Sopa de Ajo

I had sopa de ajo only once, in Cuzco, Peru, in March, 1999. Haven't a clue why I've never made it. I came home tonight after having saved $200 + by not buying a printer for photos. We went to Rowe Photo, intending to support a local business, but quickly realized it would be one more machine to maintain. Enough. I'll do what Jordan suggested and get prints via email. So, having chickened out of buying a printer, I decided to make something simple but different, like garlic soup.



The reason I have no photos of Peru is that BJ's Wholesale Club destroyed several rolls in processing. The remaining ones weren't very good. The young woman behind the counter apologized and said cheerfully "We'll, let's hope they weren't your once-in-a-lifetime trip to Venice." "No" I said, teeth gritted, "my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Peru." Almost more wounding than the loss of the photos was her insinuation that I might never make that trip again. Seven years ago, I still thought of myself as a young person, not a middle-aged woman who might not, in fact, hike Macchu Picchu the next time around, if there was a next time. It's absurd that I sometimes remember that tattoo'ed counter clerk in her red smock when I'm travelling, and the thought crosses my mind that I just might not make it back to Innsbruck or Budapest in this lifetime. There are a lot of places I haven't been.

I flew from Lima to Cuzco on Aero Peruana, I think. They went out of business shortly thereafter. It was quite a process. Curt, who teaches at UR but for whom the Maryknoll Mission in Lima is home, took me to the airport to lead me through the Kafkaesque twists and turns of departure taxes and "inspections." It was pre-September 11, 2001, and there was more screening when flying internally in Peru than flying internationally from the US. When I was in the final line, a little old Peruvian lady (grandmother type in flowered shirtwaist dress) asked me if I would carry on this little extra suitcase for her. I regretted, but no, senora. She went to the redheaded young British man behind me. "Hey, do you speak Spanish? She's asking me something" he said. I laughed and said "You won't believe this. She's actually asking you to take this extra suitcase on board for her." He was amused. "Can you please tell her 'Not bloody likely, Madam' for me?" Sure, I said, and explained, en espanol, that one should never take on board equipaje that belonged to others. Though I hadn't needed to translate for her; she got the drift. She scowled and moved down the line. Curt later told me that she certainly found a sucker to take the bag on, probably for good compensation.

I ran into the redheaded British guy the next evening walking aound the Plaza de las Armas. He was in Lima for three months, living alone in an apartment and working twelve hours a day working on securing some multinational conglomerate's computer systems. Guzman had been in jail for years, but foreign investment was still coming in slowly and unsteadily. I was impressed that he'd come up to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu on his own, instead of hanging out drinking the weekend away at the Hard Rock Cafe in Miraflores.

The next day I went to Macchu Picchu by train. I was suffering badly from the headache caused by soroche, altitude sickness. I was dragged onto the train at 6 am, feeling as though an iron band was being tightened about my forehead. A French woman looked at me, slumped in the seat, handed me a large square lozenge and said "Vite, mettez cela sous la langue." I did as ordered, and realized, as I put it under my tongue, that I wouldn't have cared at that moment if it had been cyanide. It wasn't, though. It was glucose, and ten minutes later, the headache was gone and I felt like Popeye after a fresh can of spinach. It was a scary train ride, but I was glad to be on the train and not on the 20-minute helicopter from Cuzco.



This is not a good place if you have a fear of heights. I spent the day with a British family. The parents were my age, and the 22-year-old son was taking a term off from Cambridge to do an internship in Sao Paolo. They'd just come from Bolivia and were traveling around Peru for a week. They came in handy at several points when I didn't want to look at the thousand or so foot drop. I closed my eyes and let them lead me over some of what they cheerfully called "the more harrowing bits."

We were having such a good time we very nearly missed the train back, and that would have been a problem. That evening, we had sopa de ajo at a restaurant, where we snickered at two Japanese girls who were taking turns videotaping each other eating dinner. It's probably on their blog somewhere.

This is my best memory of the sopa de ajo. It was a damp autumn evening, and the soup was great.

1 head (yes) garlic
1 T olive oil
wine or vegetable bouillon
canned crushed tomatoes
fresh sage
fresh thyme
salt, pepper, chipotle pepper sauce
one egg per person

Heat the oil in a deep saute pan and put in the chopped garlic. Cook until soft but not brown. Add maybe two or four cups of liquid (wine or water) and cover. Cook covered, low fire, until the garlic is very soft. Add the tomatoes, herbs, salt, pepper. Forget it for a half hour, simmering. Blend, or use a hand-held blender stick (in Italy they are called mini-pimer)until the garlic is pretty invisible. Or if you are lucky enough to have a chinoise, even better. A food mill would work but is too messy to clean.

Taste the soup. You may need a pinch of sugar, or more chipotle pepper sauce. It should be thinner than canned tomato soup.

