Green Grass in the Land of Xeriscaping

Well, technically, our backyard has "zeroscaping"-- xeriscaping in the front, but zero in the backyard. It's a major drawback of the house we currently rent. The backyard of the first house we rented here in Southern New Mexico was the single reason we chose that house before we ever set foot inside. It had a grand eucalyptus tree, it had rosemary shrubs dripping down the top tier into the lower half of the yard. It had white and pink oleanders blocking the neighbors to the east. It had roses. We spent so much time in that backyard. We loved it and miss it.

But those owners wanted to move back into their house, so we packed everything up and moved literally one mile down the road. Now our backyard consists of lots and lots of hot, pointy gray rocks. And our midwestern cat and dog babies miss having a yard. We resorted to container gardening, and have potted tomatoes. We built a raised bed for baby red potatoes last year and finally decided to re-purpose that raised bed for a yard!

In fact, Zips talked me into purchasing not one but FOUR pieces of sod, even though one is all it takes to fill the raised bed. So I filled that bed, then filled whatever other container I could find. I have 3 wine crates, several terra cotta planters (one is now in our bathroom so Zips and Bijoux can have nibbles), and a 4x4 "yard" on either side of our back patio.   

 We even found mini garden gnomes to stand watch over the grass boxes.

The babies seem content, even blissful. And there are enough boxes allow each of them to have their own personal spot.

Since they're all in the shade of our patio and the rock wall that is closest to our house, the grass is always cool under paw, soft to lay in, and edible. 

"It'll do for now, human."

21 Needle Euphoria

So one of the happier discoveries we've made has been Zips' acupuncturist up in Albuquerque. She's been dealing with an extremely painful and rare neurological disorder since December of last year. The seizures and waves of pain have gone into remission and returned. At our wits end in early Feb. this year, I started calling around to acupuncture places here in town. No one could get us an appointment within six weeks, so I looked online for clinics that could schedule an appointment immediately and also took our insurance, and that brought us here.

I was able to schedule an appointment for the day after I called. The clinic is on the northwest side of town. It has 2 treatment rooms and 2 walls of the office are completely lined with row upon row of Chinese herbs that can be ground into teas, capsules, etc.

It was fascinating and shocking to see what was in the them. A lot of botanical things (blossoms, roots, seeds, etc.), but I can imagine there could be anything in those jars (things with feet?)!

On the walls in both treatment rooms are charts for different points for pins to go into. Again, I'm completely fascinated that a spot behind my ear or near my thumb could relate to elsewhere in my body.

I think we were really fortunate. Dr. Dumont is wonderful. He's patient, gentle, kind. He listens to symptoms, asks questions, asks more questions. The office staff is equally friendly and nice. Since February I think we've seen him 6 or 7 times, and her level of pain has really decreased (more so before our trip to Chicago-- we missed seeing him). I wish he weren't a 3 hour drive away (we'd be seeing him a lot more than once every week or two!), but after seeing being treated by a different acupuncturist here in town, he's totally worth the drive. His manner of treating her, of explaining what he's doing, of how she might react, and generally caring about her is really wonderful. It also helps that at times she's gotten an acupuncture "high" -- a sort of vibrating sense of euphoria and well-being.

Here's hoping for total remission again!

Farmer's Market Feasting

Nearly a year ago exactly, Zips and I discovered the Albuquerque Downtown Grower's Market. And on a spur of the moment flash of madness, on Saturday we got up at 6 in the morning, to drive three hours to visit it again. We were reminded how much we love farmer's markets with their crazy abundant variety.

We picked up a dozen ears of corn, carrots, peaches, grapes, potatoes, lavender...

A basket of these adorable pear-shaped yellow tomatoes...

And if you go, you must swing by the booth belonging to Black Bird Pies. They often give out sample bites of pie (this time it was their sweet potato pie)...

...and they have the most amazing fruit juices. Again, Zips chose watermelon papaya and I picked the thai basil lemonade and the raspberry sage lemonade. They were all equally awesome (and inspired Zips to concoct Sweet Basil Watermelon Water with our feast).

When we got home (after swinging by Bella Luca on the way home. I'll have to write about their cannellini and greens that I ordered!), we decided to gorge ourselves to celebrate the end of another summer, and rather than just fix the usuals for our Sunday dinner, to make everything with some new recipes.

I already have a great recipe for peach pie, so decided to branch out and make peach galettes. The peaches we got were the size of plums, but they actually yielded more fruit than I expected (I could have more than made a pie!)

