Tomorrow morning I’m flying down South for a little trip to Mexico City. This gives me many reasons to get excited; here are but a few.
I’ll be meeting up with my Hermano, with whom I’ve had the good fortune of spending a few weeks in Mexico City when we were younger (see above). It’s always really interesting to re-visit a city and see how things have changed, and how you see things differently. Plus, my brother is a rockstar.
I get to visit his lovely girlfriend who is living in a city nearby, which makes me equally excited. Unfortunately, I don’t have a painting of her as a Mexican child to share. Yet.
Also, one of my best-est girlfriends will be there. She claims to have never been to Mexico, but many moons ago, when we were roomates, on one bored Berlin afternoon, we got to spontaneously dressing up and staging a mini photoshoot. The results kind of made us both think she must be at least part Mexican… Either way I’m looking forward to taking silly photos in the mercados, taquerias, discotecas.. and maybe even at the playa.
Also, we’ll be staying with a German friend, who I haven’t seen in a year, and is always making sure good times are had. Here he is at our place, the first night we got our apartment in Berlin. What I like most about this photo is the way he has strategically placed himself in the optimal snacking position. I hope this is indicative of the type of activities we will pursue in the big Ciudad.
And so, to cash in on probably the last slice of my Spanish vocabulary, hasta la vista, baby.
Planning a surprise trip is pretty much as fun as being taken on one. For Marcel’s birthday I thought it would be fun to take him camping without telling him where we’d be going. The night before the trip I threw him a paper airplane with a few ideas of what to pack (i.e. passport) as I poked around B.C. and Washington on Google Satellite. Watching him go a little nuts with excitement and curiosity may or may not have been my favorite part of the trip.
I am dating a human compass. Despite the efforts I took in blindfolding and driving in circles around the roundabouts near our house to disorient him, his methods involved determining the type of street we were on by guessing the speed I was driving at and figuring out from the echo nearby that we were driving next to a wall. When he guessed that we were on the Burrard Bridge by judging the incline of the hill we were driving up, I had to resort to all kinds of desperate tactics from reverse psychology, to detours on bumpy, residential streets, to pretending I had no idea there was a bridge and a highway at the end of Oak street. Which basically leads me to conclude that I could drop him off somewhere in the middle of the Milky Way with an apple and some matches and he would happily find his way home in one piece, without breaking a sweat.
The weatherman is not my homeboy. Aside from the sunshine-filled hour we spent in Seattle, the weather performed an unpredictable modern dance, fluctuating rapidly between heavy downpour, gentle drizzle, overcast, and thick fog. But fog can be beautiful, and if you are the type whose self-esteem is not tarnished when the fire you built, and proudly announced to be roaring, is promptly extinct (I, unfortunately, am not that type, as I was pretty bummed when my little bonfire died), rain can make for a nice excuse to hang out in the tent and is pretty much the best sound to wake up to.
Horror films are not so great for the mental health. While Marcel was making sure to pack up crumbs to avoid attracting, you know, wild animals, the fog set over our empty campground, making the perfectly spooky setting for me to begin fearing things like Wearwolves, Carrie, and Candyman jumping out of the bushes to attack me. The cheap scary movies I watched through the night at many a teenage slumber party seem to have taken their toll.
It is very hard to resist running up to a black bear and forcing him into an involuntary cuddle session. I’ve heard that this isn’t the best thing to do around bears. But they are incredibly cute.
Camping Food > All Other Food. From snacks we got at Pike Place and picnicked on while waiting for the ferry, to scallops fried with pinapple and bell peppers and shakshuka cooked over a little propane burner, the past couple days I’ve felt very well fed. I’m not sure why, but food eaten straight from the pot, off the lap of my fleece pants, with a shared set of cutlery, is just better than anything else.
When left to my own devices, I can and will take a ridiculous amount of photos from the passenger seat. Apparently I just can’t get enough. Here I am, caught in the act, in Seattle, driving into the Olympic National Park, at our campsite, and at Hurricane Ridge.
Billy Joel was onto something in this song. Okay I already knew that one. Billy Joel is always onto something. But still. This song seems fitting.
