The ultimate burrito

Here's an impressive beef burrito to make if you're at home some afternoon. Start with any kind of pot roast-- this little one was about the price of a package of hamburger at QFC. Season the meat with salt, pepper and chili powder and brown well. Slice up some small jalapeños and onions, add a bit of water, set it on lowest heat and find something else to do for about 3 hours. (OK, poke it with a fork now and then.)
When the meat is starting to fall apart, shred it with a fork and throw out the fatty pieces.
Add a can of fire-roasted chilies and some shredded cheese. Drain a can of pinto beans...and pile the meat and beans on a large flour tortilla. Some leftover rice would be good, too.
Oh yes, this is what we call a "wet" burrito, so blend a small can of tomato sauce with chili powder and cayenne pepper. Cover the burritos with sauce, then sprinkle with cheese and broil.
No more "hamburger" burritos. You've cracked the secrets of a fine Mexican restaurant!

Birthdays and surprises

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its cage of gold.

Louis MacNeice

Spring turned her back on Seattle this week. There's heavy snow in the mountains and cold rain in the lowlands. The tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are shivering, but no matter-- they'll just last longer outside. Today is my birthday, and I stayed in bed with a heating pad feeling sorry for myself until 7:30. Enough! Get over it...

As a wonderful surprise for my birthday, Amanda, Tom and Nova arrive this afternoon, and plan to stay into next week. What could be a better gift for Grandma than to seeing her little Nova? Rumor has it she is just starting to crawl. Tom is also going to tackle a long overdue painting project, which will brighten the old house and our spirits. Having a professional painter for a son-in-law is a fine thing. I spend yesterday pulling down hundreds of dusty books and my back is telling me those birthdays are starting to add up. But you know what? Life is GOOD. More Nova pictures coming soon...

Riding lesson

This past weekend our barn hosted a three-day riding clinic with Thomas Ritter, a famous trainer from Artistic Dressage. Here's a picture of him riding a horse named Electa in our arena.

He learned classical riding the hard way, from the bottom up at the intimidating Spanish Riding School, the pinnacle of fine horsemanship in the world. Thomas occasionally gives private lessons to the horse boarders at my barn, and others in the area who haul their horses in just to work with him. Here's a little description of dressage:

Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through progressive training, a horse's natural ability. At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless. Dressage is occasionally referred to as "Horse Ballet."

Electa is a Lipizzaner mare, and here Thomas is working with her "from the ground." I love watching, because with almost imperceptible cues she will perform marvelous and beautiful movements. Of course he is highly skilled, and she is highly trained; not to mention bred for dressage. Have you heard of the world famous Lipizzaner stallions from Vienna? Those guys are her relatives.
And here's my sweet brown Sizzle, patiently waiting for her dressage lesson. Is she worried about impressing Dr. Ritter?
No, she is not.
And neither was I, actually. I was looking forward to my lesson with an open mind, and curious how he would instruct an old Quarter horse and lazy trail rider in such a technical discipline. The answer is: you start at the beginning. That means around we went, receiving instruction and feedback while trying to ride basic 10 and 30 meter circles. Riding exact circles in a empty arena without markers is much harder than it looks. Cutting corners and going oval does not count.
Finally (perhaps in frustration!) Thomas attached a 30 meter line to my boot, and held the other end in his hand. My goal was to ride a perfect circle around him at the posting trot without letting the line sag or get too tight. And it was amazing how much that simple exercise helped me to see and feel the circle. And Sizzle was very good, I could tell she was trying her best.
After 45 minutes, my brain was slightly fried but Sizzle was still fresh as a daisy. Overall, it was an exciting experience to work with such a fine teacher, and he left me with plenty of homework.

Spring baby

Looks like little Nova is all ready for spring. Amanda says she's starting to creep across the floor-- not exactly a crawl yet, but she should have that figured out in time to look for Easter eggs. Watch out world!

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

I notice there's an article about the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in the April Sunset magazine. We've had a warm spring, so the big tulip fields 60 miles north of Seattle are blooming now. My sister and I drove up there last year, and made a long day of it. After years in the Northwest, I'm ashamed to say that was the first time I went. It's a bit of a trek up the freeway to Mt. Vernon, and the "festival" only lasts a short time so you have to plan ahead, with weather a factor.

