AUTUMN IN VERMONTA CRUZ

Here ya go. This is as close to winter as we seem to get here along the bay.  The sky gets a wee bit darkish and one of the neighborhood trees gets all yellowy-orangey in it's leafy bits. Okay, there you go, it is officially the first day of winter. 

Once, a year or so ago, there was talk of local snow but that was a bunch of hooey in the end, and we were watching the news last night with the weather guy jabbering on about the mid-west being in the clutches of the massive winter storm.  they were showing footage of a freeway in Nebraska with about 6 inches of snow sticking to the ground and in the background you could hear the Anchorman chipping in saying, "boy, they are really getting a lot of snow..." 

we're dreaming of a wet, dark green Christmas...

TWINKIE, TWINKIE, LITTLE STAR...

Well, a year has slickered by and, mostly through personal neglect, our live-inna-bucket Christmas tree is still alive and well.  Longer of limb and taller beyond it’s bigger bucket, it needed only a quick pinch or three to remove the odd brown bits and a quick if somewhat weighty lift from the deck to the living room.

As I stated last year, I have concerns about a live tree casting me, willy-nilly, into that pit filled with a writhing bevy of suck ass white liberals.  I dedicated some time to my powers to circumvent this fate and finally found a happy solution.

It has been my habit for most of my adult life to decorate my tree with a changing theme each year… western, Cajun, fruit & veg, Mexican and the like.  This year, to distance myself from the Whole Foods crowd, I settled on a tribute to junk food.

Off to the stores in search of ornaments I was both pleased and surprised to discover glass baubles shaped like hot dogs, bottles of whiskey, cupcakes, popsicles, mugs of beer, ice cream cones, hamburgers and a big banana split.

Okay, enough of a cash outlay for this project. To fill in the rest of the tree I turned once more to my old friend Photoshop, Prince of the Dark Arts.  Faster than you could say Hostess ten times, I had created a nice selection of teeny Spam cans, miniature Velveeta cheese boxes, orders of fries and scaled down boxes of movie popcorn.

A quick swivel from art table to sewing machine and I had a lovely garland of small breakfast sausages.  

Start with a string of red chili pepper lights, add the decorations and some nice rubber doughnut chew toys, drape your sausages and top the whole affair with a memorial Twinkie star and you are ready for the fat man to make an appearance.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good bite…

HE'S BACK JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

So my friends Lovely and Michelle tend to go “whole hog” on the Christmas decorations, and while there the other day I was casting about for something to read while in the bathroom. Luckily there was a lovely little, holiday themed thrift store tome from the classic series of Jokes for the John.  It offered the usual bits about greatest hits of the holidays, factoids about popular gifts, the origins of the Christmas card… and an odd little gem about the Catalan region of Spain.

And I mean to tell you that the operative word here is odd.

So odd that I researched its authenticity and then decided to pass it along here in it’s curious entirety…

In Catalonia, Spain, a region along the country’s border with France, it’s tradition to display a Nativity scene at Christmas. And like most Nativity scenes around the world, the ones in Catalonia include figurines of the standard Christmas story characters: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, some shepherds, a few sheep and cows. But unlike other Nativity scenes, those in Catalonia feature one more character -  El Caganer.

Whoa…who?

You know, El Caganer… a shepherd with his pants around his ankles, taking a dump. He shows up most places year round and is usually found squatting behind a bush or bale of hay, wearing the traditional red Catalan hat and smoking a pipe. But ever since the late 17^th century the region’s Christmas Nativity scenes have always included El Caganer, which translates literally to “the great defecator”.

It’s unclear exactly how the tradition started, but the Catalan people have always been a mostly agricultural society, and defecation was a symbol of fertility and good crops.  Therefore the most commonly heard explanation is that El Caganer is there to bring fertile soil, good crop yields along with good luck and prosperity to people who “invite” him into their homes.

Originally made of clay, today’s El Caganer is usually made of plastic, and comes in a variety of characters beyond the traditional monk or shepherd – famous soccer players, a police officer, actors, rock stars, Santa Claus or political figures like President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and the U.S. President George W. Bush.

In December 2010, a 19-foot tall defecating giant at the Maremagnum Shopping Centre in Barcelona, Spain snagged the Guinness World Record for Largest Caganer.

Wanna learn more? Google him or go to caganer.com and buy yourself one.

