ROMANCING THE FAVA

THE FINE ART OF THE SECOND SHUCK

The finesse of a culinary affair

     It approaches a near sensuality. Near, I say, lest you think I've gone around the bend. Perhaps it is the knowledge that your effort will lead eventually to a taste unique, a culinary dance rich with flavor, aroma and the certainty of kitchen alchemy where almost anything you do ends up delicious. Such is the Fava. And so the endeavor to get these  tasty morsels into their prime nakedness, while not an easy task, is not without its pleasure, in the moment and in the anticipation of what is to come.

     When Lana bought the beans we are growing on our back hill the lady said "So you're growing these for cover crop huh!"  

      "No, my husband loves to cook with them."

      "Really!"

    Native to North Africa, the Fava, also called the broad bean, has been eaten by almost all cultures through history. Getting to that point, the eating, begins the way it is with most beans, getting them out of the pod-a common enough exercise. But the Fava is special. It requires further attention, a kind of special seduction.

     Out of the outer shell, these nutty companions of succulent dalliances need further prompting for culinary amour. 

     Some will tell you to parboil them, to soften the casing in which they hold their precious treasure. NO, NO, NEVER do that! You are not mashing potatoes here, you are instead courting a freshness and taste that merely is being coy. You must speak the language of food love, with your hands and a longing caress.

     Each Fava bean needs to be seen for its individual structure and promise.  You begin by an examination to find the proper side and spot where you begin the journey.

    Carefully, I prefer a thumb nail, you incise a small point

to reveal the inner bean, the essence of the taste.

     You then begin a gentle squeeze, not unlike the way some Mediterranean men or women apply an approving, even if an uninvited, pinch of your derriere. 

     A digression-both Lana and I have been the receiver of such. It is a special kind of touch and practiced by those of a particular nation where this bean is prepared in rapturous excitement. Maybe there is a connection.

     As you can see in the frame below, the gentle pinch brings the tasty little dear out into the world and ready to satisfy. 

Such delight, ready for the kitchen and the eventual 

consummation of the romance.

CLINICAL NOTATIONS

   It may enhance your experience with Favas if you know that a particular kind of pasta, perhaps Italian sausage, cheese and or creme fraiche and wine await.  In fact having the wine open, and in a glass and near your work station is also advised.

    I've wondered if there couldn't be some use for the now discarded inner shell.  Ours goes into the compost which is a good purpose in itself.

   If your climate permits, doing the work outside also enhances the love affair.

   Cheers!  I wish you many happy hours in your romance of the Fava.

    See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-HOW DO YOU SEE IT?

POINT OF VIEW

     Some of us are bewildered by the almost instant division that appears on practically every thing anymore.  Politics, religion, social structure, meaning and significance are all points of departure.  It seems more so now than ever.

     Henri Bergson, a writer and philosopher in the early 20th century and a Nobel winner for literature wrote of the power of intuition over mechanized intellect.  He also wrote of the continual force of creative and evolutionary energy, calling it "elan vital." I like the concept; never ending expression of new, original, life, birthing, a driving force to creation and understanding.  Mix that with my opening premise above and I'm left to conclude "some people get it and some just don't."

     Some adapt, learn, evolve, grow, expand. Some don't. Some see differences as a space in which opportunity exists, others see boundaries. While we all probably "get set in our ways," as rapidly as science is expanding and cognitive understanding is occurring and computer assistance advances, getting hung up in "old thought" seems to be counter to progress.  But then there are those who find "Progressive" a frightful term. So we come full circle.

      What's it mean?  Maybe we are indeed from different hemispheres of the brain, or different planets!

VIEW POINT ON SUNSET

 From a vineyard hill top, watching the painted sky.

Even the shadows enjoy the moment. 

 There may be better acoustical stages, but none with a better point of view.

THE ULTIMATE EXERCISE IN POINT OF VIEW

THIS IS LOTS OF FUN

     Thanks to my long time friend, artist and musician Jim for forwarding this video.  We are probably from close to the same planet.

      Have a great weekend.

      See you down the trail.

KNOWING AND OPTIMISM & THE ALMOST EATEN BY A WHALE VIDEO

REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

    Tools, advances and new research are coming rapidly now in the area of brain science.  Discoveries in the last couple of years are astounding but because they are technical and complex they have not been widely reported nor understood by the public.

      PBS presenter and host Charlie Rose with Nobel Winning neuroscientist Dr. Erik Kandel have presented 14 programs over the last two years that can provide a breathtaking and mind charging survey of this extraordinary new science of understanding. 

       Here are a couple of ways to learn more or gain access to the series.

