Tiempos de Azucenas

Azucenas dancing in the night, 2008.

Nights during la temporada de lluvia en Oaxaca come wrapped-up in scents of azucenas, jazmines, and gardenias balanced in baskets by mujeres from nearby villages. Sweet perfume aromas spilling behind them as they sway from side to side offering ramitos to passers by. 

My favorite are las azucenas, queens of the night... tiny, starlike petals that release potent quantities of sweet smells when they open to dance with the moon that you would think them ten-times-their-size. Flores of summer nights in the city, a reminder of the spells Oaxaca casts como redes de pescador upon those that come in contact with her.

World Cup Cook-athon

Tomatoes, olive oil, thyme, and garlic ready for the oven... and later for fresh baked tomato bread!

Friday June 18
It's been exactly a week since World Cup Mania began in our household.  Futbol 24-7, non-stop, wake up to it and go to sleep to news or analysis about it... Our whole household and LIVES now revolve around FUTBOL! I literally feel hung over from so much futbol!

Aaaaah! But it's been great! We've had some real ups and more than few surprises. For starters SACRE BLEU! Mexico beat France 2-0!!!  and what a beautiful game it was (despite the horrible ref and the millions of undeserved yellow cards he handed out to every Mexican he could give one to). El Tri came through with flying colors making creme brulee out of the blue white and red! Ah! And then there were today's games... Germany vs. Serbia, US vs. Slovenia, and England vs. Algeria. Who would have thought Serbia would beat the Germans! The winning goal celebrated not in the field but in the stands. It was a sight to see the Serbian player running across the field jumping over several barriers and celebrating with the Serbian fans. It was hard not to get chills and jump with joy along with them.

We have been celebrating so much we literally ran out of food! There has been no time to cook, no time to organize or re-organize ourselves into an efficiently and fed household. The games, the rain and sudden chilly weather has turned our home into a cave from which neither we or our pets want to get out of. And so for the sake of sanity I decided to go on a much needed cook-athon to hold us up for at least a few days and the next round of games. 

Beef Stew with carrots, potatoes, chayote, chile serrano, onion and laurel leaves. Asian style beef strips with red pepper, sesame seeds, soy sauce, purple onion, calabacitas, fresh basil, stewed tomatoes and jalapeños. White rice with ginger. Fresh pesto from our basil garden, garlic, Chiapas dried cheese, walnuts and olive oil. The piece of resistance: a loaf of tomato bread!

And so we'll be back stocked up for the celebrations, the hibernating, the futbol drunkenness. Waiting with the rest of the world for those long anticipated moments when the ball finally crosses the line, feeling the absolute joy in the kicker's face and his teammates, the stands going absolutely wild with disbelief, happiness, relief, and hope! 

That is why we love futbol! That grassy field where Algeria can tie yee all powerful England, where the Serbs can win over the German machine, and where the Mexican team can win once more la guerra de los pasteles (pastry war)... At the risk of sounding cheesy, it's a field of dreams where  many times the so called people of the 'third world' can dare to dream for at least 90min...

Growing things

Mi prized Sage / Salvia, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca de Juárez, 7 de junio, 2010.

I am in love! And like all people in love I must climb upon the highest hill and yell it out to the four winds... LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!

Nothing new I know, but lately there's a renewed fluttering in the heart, a woozing buzz that only a teenage crush can bring. Let the cheese balls roll! I'm feeling cheesy and it feels great!

The cause of so much excitement and gooey gushing is our growing backyard garden :) 

There's nothing better than reveling in the morning dew drinking coffee, observing, pruning, and rediscovering our potted wonderland before the oven-like heat wave blanket smothers the city once more.  

I love plants!  I just can't help it. I AM A PLANT FREAK, as M would say. How could I not be? I come from a long line of plant freaks. On my mother's side, I can still remember my great grandmother abuelita Rita tending to roses. My abuela Petra's overcrowded and dropping avocado tree in la Marengo (a house my grandparents lived in on Marengo street in East L.A.). And who can forget her iconic nopalitos. Then there were those spring visits to the Homedepot garden section with my mother. Oh how we would try desperately to contain ourselves like two addicts without avail! Never failed to roll out with a cart full of plants often forgetting whatever excuse we used to go inside in the first place. And then there is her garden. My mother's irises, roses, succulents, and blooming rainbow flowers. Ah and that most prized of  all her fruit trees, her fig tree. Oh how I love her fig tree! Lucious drops of sweetness... YUM! Then my father who comes from a long line of farmers, working the dry clay-like land they inherited from the revolution. Corn, beans and papaya... I'd say I am doomed to be a plant freak... Yep, I'm a goner!

It's been less than a week since we returned from Chiapas so I have been obsessed with discovering changes. The cilantro, dalia, and spinach seedlings have sprung. The ginger I planted is sprouting. My sole sage plant (my prized plant since it is hard to find here and I grew it from an old packet of seeds I found) is bigger. Oh that plant that was doing absolutely nothing a few months ago is flowering!

Forgive me for gushing but I just can't help being excited over the things that grow in our garden :]

A little music

Cilantro seedlings, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.

Spinach seedlings, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.

Ginger sprouts, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.

