Weather Window and Scent of Pine
This morning we had a “weather window” after last night’s wind storm. On our way out to dinner last night, we took a slightly round-about way to the restaurant to avoid the large major road on which all the traffic lights were out. Seattle motorists are so civil; the lights go out, they take turns going through the lights. Even so, traffic backs up to kingdom come. I figured out a way we could avoid that dogpile, and we got the the restaurant with no problem. The wind was sending the rain in lashes, but at one of the most popular restaurants in town, a parking spot was available right in front.
On our way in, a group of women on the way out hollared “It’s a 45 minute wait!” and we just laughed – my Mom is a smart cookie. We had reservations.
Finally, I am on local time, and when we got home, I slept like a baby. Early in the morning my sister came to my room and told me how she had been up most of the night, worried about the wind blowing. Trees were falling everywhere, and she was worried about the house. She said the wind didn’t die down until the early hours of the morning. She has lived in Seattle thirty three years and had never experienced a worse storm.
But there was a “weather window” this morning. Bad weather behind us, bad weather ahead of us, but for right now, right this minute, the sun is shining and the roads are clear of ice. As I drive, I smell pine everywhere, and in our neighborhood, the road crews have already been out clearing trees off the roads and pushing all the debris to the sides. The smell is pure heaven, pure sweet pine scented air.
The wind and rain have washed all the dust away, the air itself sparkles, and the trees still standing are an amazing shade of green, a green so dark it is almost black. It’s a morning to delight the senses.
Seattle’s Northgate Mosque
Driving down to Seattle today, I was stopped at the light by the Northgate Mosque:
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States.
Diamond Chip
Is there anything sweeter than a new baby? Diamond Chip isn’t even one week old.
This is his quilt:
Transitions
This week, my Mom bought a new bright red, lightweight suitcase for her trip next week to Portland. We went to the train station yesterday to buy her ticket. She can get on the train here in our little home town and off the train in Portland, Oregon. It’s her first trip all by herself in a long time. She will meet up with her brother and friend in Portland.
Little Diamond is presenting at a conference this week, and then will head back for Seattle en route to her apartment in Beirut. She is SO excited.
Mom and I will go see Precious Diamond and her little Diamond Chip this morning after dropping Mom’s car off to be serviced. Precious Diamond is experiencing that huge transition called Motherhood. Whew! I remember that one! No one can tell you ahead of time how your life will change, how utterly and completely a tiny infant can become the center of your world.
And I am packing up in anticipation of my own transition back to Kuwait. I am flying a new route, as I had to reserve my flight so late that my regular route is totally booked. More take offs and landings, fewer hours. Go figure. I am guessing that with all the holidays falling in the same time frame, I am competing for seats with Eid travellers as well as Christmas/New Years travellers.
See y’all soon.
Blogging: The Opinion Explosion
Today there was a lively discussion on National Public Radio about news, and the great enormity of it, and how news reporting is changing. It used to be, so they said, that news reporters reported the facts, as best they could find the information, and they kept their opinions to themselves. The goal was objectivity.
Hmmmmm. In the US, it seems to me we had an entire period when the press was seen as “muckracking” or seeking scandal. The tabloids have always been with us. Even in the HBO TV series Rome, there were cartoons on the wall, a sort of primitive newspaper, entertaining, whether true or not-true.
So my speculation would be that as objective and fair (or as Fox puts it “fair and balanced” reporting which totally makes me want to throw up because FOX is SO SO slanted) as we would like to think our news is, bias has always crept in, and it is always a case of caveat emptor when it comes to news.
Here were some priceless quotes and ideas from the today’s NPR discussion:
“Not everyone’s experience is that interesting.”
Two rules for basic research:
1) Not every authority is right. Don’t believe someone just because they claim “authority”. Authorities can be wrong.
2) Just because you agree with an authoritie’s opinion does not make it true.
When you blog, podcast, SMS, etc. information, be sure to give your source of information and some evaluation of how reliable that source is likely to be.
Wikipedia is not necessarily a reliable source to be quoting. You have to double check the sources of information there, too.
My favorite piece of verbiage: We are experiencing a cacaphony of unfiltered information.
My comment: It’s exciting to hear people discuss the new ways in which we are getting – and sharing – news/information. I was in traffic, trying desperately to write phrases and ideas down at every red light. (How often do you say “alhamdallah” for the red lights??) We have access to so much more information, but how much of it is “hard” and how much is opinion? I love hearing people discussing information and dissemination of information, and how it is changing our lives.
And how much harder it is for any nation to keep a big secret – the containment walls have become more porous, information seeps through. Cell phones transmit real time dramas, bloggers share information (and misinformation), news can be SMS’d before it hits the airwaves by official sources. Governments which like to control information are fighting a losing battle, and it will increasingly change the faces of government (oops, my opinion!).
As our actions become increasingly public (cameras tracking vehicles, bank withdrawals, parking lots, cell phones broadcasting private moments, etc) we will all become, privately and publicly, increasingly accountable. (I am extrapolating here!) What an interesting new world . . .
Seattle Earthquakes
This is for AbdulAziz. I had just posted my Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse when I read his comment on the Seattle Houseboat Culture, and his experience with a Seattle earthquake.
In 1996, we bought a house in a Seattle suburb. We had been living in Florida, and I never liked it. In the Tampa Bay area, it was always too hot, too humid, I never felt like I had my normal energy. I was so delighted to get back to the Pacific Northwest.
“No more sinkholes!” I told my husband. “No more hurricanes! You’re going to love Seattle.”
