Everywhere in Costa Rica one hears Pura Vida. It seems to be the national motto. I have been here for a week. This is the greenist, healthiest, cleanist, enviromentally conscious, most mountainous place I have ever been. Few people smoke, there is no salt on the table anywhere, the food is mostly rice, black beans, fruit, and vegetables. No hot peppers here unless they are on the Caribbean side where I have not gone yet. When I return home later this week, I will post photos with written details, including some food photos and explanations. Today I saw howler monkeys, iguanas, other lizards, numerous birds, white faced monkeys, sloths, and agoutis. Tomorrow will start out by going to a place with lots of crocodiles and scarlet macaws. This time of year it rains incessantly. I have been soaked several times and nothing dries out. Even though I am not a lover of rain or being wet, it is impossible not to love this place. Pura Vida.
Easy Thai Shrimp for Two
1/2 purple onion, chopped
1-2 red Mexican peppers, deseeded and cut crosswise into circles
1 large poblano pepper, deseeded and coarsely chopped
5 baby portabello mushrooms, sliced
20 medium cooked shirmp
garlic (optional), coarsely chopped
Olive oil
Thai sweet chili sauce
Pour enough olive oil in a skillet to cover the bottom. Saute the onions and garlic until translucent. Add mushrooms and sauté. Add the shrimp and peppers. Saute until peppers are cooked, but do not overcook. Add sufficient Thai sweet chili sauce to make a thick sauce. Serve over rice. I combine red and Jasmine rice. You may also use other types of peppers. However, the dish is prettier if you combine the green of the poblanos with some type of red peppers.
The last time I made this for my Thai exchange student, I planned to take a good photo but somehow we became too distracted and had eaten most of our dinner before I remembered that I had not taken a photo so here it is fork and all.
DEATH
I was afraid of revealing me, the essence of me. Who even, indeed, was I? My mother told me, when I started dating, to hide the essence of me, boys wouldn’t like it. Too smart; too aggressive; too full of myself; too intense; too serious; too burning inside strong; too adventuresome; too nasty a temper; too full of desire to feel, taste, see, learn; too much in love with a world of possibility. I took her advice, married a genius scientist, safe, timid, disadventurous. He liked me because I could shoot a bird off a wire hundreds of feet away. I time, we all died, him, me, the bird.
This piece was a finalist in a flash memoir contest.
Chicken with poblano peppers, sun dried tomatoes and pasta
This recipe is posted as a tribute to Klara Kamper, from Austria. Klara is an exchange student and nearly every week she has come over to ride my horse, Rosie. After riding, I fix dinner. Of all the different dinners I have fixed, this is Klara’s favorite.
4 pieces boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
2 large poblano peppers, deseeded and diced into bite sized pieces
1 large purple onion, chopped
5-6 pieces sun dried tomatoes, chopped into a large dice
Olive oil
Herbs de provence
Cover the bottom of a large skillet with olive oil. Saute the onions until done. Add chicken and more olive oil if necessary. With your fingers sprinkle herbs de provence over the onion/chicken mixture. When the chicken is nearly done, add the poblano peppers and sun dried tomatoes. Saute until the poblano peppers are cooked but still a nice bright green. You may also add mushrooms if you like. Serve over your favorite pasta. My daughter does not like herbs de provence so when I cook this for her, I use a mixture of oregano, basil, and marjoram.
I am very, very picky about pasta. My favorite is organic Montebello pasta produced by Monastero Di Montebello, Isola del Piano, Italy. I especially like the conchiglie. However, I use their spaghetti and other shapes as well.
This is Rosie. She will really miss Klara who leaves for home on June 25.
A friend joined us to see the horses and for dinner. Apparently, she took this photo just before I served dinner.
Ten Little White Indians, Final Volume! (Spoilers Already Spoiled!)
This post by a fellow blogger says a lot about what I think regarding certain movies in which American Indians are portrayed or in which they act. It also relates in some ways to my own previous posted poem, “Blood Quanturm”.
