Nostalgique

Today as I was trying to braid my hair in the mirror (unsuccessfully I might add) in the old bathroom that used to be me and my sister's in my dad's house, a familiar feeling of nostalgia washed over me. I thought of how many times I had washed up in that bathroom, taken baths as a baby, tried on makeup as a teenager, cried after a bad day. The floor is now partially strewn with my niece's bath toys, the shower curtain has changed, and my stuff no longer crowds the counter top.
Things change in such an interesting way.
I spend a lot of my time being nostalgic or looking towards the future. Longing for times past, remembering songs I listened to or people I knew, places I've been. Fantasizing about where I will be a year from now, what I will be seeing, who I will know, what new experiences will thrill and frustrate me. I desperately hold onto memories, yet reach just at desperately at memories not yet made. I must reconcile the two and live somewhere in the here and now. Oh, who am I kidding. I'm a dreamer.

First Week of School

Another leaf bug spotted on campus.


My writing has been a little sparse lately, due to it being the first week of school. It's been a lot of waiting, as I have as long as 6 hours between each class. But, that's what happens when it's your last semester and you have no other choice! I briefly thought about staying at UNM one more semester to take Advanced Painting (when I found out you get your own studio) but I decided against it. I am going to work hard to set up a good studio space in our room when we graduate.

We de-installed our show this morning. It went well, even though no one showed up to help.

Musings from Another Time and Place: Chapitre 2

Chapter 2:
Germany

Age: 21

"We were all bumbling around trying to figure out how the hell to work the machines or get detergent. You get the soap from this wall dispenser when you put in money...We just wanted to find food, so we stumbled into a Turkish cafe..."

Photo taken in a laundromat in Munchen, Germany

Dreams of Underwater Cities

I had the most beautiful dream last night. It's slipping away so fast, I'm typing as fast as I can to preserve it's beauty.

I was at Eldorado (my old high school) going to a French class. My teacher wasn't there, so we were all just sitting there. A lot of people I knew from high school were there, and this guy started telling me how there is this internet thing going around now saying "Babysan sucks, Sam rules" or "Babysan dumb, Sam smart". It was something really stupid like that. I obviously knew that Sam had done this and he walked by the open classroom right as we were all talking about this. He threatened the guy I was talking to and went to his class, which was up this green mountain. I could see him walking up the path. He was saying all this horrible stuff about me and the guy I was with, and John. And so I finally craned my neck outside and started shouting insults at him. He was saying bad things about my fashion sense, "Black shirts and jeans, which I bought for her? Come on.." (which is so not what I wear...) So he was getting angrier and angrier and he had a helicopter, and he started bringing it around next to the classroom, and the blades started cutting into the room. I fell backwards and thought my head had been cut off, but I was ok. I ran out into these beautiful gardens, where I was trying to find a hiding place with my dad. I kept changing where I was hiding. There were these green houses, and I kept running from one to another, my dad was getting angry. Then this moose saw us, and was threatening to charge. If the moose did this, it would call so much attention to us that Sam would see us for sure. So my dad wanted me to stay still but I just tried to run to the other greenhouse. The moose started charging as my Dad tried to follow me. I said "Jump!" to try and get him from one greenhouse to the other but he got stuck in these ropes. The moose was in the ropes too, and it was wrapping my Dad up. He said "I'm going to die, right here!" And I said "Dad, come on, you aren't going to die." And then the moose came after me. I ran out where there was a stream, and I knew I needed to jump in. But then I saw Sam, he was with someone else, and he was getting in the stream too. So I tried very quietly to float on my back, and swim away from where they were. "Dig Ophelia" by Rasputina was playing. It was terribly appropriate.

Dig Ophelia Consider it dug,
Flower madness and polar bear rug
Here's the water just ankle deep high
Lay back, relax and look up at the sky

Your eyes never close,
Your mind's not at rest
Lay back get waterlogged,
Give us a kiss.