Looking through photos from our trip, I can’t believe it’s already been two years since three friends and I returned to Berlin after traveling around Spain, Morocco and Portugal.
The photos from Morocco are so colorful and rich with memories of the spicy, flavourful meals that connected them, they always make me nostalgic.
Its funny to notice how the years have played with my memory and left behind a carefully curated selection of images, colors and tastes.
When I think of Marrakesh, I remember seeing Sophia Coppola in the gardens designed by Yves Saint Laurent, and the incredible dinner we ate in the huge, loud, bustling food market. I usually don’t remember how scared we were when we first got to the city, and two of us got lost, ended up in a dark alley somehow, and noticed we were being followed.
I remember all the friendly people we met during our trip, and forget how strange it felt to walk down the streets lined with cafe after cafe filled only with men, or how my Caucasian friend got yelled at for being a ‘white chicken’.
I remember how delicious the freshly grilled lamb we snacked on from a tiny roadside grill was when we pulled over on our way back form the desert, not the driver’s questionable (cough, terrifying) navigation of the shaky van on tight turns. I remember the colorful trains and the beautiful countryside we gazed out at on long rides – I usually don’t think of the headache I had from sitting next to a teenager listening to Lebanese pop music fuzzing out of his cell phone on full blast for the whole trip.
I remember how wonderful we felt after spending an evening in a Hammam, and forget that one friend burnt her foot, while the other slipped and wiped out on wet tiles (made especially painful and embarrassing since in the Hammams you wear next to nothing). Okay, I do remember that. We still laugh about that one…
What I miss most is the food. Specifically, the breakfasts. The couscous and tagines were as hearty and satisfying as expected, and the pastries laced with honey and pistachios as sweet and rich as I’d hoped, but what I really didn’t expect were the little cafes and foodstands we’d visit when we first woke up. In nearly every town and city we visited, we found a place where we could dunk fresh, warm flatbread with a grainy, almost couscous-like texture into a bowl of hot chickpea soup with a deep, rich broth, and wash it down with avocado milkshakes- thick and creamy, sometimes sweetened with strawberries or orange juice, sometimes not. Having soup for breakfast is incredibly comforting and nourishing -when is soup not comforting and nourishing, really? I’ve noticed myself making many of the little things we snacked on from that trip at home – sprinkling sliced oranges with cinnamon,tucking a walnut into a fresh date, mixing nuts and dried apricots into a spicy couscous – but have yet to recreate this chickpea soup, and to serve it for breakfast.
A few weeks ago my boyfriend and I packed up our bags and hopped on the ferry to Departure Bay. My friend had invited us to her family’s farm on Vancouver Island to celebrate her grandma’s eighty-ninth birthday, and we were so happy to be included.
The days before heading over to the farm I’m always excited about three things. First, I get excited to spend time with whoever happens to be around, usually some combination of her sister, parents, aunts, cousins and grandmother, or all of the above given a celebration as it was that weekend. Then I get excited for the slow days, cruising around in her Subaru, maybe taking a polar dip in the lake or getting a milkshake from the DQ, always blubbing around their house, lingering in their brightly painted turquoise and yellow kitchen. My excitement for these two things is usually somehow superseded by the third thing that excites me greatly about the Torgerson Farm: the food.
After visiting the farm I bring home memories of snacking on beets from Linda’s garden that she pickles in a sweetly spicy brine, her freshly baked bread buns slathered with her delicate tasting pear jam or the dried apples she makes. I always look forward to the next time I can tear off warm, fluffy chunks of Alan’s bread, a loaf of which seems mysteriously to always be coming out of the oven the moment we step in the door. And I get nostalgic for the joy of cracking fresh farm eggs into a cast iron pan, sprinkling in a few different cheeses and watching the bright yellowy liquid turn into a soft, cheesy scramble.
This trip I brought home a new food memory and – joy of all joys – it is one that can easily be recreated in the city, without Linda’s father’s recipe for pickles or Alan’s knack for kneading. Just a few hours before leaving to catch the ferry back home, we baked the custard-filled cornbread from Molly Wizenbergs‘ book. In all its creamy glory, it was so delicious that my friend baked it again last weekend, and it is now firmly cemented as a favorite recipe in both our repertoires. And hearts. And bellies, of course.