Peach Galettes

I used a different dough recipe for the crust-- but now that I've tried it, I think I'd just stick with my usual pie crust recipe, just roll it out a bit thinner. The dough recipe was 1 1/4 c. flour with 8Tb. butter and 1/4 c. ice water. It only gave me 2 crusts, so I had to half it and make a third galette when I had excess filling. If I did it all over again, I'd just use a regular pie crust recipe that would probably give me 4 galettes.

The filling was 6 c. of sliced peaches tossed with

2/3 c. sugar

big dash of cinnamon (1 tsp.)

small dash of ground cloves (1/4 tsp.)

small dash of nutmeg (1/4 tsp.)

1 Tb. flour

juice of 1/2 lemon

Place the peach filling in the center of each crust about an inch from the edges and then curl the crust around the filling. If you get greedy like me, you can stack the peach filling a bit more after you've created the edges of the galette. You can even drizzle in a little of the juice. Just don't over-do it like I did and get the bottom of your crust soggy even before baking it.

Then bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.

Zips sliced up the yellow tomatoes, sprinkled some of our sweet basil over it and drizzled it with olive oil. Then scooped out some of our locally grown watermelon before juicing the rest of it and adding some chopped sweet basil to the juice (it was delicious!). I cubed the potatoes and carrots and roasted them with some olive oil and rosemary from our garden.
But another high point and new discovery was corn pudding. Corn Pudding. Two words I never imagined together. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I had no concept of what it would taste like. But nothing about it looked bad, so I gave it a whack and am so glad I did!

Zipper's Corn Pudding

2 or 3 ears of fresh corn-- de-kerneled

2/3 c. milk (most recipes call for whole milk. I used soy milk. It was delightfully light and fluffy. Perhaps when I try this again with the southwestern variation, I'll use whole milk to get the full effect before experimenting more)

1 egg

1 Tb. flour

1 tsp. sugar

salt + pepper

Handful of basil or cilantro (I used basil-- about 8 or 9 leaves chopped)

Pulse half of the corn kernels in a food processor. I did this until I had a kind of sweet corn mush. Then add the processed corn to the rest of the kernels, the dry ingredients, and the basil or cilantro.

In another bowl, mix together egg and milk, and add this to the corn mixture. Then pour into a baking dish and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. I finally got to use these little individual pans for like the second time in ten years!

It was an amazing feast-- that has left us both plagued with food ennui. I'll have to think up something quick to make life worth living after having eaten this sumptuously! Isn't that what summer's for?

Tiny Yukon Golds, Salsa Verde, and other Summer Magic

I know it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to plant a whole bed of baby yukon gold potatoes in the middle of summer in southern New Mexico, but I was so excited when I saw them for sale at our local garden/hardware store, I couldn't resist. Even more thrilling was when they emerged from little eyelets into full grown plants. Almost ALL of them!!

Now I'm just waiting around for them to grow grow grow those magical tubers. Hopefully their harvest will happen to coincide with when we have to move (about two weeks). The other day I noticed a couple of the plants was looking wilty-- okay more like on death's door, so I couldn't resist feeling around its roots and voila!

Potatoes!!!!! Now I realize they're not going to win any ribbons at the state fair, but it brings back that amazing feeling I had when we had a plot at the community gardens in Indiana, and I grew a whole row of potatoes, soybeans, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, celery, brussels sprouts, and what not (see the earliest postings, it's part of why I started this blog). I GREW FOOD in the GROUND! And I'm going to EAT IT!

One of my summer readings is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes in the very first pages "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up out of the ground." I understand that sentiment, even after living only 2 years in the dry southwest. But it's nice to see that we can indulge green-thumbed desires here. Knowing that we'll have to pack up and move a little ways down the road, we're trying to emotionally part with the lovely backyard that we fell in love with, and planted all our tomatoes, lettuces, basils and catnips in pots.

In addition to my tiny potato excitement, Zips is thrilled to be growing several tiny tomatillo plants. When we had our garden plot in Indiana, we had more tomatillos early on than we knew what to do with. I wrote long ago about our "salsa verde crudo." But now Zips has perfected her Salsa Verde:

Zipper's Salsa Verde Perfecto

2 lb. tomatillos (husked, rinsed, chopped)

1 medium onion

1-2 whole serrano chiles

1/2 c. cilantro

1-2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

salt & (secret ingredient) ground celery seed (or celery salt)!

