Stirring the Stock

Singing John Prines' Angel from Montgomery

2011-08-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

Singing Angel from Montgomery - John Prine

Breakfast at Pine State Biscuits.

2011-02-14T13:46:00.001-08:00

We talk about solar energy, hip hop, and hair pie in the same breath.
We know we listen to better hip hop than you.

And we think Portland is definatly better than Seattle except for the fact that its not Seattle.

We don't drink at starbucks and we're impressed with stumptowns bold richness and a distinctive lack of bitterness.
We like the rain we hate the rain.
We dress for the weather and compliment each others laptop bags.
We talk about Juxtapose magazine and Banksy and try to remeber Paul Newman movies.
We laugh and we laugh and we bring jokes full circle. We do not feel alone.

Seattle ----> Portland

2011-02-13T12:11:00.001-08:00

First thing to know, when you unlock the door the alarm goes off, so you have to hit the lock button on the key fob, but the lock button doesn't actually unlock the door. AND its a stick. Lucky I know how to drive one.
10 am on a bright sunny Sunday morning, Mnt Ranier is busting out of the clouds in its purple mountains majesty and we are on our way. I have an obcenely low number bouncing around my bank account and I'm hoping it all works out because.. fuck it! I'm on a roadtrip, headed toward the sun. Life is good.

Please excuse bad grammer or punctuation. I'm trying a new android app and typing om a small screen.

The birth of La Gabacha

2011-01-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

I have long dreamt of owning my own restaurant. Nothing fancy, little more than a taco shop but different, hipper, more my style. A little tradition steeped in contemporary Mexican culture. A little more vale desmadre (worth chaos or devil may care), surely a heap of VIVA la RAZA. I stay up nights documenting in my head, specials, menus, drinks, music, artwork.

But... the one element of this desire that leaves me fetal in the corner mumbling numbers like rainman is money. The kind with lots of zeros, the kind the likes of myself has no link to. I log my fifty hours a week, I make my rent, and I pay as much of my bills on time as I can. But I watch my credit wheeze and cough begging resuscitation and stare at my savings with great determination in hopes that I can will the numbers upward.

Investors, financiers, returns, interests, shares... the thought makes me loopy. How do I get it? How do a pay it back? And how does anyone make money?

In honor of 2011: the year I find my joy, I am dedicating my spare minutes to finding things out. Why let a little ignorance get in the way? No one else does!

So... I leap, in hopes that the net will appear!!!

First course of action: The business plan. From what I gather, very important. Easy enough, I have the idea, I know how to budget food and labor and I am passionate about my ideas. So, off to the internet I go.

Lessons learned: sites that say they have free templates often do not. There are a lot of people out there that want to sell you their 'turn key' plan for business. Come to find out I already have the information and data I need, I just have to get it out of my head and onto the screen.

1st Question: Business name? Easy, La Gabacha = it means 'white girl'

appropriate I would say as I am clearly not Mexican, and it sort of rolls off the toungue and sounds like biting into a hard shell taco, or a forbidden dance. Really, it's what I was called while traveling through Mexico and working at Frontera. I liked it, it stuck.

2nd Question: Your company logo? Now here others might think; get the data done, work on the hard numbers first, the artwork will come later. NOPE! not me, the need for a logo spurred a three hour creative endeavour that after much consideration has become what i think is a great beginning to a memorable and approchable logo.

The Birth of La Gabacha:

La Gabacha mas Chida: the coolest white girl

She's pretty cool right? I am not alone in my love for Mexican pop and folk art, Dia de los Muertos, sugar skulls, and the artwork of Jose Gudalupe Posada . I am also a fan of Craftychica.com. Kathy Murillo and her husband Patrick make amazing chicano pop art, hopefully it will adorn the walls of 'La Gabacha'.

My name, Cameo, has bequethed me a knack for collecting cameos, so I came up with the idea that it would be a posada style skull in the style of the traditional cameo relief. The flowers are marigold used in all sorts of festivities and the knife and fork? well that should be obvious. It will need some color later on but for now I think she'll do.

On to question # 3

Let me know what you think and I will keep you posted on further adventures in business plan writing.

New Etsy Site.

2010-12-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

I've always been the artsy type. Never in any one discipline long enough to excel at it, unless you count cooking (and I do). One week I am a knitter and I'm going to knit cute little things that I'll sell at Sunday markets and become independantly wealthy off my efforts. Oh but wait... crochet! I love crochet! it's faster! I can crochet little mushrooms and hats and scarves and sell them at Sunday markets and become independantly wealthy off my efforts. But... if I buy a sewing machine I can make my own clothes and sell arm-warmers and scarves from second hand stores.. but ...wait if I ... or if I ... but I like... ohh, but this is really cool! And alas I end up with 100's of half started projects, boxes of odds and ends and pens, and paints and pieces of broken things I will eventually make into other things and I will sell them at Sunday markets and become independantly wealthy off my efforts.

Finish it or toss it! And now there are enough journals made from vintage books and knitted floweres with buttons and sweet little findings... arm warmers are all the rage and a thousand indie girls are making them better than me...

But, what I always come back to is a glue stick and a paper, images that i didn't have to draw, pieced, altered and embellished.

That said I have combined my love of food and my love of glue and while the two would never pass your lips together (unless you like to dip your fries in Elmers...) I've created Cooking on Paper -

I'll have cards and little arty pices of collage and assemblage for purchase and while I am no longer looking to become independanly wealthy off my efforts it does make me happy and if I can keep myself in glue sticks I'll feel good about the effert spent.

So please check it out and buy a set of cards for a friend. If you live locally contact me and I can save you the shipping.

2010-11-24T17:10:00.001-08:00

Cooking as Art

Lady Allister's fondness for fishes

Cooking as Art

2010-11-24T17:03:00.001-08:00

La Santa Ensalada

Cooking as Art

for the ladies... Fruit

the Chicken.. and the great chicken cookbook!

2010-11-11T00:35:00.001-08:00

this is what happens when I don't get out much.

creepy!

2010-11-06T00:57:00.001-07:00

I obviously need to get out more.

It's all Part of my Food Truck Fantasy... It's all part of my Rock and Roll Dreams.

2010-10-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

Fight the midterm election blues and

VOTE FOR ME!

Follow the link to the GOOD: FOOD blog to vote the food cart Amie and built (she built, I cooked, we were fabulous) for Chicago Art Departments annual fundraiser.

"Amie Sell and Cameo McRoberts created a mock version of La Gabacha for two reasons: to serve delicious Asian-inspired hot dogs at an art benefit, but also, to protest Chicago's "strict food truck laws and militant hot dog preparation mandates." According to Sell, "Our inspiration came from a hot dog stand in Vancouver, our love of food, art and travel. We served up all beef hot dogs with Asian-inspired toppings [...] People keep asking me where our real stand is, too bad our city ordinances make it difficult to impossible to make La Gabacha a real truck."

Signature Dish: The Seoul Doggie (above on the right) with kim chee, pickled radish, red chili oil, and mayo. The Japadog! (above in center) with takoyaki sauce, wasabi mayo, pickled daikon, shredded nori with toasted sesame sprinkle. The Ban Mi doggie (above on the left) with thinly sliced carrots and daikon, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, pâté, mayo and ham.

voodoo doughnut

2010-10-24T08:16:00.001-07:00

yes, that is bacon on the maple bar, captain crunch, m &m, coco crisp and a pentagram.

voodoo doughnuts

mmmmm mojo dough dough...

Cooking conversion online.

2010-10-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Cooking conversion online.

chantrelle kale and chicken enchladas with mole de calabazaA

2010-10-19T21:35:00.001-07:00

Dinner

The Pig Roast

2010-10-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

A musical journey through 'Dexter's Last Stand" an amazing adventure in food.

Foodbuzz Challenge #1: I am Cameo Hear me Roar!

2010-09-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

My blog is not about swapping granola bar recipes or handy tips on cutting mango, though they are useful and blog worthy subjects. My blog is more personal. Without seeming too overly narcissistic, it’s about me, and my life in food.
In the last few months I have shot and styled three cookbooks, cooked a whole deer on the beach in a remote town in Alaska, tipped cocktail glasses at Tales of the Cocktail, in New Orleans with the best bartenders and booze makers in the world, gave a seminar on creativity, spent the weekend on a farm cooking with Seattle’s best chefs at ‘Burning Beast’, harvested honey from our backyard hive, butterflied and cooked my first whole pig at a luau, ate for 12 straight hours in Vancouver Canada as part of ‘dimsumcouver’, flew to Chicago to participate in the Chicago Art Departments annual fund raiser as a living piece of an art installation in a food truck constructed of cardboard serving Asian inspired hot dogs.

This evening I'll be at a party at Rick Bayless’ house, next week I am going to figure how to work less and start my own restaurant… or at least figure out how to get money for such an endeavor. My life is never boring. It’s slightly exhausting, overly stimulating, and often a downright mess, and me? I am snarky, smart, quick-witted opinionated and always up for an adventure. I love food, eating, cooking, canning freezing, pickling boozing, killing, tasting and sharing. And apparently after reading this paragraph I also enjoy making lists.

I kept journals throughout adolescence, stories of woe and despair, and forlorned love. Hearts and arrows, doodles of flowers, a fellows name scrawled a hundred times. This went on for years, Jr. High, High School, well into college and the ‘real world’. I lugged them bound and gagged in an old suitcase; stories, poetry, lists; drug induced observations, drunken lyrics illegibly sprawled, and scraps of paper. The best of my scribblings turned into songs I would sing at open mic night until even I was like, "damn girl, your depressing!" then I stopped. I stopped writing. When the writing stopped the singing stopped, then there was only heat.

It was about the time I became seriously involved with food, every tingle, tart, salty, soft, crunchy, succulent morsel of it. I traveled and ate and set sail on the high seas, I put myself through culinary school and jumped into a car with three hundred dollars to my name and headed to Chicago where I snagged a job at the increasingly successful Frontera Grill. Smitten like a school girl, I scoured cookbooks and magazines; I read less great works and forgot to turn poetry into songs. My journals were replaced by a little black recipe book, worn at the edges and permanently formed to my posterior in the back of my hounds tooth uniform.

