Lavender Journey

Last summer I journeyed to Oregon for the Oregon Lavender Festival and I’m packing to head south again! What can be more refreshing to the soul than spending time with one’s best friend and fields of lavender?

The Puget Sound Area is definitely different from northern Oregon. That state is our cousin to be sure, but it holds a charm that is a different facet of the jewel that is the Northwest. It’s a little warmer—sometimes a lot—and the hills are softer. Portland has bedroom communities to rival Bellevue and Kirkland, but go a little south and/or get off of I-5 and you are transported into a rural landscape dotted with little towns and villages, each with a unique character and charm so I’m happy to be packing my bag and getting my Neon, the Screaming Yellow Zonker, ready to hit the road.

A year ago I did not see the storm clouds of the recession on the horizon. My girlfriend and I were not extravagant with anything but gasoline, but this year we will be watching our pennies even more closely. Fortunately gasoline is cheaper this year! My friend is between jobs while my Care Provider money for taking care of my adult disabled daughter has been cut due to Washington State’s budget shortfall. The security of my husband’s job is a day to day issue. Right now he’s just happy to arrive at Seattle Flight Service and find it still open. So besides packing clothing and tooth paste, I’m loading up on the bounty of the season and we will be dining picnicking along the highways and byways of rural Oregon.

Enough Already!

I am sorry that Michael Jackson died. I am sorry that he was troubled enough to bring rumors and speculation about his life and habits into the public realm. I’m sorry that his troubles may have resulted from the enslavement of his forbearers by some of mine, but enough already. I will be grateful when all of the memorials and funerals are over and hopefully Mr. Jackson is allowed to rest in peace.

Although Michael Jackson’s music undoubtedly was the soundtrack of many Gen-Xers childhoods he did not find a cure for cancer, end hunger or achieve world peace. He was not a saint, far from it. Why is the American public deifying this troubled man? I will be happy to be able to shop without the many faces—especially the creepy ones—of Michael Jackson lining the check-out counter.

To the Gen-Xers I would say, take a look at your grandparents if you are lucky enough to still have them. The Greatest Generation, a generation who saved the world, are rapidly passing into history and what they did to ensure your freedom and build a great nation was of far more value than any musical achievement Mr. Jackson attained. Sit down with Grandma and Grandpa and listen to their stories of separation and heroism, of sacrifice and hard work. Your children will be studying the achievements of the everyday men and women who were raised in the Depression and fought fascism and tyranny. Mr. Jackson won’t get a mention in a history textbook. That’s the view from my broom.

Praying for Democracy

In the late 1970s there was a Lee Oskar album that the Iranian college students attending the UW in Seattle played constantly. Although Oskar is Danish, the first three cuts on the 1976 album titled simply Lee Oskar were haunting instrumentals, each titled Remembering Home that told a story of the sadness of leaving and remembering home that struck a chord with young Iranians far from home and witnessing revolutionary change from half a world away. Iranian culture is given to succumbing to sorrow and given their history and religion it is not surprising.

Many young Iranians who left Iran to attend school in the United States watched the Iranian revolution with a mixture of hope and horror. Some returned to Iran to be a part of the revolution while many stayed in the United States, forming what has become a not insubstantial segment of American society in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. I would post the cuts from the Lee Oskar album were I techier or if one of them were available on YouTube.

Once again ex-pat Iranians are watching the television, supplemented by the computer and Twitter to see if this new surge of democratic dream becomes realized in Iran. It is difficult to know where the current protest movement in Iran will lead or how long the Iranian people will have to wait to enjoy a freer and open society. I am sure that many of them have dusted off Lee Oskar either literally or mentally.

Another interesting blog to follow is Regime Change in Iran where articles and pictures from all over can be read. There are so many facets to the Iranian people from those who would like to see a return of the monarchy to a truly democratic, secular government where freedom can be honored along with religion.

If nothing else comes of the current protest movement in Iran, the current government has been put on notice that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want democracy. I hope that the lives that have been given or imprisoned in the quest for change will not have been given in vain.

Ghormeh Sabzi and the Kale Problem

My mother hates kale; hence I wasn’t raised eating it. “I love all vegetables,” she’s told me a thousand times, “except for kale. I hate kale.” So when some dull green leafy greens showed up in our Terra Organics box, the box of local organic produce that is delivered to our home twice a month, I had no clue what it was. Fortunately they enclose a list of what you’ve got. Oh no, not kale!

Being the spend thrift that I am I wasn’t going to let this stuff sit in the refrigerator and turn into a science experiment. I went for a culinary experiment instead. How to prepare the kale? I didn’t like the look of recipes I found on the Internet. Then I remembered one of my favorite Persian dishes, Gormeh Sabzi and reached for one of my favorite cookbooks, Maideh Mazda’s In a Persian Kitchen. The result was wonderful! I simply replaced the spinach or lettuce called for in the recipe with the kale and other leafy greens that came in our order. If you find the recipe below to be too spicy (I doubled Mazda’s and cooked it in the Crockpot instead of on the stove. Next time I'm going to triple it so there are left-overs), add yogurt to your serving at the table to cut the spiciness. You serve it over chelo, Persian prepared rice which I also include. Some Persian cooks dry the greens for use during the winter and fall or they can be purchased in a bazaar or Persian market in a box with directions.

Khoresh Gormeh Sabzi or Green Vegetable Sauce

1/3 C. dried black-eyed peas (I used lentils because that’s what was in the cupboard)
1 ½ C. water
4 T. cooking oil
1 lb. stew beef cut into 1” cubes (I made ours vegetarian)
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
4 T. oil
1 C. chopped onions
1 C. chopped leek
1 C. chopped spinach
1 C. chopped parsley
2 C. water (because I didn’t cook any meat I used 4 C. of organic chicken stock)
3 T. lemon juice

Some recipes call for chopped lettuce. You will want to use leaf lettuce, not the dreadful iceberg. Following are the directions from the Mazda book. For my version, I just chopped it all up, put it in the Crockpot with the lentils and water and set the time for six hours. The Crockpot cost 8 cents to make a meal and you get to come home to dinner waiting.

Cook peas in 1 ½ C. water on medium fire for about 20 minutes. Heat oil in 2 qt pot. Add meat, onions and seasoning and sauté until the meat is browned. Meanwhile in a frying pan heat oil and add chopped green onions, leek, spinach, and parsley and sauté for 10 minutes. Add 2 C. water and lemon juice to the meat, cover, and let simmer for about 30 minutes. When meat is tender, add cooked peas and vegetables 15-20 minutes before serving. Serve over chelo which if you’re clever, you started at the same time as the khoreshe. However, if you use a Crockpot, all you have to do is come home and make the rice.

Persian Rice or Chelo

I learned to make Persian rice from a Persian who learned from his mother. Measuring is not part of the process. You can use any long grain rice, but basmati or jasmine is best. I can only make Persian style rice in large amounts. If you have left-overs you can always find uses for it.

Step One

In a 6 qt. pot pour basmati or jasmine rice into a large pile.
Fill pot with cold water.
Rinse rice to cut down starch. I rinse it three times.
Place pot on stove on high with a lid. When the lid begins to dance fish out a grain of rice with a spoon and put it between your teeth. If it is half cooked you’re ready for Step Two. Generally speaking it will have been on the stove for about 10 minutes and should be ready.

Step Two

Drain rice in a colander and return the pot to the burner with the heat turned down to 2.5-3 or medium low.
Melt ¼ C. butter in the bottom of the pan
Pour the drained rice back into the pot and cover with a folded tea towel.
Place lid on top of the tea towel, being careful to fold the points of the tea towel up onto the lid to prevent them from catching on fire.
Set the timer for 30 minutes.

Step Three

After 30 minutes remove the pot from the stove and set in sink. Run a little cold water on the base of the pan to stop cooking.

The result will be steamed, fluffy rice with a tasty crust on the bottom of the pan. This is generally reserved for guests or in the case of our house, fought over. This process is not as complicated as it may sound and once you've filled your house with the smell of cooking basamati you'll be hooked.

The View from the Iranian Opposition

The Iranian opposition is wondering where President Obama is and why he isn’t declaring himself to be a “Tehraner” in the vein of Kennedy in Berlin. Were it but that easy. I doubt that there’s an American with a television, radio or computer who does not support the Iranians who are fighting for a more open and democratic society, but on an official level Obama walks a tightrope between not making the mistakes of the Carter Administration which refused to read the writing on the wall and continued to support the Shah out of personal loyalty and making an open declaration of solidarity with the opposition. Already the Islamic government is accusing Britain and the US of meddling in their election and whipping up the demonstrations that have gone on for over a week.

In the past the Iranian government has accused the United States of all kinds of ridiculousness including causing an earthquake there and sending CIA trained squirrels—really—to spy on Iran. A government so paranoid justified or not, is going to latch on to anything Obama says like a FOX commentator.

If you have a minute visit one of the Iranian opposition websites like Rotten Gods and leave a message of support. While our government may not be able to make an official statement of support, we, as democratic loving individuals, can.

Take note Iranian opposition: WE ARE WITH YOU, HEART AND SOUL! MAY GOD BLESS YOUR EFFORTS AND PROTECT YOU.

The Struggle in Iran Goes On

I've listed Rotten Gods, a blog from within Iran as one that I follow and created a link. If you visit here, please visit there. We are not getting all of the news from Iranian or American media. This morning CNN was reporting that opposition crowds were thinning. The cell phone videos on Youtube say otherwise.

Remembering the Greatest Generation

My father and father-in-law were part of what Tom Brokaw has called the Greatest Generation. My father died in 2002 and my father-in-law, Walt, turned 90 in April. In many ways they were dissimilar. My father-in-law, despite a Republican upbringing on the prairie of Idaho, is extremely liberal politically. My father was terribly conservative. But their similarities were probably greater.

Both my father and father-in-law were raised in the country—my father in the Missouri Ozarks, Walt in Nez Pierce, ID—without electricity and indoor plumbing. Both had families that struggled with the Great Depression, but perhaps not as much as city folks since neither family had enjoyed a great deal of money prior to 1929. Both fought in WWII, my father in the Navy, Walt in the Army. Both left memoirs.

Because my husband’s work hours have changed and after 19 years of marriage he’s home in the evenings disrupting my routine. What to do with Dave? I hit on an idea that will keep us busy for at least the summer and maybe for the rest of our lives.

I love being read to. It’s my parents fault, especially my father’s. Although he traveled a great deal for the Boeing Company he recorded some of my favorite stories on reel-to-reel tape and left it and a company tape recorder for my mother to play the tape at bedtime during the months of his absence. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have read to me and she did, but I loved the sound of my father’s voice. I love the sound of my husband’s voice as well. His brother is a radio reporter for KIRO in Seattle. Dave could have done that, too.

Bingo! I remembered that Walt had given us a copy of his memoir, but I had never read it. Dave’s never read my dad’s either. I asked him if he would mind reading to Walt’s to me each night and then we’d read my father’s. He was more than willing. A tradition was born. It gives my husband pleasure to read his father’s words—he’s a very funny man in the bargain—and me pleasure to learn new things about him.

We are finding things that Dave had forgotten from his first reading and making notes with questions to ask Walt. I’m sorry that any new questions I find when we read my dad’s will come too late. So for Father’s Day we are going to the in-laws and ask about the card gave “Forty-two.”