Easter Sangria & Goddesses

Yesterday, my abuelita called ME and asked ME a recipe. If you only knew my abuelita. I suddenly feel like I'm starting to deserve the title of firstborn daughter in a Mexican family: my own grandmother, family matriarch, culinary goddess, asked me for a recipe. My time has come: it has been verified by the ultimate authority that I know something about what goes on in kitchens.

Okay, so it's just a sangria recipe with like two steps. I made it this past Christmas and to my surprise (it was my first crack at making the stuff) the whole family loved it. Though this version is traditionally a winter drink, my abuelita wants to make it for Easter dinner tomorrow and thus it has been deemed appropriate for springtime as well. Although perhaps I should be keeping this recipe a secret (soon I'll have to start putting together secret recipes to hand down to my children and grandchildren), I do actually think it's delicious and that *you* should benefit from it. Without further ado, here ya go. Appreciate that I translated it because originally I had it written in Spanish. :)

Easter/Christmas/Anytime Sangria

Ingredients:

•1 cup apple juice
•¼ cup white sugar
•4 cloves
•3 blood orange, cut into thin slices
•2 lemons, cut into thin slices
•2 3'' cinnamon sticks
•1 Bartlett pear cut into ½’’ cubes
•1 bottle fruity red wine
•½ cup Gran Marnier
•2 cups of Gingerale

Combine all ingredients except Gingerale in a large pitcher/pot/any kind of container that will hold it all and fit in your fridge. Cover and refrigerate for at least a few hours, ideally overnight. When ready to serve, remove cloves and add Gingerale. Enjoy! Drink a lot!

Notes:
If you don't have Gran Marnier...any other kind of orange liqueur will do.
If you don't have blood oranges...regular old orange oranges are fine.
If you don't have Gingerale...Martinelli's, Sprite, any other sparkling citrusy juice will work.
If you don't have a bottomless fund for wine...try a 2010 Liberte Cabernet from Paso Robles, $10 at Trader Joe's.

On the same note, tomorrow's Easter! This has been kind of a cool week for me where special occasions are concerned. We had the first full moon of Spring and T and I passed the 2.5 years together mark, and now tomorrow we have this awesome holiday that is supposed to be about Jesus Christ rising from the dead but is like 75% pagan tradition. Eggs and bunnies are not a Christian thing! They're a *spring* thing, recognized by numerous cultures throughout history and the world.

Eostre, Eos, & Ishtar:
And the word Easter? From the obscure germanic goddess known as Eostre, or Ostara, though the latter name applies more to the Spring equinox and modern Wiccan tradition. I say obscure because the goddess rarely appears in mythology, and is known mainly for being Easter's namesake. She is said to represent dawn, and new beginnings. This could be a connection to the greek goddess of dawn, Eos. What can be said about her with certainty is that, simply, she is a Springtime goddess, and those are typically associated with abundance, fresh starts, fertility, etc.

Curiously, there is also an Assyrian/Babylonian fertility goddess with a similar name, Ishtar. Northern European and North African/Eastern Mediterranean mythology seem worlds apart; however, if Eostre is in fact associated with the Greek goddess Eos, she could be a bridge or common link between the two. All three are associated with the morning star and Springtime.

After writing this from memory (I'm going to abandon all humility here and tell you that I have an almost embarrassingly extensive knowledge of mythology), I googled the idea and found that I'm not alone in thinking they're related. Aha.

[note: despite this "extensive knowledge" that I apparently have, in my first publishing of this post I wrote that Ishtar was an Egyptian goddess. Wrrrrooongg. Although Ishtar was the foundation for another Egyptian fertility goddess, they are not the same thing. Trust me, I'm thoroughly embarrassed]

Anyway, Happy Easter everyone! I'm off to have my very own Easter egg hunt set up by my little sister. Wish me luck.

xoxo
Maralah

Flying Saucer Squash

Ah, Spring. I'm sitting in my backyard and the sun is literally shining and the birds are literally chirping. Machiavelli is having a conversation with our resident Bluejay. Wisteria blossoms are falling on my head, the leaves are rustling...and in addition to being Spring, it's also my Spring break. So it's like Spring on steroids, because I actually get to sit back and enjoy it. Ah, without school, what is there to do? Read on.

