cakes

We went to Buenos Aires from Paris in 1955. I remember the date because we watched the riots in Bs.As. on T.V. (it was still a really new thing then). We took a house and my father was out of work for a while, so we stayed there until our next move.
Mom decided to bake a cake. It came out absolutely delicious. But she wasn't convinced of that and was quite puzzled. According to her, it should have been very high and fluffy. Instead, it was flat as a pie and chewy. Mom said "Angel food cakes aren't supposed to come out like that."
Mom had used up about a dozen yolks in this cake.
Anybody can make a mistake.

rice and beans

Tomorrow I go on a paseo. I'm always scared when I go somewhere I haven't been before, but I'm always very grateful of a chance to get out into the lovely country.
The last paseo I took here was a complete accident-on a little used road from one valley to another. My God, it's beautiful country! I'd never been there before.

So, I must prepare a take along lunch.

Greens and fruit salad, and....gallo pinto! (Actually, I had forgotten the name of this very simple rice and beans dish and had to look it up.)

Gallo Pinto is the name Ticos give it-people from Costa Rica. Of course, my mind went back to that single trip I took there. What an absolutely lovely place!!!!
I went on several paseos. To Braulio Carrilio,to Cartago, to Mal Pais , to Mistica outside volcan Arenal and a botanical garden, and to the oldest church.
The golf course my son went to in San Jose-not a private one-was incredible. It had islands of tropical growth in the green, and a lake in front!
The people were courteous and helpful...the whole place was covered in plants and flowers.We saw a coati and babies walking on the road...
I just remember it as lovely,and I relaxed and had a very very good time indeed.

These things just blow my mind.

quick cooking

I only now discovered how absolutely wonderful a pressure cooker can be!!!
As I live at 10,000ft above sea level, my carrots never really cooked. A stew took two to three hours to become edible. Last time I tried dry beans, after more that four hours of cooking they were still little rocks.A friend walked in, took them, and returned ten minutes later with nice chewy pulses, ready to be tossed in a refrito. I was hooked. I went out and bought one. (After having lived here for 30 years...)
WOW! I make excellent osso buco in 40 minutes. Chicken soup or stew, even with totally frozen chicken. Beef broth.A friend even made Matambre. My carrots finally come out cooked. And my beans are consistently lovely. All of these in under an hour. Gone is the anxiety of having to stay and watch out for something!!!
How come I waited so long? Maybe because finally three people at the same time told me about its advantages?
Yes, I've put aside total vegetarianism for a while.

shopping and stocking

I usually like Fridays.
Friday means markets and fresh produce.If I'm not in a rush, and have some cash in my purse, I go first to the impromptu stall in the volley ball court just half a block down from my house. This guy unloads his truck with fruit and vegetables from Ambato and stays until about roughly four in the afternoon. He covers the boxes and sacks with a black plastic sheet supported by poles stuck into anything handy.
I buy oranges, pineapple, melon, papaya, taxo, and maracuya (not always ALL of that) and mandarinas king for juices.
I also get small white potatoes when he has them, yuca, maduros dominica-nicer than barraganetes, I think, frejoles tiernos,habas, and if they look really nice, carrots and onions. I never buy lettuce or tomatoes there, though.

I can get all of these at the supermarket, of course, where I also like to go because they have the electric shopping cart. But in the court I get to say hello to the people who have known me for twenty years and therefore call me by my name.

Next I like to visit Pacho and Maritza's organic stall in the Floresta market. If they have them I buy alot of tomatoes-beautiful and tasty. I buy organic lettuce, herbs, leeks, avocados, broccoli, lemons,pimientos and anything else they are trying and looks good. These days I don't anymore, but I used to but yogurt, cheese and eggs also. Martiza makes excellent bread, jams and spreads, too.

The Supermaxi has vegetable and fruit sales on Wednesdays so I try to go then. They have asparagus and sprouts that I can't get elsewhere.

In Queseras del Bolivar I can get mushrooms and nuts wholesale, plus cheeses, butter and pulses grown in a community outside of Quito.

On Tuesdays I can visit Magdalena's feria, held in her garage. She has organic strawberries as well as all the other usual organic items.

It feels really good to be surrounded by the products of a garden. I feel wealthy...and having everything on hand makes it easier to eat well, balanced and of variety.

pumpkin and paint

How come I only now, at age 63, did I discover the fantastic advantages of the pressure cooker?
Because I finally ventured out to buy one, think it a useless extravagance. What a mistake!! The thing is a true blessing.
There no longer is the anguish of thinking I need to plan ahead for a simple meal. Dried beans don't really need to be soaked the night before to cook up well, frozen chicken can be put into the pot with vegetables twenty minutes before needing chicken stew or soup, beef stews finally come out with the vegetables totally cooked tasting wonderful, including rock hard carrots,and Marcela even makes brown rice !!! (I haven't tried that yet.)
I haven't discarded my old pots and pans though. Not yet.