Now I turn my food into words and my words into food. My writing illustrates the great things about my life experiences rather than sullen musings of a depressed and self depreciating woman. Writing has given me a sense of self worth, and sparked a new passion in cooking, that can so easily be lost if you are not fully dedicated to your craft.

Dexter is done!

2010-09-05T19:17:00.001-07:00

the pig roast.

the pigs name is Dexter!

2010-09-05T00:22:00.001-07:00

don't worry I sliced his cheek and took a blood sample.

happy bacon day!

Dexter says... eat me I'm delicious! I freaking butterfied a pig!

the pig is here!!! the pig is here!!

2010-09-02T11:21:00.001-07:00

feeling a little bit like dexter right now.

I'll have a little Staple but make sure its Fancy!

2010-09-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have a huge crush on Ethan Stowell. I hope his wife doesn't mind, I have a crush on her too. They are the power couple for my generation; a little bit rock star, a little bit urban farmer, a whole lot of 'I don't give a #&;$* about image' and a big ol' chunk of unpretentious deliciousness. The kind of business ethic I admire and all around fun people to hang with.
I came back to Seattle with admittedly flighty expectations. After six years in Chicago, immersed in one of the most diverse dining towns in the world and rubbing elbows with the Top Guns Academy of superstar chefs, I was disappointed by with the lack luster fare. In the land of milk and honey, or at least seafood, wine farm and pasture, I expected more. My mistake was that I was 6 years behind the times, completely ignorant of the pot bubbling right under my nose. Seattle is filled with great new restaurants, exciting and sophisticated Chefs, inventive and ingenious ideas, (albeit still searching for a great tortilla) on par with Chicago, New York, and LA and among those the Stowell empire is leading it's own charge.
Reminiscent of my one of my favorite Chicago chefs, Paul Kahn of Blackbird, Avec, and Publican: Ethan and Paul are insanely passionate about food, and more concerned with it's integrity than dressing it up all 'perdy like' and farming it off to you for a premium. It's not flawless, but it's sincere and most always a sort of 'accessible special' I appriciate when spending my hard earned 'benjamins'.
As Ballard becomes a legitimate dining destination (for the record there are and were a lot of great places to eat here before all the fanfare), Walrus and the Carpenter and Staple and Fancy emit a sort of "it takes a village" attitude to upscale(ish) dining. Occupying the same space, essentially wooing the same customer base without pretension and delivering to us exceptional dining experiences.
I could wax pornographic about my dinner if you like but the menu is fluid and what may be the dish of a lifetime today will surely be gone tomorrow. Execution is key and attention to seasoning is evident.

We dined opening night, and I'd be kissing ass if I said it was perfect, but man did we eat! It was one of those nights where you realize mid meal you might not be making that student loan payment your whittling away at, but you don't care because the wine and the pasta and the creamy pork liver pate is an education in good taste that is worth more than the 20% interest Sallie Mae is going to tack onto that never dwindling bill.

By the time I got home after over four hours of eating I was admittedly wasted... not as you might expect from cocktails or wine, but completely disoriented by the delivery of plate after plate of deliciousness, mingled with the clink tink of wine glasses, the pleasant conversation and air of excitement, and the warm night air hovering just above the smell of garlic and meat. Intoxicated by ambiance... as well it should be.
Get the Chef's tasting, be adventurous, share, dine and laugh with your friends, and leave the small stuff to the rest of the world.
Ethan and Angela a big sloppy kiss on the lips to both of you.

Foster Farms 1st Annual Chicken Cook Off

2010-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

This morning I got the privalage, however bittersweet it was...more on that later... of getting to cook the Washington Semifialists for the Foster Farms 1st Annual Chicken Cook Off . It was only so bittersweet because we were hosting the judging of the finalists I could not enter said contest. 10,000 buckaroos is the final serving for a lucky home cook. The recipes were all really well put together, each was a little different, each one pushed the envelope a little as far as creativity. My prize for most surprising was a chicken drumstick recipe that calls for caramel ice cream topping, I was skeptical but in the end it was paired with tart crunchy slaw and it worked. As a professional it seems like the biggest difference between home and professional cooking is an inherent fear of seasoning. Everyones recipe would have been greatly imporved by a further dusting of salt and pepper on the the chicken or a dash of acid in the dressings. But that one difference is what keeps me in a job.

The winners by he way were a very fresh and light Chicken and Brown Rice Salad and a upscale and ready for the home cook version of a balsamic glazed chicken with honey and goat cheese.

Try any of the recipes at home. The finalist recipes are here.

Good luck to the rest of the finalists... check back because when the winners are announced we'll be doing the photo shoot of the winner.
And beware the Foster Imposters!!!

2010-07-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

Five Questions for the Cocktail Chef: Cameo McRoberts

Cameo McRoberts is not a bartender, but that doesn’t mean she can’t make you a very good drink. Just don’t be snapping your fingers in her general direction.

Check out my answers to Jessica Voelkers five questions for Seattle Metropolitan's 'Sauced' blog

Lunch with Bulliet Bourbon and owner Tom Bulliet

2010-06-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

A little blog post about Kathy and I's lunch with Tom Bulliet, this last month. A real treat. Read on and then get yourself some Bulliet bourbon it is delicious.

Enjoy.

a Celebration of Pigs, and Pork at Cochon 555

2010-06-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 23 marked the Seattle leg of Cochon 555 , a cross country tour celebrating heritage pigs. Five, of many wonderful Seattle chefs, were given a different breed of hog. The result? A delicious celebration of creativity, sustainability and how we treat and eat meat.
It was a nothing short of a remarkable Seattle evening, deep billowing clouds, diamonds reflecting off the sound and the smell of pork in the air.
I was lucky enough to attend this meeting of the swine courtesy Foodbuzz, as a featured editor. So it's important to extend my gratitude because the event was not cheap. And my only beef with the event was that it seemed the pork wells ran dry far too soon. We arrived at 530, a half hour into the event two of the five chefs were running dangerously close to the 86 mark. So with camera and a plan, I tucked my camera into my brastrap, pinned my pencil behind my ear, stuck a couple extra forks in my hair and made my way around the room thirsty for some porky delicious viddles.

Tamamra Murphy's paid homage to her Tamworth , said to be the best hog for bacon, with a menu heavy on bacon bits and delicious charcuteries. While we waited in line we were served a delicious headcheese, smooth and seasoned, wet but not gummy, just the right thing to set ones appetite for pig

The first little piggy yeilded mini hot dogs, crispy homemade pickles to take on all that rich porky goodness, chili verde, and a sweet and salty bacon brittle that was too delicious to stop at one little bite. We hovered near the ice cream freezer, trying to both devour and savour our little bites while one of Tamaras team busked us for one of the last remaining ice cream sandwiches, shortbread with a little piggie cut out and bacon rolled into the dough. The perfect end to round one. Good thing we hovered, the minute we turned out backs the freezer emptied and the team started packed up shop.
We rounded the next turn and found ourself lined up in vain for Jon Sundstrom of Lark. He was plating the last of a portugeuse sausage made from his Berkshire that was delicious but not nearly as delicious as the Tart Tatin that was long gone, the dish that won him the competition. Nary a crumb of puff pastry or a smiggen of filling remained on the tray. Feeling forlorned and a little let down we rounded second and seemingly stole third as the encroaching pride of carnivours lingered near the table licking the bones, lamenting a missed opportunity hoping maybe another tray was just about ready.
Matt's in the Market's, Chester Guerl took his Red Wattle and dove right into a catalog of traditional mexican fare, all my favorites were there, and I forgive him the green pozole only because he topped with bacon fat popped corn. Red wattle is said to be beefy and tender and that is exactly how I'd wax poetic about the cochinita pibil. I was also impressed with the chorizo version of pork rillette, paired nicely with pickled baby carrots. The mole ice cream on a cinnamon and sugar chicharron was inspired, crunchy spicy fatty and delicious.

By this time Chow foods has put up shop, and Earth and Ocean was running dry of their wares as well. We were lucky enought to get some of the galentine of pork and a scrap of b.l.t but the well was running dry.
Thankfully the swinery came forth with a whole roast pig stuffed with savory rice and a Flintstones sized leg of prosciutto to finish off the crowd of hungry party goes that were wandering lost with fork in hand and no pig to be found. It was a festive and glorious end to the event.
By the time we rolled ourselves out the sun was teasing to set and the glass on the skyline horizon was aflame. The dinosaurs to the south bowed their head to the west, and little drops of rain fell from what seemed to be a cloudless sky.
Later I sat on the couch rubbing my belly thankful for pork, thankful for dedicated chefs who believe in bringing attention to heritage pigs and farms, thankful that on the horizon there is a chance that people will not judge meat by the cellophane and Styrofoam it's wrapped in but the manner in which it was treated before it became dinner. I laughed at myself for being a hippie and fell asleep in front of the blue haze of the TV.

The new Beehive at the studios.

2010-05-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month we had a bee hive installed by the man with my favorite mane Corky Luster of Ballard Bee company. The hive is leased or fostered depending on your honey needs. When you lease a hive, Corky comes round once a week to make sure everything is all good and at the and of the season you get to keep the honey produced. There is no guarantee your busy little bees will produce, but Corky says our bees are looking fine and we'll probably have a bucket full of sweet sweet honey around August.
The bees are Italian honey bees, so they are lovers not fighters. They are less aggressive so it makes them good for urban bee keeping. They produce a little slower but their not going to swarm you if you get to close.
They hive itself started with about 7000 bees and is now a month later at about 12,000, so they are getting busy in there, and it's hot. The hive itself stays a balmy 97 degrees at all times. twelve thousand bee wings flapping, honey making and bee humping generates some heat.
The hive is placed suspiciously close to our outside dining area but amazingly enough a small wall diverts their bee instinct away from the diners and off into the fruit flowers, fennel, and herbs growing in the garden. If the bees are forced up and away it's almost as if they they have time to hone in on pollen and not someones lunch.

Her's a vidoe of Corky himself installing the bees.

Creepy girl makes an appearance in Kathy Casey's Razor Clam Cleaning video.