Chuck everything into your food processor and chop until everything is well combined. It may help to start chopping the harder foods first (onion, garlic, chiles) then add the juicy parts that you wouldn't want to accidently liquify (tomatillo), before adding and adjusting the cilantro, lime, ground celery seed and salt. I've never posted a photo of our Salsa Verde before, because we usually eat it all before I've had a chance (I once posted a photo of an empty glass bowl). But we've discovered that this actually keeps in the fridge pretty well, and if the serranos start off too spicy, it actually mellows in the fridge.

The other magical summer staple that Zips has utterly perfected lately is her heavenly guacamole. The magic, in our case, is in the molcajete she bought me last christmas:
I had a revelation (way too late) that those little black plastic tripod bowls that you sometimes get salsa in at Mexican restaurants are, basically, fake molcajetes. So this is a rough, heavy mortar and pestle made of volcanic stone that you season by grinding rice and rock salt until the inside starts to smooth out. Then you grind raw garlic cloves, cumin, salt into a paste and let it sit 24 hours. If you aren't driven mad with how good it smells, it will give your guacamole the most amazing flavors. We use avocado, lime, and just a little onion, tomato, cilantro, serrano, and garlic and a dash of salt (no measurements you cry? tweak em till it's perfect!). If we have a bag of the local tortillaria's chips, and we make both of these, it will be a good night indeed!

New Adventures in Old New Mexico

Over the weekend, Zips and I trekked an hour up north to Truth or Consequences, NM to see what could be seen. We were met with an odd mix of artsy-crafty hippies, hot-springs spa tourists, and economically depressed townies. We did go for the hot spring soaks and really can't wait to go back.

The geothermal heated mineral waters did, in fact, seem to have healing properties for us. We got to lounge around in thin cotton robes, slather ourselves in locally-made lavender and lemon balm scented skin care, and just in general chillax. We each bought cheap paperbacks and packed an in-room picnic (apples, grapes, cheeses, crackers, and cookies). Unfortunately, the beds were too high off the ground and, like the pillows, TOO HARD. (That was a bit counterproductive to the hot springs soak.)

One charming little shop we found is Black Cat Books & Coffee, a clean, quaint place with a nice range of used books and good-looking blank books, and a friendly owner more than happy to share pics of her adorable kitty, Leonore, and the original Black Cat, Mr. Po. I shared pics of Zips with her in return.

Another happy discovery is Cafe Bella Luca, a swanky italian joint that, while it doesn't have a ton of veg-friendly choices, the ones offered there are deeeelicious.
Zips ordered the daily special, homemade spinach ricotta ravioli, and feeling adventurous, I went for the eggplant parmesan (which was awesome). The pasta was indeed homemade and fresh. They also had the best cappuccino we've had in a while, and both of us have newly-formed addictions to it.
We were so stuffed and happy that we came back the next afternoon for their white pizza (roasted garlic, spinach, and cheese). It was one of the best that I've had. On our way out of town to return home, I realized I'd left my leftover eggplant parm in the fridge where we'd stayed, so I actually turned the car around to fetch it again. Totally worth it, I had it for dinner the next day.
We look forward to going up again, since it makes a nice day trip or a nice overnight. Because of the beds, Zips is reluctant to stay at the same place, but I would-- maybe if we brought our own pillows. It's nice to be someplace close to home, but with access to real water!

Check out the Rio Grande! It was surprisingly cold!

Local Veggies for the Broken-Hearted

This week marks the end of summer "vacation" and the beginning of fall semester. Before it gets too crazy again, Zips and I darted out of town for one last weekend adventure, and ended up in Albuquerque for their downtown farmer's market, and up to Santa Fe for a sweet vegetarian restaurant and a delightful French documentary.

We stayed the night at a hotel in downtown ABQ that I wouldn't recommend-- to anyone. ever. unless you want insomnia and a broken spine-- but the only perk is that when we stepped out of our door Saturday morning, the Albuquerque Farmer's Market was literally across the street! It was so lovely to see piles of produce in addition to local crafty stuff. There were apples, grapes, peaches, eggplants, onions, bell peppers, garlic, carrots, potatoes, O MY!

My heart breaks that our garden won't yield a tomato larger than a ping pong, and that our only thriving investment is a sweet basil plant that heroically refuses to die. How magical that these things grow. How tragic that they won't grow in our backyard! In any event, we splurged on peaches, some grapes(!), a bunch of purple carrots (purple!), some crispy, tart apples (that look like they actually grew on a tree, not in some lab somewhere), and a lovely bag of yukon gold potatoes. I am so jealous of the potato lady. Growing potatoes was my favorite!

