Never on Sunday Culebra

 

It was not today

table to Vieques view

I was not naughty.

Dawn Sun Rise on a Culebra Hill

I know rainy days aren't for everyone, but even when I was working every day I welcomed an all day of coolness; the rain, the grey skies. Because it doesn't happen very often around here, maybe it's the differentness of it. 

After, when the sun is out and the skies, especially in winter, are an indescribably clear tone of blue (though we've all tried to describe it), it never fails to amaze me how quickly the muddy roads, the splashy puddles, the diamond beads on leaves and grass are gone, poof! Plants grow extra fast with the magic water of rain, it's almost observable - the greening of the island, the buds turning to blossoms. A transformation, a show of Nature, all for free.

This morning's dawning and sunrise gave another show. I paid my ticket in early rising, dogs doing their yips of get up! It's walking time! and the grand running just because they could. I didn't run, but a walk to start the day is a very good thing, even without coffee first. I need to work on that plan. 

Have a tantalizing Tuesday. Do something thrilling. 

Culebra Sunday on a Hill

 

Sunday, here so fast?

Wasn't it just yesterday?

Oh, you Trickster, Time!

Culebra Sunday ~ Thanksgiving Weekend 2020

 

One last rendezvous 

A flight across the water

Sun flaming farewell 

Culebra Sunday

 

Perched on sweet comfort

Breathing in and breathing out

The moment is full

Thanks, Gorgeous Guy!

I was in Milka's the other day (okay, it was yesterday at 3:09 in the afternoon - that's a joke, really), standing at the counter, when a man standing off to the side - you know, near the batteries, headache and sleep OTC meds, mosquito sprays and sugar free candy, along with a few hundred other miscellaneous items, that area - caught my eye. 

'Oh! Did I cut in front of you?' I asked, because I was far from being in a hurry and I also have an anti-rudeness gene deeply embedded (at least out in public and with strangers). It was sort of a tossed off comment, until seeing him registered with me, as he replied he was in no hurry, take my time, etcetera. 

For your own viewing pleasure because it's what I've got to offer. 

I have to say, in that nanosecond look, he registered strongly. This guy had a perfect body, along with a generous and gorgeous smile. He was not ridiculously muscled, but nicely muscled, more than a swimmer, more than a runner, less than a weight lifter. And he wasn't wearing shorts to his shins, so all of those toned leg muscles were just there for the viewing. It wasn't like I was breaking my neck to leer ogle look, he was right there, speaking to me. In public.

It's only the most wee bit embarrassing to say I was, momentarily, speechless in the light of his physical beauty, but it's true. I gathered myself together enough to say exactly what I just wrote above. 'I'm good, I'm just enjoying the view, thanks.' The girl behind the counter gave me a laughing look and I said, 'Hey, this is what old women get to do!'. And it is, even though what the hell else was I supposed to say? Thankfully, I was masked. 

No, of course I didn't take a photo. Really. I mean it. However. If I start grabbing tourists crotches, if I veer into Joanna land, someone please put me safely away, with love. Call Bike Steve, he'll know what to do. 

Have a satisfying Saturday. Do something (only a teeny weeny just the very littlest barely seconds long) legally salacious. Oh, never mind. Do something sweetly that makes you sigh. 

Culebra Sunday

 

In small crevices 

 Breezes plant whimsically

Treasure for the soul

Culebra Sunday

Beneath the covers

Beyond the appearances

Magic can appear

Free Food and a Driveabout - It must be Culebra Wednesday!

Wednesday means getting up at dark thirty to meet with a driving friend, then heading to the Ecological School to line up and wait for the ferry, bearing the truck full of boxes of food for the island population. Volunteer workers gather, the first question asked is "How many families?" There are those who are a family of one, those who take extras for distribution around the island to those without vehicles. These boxes, containing everything from onions, potatoes, meatballs, tomatoes, butter, cheese, and more - and bags (canned goods ranging from pears to tomato sauce, tuna to varieties of beans and more) along with juice and usually some extra surprise, picked up at the old school, are available to all who live here. 

We sort through what we might use and then drop off items that can find a needed use at the Senior Center, where meals are prepared for those who can't cook their own. Most everyone I know does this kind of sharing, some for individuals they know who particularly enjoy some weekly offering, some to family friends with plenty of mouths to feed. No member of the community is going hungry here; it's pretty spectacular and has been going on for months, each box containing something a little different each time, our own surprise box. How long will it last? I have no idea, I only know to be thankful for what is happening now.  

Volunteers up early and smiling while doing the literally heavy lifting.

Thank you, those who week after week show up to help out!