The once lazy plant, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.

Succulent antenas, Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.



'Kaliman in tomato and basil,' Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca, June 7, 2010.

La Cosecha

Introducing our first batch of tomatoes!

'Tomato, tomatoes,' Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca de Juárez, 19 de mayo, 2010.

... and our basil jungle...

'Jungla de albahaca,' Colonia Estrella, Oaxaca de Juárez, 19 de mayo, 2010.

The garden is loving spring in Oaxaca :)

Herbolarias

 

'Kaliman en marzo,' Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series.

We're not sure what planet our cat is from, but he is absolutely hilarious. I have never had a cat that loves, LOVES lying in dirt piles. Maya (our dog) and him seem to be exchanging mannerisms. Lately he likes to lay around like a dog, preferably on Maya's outside bed. Here he is making a funny face laying between a rock wall and a succulent plant.

  

'Flor the mini cactus,' Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series. 

I thought these were doing nothing for the last few months. At one point I even thought they might be dead. Then, passing by them a few days ago I looked closer  and there they were, tiny beautiful flowers :)

  

'Cactus flowers,' Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series. 

I admit, I am addicted to succulents! I bought these for 15 pesos each last weekend. Have not potted them yet but one has 9 offspring!!!  I am so excited!  They are so beautiful!

 

"Long stem cacti, flower shape,' Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series.

I am still wondering about these. They were among the first plants we bought and they have still to do something. They have not grown, they do not have new leaves, they just seem to be. We'll see if spring does something to them.

 

"Simple succulent flower," Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series. 

Have I mentioned I love succenlents ;)

 

"Kaliman as the Eye of the Tiger,' Oaxaca, Oaxaca de Juárez, marzo, 2010. From the 'Life in Oaxaca' series.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

 

Adventures in COMPOSTing

Hombligo, Oaxaca, 2009.

Mauricio and I moved to Oaxaca about two months ago. We found a great house to live in with big open spaces, good light, a workable kitchen, some gardening potential despite the landlord's cement love-affair, and enough room for Maya our dog to rome around. The two other houses on the same property were occupied, one by a good friend, an Italian photographer, and the second by a peaceful earth loving, meditating, writer from Venezuela.

Not long after we moved in our neighbors began to tell us about their gardening aspirations on the property which included a communal rooftop garden for all of us. Our eyes opened WIDE as our friend showed off his home grown tomatoes and basil and with excitement in his voice explained how our other neighbor was in the process of reproducing worms!...

[A brief aside]. I can't say I was jumping up and down when I heard the worm reproducing scheme. To be honest my encounters with worms in my mother's garden were usually followed by a shriek! No, not shriek out of happiness like when you encounter a long lost friend, but more like, 'There's a nasty WORM WIGGLING and I want to puke!' sort of shriek. However our friend seemed so excited I figured reproducing worms must be a good thing. It turns it is a very good thing in the gardening world.

[Back to the story]. Anywho, our earthy gardening ecological neighbors also showed off their compost piles and we all even made plans for a large communal compost pile in our back yard... WOW! Now that was something! The thought of taking TRASH (YES TRASH!) and turning it into this POWERFUL plant food was exhilarating. The tons of new plants we had purchased in an effort to liven up the place would thrive. Not only that, but we would be less wasteful and in a very small way contribute (in my head) to the lessening of landfills. All this while giving our plants a boost! I thought about how the new jasmine tree we bought was sure to have flowers by the time of our wedding if we helped it along with some NUTRITIOUS COMPOST! Mauricio and I WERE SOLD!

It was not long before we went out to purchase our very own compost bin to try our hand at composting... And this is where the meat, or to be more exact, the GOO of this story begins...

Fast forward a month and half. We open our compost bin, the one where we have been throwing much of our organic trash into along with dried leaves and garden material... First Mauricio gets attacked by tiny flies... We think ok its normal... Then we see a bunch of little worms and we are told to leave the compost in the sun to get rid of them, and yes our compost looks great! I put the compost bin in the punishing Oaxacan sun for three days... Fast forward to today. After a lovely day with friends and our dogs and an evening of house cleaning and organizing we open the compost bin and...IT WREAKS OF SHIT, CRAP, NASTYNESS sooooooo BAD! That our dog Maya must think we are making sort of perfume for her pleasure.

I immediately get online to see what the hell we are doing wrong with the compost.  In my head I think, PLANT FOOD CANNOT SMELL THIS BAD, SOOOO BAD IT COULD KILL HUMANS!

I watch instructional videos and learn about the compost lasagna method, wood or brown material followed by dirt, then 3 parts green, then brown, dirt, and back to green... I learn about the organisms in dirt that compost needs and I think about the 3 days in the sun... I wonder if I killed anything that might have been living in our pile of SHIT! I watch British video and almost fall out of my chair when the woman in her British accent explains how long it takes for compost to become compost... 6 to 12 months!!!!!!!! Who has that much time?! I come to the conclusion that we  have been in fact making some sort of dog approved perfume (yes these are the animals that love to throw themselves on shit if you don't catch them on time) and hope there is some way of making it into compost before it kills us.

Just in case you ever want to make compost, first watch the following videos: