I LOVE banana spring rolls and at P.F.Changs they are served with a coconut pineapple ice cream that sounds strange but is to die for. Haggan Daas makes a good version of this ice cream, but my grocery store was temporarily out of it so I substituted a good organic vanilla bean. The recipe does not call for anything aside from the ingredients so I’ll add to them. The original recipe can be found at http://cafemunchkin.com/2009/04/23/teeny-tiny-turon-banana-spring-rolls/. I would like to note that the original author suggests sliced apples if bananas are not your cut of tea. I have to try that next time.

3 bananas cut into 1/4″ slices
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
oil for deep frying
powdered sugar for dusting

My additions/ substitutions:

1. I changed from won ton wrappers to egg roll wrappers because I could fit more bananas in and I like the bigger rolls. Plus, those wrappers had a better crunch. I made both. I also added:
2. Strawberry slices
3. Blueberries
4. Blackberries
5. Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
6. Caramel

Mix the cut bananas, the sugar, and the cinnamon together in a bowl. I didn’t measure the cinnamon, just eyeballing it, but it had a lovely cinnamon taste.

I tried the won ton wrappers but I wanted something more substantial so I switched to Egg rolls and decided to actually look up how to fold them properly. The trick is (and I can’t believe I didn’t take photos of this) place the filling in a line horizontally across the wrapper and then to fold the lower left cover to the middle, then the upper left corner over that, then the lower right corner. Wet the last corner with some of the cinnamon mizture and roll.

Pop in the deep fryer/hot skillet until brown. Imagine a picture of perfectly golden egg rolls resting on a paper towel to blot dry. I was runnig around at this point, trying to finish cooking a cleaning. While these cook, slice strawberries and toss with sugar.

Place the egg rolls in a shallow bowl and dust with powered sugar. for the perfect summer treat, add the ice cream, cover in strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, or any other fresh fruit and drizzle with caramel sauce. Serve hot. Each dish is customizable and some people might want all the fruit while others might just prefer the strawberries. Delish.

The first, a baked lemon pasta, appealed to me in its simplicity (both in preparation and in supplies). It looked super easy and turned out delicious. Though I warn you, if you do not like lemons this is not the dish for you.

The entire recipe can be found at http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/baked-lemon-pasta/ and I have listed the directions verbatim. I found that this recipe needed no tweaking, though it has been suggested to me that it would be wonderful with chicken or, and I cannot wait to try this the next time I make this dish, fresh shrimp.

1 pound thin spaghetti
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cups sour cream
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste if desired
Plenty of grated Parmesan cheese
Flat leaf parsley, chopped
Extra lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook spaghetti until al dente.

For me, I used whole wheat angel hair pasta because it is what I happened to have on hand. One of the reasons I wanted to try this dish was that I had most of the ingredients already. The pasta substitution did not seem to affect the dish.

In a skillet, melt butter with olive oil over LOW HEAT.

When butter is melted, add minced garlic and olive oil.

Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat. (Make sure to pop the seeds out, lol)

Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary.

Here, my camera died so insead of an artfully done picture of lemon zest on a bed of white, you get this.

Pour mixture over drained spaghetti and stir together, then pour spaghetti into an oven safe dish.

Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the pasta will dry out.)

When you remove it from the oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over the top. Top generously with Parmesan cheese, then chopped parsley. Give it a final squeeze of lemon juice at the end.

I served it with a cut lemon as it was presented on the site. The pasta was delicious and the presentation was wonderful. Voila!

I’ve made these particular scones before but I haven’t made them in a long time so I thought I’d try my hand at them again. I still need to tweak them a bit because I like them a little wetter than the recipe calls for and a bit spicier too.

While they are not perfect, here are the results of my cooking adventure.

 I gathered all my ingredients together, partly for a photo and partly because well, that’s what you do when you cook. I followed the recipe pretty vigorously and these directions are verbatim what was written at http://pinchmysalt.com/2007/10/18/pumpkin-spice-scone-recipe/.

• 1 C. all purpose flour

• 1 C. cake flour

• 1 1/2 t. baking powder

• 1/2 t. salt

• 1/2 t. ground cinnamon

• 1/2 t. ground nutmeg

• 1/4 t. ground allspice

• 1/4 t. ground ginger

• 6 T. unsalted butter

• 1/2 C. raisins (optional)

• 1/3 C. pumpkin puree

• 1/3 C. heavy cream

• 6 T. brown sugar

• 1 t. vanilla

     1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Get out a baking sheet and line with parchment paper (not required but makes cleanup easy!). Cut the butter into small pieces, put it in a small bowl and put it back in the refrigerator. In a medium bowl, combine both flours, baking powder, salt, and all spices. Whisk together well. Place bowl in freezer (refrigerator is fine if you have no room in freezer).

It doesn’t say to sift, but I think my mother would kill me if I didn’t, so to protect my life, I sift. You should too.

I added a bit more spice than the recipe called for, but you can do it either way.