2010-05-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

We put together this video for the Ocean Shores Razon Clam Fest to demonstrate cleaning razor clams. It's kinda fun. Plus if you ever need to know anything about Ocean Shores they have a great tourism site, with lots of videos of locals and stuff to do around the area,

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid54146181001?bclid=54178162001&bctid=83458712001

Kitchen Ink - Seattle Weekly Photo Essay

2010-05-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.seattleweekly.com/slideshow/kitchen-ink-chef-tats-of-seattle-29827781/25/

happy 7th birthday to my sweet Sierra Dawn! best neice ever. thinks beets taste like vanilla and dirt- smart.

2010-04-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

the bee's are here!

2010-04-12T12:24:00.001-07:00

The food studios bee hive has arrived! super cool, 7000 little honey making ladies!

crawfish boil!!

2010-04-11T19:18:00.001-07:00

horrible lighting but this is a pile of crawfish I am currently saddled up too. life is good!!!

The story of my birth, part 3- and the space for father was left blank.

2010-03-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

From here the story winds and follows the lines of Highway 101. I was gestating, churning like butter in her belly, waiting patiently. She, the girl named my mother, thumbed rides from Seattle to somewhere in California.
   When I was young, bathed in the light of my grandparents HBO, watching 'St Helens', a movie loosely based on a cute old man that despite all warnings to evacuate the doomed mountain stayed in his little shack by the lake. My mother proclaimed she had stayed a spell on the mountain side with that very old man. Suddenly the movie was far more interesting, and when the volcano blew, ash and tangled mass of mountainside came crashing down around his little cabin and buring him while he sat quietly in his rocking chair, I could only think of my mother sitting on the porch with him covered in debris and smothered in ash. I cried, for him and for her, she stroked my long hair and assured me that she wasn't on the mountain when it blew and that it was just a movie. That said, My mother made her way south by way of St. Helens.
     Somewhere else entirely, a question mark was forming in the mind of a man. It split and grew at the same rate as the unknown baby in the belly of my mother. He wondered if the summer of '74, he spent fishing in Alaska bore him more than a fisherman's heafty paycheck. That question mark would remain fused to the side of his right brain and ebb and swell again and again in the years that followed.
      She crashed with family, she communed with long hairs and vagrants and eventually she turned north, but not home, to the far north.
   About this time vice president Spiro Agnew cast the deciding vote in the tied senate and passed legislation that would lead to the construction of the Alaska Pipeline project. The 400 miles of 48 inch pipe that runs from Pruhdoe Bay to Valdez Alaska. Marked as the second Gold Rush, you could make $1500.00 a week, while the rest of the country was in recession. And, thanks to the affirmative action requirements built into the legislation it was the first time in feminist history that a woman could make as much as a man and was given equal opportunity to the wealth of jobs that were available from Valdez to Fairbanks.

I was born in Anchorage Alaska, January 23rd, 1975 at 2:43 pm. The temperature was deep below zero, and the spot marked father was left blank. The birth certificate doesn't state a weight or a length, and though these numbers would remain arbitrary for thirty five years, they are an important element in the mathematical equation counting forward in months that should add up to nine.
     The birth of a slightly over seven pound girl left a newly turned 18 year old woman bleeding and close to death. The placenta didn't detach following the birth. There was blood, lots of blood. My grandmother came from Ketchikan, she stayed by her side and held me tightly until the fear of losing a daughter and gaining a child had cleared. All this is another part of an equation that counts back from January 23rd to the moment that he loved her and she got knocked up.
     I was a healthy beautiful baby girl, born on the coldest month in Anchorage's recorded history. The Catherine was for my grandmother, Alexandria, my mothers best friend.  McRoberts would be the only side of my family I would come to know, but, it was the initials, C.A.M. that led to the name I answer to. I'm sure there were mood altering substances involved in the creative brainstorming that brought C.A.M to Cameo, but the moment it was uttered it took and my unique moniker has been a driving factor in the unique nature of my being, the other, the woman named my mother.
       We homesteaded in a cabin with no door and traveled by snow-machine. We were not rich and it was not easy.   I imagine Jewel and her father were yodeling away in the cabin down yonder, I have no proof of this, but it was the same homestead at the same time.
      My mother ran a back hoe, and worked in construction. She worked long hours and in tough climate. The ways she tells it I was nannied by the mammoth malamute but I'm sure there must have been people around because my uncle lived in Anchorage as well. He got shot in a bar brawl, when a drug deal went bad and has the scar to prove life in Alaska from '75 to '77 was reminiscent of the wild west, but with long-haired hippie construction workers and a bevy of illegal activities to spend money on.
We migrated farther north to Fairbanks, by now, my mother owned a white van where she fashioned a crib in the cargo area for me to sleep in. Once, when stopped by police and put in back of the car, she pleaded with him that her infant daughter was asleep in the van, and convinced the him to let her go. He obliged. She talked her way out of a ride in a cop car but also lifted a duffel bag of weed from the back of the car. Fairbanks in the 70's. Nothing like the shithole I would eventually attend college in 18 years later.
   From Fairbanks we moved to Tok, I include this because 'Tok' makes my giggle, and, since I grew up around a lot of toking, it's been making me giggle for a long time.
     Finally in '77 work was drying up and the cold was becoming too much. When you're 18 and responsible for the health and well being of a growing little girl, and you've filled you pockets working your ass off in sub- zero temperatures, in a work environment reminiscent of 'North Country' what do you do? You might just think about moving to a commune in Maui.
     So, there we were in the jungle, making flower headdresses and bathing in the ocean. Livinging in grass huts running bare feet, and chasing insects the size of my fist. I'd scamper about with a little man named Brownie and eat passion fruit until my belly hurt. It was here that while playing in the surf I was taken to sea in an undertow, and my mother saved me, pulling my little body ashore and pumping seawater from my chest.
   By now I was 4 years old. I was toe headed and blue eyed, I wore sundresses with bright pink hibiscus flowers stuck behind my ear. My favorite word was "Fantastic".
   We returned to Alaska, the prodigal daughter and her beautiful bastard offspring.
This is where she met him. He had a motorcycle and a decent job, he had just returned from the navy and wanted to take his Harley, with her on the back, down the coast to San Diego. She thought that was cool and she married him. It was later that we found out that he was an asshole.

2010-03-15T23:29:00.001-07:00

@Seattle Dances charity auction.

2010-03-13T16:20:00.001-08:00

guilded raspberries! everything is pink and gold.

The story of my birth- part 2 - a vivid imagination

2010-03-13T02:48:00.000-08:00

Before I continue, it is important to note; I love my mother, I love my grandmother and my grandfather, unconditionally, and with a with a force that comes full circle and back again leaving a mark where my love has been. I am Lenny with the rabbit. I am the child with the new toy that breaks it, not of malice, but of joy for the toys sake.
My mother has built homes where it seemed impossible a home could be, she has raised fatherless children and children of fathers that are among the saltiest of the earth. We siblings three are the brightest stars we could be, in a galaxy of if, ands or buts.   My grandparents survived wars, grew up to be men and women in a time when men and women had different definitions.
When my mother divorced my stepdad, far beyond the story I've set into motion, my grandparents gave her the money to downpay a house, and that house she made a home and sold, to buy a piece of land she then built three stories of home on. This is not to say that a contractor came in a polished granite where a kitchen counter should be, but that she herself downed trees to create board feet that she then hammered nails at ninety degree angles and converted AC into DC to make light. She built a home on the edge of nowhere, with her hands, with her will and with her imagination.
My mother is no short answer. She is no victim. She is a force of nature. She is independence. She is strong and verile and insecure and righteous.
Any one who's met my mother loves her, is amazed my her, is wrapped in her breath and her overwhelmed by the possibility of anything. When you are in her grasp you are invincible. She gives you the tools to believe you can will the universe to bend to your whim, and if you can't, a force from beyond will hep you along.

This story of my birth is not the story of my mother nor of my grandparents, and I repeat, it is not true. It is the story of me, and the remarkable story of how our mind works. What fascinates me is the mystery of our history. How our memories become what we remember regardless of truth. The conversations we have, overhear, or create, become the tapestry we create.
I have decided to continue with the story without research, but to end this story with hard facts. Facts rubbed from my inner cheek that have been run through a lab where my DNA is tested against his. But keep in mind my story is a tapestry of perceived truth , or rather as memory serves I may have it wrong.
But I am not making this up, this is what I remember. The history woven from question marks and loose ends, tidbits of unanswered questions and quilted squares of insecurity. It is my story.
Chapter one, according to my mother was revealed to me:
1. my grandparents did not know my mother was pregnant when she left Ketchikan, though my grandmother stated to the contrary.
2. that she was approached on the street by a bishop and his nuns
3. She was not babtized in greenlake till I was two or three.

My mother will no longer going to fact check this story, because this story is not about truth. It's about how we, humans, daughters, mothers, sons and fathers are fallabe and funny, pathetic andd lovable, sad but hopeful.
AND... while we can tweet, blog, facebook and text in an instant, it takes 7 days to solve the mystery of the 23 chromosomes that created me.
And if I have to wait, you have to wait.

The story of my birth- Part 1: The summer of '74

2010-03-12T01:10:00.000-08:00

     This is the story of my life, as I know it, or new of it until 7 days ago.
It's a strange story, and after tomorrow, 9 am it will, after thirty five years have an ending.
     This is the story as I remember it, or as my memory has created it. By no means is it the truth, but a strange tapestry of question marks and loose ends, vague ideas and colorful tidbits of stories told over time. I would also state that it is with all due respect to the parties mentioned and often times respect is given where none is due. But that is the kind of person I have become, and I make no apologies. I am who I am, strange and wonderful and how I came into this world is as unique as I.
     It's starts in a murky pool where dates and names are irrelevant, time is measured nine months backwards but with no real certainty. The importance here is the number 23. The number of chromosomes that passed through him into her and started cell division that over the course of those nine months counting forward brought me into the world. That 23 is a mystery, The Mystery, the gaping hole, the missing half, the wish behind the breath that blows out every birthday candle. The father.
The summer after graduation, the seventies, Alaska, washed denim bell bottoms, macrame as clothing. You could still come to Alaska, scoop up fish and cut down trees and return home to the lower forty eight a 'real man' pockets bulging and liver heavily taxed. There was mud bight delight, black beauties, magic mushrooms and acid trips, whiskey, ludes, and amphetamines. One long Lynnard Skynnard album. Somewhere in the murk that is the summer of '74 I was concieved.
     Fast forward to a young girl standing in the living room of wood paneled walls, stoned with tearstained eyes. A mother and father looking down on her, heavy with dissapointment and shamed at the notion that a bastard would be born in their home. Flash again, and the girl is walking off the ferry on Alaska Way, in downtown Seattle, barely beginning to show, with a mammoth malamute following in tow. Nary the image of the prodigal daughter.
     She had recieved her marching orders. They were this; leave and do not come back an unwed mother with an illigitimate child or sadly something to that effect.
      It is here I must pause, and reflect on the memory of my grandmother and father who forced this ultimatum on a 17 year old girl scared and heavy with child. Who were my surrogate parents through life, who I never knew asked this of my mother until I was old enough to forgive them. My grandmother asked this of me as she was passing away in my arms, and confided in me that she and my grandfather carried that burden of shame with them my whole life. It was a different time. We sometimes see our elders as infallible, but they are imperfect and often ignorant and at the very least worthy of forgiveness.

