mexico, part ii

in Todos Santos we stay in a huge poured cement house with mismatched linens and doors that slam. in every room there is a dead bug on its back. some with wings, some without. one night, clutching tequila and limes in plastic tumblers, all of us gather to peer over a particularly many-legged one and try to decide if it is a cockroach or not.

it is.

the waves sheer feet from the beach. the noise is so intense we are often startled from sleep trying to decide if there is thunder outside or not. the moon is waxing while we are there. the pale reach of it is cool and dusty like fluorescent bulbs. one night i rise from the bed to see if we had left a light on and instead got an eyeful of moonlight in an instant when the curtains groped into the room on a breeze.

we buy tortillas by the two dozen, stagger out of the bodegas delirious with joy and open the damp brown paper parcels on the ride home. the road to the house is so bad we have to let our jaws go slack so our teeth don't cracks and slam into each other over the ruts.

in the afternoons everyone separates like a fraying rope. some to verandas to torque the cracked and dusty plastic chairs on back legs and regard the tide. some to those deep and disoriented naps the seaside breaks across the day; waking crease-faced and bleary at strangely lit early evening hours.

some days we realize we haven't eaten enough and catch ourselves looking around, baffled, with our shirts on backwards and our hairpins falling out. we grate large blocks of soft cheese over the little corn tortillas, push them around in a wide, scratched aluminum skillet. the stove, four gaping and sooty burners sunk into the concrete counter, hisses solemnly when we spin the sticky dials. there is no pilot light, only that clandestine smell of gas blooming in the air. if we are too slow at ticking the butane lighter across the burners, a howl of blue light and flames swoop and swallow our arms briefly, the hair on our forearms singeing, fronds of ash pale and curled against our skin.

on the fourth day we buy oranges from the bed of a pickup truck, the sign is written in pink and green chalk and has curled at the corners from the damp air. we buy ten kilos of fruit in a crackling plastic net sleeve and try to count out our coins without looking too baffled. sometimes the denominations snag in our brains, decimal points and conversions leaping about and tangling. in the end, sheepishly, we hand over bills of inappropriate size and ready our palms for a rain of change in tiny coins. this jumps and rattles in the car. some of the oranges escape the bag and go knocking forwards at backwards as we jerk home.

the oranges are dusty, perfectly round and heavy. green and gray patches are streaked over their sides. so much juice comes out of them we grow suspicious. surely so much could not be contained in such a small vessel? we drink some, peer at the folding juicer, put our glasses down, pick them up, squint into the cloudy depths, drink some more and shake our heads. the seeds are enormous

kinds of bivouacking

these days we are mostly living outside. partially because we have been blessed with a rare coolness, and partially because when we are not blessed, the house inhales deeply of the hot air and doesn't let it out till the stars have long been out. this is, i think, an important part of being a human who seeks to identify with their animal insides. for while we can, of course, be sustained by the tiny altars everywhere inside our nests...

it is good to feel the wind move our hair, to smell what is bloom (here we have flax flowers, yarrow, chamomile, mint, indian paintbrush and burdock,) and to seek out a translation of what the magpies are always talking about when they take up a mighty racket in the groves. 

it is good also, i think, to share company with other things that spend only part of their days outside and to feel out how a living space is different than a loitering space. not a curbside, not a parking lot, not a food truck, not even parade-side bivouac. a living space outside demands that personal dimensions be honed and lined up. it seems like it is mostly a great dragging of shares and resettling of pots. but in the end, and it is a late end because August is almost here, it feels right. and then coming inside starts to feel wonky and slanted. and somehow that feels triumphant! if only for a short while.

something cool

heat here. followed by more of those lushly cloudy and still afternoons. proper stone fruit weather, cherries and plums and apricots abound. there's only so much jam a person can make. especially if they know it tends to sit in little gloriously jewel bright heaps in their cabinets without being scraped across enough toast. and a person can try in vain to eat all the paper bags full of cherries stationed on the counter and fish apricots out of the big baskets hoping to make a dent in the stock. and one can fail miserably at that, or at least their stomach can object mightily. so the latest is in, and, don't laugh, it's froyo. or is it fro-yo. it's yogurt and it's frozen and it's not pale or wimpy or a fierce let down. it's delightful and refreshing and it takes all of twenty minutes active work. so get after it. or get after someone who has, because you'll be pleased you did.

