Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Frijoles!

Beans, and pinto beans in particular, are one of the great pleasures on this fertile earth of ours. I think that living in Texas precludes one to be even more fond of beans than residents of other parts of the world, perhaps because they so nicely compliment many of the other foods we enjoy here. I challenge you to find me a Mexican or Barbecue restaurant at which beans are not the default side on any plate.

I inherited a cookbook from my grandmother called "A Taste of Texas," which is notable not just for its delicious recipes, but the highly entertaining essays which accompany many of the recipes. The essay accompanying the two recipes for pinto beans is by J. Frank Dobie, and if you don't know who that is, well, you're probably not from Texas. I kind of want his life. Aside from the part where he was getting shelled by Germans during World War I. Anyway, Dobie's essay is a treatise on the frijole which I am tempted to reproduce in its entirety here because it is as learned and eloquent a discussion of bean cooking as I've ever read. Here's the last paragraph:

"A meat eater could live on frijoles and never miss meat. When a Mexican laborer is unable to lift a heavy weight, his companions say that he 'lacks frijoles.' As you may deduce, I am kind of a frijole man. On the oldtime ranches of the border country, where I grew up, frijoles were about as regular as bread and in some households they still are."

Yeah. Dobie makes the point, and I agree, that pinto beans should be prepared simply. At their most basic, with just water, pork, salt, onions and peppers. Here's my recipe.

First, dump your bag of HEB pinto beans into a large pot. Cover them with cold water and let them sit, ideally over night, but if you're a slacker like me, then maybe just a couple of hours. I don't plan. Some people say you should sift through the beans and look for rocks and dirt and whatever. Meh.

When you're ready to cook them, drain the beans. You can rinse them if it helps you sleep better at night. Here are my beans post-soak.


Cover the beans with water again, probably about 6 cups to start. If you're feeling zesty, you can replace some of the water with chicken broth or beer. For this particular batch I used 2 cups water, 2 cups chicken broth, and a bottle of Shiner, just because that's how I was feeling yesterday. I pretty much always pour a light beer in there. You can go fancy if you want, but Bud Light works just fine.

Then you're going to chop some stuff. Here's my still life with ingredients.



Dice the onion and throw that in. Dice up one of the jalapenos and throw that in. If that looks like a LOT of jalapeno to you then hold off on the other one for a couple of hours, taste your bean juice and then make a decision about the second one. Editor's note: I always add the second one. Before you do anything else, wash your hands. If you don't do it immediately, you will forget. And then you will rub your eyes, or pick your nose, and then you will hate yourself. So do it right away before you forget.

Then, chop garlic until you can't stand to chop garlic anymore. About 4 large cloves should be enough. Next, get yourself some link sausauge.



Mine is frozen because I just took it out of the freezer. Like I said, I don't plan. This is venison/pork sausage from a deer that Will shot. Pork is important for beans. Pork and beans love each other like...pork and beans. Like my sister's feral cats named Frank and Beans who only love each other and hate all other living creatures.

Dice up the sausage and throw that in.

Now add your spices. I don't measure, so use the measurements below for novelty purposes only. They might be kind of accurate, I don't know. Use your taste buds. And your eyes.

1 1/2 Tbsp. Salt
1 Tbsp. black pepper
1 tsp. sage
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves

I realized when I started looking for the sage yesterday that I didn't have any. MUCH to my consternation. I substitued oregano, but it's really not as good for beans. You should use sage.



Mmmm...beans. Bring them to a boil, then put the lid on and turn the fire down to medium-low. More like low-medium. Then you should pretty much leave them alone for about 4 hours. If you don't have that long, just plan on eating them the next day. They'll be better then anyway. Stir them occasionally, but not too often or they'll get all mushy. Also, keep an eye on the water level and add more if it gets too low, or if the beans start to stick to the bottom. I usually add another couple cups at some point. Before you serve, taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. I can't really help you with that part.

I didn't get a picture of the finished beans because I was too busy wharking them down. Sorry. Suffice it to say they were delicious, and I will likely be eating them again soon, as this recipe makes enough beans to feed my entire college graduating class.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go fix myself a bowl of beans.

