Santa’s Wish List: Cookbooks
You might think I love to cook. You would be very wrong.
I had a great friend for many years, one of those Southern gals with a last name first name, and when one day I told her of my secret guilt – that cooking wasn’t FUN for me, she said “what we do, every day, is SURVIVAL cooking. We just meet the expectation of getting a meal on the table. That doesn’t have to be fun, it just has to be done.”
That’s pretty much what I do, and why I have been giving you all these great recipes. The truth about the recipes I am giving you is that most of them are EASY and they taste good. A few require special equipment and mastering a new skill, but it’s like swimming – once you’ve done it, it’s easy. There is nothing complicated about the recipes I am sharing with you – they are ones I use, too!
Books About Food and Eating
First I will share with you two books available through third party vendors at Amazon. The first is Food Lover’s Companion (A Comprehensive Definition of Over 4000 Food, Wine and Culinary Terms) by Sharon Tyler Herbst, which is available starting at $14.93, and the second is M.F.K Fisher’s The Art of Eating, also available through Amazon at $11.53. The Companion is invaluable when someone uses a term for a cooking technique or ingredient you don’t know; it has words for everything! My husband reads this book sometimes just for fun and is always sharing new information he has learned. The MFK Fisher book is just plain fun reading about food, full of information and anecdotes and stories, written in an enormously readable way.
Beginner Cookbooks
The first cookbook I used was the McCalls Cookbook – no longer in print. It had photos of how do do the things I found so intimidating, and that is where I got my earliers Christmas cookie recipes – the Russian Tea Cakes and the Candy Cane Cookies. The second was The Joy of Cooking, which I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. What is good about these books is that they keep it really simple. In Joy, they give you a long theoretical section, which you can read if you have the time, and which helps, but at the beginning it isn’t always easy to even understand the basics. That takes time. Then you can go back and read later and go “Aha! Now I understand!”
Cookbook Secrets
Actually, I love reading cookbooks. I have a huge collection. And almost all of them are Junior League Cookbooks. So here’s the secret – when you are looking for cookbooks, look for ones where women who contribute have to put their names. If their name is on the recipe, you can trust that the recipe will work, and that it will be one of their best recipes – they don’t want to be embarrassed!
The majority my cookbooks are from the South. And narrowing it down even further, most of my favorites come from Louisiana or Georgia.
The first one I ever bought was Talk About Good! And oh, it WAS good!
These recipes use ingredients like real cream and real butter and lots of salt. Southern people have some of the lowest life-expectancy rates in the United States – I suspect their eating habits have a lot to do with it. But if it isn’t a habit to eat so richly, every now and then it just tastes SO GOOD to use these ingredients. You will also notice that it has what they call a “plastic comb” binding. That means when you open it up to follow a recipe, it will lie flat. That’s a really good thing!
My second favorite is Quail Country, by the Junior League of Albany, Georgia. You would really have to scour the book stores to find this out-of-print classic, because so few people would ever want to part with it. Another gem is The Fort Leavenworth Collection, if you can get your hands on it – again, yard sales, used book stores would be your best bet.
There is a wonderful group of stores in the USA called Half Price Books. If books are not being bought as gifts, if you plan to just read a book and pass it along, or if you like to have a few on hand to pass along because you think they are so great, Half Price Books is a great place. They have the most obscure books, books you never thought you would see again. Many of their books are new, but remaindered (left over from book stores that couldn’t sell the, or from publishers who published too many copies) so they are sold at half price. They will also buy used books from you, but to me, they offer so little that I would just as soon give them away. (No, I don’t own stock in Half Price Books.)
There are some other fabulous Junior League cookbooks – the California Heritage Cookbook, the Seattle Classics, and there are other cookbooks produced by churches and charities that also have “real people” recipes that are drop-dead good. I remember once sharing a recipe for Chocolate Cheesecake from Seattle Classics. My friend told me she made it for Christmas dinner, but everyone was too full to eat dessert. But she said all night she heard doors opening and closing, as people snuck down to the kitchen to slice a little of the cheesecake and eat it, and in the morning, only a fragment was left!
Seeking out the best cookbooks can make every vacation an adventure. I have cookbooks from Kenya and Tunisia, Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia . . . all full of great recipes, recipes with names attatched. I wish you a grand adventure seeking out cookbooks that will thrill your heart. Happy Hunting!