Water spreads the small seed
Water kills the tall weed
Ophelia

Cut the stem and we'll see how you feel,
Floating orchids just aint no big deal,
Never knowing's like knowing too much
Tap the table now here's more bad luck

Your eyes never close,
Your mind's not at rest
Lay back get waterlogged
Give us a kiss.

Water spreads the small seed
and Water kills the tall weed
Ophelia

I figured that I should probably just lay back relax and look up at the sky and so I let the current take me. I hit a water fall/water slide. I tried to relax and just let it take me. When I got to the bottom, there were steps leading down, like there used to be a castle there or something, that had flooded. I had a lantern and kept going deeper and deeper in. The water was chin-deep now, but I kept going. I let myself slip beneath the water, and to my astonishment, I could breathe just fine. I came up above water in disbelief, and submerged myself again just to see if I really could breathe. I could. I saw that there was sort of a room or bar where a lot of people were underwater. I passed some sort of a threshold where "the water went from smooth to soft, and the fish fins became smooth and disappeared" it was terrible poetic. This line kept cycling. When I passed this threshold, I was in this beautiful, sparkling city (more of a town really). Everything was bright and illuminated, palely colorful. I decided to swim into the bar and when I did, a band began to play and the whole room started in on it. I had seen that they just did this for me, so I was concerned that maybe these people were evil. I acted like I was leaving but really just perched myself atop of some underwater trees. Sure enough, as soon as I left, they stopped playing this music and returned to normal, chatting and the like. I was suspicious but tried to shake off these feelings while I was in the trees, overlooking the town.

I got down because I saw things for sale, and I bought something called "A thousand color jacket" Something so bright and illuminated, the locals called it the "Grandeur Defier" (I'm not sure why). I knew that down in this underwater city I could be bright, cast off my black clothes and be illuminated. I was walking and/or swimming around when this woman approached me. Somehow I told her who I was and she just said "oh dear lord" or something and turned away from me. I was afraid that I was bad for them. But then people began to gather and gawk at me. It was revealed who I was and they told me that I was the sole ancestor of all these people. When I crossed the threshold I had entered a place that was stuck in sped up time, generations and generation reproducing while the world outside trudged along dully. I looked around at all of the citizens, trying to see my face in each one of them. I was somewhat of a myth to them, and my arrival was very important. The old woman from before came and gave me a necklace, a vial with sparkling fluid in it. I put it around my neck. She said something along the lines of "Now that will cure your thyroid cancer". I then realized that all of what had happened had led me down here, so I could get this magic vial from my descendants. I marveled at the way life works out sometimes before I thanked them and left, once again crossing the threshold. Things weren't so shimmery anymore, and the fish went from smooth, sparkly and finless, to grey and sad, fins intact. I had a doll now, I don't know why. I think I had bought her in the underwater descendant city. I emerged above water in the gardens again, where I was to fall down a water fall/slide. I knew that something needed to change after this beautiful experience, so I vowed that I would read to my doll every day, who was now alive. We slid together down the falls into the pool below, where my doll needed to administer the sparkling dust from my necklace. How this is done is by blowing into one end of it while pointing it at the person intended for the cure, and the sparkling dust poofs into their face. So my doll had the necklace and she was just about to do it, when something distracted her and she turned, blowing the shimmering powder into the face of a young boy wading in the water nearby. I was in shock, as my one chance at having my thyroid cancer cured, this magic dust destined for me and given to me by hordes of my descendants, was gone. Just like that. I hadn't even known anything was wrong.

So now, what does this one mean? I think this would make an amazing graphic novel... (add one project to my ever-growing list of unfinished business) Anyone else?

Cooking Adventures

My journey to becoming a self-sufficient-ish housemaker in preparation for Budapest trumps along, day by day. The other night was a surprising bit of culinary genius. I modified a "Simply Recipes" recipe to accommodate what ingredients we had and didn't have. And oh good god was it delicious.

Caramelized Onion Quiche (intrigued yet??)

