One Million Passions

Last month About.com let a whole category of writers--whom they called "Topic Writers"--go bye-bye. And one of those topics happened to be that of Portuguese Cuisine, which was my column.

I'm not upset in the least. And don't let the fact that I did not link the word "About.com" to About.com in the previous paragraph lead you to think otherwise. Also the fact that the word "about" is no longer allowed in our household should not make you think that I hold any grudges. My daughter will survive just fine saying, "But Mom, what should I do blank that homework assignment I lost?" Or "Blank  what time will you be picking me up today?"

I'm just kidding. I am really not upset because a) the pay basically sucked and b) I can keep creating Portuguese recipes and posting them on my blog whenever I want to.

Also we were getting sick of codfish in my house. They say the Portuguese have a hundred different ways to prepare cod and, by Cod, I think it is true.

And the process has caused me to examine my life and my interests more deeply. What I have come to realize is that I actually have a million passions--or close to.

I was raised, both by my parents and by my culture, to choose something to do and then proceed to study that thing in college and go on and do it for the rest of my life. Unlike many, my parents were not dictatorial about what that thing should be and I appreciated that.

Nonetheless, I was ill prepared to know what that one thing was at the age of eighteen. There were many things I enjoyed doing, however, so I rather arbitrarily picked one of them, which was Drama. I did not think I would be a very good actress and I was good in Art class, so I decided I should be a set designer.

One positive thing you can say about me is that when I do decide to do something, I waste no time in getting it done. So I found the schools that would most efficiently train me to be a Set Designer in four years. Those schools offered a BFA conservatory program in Scenic Design and while there, I did basically nothing else but that. I think I took two non-theater classes the whole time.

Too bad it wasn't a genuine organic decision (one which I think very few eighteen-year-olds are prepared to make anyway). My daughter, the ice dancer, is passionate about what she does. And I mean passionate when I say that--Passionate with a capital P and super-double italics. I, on the other hand, was not passionate about set design with even one set of italics.

Don't get me wrong--I did enjoy it quite often and I made a career out of it for many years. But I didn't love it in the way that can tide you over when the going gets rough.

This year my daughter is a Senior in High School, and it causes me to realize how very different it is for her.  There is no big decision to make here. She will just keep on doing what she has been doing, elite athletic training, because she loves it. She might change her mind sometime, and that's fine. One way or another her career will shift over time because there is a limited frame of time in which to be a competitive athlete.

Now we all know that in this day and age, very few of us manage to have just one career throughout our lives anyway. Everything else aside, we live a lot longer these days and have time for more than one.

So it doesn't bother me that I've had a few different ones. But unfortunately I have tended to repeat the pattern I started in Senior year of High School, and entered each one with Gusto. Gusto, that is, about making it happen, rather than gusto for the thing itself. I never seem to be willing to allow that to develop over time, the way it should.

Until now, anyway. And now I have come to realize that I have one million passions, or close to that number. I am a mom, writer, knitter/crocheter, skating geek/skating mom and manager, rug maker, designer, marketer, travel leader, hiker, life coach, and....

What I am toying with these days is just allowing that to be--and see what happens next. I am thinking, perhaps, that if I let myself love all of those things and do all of those things, without pinning myself down to just one of them too quickly, I might be a whole lot happier. Maybe something will organically develop into a thing I am so passionate about that I will do it more than any other thing.

Or maybe it won't. But then I won't care because I will be doing everything else that I adore.

This blog will be moving to a new venue soon, and will be re-named, what else--"One Million Passions." I will let you know when it happens!

Olympic Addiction

There is something about the Olympics that changes me in some surprising ways.

100 Days to Sochi in Times Square

One: I do not follow sports and never have. The exceptions to that (and they are admittedly BIG exceptions) are gymnastics and skating. The latter is something I have loved all of my life and that is a darn good thing because if I had to sit through hour upon hour of basketball or soccer, watching my daughter play, I would not be near as happy as I am watching her skate.

Two: I am not an overtly patriotic person. I do love my country, but not all parts of it. I love other countries too, although I do not consider them home, as I do this one. But I just don't get into that part of patriotism that causes me to hang flags in my yard or believe that my country is somehow better or more deserving than other countries are.

