I want my mom.

I am sick. I want to get in bed and sleep until everything is better. I will be back when everything is better.

Love has kept me away

I come to you with a full heart and a smile on my face. Not only did I see my wonderful friends in Barcelona, but we were lucky to have my mom and mother in law visit for three weeks. They left on Wednesday, and I am a little saddened by their absence.

The ever present dichotomy of the expat. I find myself broken into little pieces, some have been left behind across the ocean, some are taking roots here in the fertile grounds of Italy. But every so often, the pieces come together and mend themselves into a new whole. These moments of looking at my past and my present together in my friends and family bring such happiness that I find myself without words.

What are we but the sum of such moments? My heart is a malleable mass, shaped by the love of those close and far.

Mom

You are an inspiration. You are the strongest woman I know. You chose life instead of death, happiness when sadness seemed the only option, perseverance when everyone else wanted to give up, love when most needed.

I see glimpses of you in my reflection, and I smile with your smile at this.

I love you and I am so proud to be your daughter. You are everything.

My father's watch

I asked my mom about it a while ago. She does not know what happened to it.

I remember its silver band, not tight nor loose. The watch itself simple but beautiful. The only watch I remember him wearing, a companion of his hours and days.

I have been missing my family a lot. My mom living so far away. My dad and brother gone.

I want to find that watch and run backwards in time to my beautiful childhood. I want to talk to my dad again, listen to his stories, watch him draw non-stop. I want to look into his eyes flickering with ideas of my future. I want him to see me now, as a mother, wife and artist.

I miss you papi.

Happy Birthday to me!

Look at my snow inspired cake! Beautiful, isn't it? Colombians (from Bogotá) will recognize this cake, known all over the city as a milky-way cake from Tortas y tartas Angelita.

I am proud to say that ours is very close to the original: tasty, moist, with arequipe in the middle, and those gorgeous chocolate curls on top!

You are welcome to stop by and have a taste. I love birthdays!

La Cucina di Nicola: Maña's Apple Pie

I am a little late with this post, as Thanksgiving is just a memory now... You can eat apple pie at Christmas too, can't you?

This recipe is my dear Maña's recipe. Maña is my American mom, the wonderful woman that opened her home and her heart to a Colombian exchange student in 1983. We are family, the Regalia's and us. We have celebrated many Thanksgivings together in the last 15 years, and I have always loved my mom's apple pie.

Last year, after moving half way around the world, I finally made my first apple pie. It was a success and I have made it several times since. Now I am willing to share the recipe with you.

Nicolas loves this pie as much as I do, and he was a willing helper in the kitchen this time around. He peeled about 12 apples on his own (we made two pies), and he helped to roll out the dough. Off course he ate most of it himself!

For my readers in Italy: I used metá-metá instead of margarine and butter, it works really well. I have used several kinds of apples, and this time around we chose renate (not sure of the spelling) and we loved the flavor, but they are better suited for apple sauce as they did not retain their shape. Nest time a mix perhaps?

MAÑA'S APPLE PIE


For the crust:
1/8 pound margarine
1/8 pound salted butter
1.1/2 cups flour
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt
Iced water

Cut the butter and margarine into small pieces, keep them in the refrigerator until ready to start. Mix flour and salt together, add the margarine and butter, and mix with a pastry mixer. Add 1 tablespoon of iced water at a time, until you get a consistent dough. Make sure there are bits and pieces of butter in the dough, as they will be essential to the flakiness of your pie.


Since this recipe is for a covered 9 in. pie, divide the dough in two. Roll out the dough over a pastry sheet, or a well flour surface. Roll from the center to the sides until you have a thin, round dough, slightly larger than your pan. Fold carefully in half and carry it to the pan, unfold and press down. Cut any excess dough from the sides. Keep in the refrigerator while you roll out the top pastry. Follow the same steps for the other half.

