Fungus Fever!

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 8

Our Saturdays are starting to feel sort of familiar, almost as though we have a routine.  We went to the market in the morning—C.C. and Milo know all the vendors at this point, and usually take videos of the lobsters in the tank.  There was an enormous one today.  Then I dropped Milo at a birthday party, and C.C. and I went for lunch at a Japanese place.  She is studying Japan in school, and it seemed like a good thing to do.  I went for a swim at our pool in the early evening—it was empty, which was nice—and had a good, long sit in the steam room.

I know I have written about mushroom season before, but I just can’t get enough of them.  We are in peak season now, and it seems that every time we go to the market there are new varieties.  They are just too good.  Some are meaty and dense, others rich and earthy, and some more delicate.  Tomorrow we are having our home exchange friends for lunch, and will reprise our sautéed wild mushrooms on toast.  We will use the very last of my birthday pig leg for it—we thanked him or her for giving us his meaty thigh as we disposed of it in the organic matter dumpster.  I’m sure that they would be delicious without the ham, too, if you happen to be a vegetarian.

You have to try this recipe.

Sauteed Wild Mushrooms with Ham and Aiolli

(Setas Salteadas con Jamon y Allioli)

3 Tablespoons fragrant extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 piece (3 oz) Serrano ham or prosciutto, finely diced

12 oz. assorted delicate wild mushrooms, wiped with a damp paper towel and sliced      if large

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Chopped parsley, a couple of tablespoons

About 1/3 cup aioli thinned w/water if too thick to drizzle (the Catalans LOVE allioli)

Grilled bread or toast for serving, optional.

1.     Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the garlic and ham and cook, stirring, until the garlic is very fragrant, but not browned, about 2 minutes.  Increase the heat to medium-high, add the mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms have released their liquid and are lightly browned, 6 to 7 minutes, adding more olive oil if the skillet looks dry.  Season with salt and pepper to taste, then stir in the parsley.

2.     Transfer the mushrooms to a serving plate or grilled bread or toast, if desired.  Generously drizzle the allioli over them, and serve at once.

Serves 4 on its own as a tapa

Photos of the Day

Kundalini, Pumpkins, and the Dreaded Subjunctive

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 8

There is nothing like the subjunctive to knock you off your pins when you are learning Spanish.  Just when I was feeling confident—maybe even a little bit cocky—about my ability to hold meetings and have conversations of the kind I did not imagine possible six months ago, Jorge, my Spanish teacher, trots out the subjunctive.  And Whamo!  I am left in the dust, taking five minutes to say, “I asked my husband to cook me some eggs this morning.”  I ask you, is it really necessary to make the construction so damn complicated?  I vaguely remember learning the subjunctive in Guatemala, more than 15 years ago.  My brain did not retain it.  What to do?  Truth is, I think I cheat a lot when it comes to verb tenses, and not just the subjunctive.  Perhaps I should just memorize all of the tenses of the most common 25 verbs and call it a day.  Sounds like a blast, no?

So that’s how my day started.  Then in the early evening I went to a yoga class.  I really needed to stretch.  I used to be very particular about what kind of yoga I did, but now I pretty much take what I can get, and go when I can.  I’ve done Iyengar, Anusara, Ashtanga, Dharma, restorative, Kripalu, and the all encompassing Hatha.  I don’t really care—just give me a good stretch.  My gym schedule said this was a Kundalini class, and honestly I could not remember if I’d ever been to one before.  So off I went.  Well.  We spent most of the class sitting or lying down, doing small repetitive movements and breathing rhythmically.  Oh, and some chanting.  I don’t mind a good chant, either.  In fact, my daughter C.C. came into the world with Krishna Das booming out of the delivery room boom box.  There’s nothing like a little satsang to give you a boost when you are feeling low.  But I also want to move my body, get the kinks out, stretch.  I did get a good lie-down from this class, and I felt relaxed afterwards.  In fact, I would have fallen asleep were it not for this strange whistling breathing thing everyone was doing.  But stretched?  Not so much.  I don’t think I will be returning.