My mother had made her way by now to a spot along highway 99, then as now, not the safest strip of highway to travel by thumb.   She was lost in the city looking to find a place that 'takes care of these sorts of things'.   Behold a station wagon, the kind with the paneled sides, ready for a long board and a beach boys tune, but this wagon was bound for glory, Jesus was the wave they were riding they were on a mission to save souls on the highway of lost souls.
     That is correct, a stationwagon full of nuns, picked up my unwed single mother and her huge dog at the moment she was considering abortion as an option.
     I can only imagine the depth of conversation, bibles rested idly on laps hands folded peacefully. The eyes of the pure at heart faced with the shamed and damned.
A six pack of habits a hippie and a malamute all pile into a car...
My future hung in the balance of what sounds to be the first line of a not very funny joke. The punchline? Well, that carload of nuns pulled off to the side of the road at a sacred spot called Greenlake and washed the sins from my mothers brow in its cool water, sanctified in the eyes of god. At that moment a soul was saved.
I don't believe that life begins at conception, I believe that life begins with a decision, and that decision we are free to make, and free to bear the consequence and the blessing.
At that moment I was no longer a mass of splitting cells infecting an otherwise irresponsible young woman. I was 46 chromosomes, 23 of which would be my mystery, a bastard, an illegitimate child, a point of light in the great murky pool of time that counted backward from January 23rd 1975 to the summer of '74, just after High School graduation.

To be continued.......

If the devil is 6, then god is 7, god is 7!

2010-03-06T00:46:00.000-08:00

     I had been dating Nate for a while, it was pretty serious, he was the mac' to my 'roni, and we were in love. With each other, with music, with food, life, and, with... well..., discovering. But this is not about my lustful teenage escapades this is about a band.
    Seeking independance and the kind of privacy teenagers are rarely afforded, he moved from the tiny bachelour pad that was his fathers apartment, to the 'shed'. And a 'shed' it was. We actually hauled firewood from inside to the porch to fit his double bed. It was musty, filled with spiders, and leaked a in places we learned not to put stereo equipment. We burned Nag Champa to combat the smell of wet wood and kerosene and made love like wild monkeys. The shed listed at a 45 degree angle, so everything rolled to the far end of the room and throughout the night we'd hoist each other back up towards the pillows and listen to the rain pound the corrogated ceiling. This musty litle moss covered wood shed was where we discovered ech other and 'The Pixies'.
The first listen was Surfer Rosa. I think Nate and I were equally in love with the topless flamenco dancer. I could stare at her perfect breast forever, the confidence in her pose the sex in her being, the sepia tone of the crusefix in the background. She was beauty. And Kim Deal, the pearl in the oyster. Her voice cut through the crunching guitars, the desperate cadence of Frank Black's lyrics and commanded attention. A chanteuse that could devour you as easily as she could seduce you. A woman who rocked with the boys, played bass and made no apologies.

Surfer Rosa, was the beginning but Doolittle was the end. Hands down one of the five albums I would take to space with me, or a dessert island or wherever you drop me to spend eternity doing nothing but listeneing to the same five albums. The truly great albums, are the ones our subconscious holds onto and memorizes note for note, and without thinking about it we can listen to it in it's entirety without actually hearing it... super deep I know, but Doolittle is one of those albums. It's catchy, angry, sexy, whisical, and gritty.
I'm not alone, it's not a rare B-side or the most obscure of their works, I don't own a T-shirt and I never saw them before they were big. I am sure I took my cue from Kurt Cobain's adoration of them, but I am steadfast in my love.

The Pixies split the year I graduated High School, at the apex of my love affair, with them and with Nate. They 'reunited' the year of my thirtieth birthday. I still had Doolittle in my now MP3 player, and Nate,l I tried to hold onto him but time breaks hearts and then mends them with really awesome albums. I bought a tickets for myself and my best friend the night they went on sale. She came from Florida to see them in Chicago.
That night we were teenage girls, post-punk alterna godesses, not thirty year old women on the verge of becoming mothers and professionals, who had grown out of nose rings and manic panic. We were at a fucking Pixies show!

Twenty years after Doolittle is released, after that wood shed had washed away or become mildewed feed for a miriade of rain forest mosses and ferns, I found myself in the mezzanine of the Paramount theater, now living in Seattle. Oddly I was accompanied by a friend named Nate, no relation, but the coincidence was the catalyst for the story. I am nearly thirtyfive now and I am looking down to a flawless view of the Pixies.

They played every song from Doolittle, the ep's, the b-sides, the downtempo version of "wave of mutilation UK", the only reason to hold onto that Pump up the Volume soundtrack, besides that sexy Arron Nevill track. Below us a new generation of angsty youth moshing and sweating, hanging onto every refrain, crying the lyrics without fail. I was seated high above the crowd in seats grown-ups get, seats where you can hear the acoustics and smell the doobage being exhaled amongst the crowd. A friend had hooked me up with the tickets hours before the show. The whole evening was a surreal fold in time where you skip out of work early, throw on something cute without appearing that you're clinging to your youth, throw back a couple of fifteen dollar Manhattans (I didn't know till I got the bill..Damn you Ruth Chris!!), and all of a sudden you're sitting in the good seats , watching a band that you have been intimate with and intimate with others with for the last twenty years. They aren't over the hill, they haven't dialed it in, watered it down. They haven't gone from KEXP to the Mountain. And unlike other bands that chastise their fans for wanting to hear the songs they love, they embraced it, they rocked it, they regaled in it and for a band who spent half of that twenty years not speaking to each other, they too loved it. And I, like every soul in that theater was enraptured, listening to Doolittle for the first time the thousandth time and nary the last time. This monkey had gone to heaven.

2010-03-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

the finished terrine.

2010-02-28T13:31:00.001-08:00

could have gone a little heavier on the salt but this stuff is good!!!

rabbit liver pate with truffles and duck cinfit.

Pauli has been saying " oh shit that's good" for like 10 minutes. its really good!

mud pie!!!

2010-02-27T14:04:00.001-08:00

1/2 hour in the freezer... oreo cookies never looked so good.

rabbit terrine...

rabit livers, pistachio, apricot, and current terrine for a little Saturday snack.

the crest above the bar

2010-02-24T01:31:00.001-08:00

McRoberts family crest. (I am smirking in a way that implies... ya homes it's like that)

the McRoberts family bar.

i have placed worth on these things..

2010-02-22T23:30:00.001-08:00

In the years that I have been a vagrant, or at the very least a renter of rooms or a plant of shallow roots, I have toted around these pieces of pieces of what I would hope one day would be art. A collection of bobbles and sparkly bits that would some day validate my creativity. I am surrounded by bits of paper torn from newspapers, watterstained flyers for bands or books, or mexican dj's, bike tires dominos and foreign currency. It's nothing and everything to me. I remember where I found, collected, treasured nearly every piece of dinomite wire and bottle cap I have saved.
But here is the impetus of the situation. When is it potetial art and when is it crap you've been lugging around? I am pretty sure I could artfully collage everthing I owns in some way or another and still have glue stick and paper bits to spare.
Is the desire to create something from my random treasures enough to justify the space it takes up?
Part of me wants to make a clean break, start tossing the the babydoll parts out with the bath,
start with fresh water and fresh ideas.
But I kept this box of feathers for a reason, and sometimes creativity moves at a snails pace, ideas need to marinate, and glue needs to set before applying the next layer. What I need are more shelves!

mmmmm pozole!!

2010-02-10T17:02:00.001-08:00

hungry?

the new pad

2010-02-07T16:00:00.001-08:00

starting on the kitchen. it's so great having cupboards, and drawers to put all my gagets and gizmos in. - truely have been waiting so long to do this. it's coming together slowly.

evening of hope charity dinner and auction

2010-02-06T17:46:00.001-08:00

rye1 one bling bling manhattan...look mom I'm making cocktails!!!!

new pad day 1.6

2010-02-06T12:41:00.001-08:00

starting to look like a living room! yipeee!!!

Fremont Vintage Mall

2010-02-05T23:08:00.001-08:00

the motley crew!!!

2010-01-30T14:24:00.001-08:00

there is a program to hire homeless people to help you move... now these people know where I live. scary!

i picked this guy up at home depot...

2010-01-30T12:37:00.001-08:00

nothing but fancy help!

what happens when you let rocky order

2010-01-29T23:51:00.001-08:00

sliders, empanadas. bacaloitos, gandulas mmmmm

Great things on the Horizon.

2010-01-29T15:35:00.001-08:00

Come sunday, there may be some funky things on the horizon for this chef girl... stay tuned for when I know more....

rising star cocktails.

2010-01-25T16:30:00.001-08:00

some wonderful creative drinks from some talented bartenderas

cuban with chorizo

2010-01-24T11:57:00.001-08:00

plaitains croquettes...yummmm!!!!

at the checkstand...

2010-01-24T11:30:00.001-08:00

I'm not saying I'm above a little trashy news...but damb!!! those 3 rags together paint a sad picture!!

suset bowl

its official...bye bye sunset!

versailles cuban

lunch time

eating around asia this week

2009-12-15T21:20:00.001-08:00

tonight is thai... soo good!

2009-12-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

I just found these prints after a long time. This was a great trip to Penn Cove Shellfish a few years ago when I was still at Frontera Grill. I had come out to the Northwest for a visit and made my way to coupeville to check out the shellfish farm and see how one runs.