The name cornbread is, I find, somewhat misleading. This is nothing like bread, and doused in maple syrup as the recipe instructs, it hardly tastes of corn either. Our addition of pear jam flavored whipped cream hardly made it more bread-like or corny. And though I love bread, and I love corn, this comment is intended in no way to suggest there is something wrong with this ”cornbread’. Far from it, there are so many things right.
It is basically your everyday cornbread (presuming you eat cornbread everyday), but with the addition of a cup of cream poured into the center of the batter before baking. This cream, though, is what makes the recipe special, turning into a delicate custardy layer that takes this cornbread far from the realm of everyday. Warm from the oven, with the coldness of softly whipped ice cream and the sweet stickiness of maple syrup the layering of textures, flavors and temperatures is what made me pledge allegiance to this recipe as an excellent snack, breakfast, or dessert – but probably not the cornbread you would serve alongside fried chicken and coleslaw.
Custard-Filled Corn Bread
from Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life, originally from Marion Cunningham’s The Breakfast Book
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal — fine ground is better
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons butter — melted
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup heavy cream
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Butter an 8-inch square baking dish, and place it in the hot oven while you prepare the batter.
- Sift or stir together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and baking soda.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the melted butter until well-blended. Add the sugar, salt, milk and vinegar and beat well. Stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture just until the batter is smooth and there are no lumps.
- Pour the batter into the heated baking dish. Pour the heavy cream into the center of the batter. Do not stir. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until the top becomes lightly browned.
- Serve warm, with maple syrup and whipped cream.
One of my favorite joys of being… ‘multi-kulti’ as they might say in Germany, is the plethora of holidays I am fortunate enough to be able to celebrate. I grew up in an English speaking province of beautiful, natural, vast and greatly unpopulous Canada, educated in a French school. I was raised by parents who grew up in pre-revolution Iran, who filled my childhood with impossibly exotic stories of the smell of jasmine floating form the neighbour’s garden, the taste of rosewater flavored custard bursting from the pirashkis my mom would buy on the walk home from school, the big family picnics in giant tents I could barely imagine, bell bottomed teenagers singing the words to Beatles songs in a language they didn’t speak, and an actual living, breathing, politically active monarchy. A King! A princess! A Tragic Love Story!
I live with my boyfriend who is from East Berlin, whose mother has taken us on vacation to an island on the Baltic Sea where we visited an unfinished Nazi vacation complex, and who tells us stories of being raised in a communist regime and childhood road trips throughout the Soviet Bloc.
So back to what I was saying. I am fortunate enough to celebrate Christmas. Hallowe’en. Mother’s day and Labour day. Pro-D days used to be a big favorite too, although I don’t get to celebrate those anymore… But what I’m saying is that I’m happy to take whatever the calendar gives me to celebrate, and it excites me tremendously to discover new reasons to celebrate with the people that are and have become a part of my life.
I would have to say the best part of all this is celebrating the new year two times per anum. Resolutions to lose weight and quit smoking from early January mostly forgotten come March, the Persian new year is on the first day of Spring, and encourages traditions I am a little more eager to embrace: clean out the house; wear new clothes; visit with family; feast on tiny flower shaped cookies baked from rice or chickpea flour, grow a little pot of Technicolor grass. And of course, to decorate a table with eight things begging with ‘S’, or Haft Sin. (Shirins – or sweets – can also make it on the table! So if you’d like, a photograph of yours truly would also do the trick.)
***
The past few weeks, knowing the Norooz was approaching, I noticed myself tucking a few more Iranian spices and seasonings into my cooking. I (unfortunately) don’t know a lot of authentic Iranian dishes, but I love playing around with the ingredients and flavors I associate with that cuisine. A few strands of saffron sautéed with buttery carrots, and cooked into the custard I froze into ice cream. A spoonful of Turmeric brightening the chicken I braised in both color and flavor. A spoonful of rose water to add a delicate flavor to baked goods and drinks.