frozen yogurt, let us say, is different than ice cream. partially because yogurt typically has less free-floating fat, partially also because true frozen yogurt will have tang that can be offset or tempered with something sweet and spicy. or both, as is the case here. frozen yogurt also has the tendency to become slightly crystalline because, unlike the aforementioned milk fat, yogurt's bulk is mostly water. when frozen yogurt can have an unappealing stiffness, or the tendency to leap from the spoon, spin across the kitchen and make mysteriously sticky spots on the floors and counters that take weeks to discover and scrub off. luckily there are some solutions to all of these otherwise irritating drawbacks of frozen yogurt and some benefits to boot.

as you've likely seen, yogurt cultures, used for making yogurt at home, can be purchased freeze dried. this is a clue that the probiotics in yogurt, you knew it was coming, can withstand a stint in the freezer thus reblooming happily in your belly. this is great because cold milk protein is, notoriously, one of the hardest ways to digest milk, especially if a person is already prone to struggling with lactose, etc. nice yogurt (not dannon or yoplait, ahem,) also has an intriguing flavor profile and can be less stodgy at the end of a summer meal than the potentially-gloopy scoop of commercial vanilla ice cream.

and on to the troubleshooting with frozen yogurt. firstly, do yourself a favor for this, and from now on in general, and buy full fat yogurt. it is inevitably easier on your digestive system to eat milk protein with the fat that comes with it. the proteins and fat-soluble vitamins in milk are most efficiently broken down, used and flushed through the system with milk fat. indeed, de-fatted milk taxes your body by foraging for other fats that are less compatible in unravelling the proteins and making use of the healthful vitamins and other nutrients in milk. (this is true with any animal product.  eat chicken with the skin, eat the fine rind of pork on a pork chop, etc. etc. it's not that we don't seek to avoid saturated fats, its that we honor the animal by eating it in moderation, in tact, to be used by our bodies as we evolved to use them. just a thought.) the upshot of all of this is that the fat in the yogurt guards against the ice-cube like hardness that can crop up when making lowfat or fat-free frozen yogurt. it produces a velvety softness. the other strategy for avoiding hard frozen yogurt is to temper the custard with an egg white which adds to the nice texture. (if, like Liana Krissoff says, however, your immune system can't take it, omit the egg from the recipe below.)

so the recipe at last. this is adapted with love from Liana Krissoff's Canning for a New Generation. this book is vital for anyone seeking to put up food or scrabbling to make use of an over-large CSA share they were talked into going in on. essentially it is a recipe for jam (her recipe for plum cardamom jam is a delight,) cooked but pulled from the heat before the sugar can set it, folded into full fat yogurt and tipped into an ice cream maker for fifteen minutes.

for the fruit:

5 large plums, any variety, pitted and diced

2 cups coconut sugar

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon freshly ground cardamom seeds

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

for the yogurt:

1 1/2 quarts whole milk, coconut, almond or soy yogurt.

1 egg separated

1/4 cup coconut sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons bourbon whiskey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

in a small pot combine all ingredients for the fruit and bring to a boil, reduce to low and simmer about ten minutes, or until fruit is tender. remember that the fruit needs to be strongly flavored so as not to get lost in the yogurt. when slightly cool slowly whisk in the egg yolk. cool to room temperature and freeze until completely cold. overdo this step. chill it a while longer than you think, you and the ice cream maker will be happy you did.

beat the egg white with the cream of tartar and salt until soft peaks form. add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks evolve. (omit this step if you're not into the raw egg bit. omit also the salt, cream of tartar and remaining 1/4 cup sugar.)

in a large bowl whisk the yogurt until homogenous and then fold in the plum mixture. deftly fold in the egg white, pour into ice cream maker and churn according to instructions. 

alternately, lacking an ice cream machine, pour the mixture in a wide, shallow pan (a roasting one works well.) leave in the freezer and take out after twenty minutes. scoop the crystallized edges in towards the runny middle and spread the runny middle out to the edges. repeat every twenty minutes to half an hour until  the middle no longer runs. then leave until completely frozen.

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mexico part i: san jose del cabo to la paz

San Jose Del Cabo : : El Triunfo : : La Paz : : El Tesoro : : Pichilingue : : La bahia de muertos/ -de suenos buenos : : Todos Santos : : El pescadero : : San Jose Del Cabo

in Mexico we arrange our days into halves sliced by fierce lethargy. at its apex, the sun kindles unseen bonfires and drags them afire upon its decent.