For the filling:
6 or 7 cups apple (peeled, cored and cut)
3/4-1 cup sugar
2-3 tablespoons flour

Place cut apples on water with lemon juice to avoid some oxidation. When ready to use, drain and add sugar to taste (some apples are sweeter than others), add flour to thicken the juices.


Mix all together, place on the crust, cover with the other half of the pastry and seal the sides. Pierce the top crust, or cut some holes into it to let steam out. Cook at 350 for 1 hour. Buon appetito!

La Cucina di Nicola: Pancakes

Who doesn't like pancakes? We love them! We make them every Sunday for breakfast, sometimes it is oatmeal pancakes, sometimes it is banana pancakes, but the all time favorite recipe with my son is found in "Muffins and Other Morning Bakes" by Linda Collister.

As many expats know, living in Italy proves to be a challenge to pancake-lovers, as maple syrup, and pancake ready mix are difficult to find. I can not help you with the maple syrup, but this recipe is a winner when it comes to making pancakes from scratch. Nicolas' friends call them: the fluffiest pancakes ever!

PANCAKES

3/4 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
a good pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1 Tablespoon butter, melted, plus extra for cooking
3/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon whole milk

Makes 12 pancakes

Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl (do not skip this step, I assure you it makes a difference!) then make a well in the center. Add the egg yolks, butter and milk and beat with a whisk until mixed. Gradually work in the flour to make a very thick but lump-free batter. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the batter with a large metal spoon. (I follow all instructions to the letter, even the "metal spoon" part, as I think helps with the fluffiness.)

Heat a heavy-bottom skillet until medium hot, then grease it lightly with butter. Saute the mixture in batches of 3, using a heaping tablespoon of batter for each pancake. Cook for 1 minute until golden underneath, then turn over with a spatula and cook for another minute. Eat hot with maple syrup (or Nutella in our house.)

Enjoy!

PS. I forgot to take pictures, so I will take some this coming Sunday...

Looking for El Dorado?

You may or may not know the legend of "El Dorado." Remember all those Spanish sailing half way around the world to the new world in search of gold? El Dorado was never found, but gold? Yes, they found a lot of it! Most of the gold objects found were taken back to Spain. Colombia kept some of its precious patrimony where it belonged, and if you ever go to Bogotá, you must visit the Museo del Oro (The Gold Museum). It hosts the largest collection in the world of pre-Hispanic gold-work (34,000 objects.) I wish I had pictures of the museum, but please follow the link if you are curious. Gold objects aside, you can truly find your own dorado in the streets of Bogotá.


I moved to Bogotá in 1984 to study at the Javeriana University, my father's Alma Mater. I can truthfully say that the following 5 years were to shape me for the rest of my life. I love Bogotá, the city and its people. I like the weather, the shy sunshine behind the clouds, the torrential rains in the afternoons, the bright sunsets in the mountains. While in school, I learned a lot about architecture (as it was my major), but I also got involved in the school's drama group and the mountaineering club. I met many of my dearest friends there, we traveled all over Colombia together, discovering the landscape and each other. I met my husband then.


If I am getting sidetracked here is because it is impossible for me to talk about this city without talking about myself. This immense city of seven million residents, with abundant parks, museums and restaurants is like no other place I have been. There are cycle-routes all over the city so that thousands ride their bikes to work (move over Holland!); in addition to the established roads, 75 miles of urban streets are turned to bicyclists and pedestrians alike every Sunday. Restaurants abound from the posh and fancy to the unique and memorable. Culture permeates everything, and you can easily find a museum worth your while, or just meander through the streets of the well preserved colonial downtown.


While in school, I used to spend a lot of time in little bars, salsa dancing the night away. I remember how cold it was by the time we decided to head back home, I remember the empty streets, the lights of the city all around, my friends singing and laughing. It was the eighties, and we were going through one of the most violent periods in our history: the cartels were fighting extradition, and they were doing everything in their power to make us afraid. They had the money and the power, and they decided to show the later by detonating bombs in our cities, our neighborhoods, our streets. When it all started, we used to stay home, we did not go out, we hid. Then, we went back to the streets, we were no longer afraid, we were living and not hiding. It was somehow empowering to be so careless.