     2. In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin, heavy cream, brown sugar, and vanilla. Whisk together well. Put this bowl in freezer (or refrigerator) and take the other bowl back out. Get the butter pieces out of the fridge and dump them into the bowl with the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or rub it in with your fingertips until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the raisins if you are using them.

I add a bit more pumpkin, but be careful because if you add too much, the scones will be too wet and they won’t have that nice scone texture.

     3. Get the liquid mixture out of the freezer and pour into the flour mixture all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until everything is just moistened. The dough will be very crumbly, this is the way it should be. Turn the mixture out onto the counter and push the pile together with your hands. It should stick together fairly well. Knead it just a couple of times until everything is together. Don’t knead it too much or the dough will get too sticky.

Wet meets dry.

     4. Pat the dough out into a rough circle, 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cut it like a pie into 8 pieces. Place pieces on the baking sheet so that they are not touching. Bake scones for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees. They should be light brown on the bottom, the tops will darken as they cool.

I put the rasins in at the end, just pressing them into the top, because only one person likes them. I didn’t want to mix them in with the batter, but I’m betting they’d be better that way. These are pre-oven, by the way.

She recommends two separate icings, but I’d suggest the Cinnamon one either way. I’ve made both and I think it is better for the plain scones. I’ve never tried the raisin scones myself, but my mother seemed pleased with the results.

     For cinnamon icing, mix together 1 C. powdered sugar, 2 T. milk, 1/4 – 1/2 t. cinnamon (to taste). Again, adjust amounts to change consistency. Icing can be brushed on or drizzled.

The results?

And unfortunately…

I recently was given a signed first edition copy of Dave Eggers new book Zeitoun which happens to be about, what else, Hurricane Katrina. It is a non-fiction novel about a man who survived the storm in New Orleans and his heartbreaking, terrifying story. If you are interested, please check it out at http://tinyurl.com/Zeitoun.

In absolutely no conjunction with that, I was watching an amazing short film entitled Glory at Sea, very loosely based on Katrina (and by that I mean reality). The soundtrack is stunning and I’d suggest it to anyone who enjoys moving instrumental music. Obama even used it in one of his videos.

 But the movie itself, a mere 26 minutes long, was really touching. Just watch.

 So after all this fun, I decided to write…something. Nothing great and all within a short amount of time.

I want to preface these with a warning. These are not the best I’ve written. They aren’t even that good. But I wanted to put them up anyway. Hopefully, I will edit them and make something much more substantial from them later. But until then, this is what I offer.

(Directly inspired by the short film Glory at Sea)

Glory at Sea

We are a glory at sea,

washing over the waves

of the dead and the

passing time.

We are soul sinners,

riding through hell on a

a boat built mercurial in

deep breaths of heart’s fire.

Here the rain-soaked wood

stays strong.

These rains will pass.

We plaster the sky with pictures

and deep black crosses to

save the light of day buried

somewhere under the ocean sky.

This gray will pass.

Under the watchful eye of

towers built like testimonies,

rusted ruins, remains of a hallowed past,

our ship slides

through the hands of Hades.

Celebrations at the end of the world

are fire

are jazz.

—

(The following two, while not directly related to one another, can be seen as a pair)

Storm Surge

We are a thunderous roar,

caught in the waters rushing past

street signs and hollow cars and

empty floating boats adrift.

The power lines are downed like nets

to catch the soulless. Black plastic vines

are electric hands wrapping up

through cracks in the rising sea.

We climb and climb and climb

to breathe

to see,

our rooftops heavens each and arks.

Days pass in blurs of gray,

pitched black too far above our heads to grasp.

I am an ax. I build holes to see

the sky though through rain soaked stars

the sun has tipped into the waves.

I lay against the wet wood, hair a halo,

and into the sea, the sky, I shout

an x. My words are spray paint

against an endless sea.

 —

The Aftermath

Frames cast shapes and shadows,

angles drawn against the gray ground.

This is the wall-less city, windows

after big blank windows,

all in plywood.

As we walked through shells of

houses like emptied matchstick boxes,

we mark the dead.

Photographs are caught in red and

black and whatever paint can dry in this

dank wasteland. The water marks of each

year passed like heights.

Stand straight against the waves,

how high the devil came that night,

he touched the heavens.

The road to paradise is a hatched hole

of dusty light and an empty roof.

—

All of these poems are fragments, none completed, reworked, edited. They are the result of me wanting to capture not only an idea, but the mood. Perhaps I will make something out of these one day.

 Both of these poems are explorations in characters, in writing outside of myself. They are both free verse.

The first of the two was based, as you might be able to tell, on the Brueghel painting, “Hunters in the Snow.”

Hunters in the Snow

after Brueghel

I am one of nine men in wool caps

standing over a white hill yawning.

We are flanked by dogs with

rabbit ears and horns and coats

of dust. They are men’s muscle—

They wait ready, for

hidden in our leather bags, our vests,

are the vowels needed for dogs to howl.

I turn and I turn as if into the

teal treetops, red roofs, and I am

bent against the wind as we

cross over the milky, cataract eye of ice.