And if that ain’t weird enough, the region’s children have their own special Yule log called the “Caga Tio” or “pooping log”. It seems that for two weeks before Christmas this loaf-sized wooden log, sporting a painted face and red hat, sits on a table in the family home and every day the children and adults “feed” him by offering food and wine.

Then on Christmas Day the children move the log to the fireplace hearth and cover it with a blanket. The children then hide while their parents put wrapped presents, candy and other treats under the cloth. The finale comes when the children return and beat the log with sticks and pull out the presents while chanting:

Poop log! Poop log!

Poop candy for Christmas!

If you don’t, we will whack you again!

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…

THE BETTER GUITAR

Don’t you just hate feeling like a complete dolt? You know, where you go listen to live music on a whim and two songs in you find yourself wondering, “How in the hell did I not even know about this person? Have I been living under a large stone for the past decade?”

Such was the case last Wednesday night when the lovely Tama and I motored up to Felton to a music bar called Don Quixote’s. I had seen an ad in the Weekly about a woman named Muriel Anderson and I was intrigued mostly because it said she plays the harp guitar.  If you are unfamiliar with this instrument then close your eyes and imagine a regular old steel string six string guitar. Got it? Good. Now imagine that someone has nailed a dulcimer to the top of it and strung that with bass guitar strings… no doubt simpler to envision than to play.  The one she played (her traveling one…) had a total of eleven strings, but some run to a couple dozen or more.  It was popular in the United States during the first decade of the 20^th Century and all the big names made them for a while.

Not only is she a stellar guitar player (in 1989 she was the first woman to win the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship…) with digits like greased lightning, she is all over the place stylistically.  I figure she must have paid more for her guitar than I did for mine because hers came with a whole lot more notes inside just dyin’ to get out.

She opened with some space age stuff she wrote and moved directly into a Greek food inspired instrumental in 13/8 time. A traditional piece for the koto, adapted to the guitar for her upcoming Japan tour and a piece she "co-wrote" with Beethoven. Then it was off to Ireland and then a lullaby from the CD she wrote and recorded as a present to a good friend’s newborn.  Her grandfather was a saxophone player in John Phillip Sousa’s band so, of course, she had to play Sousa’s Liberty Bell March. Then a tasty mélange of flamenco tunes on a spanish guitar, a passel of fiddle tunes, the 1906 hit Nola, several nice pieces she learned sitting around Chet Atkins kitchen and a medley of high speed banjo tunes that she adapted for guitar in tribute to her friend and neighbor the late Earl Scruggs.  Toss in some Beatles, Don McLean and Dire Straits and, by golly, you got yourself and evening’s entertainment.

I had never even heard of Muriel Anderson before, but you can bet I won’t forget her any time soon…

POOR FOLKS EAT BETTER

Man, I love “poor people” food.  To me it spoke volumes about her dining habits  when Fran Lebowitz said, “If you’re going to America, bring your own food.” Being a New Yorker she must have been dining out above her station or something because the America where I grew up (and hey, she’s five months younger than me…) is full of succulent, tasty and filling bowls, plates and platters available in a variety of styles where ever I have wandered.  In other words, when you travel, eat where the po’ folks eat.

Biscuits and ham gravy, jambalaya, etouffé, roadside tacos, paella… simple yet elegant.  And, no, I’m not talking about some nouvelle grub where some wunderkind has “deconstructed” a tamale and topped it with a flash frozen, whipped reduction of plankton larvae letting him think that merits a 2 ounce portion for $27.50… grits and eggs for breakfast, please and hold the rutabaga sorbet and the less than useless plating dribbles of coffee infused eel saliva…

What I am talking about is the kind of good, solid food found in its natural state only if you cook it yourself or have shirt-tail relatives living around the wrong side of town who will let you in at dinner time.

Oops, am I ranting again?

To me personally there is nothing I love more than a big old steaming bowl of posolé, that unforgettable southwestern staple. 

Now I recognize the limb I am climbing out on here… since the geography is so vast so, to, are the recipes. I’ve had it in beachside restaurants in Mexico where it was thick enough to eat with a fork and I’ve had it at a Christmas Posada in New Mexico where they were feeding dozens of folks and it ran mostly to liquid and “cheap seat” cuts of meat.

When I make it (and I often do…) it lands somewhere right in between.  I learned it from a long time resident anglo of New Mexico and my first taste became my own personal idée fixe.