This desert is unfamiliar, its colors flat and brown; the dryness is absolute but defied by trees, who, at their branch tips, are anointed by blossoms jewel red and yellow. but this strange anthem of life streaks the saguaro wastes only at slow speeds (color booming across a perpetuity of duns and grays only if one's purpose has stalled or mellowed.)

in stately columns, light pours over arroyos and tightly gathered mountains. like chimes, these spectral pillars ring and pound the dry ground. its unheard resonance is evident in the abrupt gathering and swoop of frigate birds who tremble as they tip in and out of sight. 

 

the sea is a shock. the earth seems lie down drum tight with dryness and impenetrable hardness and then is lapped by a sea so fiercely blue, so gentle and demure it shocks even the gulls, who do not patrol and pan the shallows, but stand resolute in recovery from the spectacle along the dunes.

high summer

Summer is here. It took its time.

We are getting rain and wind all the time, which stuns us. We look up and squint and put our noses into the breezes, we extend our palms upwards, cupped, to feel in disbelief  for the wet weight of thunderstorms. It is gloriously green and unusual. And the markets have fruit. Fruit! Not just the nine dollar a pint raspberries but heaps of apricots and cherries. This is a shock, usually the season for those is a blink and a start and is over.

Of course, when one has fruit to use, one must make cake. One must make cake as if it is one's only purpose in life and one must also eat the cake on shaded patios, with the basil and cornflowers blowing softly and the hummingbirds tangling with one another in the trees.

This cake was adapted from the sprouted kitchen's most recent and lovely idea. The novelty of almond flour has yet to escape me as a replacement for grain flours. While the above recipe was put together to make muffins I knew that, too often, muffins sit swathed in parchment, folded into ziplock bags, and left to fur over with mold in despair. There's something unromantic about fishing a slightly gelatinous-topped muffin from a bag and wishing it had retained its former lofty, somewhat crusty and fragrant glory when first turned from a muffin tin.

So, on the other hand, there is tea cake. Read: muffin batter baked in a loaf pan. Tea cake is seductive, it sits low slung and dark in a loaf pan and beckons knives and fingers to shave it down until only crumbs remain. With coffee or after dinner or in the middle of the day in bare feet at the countertop after one has recovered from miles trekked in the mountains and returned home ravenous. (Or maybe this person goes on treks into the mountains with the sole idea of using the alluring tea cake as a magnet for the return trip, imagining bits toasted with sweet cream butter with every step until the car comes back into view. Just maybe.)


Blueberry, Apricot and Almond Teacake

1/2 cup almond meal (pre-ground or make your own using whole raw almonds whizzed in your food processor)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 cup 50/50 whole wheat-white flour (or any combination of other grain flours)
1/4 cup oats
1 heaping tablespoon hemp seeds
1 rounded teaspoon flaxseeds
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground or grated ginger
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup coconut sugar or other thoughtful sweetener
2 eggs
3 tablespoons coconut or olive oil or butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt

2 tablespoons raw honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

2 fresh apricots diced 

(*fancy option: crack one of the apricot stones open, fish out the fragrant soft inner kernel, dice up finely and add to the batter. The inner kernel is faintly reticent of roasted almonds and can impart a mysterious herbal note to recipes that call for apricot. Beware however as too many can overpower anything with a fierce bitterness.)

 

 

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the dry ingredients (including the sugar) and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients except for the fruit and whisk vigorously to aerate. This batter is somewhat dense and benefits immensely from a good swish about with a whisk before incorporating the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold until about 75% combined, tip in the fruit and finish folding everything together. Use a gentle hand here now that the grains and the eggs are in the same bowl, an overly thorough mixing is grounds for a touch cake. Smooth into a loaf pan which you've buttered and papered and put into the oven for 35-50 minutes. Test with the blade of a knife for doneness. If the knife comes out with more than a crumb or two give it another 5 minutes and check again. Cool thoroughly before slicing: the cornmeal will remain somewhat firm and will crumble if cut before its had a chance to firm up and cool.

On another note the beginning of July marked some beautiful loops come full circle. It's important to have love move through you, the fierce kind, no matter what kind or where it comes from.

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