Happy Birthday, Popie!
Today is my grandpa’s 93rd birthday!
He is a wonderful man and still going strong.
I am excited because he’s coming down for lunch today and I get to celebrate with him!
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| Me & Popie (1974) |
¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Popie!
Empanadas
Empanadas are about the best comfort food around. I grew up eating these yummy pastries from bakeries and carts downtown. Every country has their version of a meat pie, and I believe most Latin American ones are along these same lines. For my wedding my family and I made 100’s of these little dears and I can’t eat one now without thinking about it!
This particular recipe is from a military cookbook from Panama, made by the wives of the Intelligence division on the Atlantic side called “Cooking With Intelligence” (long, long, ago.) BUT, it says it’s taken from the “Interamerican Women’s Club Cookbook”- a club my grandma used to belong to in Panama. My mom uses this one and doubles it. I must say it’s much better than the one I used to use…
Empanadas
Dough:
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup of chilled butter
1/4 cup of chilled Crisco
1 to 3 Tablespoons of water
Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl and cut in the chilled shortening and butter until it resembles a coarse cornmeal, using two knives or a pastry cutter. Add a little water until pastry is moist enough to stick together in a ball. Put dough in refrigerator for an hour. Roll out dough on lightly floured board to about 1/8″ and cut with round cookie cutter or glass. On each round of dough put a little of the filling, about 1/2 teaspoon. Fold over and flute edges with fork. Brush tops with beaten egg. Bake in oven 400 degrees until golden brown. Makes about 60 empanadas.
Filling:
3/4 lb. ground pork (my mom used ground chicken and turkey)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 sweet pepper, chopped
1/4 cup of currants
1 Tablespoon of capers
10 stuffed olives, chopped
1 hard boiled egg, chopped (I’ve never added this before, and mom doesn’t either)
1 bay leaf
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 lg. ripe tomato chopped (mom used a can of diced tomatoes)
4 Tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 tsp of oregano
1/2 hot pepper (optional)
1 sprig of parsley, chopped
*Put oil in frying pan and fry meat a little. Add ingredients and simmer for half an hour. Salt and pepper to taste.
I’ll try and make some soon and post pictures for you!
Free Fun on a Sunday
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| Making Shadows |
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| Watching Statues Laugh (because of the grasshopper on her arm?) |
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| Splashing Like Ducks in Peabody Park |
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| Finding Hidden Trails on the River |
Writer’s Workshop: CocoSolo- Then & Now
Coco Solo circa 1983, already not what it was in it’s splendor
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 and Christmas tree bonfires, and kickball games.
Mango trees and almond trees waited for kids to climb up into.
Parrots flocked to them and ate heartily on the fat juicy fruit.
Wonderful for flying kites and Christmas tree bonfires, and kickball games.
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.
*Reposting this from 11/18/09 for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.
On Being Ma’am-ed
I have been getting a lot of “yes ma’ams” lately. I am not a fan of the “ma’am” and “sir” business. I know, I live in the south but I don’t make my kids say it like most Southerners do. I should be okay with it, and I was until I got ma’am-ed. I suddenly noticed not just young bag boys, waiters, or my kids’ friends doing it. People I thought were close to my age started doing it. Should have been a sign. (Well, I took it as one to re-henna my hair anyway.)
Then, I was counting up fundraising money for the school and saw a name on a check for a fourth grade parent that made me do a double-take. It’s a unique name of a student I had when I taught high school Spanish many years ago. Yes, I’m getting a hint now.
A boy in my daughter’s class came up to me in the hall and said “Mrs. S, you look just like Miss Smith (not her real name but he meant their math teacher) but she’s younger.” I think the fact that all the teachers at my kids’ school seem to be 20 and gorgeous made me feel a little better.
I was reading a Parenting magazine while at the doctor this week and there was the cutest article on being “formerly hot.” It made me laugh out loud. The lady’s blog is hilarious and any of you nearing forty crowd (like myself) or forty-something’s will relate. She even has a checklist of signs to see if you qualify for being “formerly hot.” Too funny.
I am content with my place in life. I think my friends who I’ve seen grow up and evolve are all just more gorgeous to me. They are more at ease in their own bodies and it shows. “Hottie-mamas” as my hubby says.
The dictionary gives the definition of ma’am as:
a short form of madam, a show of respect, especially of royalty. (Not too shabby.)
And the fact that my awesome guy still gets jealous, thinking that the bag boy that just ma’am-ed me is after my bod, makes me feel so good.
Sopa de Limón
This is my quickie version of Sopa de Limón, a yummy chicken soup from the Yucatan peninsula. We had some in Cobá, Mexico while watching Mexico play in the World Cup a few years ago. An awesome family memory and a feel-good kind of soup for what ails ya…
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| Us in Cobá |
Sopa de Limón
- Saute half an onion (chopped) and some garlic cloves til transparent. Throw in some chicken (any parts or amount you want,) salt, pepper and I like a packet of Sazón by Goya to add flavor. Add water to cover chicken by about 2 inches. Add 1 lime that has been cut in two. Boil until chicken is cooked. *I had leftover broth and chicken from when I made the enchiladas which I froze and brought out for this purpose.
- Let cool til you can chop or shred the chicken. Put chicken back in broth and add more water and a few bouillon cubes if you need more broth (I like Knorr vegetable cubes but they are becoming increasingly harder to find here.) I also added some chopped cilantro. Add whatever else you want to now. (I put in some cooked brown rice that I had leftover in the fridge and some chopped zucchini.) Let simmer until you are ready to eat.
- On serving I like to put things in little ramekins to add as people like. A bowl of halved or quartered limes, chopped cilantro, black beans, pico de gallo…
I served it with some homemade quick bread I made using my pizza recipe (1 1/2 times the recipe) plus added a bit more yeast and some fresh oregano.
