Happy Easter!

 

Remember coloring Easter eggs?

 

Remember  coloring Easter eggs?

They smelled like iron and vinegar. 

Sometimes they cracked in the jar of dye just as the color began to take.

We kids fought over colors: why did we all want purple and then yellow?

I can't remember one beautiful egg that we made,

but five kids splashing and fussing at the kitchen table

was a magical creation by Mom

who made it happen

for the sake of Easter.

Black Beans and Flan

Retrieving what I loved but abandoned: Poetry for its own sake. Ballet. Luckily, there's a beginners' class nearby, with Juliana -- such an ennobling teacher. (I wanted to take ballet when I was 10, but my parents said they couldn't afford lessons for all 5 of us, so none could have them. Made sense then.) I also loved to read, & loved color. And meditating -- call it resting!! I've been sitting peacefully for 10-20 minutes a day in the New Year. Oddly, it makes me more jumpy than before. I'm guessing it's a phase.

Also: casual hospitality. Last night, with 4 friends. They brought salad & fruit. Clark smoked meat & I made black beans. Here's the recipe, but first you must promise to sort the beans. I love the sound of them plinking into a white plate, then sliding into a pot to be rinsed. Yesterday I caught two bean-sized stones.

Black Beans

2 C. dry black beans

2 tsp. salt

olive oil

4 medium onions, finely chopped (or 2 bags of frozen, chopped onions.)

1 green pepper, chopped (or 1 bag of frozen, chopped green pepper. You can also mix red & green pepper.)

3 cloves garlic, mashed

1 tsp. cumin seed, crushed (Ground cumin, is OK, but for sharper flavor grind whole seeds with mortar & pestle. Last night I used ground.)

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. dry mustard

28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

juice of 1/2 lemon

Pick over, rinse, soak & cook the black beans in water with 2 tsp. salt.

Sauté the onion & pepper in olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic & cook a minute more. Add cumin, oregano, & mustard, & cook another minute or 2, stirring so the spices don't burn. Salt it a little. Add the tomatoes & simmer for a while, stirring occasionally & adding water if it's getting dry. Yesterday I cooked it about an hour, but you can cook it much less. Just simmer until you like it or until the time runs out. Then add the stewed black beans with a little of their cooking liquid & salt. If you add more liquid you have black bean soup. Cook until you like the way it tastes -- sometimes just 5 minutes; yesterday was about an hour. You can go slow or fast. After you add the beans, mash some of them so you have a thick soup. You can use a potato masher, but I recommend an immersion blender. Before serving, add lemon juice to taste. Serve with rice & chopped onions. Some people also like sour cream &/or chopped cilantro.

I was going to make a chocolate dessert, but something stopped me. Made flan instead. This recipe is from Margarita Zayas, who was our neighbor in Miami.

Margarita's Flan

Make a caramel by melting 1/2 C. sugar with 2 1/2 T. water in a small pan over medium heat. Be patient! Wait until it's brown, but not burnt. Pour that into a bread pan,* tilting it to cover the entire bottom. Then mix 1 can evaporated milk, 3 C. whole milk, 3/4 C. sugar, dash salt, 4 beaten eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour that over the carmel. Put the pan into a larger pan with water in it that goes halfway up the bread pan. Bake at 350° an hour or more, until the custard is set. Chill thoroughly, then turn the pan upside down on a platter so the custard is surrounded by carmel.

*I used glass custard cups instead, & did not turn them upside down for serving. It's comforting to have your own cup of custard, I think.

Kitchen -- where the family meets

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I needed a book to enjoy. A friend gave me this, with a hopeful, half-hearted rating. I did read it to the end, so it kept me tagging along on the winding ways of a Minnesota family. Sometimes I got the people confused, and it's definitely not about the warm-hearted deliciousness of family. But at the end of the novel I read the author's acknowledgements; the last paragraph thanking his mom made me a dedicated fan, and now I look forward to J. Ryan Stradal's next book!


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Saturday new normal

Dear Family and Friends,
It's hot but no flames in Sacramento. We are fine. Everything smells like smoke -- even my dreams. I don't like the color of the air -- yellowish gray from ash. It is worse all around us. My friend Susan in San Jose said lightening storms there were terrifying -- explosive light bouncing through blackness, flinging from mountain to mountain with no sound of thunder or relief of rain, and seemingly no letup.

The Thursday farmers market had dwindled and then it was coming back to life, but last week there were fewer stalls -- Zing! and I saw it as people were setting up. The strawberry stall was still there, but the baker and mideastern food truck that I like were not. We didn't go back at lunchtime.  It's too hot anyway in the middle of the day. California heat is like an oven, while Florida is like a steam bath.

Zing! and I walk only a block or so morning and evening, with even less at 3 p.m. It's too hot. But at 10 this morning we went to Capital Books at 9th and K Streets. We walked inside, they handed me the bag of books I'd ordered and then we walked out. I glanced at a few books on display but didn't touch them.

We passed the Capitol on the way back. I have been almost angry at them for locking the fence up some time ago. It was the exact opposite of the warm welcome I felt the first time I went into the Capitol building. The guard at the top of the steps welcomed me with a genuine smile and said it's the people's building. Today there was a demonstration for child victims of sex trafficking. They were playing "Love is all you Need" as Zing and I left the grounds. I didn't take a photo, but I saw the Capitol uses handcuffs to lock up the gate. It was open and the cuffs were dangling as we walked back home.

I've been confused by all the communication opportunities. But people wonder what it's like here, and this is the way I see it.

Love,
k

Figured it out ... for now

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li


Yiyun Li’s fertile mind does not yield a simple crop. She gave me here a tangle of flowering reality all messed up in bitter weeds. She is honest, but not clear. She can’t be — these eight essays are about trying to make sense of things. A Chinese scientist- turned esteemed American writer, Li looks at her life through the lens of literature. She wonders and wanders like a writer, then she analyzes like a scientist. It’s about identity and Mother — family, country, language, profession. And it’s about her choice in each. Throughout, Li grapples with the ultimate choice — whether to live or die. She has come close.


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Looking toward the light

Dear Family and Friends,

I ruined a postcard by spilling some black paint on it. Oddly, the mistake spoke to me. I saw a tree silhouette, and here it is. I painted the sky and cut out the bird in tiny pieces from a scrap of cotton I painted long ago.  (In reality the black looks blacker.) I like it -- best mistake I made today!

Love,

k

Bird

4" x 6"

multi-media