Monday, August 1, 2011

All Apologies

The following is an entry that I started writing last Wednesday afternoon. I was listening to the Avett Brothers and feeling somewhat maudlin about leaving. I didn't get a chance to finish the post, so it's just been sitting here for 5 days. I just re-read it, and I'm a little embarrassed about how pitiful it sounds, but I decided to publish it anyway. Sometimes a little emotion is a good thing.

Today is my last day here in the dorms and my room is empty, except for my computer and close to seven hundred dead bugs. I promise I didn't kill all of them, just the one that I wrote about previously. I do feel badly that they get in and then can't get out again; I'm not really sure how to solve that problem for them though.

An empty dorm building is a pretty sad thing, but it has allowed me to reflect a bit on everything that I've learned here this summer.

What follows is a piss-poor photograph of the staircase at Loretto Chapel.


I really am sorry it's so terrible. For those of you who don't know, the staircase was constructed in the 1880s by a mysterious stranger who came to town. He offered to build it for a convent of nuns during the construction of the chapel, and after he was finished, he left town and was never heard from again. The staircase was built without nails or a central support, so the joinery used is some sort of witchery that defies understanding. The prevailing theory espoused by the nuns is that the mysterious stranger was St. Joseph, and thus the staircase is considered an actual real-life miracle.

After graduation earlier, I was looking through my phone at some of the pictures I took in Santa Fe this summer, and, as English majors are wont to do, attempting to come up with some sort of unifying metaphor for the summer (not something, I understand, that occupies the brains of most people who are productive, functioning members of society). I've been working for the past six weeks to wrap my head around some truly astonishing feats of verbal skill. It was my task, on several occasions, to select some tiny facet of these texts and articulate what exactly makes them fuction as they do. Digging through mounds of scholarly research and poring over the significance of each word selected by the author, I attempted, with my tiny pea brain, to tease out the implications of these choices and identify the ever-elusive "deeper meaning" behind a really good story. Like the staircase at Loretto, these texts are artifacts that represent a super-human achievement combining virtuoso technical skill and artistic wizardry (whether or not they were created by actual saints). Like my pathetic iPhone photo, any attempts to capture and articulate the brilliance of the original work are at best derivative, stupid and pointless.

Nevertheless, I can't think of any better way to spend my summer, or the rest of my life, for that matter, than to live as a scholar. It's unlikely I'll ever create anything as wonderful as a staircase with invisible joinery, or The Canterbury Tales, but spending my time thinking about them is good enough for me.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Lit and Lard Links

Well, things are starting to wind down here in Santa Fe, and I'm amazed at all the things that I haven't managed to do yet. I've yet to visit the Santa Fe Opera, I haven't been able to do much hiking due to the fires, and I've been spending so much time in the dining hall that my list of recommended restaurants and bars to visit is getting really backed up. Since I haven't had time to come up with an idea for an actual post either, here are some delightful links from around the Interwebs pertaining to my areas of interest. (Sidenote: My familiarity with obscure corners of the internet is in no way related to my inability to get out in the world and do productive things. So don't even think about suggesting that.)

I want to eat almost all of these. Will purchased a new grill last weekend after our old one crumbled into dust when he attempted to repair it, so now I have a reasonable excuse for making that crispy pork belly.

I've been hatching this plan recently for Will and I to move to England for a brief spell while I indulge my irresponsible fantasy of being a professional scholar. This list of the top 10 pubs in London isn't making me any less excited about that idea.

Speaking of drinking. And books. I'm wondering how Hunter S. Thompson got left off this list. But I suppose the jist of the article is "How to Drink Like Your Favorite Author," not "How to Eat Acid with Murderous Bikers Like Your Favorite Author."

This article is one of the most fascinating things I've read in quite some time. Basically this ridiculous person walks into the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC and asks them to authenticate the most famous stolen book in the world. That he stole, by the way. Madcap hysteria ensues.

Do you lament the disappearance of useless and archaic words from the English language? Don't you wish there was something you could do, as an individual? The Oxford English Dictionary is here to help.

