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Spices and Seasonings

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When I first started cooking in the late 1960s, I didn’t know much about spices and seasonings. If I wanted my dish to be spicy, I sprinkled some powdered cayenne pepper in it. Garlic was such a pain in the butt that I frequently went with powdered garlic or garlic salt. Parsley? I used the dried stuff and wondered why it didn’t have any flavor.

I am a bit more sophisticated now. In my freezer, I have bags of frozen fire-roasted Hatch chiles. Now I take my time with garlic, slicing each clove thinly with a single-edged razor blade. On my counter are all the spices I need to make curry, including black mustard seeds, coriander seeds (jeera), turmeric, ground cumin and coriander, and fenugreek seeds, to name just a few.

When I look around me to see what most of the people I know eat, I am appalled by how few spices and seasonings are used. Unfortunately, most people can’t tolerate strong flavors. Martine, for instance, complains that most of what I cook for myself makes her mouth burn, even when I don’t use many chiles.

The older I get, the more I realize that good cooking requires time and care. That becomes more of an issue when I am cooking for myself. Martine rarely cooks anything for herself except maybe scrambled eggs or Quaker oatmeal.

So I am resigned to alternating one dish for the both of us and, next time, something for myself alone. When I am making one of my chile-infused meals, Martine frequently finds it necessary to open doors and windows. Fortunately, that seems to work out well for both of us. I suspect that what I cook is more nutritious, but Martine manages to thrive on her bland dishes.

“An Ever-Fixèd Mark”

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William Shakespeare

Here is perhaps my favorite poem about love, Sonnet #116 by William Shakespeare. There’s nothing there about “a summer’s day” or Moon or June, but it covers its subject admirably.

Sonnet #116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

This one’s for you, Martine.

The Stone Whistle

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It’s an odd-looking stone whistle. I have no memory of where I got it. Did I buy it? Did I find it? Did Martine find it and leave it on the desk in my library? (I never asked her.)

The oddest thing about it: The only way it sounds is if you inhale (not exhale) through what looks like the lips of the whistle creature—at the front of the above photo. The air comes from two locations, the largish hole at the rear and the smaller countersunk hole on top. The two little holes that look like eyes don’t go to deep enough to affect the sound.

I have adopted the stone whistle as a sort of good-luck charm, keeping it at my side when I’m reading. Several times a day, especially when I’m about to get up from my chair, I pick up the stone whistle and inhale. What goes through Martine’s head when I do this is anybody’s guess.

It’s just one of those meaningless little rituals that are part of my life, and of everyone’s life.

“Leaves of Three …”

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Sign Warning of Poison Oak at Descanso Gardens

I remember the old Boy Scout saying, “Leaves of three, leave them be,” referring to how to recognize Poison Ivy and Poison Oak. As I sat on a bench overlooking the lake at Descanso Gardens, I noticed the sign, which was next to a thicket of highly suspicious plants, presumably poison oak.

It would have been tempting to touch one of the plants, but I have already been troubled by itchy legs attributable to my Type 2 Diabetes. So I just sat there for about half an hour waiting for Martine. She never came that way, so presumably she detoured onto another trail.

Descanso is riddled with trails going in all directions. That is one of the charms of the place, along with the large number of benches fronting scenic viewpoints. We eventually met at the Chinese garden, where I sat reading Zen Poems in a perfect location surrounded by camellias. Then we met yet again by a pond which used to have a dual fish fountain (see image below) years ago that we used to watch.

Fish Fountains at Descanso in 2007

Although the fish fountains are long gone, we still like to think about them. So it goes.

O Canada

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Floating Post Office on Vancouver Island

It was 2004. I was on an old packet boat called the Lady Rose that went back and forth on the Alberni Inlet on Vancouver Island between Port Alberni and Bamfield. It was a beautiful day, and I was surrounded by a congenial group of Canadians.

The Lady Rose has since been decommissioned, but my memories of that trip will last a lifetime. The next day, I took another ship to Ucluelet, from which I took a bus to Tofino, where I stayed for several days.

I would love to spend some more time in British Columbia. Andrew Marvell had it right: “Had we but world enough and time ….”

There is something about Canada that Martine and I love—from Nova Scotia and Quebec to Alberta and B.C. Martine loves practicing her French (she was born in Paris) in Quebec; and she loves the fact that Canadian food is generally non-threatening. I know that she would accompany me to Canada in a heartbeat, whereas Latin America is more problematic.

I know our current President (I forget his name) has a grudge against Canada, but that’s his problem.

Plotting a Getaway

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Isla Mujeres Seen from the Air

The island is a half hour boat ride from Cancun’s Puerto Juarez. It is approximately 4.3 miles (7 km) long and on an average of 0.4 miles (650 meters) wide. In the above photo, you are viewing the eastern tip of the island, known as Punta Sur. The main town and the best swimming beaches are at the far end.

I am in the process of trying to convince Martine to come with me for a week in Isla Mujeres. It would be a low stress visit with lots of great seafood and, at Playa Norte, a beach that has a sand bottom, no waves, no rip tides, no rocks, no seaweed, and plenty of clear, utterly transparent water of the right temperature.

