David Turns 10010 (18 in Binary)

When I started this blog, David was 11 years old. My second post ever was about him. It's called A Preteen Thanksgiving Miracle.  I cannot really believe it, but a few weeks ago he turned 18. I'm so proud of him - he has surpassed my expectations in so many ways.

He's had a few birthday celebrations already. We had a nice dinner at home one night. Another night he and some friends went to a movie. And last Friday he had another batch of friends over to go kayaking on the Brazos river, eat dinner at our home, and then hang out at a downtown coffee shop. Here are some photo highlights!

[Lookin' for adventure...]

[Canoe canoe?]

[Paddling out under the historic Waco Suspension Bridge. It was built in 1869 to allow cattle from the Chisholm Trail to cross the Brazos.]

[Off they go up the Rio de los Brazos de Dios. This is what the Spanish explorers called the Brazos river. It means the River of the Arms of God.  As I prepare to send David off into the world, I am comforted that he is surrounded by the arms of God. This gives me a great deal of peace. You could say I've got peace like a river.]

[Outdoor Waco is where we rented the kayaks.  I really love that we live within walking distance now.]

[After kayaking, everyone changed clothes at our home while dinner finished cooking.  We're still unpacking and organizing, so excuse the mess in the background. While it may not seem like it, David does, indeed, have more than one male friend.] 

[When we first moved in, I was planning to remove the swing from the middle of our living room. But everyone who visits enjoys it, so we've decided to keep it.]

[Dinner was spaghetti and meat sauce with salad and french bread. Martha put the candles in the cake while it was still too hot and the bottoms of them melted and ran into the cake. Surprise!  Don't eat the silvery blobs you find in the cake.]

Good Times with First Responders

It's 10:00 AM. I'm still sleepy and am preparing my second cup of coffee for the morning.  (Don't judge me for sleeping late, I'm on vacation.) Then it happens. A very loud beeping sound is coming from the lobby of our apartment complex. In my groggy mind I think it's the obnoxious beep beep of a forklift from Home Depot about to crash through my front door. Or perhaps it's a dump truck backing up... into my ear canal. It's so ridiculously loud that I am reminded of seeing Van Halen in 1982, a concert from which my ears are still ringing.

Then I realized it was the fire alarm. Two months ago I moved my family to a loft apartment downtown, but this was the first time the alarms have gone off since we've been here. Back at our old house, the smoke detector went off every time we used the oven. When it did, Jonathan would always say "Mama's cooking again!" and then David would press the quiet button standing flat footed but reaching the ceiling. 

[This is what I imagined: S'mores gone wild.]

We went out into the lobby but didn't see any smoke so we debated whether or not we should actually evacuate. Then we started hearing the fire engines coming down the street, so I grabbed my camera and my coffee cup while Martha got the dogs on leashes. We left the cat with a fire extinguisher and told her to take care of the place.  

We spilled outside with our neighbors as no less than four fire trucks pulled up around our building! Tough-looking firemen started coming in with helmets and oxygen tanks. I tried to tell them it was just a Home Depot forklift but they kept avoiding my eye contact.

[He said "Sir, we're grateful. Your cat seems to have extinguished the flames."]

[There was a fourth fire truck you can't see in this picture. Kinda like the smoke.]

[False Alarm, but it was a Kodak moment.]

I am reminded by all of this of an amusing memory. It was fifteen years ago when we first moved into our old house. 

Cue blurry images and harp music as we go back in time to 1999.

Martha and David went away for the weekend because I was going to work on the hardwood floors and the fumes from the polyurethane coating were very strong.  It was important that I finish because of the impending Y2K disaster.  Friday night I preheated the oven to cook a big batch of shepherd's pie to last me all weekend.  But I had forgotten that I (temporarily) stored the Tupperware in the oven. 

I know, I know, don't ridicule me. Of course, you know what happened, the Tupperware melted and dripped down on the heating element. Then it caught on fire. Then I tried to put it out with a damp rag, but it didn't work. I tried my fire extinguisher too, but it was too old and didn't work either. I did remember to turn the oven off, gratefully. I called 911 and within a minute or so the city manager/police chief/fire marshal, Yost Zakhary, came around the corner in an SUV.  He's dressed in khakis and a button down and has a walkie talkie in his hand. He grabs the milk jug from my kitchen counter and fills it with water from the sink. Then he opens the oven and dumps it all over the fire. With one billow of milky smoke and burned plastic, the problem was solved. 

He mumbled some coded message in the walkie talkie, presumably to call off the mother ship, and turned and walked out the front door.  I don't think he ever said a word to me. It was then I noticed a policeman standing in my living room.  He stayed around and told me how I could clean the melted plastic out of the oven.  No kidding. 

I guess I have a way with emergency responders. It's a gift, really.

Frijoles Rojo

The refried beans served in Honduras are even better than the refried beans served in my favorite Tex-Mex restaurants. I almost feel like a traitor, saying that, but it's true. In much of Central America, they use red beans, not pinto beans. And sometimes they throw in a little sausage. I could live on them.

So Elizabeth, one of my students who has accompanied me to Honduras twice now, bought me a bag of red beans at Fiesta in Houston. I procrastinated cooking them for about a year because I really didn't know how. But a few Saturdays ago, I finally looked up a recipe on the Internet and dove into the process gringo style.