But the drive is worth it, especially if you luck out with a sunny day like we had last April. An early start is a good idea, because on weekend afternoons hoards of people arrive in cars and buses.

Flowering bulbs have been cultivated in the Skagit Valley for decades, so this is really about agriculture. Over the years, the "tulip festival" attached to bulb growing has evolved into a big attraction, and taken on a life of it's own (as festivals tend to do.)

There are a few crowded display gardens and places to buy things, but the vast blooming bulb fields are the main attraction. It's almost impossible to take a bad picture.
When the peak of bloom has passed, the flower head is unceremoniously whacked off by field workers so the valuable bulbs can develop. We lived in the Skagit Valley briefly in the 70's, and bulb farm work was a seasonal job for the local teenagers. Not anymore...
I think these are the same hard-working folks who pick our lettuce in California.

Echo and Narcissus

Tulips and daffodils are the best known of all spring flowers. Isn't this urn pretty right now? There's some pink tulips in there too, and they should bloom in time for Nova's first Easter.

The correct botanic name for the daffodil genus is Narcissus, which includes over 100 cultivated species and wild variants. The great "classifier" Linnaeus chose the name Narcissus from Greek mythology:

Echo and Narcissus
John Waterhouse

The beautiful nymph Echo fell for the beautiful young man Narcissus, but he rejected her. She cried to Cupid for help, but Cupid caused Narcissus to fall in love with his own image in a reflecting pool. Entranced with himself, he wasted away and died beside the water while Echo watched. When the nymphs prepared his funeral pyre, his body was transformed into the flower we call a Narcissus.

There are many literary references to daffodils. One of the most famous is by the great English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd--
A host of golden daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Daffodils
William Wordsworth

Nova goes to the park

Here's our little spring flower, ready to walk to the park with mommy...

My first swing ride!

A fine toy

Sometimes you have to own something in order to realize you wanted it in the first place. I'm talking about my new Amazon Kindle. (Thank you John, you buy the best presents!) Everything says the age of the e-book has begun, and the world's books will be available at the click of a mouse. I was thinking about that this weekend, weeding dusty shelves and hauling 10 bags down to Half Price Books, where they gave me a paltry $78. And I hardly made a dent in our collection; I wonder if Kindle will change our buying habit?

But indeed, why spent $20 plus for the latest fiction? I just bought Anne Tyler's new novel for $9.99 on my Kindle, and Amazon made it slick and easy. The only bad thing is I can't pass a book along to Dave or Amanda. But the Kindle reading experience is fine, just different. I think your brain has "learn" that this slip of plastic is a real book. Nova's generation will know nothing else.

Google has quietly been copying millions of out-of-copyright books in an enormous on-line archive, prompting angst and lawsuits from publishers and author's guilds. That said, the most amazing thing I've done so far with Kindle is purchase the compete works of William Shakespeare for 95 cents plus tax. In a few seconds, there it was. Amazon makes many other classics a completely free download. When I was a literature major, way back when, I could have bought student food for a month with what I paid for the Penguin Complete Works of Shakespeare. That costly book was precious, and over the years it's survived many spring book purges. The jury is still out on the Kindle.

The Lenten Rose

Hellebores are members of the buttercup family, and you can see the resemblance in the pink sepals. They bloom as early as December, giving them their common name, the Christmas rose. The other English name for H. Hybridus is Lenten rose, which is the time this one blooms outside our kitchen door. Hellebores are beautiful in woodland settings, but it's nice to have them planted close in-- something pretty to look at in the dismal months. I also have an interesting greenish white one that my mother-in-law bought me years ago at the Weyerhauser garden shop.

You may know a famous English Christmas carol called Lo! How a Rose E'er Blooming. It originated in an old German hymn called Winterblumlein which had an astonishing twenty-two verses! (We know the Lutherans love their music :-) Anyway, the hymn tells the story of the nativity and speaks about a "rose" blooming on a cold, snowy night at Christmas. This rose could not be a true rosa, but was more likely a winter hellebore.