After dropping off food at home and the Center, it's driveabout time. We head down long unvisited roads in the country where ongoing changes are happening or nothing is going on at all, probably looking much the way Culebra looked long before I ever heard about it. There are a lot of stories hidden in the hills and valleys; I know a few but there are so many that remain a mystery. Some of those places are gone forever, but the stories live on and they matter. Poco a poco.

A little rainbow magic over town

From far up a hill

I'm not sure what's going on in the above photo, I only know that beehive boxes and a vine covered shelter, citrus and breadfruit trees with sugar cane in the back are enough to make smiles. Yes, my curiosity is piqued, in the best way!

While it feels much later, having gotten up hours before, all of this is usually done by 9 o'clock at the latest. Heading back past the school, the line is gone, the extra boxes going wherever they go. For some, the day is only starting, for some their work is done for now. Cheers to the volunteers!

If I wrote about all of this earlier, chalk it up to my foggy brain. I'll catch up to myself soon enough.  

Have a warmhearted Wednesday. Do something weightless. 

What? It's October?!

I'm not sure how this many months have gone by without a post, and I mean that. But I'm not sure how many months have even gone by, so a bit of mind slippage isn't something I'm going to belabor when, overall, my life is very good indeed, compared to so very many. 

Today reminded me of Funday Sundays, a long while back. Visiting a couple of beaches, taking a good walk with a couple of friends, the sun shining, the breeze blowing just the right amount, it ranks right up there with oh what a beautiful morning! What lucky duckies are we!

Patterns in patterns can be a little dizzying, in the good way.

Water dance

Under the boardwalk. Boardwalk.

On this ride through the pandemic, there are millions of individual stories out there, from every extreme of possibility  Depending on place, opportunity or lack of same, resources, attitudes I don't think very many people around the world could say 'THIS is what we went through' and have it be a one size fits all. 

Here on Culebra, I can only speak for myself, though of course there are a lot of other local stories with most concluding the bubbleocity of the positive. My experience has been, though not without the emotional ups and downs most have experienced, one where to complain would be the height of rudeness to the Universe. I've lacked for nothing, except being with my family in California. I live in a beautiful place, I've been able to be in as good a situation as I could imagine, including the companionship of a funny cat, which is pretty perfect as far as lack of demands go. 'Pet me, feed me, repeat' is not a demand. 

A part of what makes Culebra Culebra and me heart happy.

More beach purple

Yes, I do see a prehistoric bird getting ready to browse on some purslane

Mental health clinic

It's all about perspective.
Standing in the same spot as the above photo,
but looking the other way. 

I'm always happy to see this, in one of its many forms, still remains

Without posting for so long, there is a temptation to try to describe so much of what has happened, from my own perspective - but in going through this now months long situation, my worldview is pretty much grounded in the day by day, so for today, this is the story. To go too far back or too far forward when I'm just full of beach time would be to take off a bit of the still sparkling glitter. So I won't! 

Have a scintillating Sunday. Do something shiny. 

Oh Deer!

Yesterday afternoon held a walk to the end of a road to the sea, where all the sweat and head pounding heat was instantly gone in cool, calm water. There was a family there, masked and socially distancing from me, doing exactly what I was doing, enjoying our blessing. 

While gathering up things to go, there was an unexpected bonus!

Hello!

Enjoying the view

Ok, places to go

She was so calm and so close! I had time to take photos as she turned and strolled down the beach. Another gift. 

Day was done, curfew was near, it was time to head home, holding simple pleasures in hand and heart.

Have a serene Saturday. Do something saturating. 

Spicy Mango Chicken Wings or Get Naked Cooking

We've been amazingly blessed here on Culebra in so many ways. For the most part, the community has worked really hard at the boring job of staying home and sitting tight to keep the highly contagious corona virus at bay (pun not intended). There are always rule breakers, but that's life. 

While I'm not the first to suggest this, I highly recommend peeling and eating mangoes naked (if you are just eating mangoes, I recommend being in the ocean with them, naked - thank you Michael C for this 30 year old life wisdom). They WILL send juicy bits all over you and if you think red wine stains, mango stains are pretty much bullet proof unless you dunk your clothing immediately.
And then you are naked anyway, so save yourself a step. 

One of the things we've been getting in abundance is food. Canned foods, boxed foods, frozen foods and fresh foods. The hard work of loading them up and passing them out to long lines of grateful receivers has happened a lot; I've actually lost count but no one is going hungry on Culebra who isn't willing to wait in the car line, and if there is no car, the boxes have been delivered to the homes of those people. 

Prep means gathering all the goodies. I didn't have fresh ginger, but I wanted to try to use only things I had on hand. As a condiment and spice queen, I have a lot on hand.
One of my new favorites is Japanese 7 spice. It's hot without being overwhelming, it's complex, it's delicious. I didn't have plain cinnamon so I used garam marsala. Well, there are a million kinds, but this version is on the cinnamon side. 

