Nov 18, 2009 | Uncategorized
Coco Solo circa 1983?
I have been really struggling inside since I saw this video a friend posted on facebook. It is a video of people living in Coco Solo, the town I consider to be my childhood home. I’ll post it last, you’ll understand why in a minute.
Me and My brother with our pups
Growing up we moved quite a bit, and Coco Solo was the longest I’d ever lived anywhere until my adulthood. We lived there from my 2nd grade year until they closed the neighborhood to Americans, when I was going into 7th grade. I graduated from Coco Solo elementary, went to junior high there and returned my senior year to graduate from Cristobal High
(which is in Coco Solo.)
Coco Solo Elementary
It was a magical place to be a kid.
The entire peninsula had been built on coral reefs long ago (in the 1920’s I think) and jutted out into the bay with water so deep you could see schools of tuna swimming by you if you stood on the breaker wall. The flat fields were perfectly manicured. Wonderful for flying kites. Mango trees and almond trees waited for kids to climb up into. Parrots flocked to them and ate heartily on the fat juicy fruit.
We lived across the street from the elementary school, the last house before the ocean.
Perfect.
I moved back to Panama my senior year of college. (I was a Latin American studies major in Arkansas and realized how dumb that was since my family was in Latin America.) While finishing college there I saw the changes. All the American neighborhoods that had been Pan Canal Commission had long since been turned over. Only two military bases on the Atlantic side remained. Many people were unemployed and the drug culture/gangs was taking a firm hold on the people. People shunned Atlantic- siders when they would apply for jobs on the Pacific Side, because of their skin color or just because they were from Colón, I don’t know.
It’s been 17 years since I left and obviously things have only gotten worse.
Here is the video.
I want to help.
I don’t know how.
Nov 16, 2009 | Uncategorized
My family is awesome!
Saturdays E has dance from what she considers daybreak for a weekend til noon, then
in the afternoons both she and M have Nutcracker practice til dinner time. Such troopers!
The boys and I dropped her off, then ran back to NLR to get
yummy milk from the
market (and a few more goodies) and to deliver more Cub Scout popcorn.
Scott had a convention all day, so we spent the whole hour and a half break between classes eating a fantastic lunch at
Chip’s BBQ. I’ll admit, I’d never been there before. I worked in that area forever and never tried it.
It is a Little Rock staple and has been around since the 1960’s. It was so yummy! I had a BBQ chicken sandwich and Em had the pork. The boys both had burgers (notice all my kids were eating red meat since they don’t get it at home…)
We had heard the thing that makes Chip’s famous is the pie so of course we had to order some-
Coconut,
Chocolate,
AND
Lemon
The favorite?
Chocolate! (of course)
We couldn’t eat everything and the kids had very full bellies to dance with, but it was fun!
Sunday Scott finished the wood trim in the living room (he is awesome!) and I attempted to paint the kitchen ceiling (to no avail.) There is a water stain and I had no KILZ, so it kept seeping back through. About ten coats later I can still see it. ARGH.
Nov 16, 2009 | Recipes, Sweets, Uncategorized
Recipes and Ruts-
Seems we all seem to get in them, don’t we?
I know I have my favorite recipe for something and don’t vary from it- mainly where baking is concerned. (Honestly I’m not one to actually follow a recipe otherwise- such the rebel, eh?)
For example:
Brownies
I adore chocolate, and brownies… can you get any better than one straight out of the oven with a cool glass of milk? (Chocolate chip cookies come in a close second in my book.) The ultimate comfort food.
I use two recipes for brownies normally. The “Fudge Brownie” recipe that makes a small glass square pan (so I won’t eat more) from BHG’s “New Cook Book” from 1989,
Or
The old time Betty Crocker’s “Cooky Book” recipe from the 1963 edition (mom uses this one.)
It makes a 9×13″ glass pan so I only do that one when I know the kids will devour most of them before I do.
Well…
Last night I had a brownie craving and made the BC recipe in (gasp) my Pampered Chef jelly roll stone pan! And… I iced them! The kids were in shock this morning when I revealed them.
“But these don’t look like brownies, mom.”
“These are different.”
Sometimes change is good I think. The pan is a third gone already!
Nov 12, 2009 | Uncategorized
“I picked up the phone and could not believe what I was hearing…”
Growing up in Panama we were pretty used to having crossed lines (mainly in rainy season.)
Occasionally you would pick up the phone and hear people talking.
I remember when we lived in Margarita when I was in junior high we had a bar tie into our line so that mom would have to pay their phone bill. (Don’t ask me how they did that one.) You’d pick up the phone and hear crazy conversations in Spanish. All the bochinche (A.K.A. gossip) except never about anyone we knew. I knew all about Sr. Someone’s affairs and how many bottles of seco the bar needed to order. My babysitter would yell at them to get off the line because there were children in this house and they had bad language. Nothing ever exciting enough to keep us listening (or maybe I just didn’t know those words yet.)
The strangest things happened during my senior year of high school during the build up to
Operation Just Cause.
Our lines were tapped. You’d pick up to call a friend to see if they wanted to go to the beach and you’d hear “click, click.” We would poke fun at whomever was listening by saying “I promise, this is going to be a very boring conversation.” or “Do you really like this job?” Then you’d sometimes hear another “click, click.” It kept teenage phone calls short and sweet, which probably made my mother very happy.
I still am careful about what I say on the phone, not that I have any secrets to keep.
I always wonder who might be listening.
Now it’s your turn! Click on this button and link to Mama Kat’s workshop. It is every Thursday, but I am eternally late it seems and Friday is about as good as I get!
Oh! Also if you have an inkling, please check out my
cooking blog to comment on what items are always in your pantry. I’m trying to be snoopy and see what everyone else considers “staples!” I’ll put a new topic every week (pantry, dry goods, baking, refrigerator, etc.)
As soon as a I get some free time I want to redo my blog and have tabs at the top to combine the three I have going now. If anyone has hints please let me know!
Nov 11, 2009 | Uncategorized
Last night we went to the March of Dimes Signature Chefs fundraiser last night. It was my first time at a large fundraiser like this (on the eating side at least) and it was really fun (despite the horrible music selection- seriously we don’t all want to listen to Barbara S. or Celine D. ALL NIGHT!)
There was some yummy stuff by local chefs. Not a lot for people who don’t eat red meat like myself, but still great food. I was most impressed with
The Pantry’s spaetzel (I had been wanting to try their food and now will definitely go!)
This event really made me think about things. Okay, maybe I’ve been thinking about them already this week, but this really emphasized things. About babies, and fertility, and loss.
Thanksgiving is a bittersweet holiday for me. For four years in a row I lost a pregnancy at Thanksgiving. All at about four months. The pain was so real and deep I still have trouble thinking about it. Then I see the gorgeous kids I have and know there must have been some reason for it. That I so appreciate my “babies” even more and how awesome they are.
I’ve had so many friends and family members lose babies at birth, or almost lose them.
My mother, grandmother, my aunt, my cousins, my friends.
Life is so precious.