I've made it my mission this break to win back some of my health. I lost a fair amount of it (in the form of pounds gained, muscle lost, and skin dulled) during the weeks preceding finals (which took place last week and which I survived, thank you very much). I knew it was happening, but alas, I chose to sacrifice for the sake of my grades. Now I'm feeling a little less like myself. Maybe 60%. So I'm filling up my time with productivity and filling up my stomach with healthy, wholesome food. Food like this:

For a snack:

If you're looking for a healthy, delicious treat, try this stuff.





Behold, Siggi's Icelandic style skyr. "Skyr" is essentially fat-free yogurt, an age-old staple in Icelandic cuisine, but whereas most yogurt is mostly water, skyr has all the h2o strained from it, resulting in 3 times the milk content of a regular cup of yogurt. It has loads of protein and very little sugar; the plain version is unsweetened, and the flavored varieties (strawberry, vanilla, etc) are sweetened with organic agave nectar. Skyr is thick and healthy and yummy and I love it. It's available at Whole Foods and other natural foods stores, and I believe the price has recently gone down to $2.99 a pop. Definitely worth it.

For a meal:



Alas, I had higher hopes for this dinner. My mother suggested I try this flying saucer squash (okay, it's called Pattypan squash, which is almost just as amusing), but as I learned after feeding it to my whole family for dinner, it apparently requires more baking time than regular squash. So we got crunchy squash. Which some people like [my mom] and some people don't [everyone else].

However, the other parts of the meal--baked cod, baked potatoes, and lima beans--turned out pretty stellar. In fact I'm going to tell you exactly how to make them, because it's nothin fancy but all delicious and thus deserves to be shared. And as usual I'm using my unconventional suggestion-not-command recipe-writing style. Cook what you feel like cooking!

For the cod:

Marinate cod fillets up to 1 day (we did it overnight, but a couple hours would be enough to give it flavor) in a shallow baking dish with:

Orange juice
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Coriander

in whatever quantities you like. There should be enough orange juice to soak the fish, so depending on the juiciness of your oranges, 1-3 should suffice for 1 fillet. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 (thick fish like cod need to cook for longer at lower temperatures). We had two fillets: the smaller one took 30 minutes, and the larger one took 45. Set the timer for 30, and if the fish is white, tender, and falling apart at that point, it's ready. If not, leave for another 15. No longer! Or else the fish will dry out.

For the lima beans:

The ratio for this is 1 cup of lima beans to 3 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil and add the lima beans, plus:

Garlic
Salt
Epazote (more about epazote, a staple in my Mexican mama's cooking, here)
& a quarter of an onion (1/4 onion to 1 cup lima beans. No need to dice or slice; you won't eat the onion, it's just for flavor)

Once seasonings and beans are added, bring down heat to a simmer and cook for 1.5 hours with the lid 3/4 of the way on so some of the steam can escape. They're done when, well, they're soft and feel like edible beans. :)

For the baked potatoes:

Ah, the perfect baked potato. I'll admit I did not come up with the recipe for the perfect baked potato. Find it here.

And there's my meal.

I'm not going to tell you what I did with the squash because it won't help you. Just know that when baked whole, these babies need more than 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Paired with the sourdough epi I emergency biked two miles to get, this actually turned out to be a pretty damn good meal. And I successfully cleaned everything up after. My parents do love having their own indentured servant when I'm home for breaks.

Also, did anyone see the first full moon of Spring tonight? It looked magnificent. Kind of like a bird's eye view of one of my saucer squashes, in fact.