But put me around anything having to do with the Olympics and all of that changes. I love to watch the skating most of all, but I find myself following sports I am not normally interested in at all--like snowboarding or track. And I will wear Team USA shirts and jackets and insanely shout "GO USA" at the top of my lungs.

Adelaide getting ready to skate

Which is precisely why I am hoarse today.

Yesterday I attended the Road To Sochi event in Times Square, New York with my daughter and her coaches. She got to skate, along with some other skating students in a big plastic ice rink that was put up for the event, along with a small ski slope and other demo areas for Winter Olympic sports. There was music, performances, big Clydesdale horses carrying Olympic hopefuls, autographs, sponsor booths giving away all kinds of paraphenalia.

In the evening, when it got dark, the whole square was lit up with Olympic seals and Jumbotrons that showed what was happening in the different areas. The dance company, Pilobolus had created a video of all of the Olympic sports which was played all over the square.

Denis and Melissa performing in Times Square

Denis Petukhov and Melissa Gregory, my daughter's coaches, who were US Olympians in the 2006 games, performed a spectacular number on the ice that was a cool fusion of figure skating and hockey accompanied by the singer, Karl William Giant, who had written a song for this occasion.

Gavin DeGraw sang from a nearby stage while Emily Hughes skated. A slew of hopeful Olympians and Paralympians were brought out on a red carpet and introduced. Lindsay Vonn made a surprise appearance (Tiger not in sight).

It was exciting--especially so because I was "behind the scenes" with my daughter and her coaches, true, but I would have been thrilled anyway. And, yes, I screamed at the top of my lungs for her and all of the athletes. I wore the blue mittens with "Go" embroidered on one hand, and "USA" on the other.

I still haven't figured out why I am so affected by the whole thing--but I certainly am, no doubt about it! I can't wait until February when I will see them in person in Sochi, Russia. Probably I won't be able to talk for weeks.

On another note, check out my article on About.com about Portugal's coffee culture and an original recipe for Portuguese Toasted Almonds, which are also completely addictive. The coffee is particularly good if eaten with Papo Secos, Portuguese Bread Rolls, toasted with some butter and jam on them.

Memories, Like the Colors of My (Overly Imaginative) Mind

Me with my Grandpa, Joe Ponte

One of the unexpected side effects of my job as the Portuguese Food Writer for About.com is the memories. I suppose it's kind of obvious that exploring some of the foods of my grandparents homeland would bring up childhood memories, but I just didn't think it through ahead of time!

What is particularly amazing about this is the way the memories incorporate all of my senses. It's not just that I remember a dish, like rice pudding (Arroz Doce), for example and I think to myself, "Oh, that's right, I used to have that at Cussie's restaurant in New Bedford." It isn't just an intellectual thinking experience. It's more that as I am cooking it, and then tasting it, I find myself, all of a sudden in a past setting, along with all of the colors and smells.

I can remember that every time I visited the Buttonwood Grille (my cousin, Cussie's restaurant in New Bedford that was the focal point for my Grandmother's side of the family) she would ask us if we would like to have that rice pudding. Of course what we really wanted were the lollipops that were stashed underneath the old cash register! The restaurant smelled a certain way, like the hundreds of bowls of homemade Kale Soup that were cooked there every week and the fried fish that was always served on Fridays because good Catholics never eat meat on a Friday. I picture the knotty pine paneling that the walls were covered with.

And there was that feeling of being part of the family that owned and ran the restaurant. We thought it was so cool that we could just walk behind the counter or go into the kitchen whenever we wanted to because we were part of it. Other kids, who were unfortunate enough to be mere customers did not have that privilege.

Last week I had a lot of guests. First there was my college buddy, Ann and her Dad. Then, the next day, our other college buddy, Rachel, came for lunch. Then that same night, after they were all gone, my friend Karen came to stay for a few days. This caused a rush of cooking on my part, so the sense memories were coming up like crazy.

First I made my grandfather's recipe for Kale Soup, which I served for dinner with Ann and her father. They liked it so much and there was so much left over that we had it for lunch the next day too. Then we had the rice pudding for dessert.