The traffic at the farmer's market seemed to come to a dead standstill at the tent belonging to Blk Bird Pies-- an adorable couple who were selling all manner of tiny pies, and also servings of Watermelon Papaya juice, and lemonade with purple basil (the third was hibiscus-something or other, we'll try it next time!). We saw everyone carrying around and sipping these juices, so we had to come back and try them. They were so delicious, and I'm now utterly obsessed with the idea of infusing some thai basil or lavender or something the next time I make a lemon shake-up!

The other happy discoveries for the weekend were, in addition to the fact that The Screen at the College of Santa Fe was playing the enchanting documentary, The Beaches of Agnes, we ate at the equally enchanting Tree House Pastry Shop / Cafe.

It is an all-organic, entirely vegetarian, local food restaurant. Like D'Lish in Sedona, it was such a luxury to look at their menu board and know I could order anything!

For whatever reason, I played it safe and ordered the Black Bean Quesadilla-- I've never dreamed of putting black beans inside a quesadilla-- but it was really good!

But Zips won hands-down for this tempeh-lentil-hummus wrap and salad. After a weekend of sketchy dining out, this was the real winner. She was generous enough to share it with me, and neither of us was hungry for the rest of the night!

We're going to try to duplicate it in our future lunching endeavors! The Tree House is also a full bakery that does wedding cakes and the like, so we had to splurge for cupcakes: chocolate and caramel with pink sea salt (in the cutest little boxes ever).

We packed them up and had dessert at a picnic table in the railyard arts district, where an artist's market was packing up for the day. Hopefully this marks a sweet beginning to our new school semester.

Long Time No Blog...

I've been so busy teaching, grading, writing and revising, and collapsing in front of the TV in between these that I haven't been blogging lately. Had big plans to go places for spring break that didn't pan out. All I want to do is veg.... So I'm trying to become more interested in my life and to be more thoughtful.

Having said that, I found another hilarious sign:
I mean, I know it's cautionary, but calling the bull "mean" seems a little harsh. Especially if it's sensitive to being teased. I think that makes potential (human) readers of this sign mean. Not the bull.

In a recent student art show here, one of my favorite pieces was a sea of envelopes pinned to the wall. They were randomly pinned either face up and open, or sealed and face down with CONFIDENTIAL stamped in red across the back. Viewers were invited to select an open one, write a secret on the scrap of paper inside, and seal and replace the envelope. So I did, as did a lot of others. I am left wondering about the relationship between art and its viewers, and what happens with all of our secrets!

New Year! New Books! New Soups!

It's hard for me to believe that it's been six full months that we've lived here. Half a year in our new life, new job, new home, new time zone. It's lovely not to be cold in the winter. This is a new pleasure. In fact, one of my resolutions for the new year is to let the cats roam in the backyard when they ask (see example below)... okay, maybe once a day or so is more realistic. Already, Bijoux (below, far right) has abused this resolution by defiantly jumping the fence and tight-rope walking the stone wall between our backyard neighbors' yards. I had to climb into someone else's property to retrieve him. Thank goodness he didn't get too far! Everyone else is positively sedate by comparison. Zipper (you must recognize her by now) likes to chase crickets and moths and dust motes. All of these usually outsmart her. Mini (above) is happy to luxuriate on the hammock, soaking in the sun. She's clearly the smart one.
The holidays have been nice. Quiet, with the exception of a nasty cold that went through each member of the household. Some wonderful presents I received (aside from a remote controlled R2-D2 that promises to bring me a can of Coke from across the room when I command) include Keri Smith's awesome guide to life The Guerilla Art Kit; Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints, Zakka Sewing by Therese Laskey, Chika Mori, Yoko Inoue; Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin and Thayer Allyson Gowdy; and Esther Smith's beautiful How to Make Books. Clearly I have work to do so that I can get to doing fun work! Here are my most favorite etsy-oriented crafty books. My kingdom for more time!
Over the holiday break, we took a brief excursion to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It was so cold, my favorite part was actually huddling up in the guest bedroom of my parents' house watching WALL*E on our laptop. The (only) other bright spot was a sopa de tortilla tradicional that Zips ordered at a restaurant on the plaza in Santa Fe. It helped thaw us out from the icy streets of the historic downtown. I'd never tried it, and Zips was feeling adventurous. Happily, I memorized the ingredients listed in the menu, and cobbled together some recipes that pretty closely approximates the zippy, spicy, smokey soup we had!

Tortilla Soup:

2-3 poblano chiles-- roasted, peeled, seeded, diced

1/2 c. green chiles (mild to medium) (I used Bueno frozen mild. I'm kicking myself for not being more adventurous earlier in the season and buying and roasting them fresh! Lesson learned!)