I'm heading home to see Will, the pups, and Dolly Parton before the home stretch.

Cheers!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Folk Art! That's My Favorite Kind of Folk Medium!

That's a Simpsons quote, for those of you not in the know.

Today I traipsed down to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Festival for some art of the folky persuasion. The idea is that artists from countries all over the world come here to Santa Fe to sell their wares to greedy Americans, get some exposure and make pretty decent money. According to the festival organizers, exhibitors take home approximately 90% the proceeds, and the average exhibitor earns $15,000. As you can imagine, that's a great deal of money for some of these people, who travel from places like Uzbekistan, Ghana and Laos.


Also, through consultations with volunteers, prices are what Americans would expect to pay for merchandise like this if they bought it here in America. Which is to say, not as cheap as it would be in Uzbekistan, Ghana or Laos.

Aren't these rugs beautiful?


They're handwoven silk. They're made using dyes from things like walnuts, wild herbs and pomegranate juice. They never fade, and you can clean them with water and shampoo. Touching one is like caressing an angel. And a tiny one is $1200. A nice lady asked if she could put something aside for me, and I muttered something about having to scuttle back to my hovel.

It was great just to wander around and look at everything. There are over 150 vendors from 49 countries, so the variety is pretty amazing. Here's some very vibrant hand painted stuff from Poland:


And some lace textiles from Haiti:


I spent way less than I was tempted to, but way more than I should have. I got a couple of paintings from a very nice Cuban woman. Here's a rooster stomping on a town:


And a very brightly-colored villiage:


I like the dog in the doorway.

Here's a pretty Mexican textile I got as well:



I also got some gifts for some lovely people, so you don't get to see pictures of those. I will say, however, that I got several very beautiful things from different vendors from Uzbekistan, so if you ever find yourself there, you should probably locate the nearest market area and look around. And although I can't say for certain, I'm sure that Laos and Ghana have many talented native artists as well.

Yay folk art!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Why I Love Chaucer

This is Chaucer.

Harvard Chaucer Portrait

Well, not really because it's a painting, and probably not even a very good likeness at that because it was done in the 15th century, after Chaucer died.

Ennyhoo. While there are many enjoyable things about The Canterbury Tales,  perhaps the greatest is Chaucer's deep love of fart jokes. So, for example in "The Miller's Tale," our main wench Alison is pursued by two suitors (despite being married) - Nicolas and Absalon. Absalon is kind of a fop, so clearly she goes for Nicolas, the sexy Oxford grad student.

Here's the setup. No wait. First, a vocabulary lesson, and then the setup.

ers = ass
yblent = blinded
buttok = buttock
fart = fart

Now you know Middle English. NOW, the setup.

Nicolas and Alison are lying in bed and Nicolas hears Absalon wooing Alison outside the window. Nicolas gets some ideas, so then you get this little vignette:

And up the wyndowe dide he hastily,
And out his ers he putteth pryvely
Over the buttok, to the haunche-bon;
And therwith spak this clerk, this Absalon,
"Spek, sweete bryd, I noot nat where thou art."
This Nicolas anon leet fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almost yblent

That's Middle English, by the way. Here's an artist's representation:




I just wanted to use that picture.

Little does Nicolas know that Absalon is waiting with a hot iron from the smithy across the street,

And Nicolas amydde the ers he smoot.

Classic slapstick. Don't ever let anyone tell you the Middle Ages were all about humorless religious zealots and oppressive feudal squalor.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

That Old Time Music


I'm not sure why these cats were sitting outside the Student Center the other day playing that old time music, but I'm not going to complain about anything that involves an accordion and a mandolin. I heard them telling an Italian guy that a lot of the music was from the Shetland Islands. Who knew? So I had a nice little afternoon listening to them jam and reading some Chaucer.

Mortal Combat

Oh dear. I just realized I've been neglecting the blog. A thousand apologies. I've got a few tales stashed away since it's been a while, but for the sake of engaging the audience, I'll begin with a tale of danger and daring.