The Kuwait Beauty Sisterhood
We love the Kuwait Airport. I love it that you can get a cup of coffee and just sit and wait for your arrivals to make that long long walk as you exit customs and head toward the exit. We love watching the families so excited to see one another. We make up stories for ourselves to explain what we are seeing. Sometimes, we cry, too, because it is so moving. We love it when the women ululate on seeing a new arrival, when brides arrive with their husbands, when Moms come back from Hajj.
A few nights ago, my husband was meeting late arrivals at the airport and he saw something we have NEVER seen before. He saw four women, all with identical bandages over their noses. He figures they must have gone somewhere for plastic surgery. All four at the same time? We figure they must be sisters, or cousins, or very very good friends, all having their noses trimmed at the same time. He said they weren’t at all self-conscious about it, rather they were grinning with pride. I think when there are four of you with the same big bandage, it must take the self-conscious factor WAAAAAYYYYY out.
We’re always laughing at what we call “buying hope in a bottle.” For me, it might be the next luxury face cream that promises me “visible results in 7 days”. For my husband, it is always the next super camera. For some, it is the hot motorcycle, or the next hot car. For some, it is the hottest new computer, or the tiniest, biggest gigabyte iPod with all the bells and whistles. We’re all looking for a little hope. It just gives me a big grin thinking of those four brave girls going under the knife together for better noses.
Google Earth – It Just Keeps Getting Better
This morning I had an e-mail from my nephew at GoogleEarth. There are days I feel like one of the luckiest women in the world – my sisters and I have the most interesting children, now young adults, and they are all working in areas where they feel useful – stressed, working too hard – but greatly satisfied, greatly productive.
How cool is it to love Geography, and to be working for GoogleEarth? I grin every time I think of my nephew, who loves the work he is doing.
His e-mail a couple weeks ago reminded me that the new GoogleEarth was out and to be sure to upgrade. You can be sure I did. Today, he tells me about another blog that always has the most up-to-date goodies from GE – Google Earth Blog.
On November 12, Frank Taylor, the blog author, says:
Google has quietly introduced four new Featured Content Layers today. Go to the Layers on the lower left and look for “Featured Content”. Open the folder and look for the new layers at the top. Each is marked with a red “New!”. Here’s a brief overview of the new layers:
Rumsey Historical Maps – This is a collection of historical maps which you can overlay over their location on Earth. If you are not running Google Earth 4, you will not see this layer. Open the folder and turn on the map that interests you. The first link shows you the locations of the different map and each description gives you a few details. You can then turn on each map and they will be overlayed in GE. The maps are “regionated” which means they will load more detail as you get closer (it also means the images are scanned at a very high resolution). I’m sure some of my mapping friends like Jonathan Crowe will be curious to see these.
Tracks4Africa – this is my favorite of the new layers. There are maps of places to go in Africa built by compiling data from GSP tracks. The layer also has lots useful information and photos. Zoom in closer to see more detail. You can read more, and buy the maps for your GPS, by going to Tracks4Africa’s web site.
Spotlight on Africa – This is a collection of placemarks showing the flag of each country of Africa. The placemark description includes an overview of basic information of each country from the CIA World Factbook. The placemarks were developed by the National Geographic My Wonderful World campaign to help kids become more geographically aware. This is nicely done, but you can see the whole world done in a similar fashion in this collection.
European Space Agency – this layer shows ESA logo placemarks of different locations where a satellite photo can be viewed of that location. A small picture is in the placemark description, and a link to a page where you can see a larger picture. I am disappointed that you can’t just view the larger pictures overlayed in Google Earth though.
I am blown away by all the new Africa content. On a day when the sky has turned yellow in Kuwait, there are waves cresting out in the Gulf and the air smells like impending squalls, it is a perfect day to spend in Africa, via Google Earth!
Frank Taylor has all kinds of useful information on GE, and I am adding him to my blogroll.
Sweet, Sweet Luxury
My husband whisked me away for the weekend yesterday, a break we both need badly. We arrived early, checked in, had lunch in an old favorite restaurant, and took a driving tour around Doha, our former home. Whew! Little Doha is all grown up! Continuous building of high rising towers on the Corniche, huge road building and traffic improvement program, and of course, amazing new construction for the upcoming Doha games. We joked that we would love to have had the contract just for the signage for the games – they are awesome, and they are everywhere.