Oops. I forgot a couple goodies. And threw in some other stuff along the way.
That's how I cook, you can stick to the rules if it makes you happier!

(Cooking side note: One thing about having delicious ingredients is that one has to try really, really hard to make something that tastes awful. Even though this had quite a few punch up the flavor ingredients, it's a pretty simple dish and simple is usually best. Err on the side of less is more seasoning wise, you can always add, but you can't take away. 

The recipe says to use olive oil, which is my cooking oil of choice but I just happened to have bacon fat and, as everyone knows, using bacon fat adds something extra to anything cooking in it. So, the onions were sautéed in bacon fat. Moving on.

With everyone having different personal tastes, things unwanted have been shared with those who do like whatever it is. There is always someone who will be glad to have x, y or z that someone else can't or won't use. 

Once the onions were translucent, I added the mango chunks. The recipe said to lightly mash them, I obeyed. The thing here is to have a very ripe mango, it makes mashing it a lot easier. Oh, by the way? This is now going to be hot, so put your clothes back on. Or a towel, or something. Aprons count.

One of the days we were given 10 pound bags of chicken wings. For a family, that would be a lot, for a single person, it is a huge amount! Because everyone had these packages and no one needs any, I keep plowing through the bag, trying to incorporate other bounty received, which is how I started doing something I really hadn't done much of in my cooking, the use of fruits. I can't say why this was never a thing for me, but it is now! Chicken with apples and lemon and tomatoes, for instance. It works!
 

Lightly mashed, all the spices and garlic and lemon juice in!

We also have been getting a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, mangoes and strawberries, pineapples and apples, broccoli and onions and potatoes. A wealth of bounty. It's not an onerous task to try to keep up before things go off, but I found myself with a mango on the verge, hence Spicy Mango Chicken Wings!

After the marinade cooled down, it went into a plastic bag, with the chicken.
You don't have to use a plastic bag, anything that will allow the chicken to be covered with the marinade and closed shut will do. My bad. Do better!

Back in the old days, when I was making mango hot sauce, I kept gallons and gallons of mangoes in the chest freezer. I'd gather them from various trees around the island all season and then have the luxury of using them all year long. Why didn't I try this then?

This is another pretty sloppy part, clothing optional depending on how deft you are at picking up very slippery wings covered with leap off the chicken and onto you mango. Except now it's all spicy and yummy but the chicken is still raw so I do NOT recommend licking your fingers. Or shirt.
The recipe recommends using a silicone mat for this. I didn't have a silicone mat so I used olive oil to coat the pan instead. Yes, all the bacon fat was gone. Damn it.

And finally, it was done. A relatively short cooking time for a relatively long prep, but well worth it - and I like prep. Obviously I used wings but you could use any chicken parts you want. Or anything else you want, it's YOUR food!

Yes, they were really good. 

I very loosely based the above on what I read here, a recipe by Sanjeev Kapoor, an Indian chef I'd not heard of before but he's apparently very famous and has the longest running cooking show in Asia, according to the blurbs. I'll be checking out more of his food. 

Have a tangible Thursday. Do something terrifically tasteful. 

Walk This Way on Culebra

I had decided yesterday to take a walk today to see one of my favorite trees. I decide lots of days I'm going to take a walk and end up walking about as far as the back porch. It's walking, but not exactly what I planned. But today, waking up, putting on real clothes, feeding the cat and finishing my coffee occurred before the sun was really beaming so why not roll on with it?

Today was a SEVA food giveaway day and people were lined up from the old school to the new(er) school and around the corner. I don't know what's in this week's box of goodies but I do know there is a lot of gratefulness up and down the line. Plus, I got to say hello and have mini-chats (masked/safe distancing, yes) to a whole bunch of people I've missed seeing, a one step at a time smile fest. 

The tree, as I was told, was in bloom, without, as I was also told, very many leaves, but alive and beautiful, well worth the walk (she wrote, alliteratively). 

Half-dressed works for me

I need to go back with the real camera

Since I was already that far, I thought I'd go check on another favorite tree, the rainbow eucalyptus. Sadly, it's dead, rumors of it not making it through the hurricanes turned out to be true. Vale, dear tree, I hardly knew ye. Someone needs to grow another one here. Or ten. 

It wasn't difficult to cheer myself up on the way back. This is a walk that I've taken hundreds of times with well over more than a decade living at the shack and it's always interesting to see what's new, what's changed, what's going on. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not so much but always, always interesting. 

This is the largest cashew I've ever seen! it would fill a child's palm.

I've never seen this boat before, but its Crayola colors are inspiring me! Plus, that bimini looks like a very good idea as well. Hmmm.

I think I have a project coming up!

There are a few homes on Culebra that are as special as certain trees. Some have fallen into disrepair just like some have been fixed up over the years. This is one of my favorites. I hope they just keep it fresh with paint and never change anything else. 

