novel that I remember stirring my heart while I read, but the few I am going to include now, from the conclusion, are worth cherishing forever.

These lines all occur in the final scenes of the book, when Cosette and Marius visit Valjean, discovering that he is on his deathbed.

"If you take me back, Monsieur Pontmercy, will that make me any different from the man I am? No. God thinks as you and I do, and he has not changed his mind. It is better for me to go. Death is a very sensible arrangement. God knows better than we do what is good for us. That you should be happy, Marius Pontmercy and Cosette, that youth should marry with the morning, that you two children should have lilac and nightingales around you, that your life should be like a lawn bathed in sunshine and glowing with enchantment; and that I, who am no longer good for anything, should now die, that is surely right."

"Because things do not always please us," said Valjean, "that is no reason for reproaching God."

"Cosette, the time has come for me to tell you your mother's name. It was Fantine. You must not forget it, Fantine, and you must bow your head whenever you speak it. She loved you greatly and she suffered greatly. She was as rich in sorrow as you are in happiness. That is how God evens things out. He watches us all from above and knows what he is doing among his splendid stars. And now I must leave you, my children. Love one another always. There is nothing else that matters in this world except love..."

Cosette and Marius fell on their knees on either side of him, stifling their tears. His hands rested on their heads, and did not move again. He lay back with his head turned up to the sky, and the light from the two candlesticks fell upon his face.

The significance of the candlesticks is worth noting. Jean Valjean, after being wrongly accused and serving prison time in the dreadful prison Toulon, escapes and is determined to start anew, despite the damage that has been wreaked upon his humanity while in prison. He is the beneficiary of the hospitality and kindness of a village bishop, the owner of the candlesticks. When Valjean leaves the home of the bishop his criminal urges overpower him and he takes the candlesticks, planning to pawn them for money. He is accidentally apprehended shortly after his departure, and the police take him straight to the bishop's home, demanding whether or not the candlesticks belong to him. The bishop immediately claims that he gave them to Jean Valjean. This generosity and forgiveness, an act of mercy, prove to instigate a rebirth in Jean Valjean's character, and truly make him the man that he turns out to be.

The quickest and the best!

I would be remiss in not posting about a recent dish that I discovered, one that is magnificent in its simplicity, taste, and speed of preparation. My beloved colleague, Teresa, stumbled upon it in the Austin newspaper. I hate not to officially acknowledge the recipe's author, but I have somehow misplaced the clipping. Teresa is always offering me wonderful ideas for cooking quick, delicious, family-friendly meals, and I love that we have been able to share our ideas with each other. She made this dish first, raved about it, and insisted that I try it. I'm copying the recipe here, exactly the way that I made it.


Salsa Shrimp

1 sack frozen shrimp (I'm able to buy this at HEB with relative ease-I'm guessing there's about 1 lb to 1/2 lbs of shrimp in each sack, and they're peeled and deveined)

3 tbsp. pine nuts

1-2 tbsp. EVOO

1 cup fresh salsa (I bought HEB's fresh salsa, and I would imagine that most grocery stores carry fresh salsas, usually found in the produce section)

Warm up the EVOO in a large skillet, medium to medium-high heat. Carefully add the shrimp (no need to defrost)and allow to cook through, about five minutes. Turn the shrimp midway through cooking. Once the shrimp have turned pink, add the cup of salsa and pine nuts. Let simmer, five to ten more minutes, or until you're ready to eat.

On the side, serve broccoli and brown rice. I use my rice cooker and steamer attachment to prepare the side items, but it's equally easy to prepare the broccoli in the microwave and use quick-cooking brown rice.

This dish is wonderfully simple, with a warm spiciness that is comforting and filling along with the bonus good feelings that one can't help but feel, knowing that every item you're eating is quite good for you! (Note: Shrimp have a high amount of cholesterol, so just avoid preparing this meal every night, though I PROMISE you'll be tempted!!)

A recent culinary exercise...

As usual, I made a new year's resolution to plan my meals in advance, make one exhaustive grocery trip each week, and resort to pizza delivery only on the weekends. Needless to say, I have not been as faithful to the resolution as I would like.

All is not lost, however! I have been much better at attempting recipes outside of the Rachael Ray spectrum. I have mixed feelings about this, as a large part of me feels absolutely no guilt at the fact that virtually my entire repertoire of recipes comes straight from Rachael Ray. I do, however, have an extensive and ever-growing selection of cookbooks, all of which I purchased because I could envision making many of the delicious-sounding recipes that I came across in them.

Mirin-glazed salmon (mentioned in my prior post), courtesy of Nigella Lawson, proved to be an extremely successful recipe, that I will most certainly repeat. There are not enough complimentary statements to be made about this dish; it was utterly fabulous! Large, gorgeous coral hunks of salmon were quickly marinated in a mixture of mirin (Japanese rice wine), tamari, and dark brown sugar, then placed in a very hot pan. I was frightened about this at first, as no I did not use any oil, and I was concerned about the sugar content, but it provided a lovely, brown crust on the salmon, which was cooked to perfection in only a matter of minutes. The glaze was finished off with a touch of rice wine vinegar, which was mixed with the leftover marinade and drizzled onto the salmon. The salmon was served with a side of lovely, fragrant jasmine rice, topped with thinly sliced scallions. I started the rice before I began the marinade (I could honestly write a separate post based completely on my newfound love for rice cookers).

This dish could easily have been served to impress company-it certainly felt luxurious for weeknight fare! Perhaps the best part of it all, beyond the irresistible, unmistakable taste of sweetly glazed salmon, was the time factor. It is literally a 20 minute meal. Certainly one of my very best, non-Rachael dinners.

I shall now get back to my menu planning, which is truly a large part of my weekend relaxation. Yes, I spend hours poring over cookbooks and issues of magazines determining the best possible combination of dinners for a two week period, trying to balance out pasta and fish, beef and chicken, figuring out which meals are better for springtime or possible soups for a potential cold front...one might think I would make a wonderful entertainer with detailed plans such as this! We shall see :)