This plant has a long recorded history and it's been the subject of myth and superstition, I suppose because of the unusual blooming habit. The plant is poisonous, but that didn't stop anyone from using it for "medicinal" purposes. Monastery herbalists used the hellebore to cure lunacy and other vague, medieval ailments like "excess of bile." It was also good for killing rats and wolves, or unfortunate livestock who happened to eat it. ( I understand that buttercups are also toxic to horses and cattle.) The ancient Roman "naturalist" and quack Pliny the Elder listed twenty remedies derived from the black hellebore. He also wrote it is not recommended to give hellebore to "aged persons, children, persons of an effeminate body or mind, a timorous disposition, or a tender constitution."
Good advice, Pliny.

Vernal equinox

In spring, the axis of the earth increases its tilt toward the sun. Never mind the confusing diagrams; it's a simple as that. The hemisphere begins to warm up, causing new growth to "spring forth," giving the season its name. Our days and nights are each about 12 hours long now, but the daylight will increase until the June solstice. It's their turn for autumn on the "bottom" of the world, where the seasons are reversed.

Astronomically, the vernal equinox on March 20th is really the middle of spring, based on the angle of the sun, and the June solstice is the middle of summer, because the sun is at its highest. Some Asian calendars call the vernal equinox mid-spring, but in the USA and most of England, today is regarded as the first day of spring.

In a mild coastal climate like ours, spring growth begins in early February with blooming trees and shrubs like cherry and magnolia. Meteorologists are also noticing "seasonal creep," which means signs of spring are occurring a few days earlier each decade. In Seattle, our spring weather tends to be cool, damp and quiet, but in other parts of the country tornadoes and super cell thunderstorms are possible when warm air from the south meets air from the polar regions. Think "Tornado Alley."
Spring is also a spiritual time of renewal, growth and new life. Most civilizations celebrate some type of spring festival. Easter, of course, is the most important religious day in the Christian liturgical year, and the date of Easter varies between March 22 and April 25 (in western tradition.)

"Spring"
Giuseppe Arcimbolo
1573

Most of the holiday traditions we think are "ours" have ancient roots. Modern life is just the tip of the long, long continuum of history and culture. There were "pagan" celebrations that used the symbols we now associate with Easter, such as the Easter bunny, painted eggs and baby animals. Over time, Christianity replaced the celebration of "rebirth" with the resurrection of Jesus.

"Primavera"
(detail)
Sandro Botticelli
1482

Way back in Roman mythology, Flora was a minor fertility goddess and the symbol of flowers and spring. Her festival, the Floralia, was held in April or May and symbolized the renewal of life with dancing, drinking and flowers. Our modern word for plants (Flora) comes from her name. Thanks to the Renaissance and painters like Botticelli, there was a revival of interest in pagan antiquity, so Flora became more famous than she ever was in Roman times.

Flora
I am the handmaid of the earth,
I broider fair her glorious gown,
And deck her on her days of mirth
With many a garland of renown.
And while earth's little ones are fain
And play about the mother's hem,
I scatter every gift I gain
From sun and wind to gladden them.
William Morris

Have a wonderful spring weekend-- the weather is glorious in Seattle and may hit 70 today. Maybe John will try out his new lawn mover? (hint, hint)

Countdown to spring

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

Sara Teasdale
1920

Today is the last day of winter in the northern hemisphere. Welcome spring! Wishing everyone a sunny and happy Friday.

"Write drunk, edit sober"

That's a good quote; the poet W.H. Auden said it. He was a big drinker, as many famous writers seem to be. Why is that? The old notion is that alcohol stirs The Muse. The ideas may flow when we drink, but alcohol makes even smart people believe they're more profound than they really are. Edit sober.

I'm thinking of this because the other night John opened a bottle of Zinfandel called "Writer's Block" with a picture of the Bard on the label. Clever marketing-- if that label doesn't make a writer want to drink wine, nothing will.