 LearnOutLoud 

(this links to the full series and program descriptions)

Charlie Rose watch

(the final program in the series-looking at the new federal Brain Initiative)

     This is fascinating and informative television with special relevance to an aging boomer population.

A JULY SEA SIDE WALK
PACIFIC LULLABY

Napping seals without memory foam.

SOME KIND OF NEAR MISS

   Posting a video here that was shot just down the coast. It captures a moment where a couple of snorkelers come precariously close to being whale food.  They are swimming with a school of small fish when something happens they'll never forget.

     Whew!!!

     See you down the trail.

DIRTY AND THEN JUST NICE

DIRTY FIRST

    Jeremy Scahill is a savvy journalist who has survived war and produced major sets of information.  His latest, Dirty Wars is gripping, troubling and one of those pieces all Americans should see, but wont.
    It's a new day in world politics and the exercise of military might. Answers are not easy, solutions are complicated, but the operation of JSOC is something Americans need to come face to face with.
    The documentary draws you in from the first scene.  Scahill has a point of view, but when he gets information from the inside, to validate and expand what his reporting in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere has shown, you realize this is not your daddy's warfare anymore, nor of course is the nature of the enemy. If you care a whit about the future of this nation and the exercise of power, you need to see this film.  Here's a trailer.

Now, here's a little antidote to help you chill.

NATURE IN BALANCE

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-EURO STYLE

FRENCH, OR ITALIAN, OR CALIFORNIAN

    Admiring what I call the old "buck board bench" at Giovanni's Harmony Cafe, warmed by the coastal sun, reading a note from our pal Bruce about recipes from Provence' as we await the latest offering from our local master chef, the aromas of the kitchen mixing with the roses, my cocoon of well being is bumped by a realization. 

    Lana and I have been chatting about the joie d'vivre of the Susan Loomis book ON RUE TATIN as she recounts her move to France to write a cookbook as her husband rebuilds a centuries old home in a northern town.  It strikes us that our life here in what some have called the "American Provence'" is authentic provincial joy itself. The cafe for example, guests reflect that with the alfresco setting, the climate and cuisine they could be in Tuscany or Provence.  Indeed! The culture here is younger than Loomis's Louviers in Normandy, but it is unique, as in 

ART ON A LADDER

    Art Van Rhyn that is.  Artist, gallery owner, musician, founder of the whimsical 927 art show, cartoonist of the weekly From the Beach cartoon in The Cambrian and personality unique is one of the pantheon of  "Cambria Characters" this village is known for. Emphasis on "character!"

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS IS?

     30 minutes down the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway is the beautiful small city of San Luis Obispo.  Truly Mediterranean in look and temperament, S-L-O, as many call it, is a university town, full of playfulness, as in the scene above. Bubblegum Alley.

   Yep, that's all gum.  It's a changing work of art, as generations have created their own morphing images, words, messages and etc. Bet they don't have one of these in Normandy.

    So later I'll slip into my easy chair, crack open ON RUE

TATIN, peak out the window at the Santa Lucia mountains and start thinking about what we're going to do for dinner.

The whir of the mixer as I write this is the reminder Lana is making pasta.  We'll probably pick a few tomatoes from one of the raised beds and likely find the other items to round it out at the Farmer's Market underway in the village. Many of the characters will be there. In fact the longer one stays here, the more we all transform, or aspire to our niche in the ways of eccentricity.  

    Oh yea, we'll be using olive oil, but then, which type?  While this region produces great wine, we have a burgeoning olive oil market as well.  So, perhaps, there is a place for our version of this fellow---enjoy.  

Have a fun, delicious and sexy weekend!

   See you down the trail.

THE ROLLING STONE FIRE-TWEET TALK NOT ENOUGH & WALT DISNEY LIVES

SOME THINGS ARE MORE COMPLICATED   

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

    Mainstream and social media are afire with comment about Rolling Stone putting the alleged Boston Marathon bomber on the cover.  

  "Making him a star" some cluck. Phooey! As more than one respondent said, it's good journalism to probe as the sub title says, "How a popular, promising student was failed by his friends, family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster." I want to know and more than a few of my friends have asked the same thing, in some wonderment.

   And to those cluckers and tsk tskkers, the same photo has played front and center in a lot of other media since April.

   I love Twitter and it's almost instant presentation of events.  As I've written, it's like the new version of the old wire machines that filled the radio and TV newsrooms of my youth-a constant stream.  But, where the AP and UPI and Reuters wires were detailed and in depth, social media is brief and in the case of the Rolling Stone cover, the trend is fueled by personal comment, often snarky and usually always too brief on which to base logic or argument. 

    And Rolling Stone has published a few other "controversial" covers.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

  In fact the Huff Post found a few other historic covers that generated talk, and sales!