Off to do some yoga and read about psychokinesis (more on that later). Happy Spring!

xoxo
Maralah

Poem for a Loved One

For my sister.


The Runaway’s Creed

I dare not decide which way I’m to go,
Only let the winds take me where they may.
I fear the clear skies, the calm waters, the road
Comforted only by storms, winding ways, unexpected,
My indecision lends itself well to this world
My fear cradled in its shaking arms,
No tattoos,
Only hidden wounds.
Blind to the constants that would make idle my bones
And stifle my moans,
Blind to the love that would suffocate well
And keep me from hell,
I dare not swim safely to shore.
They would make dust of me,
Trample me laughing
Those I used to run with and lie with and love
A love unassuming,
Disloyal,
Intense.
If I were to halt in front of this mirror
Examine my lines and my scars
I would know me
Before I was done,
Before I had come into Crazy
And let myself out
And been rescued.
If I were to land
I’d feel earth ‘neath my feet
Know where I stood,
And be blamed for my stumbling.
If I continue to drown, I stay primal
My animal
Bound by no law and no man.
One day I’ll return and tell tales,
You’ll tear at what you believe
Are my wrappings,
Try to restore me
But I have been stripped
This is all that I am.

Secret Heroes

Last night, in a cold-medicine-induced stupor, lying on the couch watching my guilty pleasure show (the Tudors), my boyfriend pointed me in the direction of a more spiritually stimulating film (although my gosh, the Tudors has done things to my spirit).

He sent me a link to the film, and I proceeded to watch all 139 minutes of it without moving. An inch. No food, no water...all of my limbs fell asleep. This movie had me hypnotized.

I speak, of course, of On The Road, the film adaptation of the famous novel of the same name by Jack Kerouac.



The film was an almost painfully raw depiction of what we as humans love and desire most, whether those things be beneficial or detrimental to us. Whether it is having a house and a baby or writing one great poem by age 23, there is a deeper desire within all of us that drives all of our actions and ultimately makes or breaks us. There is no getting away from it, no matter how many drugs we take or how many miles we drive.

A girl searches for love, loyalty, and respectability, hoping to find it with a man that lets her down over and over again;
That man searches for the thrill, for glory, looking to assign value to himself by winning the affection of others;
His friends follow him blindly and ponder in the shadows of his conquests;
One goes on to become a great novelist, another a great poet.


From the observation of desire and insanity and recklessness and lust come the great artists, the great translators of the churning of our insides, the ones that help us to realize what we are and why we are.


These men and women--LuAnne Henderson, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and many others who wove in and out of their lives--lived, it seems, without boundaries. At least at first.


Neal and Jack.
The one who never secured them was Neal Cassady, known in On The Road as the character Dean Moriarty, an infamous icon of the Beat era in the 50's.

He was the inspiration for the main character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; two books by Hunter S. Thompson; songs by the Grateful Dead, Doobie Brothers, King Crimson, and many others; numerous poems; books by his wives; half a dozen movies; and of course, On The Road.

Then, at age 41, he was found dead on train tracks in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

I wrote to T: sometimes I think my life should be that interesting, and then I remember I don't want to end up dead on train tracks in Mexico at age 40.

The predicaments of the characters in this film made them more than characters to me, more than historical figures. Within each and every one of them I saw an aspect of myself, as a writer, a woman, and a lover, and I saw aspects of others around me. We are only human; we desire and desire and it leaves us both stagnant and racing through life.

It presented no clear problem and no clear solution, only the nature of our modern existence, stripped bare.

New favorite film, without a doubt. Watch it. Also read Howl by Allen Ginsberg (and everything else).

Oh, and happy Spring :) It's official!

xoxo
Maralah

Where Do People Like Us Float?

Finals finals finals.

Here, listen to this.

The Strange Back & Forth

Time has been strange to me this week.