One of the delights of my lilliputian dorm room is the absence of a screen on my window. I can lean out and get some lovely sunset pictures of the views to the west, climb out the window and study on the bench behind my dorm room, or scramble up the trail for some hiking. Or, I could do that if all the trails weren't shut down because of the risk of blazing inferno.

One of the not-so-great things about no screen is the astonishing number and array of insects in this part of the world. On Monday I was harangued by a vicious wasp for an hour or so while attempting to write a paper. Isn't it amazing how bugs will bang into every surface of a room and still not manage to find the open window? Aren't they just astonishingly dumb?

A while back, I returned from a party in our common room late at night, only to discover I had left my window open. This is treacherous business at night because bugs have a propensity towards light sources, as I'm sure my reader is aware. So I returned to my room only to discover that it had been overtaken by several very large and frustrated insects who were ping-ponging against the walls. In my half drunk (all drunk) state, I first attempted to trap the largest and most frightening of these bugs in a cup so that I could release him into the wild. He was having none of it, though, and immediately flew right back in the open window.

I know, bugs are dumb.

Then, not having any actual bug spray on hand, I sprayed him with Off, which only served to confuse and anger him further. At that point, he landed on the floor under my desk, thus enabling me to smack him with a shoe. Here's the invader:


I know. Not that bad. I'm a wuss. Trust me, he looked much bigger alive.

In the process of killing him I bent my fingernail back, so now it looks like this:



I know. Also not that bad. But it's bruised, right? Right? Oh well.

I haven't resigned myself to getting a screen yet, but I may have to break down at some point if it results in more bodily harm.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Failed Attempt to Prove the Relevance of the Humanities

Anyone who has known me for more than a week understands that I have a deep, warm love of procrastination. So you'll understand why I'm sitting here staring out the window at a sapling when I should be working on the presentation I have to give tomorrow over The Knight's Tale.

I'm getting into a groove here finally and feeling far less anxious (I'm terribly frightened of new people, you see), plus the work load has picked up a bit, so I haven't had time to write the past couple of days. Additionally, I've been deliberating how to report my goings-on here without A) simply walking through every mundane second of my day (e.g., "then I perused junk websites on the internet for an hour while evading my theoretical Freud readings...") or B) boring to the brink of madness any readers this blog might have with horrifying accounts of said theoretical readings ("then Freud spends 3 pages reviewing the definitions of the German words heimlich and unheimlich ..."). You see the perilous cycle in which I find myself then.

I am learning some new stuff though, silly and pointless though it may seem. I guess "gothic" is one of those words you hear a lot without really thinking about what it means. So when you think of gothic literature you probably think of like, Christopher Walken with his teeth filed down:



That's from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In case you were wondering if Christopher Walken really filed his teeth down.

Or maybe this:



That's "The Raven." In case you were wondering why I posted a picture of a guy talking to a raven.

Or...perhaps this:



And to be honest I'm not really sure how that last one fits in at all.

BUT. It turns out that gothic is only about headless horsemen and lunatic opium eaters on the surface. REALLY it's all about American history and our anxiety over our treatment of Indians and black people and whatnot. It's actually pretty interesting. So suck on that for a while the next time you watch The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror.

Or you could check out this insane book we're reading called Edgar Huntly, which is about a crazy white guy who sleepwalks and tomahawks a bunch of Indians to death then sacrifices a panther and eats it. He also kills his brother-in-law. It's nuts.

On that note, I must excuse myself so I can go consider why Chaucer preferred to write stories about knights encountering fairy queens than to write about their exploits of daring in battles against the heathens. And no, it's not because he was gay. Seriously, I took out student loans for this. Please refer back to The Simpsons clip from my first post for relevant commentary.

Cheers!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Just Call Me John Muir

Well, probably not. I'm not about to go charging up a glacier armed with only my notebook and my sense of childlike wonder.

But I did snap this cool picture after a little hike behind the dorms. I saw the clouds rolling in on my way back from the gym and I felt a little inspired to try out some of the new photo apps I got for my phone.


I think it looks real nice.