It was pretty awesome to see these guys pulling strands of mussels out of the water. They are brought on board and 'de-bearded' by what looks like a huge Norelco shaver. I found out that the shaver for mussels and the shaver for grandpa's was invented by the same guy and just uses a little bigger scale for pulling brushy beards off mussels. From a couple of the shots you can see that there are floats set out from the coastline in deeper colder water, the ropes hanging from the rafts supply a place for the little spermies and the egg to lite upon and get to growin some mussels. Each one is hundreds of pounds.

In the same fashion, Oysters are gathered from around the puget sound and B.C. and kept hanging in the cold water until their loaded onto trucks and delivered daily all over the country. At the time we were getting out Oysters overnighted to us in Chicago! The shipping on those little puppies was ridiculous, but if you love oysters you expect nothing less than fresh, as it should be.

I particularly remember this day because it was the first time my brother, mother and I had seen each other together in the same spot in more than 5 years and neither of them had ever had an oyster. My mother was driving north to Alaska from Arizona where she was wintered and my brother hitched a ride with her just to catch up with me for the day. It was awesome jumping into a skiff just like back home and taking off across the water on an adventure. My brother tried and oyster and 'didn't hate it' my mother and i slurped a few fresh from the water. At the end of the day my mother continued north to Alaska in her purple pickup truck with Orion painted on the cab, my brother headed east to his dad's and I got back on a plane and headed back to Chicago. It was one of those moments where the greater magnatism of family beats the volumes of geography that come between you.

impromtu crab feed!!!

2009-11-29T20:49:00.001-08:00

it was on sale at owajimaya!! and @heather jones has never had dungy. the tecate and chinese brocolli just made it that much more perfect!

oops.. i accidentally wore this to the store...

2009-11-25T19:39:00.001-08:00

I forgot I was wearing travis' cougar cubby ears.. and I totally made oogy eyes at some hotty in the express lane!!! say goodnight gracie...

cameo apples!!!

2009-11-25T18:48:00.001-08:00

I can't help it! cute!

soccer!!

2009-11-22T18:13:00.001-08:00

my camera takes shitty pictures!!

2009-11-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

Do you know where your fish comes from?

2009-11-10T15:24:00.001-08:00

This is what a break looks like in between pulling lines. I miss the ocean.

2009-11-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

I just came across these photos of the lsat time I was home and i got to go silver fishing with my mom. It was a great day, and I learned a ton about commercial fishing.. there is an art to the timing of the hooks and it feels good that there are some ways of life that effect us every day that are as simple as a hook and some line.

mad men dinner party.

2009-11-08T01:13:00.003-08:00

dinner went off with a couple hitches but easily remedied... thank you Molly Moon for the use of your freezer, and your ice cream for a monumental baked alaska!!!

beef wellington

2009-11-07T14:29:00.003-08:00

ind. beef wellington with brown butter chantrelles. and fallen leaves to commemorate the weather....

beef wellington

ind. wellingtons with brown butter chantrelles..and fallen leaves to commemorate the season.

beef wellington

ind. wellingtons with brown butter chantrelles..and fallen leaves to commemorate the season.

baked alaska

2009-11-07T12:36:00.011-08:00

looks like a vintage swimcap!

2009-11-07T12:36:00.005-08:00

baked alaska

covered in theo choco nibs... ready for merenge.

baked alaska

looks like a vintage swimcap!

covered with Theo Cocoa nibs..

2009-11-07T12:12:00.005-08:00

ready for merenge!!! can't wait to set it on fire.

baked alaska phase 1

2009-11-07T12:05:00.005-08:00

I am talking about the cake.. not me.

the hole in the wall

2009-10-18T15:25:00.005-07:00

I used pink spackle for breaast cancer awareness... every little bit counts...the drill was for screwing into studs ' I love screwing studs!' could not have done it without Misty and jeff.

fresh wog

2009-10-02T10:19:00.003-07:00

isle B for you fresh wog needs!

the green hummer

2009-10-01T20:51:00.003-07:00

2009-09-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

A couple shots I popped of of a beautiful eggplant. No editing needed.

Foodsnap ... Friday Sept 18th.

2009-09-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Kathy and I spent some time and served up some edible cocktails at Foodsnap, a Foodista event held in Georgetown on friday. A day long event for food photographers, bloggers, and enthusiasts to learn about professional food photography and get some on the spot tutelage from some of Seattle's best food shooters. The event hosted Lou Manna, a professional food photographer from New York who was also on hand to give pointers and thanks to the golden age of digital, attendees could instantly upload their shots for on the spot reviews and feedback. The whole event was slathered with new technology and social media buzz. Any social event these days is a flutter of instant twitter and flickr uploads which gives a whole other dimension to these types of events. People 'know' each other through tags and handles, like truckers on the super highway communicating through ceebee. "pappa bear this is big daddy niner, I see you've already eaten at (insert newest restaurant here), what do you think about (insert newest bacon concoction here. "
The light in the studio, a beautiful open space in one of the old Rainier Beer bottling buildings, though the floor to ceiling windows wreaked a little havoc on the delicate edible cocktails we we brought along. There was no shortage of light.

We brought cucumber gelee to event, tragically the heat in the studio made photographing gelee quite a challenge, and for that matter the copious amounts of vodka in each one of these tasty edible cocktails made them hard to resist. I was preoccupied watching the trays of them jiggle as I walked the room offering up samples to the busy photographers, but I took a moment to snap a couple photos myself.

While I have no idea how these little gems tasted, their sweetness and contrast of petals and pastel against the distressed wood table they rested on was enough to catch my attention. The petaled rose cupcake looked as if it were in a suspended state of melt. I will make my way to Wink in hopes they taste as good as they photograph.

House Cured Salmon Roe with Cucumber and Goat Cheese

2009-09-22T21:16:00.001-07:00

2009-09-22T19:43:00.003-07:00

2009-09-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

house cured salmon eggs

My first attempt at curing salmon eggs. Kathy got some fresh eggs from a neighbor and I cured them in sugar salt and a little soy. The result delicate balance between sweet salty and briny. The only real challenge is getting the menbrane off of ther egg sack, but totally worth it.

solo quiero libertad

2009-09-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

All over Chiapas was a new breed of tagging or graffiti, theme, for obvious reasons equal and civil rights for women, and campasinos, and indiginas. I especially liked this one of "the tramp" stating only... 'solo quiero libertad' ' I only desire freedom, cast among the vibrant blue tag of a local ganga.

2009-09-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

These are photos from my last trip with the Frontera Grill staff to Chiapas Mexico.

Late night ramblings

2009-09-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Two years ago to date, I was in Chicago nursing a nasty breakup. The love of my life, had slowly become a stranger. I spent every waking moment trying to suplicate until I believed that I was the only one to shoulder the blame. It was the kind of break that took forever, and all concerned parties split feeling a dirty and used. There was still so much love, there was so much dependency, and there was so much left to hope for, there was always an opportunity just out of reach to make it all better. My love was Frontera Grill. My Job. The highest place I had ever soared, the most brilliant of experiences, but none the less a job. Jobs are the only relationships I have ever had. They are something I can throw myself into with wild abandon and become completely consumed by. The same approach rarely works with the opposite sex making it that much easier to give myself completely to a plate. I can't say I never looked back, I look back everyday, not because Rick won Top Chef Masters, or for any reason of status, but because everyday I made amazing food, food with history and culture, with people who were just as crazy in love with it as I. And to watch the end become so evident for reasons that haunt my better judgment, for loneliness, for homesickness, loss of a friend that I trusted so dearly, the mountaintop dissolved into a sea of my own insecurities and self depreciation. I rebounded for another year at a fish company, where the smell of low tide as I entered the office every morning enticed me to entertain the notion of going home.
I returned to Seattle via Alaska, where for a millisecond I thought I'd move back and reap the small pond benefits of being a big fish. It was fleeting, but in Seattle, in the midst of unseasonably warm fall, there loomed a question mark trialed slightly by an exclamation point. Mt Rainer appeared voluptuous and awkward in the distance when looked at with eyes that had since become unacustomed to the ebb and flow of geography. The city curved and danced around hillsides and expanses of water, the skyscrapers only tickled the sky with the slightes threat of scrape. People wore jeans like jeans should be worn, not with mile high heels and matching handbags encrusted with diamonds. Pabst was only a couple bucks a pitcher, because it's what people like to drink not because it's ironic (well only slightly). The world just seemed a little smaller and the grass undeniably greener. It was an intoxicating and magical buzz . In an instant it was milk and honey, it was the path of least resistance. I had forever argued that to turn back to a place I had already been was a mark of failure. My forward momentum had brought me full circle and the thought of return was not such a bleak idea.
Then there was a boy, there is always a boy. For days we lay twisted and giggling, the thick blanket over his window masked any distinction between dawn and night. We drank beer and played video games and waxed romantic about all the things we had in common, the years we'd known each other and the good friends we shared, and how those friends had partitioned off with each other, forming a nucleus of friendship thick as blood and only slightly more salty. I always thought an accomplice would come to me defined as my corresponding crazy, that it would simply take time and patience and dedication to someone other than myself. This had to be him. We were the two oddballs, the two slightly damaged, somehow we earned and deserved each other at the same time. There was a certain change of momentum in the air and I was willing to leap and let the net appear.
Last year at the same time, the Labor in Labor day was again a waterlogged life jacket on a sinking ship of doubts. One rainy afternoond I sat by the ship canal crying, convinced I was pregnant, dying of sinus cancer and freaked the fuck out that I was about to become Chef of a French restaurant with no more knowledge in French Cuisine than I had when I left Culinary School and a couple of books from the library. But as the owner of the place had so boldly proclaimed, I apparently a 'set of balls' worth taking a risk on. It didn't make me feel any better to levy that much faith on a set of anatomy I didn't even have.
The aliens in my sinus were escaping through my nose, making me sick, and smelling of dead meat. So much that everything I tasted or breathed smelled like rotting flesh. A bit of a handicap when you've stepped onto the line as Chef in a kitchen full of boys who think your a 'skirt' from 'some Mexican Restaurant' who knows nothing of pot eu feu.
Furthermore, there was nothing sexy about the shit coming my nose. Like I'd returned from the mother ship in some science fiction movie, and now the 'thing' is trying to get out. And the cursed snoring! Leaves no appetite for promiscuity, except the rare occasion when the boy I thought I loved would now do little more than grace me with his presence long enough to keep me from feeling I had any other choice but to be crumpled up and disposed of then picked throught the garbage and retrieved at will.
Labor Day has become my milestone, my new year, and I am sad to report that I still snore.
But, I am compelled to gush to my four followers and whomever is bored enough at work to read through my rambling sentence structure that I am what you might call 'happy'.
It seems foreign to say. The black oil of doubt that coats and covers everything in the deepest moments of self loathing seems to have been washed clear, momentum has shifted.
I have found my way back to a place where I feel worth something. Where I feel smart and beautiful. Where I have something to move toward. I have retrieved my self worth from the trash and will no longer need the fleeting invites of the damned to make me feel sexy and alive.
I am writing a happy ending. I am writing that million dollar check that will manifest itself on sheer faith....
Even as started this four days ago, the doubt set in suddenly. That little tick in my brain started up it's engines ready to rumba around my head setting to motion a series of doubts that could bring the house down.
But, then I have days like today and days like last week and days to look forward to. That will most certainly do. I will leap and the net will appear.