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of Huffington Post and Texas Monthly 

Courtesy of Esquire and Huffington Post

THE WORLD CHANGED ON THIS DAY

     Sunny southern California was the site in 1955 when Walt Disney gained a kind of immortality, at least in part.

        DISNEYLAND opened on this day back then.  The Disneyland legacy is profound, more than just the amusement and wonder of the parks and entertainment complex. A virtual science of crowd management, logistics, marketing, concept development and much more has followed.  You know there is something magic about being the happiest place on earth.  Still works.

ANOTHER HAPPY PLACE

     See you down the trail.

WE ARE TWO COUNTRIES

THE SAGA OF TRAYVON AND GEORGE

    While the headline is not original it seems to stick. The great divide in reaction to the Zimmerman verdict follows the divide that has been with this case from the start. Merely the latest click in a seemingly endless revolver  of disagreements. Some of the divides are ancient like unhealed wounds, unlearned lessons rising now like a chimera to stalk our future. Armed and dangerous.

      A REALLY SWEET FILM

     SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN has been on my list of films to see since I got a call from my pal Bruce one evening "You've got to see Searching for Sugar Man. We just watched it.  It is incredible.  You've got to see it!"

       Finally got to it, having missed it at the theatre.  It is an extraordinary story, told in a magnificent and creative way.  You probably know the story line-An American musician from the late 60's with great expectations but who fell into obscurity while remaining a huge star and influence in South Africa and who played a key role in inspiring anti apartheid musicians is thought to be dead.  A couple of South Africans launch a search for the truth which leads them and the viewer to an extraordinary discovery.

       Film maker Malik Bendjelloul weaves a great documentary.  His own story is fascinating.  He scrimped to raise the funds, ran out of money when filming and finished it with an IPhone and a special app. He's now an Oscar winner as well as the possessor of many other awards.  His own creative odyssey paid off.

       There are many impressive aspects to the film, the character of the artist being searched for being the lead. That quality may be best reflected in the persona of his daughters.  There is something almost mystical that radiates from the screen as they talk of their life and their father.

RANDOM CALIFORNIA SUMMER

     See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-ANOTHER WONDER

AMAZING

     Full disclosure here-I am a lover of Yosemite National Park and believe it is one of the truly amazing places on this planet.

     We are fascinated and thrilled by every visit. I wish everyone could spend time in this cathedral of nature.

      In the meantime, they provide marvelous videos that inform and provide their own wonder.  Enjoy this seasonal offering

      See you down the trail.

MEDITATION ON BUDDY MILES, JIMI HENDRIX AND DAVID BOWIE

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

     The great Buddy Miles wrote it first "My mind is going through them changes..." Hendrix did his version.  David Bowie created his own anthem to change with the lingering chorus, 
         Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger
           Ch-Ch Changes-Time may change me...
            Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger"
       The lyrics of both have been the score as I've settled into a rumination. Still thinking and haven't achieved a great cosmic break through. This I know, some of us handle change better than others. 
       Chaotic change is rampant in the middle east. The climate is changing. The efficacy of American government has changed so drastically in the life time of boomers as to beget a desire for revolutionary change. The economic climate has changed so fundamentally the middle class is disappearing, the poor are growing and the richest become more exclusive and insulated. Change often seeds even greater upheaval. Bigger changes are coming.
       Not all change is bad. Nor is it cataclysmic. But doing it, changing, adapting, learning new ways, even accepting it seems a mission impossible for some. I was the architect of a massive change in a large media company.  It was needed and it paid off positively in all ways, but oh boy was it difficult to manage the change.  Time and time again I heard myself saying, "some people simply cannot abide change."
      Some changes we can temper, manage, even attempt to direct-cultural, ethical, political, even environmental. If we don't, then forces beyond our control will be in control.
      We need to be proactive, or we will be pounded. 
      You can't run from it, you can't hide from it, you can't ignore it.  As a significant chunk of the population, the boomers, reach the approach to our dotage, we must live open to change, in all ways. There is never a path back.
The force of life is forward. We are curious, experimental and searching. We should harness those drives for positive change. Humans are destined to seek and offer greater individual dignity and liberty even when forces conspire against it. Repression sparks liberation.
      We tend to think of things only on a human scale.  This blue sphere, and the star nations in which it rides have yet another scale of change. We need to embrace the reality of a planetary awareness.
        Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the stranger. 
        We are constantly a work in progress. Stay tuned. Heaven only knows where this thought train is bound!?

Training the Trellis

     After about year, it is time to introduce our front gate, complete with vine.

   It has taken a while to get that Cambria look.  Here's the proof.

Now the mission will be an occasional trim.

 See you down the trail.