We have a dance tonight. With a dance contest. I've been told there will be margaritas, so someone had better make good on that promise.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Dorm Tour!

This won't take long. Mostly because my dorm room has usable living space roughly equivalent to my car. It's starting to grow on me a little though. Just a little.

This is where I sleep. And study. And watch movies.


My favorite part is my tiny sheepskin rug from IKEA. Lady tried to eat it twice. I was sort of upset, but she looks like this:


So I forgave her.

Next we have my desk/kitchen.



See? Wine. Coffee pot. Computer. Texas stuff. Done.

Moving on around the room to storage. I'm actually somewhat impressed with the amount of storage in here. I suppose that's a good thing since if I had, say, a dirty shirt thrown carelessly on the floor, I would have nowhere to walk. Plus they have this nifty little medicine cabinet/dresser area that's pretty handy. I threw the prison-issue sheets they left out for us up on the top shelf, and I put the case of wine down below for easy access.


The bookstore here at St. John's actually has a really cool postcard selection with all kinds of new and old postcards, and they're all just 80 cents each (that seems cheap for a postcard, but really I wouldn't know). So today I made myself a little postcard collage to spice things up:


All kinds of stuff in there. A cow, Chaucer, mountains, old washing machines, a dog reading a book...

Now for the best part.



Not too bad, eh? Plus I can climb out my window and run up a mountain. Or rather, I could if I didn't run out of breath after 20 yards.

Happy Friday! Here's Some Dolly to Celebrate

I am often made the subject of fun (by Will) for my love of 80s and 90s country. If you ever watched CMT in the early 90s, then perhaps you'll agree with me when I say that this was a golden age for music videos. If you didn't, well, check out this erudite Dolly and you'll see what I'm on about. High art indeed, my friends.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Literary Term of the Day: Ekphrasis

Did I lose you already? Stay with me; I promise to make it worth your while. First, the boring bits. Ekphrasis is a term that 90% of American students were forced to learn by reading the John Keats poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which is a very dull title for a poem that is actually about ravishing pliant young maidens in a pastoral setting. Ekphrasis, although the definition has become sort of plasticky over the years, basically refers to any art that is intended to describe or depict another work of art (usually visual) thus illuminating and explicating the meaning of both works. So you might have a character in a novel describing a painting that is somehow significant to the plot of the book, like Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. A poem might discuss the scenes depicted on a Grecian urn. You get the idea.

Or. OR. You might have a group of highly trained actors performing in the style of Oscar Wilde depict actual scenes from Jersey Shore. Now before we go on just let me say that if Jersey Shore is art then so is the Port-O-Potty area at a Gathering of the Juggalos. But if anything can make the greased farm animals of Jersey Shore sound charming and witty, it's a bunch of actors from the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest.


Enjoy. You can watch the rest here. Be aware that since this is actually words from the mouths of Jersey trash, some of it is rather profane. But hilarious nonetheless. 

And that, Dear Reader, is ekphrasis.

The Old Santa Fe Trail, Part 2: Them Thar Hills

The drive from Carlsbad to Ruidoso might be well-described as rewarding. By that I mean that the further you drive, the lovelier the setting becomes. When you set out just outside of Carlsbad, most of the road signs indicate one of two things: an approaching landfill or an approaching prison. This is especially marvelous when you observe the amount of garbage that appears not to have made it into a landfill, but is instead sitting in someone's yard while a cow eats some dirt nearby. About half an hour outside of Ruidoso the road wends through the Pecos River Valley, cottonwoods crop up along the riverbank, and charming classic cars even ensconce themselves in front of antique storefronts, as in the case of the cherry Austin-Healey we saw in Tinnie, NM.

As my poor little 4Runner chugged into Ruidoso, which was teeming with tourists, by the way, Will and I took note of a couple of restaurants amid the schlock shops (which abound in downtown Ruidoso). We then checked into our home for the evening, the Shadow Mountain Inn ("a place for couples," says the sign). We unloaded my bags and then, being the chubby Americans that we are, drove .7 miles back into town to find a place to eat. We settled on the Dreamcatcher, largely because it had a patio and beer signs.

