In THE GRAPES OF WRATH, John Steinbeck devotes endless pages to descriptions of dirt clods, dying corn, and fickle rain clouds that vanish for what seems an eternity. Poor, disheveled sharecroppers tie bandannas over their noses to keep from drowning in dead seas of dust. Only he could have made such gritty detail compelling enough to win the Pulitzer in 1940, and then get a good toehold in the journey toward his 1962 Nobel Prize. It turns out that dust and drought can grow a bumper crop ... << MORE >>

We have recently emerged from Argentina, and like grazing guanaco are still foraging for food to which we have become dearly accustomed. Just three hours off the airplane,  my withdrawal cravings for dulce de leche led me straight away to HEB. On second thought, forget the image of gentle guanaco, feature instead a komodo dragon tracking down its prey, crawling low to the ground and dragging its enormous, scaly belly. That would be me.

Lo and behold, like manna from heaven, I found a squatty jar next to the grape jam and plum jelly. I struggled briefly with myself, should I, or ...

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Sometimes when we travel, we get more than we'd ever imagined when we first pulled the rabbit of an idea out of our magician's hat.  In addition to dreamy tours, punctuated by tables of gourmet food and ethereal conversations, there are also gritty, unappealing moments filled with dangling exclamations and question marks.  Oops!  Oh dear!  Do we have a Plan B?  No Ma'am, we don't want to fly to Kazakhstan in order to get to Copenhagen!   Like Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, there are uninvited trouble-making hitchhikers that stash burrs in our socks, bugs in our beds, and downright creepy moments that remind us there are no guarantees.  There are no travel rebate offices that can remove an unpleasant experience from our memories.  Ghosts and goblins of travel, Oh My!
    The first rule of every journey is that it requires flexibility and sometimes, courage.  Five hours extra spent in the airport due to mechanical repairs of a second aircraft after the first was pulled out of service.  Last minute changes of terminals, weather that broods and forewarns, or crew delays that can make travelers frantic.  (O, but if there's a problem, it is so much better to be on the ground.)  Those nagging decisions:  Do we turn around and go home.  Do we press forward?
    And so began our sojourn to Copenhagen to board a Baltic cruise.  This trip had been delayed for about eleven years due to the fact that our first flight out of Austin was postponed by hours because the pilot's seat wouldn't scoot back.  This hiccup caused us to miss all connecting flights, and long story made short, we never left the Austin airport.   We headed home with suitcases of freshly folded laundry and the scent of failed anticipation.  A first.  No cruise, just a strangely open calendar.
    So, after more than a decade, we decided to give the Baltic a second try.  Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Szczecin, Tallinn, Warnemunde—cities that sounded deliciously exotic and educational at the same time.  We were most excited about St. Petersburg—all those gleaming, golden onion domes, The Hermitage, and ornate palaces that only Elizabeth the First (and last), Catherine (The Great)and Peter (The Great—O, all those annoying Greats!) could have imagined.
    You cannot travel in Russia without a visa, and the application looks like an interview with a former K.G.B. head.  "What was the name of your second grade substitute art teacher and what kind of hair gel did she use—Dippity-Do or something else?  How many litters of puppies did your old dog Mups have and what was the name of the smallest runt?  Did your Great Aunt Matilda cook fried green tomatoes every Sunday for lunch, or was it pan-fried chicken?  Egg batter or cornmeal and flour?"  I mean, forty years beyond grammar school—who can honestly remember?  And so, we decided to go under the auspices of the Seabourn group visa, which meant we could only go ashore during a scheduled group tour and never on our own.  Hours before our scheduled Sunday afternoon tour of the Hermitage and a concert at the Palace of Catherine the Great, I climbed on the treadmill and began to watch the ship's television.  Twenty stations with shows in Polish and Danish, and only one in English.  It was a television sermon from an Atlanta-based church. 
