FEEDING THE FIRE
OUTHOUSE
Please excuse the lack of photos the past few days. The heavens opened with torrential rain, some hail and even snow thrown in for good measure, and it's awfully hard to bring the camera out in those conditions. Hope these photos give you a sense of the rural, isolated mountain community we're currently living in. There is a creek that runs right next to our cabin but since it's been raining so much it's hard to distinguish if we're hearing the creek or the rain. Also, we haven't been doing many photo-worthy activities.
Patricia is a widowed, retired medical practitioner nearing 70 who is a grassroots green party leftist radical. She fanatically listens to and watches independent news and is pretty tough for an older lady. Patricia cooks us three hot meals per day at her house and we dine together at her table. For breakfast, we have been eating hot porridge which we top with raisins, dried apples, almonds, walnuts, cashews, and sunflower seeds. Might sound tasty but we're dying for some honey! Patricia is a good cook, but her food seems to lack seasonings. Everything requires salt, and we are not typically people who salt food. We usually season our food during cooking so table seasoning is rarely required. She has been providing us with nutritionally dense food but if we were allowed to create a meal, our dishes would be different. Lunch and dinner mostly consists of salad, beans, a grain, and vegetables. Only one meal included one small piece of bread per person. The other day we had a mexican inspired lunch and we were each served one corn tortilla. What's the deal with corn tortillas? Who likes them? And why? (If you seriously like soft corn tortillas, please tell us why) The texture and consistency of soft corn tortillas disgusts us. Crunchy corn taco shells or crunchy corn chips have a good texture, but a soft corn tortilla somehow has the mouth-feel of vomit. We cannot identify what it is that so truly disturbs us, because we both love soft flour tortillas, and love the crispy corn, but the soft corn tortilla is horribly unappealing and unappetizing.
This morning we cleaned Patricia's pantry, washed more windows, and cleaned and organized the garage. The whole time, we could only think of two movies: The Karate Kid, for obvious reasons, and License to Drive, for perhaps more obscure movie trivia reasons. Jen said after washing all these windows, we should be able to beat Johnny Lawrence in that tournament.
*In a new attempt to reply to bloggers comments:
Andy
(1) Please share with us your dandelion tamale recipe, we will certainly encounter more dandelions.
(2) Some of our hosts read our blog. We don't think any of our comments are too controversial. Patricia would agree with our assessment of her traits and is proud of them.
Hey guys - thanks for the responses. The crunchy corn tortilla is definitely my favorite, but when it comes soft tortillas, I'd have to say corn is king. I was taught to love the corn-flour tortilla by a close friend in college who hailed from El Salvador. To her, wheat-flour tortillas were sacrilege. The 'original' tortilla, invented by the Aztecs more than 12,000 years ago, was made of corn and the corn-flour tortilla is generally the tortilla-of-choice for people throughout Latin America. The wheat tortilla is a much more modern invention, whose use is most common in North Mexican states and throughout the US. (If you think about the agricultural map of the Americas this makes perfect sense). The 'traditional' Mexican restaurants in NYC generally serve the corn-flour tortilla, and I have come to love the earthy, natural taste and texture of the corn tortilla as opposed to the sweeter, flatter taste and springy texture of the wheat. When you eat the corn tortilla it is easy to imagine the tastes that the people of the Americas enjoyed thousands of years ago as they formed corn meal into these tasty breads.
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