(I forgot to bring my photo-uploading-stick – I will upload some photos when I get back.)
And then, back to the room, to continue enjoying the sweetest luxury of all – time alone together. Just for today, no dinners with friends, no planned activities – we have the books and magazines we have been intending to read, there is a spa and great masseuse here, but best of all – just time together, time to catch up on all the little conversations we haven’t had time to have, time to dream a little about the future, time to give thanks for what we have.
Today, we will attend services in our former church, meet with old friends for brunch and then again for dinner. These are the friends who walk through the tough times with one another, who laugh together and cry together, and who know where all your skeletons are hidden – friends you can trust, friends who wear well over a lifetime. Tomorrow, a big charity bazaar and an evening event. In between – more time together. Thanks be to God for the luxury of time and for our good friends!
Doha Dhow and Skyline Before
Morning Culture
In Kuwait, driving early Friday morning is a delight – everyone is sleeping in, things won’t get busy until around noon. Sometimes you have the whole road to yourself.
Here, in the land of the descendants of Scandinavians, the morning may dawn dark and foggy and damp, but by 8 this weekend morning the highways are already crowded with early birds, out to catch the worm. I can’t help but wonder where they are all going on a Saturday morning, so early.
Saying goodbye to my parents this morning was really heart wrenching. They have become so weak and so frail. They are already up, although I am stopping by early, and Dad is watching a football game and Mom is fixing coffee. It breaks my heart to know how hard they struggle to stay independent, and that there is nothing I can do to make them young and hearty again.
I remember when my Dad was always on the cutting edge of technology. Well into his 70’s, he was buying new computers and writing code to make them do what HE wanted them to do. Now in his late 80’s, we were all astonished when he showed no enthusiasm for the new laptop we bought him – until we discovered that his hands were now bothering him, and the keys on the laptop were too small for him. I wonder when we will no longer find new technologies so enticing, and will long for simpler days – and we will look back on the early 2000’s as the “good old days” when life was simple.
The flights are crowded today – it’s a full flight, and here is is, the end of October. Isn’t this usually low season?
Last Minute Upheaval
As I looked at my two suitcases, two days from travelling, and then at all the things that needed to get into my suitcases, I had a bad feeling. I figured out what I would need for the next couple days and started packing all the rest. . .good thing, too. It was never going to fit.
Fortunately there is a Staples next door, and I could run over and buy a box. When I got there, a clerk was putting out computer paper, and he had some sturdy boxes he was going to break down, so I didn’t even have to buy one, he just gave it to me.
That’s the thing about addictions – they take up space. Books, shoes, fabrics, clothing, cooking supplies . . .
Got the extras packed into the box and mailed off, even had just a tiny bit of room to spare when my parents gave me six cans of Alaskan canned salmon. Oh Yum! But that is it. Cannot even allow myself to wander into a store, no! no! no!
Hiking With Robin Pope in Zambia (4)
We hear the drums waking us the next morning and we are SO ready. We have met with Robin Pope, who oriented us with maps to the area of the Mupamadze River we will trek, and has given us all kinds of hints as to how we will need to dress and to take care of ourselves and one another.
After breakfast, we load into a land cruiser specially built in Tanzania on a Toyota truck base. It is sturdy, tough, and very practical. We choose our seats, we tuck our long pants into our socks, we pull our sleeves down over our hands, and wrap our kikoy around our faces – we will be heading into tzetze fly territory.
From the very beginning, we understand what is so special about travelling with Robin Pope. This man knows so much. We stop every kilometer – here is a bird rarely seen, and here is a lion track, and here is a lagoon where we might see . . . ! Things we might pass right by without knowing anything are examined and are illuminated; we see the world in a tiny pond, and we see the miracles in a leaf.
We come to a great sand river, full in the rainy season but empty and sand-filled now. Robin gets a running start, but still, almost to the other side, we bog down. Yes, I am taking the photo, but as soon as I took it, I had to go and push, too. . . .
these trips aren’t for the lazy bones! It took all of us pushing and Robin rocking the truck back and forth to get it going again, and get us to the other side of the sand river. Great exercise!
Almost to the camp, we saw a family or warthogs and five little warthog babies along the right side of the road, and and a duiker kill on the left side of the road – two more stops. It’s waaaaayyyyyy late when we get to camp, but . . . who cares? Vultures circle – and we learn to identify five different kind. We are having a ball.