As my Dad used to say when I made a clumsy move,
that first step is a doozy. 

There was also something on this walk I'd never seen before. Or maybe I have but forgot, which always makes for new discoveries. When I first saw this, I thought it was a bird's nest, and how weird that it would be on a wire. That thought lasted about a nanosecond as its mossy self became apparent. It reminded me of a ball of Spanish moss; I'll leave it to more educated planty friends to name. 

The light made the blooms iridescent. A better camera would have been...better. 

The sun was turned on full bore by now, but a breeze was happening too. There was still a long line of cars waiting, though not quite so long, some with towels or papers to block the heat ball, and no one was complaining. 

Welcome home, Johnny! Your self-quarantine will end soon enough,
thank you for playing by the rules, though I'd expect no less.
Those of you who come here and DON'T self-quarantine 14 days
including not going in the shops? No thanks for you.

Have a safe walkabout Wednesday. Do something wanderble. Yes, I made that up.

Culebra Q Flag Pastelon

A few weeks ago, a LOT of food was delivered to me by angels good friends who were taking free food around the island. There were all sorts of things in those many bags, one being canned beef. I've never used canned beef before, to cook anything (I'd been using the cans as hand weights, but that's not the same). Then I saw Digna's post about using it for pastelon. According to Wikipedia, pastelon is the following:

Pastelón is a Puerto Rican casserole dish layered like Italian lasagne made with exclusively sweet plantains, stuffed with mincemeat, vegetables, and bound together with beaten eggs. Wikipedia

Place of origin: Puerto Rico

Some people think it's the same as piñon, but I am smart enough to not go there. 

It also happens to be one of my very favorite Puerto Rican dishes. Some people also really like corned beef hash. That's another thing to do with this meat that you will never see anything about from me.

You can slice plantain the fancy way, cut in half
and then cut horizontally, like you are filleting a fish
or cut down vertically while holding its very slippery flesh.
I chose vertically.

Frying ripe plantains is something I do have some experience with. They were a childhood side dish that my Dad and a family friend Pompeo would make, from Cuba days. Salud to you two! Whenever I eat them, it's one of the most comforting of comfort foods.

I've thinking about making pastelon for weeks now, slowly remembering to buy this or that. There are as many recipes for this traditional dish as there are for potato salad, or lasagna. Whether it's cultural or family tradition doesn't really matter, what matters is the basics of ripe plantains, some sort of meat and beaten eggs. Some say cheese, some say no cheese. I chose cheese. Some include vegetables, some don't. Are olives a vegetable? 

This is a messy business, or at least it is in my case,
 but fun. If one really went nuts, making your own
sofrito, etc., it could be a day of fun, but I cheated.
I cheated with the cheese too but only because I
couldn't find a block of mozzarella and
I'm not a queso blanco fan. Shoot me.

I went basic. The only other time I've ever made pastelon was more than ten years ago at a friend's celebration of life dinner on St. Croix. I had, basically, all of the ingredients but had no idea what I was doing, so I called the only person I knew then who made it and served me some of its deliciousness, Neil Romero, here on Culebra. He talked me through the recipe, I made it, it was excellent. It didn't hurt that for the meat some wonderful local Crucian ladies had made the filling for about two hundred empanadas and there was plenty left for me to play with. Mine was absolutely not even close to as good as theirs, but still, canned beef and all, it turned out  to be pretty good.

As usual, I looked at probably five recipes and went with what I had and what sounded right to me. As usual, play with your food!

First I heated up the canned beef, then drained it of a LOT of fat
and extra liquid.

Then I added sofrito, tomato sauce (that had some tomatoes in it),
green olives, cilantro, garlic, and I threw in a dash of cumin.
Because I could.
I didn't have adobo or Sazon, it worked anyway. 

It was time to start layering. Let me say this about that, I definitely did NOT have enough plantain! This isn't a big dish, but two pretty good sized plantains only gave me enough for the bottom layer and a middle, with a few token strips on top. Lesson learned.

Once all layered up, it was time for the beaten eggs to be poured over the whole thing.

Ok, pretty much the whole thing.

Into the 350 degree oven for 25 or 30 minutes, until it gets that golden look. I almost hit it with the broiler, but it looked good enough as it was. 

Lo and behold, it was good enough!

I know, the plantain looks like bacon. It's not.

In the end you have this sweet and savory dish, a bit of slight zing from the olives, the mellowness of the tomatoes, with melty cheesy goodness. Truthfully, I don't taste the eggs at all, I think they just get sucked into the other ingredients and become the tie that binds.

I probably need to make it again, to use up some of these ingredients that were just for its own self. There's plenty of time.

Have a wysiwyg Wednesday! Do something worthwhile. Willingly.