2 Tbsp olive oil

2-3 Onions (I used white), French cut

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 1/4 cup low fat milk

3 eggs

Pinch nutmeg

1 1/2 cup low fat aged cheddar

No crust on this bad boy. We didn't have any unsalted butter, and well, I just didn't want to expend the energy of making a crust.

The onions take an hour to caramelize. This recipe takes time, but is worth it in the end.

Heat olive oil in large pan over medium heat. Add onions and a bit of salt. Stir occasionally until translucent. Turn heat to medium low and cook another 40 minutes. Once they are browned, add balsamic vinegar to caramelize further, about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese along the bottom of a tart pan (I used a round Pyrex one). Spread the onions over the cheese and add the remaining cheese on top of the onions. In a different bowl, whisk eggs and milk. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Pour over cheese. Bake for about 40 minutes, until set in center. Yum. Just Yum.

Insomniacs for Hungary

I had a bout of insomnia last night, after not having one for quite some time. In my mind, I was obsessing over Hungary. This small country wouldn't let me sleep. I was fantasizing, romanticizing, figuring out decorations for our Budapest flat, thinking about students and how I would teach them. I kept going over all of the things that I can say in Hungarian. "Valerie vagyok" "Hogy vagy" "Tanar vagyok. Nem ertem". "Hol van a szarvas?" Hungarian was truly littering my mind. I couldn't shake it. After getting up to go to the bathroom and get some water, I tried to let it go. It worked for awhile.

Photo: Chain Bridge, Budapest by night

Musings from Another Time and Place

Ever since I have traveled abroad, I have kept journals of my experiences. Some have been better and more frequently updated then others, but still, they exist in some shape or form. I have been trying to get them all together (all the way back to when I was 11) but it has proven to be a bit of a challenge. Through several moves and simply the passage of time, they have been misplaced. Though last weekend, I found my journal from Japan. I was so pleased. I love reading what I thought of things when I saw them, and at what age, and how my perceptions have changed. I would like this to be somewhat of a "blog series", with chapters, in which I take my favorite excerpts out of my travel journals.

Chapter 1:

Japan

Age: 17

"The first night was hard. I suppose I was expecting the transition to be a bit more smooth...My stomach sank and I realized where I was, how incredibly far away I was from anything known and familiar...There's stars on the ceiling here, to make up for the ones in the sky that the lights of Tokyo outshine."

Photo: Taken in a tram car in Hakone Nat'l Park, Japan.

Show Installation

The postcard for our show, which we got today.

Whew. Today was a long one, spent installing our gallery show. We started at 11 AM and we just got home. It's 5:30 PM! It took so long because not everybody was there to help, and there's just a whole lot to do. The show turned out really really well though. It looks amazing!

This is a small portion of the crap needed to install a show.

The room where said crap is kept. In here you will find paint, pedestals, shelves, glass, projectors, bleach, sponges, nails, staple guns, velcro, levels, measuring tapes and just about anything else you can think of. David brought us a bag of fruit to munch on that you can sort of see peeking out.

The gallery space, more or less. Everyone sort of had their pieces just resting on the wall at this point. Then much (much) rearrangement ensued.

One of the many pow-wows of the afternoon. You can see John fiddling with the projector. This happened a lot today.

Another common sight, everyone holding up the pieces so we can all see how it looks together. We took turns doing this. That black dress is one of my pieces.

After all of the pieces were arranged, measured, nailed, leveled and hung, the lighting began.

I made the entrance sign with stencils and a super king size Sharpie. I think I lost more than a few brain cells doing this. Indira made a sign with all of the artist's names, while Jeff and Quin mounted the title cards and wall texts.

My piece hung, lit very well (Thanks John), with title card and wall text. It looks beautiful!

A picture of the space completed! It looks very polished and nice. Thank God we're done. Which leads me to my next point:

The back of the postcard, showing where and when the show (and reception) is. If you come, there will be food!!!

All in all, this installation was a really great experience. Tiring, yes. Maddening, yes. Totally worth it? Absolutely.

