un po' di scienza

"Thus the combined effect of both processes (marine species extinction and invasion) has resulted so far in little net change in richness but an enhancement of trophic skew by decreasing predator richness while increasing primary consumers and detritivores."

Understanding the Effects of Marine Biodiversity on Communities and Ecosystems, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics

I hadn't thought about it in that way.

I have been cooking less and reading more. I had my first real conversation with an Italian yesterday and I failed miserably. Her name is Marisa (sp?) and she is from the next town over, Glera. I very quickly reverted to Spanish and she definitely understood what I was saying because she kept saying "io capisco" which means, "I understand". Apparently, she had a Spanish neighbor sometime in the past and picked up some Español. She told me about her dead husband which was 20 years older than her when she married at 21. I was able to communicate that mio marito is only a month and a half older than me and that we are both 24 and got married a month ago. She asked me if I worked and I said, I didn't which she thought was a pretty sweet deal. She found me on my first run since I got here...I know, I know, I'm going to get sovrappeso. All the Irish soda bread I ate yesterday isn't helping either.

Has anyone been to Slovenia? I've been put in charge of planning a weekend trip in early June. I have to leave the country every 90 days until my paperwork with the military goes through. What fun!

Photos from the neighborhood....it finally stopped raining

3-3.5 hrs of mass! These devout Italians give Mexicanos a run for their money, we only go to church for an hour on Sundays...

I am taking lots of pictures of the rock architecture for mio padre.

Europeans believe in very narrow two-way streets.

If I were a flower I would be a tulip.

covered in sexy pollen


I want this car....it has a sun roof!

Side walks...forget about it.

We are no longer in Tijuana...

Christmas tree farm??


Yellow is the color of happy.

STOP! not estope!

everyone needs a little funghi action

My people are a desert people…

and northern Italy gets way too much rain to be a desert.
It has not stopped raining in two weeks! And lighting strikes all over the place.

So I have been feeling a little too domestic this past week. My kitchen has smelled way too good. I need to start reading some scientific papers to feel normal again.

In the last several days I have made:
• Cornbread, twice (from scratch, no jiffy crap)
My first batch tasted a little salty. I think it’s because I used buttermilk instead of latte like the recipe asked. It took us 3+ days to eat it all. In the second batch I omitted the salt, kept the buttermilk and added half a tablespoon more of sugar and voilà! We ate all the cornbread in less than 24 hours.

• Taquitos de papa con formaggio, topped with repollo y caldo de tomate
This was one of my favorite things to eat as a kid, ricetta d’mia madre.

• Tostadas de pollo con frijoles negros topped with romaine lattuga and fresh salsa
This was inspired by pg 171 (’97 Joy of Cooking) but I didn’t follow the recipe, because no cookbook written by a gringo can tell me how to make a tostada! However, it can tell me how to cook beans because I’ve tried in the past and failed, pg 275 JoC. I love how contradictory I am and how I sound like such an arrogant stronzo (italiano for asshole).
I’ve decided the day I use canned beans is the day I cross the ‘mediocre mexicana’ line into ‘bad mexicana’ territory.
I wish I knew the Café Brasil recipe for black beans…not feijoada but the meatless black beans. I could eat Brasilian black beans for days and not get bored. Where is Brasil (pronounced: Bra·zi·o) when you need her? Tessa, I love you and I miss you.

• Negi Maki (beef and scallion rolls…extremely tasty), pg 168 JoC

• Cheeseburgers on ciabatta
I was able to score some organic pasture fed ground beef and I didn’t feel as guilty.

• Stir-fry again…it’s so easy. Green beans, bean sprouts (canned), green onion, and beef sirloin over steamed rice.
I was lucky/unlucky enough to find canned bean sprouts and I have to say, “don’t ever buy canned bean sprouts”, even if you can’t find fresh ones and are desperate, like me. They don’t compare and it almost made me tear up.

