Last weekend I took a road trip down to my new favorite place- the islands on the Georgia/Florida border. I had taken a day off work last Friday only to find that my plans to go to Nashville fell through, SO I decided to go meet up with a cousin from South Dakota who happened to be in a little town south of Savannah instead. We went down to St. Mary's , GA and took the ferry toCumberland Island:
Cumberland Island is not accessible by road or bridge, only by boat. It is wild and beautiful. The beach has no boardwalks, hotels, rental properties, or shops (remember to bring water and sunscreen)-only miles of pure white sand, palm trees, and wild horses. The water and sand are so clean. A shrimp swam by me in the water, spinning his little tentacles at me.
There are also miles of hiking trails through the island where you can observe the wildlife. The island is famous for wild ponies, but I especially loved seeing armadillos. They make so much noise crashing and digging through the foliage that you expect a gator, but they aren't any bigger a small dog. A comical, leathery, horned dog-but they are cute in their own way.
The very best part of my weekend was getting to spend time with my cousin. She is a fantastic person who leads a really interesting life. It was great being around that familiar Dakotan sense of humor, hearing funny stories about growing up on an Indian Reservation. Sometimes I wish I lived closer to my family-but then I wouldn't get to go to Cumberland Island.
My friend Linda just taught me how to make fried okra-and also took a picture of me with my new haircut. My hair is pulled back but check out the big huge bangs I am rocking as a result of my recent free haircut at the Aveda Training Academy of Atlanta:
Anyhow, It is about time I posted an authentic Southern recipe. This one is fantastic because not only is it good but it is also simple:
Fried Okra.
Ingredients: okra cornmeal, finely ground salt safflower oil
Pour cornmeal and salt into a large bowl, about half full. No measuring is required. The mixture should mostly cornflower with a good pour of salt mixed in. Rinse the okra, chop off the top and the end and discard. Cut up the rest into little circles and toss in the bowl. Toss to coat with the cornflower mixture. The idea is to have a very light coating, not a thick breading.
Pour a small amount of safflower oil into a pan on medium-high heat. Safflower oil is good for fried okra because it fries at high heat and is a good flavor match. When the oil is hot, put a single layer of okra in the pan.
Let the okra fry for a few minutes, turning once or twice as they cook. You will know when they are done because they turn bright green through their coating and smell really great, at which point it is time to put them in a bowl lined with paper towels and eat them like popcorn.
Last night we sawAlejandro Escovedo with our friends Chris and Julie. It was an awesome show. Alejandro walked through the audience a few times and stood directly next to me for a song-he even hit me with his guitar once.
After the show he signed a cd for us and we talked for a few minutes:
According to Joel we made it up Stone Mountain in record time-he told me that really I hauled ass all the way up. He had to take a rest before we went back down.
I just discovered my new favorite food, pescado Veracruz, at the Mexican restaurant across the street from us. They make grouper in a sauce of tomatoes, capers, green olives, charred peppers, and citrus. It had a nice subtle smoky flavor along with the bright fresh flavors from the lime juice and tomatoes. Upon getting home and looking over several online recipes, I see that it is made of whatever whitefish is freshly available, snapper classically, and the sauce does look pretty simple. I will be attempting to recreate what I had at the restaurant, and will post it if I can get it right.
On a side note, the same restaurant also makes an appetizer of chilled shrimp served in a big margerita glass with pineapple, limes, avocados,cucumbers and guajillo chili, which goes on crackers. That one is probably just as easy to make.
I have been going to the Wednesday noon suspension training classes at my gym. It is my favorite new thing, they call it Body Web with TRX. It involves resistance training from cables suspended from the ceiling, enabling you to use a much larger range of motion than you would for regular floor exersizes with weights. It is very hard (or at least hard for me), involving lots of lunges combined with biceps or push ups and abs with your feet suspended in the air. I continue to go because it is easy to go over lunch and I like the loud Brazilian music they play. The only problem is that at the end the instructor likes to make everyone do ten chin ups on our cable bar, single-file, so that every one has their turn. I have always lacked upper body strength and never could do chin ups or pull ups. Instead I jump up on the bars and the instructor holds my waist and lifts me up and down while I pretend that I am lifting myself. I think I must look like my niece, Claire, who likes to be hoisted up high in the air over and over again while singing "UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN."
This weekend I saw the 2009 Honda Battle of the Bandsat the Georgia Dome. Every year the best of the HBCU (Historically Black College and University) marching bands face off in Atlanta-and it is awesome. 60,000 people showed up. It was such a great time for the event, right after Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration. The band from Florida A&M had just come back from marching in the inaugural parade. The marching bands were very unlike the ones I remember growing up-they were all cool, high-energy, lots of stepping and crazy dance routines. My very favorite was Jackson State. They actually spoofed the Soulja Girl incident that happened on Marta this last year (unfortunate Atlanta YouTube phenomenon of the year), and somehow they made a tiger mascot badass. I recommend going next year.
Obama's inauguration drew the biggest crowds of any inauguration in history. Several coworkers and I sat in my bosses office and listened to it on the radio since we can't stream news anymore. Those in project management lamented the logistical nightmare of the ratio of port-a-potties to the millions in DC-with the roads closed. True, that.
2008 was a good year. We just bought a car for Joel-a Vibe- and drove it up to New England for Christmas, stopping in DC on the way in order to see both of our families. It was great to get to see everybody and I have all kinds of things to say about the holiday, but this blog post is dedicated to the orzo soup my Italian mother-in-law makes. The soup is one of my favorite things, and it's easy to make.
Josey's Orzo Soup:
-1 lb center bone-in center cut beef shank -1.5 lbs beef stew meat -2 beef bollion cubes -black pepper, to taste -1/4 large white onion -1 cup or so carrots, chopped -handful of celery, the inner stalks, including green leafy tops, chopped -1 regular size can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes -1/2 lb orzo pasta (about half a regular-size box), cooked separately Rinse the been shank, place in large soup pot, cover with cold water, boil on high heat until the meat is almost done, approx 30 minutes, skimming off any brown stuff that comes to the top of the pot. Change the water, dump out the old water and add clean water, boil another twenty minutes. This allows the the soup to have a clear broth, but also allows for the marrow from the shank to flavor the soup. Take out the beef shank and shred, discarding the bone. Add the shredded beef back to the soup, along beef stew meet, chopped carrots, celery and tops, onion, orzo, and the can of tomatoes. Add the two beef bouillon cubes and as much black pepper as you like. Simmer another 40 minutes or until done. Now you have a huge batch of orzo soup. To serve, garnish with Parmesan cheese. Awesome!
