Trailer Park Karma

Congratulations! You have a teenager! Happy Birthday, Bunny. <3

Barrio Berries. Just As Sweet.

We have a berry patch on our homestead in da hood. Well, it's not exactly ours or even in our yard, but there's nobody living in the house next door and the patch springs up right on the edge of the back fence, even though every week last summer and at least monthly since autumn, the dudes with the Killer Huge Mowers and damned loud weed eaters have assaulted the air, our ears, and every living creature on the other side of our wrought-iron fence posts, where The Barrio Berries live.

So in my thinkin', since (a) nobody lives there, and (b) the poor plant has managed to survive human onslaughts to the extent of sprouting a little fruit this spring in spite of being not just neglected but attacked, it's mine. Just like those dogs and cats I used to find dazed and stinkin' on the road.

The Editor will have nothing to do with the berries. They look absolutely fine to me. In fact, I daresay these berries look maybe even better than a lot of wimpy produce you can get from those farms.I guess when a vine only has one or two or three fruits to work on, there's more of everything to go around and everybody's happier.

Of course, I did consider (with The Ed's suggestion) that the plant may have experienced a spray or two with toxic chemicals by folks who don't love volunteer berry patches as much as I do. But I've ingested a whole handful's worth by now, and so far, so good. (Y'all will tell me if I start glowing, right?)

Picking berries is one of those things that kids did more of when I was younger. I'm glad to hear about those farms where you can drag the little burb children on a 2-hour ride to wander around in the intense swamp heat escorted by mosquitoes to fill up plastic buckets with berries -- almost any time of year!

Yeah, I never did that to my kid. The Boy learned about berry picking the old fashioned way, like I did, when he was three years old. We lived in a different part of Swamp City, just as urban but with lots more shade trees. The huge empty corner lot across the street used to host a house, but it had long ago burned down and never been rebuilt. There's almost nothing more fertile in the city than where a house burned down. A few carefully positioned trees were surrounded by wildness. We used to wander over there when I got stir-crazy in our tiny century-old house, to feel like we were in the country. And we stumbled upon some of the biggest berry patches I'd ever seen outside o' the cow pasture in back of our house in the South-Park-now-called-Martin-Luther-King area of Swamp City. (Now there's a story -- up to the time I was nine, we lived in a house that backed up to Ben Taub's field. He had a hospital named after him. We sat on the top of the fence (it was built like a ladder with a flat 2x4 on top) and talked to the cows and horses. We weren't supposed to, but of course, we'd slink down on the other side into the thorny bushes and grab a few berries.)

So I taught my son not just how to pick berries, but how to spot a berry patch in the wild. I figure when the End Times come, he's gotta eat somethin', even if there's no sugar to sprinkle on the berries by then.

My patch'll do fine by me. It's another little gift, for which I am thoroughly grateful (and lucky).

Spring! Sit! Stay!

I don't want this to end. Spring in Swamp City is, well, one of the reasons people love living here. That's right, I said people love living here. It's true. Maybe other major metropolitan areas have a whole buncha organizations that constantly toot their city's horn for reasons other than to attract tourists and developers... but I don't think so. It might useta be a place where folks "had to" move to for work, but now I think we're bustin' at the seams with people who genuinely recognize a pretty nice chunk of swampland when they see it.

And spring is one reason why. Ex-pat homegirl in NYC even thinks so.

And ya know what? Rather than spend this fantastically gorgeous day sittin' here typin' at ya, waxin' all philosophical 'n' ever'thang, I'm just gonna let a few pics speak for me.

But I will let you ponder this: One of the best things life has taught me (and I can call out some individuals in particular as exquisite teachers but I won't because without knowing the whole story, you can make too many wrong assumptions) is how the better I get at both fully immersing in the moment and not clinging to it, the more joy I feel in those magical moments and the easier the grief slips away when the moment is gone.

But damn, I don't want spring to end.

No Pictures Please. Just Really Good Food.

Y'all just don't know how tough it can get around here when it comes to photo-documenting all the food I make. You know how it is -- when you're makin' do with what you've got and what you wind up with, a lotta times time is the first thing that flies out the window. 

I am creative, improvisational, and resourceful, if nothing else.

So anyway -- my latest "nobody knows da trouble I seed" is about the collision of tragically dying computers, gleefully gifted substitute machines with turtle-like tendencies, creeping internet speed that rivals the rural Republic (the similarities are profound), and tons o' bona fide paying work. Recent days have been filled to the coughing brim by my frantic dashing between two laptops with 10-year-old operating systems, abundant photographic inspiration, and a palpitating heart. The result: here's a few recipes without a single photo to show you how the dish looks.

You'll just have to trust me.(I'm worth the investment.)

And while you're cookin, you can visually enhance and beautify your kitchen environment with this lovely photo shot from my back yard. At least IT made it on to the machines...



The other night, we had this (not the picture -- I mean, the recipes below) for dinner on a night when the last thing I wanted to do (well, maybe second to last) was cook, our cupboards were thinning, and I was hungry for healthy food. Turned out to be a good thing -- we're getting back to the better-for-you-in-so-many-ways meal habit of making meat a highlight instead of a main course. A buncha veggies, a taste of animal flesh. The Editor raved. I mean, really. He convinced me to g'head and write it down.

Fancy Ground Chuck Burgers

Nothing special here (just 2 store-shaped chuck patties that were way on-sale) but the marinade:

1 tablespoon each - soy sauce & Balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons brown sugar

Stir ingredients together til the sugar dissolves, pour on the patties and let them soak for an hour or two. Then I just fried 'em up in a non-stick skillet. Nom.

Crunchy Curry Broccoli Salad

1 small bunch of broccoli
1/2 medium onion
1 large carrot
Balsamic vinegar
soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 - 2 tsp curry powder
pinch of Kosher salt
white pepper to taste
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

Chop, grind, process, or blend (take your pick) the broccoli, onion, and carrot until it's coleslaw small. Combine all of it in a bowl. 

Splash some of the vinegar and soy sauce over it all -- not enough to soak it, for sure, just enough to dampen it all when you stir it together. I'm gonna guess it was about a tablespoon and a half for each. Let it sit while you make the rest...

Put the olive oil in a little saucepan, sprinkle in the curry powder, salt, and pepper, and heat on medium just til it starts making noise, about a minute or two. Then dump in your sunflower seeds. You should get a little giggle outta the crispy sizzle sound. I always do. 

Keep stirring the seeds in the oil or they'll burn, and do it until they start looking toasty brown. Then remove from heat and immediately dump it on the broccoli/onion/carrot stuff. More exciting sizzle commences! You start feeling like a chef on TV. 
Stir it all together and serve immediately.

Frozen French Fries From A Bag

Yes. This is what we had to compliment the above. But only about a handful each. One does what one must. And besides, when you undercook them just a smidge in the toaster oven, they taste almost as good as monkey fat fries from the fastfood places.

All in all, a nicely rounded, satisfying, and tasty meal. (Yes, Ed. I said "tasty.")