Bread Pudding, Birthday Dinner

My Dad originally wanted to go to a New Orleans themed restaurant across town for his birthday dinner. The problem is, it went out of business. I had my high school graduation party there, and have very fond memories of it. It was something to appease my longing for New Orleans here in Albuquerque. They had the best bread pudding. So, my Dad instead requested that we make him some chocolate bread pudding for his birthday. I thought we should make an event of it, with Leah, myself and Ann (Grammy) all helping. It was very very fun and it turned out delicious. No recipe for now, as I don't have it, and there will be more than enough pictures to appease your sweet tooth:

My niece Leah cracked the eggs like a pro. She was amazing!

See? Grammy is grating chocolate in the background. We all had "jobs".

Leah then whisked the eggs at a furious pace! Do you see how hard she is concentrating?

This recipe required an obscene amount of bowls, each with its own little concoction. Leah wanted to try her hand at grating the baking chocolate.

She didn't quite have the strength to grate it all before it melted all over her little fingers!

Finally all of the mixtures are combined, and poured over the top of the cubed bread (which I did..).

After baking. It smelled amazing!!!

We also made a bourbon sauce.

Leah got to drink apple juice out of a tiny tiny wine glass, so that we could do a birthday toast. See that ketchup heart on her plate? I made that for her and then she refused to dip her chicken nuggets into it because the heart would be ruined! Too cute.

Cheers! Happy Birthday again, Dad!

Dreams of Hungary...part deux

Last night I had the most vivid dream of Hungary, one of the most vivid I've ever had in fact. Unfortunately now that I am awake, the details are slipping away.

John and I were in Hungary, and we were doing a homestay in Budapest (I think it was orientation for CETP) and we were paired with a Gypsy family. They lived in this little hovel, that looked like some sort of Turkish harem. They spoke English very well, and they loved us so much and were so curious and fascinated about America. They asked us if we were sad that we were paired with a Gypsy family. I said "No no, in fact I'm so happy that we got to stay with you." Much more happened with them, including wheelchairs, races, and rope bridges.

The fun really started when we were given a Hungarian driver to drop us off in various towns in Hungary. We were speaking with him and I kept doing this thing where whenever I didn't understand someone, I would just start speaking French. They usually spoke French back to me. We drove out of Budapest and the countryside started immediately. There looked to be mountains or hills all around us, but when I looked closer, they were made up of piles of giant vegetables. Potatoes and carrots and everything else you can think of, just gigantic. I grabbed for my camera as a semi-truck drove by hauling an enormous carrot. It was magical and whimsical.

We arrived in a smallish town where the roads were water. Horses swam neck deep in them, pulling carts of people and produce. As we were leaving, there was a sign up ahead about a "mess" meaning there must be an accident or something. I kept thinking it was babies. So it switched over to Ernie driving us in the Passport. He was driving crazy and we eventually "got 10 feet of air" (my exact words) as we flew off the road and crashed. We decided where we were was not safe, so we started walking these penguins/anteaters down the road. They were on leashes. I asked my mom, "Where did we get these anteaters?" She didn't seem to know. There were giant black eggs all over the road that these anteater/penguins had presumably hatched out of.

The leashed creatures led us to their "home" which was sort of an enclosure made up of cardboard boxes, fencing and the like. There were kittens inside. I started taking pictures but a woman came out of a nearby building and starting cursing us in Hungarian. I answered back in French and we sort of became friends. Then as we were leaving this little place, we saw a statue of a giant fist, and a replica of the Sphinx in Egypt.

If anyone is a dream-interpreter, please let me know. It was amazing.

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

It's my Dad's birthday! This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my dad. We were taking a break on our futons in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. The monks knocked on our doors at 5 AM every morning to watch them chant. No wonder we were tired! I have memories from when I was a little girl of my dad laying like this when he would nap or rest. Like father. like daughter!!! I love you Dad, hope you had a great one!!!