2009-08-30T18:24:00.001-07:00

heathers move ...in the hot hot sun

2009-07-26T16:39:00.001-07:00

making progress in the dining room...

cocktail hour!!

2009-07-25T23:04:00.001-07:00

vessel manhattan

irenes wedding

2009-07-25T21:06:00.001-07:00

my prosecco is perlagtastic with red currents and fresh raspberries

art museum wedding reception

2009-07-25T19:18:00.001-07:00

sparkly cars at the SAM

Cooking class tonight... will post recipes later.

2009-07-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Authentic MEXICAN Cooking
Join guest chef Cameo Roberts who trained & worked with Chef Rick Bayless at his famous Chicago Mexican Restaurants: Frontera Grill & Topolobampo (it's the Obama's favorite) where she learned traditional & authentic Mexican cooking techniques that she will share with us here! A great opportunity to make authentic regional Mexican food.
Seafood Seviche Yucatan-style,
Hibiscus Sangria,
fragrant pork Chile Colorado,
homemade flour tortillas
creamy Mexican rice pudding.
Details: A HANDS-ON Class.
Limit: 14 students
Who: Guest Chef Cameo Roberts
When: Thursday July 23, 6:30-9:30pm
How Much: $60.00
How: Call us at 206-528-8192 or email us here to sign-up.

Should be a good time had by all... we'll be making flour tortillas since I just visited Chihuahua Mx, where they eat predominantly flour. Farther south its all corn, my personal favorite, but fresh corn tortillas are a treat as well... and oh ya we will be making them with Lard... there is a huge flavor difference!

yummy roast pig!

2009-07-22T18:59:00.001-07:00

foodportunity...yummy pig

i love summer

2009-07-17T20:45:00.001-07:00

hello dinner!

Bounce Bounce ... a little patience tastes mighty fine.

2009-07-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

I first heard of bounce from my partner in shenanigans, Amie Sell. One summer she brought home a flat of cherries from Stanleys produce market , and started gathering up mason jars and bottles of whiskey. It wasn't till i saw the whiskey did my pavlovian response give me cause to pay closer attention.
Her family'd been making it for years, pick the cherries, bottle it up with booze and sugar and wait till thanksgiving. Four months of waiting? Many thanks to Mexican beer and Pinot Gris, or I might never have made it through that hot Chicago summer.

The following year after moving back to the North West I thought I'd keep the tradition going by making my own Cherry Bounce. I got it all put up, hid it away in the back of my cupboard and waited till Thankgiving... When the time came I was so excited, I'd been talking about it for months... and when the unveiling came we all tasted, and well, my professionally trained big cheffy cheffy ass forgot one of the THREE ingredients! Sugar! But hey, it's still whiskey, so no harm no foul!
Then, after my most recent visit to New Orleans I saw Cherry Bounce on quite a few menu's. Cherry bounce is alive and well and puttin up it's heels in the South. Their penchant for sweet cocktails and sugary treats make New Orleans it a right fit. I decided I should educate myself a bit before I go running my mouth about my freinds family that invented this drink called Cherry Bounce.
Turns out Cherry Bounce is about as American as apple pie and wearing white socks with sandles. It was sited as being an integral component in the North Carolina Constitutional convention's consideration in establishing Raleigh as the State Capitol. George Washington carried a few bottles in his saddle bags. And, Capt Jon Ross while looking for the Northwest passage kept his little toes warm by drinking Cherry Bounce and not sharing with his crew. It's rumored that they attempted a mutiny over a bottle, but I'm sure they were pissed off about a few things. Even Miss Abigail Adams comented on Martha Washington's 'fine cherry bounce' served at the white house during a holiday affair.
And why you might ask should you care?

Given our most recent obbsession with heirloom tomatoes, heritage meats, and pre-prohibition cocktails it seems apro pos to reintroduce an American Icon steeped in history and very sustainable.
And, IT HAS BOOZE IN IT!!!
AND YOU CAN MAKE IT!!
EASY!!!

.

from 'Dishes and Beverages of the Old South'

GRANDMA'S CHERRY BOUNCE:

rinse a clean empty whiskey barrel with cold water, fill with very ripe Morello cherries mixed with black wild cherries
one gallon wild to five gallon Morellos is about right.
strew throught the cherries, blade mace, whole cloves, allspice, very little bruised ginger and grated nutmeg.
add to the full barrell 20# of sugar, or half a pund to a gallon of fruit.

cover the fruit an inch deep with good corn whiskey, the older the milder the better
leave out the bung but cover the opening with lawn . (this is where bunghole comes from!! :))
let stand 6 months undisturbed in a dry airy place, rather warm
rack off into a clean barrel and let stand 6 months longer ( I think it means strain...)
then bottle or put in demijohns.
Improves greatly with age to the fifth year, after that the change is unappriciable.

This one one is geared for this century.

1# firm ripe cherries
2 cups sugar
1 fifth bourbon, or vodka

Start with a clean glass container with a tightfitting lid. You can sterilize by boiling or simply run them through the hot rinse cycle on your dishmachine with no soap.
stem the cherries but don't peel or pit (awesome!!)
drop them in the jug and cover with sugar, add the booze and seal er up.
turn the bottles daily to help sugar dissolve and keep in a cool dark place for up to 6 months.
When its reay it will be a little syrupy and super delicioous.
You can strain off the cherries and bottle it up or keep them in the cordial for sprinkling on ice cream.

Cherry Bounce is great as an addition to cocktails, drizzled over desserts drank as a cordial, and one of my favorites is a littl stir in my lipton tea on a cold winter night..

Here is my augmented recipes, one for Cherry and the other I used Japanese plums from the tree outside my house.

Plum 'Brandy"

1 qt plums (dont pit breal skins, it helps the sugar and the booze get in there)
1/2 cup yuzu marmelade
2 c sugar
3 qt citrus vodka (doesn't have to be citrus I just had some I wasn't drinking)
2 c sake
Same method as above.

The Lovely Miss Amie's Bounce

1 # cherries
2 1/2 cups turbino sugar (unprocessed)
1 inch piece vanilla bean
6 cardamom pods whole (broke open)
1 Tbsp whole coffe beans (broke up)
3 qt bourbon

same method as above.

Bounce on...

The jury is still out on what kinds of booze is best, some recipeis call for cheap bourbon which I gues is a great way to fortify cheap bourbon, other call out the good stuff which can get expensive. My advise is buy the best that is affordable for you. If yer broke grab a bottle of the cheap stuff, if your not get something that wont make you feel blasphemous for adding fruit and sugar to. And with vodka, I go for the good stuff, it's a neutral spirit. Experiment.Really you could use any berry or stonefruit adjusting the sugar to accomidate for the tartness of the fruit.

A sobering tale...

2009-07-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

After three days of alcohol induced mayhem there is an obvious distinction between those that are working and those that are 'chasing tale' so to speak. The bevvy of bloodshot eyes and the onset of rosatia brought on by dehydration is comical. Ladies and gents that started their week dressed in professional bar fashion, which is somewhere between zoot suit an Tommy Bahama, have now down staged to flip flops, cut off cargo shorts and have pulled down their fedoras to shade themselves from the hot hot NOLA heat.
The conference sight is a little less crowded and smells of citrus that's been rode hard and put away wet, and the elevators are like fly traps.
We've been pacing ourselves well and downright avoiding some of the temptation to run our selves ragged and while I look on this a little envy on my way to bed at the crowds gathering at midnight for a secret party where the liquor flows free and easy, I am grateful that I can keep down food and don't have to apologize for how I smell when seating myself down for the bar innovations seminar.
Besides the free samples and the exorbitant name dropping, the bartender penis wagging and the 'who can name the most obscure bartender', there really is a lot to learn. This morning we had a great seminar called Cocktail Photography. The presenters ranged from stylists, professional photographer with thousands of dollars in equipment to Anita Crotty who laid down some great info on making quality food and cocktail photos for blogs without looking like an amateur, and disrupting the rest of the diners in the bar or restaurant while your at it. ( an invaluable lesson to food and cocktail enthusiasts...). The next seminar was Cocktail Innovations a fast paced crash course in 'molecular' cocktailing... or as they would have you put it, incorporating techniques from outside the tradition of our craft. "Johnny and Dave" took us through molecular spherification, distillation, dehydration, pressure cooking, and nitrogen cooling glassware in an hour and a half. Part Billy May's and all snake oils sales man the two of them broke down otherwise daunting scientific techniques with the use of 'assload', 'crap', and 'gets air the hell away from the molecules', making the presentation educational, and easier to grasp. They concentrated on techniques that are practical and easily integrated into a bar. Pretty crazy stuff but even I walked away with some great food ideas.

There is a great flicker group about cocktail photos at www.flickr.com/groups/cocktailpix

rain in no

2009-07-10T16:30:00.001-07:00

think these folks are from seattle

2009-07-09T18:56:00.001-07:00

gw fins this is a test

2009-07-09T18:50:00.001-07:00

#toct09 test

spirit dinner at gw fins... so far bubbly gin blood orange bitters and st germaine

2009-07-09T18:40:00.001-07:00

a lovely start

Fear and loathing and tales of the cocktail...