I thought about the restaurant, of course, but also was thrown back to the time that my grandfather was living with my aunt and uncle, near the end of his life. That was when my Aunt Rosemary got him to cook the soup with her so that she could write it down and preserve the recipe for the family. Even though I was not there at the time, I have a strong image in my mind of her kitchen and of him, stooped over from Parkinsons Disease, standing by the stove and stirring the soup.

Which means that I am making up sense memories that aren't even mine and that I wasn't there for. Oh dear.

I also made Sopa de Cenoura (Carrot Soup), which didn't bring up any memories at all, because it wasn't one of my family's recipes. So at least I know I am not completely nuts. (By the way, it is a fantastic and easy to make Autumn soup. I think it would be a good one for Thanksgiving).

Here are a couple of others to try:

• Bolinhos de Bacalhua (codfish balls): This is another one of my grandpa's recipes
• Porco Altenjana: not a family recipe, but one of Portugal's most famous dishes and a great dish to serve for company

Lost Acres

Last weekend I attended a Harvest Dinner at Lost Acres Vineyard, which is just down the road from us. In fact I could walk there quite easily--it would only take about 15 minutes, which is convenient since trying out the selections doesn't necessarily make one the ideal driver.

I was thrilled when I first discovered the Vineyard. Here I was, returning to Connecticut after many years living in the big city, and although I was truly thrilled to be living in the woods, it was a shock to my sophisticated city self. After all, living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, one has only to walk a couple of blocks in any direction to be near gourmet food shops, eclectic boutiques and restaurants of every ethnic variety.

I decided to drive down the road a piece and there it was--a beautiful red barn with rows of vines growing on the slope just behind it. Inside the red barn is the tasting room, on the second level. The first level is where the grapes are crushed and stored while they turn into wine.

Inside the tasting room I met Michelle, who owns Lost Acres Vineyard along with her husband, Kevin. I introduced myself and learned that she had also transplanted herself from Brooklyn (the Heights) to Granby rather recently. What's more, she had done it for the sake of her then teenage son, so that he could live closer to his father. I moved here for the sake of my teenage daughter, so that she could train as a figure skater.

I loved our parallels and her story of reinvention, which got even better when she got to the part about meeting her husband. He was her neighbor (in another section of Granby). They met, fell in love and started a vineyard together. Now that's romance!

The place they have created together is idyllic. And I swear I am not just saying that because I adore good wine, not to mention easy access to said wine.

Their atmospheric tasting barn has become a real community setting. It is the about the only place in Granby to sit and drink good wine, and the setting for it could not be more ideal. There is the indoor part, with wood planked walls and a fireplace, and there is also the deck, which looks out over the vines and the fields where they keep their horses (also their pigs, which isn't so idyllic--but you can't see or smell them from the deck). You can also sit on the lawn in chairs or spread a blanket on the grass. They have art shows, comedy nights, bands and yoga classes.

Doing yoga amidst the vines is so idyllic I can hardly stand it! As I move into downward dog, smelling the gorgeous autumn smells and hearing the sounds of a galloping horse thundering by I want to jump up and down screaming, "Hey, look at me! I could be in the hills of Tuscany right now! That's how great this is!"

After all that excitement, one can only head over to the barn for a glass of the Wedge White to get calmed down, which I know is what the yoga is supposed to do, but I can't help it. It's that wonderful.

Check out Lost Acres Vineyard's website and read all about this wonderful place.

The Portuguese Karen Florence

Shrimp Mozambique

One of my very dear friends, Karen Florence, is my dear friend for several reasons: she is supportive, fun to be with, and unique. She is also a gifted Executive Coach and the radio host of On Purpose With Karen Florence, and as a former coach myself, I appreciate that! We first met each other in school, while both of us were working towards our coaching certification.

She is also known and appreciated by me, and many others, for her cooking and, in particular, her signature meal. I can describe it with a few words, but it doesn't do justice to how good it is. It is succulent, addictive, and, perhaps most important of all: social food--the kind of food that is best appreciated when shared amongst friends.

My seventeen-year-old daughter asks me regularly, "When is Aunt Karen going to come here and make that meal for me?"