It has been a long while since I baked—or really even cooked much of anything for that matter.  Alec is a fine and willing cook and, well, it’s just easier to let him whip up the dinner.  But I’m starting to miss it.  And with the weather turning cold, and my cupboard stocked with a supply of chocolate chips that came across the Atlantic with me earlier this week, I was moved to turn on the oven.  That and the fact that Alec cooked the lumpy green Murcia pumpkin we had used to adorn our threshold for Halloween for a gypsy stew a few days ago.  He pureed the leftovers for me, and I couldn’t let it go to waste.  So I whipped up a tasty pumpkin bread after dinner, with some chocolate chips thrown in to entice the young ones.  It felt good.  I think I need to get my butt back into the kitchen.

Techno-Break

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 8

When I took on the deanship at Milano more than two years ago, a Blackberry was part of the standard issue equipment. I only had a run-of-the-mill cell phone, and it seemed pretty cool.  Having a Blackberry issued by your office means you are important, right?  I don’t think I ever got to crackberry status—I never slept with it, which I’ve heard that others do—but I definitely used it more than necessary.  I charged it on the counter in my bathroom, and looked at it right before I went to sleep, and when I woke up.  First thing.  I tried not to check it in meetings, but it was hard not to, and sometimes it was helpful for moving things along during a busy day…

The Blackberry was just one more thing that nudged me into supreme multi-tasking mode.  I found myself taking cabs instead of the subway so that I could knock a couple of calls off my list.  I ate lunch at the computer, or while reading documents, if I was not in a lunch meeting.  I called my mom on the short walk between my office and the subway.  During meetings I made lists of things I needed to do after the meeting.  With the exception of an all-too rare lunchtime yoga class, I hardly ever did one thing at a time.  And, as anyone who practices yoga and meditation knows, the doing mind finds a way to creep into these activities as well.

If I am honest with myself, the Blackberry was useful in a few ways.  I liked being able to look up an address or a website when I was away from my office.  It helped me communicate with my assistant during super hectic days.  But many of the emails I checked while in transit required a long response that I was unwilling to tap out on that tiny keyboard.  And the easy, short ones got crossed off my list, but also tended to generate another email, thereby necessitating another response…  So in the end, it was not always an efficient use of my time.  Clearly, this is my own damn fault.  The true test of a technology’s usefulness is whether you can control it, or whether it controls you.  And there is something about the pull of an iPhone of a Blackberry that puts many of us into the former category.

On my last day at the office, in late July, I handed in my Blackberry, with no plans to replace it.  Once here in Barcelona, Alec and I both got the cheapest local cell phones we could find.  Alec is pretty much the only person who calls me, so that’s just fine.  We use skype to stay in touch with family and friends.

I do not miss it.  In fact, it’s been so nice to have some white space in my day that I’ve put some other guidelines—I hesitate to use the word “rules”—around my technology use.  I don’t use my iPod when I’m walking on the street or on public transit.  I use it at the gym and sometimes at home.  It’s interesting, actually, that I’ve done much more walking and yoga than aggressive cardio workouts with blaring TV and music since I got here.  I do miss some of my favorite podcasts, like This American Life and The Splendid Table, but I catch up every now and then.

And I’ve been trying to limit the amount of time I spend on email.  Ideally, I’d like to check it in the morning, and at the end of the workday.  I haven’t quite managed that, but it’s something to shoot for.

The good thing is that, in addition to leaving a job that made me feel as though I needed to be connected at all times, Barcelona is a pretty supportive environment for taking a break from technology.  Very few people wear headsets in public.  It’s not unheard of, but it’s a lot less than in the US.  It’s rare to see people talking on cell phones, or texting, while they walk down the street.  On Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, these talkers and texters cause traffic jams for the other Type-A’ers who are trying to barrel down the street at top speed.  I know, because I have these tendencies.  And perhaps the biggest shock of all is that, while cell phones work on the metro here, virtually no one uses them on the platforms or on the trains.