It has caught up to me as I realize that finals are in seven days;
Left me behind as it advanced an hour, which I didn't actually realize until today (funny story...short version is, all my clocks reset automatically);
Made me aware of the way in which it attempts to thoroughly decide many aspects of our lives. So often do we hear the words, the timing was just off. Or: we met at the wrong time. Yet another common one in my life: I just don't have enough time.

I caught a glimpse of summer today, as bipolar Santa Cruz surprised us with some 75 and sunny no-sweater-needed weather. Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer. Yet, officially, we are still in winter for another week. We've somehow jumped two seasons ahead. Part of me is ecstatic that I can wear a dress and sandals tomorrow; part of me worries, like a child does about her sick mother, about the state of our dear Earth. It should not be summer in winter.

These days, time is not constant to me. Oh no. Often it moves too quickly, laughing maniacally as I frantically try and keep up and keep my wits about me. Other times I am disillusioned by its slow decay, desperately wanting to jump ten years into the future.

It is difficult to live in the moment. Thankfully I have a best friend who never fails to make me laugh and utterly forget what time it is.

I resolve to fight back, not against time itself, but against the stress it continuously causes me; I resolve to fight this war peacefully, by accepting that we are all haunted by the same ticking ghost, all monitored by the same merciless clock, and that I am not alone. We are all subject to the passing seconds, days, years.

As a grey wizard once said to a worried young hobbit:

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Is that not an encouraging thought?

xoxo
Maralah

Gratitude

I know Sunday is the day of the week typically reserved for giving thanks, but what the heck. I'm grateful today.

I don't usually express publicly what I'm thankful for. Why? Because honestly, I have so much I can list, it feels like bragging. But after feeling a little down in the dumps last night for no particular reason, and then waking up this morning and realizing how silly it was, I finally decided to write it all down somewhere I would never forget. I couldn't possibly name everything, but be warned: this is not a list of things I'm thankful for this week. This one spans my entire life.

The Big Things.
or, the people
I am thankful for my parents, who have worked their entire lives to secure a comfortable future for our family filled with opportunity.
For the same reasons, I give thanks for my grandparents, all four of whom have beaten incredible odds to get us all to where we are today. Aka, existing. I often think about how many couples and families have had to work and fall in love throughout history for me, a unique specimen, to be born (It's 2^[time since the dawn of humankind]).
I am grateful that I am attending an amazing university, and for finding majors that I am passionate about.
I am [again] thankful for my parents for paying for me to attend this university.
I am thankful to the university for somehow matching up my freshman roommate--E--and I, who I am thankful to have as am amazing friend and housemate (how often does it happen that your freshman roommate becomes your best friend?).
I am thankful for my boyfriend, T, who has stuck by me through thick and thin for what will be 2.5 years this month. I'm thankful for our comfortable silences, our inside jokes, and our loyalty to each other.
I am grateful for being healthy, safe, and happy, and I am grateful to myself for getting myself there, for fighting for it, no matter what roadblocks my wacky brain put in the way.

The Littler Things.
or, the more material
I am grateful for my surroundings: an apartment, a beautiful, open-minded city filled with and encircled by nature, and a progressive state.
I am grateful for the ocean.
I am grateful for the magic of computers and the hard truth of economics (doesn't quite fit with the rest, but it's true).
I am grateful for J.R.R. Tolkien and the spell he puts me under every night when I read his words.
I am grateful for having a big fluffy bed.
I am grateful for coffee, and our new coffee maker; we were perfectly fine with using our old broken one (we rebuilt it every morning to make our precious drink), but apparently E's parents found it hilarious and got us a real Mr. Coffee (with a delay timer and everything!!).
I am grateful for the giant fern outside my window.
I am grateful for fairytales.
I am grateful for having found this little blogosphere, and for getting to catch a glimpse into the lives of such amazing, independent, resourceful, caring, adventurous, forward-thinking women.

The lists do not end here, only my train of thought.