So, after all that build up, here it is: roasted shrimp in the shell, with cocktail sauce and the best french fries you ever tasted in your whole life, with a decadent blue cheese dipping sauce. I've had that shrimp and french fry meal while watching movies on TV, while drinking shots of tequila with Karen and Joy, and while just hanging out with her alone. It is, without a doubt, one of those comforting, satisfying and decadent guilty pleasures.

As you may know, I write for About.com on the topic of Portuguese cooking. In that capacity, I regularly try recipes here at home, with my daughter as the main guinea pig. Most of them turn out pretty well, and a few of them are dudds.

Sometimes I find that the very best recipes are those I don't think about too much. If I just cook with my gut, instead of my head, it tends to work better.

Friday night was just such a night. I was tired after a long week. My daughter was tired after a week of school and skating. I really just wanted to order out, or buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store but I knew I was almost at the end of the payment period for my column and really needed to write a couple of recipes. So I pushed through.

And, amazingly, without even thinking about it, I found myself producing the Portuguese equivalent of Karen's famous meal!

It turns out that Shrimp Mozambique (Camarão Moçambique) and Batatas Fritas (Portuguese Fried Potatoes), while naturally never as amazing as Karen's meal, is pretty darn good, and for the same reasons that her meal is so unilaterally adored.

The shrimp that I prepared are a bit spicy, whereas Karen's are not, other than the bite of the horseradish in the cocktail sauce. The potatoes are round slices, rather than shaped like french fries. There is no blue cheese sauce at all. BUT, both dishes are finger foods, just like hers, and you can't stop eating them. They were addictively good--if I do say so myself! And they are perfect for TV viewing and socializing with.

So, Karen--while I can never hope to compare my meal with your signature meal--I hope you will allow it to be the Portuguese Karen Florence meal.  It would be an honor.

Off to the Hunt!

Last weekend I attended a wine tasting class that was specifically about Portuguese wines, which is not an easy thing to find. Typically those classes tend to focus on a certain type of French wine, say, or a region of a country and its wines and, at any rate, Portuguese wines tend to be under the radar.

This one was held at Barcelona, a restaurant in West Hartford, CT, not too far from where I live. The instructor was Gretchen Thomas, the Wine and Spirits Director for the Barcelona Restaurant Group, and she did a fantastic job.

Amazingly, she even did a good job on pronunciation. I was prepared for the usual mispronunciation of the letter “J,” for example. Most people assume it is spoken the way it is in Spanish, where the J is turned into an H sound. In Portuguese it makes a “ZHH” sound.

Once I was in Blue Apron, which is a fancy charcuterie in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I used to live and they actually had the delicious São Jorge cheese. It’s from the island of the same name, which is one of the Azores and when I traveled there I had it several times. I said to the guy behind the counter, “Wow, I can’t believe you have this!”

“Oh, Yes, the São HOR-hay, “ he said. “It’s quite good.”

“Yes, I’ve had it in the Azores, but it’s pronounced São ZHORJE,” I said.

“Hor-hay,” he said back.

“In Portuguese they don’t pronounce the letter J like an H,” I insisted.

“How much of it would you like?” he asked, ending the conversation while simultaneously not acknowledging my expertise on the subject. I’d like to say I stopped going there, but I’m afraid I am completely unable to boycott good food sources.

It is conversations such as those that make me the fan of wine drinking that I am.

I am certainly no expert on Portuguese wines, myself, but I’ve probably had more of it than most people I know. I have been to Portugal many times and I have always had good wine for cheap. And when I say cheap, I mean CHEAP. Over there a good bottle of red from the Alentejo cooperativas could cost about $3.00.

I am also no expert as regards wine tasting in general. In fact I must here confess that I really don’t understand wine tasting (although I find the idea of it thrilling). For example, I watched our instructor in fascination as she talked about a certain wine, swished it around in her mouth and then spit it into a cup. This is something I never do with wine. I drink it.

I am able, also, to see the differences in wine viscosity, and even to vaguely understand what about the wine making process causes different thicknesses and colors. But darned if I can figure out what the heck difference it makes to me.

I am getting better at discerning the previously mysterious interpretations of wine flavors, though. Whereas before the notion that a wine might have undertones of blackberry or coffee bean, or (shudder) freshly cut grass was gibberish to me, I can now detect hints of other flavors. Just not freshly cut grass.