     "Death is evil," the minister said.  I silently argued with him,  No, you don't understand.  It can be a great release for the terminally ill.   He gave many illustrations to prove his point, and I did not get his meaning, thinking only that he just didn't get the big picture.
     Afterward, I went outside on the deck and noted a group of youngsters on a pier near our dock.  There were several young men sunning on towels and one newly pregnant, tattooed, bikini-clad woman who was barely more than a teenager.  She was something to behold.  Like a wild, kamikaze butterfly, she would flit in and around her companions and  occasionally break into a dance that was either fueled by the feistiness of youth or Stolichnaya.  Then she would dive into the murky Neva River and swim to a Russian Coast Guard ship, hang onto its life-saver shaped bumpers, return to the pier and then repeat the process.
    We went on to tour St. Petersburg and the following morning visited the home of a typical Russian family.  That afternoon, after our tour was over, we had no choice but to return to the ship.  Much of our group had flown to Moscow that morning, so there were far fewer people than usual.  A good time to do laundry, I thought.  Bad idea.  Really bad idea.  When I was in the laundry room, a commotion ensued about something that was happening outside on the pier.  I turned on the clothes dryer and then slipped outside onto the deck, having no idea what I was about to see.
    The young Russian butterfly from the day before had been swimming from her pier to the Coast Guard ship when the body of a mutilated Russian male bobbed to the surface beside her.  He was pulled to the shoreside and left there, uncovered for hours.  A tourist snapped pictures of him (to go in some bizarre photo album,), and nervous laughter erupted.  As soon as I realized what had happened, I quickly went back inside the ship and did not return for hours—not until I had heard that the body was finally gone. 
     What I then saw was like a living Russian version of Picasso's Guernica, the moments of which are forever suspended in time.  A woman clothed in black, sitting alone on the pier, staring out across the water through our ship as if it were vaporous—a ship filled with the ghosts of memories.  On the left, the glaring gold of a Russian Orthodox church's onion dome and ornate cross shining above her newly graying hair.  To the right, a man's white t-shirt and dozens of white packets floating downward from a decaying apartment window.  In front of her is a burly, barrel-chested, fifty-something Russian fishing from the Neva with a net. 
     What I thought was, Sir, you ought not eat the fish that swim in the Neva River.  You do not know with whom they swim. 
    I felt as if we'd been dropped into the middle of bizarre James Bond spy movie, with one huge exception—this wasn't fun.  This was so not fun. 
    You may wonder whether I would go to Russia, if I'd known ahead of time what would happen in port?  Yes, I would, but I'd have taken that flight to Moscow with the others.  I'd have chanced dealing with Aeroflot delays and the smoke from the Moscow fires that burned that day.  I would not, though, have chosen to see humanity at its worst.  As a species, we are capable of both great acts of love, and sadly, horrible acts too terrible to contemplate.  Excuse me while I adjust my rose-colored glasses. 
    At the end of the cruise, our ship docked in Copenhagen and we spent the night at the Admiral Hotel along the water.  That evening, we spoke to a young lieutenant having dinner by himself at the table next to us.  He was having some R & R from his duty in Afghanistan and intently pouring over the pages of a novel.  He was cheerful,  pleasant and "living in the moment."  He said nothing about his work—he didn't have to, and we didn't want to make him think about it.  Just meeting him, however,  made me realize that while what I'd seen was dreadful, it couldn't compare with the abundant and difficult truths he faced on a daily basis.  I am quite certain that he'd often gotten more than he'd bargained for, and all the while had summoned up the courage to press forward.
    Life is a journey for all of us.  No telling where we might go along the way.
    