For dinner for 2-3 folks, I start with a pork chop, trim off all the fatty bits, toss them into my deep cast iron 10 inch with a little oil and hit the heat. This renders out the yumminess without leaving you with the chewiness later on. In this caldron of flavor I toss diced onion, garlic and red pepper for a quick sauté and then dump in the meatie, porkie bits to brown and caramelize before dumping in enough water to fill the pot mostly full. In go the diced, mild green chilies, a passel of hominy and the usual suspects in the spice and flavor department.

This goes on the back burner, on low for a day or two until everybody gets married and winds of up in bed together.

Guests almost here? Ah, now for the finishing touches…

Take to hand a pile of fresh veggies… tomato, avocado, peppers, green onion, radishes and cilantro, for example. Plate all this along with lime slices, roasted pumpkin seeds or peanuts and a bowl of hard, crumbled Mexican cheese. Take a moment to heat up some corn tortillas and you are done but for the serving up.

Like a good serving of Pho, it don’t look like enough food but it will fill you right up every time.

FIESTA SURPRISE INDEED

Those of you who are no stranger to my blog will already know that I often rail against them what would mess with the classics… pizza doesn’t have clams, spinach has no place in eggs benedict, beer is only water, yeast, hops and barley and tuna noodle casserole has only canned tuna fish, cream of mushroom soup, noodles and, if you must, a smattering of frozen peas. Crushed soda crackers on top…end of story.

What, then, do you do with that tin of canned tuna in chipotle sauce you bought on a whim at La Princessa Mercado in Watsonville? Well, you leave it in the kitchen cupboard awaiting some manner of inspiration until, in final exasperation, you cook up something that the 1954 Betty Crocker would have called Fiesta Surprise or Tuna a la Mexicana.

While the noodles are boiling you fetch up a large bowl and blend together:

            1 can of cream of mushroom soup

            1 small can of mild, diced green chilies

            1 can of tuna in chipotle sauce

            1 small handful of frozen peas

            1 tablespoon each of diced red pepper and sautéed onion

            ¼ cup crumbled hard Mexican cheese

            salt and pepper to taste

Drain the boiled noodles and stir into the other ingredients. Slap it into a covered casserole and sprinkle the top with crushed taco flavor Doritos. Bake for 25 minutes at 400º.

Serve with a side of steamed veggies and sliced bread with butter… and may I recommend Jello parfait for desert.

SHRUBS ON WHEELS

For the first time since immigrating to Insanity Cruz I was in town the weekend of “Woodies on the Wharf”, an eighteen year tradition of filling the Boardwalk wharf with a wide variety of classic vehicles that prominently feature real wood trim on their exteriors.

Now let me say that I have had a woody for woodies since I can’t remember when and this started out like dyin’ and goin’ to heaven without having to get all dressed up.  Then, after you have seen your umpteenth late 40’s, dark blue Ford (which, to the untrained eye, looks remarkably like the late 40’s, dark blue Pontiac right next to it…) you find yourself walking faster and choosing photo ops more slowly… I mean there were seemingly hundreds to see.

There were woodies in every style and stage of decrepitude and redemption. Some shinier than brand new and looking more like a decoupaged  novelty  than a vehicle while others looked like a “one-owner” that had been rode hard and put up wet.  The more complete the restoration the more likely there was a large photo of the “before” carcass of the car replete with tales of finding it in a back pasture with a tree growing through the floorboards, etc.

The longer you strolled the more the cars began to blend together and the more one began to eyeball the folks around you and evesdrop on conversations… the homeless guy, watching his friend get a citation of some sort, saying to the cop, “Can I get a ride in a cop car without having to going to jail?” and the cream of the motorhead comments, “The older you get the more you hire someone else to do shit.” And, “That piece of chrome under the back window is definitely not original.”


As you strolled faster and a thirst for a cold beer grew you still had to stop once in a while when something very different popped up.  A 1933 Rolls Royce Shooting Brake, the lovely and diminutive Morris Minors, an Austin hearse converted years ago to a roach coach...

And then there was the cutie below which is actually a heavily after-marketed 66 VW bug beautifully and skillfully re-invented.

We both agreed that the best ones were well loved and a little shopworn around the edges, showing that the car was still a car and not one of the family jewels only taken out to be worn to the Governor’s ball, as it were.