Martine does not like traveling to Mexico (she’s been to Yucatán once and Cabo San Lucas once). I am hoping I can lure her with pictures of a no-fuss, no-muss destination with great seafood, swimming, and shopping. And virtually no automobiles, except for taxis.

Shopping on Isla Mujeres

Although Isla Mujeres is famous for diving and snorkeling, I have no intention to do either. I have never dived or snorkeled before, and I don’t intend to start at age 80.

I have been watching YouTube videos submitted by Internet Influencers. They have been useful for showing what the place looks like, and how young influencers like to get sloshed when they’re away from home.

Wish me luck with Martine.

The La Brea Tar Pits

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The Lake Pit, Largest of the La Brea Tar Pits

It’s one of those redundant names: brea in Spanish means tar, so the La Brea Tar Pits are literally the Tar Tar pits. (Similarly, Torpenhow Hill in Britain means Hillhillhill Hill.)

Martine and I haven’t visited the tar pits for almost a decade, so we drove down to Hancock Park and took a good look at what the area looked like ten thousand plus years ago. Based on the skeletons that have been fished out of the pits, there were giant sloths, mammoths, lions, camels, sabertooth tigers, and many, many dire wolves.

Skeleton of Columbian Mammoth

The archeological record shows that there were humans living in the area during the Ice Age. It couldn’t have been much fun for them to contend with their primitive weapons against so many gigantic mammals.

Visiting the pits, I am reminded of a famous line in Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, when Marlowe points to the shore of the Thames and says: “And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.”

The La Brea Tar Pits Museum is a fascinating place to visit. In addition to all the skeletons of giant mammals who perished by drowning in the pits, there is a lab which allows you to watch volunteers cleaning bones recently pulled from the pits. (There are a number of them on the grounds.)

Martine got into the spirit of the occasion by donning a dire wolf headdress:

Martine with Wolfish Smile

Sick Again

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Twice in the last eight days, I have come down with a combined attack of nausea and diarrhea complicated by a lack of adrenaline to fight them. Both times, I wound up lying on my back in bed while my intestines attempted to turn my body into a Niagara of something browner and more disgusting than Lake Ontario.

I felt almost too weak to make the occasional dash to the bathroom, and for a while, I had the chills.

There was no fever, however, and there was a very clear solution. I took 60 mg of Hydrocortisone and waited several hours for it all to go away. By 4 PM, I was up and about and even able to eat some crackers and plums.

The good thing about my lack of a pituitary gland in these situations is that the solution is increased Hydrocortisone or Prednisone. The illness departs in a few hours and leaves no trace behind.

Except, one of these days I will be alone and too sick to take the steroids, and I will slowly, peacefully, glide out of this life. It’s not a bad death as deaths go, but it is just as final as any other.

Sorry I had to leave you with this image, but it is an aspect of my life that I cannot ignore. Thanks to Martine’s kind nursing, I’m still kicking.

El Segundo Car Show

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Purple 1950 Mercury

Martine and I used to frequent the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo, but were dismayed to find that it had closed its doors earlier this year. Luckily, the City of El Segundo puts on its own car show once a year and closes down its main commercial streets to make room.

Flyer for El Segundo Car Show

Unlike me, Martine is an aficionado of classical American cars, particularly of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. She had a number of conversations with the car owners, two of whom came up to me afterwards and spoke highly of her grasp of the subject. In all, we spent three and a half hours looking at hundreds of cars, most of which were models about which my little girl knew her stuff.

Martine Admiring Soapbox Derby Racer

At the show, we learned of several other upcoming car shows, including one at the Police Academy in Elysian Park sponsored by the LAPD. It looks like we’ll be going to that one, too.

Scrawny Squirrels

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Martine Trying to Feed a Squirrel

Sunday was a typical hot-and-cold day with a heavy marine layer and forecasts of rain in the eastern mountains and deserts. In other words, it was Mexican Monsoon season. Rather than break into a sweat in our apartment, I proposed we spend some hours at Chace Park in the Marina, maybe picking up a picnic lunch at the supermarket on the way.

I grabbed a book (George Mackay Brown’s Rockpools and Daffodils) and headed out with Martine to the Marina. She picked up a ready-made chicken sandwich at Ralph’s and saved bits of the crust to feed to the local squirrels and crows.

The park has a large number of scrawny squirrels who, I think, feed mostly on the leavings of picnickers. It was funny to see her approach the squirrels and try to convince them that they should take advantage of the crust she was offering them. Occasionally they did; but then, they decided to give it a pass. Martine turned away disgusted. But it was not in vain: The crows landed and grabbed the crumbs refused by the squirrels.

There was a pleasant breeze at Chace Park, and I enjoyed taking a walk that took in the statue of the helmsman at the tip of the peninsula in which the park is situated.

Statue of the Helmsman at Chace Park

The sun didn’t come out, but in sunny California that is no tragedy. We got fed, the crows and squirrels got fed, and I read a goodly chunk of George Mackay Brown, which is always a good thing.