2009-07-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a stranger here. My nametag says MEDIA but and from what I gather that could mean anything from New York Times to some random blog that no one really reads... (oh that's me)!
As a result this badge of variable honor inspires random bartenders or liquor with happily dictate their resume and peddle their wares in my general direction. My feaned admiration of their works is only percieved as genuine knowlage of said esstablishments because everyone is drunk.
Out side the seminars boozers swarm to free samples like ants on a glob of jelly. Every stage of imbiber can be identified easily by the twinkle in their eye the ruddyness of there nose or the slur in their speech. One gentleman in a hazed stupor offered to let us partake his own handmade samples if we followed him to the restroom. You could hear the crickets. A very well endowed mistress from texas lectured me on the finer points of 'pacing' yourself , all the while getting a little truthy a jobless boyfriend who was a no good SOB, and now that she has kicked him to the curb she can drive her newly aquired mustang to Ensenada, home of the original margarita, and learn to make 'real' Mexican margaritas. Pilgrimaging to Ensenada to learn the finer nuances of the margarita is much like going to Tiquana and asking if Ceasar himself might teach you to make his signature salad.
While I mock, it does demonstrate a passion for your craft that is rarely seen in the service industry. But running amock umungst bar geeks here at tales.
With no escape I glanced down and said " I am soo sorry my boss is calling, I have to take this, you know how it is..." she was pleased as punch to have met me but failed to notice I had answered my camera.
I later on she was looking a little green, spinning the same yarn to a stranger that looked liked a trapped mouse digesting the idea that he may swallowed up by her cleavage and never make it to the history of gin class I am sure he was all too excited to attend.

Off to tales....

2009-07-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

In the morning, earlier than I am used to, I am off to New Orleans. I don't know if I am quite cool enough to call it 'the big easy' or if that makes me too Scott Joplin.
Do people in New York call it the 'big apple'?
And, N'arlens? That's like over pronoucing taco bel grande at Taco Bell. I am not from said climate so I think I'll stick with "New Orlins" not quite as annoying as 'NEW Oarleeeeens'.
Now that nomenclature is out of the way... Katrina? I do have pre-Katrina memoroes of New Orleans, I spent a couple enibriant weeks there many years ago. In the thick of the media shots from rooftops I remember thinking to myself, it was so old and wet before how will it ever imerge from such a vile soaking? Alas it did, there seems to be an exhuberence, a born again feeling. I am not, mind you, speaking of politics or enequalility amongst rich or poor black or white, I am mearly making observation of the physical structures I saw drenched in brown river. I am not so ignorant to believe that anyone has taken a hard look at improving the standard of equality amongst men there in the swampy heat. That will take time, and things that take time need veneers, a certain " excuse our mess' 'business are still open during reconstruction' sign. The feeling is not as if nothing ever happened but that it did, and the same forces that made New Orleans great throughout its pre- Katrina history are in full effect to create a Post Katrina history as lively and alluring as ever.

We will be at Tales of the Cocktail all week, I plan on keeping track of bites and sips and hopefully making out with some cute bartenders...

Bitters Project

2009-07-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

Early this year we submitted three bitters recipies to the "barmade bitters challenge" sponsored by TRU Organic vodka . We have three finalist in the contest and will be in New Orleans for 'Tales of the Cocktail all this weel (July 8th through the 12th). So wish us luck.

Here's a site I found with a little bitters history and a pretty easy recipe for making bitters at home. The crazier ingredients can be found at most exotic herb stores. We got ours at Dandelion Botanical Co. in Ballard Try it at home.

Como se dice ¨passiva aggressiva¨

2009-06-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

I would be a total dick to say the trip was a waste. Honestly I cant say it per say as the keyboard I am writing forom is missing most of the keys to string together a cohesive sentance, and it was not a waste. There are all the makings of a slap stick comedy about two gringas who get dumped in the dessert in a village of poor farmworkers with nothing to do but breed, eat and make babies. Consequently I dont understand the baby making part as most everyone shares a bed and or a room with the children they have already made. Twin beds - catholic birth control. Who in this century that wasnt in mexico to convert the indians to one religion or another can say they spent 12 days in mexico having imbibed but 3 beers. Total, and not at the same time? I can say as much, and whoever says it ´s the booze not the food that rumbles your tummy, well, we should talk, over beers.
Now that we are gone, I can see beauty and humor in the situation, but smack dab in the 100 degree dust cloud that was our daily life it was not so picturesque.

Passive aggression is a dance I am left footed at at best. It might very well might be the national dance of mexican mothers. It starts out slow and lovely, a backward compliment a little tug for attention- You like to eat don´t you? Oh you dont like the food, my food must be bad, you think you are sick from my food. You shuffle along because the beat is familiar and you want to keep up. you have no desire to dissapoint so early in the game. - you finish your plate you ask for more you lie and say it is the best ground beef with large chunks of cartilage jalapenos and raw onion enchiladas you have ever had. You offer to cook as well so that she might have a break and you are not insulted when she laughs and says you probably cant cook mexican food because you are from america and their poor little village wouldnt have the ingredients you require to cook like a Chef.
With each question and bassackward remark about your clothes or your lack of makeup or why you have chosen not to make yourself beautiful for the men by putting on the pretty shoes for walking you stumble a little more, as one might stumble on the pocked dusty road and the thatched pavement is said pretty shoes for the ´men´ . The dance quickens you fumble your waord and suddenly you wake to an empty house, with food from hours ago sitting on the counter that you must now eat or be guilty of wasting your breakfast. YOu try to do the dishes to pull your weight only to see her rewashing them and commenting on how the sink might be clogged with food now because someone was messing with the dishes.
Soon you are floundering, breathless, sweating and totally off beat. The ground beneath you is moving at a quick pace and it is all you can do to keep a smile on your face. YOu overhear her on th ephone talking about how much you hate it here and how much you hate the food, how tatoos are ugly and sinful and when she sees you out of the corner of her eye she whispers into the phone and turns so you can´t hear. Only after she has nearly melted the plastic casing talking up a bluestreak of ridiculousness you hear her from across the house like nails on a chalkboard ¨Camila give me a cigarette eh? Are you hungry? What are you doing are you bored?´ And you give her a cigarette and talk about the weather because you hope that you are wrong and it is just that mom way, of doubting for the sake of someone else objecting and reassuring and continuing that dance that you have surely failed to keep pace with.
By the time the music winds down, you have spent days having done nothing, having little communication besides huge plates of food and even the idea of leaving a couple days early has ended in a flattened accusation of your dislike for your accomodations you are broken.
And at the end of the week the final act of attrition you put on the fancy dress and the high heeled shoes you make up your face and feel horrible overdressed for the frogs and the pigs just out side the door. And she parrades oyu through town and sits you at the biggest table at someone elses party and smiles as the men gawk and the little ladies turn thier heads and the young ladies pierce you with daggers. For they have squeezed a life time of tortillas into the wrong size jeans and smashed their feet into platform shoes displaying their toes like shrimp cocktail hanging from the glass. They sacraficed an evening of telenovelas in favor of using a curling iron and a half gallon of hair spray and they were not gonna let a couple of gringas spoil the one night a year they could get their husbands drunk enough to dance with them.
Oh and they danced. Sweaty and slippery skinned they pull each other around the dance floor to the overly prnounced beat of a tuba and accordian, tugging at each others back pockets. The men mount their ladies over one knee and bounce them around so much that the ladies cease to touch the ground.
Our little dance is not so suggestive, she watches us watch them. My companion cannot dance with any one as she is taken and he is por el norte. So are most of the women at the dance, as you scann the perimieter of the dance floor the women with husbands far from home look longingly into the drowd and imaginge they are being bounced on one knee with their cowboy in matching boots and fake gucci belt. That they are smelling the tacate on their breath and going home to make love faster than a ranchera ballad on a twin sized bed. But they are here growing old and picking up wired money at the farmacia surviving on little more than memories and convicing themselves that their husbands are faithful in the states when they have most likely taken up with some gringo whore like the one sitting at the table front and center and it is not even her party.
It has been made poerfectly clear that I am available to dance with any soltero I fancy. I should find myself a good man here in bufalo, as it is I am old and single and tragically with out a sixpack of niños clipping my heels. It has all but bee implied that my ovaries might dry up this very evening if I do not find myself a vacero and learn to make tortillas. But the affor mentioned daggers keep me glued to my seat. And while I actually enjoy dancing Ill be dambed if I fuel either fire by playing the make the gringa dance ranchera game. My feet though are reging an all out rebellion, tapping aeay like morse code begging to be pulled out on the dancefloor. I must all but sit on my hansd and fein complete musical dyslexia. I am a traitor to soul and my soles.
In the end it was the uncle of our keeper that caught me off gaurd in the plaza, family was supposed to be safe ground. He stolled up rosy from cerveza, and I wa simmediatly jelous of his enebraited state. To add insult to injury, women were not encouraged to partake in the drinking of such refreshing beverages as beer. Not even a Zima and I would have drank it if offered. In the minute it took me to realize he was not asking my if I liked the party but was asking if I liked him, I saw no escape, stumbbling over himself and his english the words ¨I like and beautiful´ slipped back and forth across the border of english and spanish like a well fed coyote and a hole in the 2000 mile fence. My dissapointment and frustration lay cloaked under a patient smile and my seach for an exit stragedy, and the cold cool realization that while our keeper was spinning tales about our dislike of pretty much everything her brother was trying to convince me that his wife was not at his house if I wanted to come have a beer. Not even a beer in harsh climate could make me want anything less.
The next morning the dance picked up where it left off but with days to go we stopped trying to keep up. We dissapointed her tremendoulsy by not repeating our little game of dress up and diplay the gringas at the school graduation.
But, by now we had started our own dance, the we have had such a great time and we will miss this place forever as it has carved a place in our hearts dance. Our last evening in town we made our rounds to every ferril child and every house we had sat on it´s stoop and took pictures of families larger than their pocketbooks can afford. And in the plaze tienda where throughout the day the owner calls oever a loud speaker ¨señora gonzolez you have a phone call you son is trying to call and you phone is unplugged!¨ or ¨maria lupita is here with her rico tamales for 2 pesos!¨ upon our request before we strolled the plaza for the last time an anouncement went out ¨to everyone in Bufalo the two gringos thank you for your hospitality and wish everyone a pleasant life Thank you again!!!¨ And with an empty smile our matroly host played along, we passed along gifts for the kids and pictures for her. Packed up presents headed north toward families not seen in ages, and while I might argue that we all simultatiously had dust in our eyes as we parted ways at the omnibus station, we passed out kleenex and boarded the bus slightly heavy hearted and wondered how different things would be the next time we passed through.