I’ve seen three men slip today

and it is barely noon—

It is too soon for stopping,

but we do and I stand waiting

with my eyes tracking shadows telling time.

Under crawling, ticking suns

the afternoon coat covers us—

we walk among the devil’s dogs.

We have thirteen birds between us,

each strung into sanguinary pictures of flight.

The sky, the ground, is a battle field

of teeth and feathers, of growls and shrieks.

When wings and throats are equal,

there is too much traffic for conversation.

I am forty and full-bearded,

but I have only one dog and one broken bird.

I am forty and hungry.

We turn back and already I see

a hundred crowded houses

with small wood windows, splintered fences.

Curls of smoke rise like ether from brown brick.

My wife, my sister, these women of ours

burn furniture black behind us—

a signal fire for dusk.

We know our way back here.

Back to our muslin wives,

back to plates and bowls and tables,

back to our cabins stacked with firewood.

—

The second of the two, also based on a painting by the extraordinarily fascinating Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. As a bit of back story, when Frida was young (nearing twenty, I think), she was in a bus accident that left her infertile. If you don’t know of her work, I’d suggest you run a search on her. It will intrigue you if nothing else.

Frida

I stand between beach and swirling green,

my feet boats with full sails sagging.

The two planes that divide the earth are

blue sheets of shifting waves and

gray grit wrapped over tight globes.

Over this, the moon is a distant bus,

a headlight piercing holes into hearts’ hollow space.

It was 1925 when an accident

caught me between twisted metal, auburn sky

and stabbed me clean through.

It was 1925 when my second life began,

my knees pressed against abdomen and metal.

I carry with me a knot of pink scars

and specters of empty clothes

that grow bigger with each passing year,

small dress and then plaid skirts, white shirts.

They are my ghost child with one hand

reaching to brush my sleeves,

touching tan skin and my own

paginas en blanco, my lost children.

I was an empty glove ballooned,

filled by the white hands of doctors

bending over the puzzle of my bones.

I have been rebuilt in my old image.

But this morning was a flood of sun,

of faded blue vans, of taxis,

of dirt-caked buses rambling over

dusty hills past crumbling terminals brimmed with seats.

I watch hot sand stretch on for miles

through small windows buried under rosaries

I touch my own, my Catholic piety.

A series of thin limbs

under small skirts, thick cut cloth,

I ride a flag-striped car to the horizon.

Some of the pillars to be found outside the Archaeology building.

At my school, there is a building that is used mainly (if not exclusively) for Anthropology and Archaeology. Outside, the have installed a lot of faux-Grecian pillars and have cleverly made several of them to look like temple ruins. It’s always one of those little things on campus I love seeing.

An example of some of the "ruins."

Location, location, location

This is the screen mid-documentary.

I packed my bag for the movie full. Included was a soft blanket, a bottle of water, a bag of chips, and headphones.

We stayed for the documentary (because I swear I must have heard my grandfather tell that story eighty times) while happily munching on popcorn. We decided to head out after that because the acoustics weren’t that great to hear the movie and despite the fact that we brought blankets, comfortable seating was not to be found. And this is why we stand up during football games.

Not the world's most comfortable seating.

After that, we headed home and got waylaid at the theater to watch Adventureland, which I would totally recommend to anyone who likes quirky, sometimes awkward movies.Friday night (because everyone knows the weekend starts on Thursday), we went to the improv comedy group on campus. It was good…for the most part. Ha!

Saturday was drinking day. We went to a party that was full of those magical things called jello shots. Ah, jello shots. The red ones are my favorites!

And on Sunday, the rested. All in all, the weekend was good. Too bad Monday had to rear it’s ugly, 7 a.m. Class head.

P.S. I want to give a Birthday shout-out to Sarah at http://sasaphotobloggings.blogspot.com/ She’s totally awesome and fabulous and we all love her.

And my University is celebrating it’s (106th?) birthday today. Which means, of course, that there will be free food, drinks, homemade ice cream, and live music. I am so jazzed. I’ll have to post pictures later. As a side note, I go to an old Ag school (which now means nothing), and there are still some vestiges of that left, including the fact that we make the most amazing ice cream here on campus with all of our own ingredients. Seriously, it is SO good.

With the weather as lovely as it is, it is a shame that I am stuck inside a room with all the blinds pulled and power point slides about the upstream discharge of a river channel. Seriously. But I really am glad it has cooled down a bit after the unseasonably warm weather last week (80 degrees!) and while I am wearing a hoodie (which, yes, I know, is the college uniform), I am still rocking out the flip-flops.

On to other things…I started a scarf maybe two weeks ago and it was actually going okay. Not great, but it is the first thing I’ve ever knitted. Well, actually, it is the second. But the first was such a travesty that I have blacked out that memory. So the second, which I am now calling the first, needs to be picked up again. Here is what it looks like so far:

See? It isn’t so bad. Just really, really short. Not much of a scarf yet, is it. Which is bad on one hand as it is April. On the other hand, this gives me months to finish! I need encouragement.