1 clove garlic (or about 1tsp)-- minced

2 Tb. olive oil

1 28oz. can whole tomatoes-- including juice

2 Qt. vegetable broth (2 boxes or 4 cans)

1 tsp. oregano

2 Tb. cumin

2 Tb. chili powder

1 c. diced onion

10-12 small corn tortillas-- torn into squares

Saute the chiles and garlic in olive oil. Add tomatoes, juice, broth, and spices, and bring to a simmer. Add tortilla pieces to soup and simmer until they dissolve completely. This will thicken the broth and add the wonderful corn tortilla aroma to the soup. Blend with an immersion blender to desired consistency. I added a can of sweet corn after blending. Garnish with slices of avocado, sour cream, cilantro. Other recipes serve with a wedge of lime, shredded cheese, and fried tortilla strips.

The other offering I have to get us through winter is a vegetarian version (yay!) of one of my favorite Thai soups-- Tom Kha-- usually tom kha gai or chicken coconut soup-- I think this one is Tom Kha Hed-- or coconut soup with mushrooms. Whatever you want to call it.. it's delicious.

Tom Kha (Thai Coconut-Lemongrass Soup)

1 1/2 c. coconut milk (1 can)

1 Tb. fresh grated ginger

2 tsp. lime zest

2 2" pieces of fresh lemongrass (bruise the pieces by whacking them with the back or flat of a knife)

3 c. vegetable broth

2 tsp. sugar

1 Tb. soy sauce

lime juice

Combine and simmer, then add your choice of:

diced firm tofu

bamboo shoots

fresh mushrooms

cilantro

green onion

Even Better Than Halloween

This weekend must've been one of the busiest of the year around here. Between NMSU's homecoming football game (where we got trounced by Boise State 49-0) (hey, last year we got trounced 58-0, so it is a kind of improvement), Halloween, a Carrie Underwood concert on campus, Dia de los Muertos, the local Renaissance Faire, if you count the early voting that ended on Saturday, my head is spinning!

So we spent Halloween giving out vast quantities of chocolates and organic fruit suckers (mmmm.. mango tango!). Saturday we went to both the Dia de los Muertos festival in Mesilla as well as the downtown farmer's market. I've never been to a day of the dead, having just heard about the holiday, and appreciating the asthetic of calavera sculptures, paper banners, and nichos or shadow boxes (take that! Joseph Cornell!).

In any case, it was amazing! The little plaza square was packed with tables and altars filled with photographs, mementos, offerings to deceased family members and pets. Often these were paired with an 8x10 printed description of the person's life and death. It was often touching, sometimes funny. One of the most memorable was a shrine that featured this skeleton decked out with a lap tray that included a portrait of its subject, along with a tv dinner and clicker. It was so personal and specific a tribute. Another invited viewers to eat a piece of their grandfather's favorite candies (those chewy caramel squares), and to ring a bell.

Then there was a woman selling sugar skulls. When I bought a couple, she directed us over to the altar she had created. It took a second for me to put together that if she had constructed an altar, that meant that she had lost someone. It was her son, who died in 2000. He was actually born the same year I was. It was a difficult and wonderful public kind of intimacy (sounds contradictory, I know). Here I was buying a decorated skull made of sweetness, sharing a stranger's grief. This makes me want to participate in a more personal way next year.
There were some that were altars for mass deaths. In addition to a large installation displaying what must've been thousands of paper cranes for the American death toll in the Iraq war, there were also at least two altars to commemorate the women murdered in Juarez.

It was pretty emotional. One of the past posters said "To Remember is to Live"-- I think that's a nice way to acknowledge how it's not morbid, but rather life affirming. One of our favorite (super LIFE AFFIRMING) booths was run by a pair of sisters (Kristi from Dexter, NM and Konsuela from Roswell, NM) who do ceramics, make t-shirts, and had several kick ass calendars. They were both such characters (think Paula Deene, then multiply by two, amplify the volume and laughter, make them arty, and park them in the southwest handing out skull lollipops!). We loved them so much, we had to come back on Sunday just to buy their other calendar. (We came too early and even hung out and waited around just for them to open up.) They even pointed out that we had to visit the booth next door and check out their cool stuff.

Which we did, but nothing could beat Kristi and Konnie.

Okay, finally. I don't mean to brag/gloat but to my friends in Syracuse, NY and Wisconsin, and even Indiana. It is the first week of NOVEMBER and I bought home grown watermelon (seedless but SUPER SWEET), tomatoes, green tomatoes, and canaloupe. And it is sunny and clear.

We are fortunate indeed!