You are never alone in the middle of nowhere....

2009-06-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

´Where are you going?´what do you want to eat?´do you hate it here and want to go home?´do you like spicy?´can i use your ipod?´´tell her to give me her cellphone´tell them to go away´can I have the soccer ball?´why aren´t you married?´why dont you have kids´is there something wrong with you?´´what is she saying?´tel her bla bla bla´come here´eat more´what do they want?´where are we?´what are we doing?´´does she want to live here when her and Adrain get married´how many kids do you want?.... `
My job as cultural laison is far from the delightful challenge of translating a few words back and forth between a girlfriend and a boyfriends mother. I am the apex of all communication of feelings, needs, wants, and desires at any given time between up to and often exceeding 10 or more people. It is 100 degrees and I am not accustomed to so many eyes on me looking for answers. I am simply a mouthpiece. I do not make decisions, I do not serve much more purpose than to tranfer information from one person to another and try to do it with my limited vocabulary and with the most cooth I can muster. But sometimes I want to scream.... ´Yes I am fucking bored! and No, you are are right there is nothing to do here!!. ... it´s 10 am of course she is asking if you want breakfast... and no I do not want to play freaking futbol for the 30th time today! its fucking hot and I want to sit here in the shade and read my fucking book with 20 people staring at me and ten teenage boys making googy eyes at me and twenty old ladies looking at me from afar but not speaking to me lest the devil come tearing through my chest wearing in an american flag, shitting money and pissing fresh water.
I digress....
Yesterday, in the boiling afternoon sun I slipped away unnoticed as the kids were distracted by broken glass and rusty nails and mothers dozed on the bed watching telenovelas and my travel partner was showering. Just a walk in the hot desert sun, some precious moments alone. To clear my head and to stop the exasperated shrillness piercing my better sence. I found a dirt road past the cows grazing openly past the goat pen a little farther past the spots of earth people decided would be the final resting place of say a toilet or a weeks worth of trash, past the spot where a cow decided to die a long time ago.... just me and the open dessert, from such a distance it began to share some similar traits with what I might call pretty. Desert flowers had burst after yesterdays downpour, the road turned to two dusty lines of tire track with brush flowers growing down the middle. The afternoon sun pounded my fresh showered head and I disroabed down to tank top and hiked my skirt up past my knees and walk with purpose, with strength, with speed. Far past the little pueblo called bufalo I found myself unwinding, listening to only my thoughts, singing a song I only knew a few words of but delighted by the sound of my voice.
I cam a cross a revine dried up by the summer sun but still green. In the heat I imagined a hidden river of crystal clear water to soak my hot skin in. I can see how people might imagine sand is water in heat like this. The sky above me burst with huge white fluffy clouds that seemed to extend just out of reach and settle on the tops of forboding cactus and spiny bushes that spread out across such hostil ground.
With each step birds shot out from low bushes and the farther I got from my return destination the wilder my imagination got. I had seen a tarantula the size of my fist the day before crossing the road and would like nothing more than to never see another. And though I had been assured there were no snakes I was not so sure of my translation skills thus far.
But at least I was alone, away from the questions the stares the helplessness, the one airconditioned room that has become a polyester bedspread prison. Just me... or not.
at one point I turn back to check my distance, and there I saw a pair of jeans scurry into the trees, disspointment burnt through me harder than the sun, just one minute alone for god sake. I walked a little bit further and turned around again, there they were a bit behind me but definatly on my trail.
Defeated and dampened by the thought that someone was sent to watch after me or that one of the ferril children that had come to attach themselves to us had followed me this far into the dessert was numbing. I turned back toward the dusty legs hidding just inside a row of trees and once they noticed my coming in a new direction they scampered up the hill and out of sight.
As I walked back I steamed from the heat of the sun and the exasperation of nary a minute to myself. Only then did I realize that I was in the middle of the desert far from the small thatching of civilazation and I was still unsure who was tracking me.
Now I had to drumm up some anger, some ´come get me motherfucker I will stroll into town with your balls as a trophy, it only takes seven pounds of pressure to break a knee and a little dust and my thumb in your eye will put you out of work for a while...´ Now I am mad! Some stranger in the dessert has forced me to bring out my inner roitgrrl. But this is a land of macho men and here in this place I am a white alien and must not forget that I am not seen as an equal or even as a person but some milky fleshed boobies and a big ol baby making booty.
With my fists clenched I round another corner and there is my stalker sitting in the shade of a pecan tree. ´buenas dias´buenas dias´what are you doing out here? just walking no mas? and you? just walking too¨ OK then have a nice day´. And I was off agian relived but sure I could have taken him... .
On the way back I checked my hemline and relaxed. I snuck back into the house where ther was a plate of food waiting for me on the table, my roomate reading in the frigid bedroom, having no idea what anyone had said to her in the last hour and ten little kids were outside aguing weatherto play futbol, volleyball, kickball, but equally content to fight about what of the three to play and never play any of them.
I tuck my selfish need for me time back into the folds of my mind and remember this is not my trip, it matters not what I think, what matters is that the people I am here to connect understand each other and that we both apply enough sunscreen.

One road into bufalo.

2009-06-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

There is one road into bufalo. Off higway 34 and straight on till morning. No turns no side roads, the term `big sky`comes to mind as huge clouds sop up the sky and the mointains in the distance are dwarfed by the hilless dessert between here and there. The road ends in bufalo. Four blocks wide and all points radiating from a plaza hosting a bird stained gazebo a few whitewashed benches and couple of tetter totters that teeter more than they totter. The pavement ends and the curves of the road follow the puddles of horse trodden mud that form there tire tracks have carved away a street. Believe it or not there is a good side of town and a bad side of town and the only thing that separates them is a trodden down shack called Bufalo Bills Bar, that rarely sees a patron but we are prohibited to go near it as there may be some idea that either of us have some virtue to protect.
Houses are piled next to each other and painted vibrant colors you might find at a home depot fire sale. As if an electric shade of teal might give their cement and rebar matchbox a touch of the same vitality of it´s owners. Unfinished, faded or abandoned by the son´s ´por el norte´ what is left is a sleepy little town inhabited mostly by mothers, young women, chilrden and their grandparents.
Dogs you can´t pet and children you can kick up dirt in droves ont he dusty streets, the most comon short cut from one house point to another is to pass through someones living room and out the back door, grabbing a soda or a snack on the way.
We are the first and only gringos that have ventured down the road, for there would be no other reason than ours and no one really understands why we are there including ourselves. At every corner little old ladies sit and chirp like hens and grow silent when we pass by, little kids follow us like the pied piper, and the boys just stare from a distance wondering how to get their little brother or sister to bring us over.
There is one stor in the middle of town that we believe houses of of only a few phones in town, at any hour you can hear the shopkeep over a loudspeaker ^Señora Juanita tienes una llamada de su hijo ine chicago´ ´Mrs Juanita your son is calling from Chicago´at other times she might announce that Maria has brought down some of her rico tamales and you can bring them home for only a peso.
Every minute here is a surreal adventure in patience, wonder, and staying awake. But and adventure non the less.

Stay tuned for our visit to the glass filled swimming pool, a fight on the mound at the bufalo vs. jimenez baseball game and how we discovered the only way to sleep through the vermin howels and donkey brays.

Ps sorry bout spelling... no check and very spotty computer so I had to make it fast.

Keeping up with the Times...

2009-06-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is a good sustainable food blog that was sent to me recently. There are a lot of useful links to other sites.

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/sustainable-food-blogs/?hp

Looking back and forward at the same time

2009-06-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

It has been months, my idea of documenting the recreation of a kitchen has gone sour. The stories lost in the battle are bittersweet. My sheer lack of disipline and my natural penchant for getting in the life weeds has sent them to the 86 list and made room for new stories.
My time at 'the Bistro' was short lived and was my first taste of being on the business and of a sour deal. I can say the bitterness has been washed away, and I tried my damnedest to be the best I could be. I took freaking French lessons for god sake.. and I made a few solid misfit friends in the wash but alas, it was all bigger than me.
NO regrets -- but, I am thankful the the doors I left slightly ajar behind me didn't closed. The simple truth is not "no thanks I can do better but, thank you but I am not doing the best I can do for you"
Unemployment was a painful, wonderful and in the end a re-envigorating journey. The first week was spent in bed turning 34 and reading the entire 'twighlight' sereis. Cliche as it is, vampires and love stories were the perfect escape. After years of being big shit in the best fucking restaurant in America, there I was jobless, knifeless and feeling a little trodden by the 'man'. When your life is your job, you live behind the fire all day and you drink through the night just to feel normal.
With one hand on my ego and the other on my boot straps, I got out of bed. In a whirlwind of creative desire and an unhealthy pocketbook, I became a gardener, a sewer of things. I glued my fingers shut with little projects here and there and decided that never again will I let my job define me, will I let the hours and the heat and the burns be the only life I know.
Don't get me wrong I love to cook I love the fire and the ass grabbing and all the dirty little secrets that come along with being a kitchen hand, but when letters go unanswered and my mother doesn't know my current address and my friends see become orbital beings I only see through facebook updates, here is where I get myself in trouble.
There were hundreds of resumes sent into what seemed to be a black hole of recession stink. Were all the years I spent building this resume for not? When I left Frontera , I thought, I can go anywhere, but when Chefs are cutting staff to twenty hours, and they can get lifer line cook for a song, why hire a transplant from a fancy restaurant that might move on when she got a better offer or try to take over. I get it.
The months of uncertainty were the recharge I needed to make steps toward what I want to to with my life. Be and stay happy, to protect the time away from the kitchen from being trampled on by my love for the kitchen, find some love that is reciprocated and les fleeting, and nurture the knowlage I've amassed beyond knife skills and use it creatively ( with a few less hours on my feet). I think I am finding that great white hope....
My garden is growing, I've quit biting my nails, and my room is still am mess.
But I am happy.