• Potato salad, pg 220 JoC, I used red wine vinegar instead of milk. It was way better than the stuff from Safeway or Albertson’s.

I can’t wait to score a food processor...mmm…artichoke dip.

And I wish I could find tomatillos here…sniffle…for chile verde!!

I can’t keep this rate of domesticity up for much longer, Abe is getting spoiled and I am starting to enjoy cooking too much. I kind of liked being useless in the kitchen, but nonetheless, if I want to have as many kids as I do, I need to be able to feed them decently.

Once it stops raining I’ll take pictures and stop writing and cooking so much…

high on amore

I just made the best raspberry pancakes ever...
page 795 out of the 1997 Joy of Cooking

I talked to mia sorella this morning and it made me insanely felice (this is where speaking spanish is useful ...happy=felice (italian)=feliz (spanish), maybe there was something positive that came out of the annihilation of the Mexican natives...I'll be able to pick up Italian faster...well, that was morbid on my part.

Since food has been on my mind lately I'm making a list of foods that I could not live without:
patate= potatoes
lamponi= raspberries
avocado= avocados (the language of heaven is universal)
formaggio=cheese (the not so stinky kind)
what else should go on this list?

I've been extremely bad and I haven't taken any photos, it also rained all last week and my mountain got fresh snow. Did I mention Europe is cold?..."cold as ice", is what Rick James would say. Abe tells me there are actual real seasons here and apparently the beautiful tulips just got the memo about spring.

Merda, sto male

Ho un raffreddore. È colpa di mio marito. (this last sentence may be grammatically incorrect since no one helped me construct it)

Translation: Shit, I am sick. I have a cold. It's my husband's fault.

Therefore, Casa Márquez is closed until further notice.

reverting to what's easy...chinese

venerdì (Friday):
veggie (bok choy, celery, green onion) and pollo stir-fry in black bean garlic sauce (i bought the sauce, don't start thinking I'm Chen Kenichi) and soy sauce over steamed white rice

For this I'll thank mio padre. He is an awesome cuoco. He works with what's in the frig and it always taste delizioso!

I'll have to come to terms with cooking without bean sprouts or poblano peppers! Dannazione. What will I do? These are my two favorite veggies.

For those of you waiting on the Italian-inspired dishes, the Joy of Cooking is on it's way. I considered getting the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan but I think that may be too complicated for my newbie hands. I'll have to graduate from chef de partie to sous chef before I even try real Italian cooking. Yikes!

Random:
I wonder what the word in Italian is for 'awesome', I use this word like 10 times a day....

for those who are visually inclined this is the view from our bedroom window...yes the Dolomites

I'll post more photos of my town very soon.

"independence is competence"

first on the goals' list is to learn how to cook

A very wise man once told me, "independence is competence". Thanks Doug!

Menu Casa Márquez

martedì (Tuesday):
Steak, funghi, squash, and mashed potatoes (real ones, not from a box!)

mercoledì (Wednesday):
Papas con huevos, cebolla verde, y jalapeños

giovedì (Thursday):
Pasta with chicken and funghi sauce!

All 3 of these dishes I have never actually cooked all by myself. I have seen a friend or my parents cook these so I'm pretty proud of myself. I am fortunate that Abe will eat just about anything in very large quantities. I still need to learn how to gauge a good quantity of food for both of us, since he left me with nothing Tuesday and Wednesday. So far no food poisoning...YES!

Please send suggestions of easy beginner dishes because creativity in the kitchen isn't my forte.
Lisa send me your Irish soda bread recipe!
I need to get the Joy of Cooking

house-wifing it up for the next 14 months

goals:

learn how to cook edible food
learn Italian (if I don't, you have permission to kick mia glutei)
learn to take better photographs
paint and sketch more since I haven't done it much since sophomore year in college
learn how to play the guitar
study for the bio GRE
make a list of potential grad school advisers and contact them
write my personal statement/s for grad school apps and APPLY finally
learn to not stress out as much
read, read, read
and RELAX!