Mario called from Riobamba, seeking a painting job. He probably ran out of money at his farm.
So, I decided to just go ahead and do it-revamp a few walls upstairs. I hired him.
Since I can't walk well, and it hurts, I left him on his own alot. THAT, yes, was a mistake.
Mario goes little whacko around paints and brushes.

I bought a pumkinish colour for the entrance, to energize the previously bleak total white (and dirty from hand and bicycle smudges) entrance. WOW. I certainly lucked out with THAT.
It looks terrific!!! The black iron handrails got a coat of terracotta to match, and the whole first impression has changed.
You now go into a warm and welcoming environment.

In the living room, Mario painted three walls with a colour I had chosen for only one, as an experiment-too see how it looked. It was horrible. Other than expressing my first impression,-THREE walls, not one?- I said nothing, but went out to buy a second colour, to tone down the lemonish with splotches from a sponge. It worked- I'm not entirely satisfied, but instead of hiring Mario for more days and mess and bother, I decided to let it go for now. At least it's neat, new and clean.
Oh well...

Then Mario went wild. I puffed achingly in the nest time and immediately saw the far wall that separates the kitchen from the rest of the area. Somebody had painted the window frame bright green some years ago-and below that Mario had used the sponge to dab a bright yellow leftover from a year ago paint. GAG. The yellows didn't match and the area looked like a nursery school.

I lost it.
He'd wasted about a whole two days (and my money) doing things I never asked for. So, I put an end to the contract, even though he did not finish. He was told to paint white over the yellow he'd put in under his own initiative (again, using my money, for his time, the paint, and transportation).

Basically it looks OK, but it's only half finished and my patience has entirely.
Oh, well...

Then he charges. Typical of all Ecuadorian workmen, they think they have done a terrific job, and tell me that they'd charge others x amount. It's useless to argue with them. They just don't understand quality and efficiency. If I do, they reply sounding cruelly exploited, and sulk.So I pay, sort of mumbling about unauthorized work and being charged the time for it and to repair damage. I swear next time I'll check up on him every ten minutes, and before that simply tell him I'll pay him y for the job. Yeah, but then I get too busy, too tired, or too something, or just forget, to follow through on that. Oh, well...


I need the place to be maintained. It's an old house, bought many years ago with a huge effort that I rent now so as to get some income. It's quite nice, but only if the things I slowly put in to make it look nice are taken care of. But people don't understand. Or care. They break things and won't replace them, like the bathroom mirror,and pots. Or they won't water the plants. And they die. This way they tear it down. It begins to look like shit. Just an old house.
I don't snoop on my tenants, and I simply can't inventorize everything.
Sigh.

Some people are nice, though. They have given me things and are clean.

Anyway, I continue to put energy and love into it. I wish my sons would, too.
I wish I still had Marthita or Jackie around to help me-they loved colors. But one has died and the other lives in Cali now. And I'd love to just have the time and money to do at all and well, at one go. But I don't.
Oh well...

The pumpkin colour looks very good, but the carpet now ought to be replaced..
Oh, well...

enchantment

I don't eat these. And only Pachamama can prepare them.

The first time I saw them in the wild was on a paseo to a small patch of primary forest hidden on a mountainside and surrounded by cultivated fields. I was awed. Never had I even dreamed of finding something like that! So delicate, so complex, so lovely.
I took one home and kept it alive, by simple accident, since I had no real idea of how to care for it, for several years.

I then found a different one, incredibly, quite hidden in a thicket, right by a roadside. I also gathered that one.

The first lilac, then yellow.

Orchids.
I now know it was quite wrong to gather them in the wild. What I get now I buy, from producers.
That way I don't interfere with nature's selection and propagation.

I try to cultivate my own in pots on my terrace, but the kind that used to grow around here. And I have four in pots in my house. I've bought books on the subject, learned some names, and I've gone to a couple of exhibitions. They never cease to be breathtaking.

cooking cuy

A friend, her husband and their houseguest dropped by to surprise me.We talked of things we remembered.
One as a time she invited me and my dog to her country house, to lunch of the very much appreciated and vaunted cuy asado. Everybody went on and on about this marvel.
I wasn't very enthused by the menu, but my dog loved running around the large lawn, and I just liked walking around. Once she planted corn and we harvested spinach and radishes. Boy, I love radishes-especially just picked up from the ground. So I said yes, thankyou.
When we finally sat down, things looked good and smelled that way, too. Valiantly I picked up the skewer and chomped into the roasted beastie. But ugh. It wasn't my initial revulsion over eating cuy that provoked my reaction. The poor lady-my friend's mother in law- just hadn't known how to grill. The thing was almost burnt on the outside, but inside it was completely raw! Definitely ugh.Nobody ate.
In Antlantida I'd watched my brother grill. In Uruguay they use wood and burn it down to grey coals. They have a moveable parrilla manipulated by a chain, so the thing being cooked, mostly meat, can be lifted away from the heat, or lowered for more.
I learned how to do it...but. It still takes an experienced master to produce a superior parrillada.