Growing up in my parents' home, we made a point of having family meals together. No one ate until we had all sat down around the table and one of us girls had said a prayer. It was a little redundant, being spoken usually by the current 9 or 10 year old, and went something like this: Thank you God for all our food, and give food to the ones who don't have food. Then we would add things we needed a little cosmic help with, like wishing a family member would recover from being sick.

I don't say thank you to God anymore. While I have no issue with religion (unless it's imposed upon others and/or causes harm), I have long since ceased to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (although apparently I still capitalize their names). I have two kinds of thank yous now: those I address to people, and those that are open-ended. Because really, you don't have to be thankful to any one person or thing. You can just, very simply, give thanks.

You may choose to give a name to that infinite place you send your gratitude to. Many have: many call it God. It makes sense that, throughout history, whenever humans have been the recipients of good fortune, they felt there was a higher power they needed to direct their thanks to, for fear that lack of acknowledgement would surely cause that higher power to withhold future joys.

I'm not here to contest that, although there are plenty of ways I could (e.g., if your parents are paying for your college education, don't thank God; thank your parents!).

All I'm saying is that I am thankful, although I don't know how I got lucky enough to have all these things to be thankful for.

Maybe it's karma. Not the misinterpreted give-and-take within our single lives, but the original Buddhist principle within Samsara (the cycle of birth and rebirth); maybe in a past life I did something right.

Who knows.

In conclusion:

an open ended Thank you.

xoxo
Maralah

A Wild Symphony

Spring continues to spring up everywhere.

The ravine just west of our apartment is filled with sunshine at its brim, but who knows if the light is reaching its depths. E and I are still searching for a way down.


Its slopes are bursting with all sorts of flora. This includes (as always everywhere in coastal California) obscene amounts of sourgrass (yellow woodsorrel), which I proceeded to munch on during my walk home on Friday (when I took these super high-quality photos with my phone). I got some weird looks from people driving by, as if they had never seen a girl walking along eating a bouquet of flowers before.


Some buttercup sisters, lookouts for the garden on the other side of this fence...


And some California lilacs.


Every time I walk home from class (a bit of a lengthy downhill hike), I'm completely surrounded by this beauty. There are flowers everywhere, and beautiful gardens, and then I get to the ravine, and it's like I'm looking at a whole other world. I am surrounded by sunlit fields and shady groves; delicate buds and tough, woody shrubs; echoing screeches of hawks to my right (the ravine) and sweet vibratos of smaller birds to my left (the gardens). The contrast and diversity of Mother Earth makes itself known to me, and I am reminded that I am just another piece of her puzzle, and all the complexity about me is also within me. In every world--in every forest, and every person--there is fragility and there is strength, and they do not always present themselves as such, nor do they exist independently. Every piece falls into its place, no matter how it is perceived, and each and every piece is needed to compose this wild, beautiful symphony.

Also, while doing some internet research in order to verify that those were lilacs (the growth pattern of the leaves didn't seem to match up at first), I came across the magic of bluebells. My gosh, do places like this actually exist? This is not really a rhetorical question, by the way; it appears that these are native to Europe, mainly Britain, but has anyone ever seen a bluebell wood in California? If I get an answer to this question *I'm going there*. This image is the stuff of fairytales.


Back at my parent's home, it's apparently teepee building weather for my little sister (It's actually always teepee building weather for my little sister).


Also at my parent's home, my other little sister's cockatiel, Machiavelli, has been behaving inappropriately.


Whenever I'm there, I wake up to his funny little singing, along with the distinctive whistle of some feathered friends I've come to call sweetie birds, so named because (simply) they sound like they're saying "sweetie, sweetie" when they chirp. Always two sweeties, never just one. I *think* they're chickadees, but since I never actually see them, I'm not sure. No matter. It brings a smile to my face regardless, as if they're sweetly nudging me along in the process of waking up.

Here's hoping Spring is weaving just as beautiful a symphony wherever you are.

xoxo
Maralah