    

We are safe and warm inside our Canadian hotel room, listening to Il Divo perform on my husband's i-phone. We came to the Quebec Provence on the wings of free-mileage wrought tickets on Continental and hotel rates on Fairmont properties that cost no more than a stay at a Holiday Inn Express. We began our Canadian experience at Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and then moved on to Le Manoir Richelieu in the Charlevoix region, just two hours upward along the St. Lawrence River. We'd been dreaming of this trip for two years, since the first time we ... << MORE >>

I am way behind in blogging due to the fact that I've been up to my eyelashes in other things-among them cooking for friends and family.  I'm including a recipe I hope you'll enjoy.



If you're not otherwise occupied, you might want to head out for Hatch, New Mexico for its annual Labor Day Chile Festival.  Hatch is a small town with about 2,000 inhabitants, except for during the Chile Festival when the population explodes to about 30,000. That might seem like a lot of ruckus over a mean green/red pod, but, after all, the Hatch Chile is the king of all peppers.   This year, the festival begins on September 5th and goes through the 6th.  Vendors roast green chile all along the streets, or you might just like to hang out in the parking lot talking to other chilephiles. They've got a horseshoe tournament, the Chile Festival Parade, the coronation of the Chile Queen, music by Queen Priscilla Banuelos, a chile toss contest, a chile eating contest, and a watermelon eating contest  you might seriously want to compete in if your mouth is on fire.  You can listen to the Las Cruces High School Mariachis and see the Darrell Hawkins Rope and Bullwhip Show or participate in a fiddling contest.
    It is very important to know a thing or two about peppers before you inflict them on your dinner guests.  I once nearly annihilated three men, two of them family members by serving stuffed poblano peppers along with enchiladas for dinner.  One spent all night writhing on the bathroom floor while taking various homemade concoctions in a futile attempt to put out the fire in his belly.  Two others headed straight for the bathroom during dinner, and made me wonder whether I should call 911 right away.  Pitiful moaning (and worse)  issued from the room and made me vow right then and there to NEVER serve another poblano to anyone. 
     Having said all that, I feel that I can safely recommend the following recipe.  To my knowledge, no one has died from having eaten it, although anything is possible.  Most folks really seem to enjoy this one, and it is something you can cook without setting your hands on fire by having to handle the peppers, themselves. 







                                                         Marci's Green Chile-Cheese Grits

9 oz. Velveeta Cheese
6 cups cooked grits
7 oz. can of diced mild green chiles
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 tsp. Lawry's garlic salt  or to taste
1-2 cups crushed Kellogg'sCorn Flakes (amount depending upon type of baking dish to be used)

Cut cheese into easily melted pieces.  Add cheese to hot grits and stir.  Whip eggs and milk until blended and stir into cheese and grits mixture, along with garlic salt and butter.  Stir well.  Pour mixture into a greased baking dish.  Put Corn Flakes into a Ziplock plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin.  Sprinkle crushed Corn Flakes over grits and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes (until it sets).  This side dish should serve about 8-10 people.  (Feel free to add a little more cheese if desired.)

I often serve this as an accompaniment to baked Cornish Game hens drizzled with a tangy orange barbecue sauce.  If you add steamed asparagus or green beans as another side, you'll have a colorful and hopefully delicious meal.

If you try this, let me know what you think!

The daily high temperatures in Austin are currently in the upper nineties.  Like vapors of bad juju, heat radiates upward from the asphalt and takes my breath away.  Our black, Chow mix dog has gone into hiding under the porch, and won't reappear until October unless he is pulled out by a John Deere tractor.  Even our gray ground squirrels listlessly lie on their backs with their tongues hanging out. 
     It's too hot to go barefoot.  This doesn't suit our seventeen-month-old grandson, who is generally opposed to shoes.  Summer just doesn't seem to be his season.  Whenever we take him to play in ...<< MORE >>

We are in Santa Fe, New Mexico scanning the horizons for dark clouds.  We've been promised scattered thunderstorms and lower temperatures.  A cool breeze has swept over the Sangre de Cristos and onto the high dessert valley, but there is no rain.  When we first bought a home here, drought was rampant.  Dead juniper and pinon dotted the countryside—all victims of beetles that had feasted upon them in their weakened state.  Local lawsuits erupted over water usage.  People began to wonder whether rain would ever fall again or if we'd somehow been ushered into a permanent dry as dirt era.
    I am reminded of 1969, when ...<< MORE >>

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Words have value, and are sometimes spoken at a great price.  In 1964, when I was in the first or second grade, my sister and I went to visit our grandparents on their ranch in the Hill Country.  It was summertime and heat radiated through the afternoon air as if from an open oven door.  Peacocks hid underneath the shade of live oak trees.  Half Sheepdog, half ...<< MORE >>

O.K. folks, I'm telling the following true story at the request my good friend and fellow writer, Linda Amey, who heard it years ago.  Thanks, Linda, for listening to a good many tales during the past twenty-one years.




They're everywhere, just waiting like  ticking, rattling bombs.  Coiled in a live oak treetop, underneath the hood of the red Chevy ranch truck, on the other side of the screened back door, and perhaps even underneath our four-poster bed.  I could say, "No problem.  They don't bother me.  I grew up on a ranch and ate boot leather and nails for breakfast.  My only toy ...<< MORE >>

There is a rhythm to the universe, even if it doesn't seem to be in tandem with our own.  Often, it is far better than we could ever have imagined.

For years, I'd been trying to take my husband to South America for his birthday.  What started as a flurry of planning a year in advance of his 60th, added up to nothing by Jan. 10th.  One thing after another, kept us from going—for years.  And then, by the time we were within days of his 63rd birthday, a miracle happened.  On New Year's Eve, I got a whim to try ONE MORE TIME.  Suddenly, like pieces ...<< MORE >>