Bet y’all didn’t notice!
I am one short on my promise of 10 Little White Indians. Well, it turns out that my three-part series on White Indians has four parts, and there is surely a good Monty Python reference in there somewhere, but maybe we’ll save that for another day
***
Let us start with a brief consideration of the near misses.
WIND TALKERS (2002): I remember when this movie was on its way to the theaters, rumor had it that the flick was about the Navajo Code Talkers. Working as I did then on the Navajo Nation, I was (like a lot of my students and colleagues) really excited to see this part of American history portrayed on screen. My enthusiasm waned considerably when I realized it wasn’t about a Code Talker so much as a white guy who might have to kill a Code Talker if things took…
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Marriage
The following poem was chosen to be published in the Story Circle Network’s annual Anthology this past autumn. I submitted two flash memoir pieces, including the Spiders story on a previous post, as well as this poem. I was very surprised that this was the one chosen.
Marriage
I remember the time he touched my face, melting me.
I married him; my face slowly, inexorably froze.
Flame Kissed Chicken and Lentil Salad
This week what I thought was going to be a culinary disaster resulted in the best chicken I have ever eaten. Twelve people were coming for dinner–a teachers’ sorority. One of the women gave me the chicken half frozen in marinade to take to my house–we work together. She planned to come to my house early and grill the chicken. Because she was unexpectedly late, I had to grill the chicken myself. Now, to tell the truth, even though I cook a lot and blog about food, I had never grilled chicken before. My daughter had grilled steaks several days earlier, but it never occurred to me to clean the drippings pan under the grill. Here is what happened:
I heated the grill to about 450 degrees, took the still slightly frozen chicken out of the marinade and placed it on the grill. It took only about 30 seconds and flames were shooting up about 6-8 inches and the chicken was turning a grayish color. I was concerned about two things: the flames getting totally out of control and starting a real fire (my grill is propane) and the chicken being totally inedible. I turned the heat down, pulled the grill farther away from the wall, turned the chicken over, and hoped it would be ok in the end. After all this commotion, a half hour or so later, and after cooking the hamburgers as well, we tried the chicken. It was the best chicken I have ever eaten. It was even good left over cold out of the refrigerator–I normally refuse to eat leftover, cold chicken, reheated or otherwise, because I think it tastes dreadful. People also told me the hamburgers were cook perfectly.
If anyone can tell me how to duplicate this delicious chicken result without all the flames and fire dangers, please comment on this post.
Several weeks ago a fellow food blogger, The Hungry Irishman, posted a lentil salad. Here is my promise to him to post the lentil salad I make. The original recipe is from one of my oldest and most favorite cookbooks, The Silver Palate. However, like most everything I cook, I modify to suit myself and never really follow the recipe, except maybe for cake, but I rarely bake cake so…
LENTIL SALAD
Cook two cups dried lentils in water with several carrots, 1 medium onion, chicken or vegetable stock, cloves, and 1 bay leaf. Be sure not to over cook.
While the lentils are cooking, combine 3-4 garlic cloves, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 teaspoons dried thyme (you can use fresh also, but will require more thyme), and black pepper to taste in a blender and blend until creamy. You may also add 2 teaspoons ground cumin for a slightly more Middle Eastern taste.
When lentils are done, drain, and remove the carrots, etc. Place in a serving bowl and stir in the blended mixture. Refrigerate overnight. Just before serving add 1 cup scallions, chopped, and 1 cup chopped walnuts. You may adjust vinegar and olive oil to suit your taste.
If you use regular onions chopped rather than scallions, this salad will keep well in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.
Horses in Heaven
Heaven for horses seems a bit far fetched, especially for someone who lacks certainty about heaven even for people. Nevertheless, it remains a comforting concept. Yesterday, I buried Starry Miracle, less than two, an orphan I bottle fed every 3-4 hours day and night when his mother, Miracle, died. He not only survived, he thrived.