Monsieur Leaf-Bug

Last night my Mom asked me if I wanted to see a cool bug. Never one to pass up a cool bug sighting, I quickly shouted "Sure! What does it look like?" Mom: "Like a giant leaf with legs." Me: "Is it a leaf bug?" Mom: "What do they look like?" Me: "Like a leaf with legs." So yes, he was a leaf bug, just sitting on the windshield wiper. I thought he was amazing.

Blueberry...Actually Raspberry Muffins

This really has been the weekend of cooking. I've found that baking actually really relaxes me, and it pleases me when I see people enjoying the food that I have made. Food really does bring people together. So anyways, while I was searching for a new recipe in the low-iodine cookbook, I came across Blueberry Muffins (which lives on the same page as the Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins in the thyca.org low-iodine cookbook). We get an organic box of fruits and veggies every week through Los Poblanos organic farms here in Albuquerque. We pick it up every Monday and have delicious, ripe and in-season produce. Raspberries have been one of the things we've been getting a lot lately. I wanted to use them right away because raspberries are the first to mold in the fridge. So I substituted the blueberries for raspberries in this recipe. They're delicious!

Blueberry (or Raspberry) Muffins

2 egg whites

1 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt (Kosher)

1 cup fresh blueberries (or raspberries)

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Beat egg whites. Stir in water and oil. Mix in flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until moistened. Gently fold in berries. Pour batter in the paper-lined muffin pan. Makes 12 muffins.

Contributed by Cathy T.

See something missing in this recipe?? I sure do. How long do you cook them for? I kept an obsessively close eye on them until they started to smell good, puff up, crack and brown. They were cooked perfectly. I think it was around 15-20 minutes.

I cut up the raspberries into fours. They seemed a little large to keep whole in a muffin.

Folding in the chopped raspberries into the batter.

Batter in paper liners before baking.

And after. I peeked inside the wrapper to see if they were done, that's why the front one is a little indecent.

These muffins are delicious and perfect for a low-iodine diet. Make them. Now!

Homemade Tortillas

Being a native New Mexican, I know a thing or two about tortillas. Growing up, I thought every grocery store in the world carried tortillas. I realize now that I have taken their doughy flat goodness for granted. My life really wouldn't be complete without them. So in preparation for our move to Hungary, I made a batch of homemade tortillas yesterday. I'm going to have to make a batch or so every week in Hungary, so I better get in my practice now! Here's how I did it:

Flour Tortillas

3 cups white flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt (I used Kosher for my sister's low-iodine diet)

5 tbsp vegetable shortening

1 1/4 cup warm water

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Add shortening and knead in with hands. Next add the warm water a little at a time until the dough is soft, not sticky. Knead the dough for a few minutes. Pull off small pieces of the dough to form 12 small balls. Let dough rest for 10 minutes. Heat up nonstick pan over medium heat. Roll out the balls into tortillas on a floured surface. Heat in pan until bubbles form, then flip. They cook up very quickly, only a few seconds on each side.

Dough after kneading, ready for forming. I made a double batch.

After forming 24 small dough balls (Remember I made a double batch). The dough is resting now. Shh...

Rolling out the dough into tortillas. My mom had a tortilla-specific rolling pin that I used.

The aforementioned bubbles. I ended up cooking one in a pan and one straight on the electric burner because I had so many to make. See those finished ones on the plate? You want those little black burn marks. That's what tortillas are all about.

Et Voila. Finished Tortillas. mmm.. I could definately do this every week in Central Europe. Maybe I can bring them to my coworkers and start a tortilla-induced riot? Yeah, I bet I could...

Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins

Since my sister has to be on a low-iodine diet before her radiation, we have all been scrambling to find things that she can eat. She has never been much of a cook, so we have all been making her things. This muffin recipe is from a low-iodine cookbook that is available as a free PDF on thyca.org. I attempted these first sometime last week, and my sister loved them so much, I made another batch on Saturday!

Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 cups oat bran cereal

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/2 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 Tablespoon baking soda

1/2 Teaspoon salt (Kosher is ok for low-iodine. sea salt and regular is NOT)

4 egg whites

1 cup applesauce, chilled

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Blend together dry ingredients. Add egg whites, chilled applesauce and vegetable oil. Mix well until blended. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Let stand for 10 minutes. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Yield: 12 muffins

Contributed by Elaine J.