My favorite little culinary discovery has to be the frozen yogurt I made (the saffron ice cream falls closely behind, though). Although it’s probably not authentic in this form, yoghurt, honey and pistachio are all quintessentially Iranian. By simply stirring some honey into pain yoghurt and freezing it, mixing every half hour or so for three mixes, something I often eat for breakfast became a fantastic little treat. I drizzled a bowl of this frozen yoghurt with a little more honey and some crushed, roasted pistachios. The coldness, the tang of the yoghurt, the sweet stickiness of the honey and the crunch of crushed pistachios made for an incredible mouth feel and a beautiful layering of flavors. It made me sort of click my heels, feeling like I was finally living out my childhood fantasy of eating ice cream for breakfast. In honor of Yogen Fruz, I’ll call this a Farsi Fruz.
***
With the Persian inspired cooking I was doing, and the Haft Sin I set up on our fridge (above) I was feeling like a great little Iranian. Then my friend, a South African, Irish, Canadian cocktail of whiteness, came over. She had just been to a family friend’s to celebrate the Norooz, and when she saw our Haft Seen she began explaining to me the symbolic meanings behind different components. I couldn’t really believe how little I knew about all this. My first thought was, wow, there’s more to it than the list my mom gave me over the phone… why didn’t I Google all this?
Then I felt a little embarrassed. I have so much more to learn about this culture I am somehow so connected to, all this history that is in my blood from a country I have never visited. In university I wrote countless papers about the Iranian Revolution, Iran’s nuclear program, Zoroastrianism and the Persian Empire. When I lived in Berlin I even found a little Iranian restaurant I liked so I could show my friends how delicious the food is. Yet each time I lazily answer in English to a question asked to me in Farsi I lose a little more of my already rusty vocabulary. Traveling around Iran has always been on my list of dreams, but for whatever reason it seems like such a difficult trip to plan.
For now I will indulge in other people’s travel photos. (They all link to their source)
It was exciting to see our little city, normally relatively quiet, so full of life as the Olympics suddenly took over so many streets, TV stations, conversations and even wardrobes. In addition to the large screens for public viewings of the events themselves, the downtown core was full of free concerts, street performers, public art, and international food stalls. Creative costumes re-interpreting ours and many other flags colored the streets, which were filled with screaming tourists and locals of all different ages, nationalities, and levels of sobriety. Babies being pushed in strollers had temporary tattooed flags unknowingly displaying their pride on their soft cheeks. Teenage boys painted their torsos red and white and ran around shirtless carrying boom boxes and waving their arms in the air. Middle aged women wore red fleece vests and maple leaf umbrella hats. Umbrella hats! All the controversy surrounding the games aside, it would have been hard not to get excited as Olympic fever spread and created a camaraderie throughout the city I hope will not be quickly forgotten.
What I really loved, however, was the quiet excitement you would find just a few blocks away from all the chaos. As the weather warmed to unusual February temperatures, cherry blossoms exploded from the trees in the West End, and their delicate perfume lined the streets near my home. Behind them, the windows of old brick character homes and beach-side apartment buildings from the seventies proudly displayed flags and jerseys from their residents’ home countries. My favorite was, of course, the ‘ditto’ sign in the photo just below.
Four of us went up to Whistler this past weekend to relax, cook extravagantly, dance our hearts out, thrift shop, walk around a frozen lake, and remember why it is that our license plates read ‘Beautiful British Columbia. I came home feeling refreshed and inspired.
Excited to be back at the sewing machine, I made my first pair of jeans! Ever! My first pair of pants, really, unless you count ones with elastic waistbands made from repurposed Sesame Street bedsheets, which are the kind of pants that cannot really pretend to me approprate for things that do not involve a bed, or tv watching, or chocolate chip cookie baking, etc. etc.
The pant options in my closet these days seem to be limited to ’skinnies’, so I’m excited to have a pair with a different fit- they have sort of a slouchy, relaxed fit, but more girly and tailored (pleats!) than the now ubiquitous ‘boyfriend’ fit. They look really cute cuffed to show just a bit of ankle.
After a week of indulging in my family’s delicious and plentiful cooking in the Okanagan, then tasting as much of Portland as we possibly could in the three days we spent there, I came home full of that special combination of exhausted and inspired that makes a person quite ready to be back home and, you know, their own kitchen.
