Getting What You Wish For

My daughter Ruhiyyih wrote a post entitled "I Wish I Could", and it inspired me to list a few of my wishes. I realized that just about everything that I really wish for manage to arrive, one way or another, but not always in a timely fashion.

I've wanted to understand why I have double vision, and whether or not there can be a treatment plan to restore it. It took four years and five doctors to arrive at the conclusion that it is not just congenital, not just age-related, but that a head injury that I had many years ago is also a contributing factor. I was riding my bike, and hit by a car. I fell on my head and was briefly hospitalized. The impact of this acident is now impacting on my vision as I age. It will require specialized vision therapy to see if I can regulate it.

But, back to the bike thing. Since George is now driving my car, I ride a bike about two miles to my jogging route. I climb three hills, jog about four miles, and with the bike ride over and back, it takes about 2 1/2 hours for the entire workout. Feels great, works up a good appetite.

But, I haven't been wearing a helmet. There are bike lanes most of the way, and I also use sidewalks in heavily congested areas. Problem is, helmets just don't fit good, even when I tie up my hair at the bottom of my head. Most helmets just slide down over my eyes and become a nuisance.

Rahmat recently bought a new helmet that has a special adjustable strap at the back that holds everything in place. I tried it on, and it fit perfectly! I'm determined to try to find one like it, but not pay $80.00. So, that is what I'm wishing for... and, to avoid any accident while riding my bike.

I will add that my computer is down, and I have yet to learn how to upload photos on George's laptop and put them through Picassa. I've got to figure out a new system, and when I think of that, I just want to go putter in the kitchen.

Of Turkish Coffee and Banana Crepes

We drove up to Seattle, to visit Pikes Market. I had $5.00 burning a hole in my pocket, and I found this demitasse set at a Flea Market. It was a good deal - they cost about $35.00 online.

I made Turkish coffee, whipped up banana crepes, and celebrated my good fortune! More about our afternoon at the Market in our Flickr set, and about my addiction to coffee here.

Of Teff, Fireweed, and Sling Shots

This was my kitchen counter one morning last week. I had just brewed a little pot of Turkish coffee and set my teff to ferment for a day.

I've been determined to learn how to use teff, a grass seed staple in Ethiopia that is highly nutritious and flavorful. It requires a 3-day fermentation for it to bubble effusively, which maximizes the fluff in crepes.

However, I don't particularly care for the sour taste of aged teff, so I shortened the fermenting time to one day.

I experimented with crepes, which can be eaten like bread.

The flavor of this grain is so wholesome and fragrant that I also experimented with cooked, fried teff balls, as a substitution for meatballs.

I used teff balls in several main dishes last week.

They added more nutrition to this stir-fry.

With the left-over teff flour I made a whole-grain rye bread, added crushed nuts and seeds, and served that with a broad-bean soup I partnered up with a ham bone and malloraddus pasta, celery, carrots, and onion. It was so good, I made another big pot today for the weekend, foraging in my back yard for a sturdy leek to add to the broth.

Speaking of foraging, I've mulled over how I would survive in the Alaska wilderness if I was part of that 'Alaska Experiment' (Out of the Wild) on the Discovery Channel....not that I'd ever find myself in that predicament! But, the stress of watching the 'youngsters' try to figure it all out was more than I could bear (yes, I have it on tape, and review it from time to time.) The stress comes when I notice that they have no great inclination to know their environment. Instead of looking across the terrain with a rifle, they should be looking down at their feet, scrutinizing the meadow grasses, digging up tubers, gathering pine cones.

With proper roasting and grinding, they could make a hearty granola out of pine nuts, willow buds, roasted and crushed tubers, dried huckleberry, service berry and rose hips, and seeds from wild sorrel. All of this could be ground into a flour, mixed with a wild quail egg , and made into pasta balls.

I imagined teas from wild burdock and dandelion root, chamomile, rose hips and mint. For a salad, the dandelion leaves could be mixed with chickweed, fireweed, early wild sorrel, and the chopped flower-head of the yellow water lily. Seedpods from the sorrel, when dried, could be made into porridge or used to thicken soup.

I figured I'd get lucky, and zap a fat ptarmigan with my trusty sling shot, clean it out and save all the innards for sausage - the eyes, heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, mixed with another quail egg. The ptarmigan's intestine would be washed and stuffed(ever so carefully, of course) with wild sage, wild parsley and onion, and gently fried in grease left over from roasting some of that fat bird. The bones would be simmered for broth, with the tubers and early shoots of cattail added.

The crew of 'Alaska Experiment' failed so many times with their hunting that I just had to imagine a sling shot working better. I figured I'd hit the soaring eagle that had a salmon in his talons. He'd fall as the rock knocked his head sideways, and drop the salmon within a few feet of my fry-pan - no need for me to bush-wack through the alders and round the bend back to my camp.

OK, enough fantasy. The most important rule to always remember when foraging: Never eat a plant that you can't positively identify, and know that it is more important to know which plants are poisonous than to know which ones can be eaten safely. (Please note: Foraging for indigenous wild plants can be a serious project, if you live in Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan.)

Mandarin Orange Syrup

We bought a box of 'Cuties'. They weren't sweet. So, I made syrup. Perfect poured over home-made yogurt, topped with granola....and mandarin orange sections on the side.