These muffins are really easy to make and bake up beautifully. Here's what mine looked like:

Muffins before going into the oven.

Muffins after. They puffed up and browned perfectly!

Rose Petal Beads, In Reality.

After having a dream about making beads out of rose petals, I thought I would attempt it. John had to do some yardwork for his dad, who happens to have an amazing array of roses blooming in his backyard. So I snipped a few off for myself, and set off on my project.

Rose petal beads were popular in Victorian times, and were mostly used in Christian prayer. I've known about them for a few years now, and am always intrigued by the fact that the beads retain their rosey smell.

I found a few vague tutorials online, so I was more or less winging it. It said what to do but left out important details and the measurements were all wrong. So here is how I did it. Was it a success? I'm not quite sure yet.

These are some of the materials needed. Roses, a mortar and pestle (or blender), some thin cotton fabric, and pins or needles. I chose a variety of colors in my rose petals, but it did not make much of a difference, since they are all ground together.

The petals must then be taken off of the flower, and the small, hard white cuticle cut off. It is at the base of each petal and connects it to the flower itself.

After about an hour or so of grinding. This was really intense work, but I was determined to do it the more authentic way, as opposed to using a blender. I transferred my ground petals into a teacup, for a more direct and intense grind. This worked much better.

Grinding away in the teacup. The mixture had a really nice color at this point, but that was to change quickly...See those little yellow petal chunks? They caused me some problems in this next stage. I was also sort of concerned by the smell, as it was much more leafy than rosy.

After adding water to the mixture, you must heat it in a pan over low heat (be sure not to let it boil or the scent will be destroyed). I didn't know how long or what it was supposed to look like at this point but I wasn't happy with the sort of...cat vomit look it was taking on. I had read that using a cast iron skillet would make the beads black, so I switched over to a small cast iron skillet, hoping to avoid wearing cat vomit beads around my neck.

After switching to a cast iron skillet, the mixture quickly turned an inky black. All except the little yellow pieces. They were resistant to the color-change and so I handpicked out as many pieces as I could. The smell at this point was much improved. They smelled like very fragrant warm roses, and the leafiness was gone. I didn't know how it was supposed to look when it was done, so I just called it done when I became bored of watching it cook.

The excess moisture then must be squeezed out of the mixture. The concoction is placed in a thin cotton fabric, and the water is squeezed out. Using the cast iron skillet made this so much messier, my hands are still stained black.

I then rolled out the mixture into beads and poked them with pins so they could be threaded later. They must be made twice the size as you want them, because they shrink considerably. My mixture wasn't as smooth as I had hoped, and the petals didn't stick together all that well. I hope that when they are dry I can sand and polish them. They look a little like dung rolled up by a dung beetle right now, but they smell amazing. My batch yielded 19 beads, out of about 10 or 12 roses. The recipe I went off of said that 3-4 roses would yield 24 beads. Not true.

This project was fun, messy, therapeutic, gross, and aromatic. All I must do now is wait for them to be dry in a few days and see what I can do to make them smoother. Stay tuned!

The Boot.

While we were in Germany last summer, I found a boot. We were in the middle of a protest but in search of food in Berlin and it was just sitting there. It enticed me and so I grabbed it, took photos of it, and brought it back over the ocean. The plan was to take it with us everywhere, and take photos of it. "The Traveler's Boot" it was dubbed that night. The problem is, we forgot it in May when we went to France. So...oops. Anyways, the tradition will live in Hungary and beyond (provided I remember).

The boot precariously dangling over the Rhine in Berlin. This is the face of German protest-induced merriment.

The boot with a protest sign. The other side of this sign says "Capitalism is Boring".

The boot made its most prevalent appearances during the protest, but it can also be seen in a German housewarming party, watching the Tour de France, sunbathing in Paris, and eating waffles in Brussels.