Winston Churchill said he couldn't have finished his massive memoirs without heavy tippling. Now there's scientific research supporting the "drink-to-inspiration" idea. Apparently, 15% of Caucasians have a "G-variant" gene that makes alcohol feel more like a opiate, with a pleasurable jolt that might inspire creativity, instead of making them depressed or sleepy-- so they pick up the pen. Of course the flip side is people with this gene variant are prone to alcoholism. Churchill lived to be 90, but others were not so lucky. Here's a little list of 15 great alcoholic writers:

http://listverse.com/2008/01/22/top-15-great-alcoholic-writers/

I'm just finishing up John Irving's latest novel, "Last Night in Twisted River." He's known for teasing the reader with a juicy mix of fiction and autobiography, leaving his fans trying to sort out the "real" from the "made-up." Along with some of his usual themes (bears, wresting, New England, deadly accidents) one of the main characters in the book becomes a famous novelist, whose career seems parallel Irving's own. But not exactly.

One of the hardest things to write about is the writing process, but Irving does a good job of it in this book, through this character. Where do the ideas come from, and how does the writer coherently transfer them into words? Thousands (maybe millions!) of words have been written about John Irving's writing, so I won't do a book report here. If you enjoyed any of his other books, you'll like this one.

As for me, I like my wine, but my muse is currently under the influence of Starbucks. There you go...whatever works.

Hollyhocks

Everyone likes hollyhocks. I think the old-fashioned single varieties are prettier, but the ones with ruffly flowers are easier to find at the nursery. They are sold as seeds or "plants" like this package of bare roots. The pastel colors are nice, but unfortunately they remind me of double petunias on stalks. I just planted these along the fence by the recycle bin, so we can look at them when we go out the kitchen door with bits of stuff. Hollyhock roots sometimes don't bloom until the second year, but maybe I'll get lucky.
These single flowering hollyhocks in beautiful jewel colors stayed alive for years in what amounted to hot, dry dust along the side of the house. I felt sorry for them, and moved the clumps to a "nicer" place by the shed-- luckily they survived. Hollyhocks hate to be disturbed, but once established the plants are tough as nails. It's tricky getting them going too, and harder yet to propagate from seed. At the end of the season, the flower stalks tease you with pods filled with thousands of big seeds, but they never self-sow, and are devilishly hard to start in the ground (I've tried.)

Nova's first fiesta

Thanks, Amanda for these adorable pictures. Here's Nova wearing a Guatemalan baby outfit her mom bought 10 years ago on a trip to Central America. Who could have guessed?

Nova was off to the town community center for a big fiesta benefit.

The life of the party!

UW School of Music

John keeps an eye on the University of Washington School of Music performance calendar for recitals and concerts. Many are free to the public, or almost free...
We drove to the campus yesterday to hear a Beethoven lecture-recital in the music building. The beautiful old cherry trees were blooming on the Quad. A pretty sight, but you had to elbow your way through the crowds and cameras; it's a real destination this time of year. Here's John, holding up a tree and looking like a egghead professor.
The UW music building has a small auditorium, and over the years we've seen faculty, students and guest soloists perform there. It's surprising these free concerts are usually under-attended, considering the level of talent at a big university. But that's classical music for you-- and there are plenty of other distractions in Seattle on a spring afternoon. The music school concerts usually bring out a smattering of students, and a handful of culture vultures. There was a group of ladies who drove all the way from Anacortes, and were introduced as the town's local "Beethoven Society." Goodness!

We heard a long-winded academic lecture by Danius Vaicekonis, most of which went over my head. But then he played Beethoven's Opus 31 THREE piano sonatas, straight through. Two hours of entertainment. What a deal.

Plums and bees

Our plum tree is just starting to bloom, which always makes me wonder if city folks understand how baby fruit comes into the world. The flowers must be pollinated by insects under the right conditions. If the weather is too cold, the bees are inactive and the unfertilized flowers drop off. On that sad day, you won't see the tiny green fruit bud-- it's no bigger than a dew drop. If it isn't there, enjoy looking at your ornamental tree, because that's that for another year.

