Travel

March 26, 2014March 26, 2014

Why Arizona? Because of March. Basically.

March is the reason people live in Arizona. Not the only reason. But it represents a pretty big one, because it tends to come with the kind of gorgeous weather we dream of during the inevitably scorching Phoenix summers.

Of course, I would write that sentence on the day we get a fluke spring dust storm. (We don’t really expect those until July or August.) But still. It was an hour or so blip in the middle of some really nice days.

March also brings wildflowers. Some years more than others, but if we’ve had any rain at all, the desert gets more colorful.

Because the weather is so good, things get busy. People come to visit. Events get scheduled. (Lots and lots of events. They were basically stacked on top of each other this past weekend.) Before you know it, you’re in some convention hall or shopping center or crowded restaurant wondering what you’re doing there and if you’ve missed all the nice weather. Or (in my case), you’re sitting outside writing a post about wildflowers and wondering if they’ve already finished their brief annual appearance.

So Monday I texted Phillip that I wanted to see if there were still wildflowers on South Mountain and should I pick him up after work to go check it out. He was up for it, so we slipped into the park just before they closed the entrance gate and hiked until we ran out of light for photos.

I’m happy to report that it’s not too late to spot some wildflowers in the desert.

Also, the creosote bushes are yellow and fragrant, and hedgehog cactus is starting to bloom.

If you’re here in Phoenix and you possibly can, get out this week – even for an hour – and soak it all in. And if you live somewhere else, you might consider visiting next March.

It’s a beautiful time to find a reason to be here or to remember the reasons you already are.

For Your (Wildflower-Hunting) Information: I took all of these photos (except the top one of clouds after the dust storm) on 3/24/14 at South Mountain Park.

March 4, 2014

Daily Bread

I realized the last couple posts here have been named after meals (Breakfast at Arcosanti and The world over dinner). This could be because I’ve really had food on the brain lately.

We’re getting ready to try going gluten free for a bit to see if that helps with some issues we’ve (mostly I’ve) been having.

This is not going to be an easy transition for me. I love bread and cereal and pasta and cookies etc. I like being able to say I’ll eat almost anything and enjoy trying new foods when I travel. But I’ve been reading up on how to make this diet work, and I created a Pinterest board of gluten-free recipes and resources.

At one point, Phillip and I made a whole gluten bucket list of places to go eat before making this change. But the list kept getting longer and time was getting shorter, so we abandoned that idea. I did stop at Liberty Market yesterday, though, so we could relish one last blueberry scone. (I recommend you do the same if you ever happen to be in Gilbert, Arizona.)

Since there’s not really ever a good time to do something like this, we decided that Lent would at least be an appropriate season for denying ourselves. The 40 days begin tomorrow. And, even though our reasons for going gluten free are more health-related than spiritual, there is something about giving up something you love (maybe too much) that can refocus your heart and be good for the soul.

March 1, 2014March 1, 2014

Breakfast at Arcosanti

This morning we had breakfast at Arcosanti. The artist community was beautiful and inspiring. It was only about an hour away, but it felt like its own world.

I’ll fill you in more later. In the meantime, I hope you find something interesting, inspiring, beautiful, and/or unusual to do this weekend.

February 23, 2014February 23, 2014

The world over dinner

We have a world map over our kitchen table. It’s not on nice canvas or even framed. It’s covered with all these little white arrows pointing to different locations. People coming over the first time often ask if all those arrows point to the places we’ve traveled. I wish! They span much more of the globe than Phillip or I have ever visited.

world-map-3

In college, Phillip took an anthropology class called Peopling of the World. The final was a long list of places you had to find and label on a world map. This was pre-Google maps, so even as an open book test, it was surprisingly difficult. I barely knew Phillip at the time, but my roommate was in the same class. I remember her map stretched out across our living room floor, and Serenity furiously searching through a stack of books and notes to figure out where her little multicolored Post-it labels should go. Phillip printed out his list of places at the one of the school computing labs and cut them into arrows.

world-map-4

When we moved into our current home and he hung it up over our kitchen table, I wasn’t sure about it. I liked the world map, but did it need to be right there in our dining room?

But it grew on me. We find ourselves dreaming over Sunday morning coffee about places we’d like to visit. Or breaking a quiet moment at the dinner table with, “Did you know all of India is north of the equator? Why did I think it was farther south than that?” Or “Spain really does come close to northern Africa.” And we’re geeks so this gets us talking.

So, the map has stayed. One of these days, maybe we’ll even get around to framing it.

February 6, 2014June 2, 2014

4 Ingredient Super Sangria

The Super Bowl party invite said to bring a beverage to go with wood fired pizza. I took that as my cue to make sangria.

My sangria-making habit started after my semester in Spain. My friends and I used to go to this Chinese restaurant that had the best sangria in town. (Yes, Chinese food. In Spain. With amazing sangria. You with me?) We developed kind of a routine of stopping in every week or two, starting with a pitcher of sangria, improving our Chinese food in Spanish vocabulary while looking over the menu, eating a meal that tasted strikingly similar to Chinese food back home, and then my friend would finish off the fruit at the bottom of the pitcher. By the end of the semester, I was hooked on sangria and excellent at ordering Chinese in Spanish.

These days, I think of sangria as a summer drink and usually make it with more citrusy and peachy flavors. But we had a delicious apple and pear sangria when we were in Tucson last month (I’d link to a post about that, but it’s not written yet), so when we got the party invite, I was ready to try making a winter sangria.

I kept it simple with just four ingredients: apples, pears, red wine, and blood orange Italian soda (yep!). The soda had a very light flavor, so it wasn’t overpowering. It also contributed the bubbles, extra sweetness, and a nice clear glass bottle to make the sangria in, so our friends wouldn’t have to remember to return a pitcher to us later.

I poured most of the soda out of the bottle to start with, added the other ingredients, and then added some back in after tasting.

In the meantime, I started slicing apples and realized the slices were just a little too big to easily fit through the opening of the bottle, so instead I did kind of a chunky matchstick cut. “Chunky matchstick” may not be an official culinary term, but it might make a good band name and pretty much describes the way the fruit was cut in our Tucson sangria.

I slid the pieces in the bottle one at a time until it started looking like there was a whole lotta fruit in there. Then I poured in the wine through a funnel, so I wouldn’t spill it all over. But I almost did that anyway, because I was taking photos while pouring. (Blogger problems.)

I filled the bottle part way, so I’d have room to adjust my ratios after a taste test.

That’s probably about the time I realized I had all these produce stickers on my elbow. And the waistband of my hoodie. Because I am awesome.

Also probably because I stuck them all on the counter before I washed the fruit. (Am I the only one who does this?) Then I’m guessing I leaned right on them while I was taking photos of apples.

See what I go through for you guys?

Anyway, so after tasting, I added a little more of everything, then tasted and adjusted a few more times until it was just right. I had looked at a recipe, but then I didn’t really follow it. It’s more authentically Spanish if you don’t follow a recipe. Drinking wine while you make it helps too, ~~even~~ especially if it’s only lunchtime.

I gave it a few hours to chill in the fridge.

Finally, I covered the soda label (which I hadn’t had time to remove properly) with navy blue paper, because I wanted both Seahawks fans and Broncos fans to feel free to partake. I labeled it ¡Super Sangria! (The upside down exclamation point makes it Spanish.) Then we headed out to watch the not-so-Super Bowl. At least there was plenty of wine at the party.