First you have to sort the beans and make sure there aren't any rocks or dirt clods mixed in with the beans. I didn't find any, but that's what the Internet said. Who am I to argue with Al Gore?

Then you have to wash them. Then you put them in a pot of water and let them soak overnight. The beans swell up and absorb the water which makes them soft. In the morning, drain them and put in fresh water and boil them for a while. I don't remember how long. But you really don't care do you? I mean, if you want to cook beans are you going to come read this post? I don't think so. You're going to use a cook book or a recipe website. I mean, you're probably just looking at the pictures anyway, so why am I even writing this stuff?

They were really soupy at first, but I kept cooking them until they got to the right consistency. I put in some cream cheese as an experiment too. I also put in a bit more salt than I should have.

Ready to serve.

Ryan came over so I made him eat some. He said they were too salty. So I ran into the other room and cried in Spanish.

Blue Light Cafe, Ruston Louisiana

I have now experienced soul food to a new, and unquestionably authentic, level. I discovered this restaurant on my trip to Ruston, Louisiana, with the help of some engineers at Louisiana Tech. I loved it.

An old house in an old neighborhood has been converted into this fine dinning establishment by removing most of the interior walls to make a dining room with 15 booths, two window unit air conditioners, and the friendliest service you could ask for.

I think the wood paneling on the walls may be original. Notice the exposed conduit and electrical panel. The floor sloped noticeably to the left as you enter and approach the cash register. Everyone writes their order on a little slip of paper and hands it to the help. On the menu are fried pork chops, fried chicken, cream corn, mustard greens, yams, mashed potatoes, cornbread, lima beans, and chocolate cake, among other delights.

The M and the boys loved it, as did I. The cultural experience alone was worth the money, but the food and service were stellar. And so ends my first restaurant review on Orangehouse.

Tortilla Strip Chicken with Shrooms and Spinach

I cooked dinner again. Alert the press. Give me a medal.

Here's how I roll: I poured some olive oil in a skillet on medium heat. Next I plopped in some chicken tenders, added some salt, pepper, and garlic, and then squirted Grey Poupon (or any dijon mustard) all over them like this:

In a separate pan, I sautéed some mushrooms in butter. That means I put some butter and mushrooms in a pot and stirred them around until the mushrooms got soft. When the chicken is mostly done, add the mushrooms to it.

Slice up some flour tortillas into strips like this. They will absorb the excess moisture in the chicken/mushroom/sauce mix and give you something slightly chewy. I made this part up myself, and as such made quite an impression on The M. Oh yea.

After the tortillas get soft, toss in a couple of handfuls of baby spinach leaves.

Then stir it all together and serve. Don't let the spinach get too soft.

This is what it looks like when it's done. My boys liked it. The M liked it. Everybody's happy.

Jalapeño Chicken with Shredded Broccoli

José Cordoba Martinez Gutierez grew up illiterate in the mountains of Ecuador. Until age 23, he made a living raising Jalapeño peppers on three acres of hill top that his father carved out of virgin jungle with a machete. His hands were a continual shade of pink from the years of labor and chemical burns from the peppers. He smelled mildly of loamy earth.

One day José visited the city where he met a beautiful woman from Laos who was there buying spices at a convention for Asian restauranteers. The moment their eyes met, José knew he would marry her or die alone. He said in Spanish, "My name is José. I grow peppers."

She could only respond in Laotian that sounded, to him, like a prolonged pre-sneeze, but her voice was pleasant, and she smiled at him with her beautiful teeth.

José and Poa indeed married and, eventually, opened a restaurant in a small town near José's pepper farm. Years passed. His sons worked the farm and had some excellent success expanding their repertoire of vegetation to include broccoli and sesame (and some abysmal failures like rhubarb and microwave popcorn). The restaurant's only dish was a curious fusion of South American and Laotian flavors known simply as "the recipe".

Passed on with love an reverence for two generations, the recipe continued to delight many an Ecuadorian truck driver and itinerant school teacher. It was kept by the family with great secrecy, as all their livelihoods depended on it.

That is, until José's grandson Zack fell into an unfortunate gambling habit and, in with the desperation of a junkie, sold me the recipe for $37 and a points card from H-E-B passed off as a stolen Visa. What can I say?

Here is the recipe as both dictated and heard by a man: Pour some sesame oil in a pan and put some chicken tenders in it. Stir them around until they get all white with just a few brown places.

Pour in a bottle of red jalapeño dressing and a few splashes of soy sauce. Get out some butter and put it on the counter. Take a picture of it, but don't use it in the recipe.

Cook it all up until it looks like this. Note to men, don't use "high" heat on account of it burning everything.

It's OK to pretend the boiling broth is molten lava. Just don't tell anyone.

Then pour in a bag of broccoli cole slaw with carrots and purple cabbage. Personally, the words "cole slaw" make me mildly nauseous, but that's just some unresolved psychological baggage of my own, and shouldn't be an issue for most people. I prefer to call it shredded broccoli.

Then you stir it all up until it looks like this. Serve it under heat lamps with egg rolls and banana pudding with nilla waffers (just like at the Golden Palace Chinese buffet). It smells good and makes your wife really happy. I highly recommend it.