I sit now with my laptop rested on a belly full of steak, curried portobello mushrooms, brown rice, and a little too much raw cake batter as I: look through pictures from the holidays; wait half-patiently for this chocolate cake to bake, wondering how it will turn out due to the changes I made in the recipe (most of them relating to the pre-baking consumption of a good portion of the chocolate that was to go in the cake); daydreaming about Portland, that wonderful city, and what might come of the email address a young lass scribbled down for us after we got to chatting about an apartment exchange in the summer…
We build relationships with the people in our lives – friends, family, lovers – sort of in the same way we play a game of Jenga, only often backwards. If each block were to represent an individual we are in some way acquainted with, the people we are closer to are closer to the base. Closer to the heart, and more fundamental to our stability. Our foundation, really.
As we become closer to someone, understand them better, create a space for them closer to our hearts, their block is moved closer to the bottom. We become stronger, more whole.
Similarly, when you lose a friend or loved one, it’s like a block is pulled from it’s respective position, with the corresponding effects on our personal structure depending on the logical factors – their previous position, whether the shift was slow and careful or abrupt and aggressive, how stable the network was beforehand.
Last night I sat waiting, somewhere vaguely after midnight and before daylight, achieving minimal success in my personal battle to fight back tears. My boyfriend’s block – the block belonging to the lovely, and non-Canadian passport holding young man who had just taken me on a trip to a surprise destination (Portland!) – had been quit aggressively shaken by a man with a numbered badge and big words. Words that made me quite anxious indeed.
Luckily, they were words that, after much unpleasant waiting, the filing of intimidating reports, turned out to be unfounded. I guess some people are just fond of big words.
We were sent on our way. And I realized how close to my foundation this man who was two years ago not even part of my structure had become. I realized the instability – potential collapse – that would come were his block to be abruptly and tactlessly pulled from the position it had acquired. I thought about the people I love, and how hard it would be to lose any of them.
As we drove through my sleeping hometown I decided that in 2010 I would take more time to really love everyone, and everything, that I love. The people, the food, the places, the things like swimming and biking, baking, reading, gallery going… and so on. I want to make sure to take the time to appreciate and enjoy.
And so, from our trip a few hours south I learned that when life hands you lemons … you best quickly hurry to the Pearl Bakery and kindly ask – beg, if necessary, this is no time for dignity – for them to bake you a batch of their beautiful lemon tarts. They are peace-makingly delicious; flavored with the ability to at least soften (if not erase) any blow. If only I had brought with me a small bag of them for comfort in the waiting room
Here are some of my favorite moments from this year past:
- Admiring the Zebras at the fantastically East German Tierpark Zoo, with one of my favorite people ever.
- Fly fishing at the Jaolin River, Haida Gwaii
- Mauerpark flea market, a place I wish I could be much more often
- Canoeing at a friends place in Friedrichshagen
- Going to the lake (with this book, which I could not put down, and from which I made the chocolate cake within hours of reading of, and have made at least a half dozen times since)
- My favorite holiday!
- Grabbing three pairs of Mr. Torgerson’s incredibly retro skis to explore Mount Washington cross country
- Thanksgiving at a friend’s farm on Vancouver Island
Ah, Christmas.
This year we spent it at my cousin’s new place in the Okanagan for five food filled days of the whole family under one happy roof. Between my aunties’ delicious Persian feasts, takeout Indian food, a bacon wrapped turkey and its appropriate table-side colleagues, pecan squares and the largest batch of spaghetti I’ve seen cooked outside of a commercial kitchen, the holidays found us playing countless games of Risk, Bridge, Catch Phrase (LOVE this game), Rockband, and some incarnation of a Mario video game on Wii, watching Food Inc. on Christmas Eve (a film I would recommend seeing, but certainly not on this particular occasion), and driving out to Big White to show the slopes who’s boss.
I’m happy to be back home because I don’ t think I could physically handle the rate of food consumption for any longer. Still, I can’t seem to stop listening to Christmas music. Big fan of this particular tune. No need to judge.