These temporary camps are not so elaborate as the camps at Tena Tena, Nkwali and Nsefu – they are put together and taken apart as we hike along the river. We stay one night at the first camp, two nights at the second camp and two nights at the third camp. The tents are small, but still tall enough to stand up in. There is a nightstand between the two camp beds, with a candle, matches and mosquito coil. Each bed has a folding type stand for a piece of luggage. Outside, there is your washing stand, two camp chairs, a mat, places to put your toiletries, and places to hang your wash.
There are separate “long-drop” toilets for the men and for the women, a shovel and a bucket of sand as part of the etiquette so that whoever comes next won’t be grossed out. The shower is a gravity drop shower, with nice warm water. We have to arrange with one another how we will schedule our shower time.
At lunch the first day, they serve a green salad, spinach crepes, pumpkin, onion bread, beef salad, potato salad, melon and cookies (biscuits). Amazing – out here in the middle of nowhere, a beautiful table, nice wines, tablecloths, napkins and great food. Best of all is that we have good travelling companions, and the conversation is fast and furious and a lot of fun.
We travelled lightly, so almost every day we have to wash and hang socks or a shirt, or even once a pair of jeans. They dry very quickly in the hot hot sun of late August. The days start out chill, rising around six to be on the path by six thirty, but by the time we get to our next stop for lunch, it is hot hot hot. Although we are hiking six hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon, it is easy hiking, maybe some brisk walking but always stopping as Robin spots a martin, or a rare bird, or hears buffalo, or even – spots a lion!
After a rest and time for settling in, we take a late game walk with Robin to the top of a nearby hill where we can look off into the far away hills, and watch the river meander out of sight. He points out where we will trek the next day, and we head back for camp.
The plan for the trip is to do about 10 km a day – we hike for six or so hours in the morning and then another two in the afternoon. OK, here is the truth – I am an introvert, and I don’t like to feel rushed about taking my shower, so I skip the afternoon walk just to have some quiet time and a leisurely shower. The walks are not rigorous – during the mornings, we may hike, but we stop so often to look at things or to take photos that we never feel pushed or tired.
My very favorite part of the hiking is crossing the river. Robin finds a safe, not-too-deep place, away from the crocodiles, and we all strip off our shoes and socks and carry them as we wade across the nice, cool river. Early in the morning we see herons, and buffalo as well as crocodile, and it all has an unearthly feel to it. Robin knows where all the good paths are, so we will cross and spend a while on one side, and then cross back over to see something special on the other side.
Sometimes after the morning hike, we find ourselves at the next camp. Only twice were we at the same camp two nights in a row.
The food was absolutely amazing. Beef Wellington. Tilapia. Wonderful sweet desserts. And once, oh what a treat, a selection of locally made Zambian cheeses, chevres, a brie-like cheese, a Cantal like cheese – oh my heaven.
On the last night, I scurried with the crew to meet the hikers down the road about three kilometers by the river. When we got there, the crew set up deck chairs in the shallows of the river, and the hikers got there just as the sun started to go down. There was a huge Goliath heron fishing nearby. There were hot hors d’ouevres, there were mixed drinks and good wine, and a great big full moon rising as the sun went down. Sitting there in that river came a sudden self-awareness: “How cool is this, sitting in the river with Robin Pope watching the sun go down after five days of trekking? Life is good.” It was a thrill.
Dinner that night around the campfire – I think it was fish curry and vegetable curry, a caprese salad (tomatoes with Zambian mozzarella di bufalo), a big green salad with toasted sesame seeds, and something sweet and chocolate for dessert. The meal itself is hazy – the conversation was so good, so much fun, we had a lot of fun with Robin and with our fellow trekkers. And then. . . as the embers started to die down, we could hear a drum, off in the distance, and singing. We could hear clapping. And it came closer. We all fell silent, wondering what this was?
The entire crew approached slowly, all dressed in their best clothes, singing in multi-part harmony, singing Zambian songs, some gospel songs, bush songs. . . moon glowing overhead, the smell of woodsmoke, after a great meal – the singing was haunting and magical, and utterly unforgettable. We were all sad to be ending this adventure, and the beauty and delight of this Mupamadzi concert put it all over-the-top.
The concert ended and we drifted off to bed.