Under natural circumstances, apple pollen cannot fertilize plum blossoms, which sounds pretty obvious if you know a bit of biology. So if you think about the pesticides and sterile trees of suburbia (fruit trees are few and far between) you appreciate the miracle of bees traveling those distances. We have an apple tree (Sparta) and a plum (Italian prune) in the yard. Tom's brother (Amanda's brother-in-law) lives a few houses down from us, and has some old plum trees in his yard, too. There might be other plums tucked away in the neighborhood, but probably the reason Bill and I have fruit is because the bees easily make their way across the street every spring. Not far to travel-- I like the thought of that.

In these enlightened days, I'm always distressed to see the "Chem Lawn" truck in the neighborhood. Never mind the "environmentally friendly" line on the side of the tanker; spewing anything around the landscape willy-nilly with a fire hose must decimate many tiny innocents. Wish me luck this year. Here's a picture of the plum bounty from a few years ago:

German food

German restaurants are still popular in other parts of the country, but we don't see the old-fashioned ones in Seattle anymore. You have to go over the mountains to the faux German "village" of Leavenworth to find them.
Some of these restaurants offer "continental cuisine" along with traditional dishes like wienerschnitzel and rouladen. German food is heavy and bland for the Thai food generation, and other than sausage and sauerkraut, most people don't know what it is. Plus there are so many other international restaurants in Seattle competing for our dining dollar.

I bring this up, because I was in a weird mood to eat sauerbraten this week. My German grandmother made it, and it was memorable because it looked like roast beef, but tasted so unusual. My first paying job (age 13) was as a pot washer at a Swiss restaurant on Ute Pass, outside Woodland Park, Colorado. During the evening dinner service, while I was washing dishes, the tough old lady proprietress would serve her skinny husband a big plate of sauerbraten with salad in the kitchen, and we watched him eat. I remember my mouth watering. She didn't whack us with a wooden spoon, but she ruled her kitchen with an iron hand, and there was NO tasting! That sounds like an "Oliver Twist" story, but that's how it was in those days. The man was the king of the castle.

To make sauerbraten, a tough piece of beef is marinated in a crock with red vinegar, onions, peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaves. Then the meat is drained, seared, and cooked in the vinegar marinade like any pot roast until fork tender. The result is tangy, soft and delicious served with boiled red potatoes or noodles.

My 1967 Betty Crocker cookbook has a recipe for sauerbraten, so it must have been a mainstream dish back then. It includes a finish for a strange "gingersnap gravy" which I could never bring myself to make. I was tempted to tinker with the marinade and add red wine and garlic, but left it alone. I'll spare you a string of pictures on how to prepare sauerbraten (not pretty) but if you're burning to make it, let me know and I'll send the recipe.

The million dollar question was, would John eat it? I put some Wagner on the stereo, to get him in the mood. It was a dark, cold and TEUTONIC evening in Seattle. Perfect for a heavy dinner. The verdict? He liked it! His only complaint was no home-made spaetzle. And won't the shop smell interesting when he heats up his lunch tomorrow?

Yogurt for breakfast

More, please!

So good!

Tortellini soup

Even people who love to cook get tired of it sometimes, although not so much the actual kitchen part. With a glass of wine at hand, I can't think of a better way to wind down the day. What gets old is shopping and planning ahead for weekday meals. And if you have a vegetarian teenager or other picky eater in the house, you know what I mean. I also have to plan enough dinner for a certain picky person to take for lunch the next day! So, it's easy to just fall back on your same old repertoire, night after night.
It's been years since I resorted to processed box dinners from the frozen food aisle, although that day may come again. Now when I'm in a creative slump, looking at cookbooks is usually inspirational. I try to keep the pantry stocked with staples like canned tomatoes, beans, onions, garlic, condiments, broth, rice, potatoes and pasta; that's the secret to throwing together a nice meal quicker than you can call for take-out.

The weather turned cool, and soup sounded good. It's easy to make all kinds of soup "from scratch" if you have frozen or canned broth on hand, and the above mentioned staples. For this base, I started with sautéed onion, garlic, carrots and chopped red pepper. Then a couple cans of chicken broth, a can of chopped tomatoes, oregano and seasonings.
After it simmered for a bit, I added half a bag of cheese tortellini and some diced ham. We topped it with grated Parmesan cheese and ate it with sourdough bread. Not what a fancy chef would call a "complex" soup, but tasty and light for a weeknight supper.