One of the most interesting aspects of the class was about Port wine (Vinho do Porto in Portuguese). Port has a very complex and fascinating history that is intertwined with the history of merchant shipping, European politics and culture. When I think of Port, I think of a bunch of Victorian men sitting around in the smoking room after dinner with cigars and sipping a glass of fine Port, whilst chatting about the day’s hunt.

I mirror that practice myself, down to the last detail. I sit in my living room, sipping a ruby red glass of Port. I just delete the cigar, since I don’t smoke and skip the part about discussing the hunt, since I don’t do that either.  Also I am the only one drinking, since my daughter is 17. In my case it’s more like just sipping the Port—period.

It was very cool to finally figure out the differences between all of the types of Port. Tawny, Ruby, Ten-Year, etc. were all labels that I did not previously understand. If you want to learn the differences too, just click here to read about it in my About.com article on the topic.

And how about that fox, eh?

Open Farm Day

Lola, the baby alpaca

The trouble is, I can't decide if I am a Laura Ingalls Wilder wanna-be (see my last post, Yes I Can), or a Farmer stalker.

Well, just to clarify I don't actually stalk farmers (or anyone for that matter). But I happen to have moved into a town with a lot of small farms in it and I find myself fascinated. Last weekend my town held its annual Open Farm Day, where many of the town's farms allow visitors and have various activities going on. Most of these farms aren't open on a regular basis, so I was really looking forward to it. (Hey, I can't afford to be that picky about my good times, here in the wilds of Northern Connecticut...)

I have no illusions about my ability to actually be a farmer. It's hard work, no doubt about it. I just finished reading a fantastic book, The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball, which I highly recommend. It is the true story account of a East Village journalist who interviews a young organic farmer, becomes completely fascinated by his life and ends up falling in love with him. They move together to upstate New York and start a very cool farm together.

What's so cool about their farm it is that they decide to sell their products only to year-long subscribers, and their goal is to grow/raise everything that their members need to eat, from soup to nuts (well maybe not nuts, and they don't actually sell soup, but you could make soup from all the stuff they sell).

This was one of those rare non-fiction books that reads like a novel. I couldn't put it down and I think it is because it actually mixes romance (and I mean the romance of agrarian living--not hearts and kisses romance) and high ideals with real-life grueling, back-breaking work--which is the truth about farming.

So, as I was saying before I digressed into a book review, I know I couldn't hack the farmer's life. I'd give up and go to Whole Foods, I have no doubt. But I am drawn to it for reasons I'm not entirely clear about. Certainly there is a desire to simplify and slow down, but I think it is more than that. Somewhere in me is the wish to create more, in all aspects of my life.

So I visited a bunch of the farms. One of my favorites was the alpaca farm, Schoolhouse Farm, down on East Street. I drive by it several times a week, and I always crane my neck to catch glimpses of the alpacas over the little hill by the side of the road. One time I saw one of them stretching itself just the way my dog stretches when she first wakes up. It was a perfect downward alpaca yoga position. Who knew?

On Open Farm Day the owners had a 3-month old alpaca named Lola on a harness and were walking her around. You could pet her, and one stroke made is completely clear why alpaca is one of the most expensive yarns you can buy. She was soft beyond description, and completely adorable.

I then made a quick pit stop at Lost Acres Apple Orchard, where you can buy very juicy peaches and pick your own apples (unfortunately they are not organic, but they told me they spray minimally). I make a mean peach crisp and a really good Portuguese dessert, Pêssagos Assados com Vinho Tinto (Peaches Roasted in Red Wine).

I also visited my favorite farm around here, The Garlic Farm, which I go to at least once a week for organic produce at their farm stand. This is where I buy the tomatoes I use for my Portuguese Tomato Sauce and the eggplants for ratatouille, among other things. The farmer, Gary, gave a tour and told us about losing entire fields due to rot from heavy rains.

I don't know if I have a metaphor in my own life for something like that--losing a whole field worth of potentially money-making produce. At least not on a regular basis. My car got driven into a tree last spring (not by me) and wasn't worth fixing. Maybe it's like that?

At any rate, since moving here I have so much more admiration for real farmers--ones that actually live and work on their farms and who care about making them successful.