We had just moved in. I was in our bedroom reading, my husband and son and a visiting friend were playing a board game in the living room and all of a sudden the game seemed to be getting a little rowdy. They must be wrestling or something, because the house was shaking. But the shaking got more and more violent, the entire house was shaking back and forth on its foundation. I could hear my husband in the dining room telling them to stop, and then realizing that the chandelier was swaying so violently because it was an earthquake.
That winter, the day after Christmas was a huge snowstorm, all the electricity went out for several days and we were totally snowed in, cold, freezing cold, no heat.
My husband has never let me forget it. I have photos of him, out in his big coat and fur hat, shovelling the acres of snow off the drive so we could get over to my parents and . . . shovel more snow.
“No hurricanes!” he taunts me. “No sinkholes! But earthquakes and snowstorms! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!”
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
For two days now, it has been rainy, oh! sheets of rain coming down. If you have an umbrella, it doesn’t help. You are soaked before you can even get your umbrella up, and the wind keeps blowing in gusts from different directions so the umbrella goes inside out.
The perfect day for Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse, a recipe from a cookbook my aunt gave me, published in 1946 – no longer even in print. But the recipe is a winner – easy, satisfying, and with a salad and French Bread, a complete stormy day meal, warming and satisfying from the inside out.
A bouillabaisse is flexible, and relies on slow simmering and some reduction to obtain its deep, rich, complex flavor. Fishermen use what they catch – the more, the merrier, in a bouillabaisse. For extra credit, serve with a rouille, a red, peppery mayonnaise. (Yes, blenders make any mayonnaise do-able.)
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
From Mary Cullen’s Northwest Cook Book, 1946 (with alterations)
This is one of the all-star recipes if you like seafood and if your friends do, too.
1 1/2 lbs. cod, halibut or red snapper, or good solid white meat fish like grouper, cut into bite sized chunks
1 large hard shell crab, cook, take meat out (or two or three small Kuwaiti crab)
2 lbs. small clams in the shell, or if you are stuck, you can use canned clams
1/2 lb. mussels, if available
10 – 12 medium large shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cups fish stock (I use the water from cooking the crab, and cook the fish heads etc. until you have a good, tasty stock)
1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
1 green and 1 red sweet pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon saffron
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
Prepare fish, removing bones and cutting into bite sized pieces. Several kinds of fish can be used, if preferred. Clean meat out of crab legs and crab body, put aside.
In large pan, sautee onion, peppers and garlic in olive oil, add bay leaf and cut up fish and fish stock, cook very slowly, without boiling, for about 20 minutes or until fish is tender.
Add crab, clams, shrimp, mussels, seasonings, and lemon juice. Let cook 3 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. It is tradition that on cold winter’s days, the bread can be dunked in the broth!
This is a photo from Wikipedia, showing genuine French Bouillabaisse. The Pacific Northwest version doesn’t have a tomato-y broth, but more clear broth.
Seattle’s Houseboat Sub-Culture
In Seattle, there is an entire sub-culture that lives on houseboats, mostly urban professionals. Unlike many parts of the world, the houseboats in Seattle are truly designed as houses, and have to meet city standards. They can only dock in designated areas, and they are solely for living, they don’t have any means of propulsion. They are not truly boats, but houses floating on the water.
I lived in one for two weeks, many years ago. I never got used to it. I worried about sinking all the time.
Seattle is quirky. Houseboats, caffeine-addiction, super-technology, fitness addicts, airplanes (home of Boeing) and one of the most literate cities in the United States. Washington state has the highest minimum wage in the nation – $7.93 per hour.
Desperately Jet Lagging
The shift from Kuwait to Seattle is 11 time zones. It means that no matter what time it is, my body time is almost exactly the opposite. Sometimes I hardly notice. This time, it has been miserable. I am like a newborn baby, up and wide awake at all the wrong times, and falling asleep at all the wrong times.
Not one of us made it until midnight last night. My son and his bride are also jet lagging from their trip back from Kuwait, and also their red-eye special to Seattle for Dad’s services on Saturday. We are all fairly wrung out with the emotional toll. By nine last night, everyone was asleep. My son and his wife and Little Diamond all had early early morning flights, so my day started early – I never could get back to sleep.
So early on this New Year’s morning, I headed over to my Mom’s, stopping first at the little local Starbuck’s – yes, open even early on New Year’s morning.
Parking was plentiful, a welcome surprise, but I was not the only customer. There were several people and a city policeman having a get together so early on New Year’s Day. It is cold today, windy, rainy, cold and damp, it penetrates and chills your bones. Ahhhh, yes, a perfect time for a Peppermint Mocha.
You can see the Olympic mountains in the distance, with a fresh coating of snow. Can you feel how cold it is?
I’d Be Lost Without It: Misto Sprayer
Seven years ago, my nephew, Global Man, gave this little tool to my sister for Christmas. I had never heard of it, and so he showed me how it worked. WOW.
We are firm believers in olive oil. And firm believers in food with less processing and chemical additives, rather than more.
He showed me you you put the oil in, maybe half a cup, and screw the top back on. How you pump the brushed aluminum cap up and down five or six times to achieve pressure inside, then just press the button and out comes a VAPOR of olive oil. The vapor is so fine, that I use it now for almost everything.
It took me a while. I was afraid the taste of olive oil would detract in some recipes, but the vapory film of oil laid down is so fine that it goes undetected in every but the very most refined recipes.
Instead of the spray cans you buy in the stores, full of chemical aerosols to make the oil spray, it uses air – imagine! And it allows you to use your very favorite olive oil all the time, so your cooking gets all the added benefits of olive oil, but so finely sprayed as to spare the calories.
I love this tool. It is available in better (walk-in) cooking stores, also from Amazon, and other mail order cooking supply stores. William Sonoma has one called QuickMist; looks like the same tool. I’d be lost without it.
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