We are simple folk.

Not as simple, however, as our waiter. His tiny brain forgot Will's beer three times, forgot my lettuce and tomato for my sandwich, forgot our water, forgot to bring our food after he said it would be "right out," forgot Will's second beer, forgot our check. Mercifully, Will had cash so we were spared from watching him struggle with how to use the credit card machine, if, in fact he could locate it. I'm confident it would have been similar to watching this kitten stuck in a ball, but less adorable:




 The high point of our meal (not the meal itself, which was hugely fine) was solving the riddle wrapped in an enigma seen in the picture below:



I refer, of course, to the delicate flower in the bottom left of the frame. Clearly this is a person (lady? gentleman?) who knows how to roll hair, and also how to wear a set of pearls. I wanted deeply for it to be a drag queen, but closer inspection indicated that it was, regretably, probably a woman. Life is full of disappointments.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel and puzzled for some time over what to do with ourselves next. All the forests were shut down because of wildfire danger, which pretty much axed our plans of a hike. Life thwarts my attempts to exercise at every turn. We considered a visit to the historic frontier town of Lincoln, frequented by this dandy:


He looks like a rapier wit, no? Well, apparently he shot some people and that was the end of him. Young folks.

We opted to forego Lincoln in favor of a stroll around town topped off by a few frosty ones. Our ambulations took us mostly through a neighborhood of log cabins, but one resident had a sense of decorating panache that I have rarely, if ever, seen equalled. Have a look see.



A wizard nailed to a tree? Check. Approaching tiger on a painted wooden panel? Check. LANDSCAPING PLANTER FILLED WITH BOWLING BALLS? Double-check. So much more. This house is like a Dali painting for hill people.

Tomorrow on the blog I'll discuss Taos and Santa Fe. Hippies ask the same question twice, Woody Harrellson stares us down from a Prius, and Will gets spit on by a hobo!

I promise to begin discussing life in the dorms as well. Fear not; graduate school obscurity approaches!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Old Santa Fe Trail Part 1: The Dirty South

Greetings from Santa Fe!

From this point on all my dispatches will be issued from my impossibly tiny dorm room on the lovely St. John campus. I'm finally all moved in, and somewhat recovered from my first day jitters, so I've got some down time to report on our journey up. It's truly beautiful here, but before you get majestic scenery pictures you must listen to me yap for a little while.

Will and I lit out early Friday morning from Fort Worth. Armed with coffee and no fewer than three GPS devices, we traveled through West Texas and parts heretofore unknown to us. You've probably heard (or perhaps you know from experience) that there is not much to see in West Texas. I know nothing about science, but this is a scientific fact. Our notable sites included a town we had never heard of called Anderson (anyone?), which is surprisingly large and has no fewer than six (six!) Mexican food restaurants on the main drag. Further down the road, great swaths of sleek wind turbines spanned the horizon. They seemed to go on for miles in every direction, fading into the dusty distance. I tried to count at one point, but there were more than I could see clearly, much less count. Plus, I'm an English teacher, so I get stuck at 20.

After about 6 and a half hours we made it to Carlsbad, NM and checked into the Trinity Hotel. If you find yourself in Carlsbad I highly recommend, nay, insist, that you stay there. The beds are giant and fluffy, and the bathrooms are really something else. I could bathe all three of our dogs in the bathtub, EASY. And by easyI mean they would all fit, not that they would sit like placid little supplicants while I sprayed them with soapy water.

We ate lunch at Cortez Mexican Restaurant. Will had a sopapilla stuffed with ground beef - a New Mexico specialty. It looked quite epic. Then we headed back into the desert to check out Carlsbad Caverns. This is one of those things that you must do. Even the surliest of teens would drop his Gameboy (insert relevant modern equivalent), suspend texting behaviors, demonstrate genuine interest and awe upon entering. First, I give you the unassuming wrappings:



A lovely view, I grant you. Stark, dramatic, emphatic about where one may not park. But in no way indicative of the things below. Here is the entrance to the cave:
  It is steep, but not quite as perilous as it appears in the picture. What is perilous about the descent into the cave is the throngs of cave swallows flitting about. The birds, accompanied by an ominous pungency, prevent one from lingering too long to snap photos, lest you find yourself walking through the remainder of the cave with bird turds in your hair.