Today Bogotá enjoys a renaissance of sorts. Violence has taken a plunge, and the world is noticing. The New York Times recently placed Bogotá on its list of top places to visit in 2008. Unesco awarded it the City for Peace Prize for 2002-3, given for developing ''a true urban conviviability,'' and named it the World Book Capital in 2007. Bogotá is definitely a treasure, and I miss it dearly.

Home

I promised I would continue with our virtual trip of my Colombia, and here I am, back with a lot of pictures and a few words. I grew up in Popayan, a beautiful colonial city in the southwest of Colombia, with its white facades, and spanish architecture. I was influenced early on by the beauty around me, the green mountains in the horizon, the orderly balconies above my head, the great spaces inside the churches. Popayan is a city known for its traditions, and its culture. We have a spectacular Easter celebration that involves everyone living in the city. Some are protagonists, and some are there to see it all. You should think about a visit!


Our house sits in the outskirts of the city, and it has always felt like a world away. When we moved to the neighborhood, there were few houses in it. I remember climbing trees, looking for frogs with my best friend, having the largest backyard a child can dream of. The house stands in the same place, overlooking the Cauca river, surrounded by old oaks, and enjoying an enviable solitude, even today.


My mom lives here by herself, but she is not alone, as there are many birds making the rounds to have some plantain at the feeder she placed in front of her bedroom window. There were so many of them and with so many different colors and shapes, that we kept ourselves busy just looking at their comings and goings.


This is a little peak at my mom's house. What a peaceful and beautiful place. We made sure to stay in the house most of the time, reading in the hammock, sunbathing, going for a run at the nearby sport center, talking, and eating. But we also took sometime off to visit nearby towns. Like a Tuesday morning, when we left Popayan before 5:00 AM, and we rode north on a small bus, up and up the mountains we went, until we got to Silvia. Tuesday is market day in Silvia, and since the town sits nearby several indigenous reservations, it is quite an interesting place to visit.


Silvia is at an altitude of 1947 mts (6391 feet), temperatures are usually low:12 C (53 F) and most produce grown here is limited to strawberries, onions, potatoes (You wouldn't believe how many different potatoes there are), flowers, and some fruit. Most of what you see in this photo had been hauled up the mountain to diversify the local's options. As Colombia is near the Ecuator, temperatures are relatively the same all year round, and climate changes with altitude. All those mangoes, papayas, oranges, etc, come from towns in the valleys bellow, a couple hours away.


The Guambiano people have inhabited these region since the time before the Spanish conquerors. As I mentioned above the Guambiano people have a series of reservations (resguardos) where they have been able to keep their cultural traditions, and language almost intact. Women and men alike wear the traditional woven attire (anaco) with the same traditional colors. Women wear black skirts with blue tops, and the men wear blue skirts with blue, sometimes grey tops. The traditional straw hat has been replaced with a wool one. All these details a feast for the senses.


I leave you with a couple of smiles. Next a peek at Bogota, my husband's hometown and where we met.

Where does coffee grow anyway?

It has been a long time my friends. As you all know, I went to Colombia, and we had the time of our lives! We arrived on a Saturday nigth to Bogotá, and we traveled most of Sunday on the gorgeous Colombian roads, up and down mountains, until we arrived to the coffe growing region (Zona Cafetera.) We rented a farm house for all the family (there were 18 of us.) The house sits on a working farm, so it is surrounded by coffee and plantain plants. The coffee plant is usually no taller than a man, and the plantain tree grows alongside the coffee to provide shade. The views from the house and the surrounding areas were spectacular, as were the birds that came everyday to the garden. We were dazzed by all the different colors, sounds and smells around us. The gorgeous vegetation, the flowers, and the always available fruit were a treat every single day.