To serve: five minutes before showtime, carefully drop from a cup in each of the four corners of the pan (if a round pan can have corners), one egg for each serving. Simmer until the white is fully poached and the yolk is heated and beginning to set, but not hard. Scoop the egg out with the same utensil you'd use for poached eggs and surround it with the soup. Garnish with olive-oil brushed toasted croutons and sprigs of fresh thyme. I served it with grilled asparagus and carrots. Et voila.
Bonus: when I took off the purple rubber bands from the asparagus John bought at the market, they said "Product of Peru." What are the odds?

Java Joe's Next Generation and the rest of Sunday

Sunday, May 7 was Java Joe's official grand opening.  A gospel group, Voices of Clouds, performed.  Here's Joe's father, with John disappearing into the cafe to get some coffee.


It was a perfect spring day, although a little cool for plant buying. So we arrived at 9, because Joe

asked us to get there early. The mayor wasn't coming until 9:30. That was fine, since it gave us time to watch the band set up and to hang out.

Mayor Duffy had already been to two events by the time he showed at Joe's at 9:30 and he was remarkably energetic. He stayed for quite a while before he had to go to his next gig. Hard work on a Sunday morning. Here he is with Charlie Reaves, Dana Miller, Joe and Maria.

And of course he schmoozed with Joe's father.


JudieLynn McAvinney came by with her two new dogs and they were well-photographed. Josanne and Charlie look as though they are ready to adopt.

Jordan had a crepe with Nutella and fruit.
Margaret was hard at work, first on juice, then as barista (this is a good skill to have before going off to college, Margaret).

John had a few cups of coffee and then went shopping for a birthday present for Lucinda.

I thought she'd be horrified despite her love of poodles. But she loved it. The new pet is named Chanelope (rhymes with Penelope) and will last forever, according to the woman John bought it from. This is one of the many advantages of a dog topiary over a real dog.

We finally dragged ourselves away and went to The Gables to meet the new resident director. After that, we visited Sara in her new home, a Victorian house on Rowley Street with great light and high ceilings. Then we went to Highland Park before is it contaminated by the annual Lilac Festival booths and crowds. The magnolias were almost over. I'd never noticed the yellow one before. Some of the pink ones were enormous.


The lilacs are worth the visit. There are 1200 or so of them. Here is John, hiding in a giant pale purple bush.



It was a close-to-perfect Sunday. At 7 we went to the Dryden to see A Night at the Opera which I hadn't seen in decades.
Subversive, anarchistic. No wonder they had revival success in the late Sixties.

El jardin, 5 de mayo

Phil dropped by this morning to pick up his motorcycle and I photographed him with the forsythia.



He had to do some maintenance but was soon on his way to campus.



Since I was out and about with the camera I thought I'd take some photos of the garden. We closed on the house on May 12, 1991 so in a week it will be the 15th anniversary of our owning 296 Melrose Street.

The rhododendron is an annoying pale pink-beige but before the flowers open the color is saturated and satisfying.



The kwanzan cherry is next to a variegated olive. Pi the cat and Honey the dog are buried under it.



I like the grape hyacinths better than the real ones which are too aggressive and large. The forget-me-nots last pretty well in the shade.




To the right of the front door there is a terrific white lilac. It is just behind a deep purple one that's not quite in bloom.



The line-up between our house and the driveway: white dogwood,lilac, flowering quince. Marilyn's cherry tree is to the right.

Wisteria

The first time I was conscious of the wisteria plant was the spring of 1971. I was living in Nice, and on the other side of the Route de Fabron there was a winding dirt road leading to a farmhouse. It was lined with an ancient stone wall, covered with wisteria. Behind it were mimosa trees that hung over the wisteria and the road.



I planted one in 1981 in front of our first house on Rosedale Street in Rochester and it bloomed madly the first year. It still blooms. We sold the house in 1983 when we planned to move to Japan to teach English. Which we didn't do. We moved to Aldine Street in the Nineteenth Ward instead, and planted a redbud tree and a wisteria. The redbud is magnificent. The wisteria never bloomed, and I was told my first one had been beginner's luck.

We moved to Melrose Street in 1991 but it was not until 2003 that I asked Adair to buy a wisteria. I'd decided if this one didn't flower I'd dig it up and forget it. The first year it had three flowers. Last year it was respectable. This is the wisteria against Marilyn and Cy's garage, with one of their lilacs in the background.

chick pea soup

It sounded odd. I make every other kind of bean soup, but never chick pea. I had just come across a cache of dried garbanzos. A massive amount of hummus? too much, and too short a refrigerator life, once prepared. So I googled "chick pea masala" and came up with some soups. But that's not what I made. All I did was soak chick peas overnight, changing water several times. Boiled the chick peas in fresh water until soft. This took about an hour. Added a couple of chopped carrots, onions, celery, and two mashed cloves of garlic. Cooked until vegetables were soft. Added 4 cubes vegetable bouillon, salt, pepper, a teaspoon of cumin. When it was done I pureed about half in the blender and added it back to the pot. (You can see there are still whole chick peas.) Finally, stir in the juice of half a lemon.

This cooks.com recipe is probably better but more ambitious. I'll make it sometime. But will probably use cubed cooked sweet potato in place of the acorn squash...easier.