As we wandered through the caverns, I had to remind myself periodically that I was looking at entirely natural creations. The vast strangeness of it is really difficult to describe, so I will let Will's photos speak for me.


Amazing that all of this was created just by water and dirt:

Nature really can do things no human could ever even attempt. And with that thought, I conclude this chapter of my puny little blog.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

...And now for something completely different!

Cabrito!

These guys know what I'm talking about.



I had a flash of inspiration at Central Market a couple of weeks ago when they had cabrito at the meat counter as part of their Celebracion de Espana or somesuch. For those of you who lead lives in which Outback Steakhouse represents an adventurous culinary challenge, cabrito is kid goat, usually 3-4 months old. Roughly the goatier equivalent of lamb.

Now, if you've ever smelled a goat, you may find it surprising that anyone would want to eat one. They have a sort of earthy pungency, and I don't mean that in anything resembling a positive way. Curiously, I'm not the first person to think of eating goat. It's very popular in Mexico and Greece, among other places. In fact, the goat has quite the storied history in Greece, dating back to this guy:


That's Pan. He's half-goat, half-god. He's the god of shepherds, hunting and folk music. His name is where we get the word panic, describing the effect of his music on Arcadian yokels. Tim Robbins says, "there was a sort of hippity-hoppity bunny rabbit quality to Pan's erratic melody, but also a roaming goatish quality, stubbor, rough, and lean." That's from Jitterbug Perfume, a book that talks a lot about goats. And also about beets, another underappreciated food that I love.

But back to the cabrito. It started off like this, and let me tell you. It smelled like a goat.


That's actually after I marinated it in apple juice, lime juice, garlic, cayenne pepper, and a Bud Light. Because I keep it real. Then I dried it off and threw this stuff on it.


Salt, pepper, chile powder, cumin, thyme and dry mustard. It looks pretty in the bowl, no?

Will Atkinson, keeper of the fire in my heart and in our smoker, created a nice smoky place for the goat leg to sit for about six hours, while I basted it with some reduced Bud Light marinade and a stick of butter. Butter is the answer.

Here's the finished product:



Wantsit.

And here's what it looks like in taco form. Before I devoured it like a crazy person.

Special thanks to my dear friend Taylor Strong for the peppers and onions from his garden. A taste sensation.

So the moral of the story is, you should try some cabrito some time. It's leaner than chicken and has more protein than beef. And it tastes like a goaty miracle. I leave you with a farewell toast from Pan, via Jitterbug Perfume.

 "For you sir, may the jaws of death have cotton teeth."

Bienvenidos!

Welcome to the blog! I've created this little thing as a way to chronicle my adventures this summer in Santa Fe. As you already know (if you are here), I'll be studying through the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. I'll defer to The Simpsons for commentary on my choice:

Yeah.

Ennyhoo, I'll be living in the dorms (JEALOUS?) at St. John's College, discussing nerdular topics such as Chaucer (yay, British people!) and Gothic literature of the nineteenth century (yay, insane people!). As such, readers of this blog will likely be subjected to a modicum of tedious pedantry (see the preceeding phrase), but I'll try to entertain you with my wacky shenanigans and goings-on as much as possible. Also, since the title of the blog is "Books AND Butter," you should expect some food-related posts as well. There are two major reasons for this. 1) I think about food a great deal, so the subject is bound to figure into my ramblings at some point, and 2) I'll be living in the dorms eating dorm food, so I may indulge in a rich fantasy life of culinary wonders. Consider yourself warned.

Will and I will be leaving for Santa Fe on Friday morning, with stops in Carlsbad, Ruidoso and Taos along the way. We'll provide some travel updates along the way, likely accompanied by pictures of majestic Southwestern scenery. We'll be the chubby people standing next to the stalagmites.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Test Post

Just checking it all out. More tales brought to you by the letter 'b' to come.