Is it cultural? Or have folks here simply not “caught up” with the state?  I hope it’s the former, and that there are pockets of places where more human contact is valued over techno-connection.

Let me know if you are interested in joining me in my quest to limit my time online.  I am happy to provide encouragement from afar.  And feel free to check up on me once I’m back, and the temptations present themselves all over again.

 

Photo of the Day

Well, I suppose if I'm taking a break, I should do something about these kids, no?

Welcome Zadie Sabine!

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 8

I’m back!  I kept thinking I would blog from the US but… it just didn’t happen, and it was good to have a complete break.  And anyway, I was with probably nearly all of my regular readers.  Leading up to my departure from Barcelona on the 24^th, I had a bit of trepidation about the trip.  I felt as though I was JUST getting settled here, and that perhaps going back to the states would put me a few steps back in my adjustment process.  And that may come to pass, but it was so worth it to make the trip. 

Most importantly, I have a new niece!  Zadie Sabine was born on October 28 at 9:29 am to my younger sister, Jody and her partner, Matt.  I arrived in Greensboro, NC the night before—my flight from Atlanta was five hours late because of tornados and other weather.  I bided my time well enough in the airport—got a chair massage and read for hours.  But after five gate changes, the announcement that the flight would be further delayed because a crew member had been injured on the flight in felt like the last straw.

But back to the important things.  Although it was nearly 11 pm, I wanted to see Jody and Matt the night before.  I had had regular skype views of her growing belly since I left the states, but there is nothing more striking than the before and after of  a birth.  One day there is a large, distended belly, and the next there is a person!  Amazing.

My mom is renting a place for a few months in Greensboro to help out, and I stayed with her, which was also terrific.  Zadie showed up on Thursday morning and I spent the rest of my time mostly in the hospital.  It’s amazing how much time you can spend just watching a baby, and how pleasantly the time passes—when they are asleep anyway, which is most of the time at this point.  She is absolutely beautiful.  We skyped C.C. and Milo from the nursery—they were dressed in their Halloween costumes and just about to leave for their school party.  They are thrilled to have a cousin but want to know why Zadie gets two cousins and they only have one!

Before that, I spent a day in Baltimore doing research, and then two days in Atlanta at a conference, where I presented some work on the effect the financial crisis has had on small businesses.  Suffice it to say that small businesses have taken the lead in past recessions in terms of job creation.  But now that credit is extremely hard to come by, that is unlikely to happen this time.  Many indicators point to this recession being different from those that have come before, and small businesses are not faring well. 

My good friend Elke also lives in Atlanta, so she decamped to my hotel where we hung out, walked in the park, ate good food, and made up for many months of not seeing each other by talking for hours.

The leaves were in the midst of turning in Greensboro, and I remembered that distinctive leafy smell that comes when the air is crisp.  It has gotten crisp here in Barcelona in the mornings, but the leaves are still green and lush.  I walked in the hills this afternoon and, while there are a few spots of yellow, it’s nothing like the riotous color that descends upon the hills all through the northeast at this time of year.  It’s not better or worse, just different.  I went to yoga classes with my mom, and ate a lot of pulled pork in NC, too.

Everyone was fine and happy when I returned home.  Alec, having done all of the pickups and drop offs, and having cooked 24 meals straight, was particularly glad to have me back.  Although we’ve both done our share of solo parenting over the years when the one or the other of us is traveling, we have always had the extra hands of a nanny or grandparent, and sometimes both.  So I’m grateful to him for carrying the load.  On my ride to the kids’ school this morning, the traffic was terrible and it took longer than usual to get there.  Unfortunately, we crossed C.C.’s carsickness threshold two blocks short of the school, and she let loose all over her seat and Milo’s backpack.  Amazingly, she herself stayed puke free.  Despite all of our travels and Dramamine and car sickness, this is the first time we were caught without a Ziploc bag, so our little Citroen has now been christened.  Welcome back!

Photos of the Day

C.C. and Milo in their homemade (by me!) wolf and bat costumes.  Easy, cheap and comfy!  And, they want to keep wearing their doctored up hoodies!