The next day, we broke camp, leaving the Mupamadzi and heading back for Tena Tena. Travelling with Robin Pope, the adventure continues – a huge old boabab tree here, hills they are exploring for future walking treks over there, and uniting it all, Robin’s gentle wry humor and keen observations. Time has no power over Robin, it is the moment and the opportunity that are all important, and our last day is every bit as great an adventure as the first.
There is a lot of world out there – and yet. We know we will be heading for the Robin Pope camps in the South Luangwa Valley again and again.
The link to Robin and Jo Pope’s home page is here.
In addition RPS puts out a wonderful weekly newsletter all about happenings at the camps – new animal babies, leopard killings, flood season, what’s going on at the Kawazaa school, and daily life in the year-round camps. You can subscribe to “It’s Monday” here.
Hiking with Robin Pope in Zambia (3)
There’s a lot of world to see, and we never intended to repeat a trip. The Robin Pope camps are so exceptional that – we made an exception. The very next year, we are back in Zambia, and eager – we are going hiking with Robin Pope himself.
Who is Robin Pope? He is a native African, and a staunch Zambian. He knows so much about wildlife that he probably doesn’t even know how much he knows. He is quietly and dryly funny. He started guiding as a very young man, and then, together with his wife Jo, began building a very particular kind of tourist experience. When you reach the Robin Pope camps, Nkwali, Nsefu and Tena Tena, you become like family. Well, family who live very luxuriously – the cabins are large and spacious, and beautifully appointed, with fine linens, mosquito netting, shelves, toiletries, all the comforts – a million miles from anywhere.
Each camp holds only a very limited number of campers, supported by enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff. They grow their own vegetables, or buy from local farmers. They employ people from the nearby villages. Black and white people work together equally.
One of the things we were able to do was to visit Kawazaa village, to visit the schools re-built and supplied by Robin Pope Safaris, to visit the local clinic, to visit with local villagers. We can’t wait to go back. The second trip, we bring one big suitcase full of school supplies – calculators, books, paper, pens, pencils . . . it was fun for us to find these things, having met the students who would use them, and the teachers who would benefit by having resources. Everywhere we go, we have to sign a book – the villagers get specific monetary credits for every visitor they entertain.
There are six of us who will trek with Robin Pope, and we meet in the Land Rover that picks us up at Mfuwe International Airport. I love that name – don’t you just see big jets flying in and out? In reality, it is a tiny little airport, handling only small planes. There is one small arrivals gate and one equally small departures gate. Because it also gets an occasional flight from Malawi, it can call itself “international.” We arrive at Nkwali, enchanted once again to find the hippo pod right under our window.
Lunch – how do they do it? Fish cakes with lemon mayonnaise, leek quiche, potato salad, avocado salad, green salad, cheesy corn rolls and butter, finishing with coffee and tea.
On our game drive the next morning, Jacob takes us out to see Thornicroft giraffe, and we see lots of elephants and baby elephants, and a herd of over 300 buffalo. After lunch, it is hot and we fall into a dead sleep, awakening in time for our afternoon game drive which starts with a boat ride across the river.
And what a boat ride! The hippos have spread out, and we THINK we are safely past when one of them lunges at the boat, missing us by a thread.
Thank God, it is hot for another hour, as we are all totally soaked, but also energized by the huge jolt of adreneline shooting through our veins at escaping unhurt from that lunging hippo. On our drive, we see leopard, genet cats, civet cats and a great big lumbering porcupine.
We have dinner down by the river, under the stars, with napkins folded like guinea fowl. It starts with spinach soup, and then there is pork tenderloin, pumpkin, mange-tout peas, cauliflower with a cheese sauce, lentils and for dessert, butterscotch pie. Somehow, we manage not to gain weight – we can’t figure out how.
Amazing Race Kuwait: Dying Laughing
The funniest part of all is watching the contestants on the Amazing Race Kuwait trying to find Souk Soulabiyya. The funniest thing of all is watching them look at the maps and say “it isn’t on here!” No kidding!
The coolest thing of all the the gracious people who help, even dropping their own errands to lead them in the right direction.
And the most amazing to me, is that one member of each team had to climb up the outside of the Kuwaiti water towers – holy smokes. Even those who had a terrible fear of heights were determined to make it. I was in awe of how they faced their fears and prevailed.
But oh, watching them try to navigate the roads – dying laughing! If you don’t laugh, you’re gonna cry.
Thought I had published this last night, but found it this morning in drafts. Drat!
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