Around 4:30 Wednesday, friends went to my place to ride Rosie, a chunky, red roan mare. They found Star dead. It appeared he had been playing, jumping, and rearing, and freakily caught his ankle in a space between the pipe gate and fence, broke it and ruptured his femoral artery, then bled to death. When they called to tell me, disbelief set in. As a horse owner for many years, I know the common causes of horse deaths, colic mainly, from which Miracle died three days after his birth. I have inspected fences and corrals for safety many times. The possibility of such an accident never even entered my mind.
His body stiff, distorted, his coat, lusterless, bore no resemblance to his burnished copper body, glinting in the sun, following me, nipping if I ignored him. Often, I thought he thought I was a horse or he a human.
The two surviving horses spent hours standing in the spot where he died, licking the pipe fence from which I had hosed off his blood, smelling the ground, neighing. They even failed to rush to their hay when I fed them. Eventually, I opened their gates. They ran across the rugged canyon land constantly for fifteen minutes, dream horses running in the wind.
Miracle, Star’s mother, deceased, July 2010. Rosie who “adopted” Star after Miracle died, and Cool, the other orphaned horse I raised.
Teriyaki Salmon with Crystallized Ginger
4 4-6 oz. salmon filets
Enough teriyaki sauce to cover the salmon in a shallow dish
1 medium sized onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger
Olive oil
Marinate the salmon in the teriyaki sauce while you prepare the remainder of the ingredients. You may marinate the salmon longer if you wish it to taste less fishy. Saute the onions in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your skillet. Place the salmon and the teriyaki sauce in the skillet with the onions and sauté until the salmon is nearly done. Add the crystallized ginger and cook until salmon is done. Optional additions: 1 large poblano pepper chopped, chopped mushrooms, chopped garlic. The photo below includes poblano peppers which I use in many dishes. They have a unique flavor and little heat. Serve with Jasmine rice with golden raisins and a green salad.
My son is the originator of the basic recipe. I modified it to suit my own taste. He wraps all the ingredients in foil and cooks it on a cookie sheet on the grill. Sometimes I put it all together and bake it in the oven. These latter methods are the easiest with company because it cooks while you entertain.
Blood Quantum
This poem is dedicated to Sherman Alexie whose poem, “13/16” begins with:
“I cut my self into sixteen equal pieces…”
My grandson cuts himself into 16 equal pieces:
4/16 Urhobo from Africa
4/16 Spanish from Spain
4/16 other European—two Swiss
German great great-grandfathers
(Werth and Kaiser), Irish, English
and who knows what
3/16 Mexican—whatever mixtures that may be
1/16 Navaho
Who am I? What am I?
Who are you? What are you?
Do we really know?
Who sets the rules?
-white men
-black
-Indian
-Native American
-Irish
-English
-German
from where and for whom?
He looks Navaho:
-blue black straight hair,
-pale brown skin,
-obsidian eyes.
One four year old girl asks him,
“Are you an American Indian?”
His six your old self says nothing.
She repeats,
“Are you an American Indian?”
He says, “It’s complicated.
The Navaho won’t claim him, too little blood.
He needs ¼ , not 1/16.
Caddo and Fort Sill Apache allow 1/16, not Navahos.
¼ blood is for
-Sioux
-Cheyenne
-Kiowa
-Navaho
1/8 works for Comanche and Pawnee.
Some Cherokees only want a Cherokee ancestor.
But he is none of those.
Is he Navaho?
Is he white?
The Old South goes by the one drop rule:
one drop of Negro…
Is a person with 99/100 percent white
and 1/100 black , black?
Who says?
Kids at school ask, What are you?”
He tells them.
They say, “You’re lying!”
I only know specifically about two ancestors,
the Swiss Germans.
Another great grandfather disappeared during the Civil War.
I don’t even know his name.
Who am I?
Who are you?
I think I’ll get a DNA test.
Then I’ll know how many pieces I need to cut myself into.
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