We took MANY pictures, wich will be available in my flickr account as soon as I have time to upload everything. Besides relaxing by the pool, listening to music, eating traditional food, and playing cards and table games, we visited El Parque del Cafe which is an unusual theme park. You can find traditional rides like roller coasters, karts, and water rides, but there are also areas focusing on regional architecture, food and dances, as well as a coffee museum . The children had a blast, and the grandparents were able to enjoy leisure walks amongst the luscious vegetation of the region, and a slow train ride -pulled by an antique locomotive. You cannot go to a coffee themed park and not meet our most famous Colombian, so we headed to the Juan Valdez coffee house, where we enjoyed great coffee and bought some great signature t-shirts.


This area of Colombia has become a tourist destination for Colombians, so there are a lot of different activities available for those in search of adventure: You can go rafting down the La Vieja river, or go canopying (pulley-flying on native forest, and over coffee plantations.) You can hike up the mountains to the Parque Nacional Natural de los Nevados, which occupies 58,300 hectares at the top of the highest branch of the Colombian Andes, the Cordillera Central. The park includes several snow peaks and five volcanic necks: Tolima, Quindío, Paramillo de Santa Rosa, Santa Isabel, and Ruiz. This type of excursion is not something everybody can do, as the altitude of the park ranges from 12,000 ft/4,000 mts. to the highest peak (Nevado del Ruiz) which stands at 17,750-ft-/5,325 mts. Both my husband and I have been to the top of this giant, but that was a long time ago, when we were dating, and we did not have our boy. It would be great to go back one day with our son, but I do not know if he will be able to carry us both to the top!


We had our share of adventure with the canopying! The grandparents did not come to this activity, everybody-else did, and we enjoyed every second of it. I can recommend wholeheartedly Los Caracolies as a place to go for a little adrenaline kick with a shot of beauty. The owners live there, and they are involved in making your experience a memorable, safe one.


We spent ten great days without a TV, or a computer. We told jokes, family stories, and we sang to our hearts content! We enjoyed every minute of our shared time at the farm, the two families (mine and my husband's) got along pretty well, and we were all sad to go... Off we (the three of us) went to Popayán, my hometown, and where my mom still lives. My next post will be about that little corner of the south-west of Colombia. Until then...

La cucina di Nicola: Donuts.

Last Wednesday while stopping at Judith's place, I was pleasantly surprised by her latest installment of "la buona cucina Americana." This recipe for donuts is so EASY it just screams: MAKE ME!
I have been told that I am a good listener, so I couldn't refuse such loud request. Right there, on the spot, I decided this recipe was going to be this week's recipe at "la cucina di Nicola." (By now, you might have figured out that cucina means kitchen/cooking in Italian.)
I did not change a thing about the recipe, this being our first time making donuts, it was a great success! I will have to watch the oil temperature more carefully next time, as some of our donuts got some "abbronzatura Italiana."
Nicolas invited his good friend over to share in the goodness of one of his favorite American sweets. To celebrate the food and its origins we just had to use some red, white and blue sprinkles. We did not forget about Italy, as we used NUTELLA for our frosting.
We all liked them a lot, so much that they almost disappeared before my photo shoot! I got a couple of good pictures (you can hardly see the bite on that donut on the back, can you?)

AMERICAN DONUTS MADE IN ITALY

What I miss...

My friends (You know who you are), Mexican Food (specially Taco Mesa in Mission Viejo), NPR, INTERNET, Santiago Peak driving up Marguerite, the beach (Laguna, Mission Viejo Lake), a good juicy hamburger (DeeAnn's fire grilled -while camping-kind of hamburger), TJ Maxx, sunny California , Bob's pool and Bob's margaritas, TJ (Tijuana), Coulter kids playing outside my door, Trader Joe's, apple pie, traffic on the 405 (just kidding!), the two Tustin Blimp hangars , the desert, movies in english, Monk, Target, garage sales, the Santa Anas, and so much more...