egg replacer

one of the obstacles of vegan cooking is recreating that gooey cohesive quality of eggs. there are a few options, as the lightest of googling will demonstrate, but my hands-down favorite is the ground flax seed option. it's simple, flexible and good for you.
love it.

for each egg a recipe calls for whisk
1 Tablespoon ground flax seed with
3 Tablespoons hot water.
then let it cool a little (usually I pop it in the freezer for a few minutes). if it's winter and I'm having tea anyways I boil water and then measure it, if not I usually throw them together and microwave it whether or not it ever boils.

anyways, the magic is that the fiber in the flax comes out with the hot water and when you cool it, you have this beautiful, fiberful, healthy egg-like substance. you've got to see it to believe it.

cooking philosophy

the most delicious form of zucchini

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

the dry ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup coco powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
a bit of salt if you so desire it

the wet ingredients:
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs worth of egg replacer

the mix ins:
2 cups zucchini (1 or 2 medium zucchinis) grated
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup frozen raspberries (optional but highly recommended, and make sure to add these last, if the raspberries get melty they lose their structural integrity)

The plan:
1. mix or sift(if you're feeling ambitious), all the dry ingredients in one bowl.

2. then combine all the the wet ones in another bowl.

3. and then add the mix ins to the dry ingredients--the dry ingredients will kind of coat the zucchini and raspberries nicely.

4. then add the wet to the dry or the dry to the wet (whichever bowl is larger) and mix it until it is "just mixed". basically don't over mix it because then it won't rise as much, but if you do that's ok too because it will still be delicious.
*special note about this cake...if you are used to making cakes, the batter of this one will seem very thick. I've played with this, adding more wet ingredients etc, the conclusion is that the zucchini makes this cake very moist...so the batter needs to be a bit thicker, just go with it*

5. then pour it into some greased and floured pans. you can use two 9" round pans to make two layers or I've done it many times in just one pan to make one thick layer and then if there is any extra I just throw it in some cupcake tins-yum!

350 degrees
and I just realized I've never timed the baking of this cake....it takes a while because it's so moist so I'll go with 45min-1hour or until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.

Oh and frosting! I've used two different forms of frosting both with great success. When I had some left over vegan whipped creme that they gave out for free at the boston vegetarian food fest I just whipped some of that up with a little vanilla extract and topped it with fruit(pictured above)
I've also made a vegan version of the Joy of Gardening's rich creme cheese frosting.

(original idea from Garden way's Joy of Gardening Cookbook...recipes grouped by garden-fresh ingredient-perfect when you have a plethora of one thing and you don't know what to do with it...I've veganized and otherwise adapted it to make it my own) see also my cooking philosophy

vegan creme cheese frosting

blend together:
3/4 cup margarine
1 8oz tub of toffuti creme cheese
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

this frosting has a low melting point so make sure your cake is good and cooled before frosting with it--or enjoy goooey oozing frosting over a warm cake!

for raspberry frosting: put in half the butter and add a handful of frozen raspberries!!

cooking philosophy

language tourists

Defining the title term, that I coined to describe the experiances Ana and I had:
the thrill of finding out the spanish word for sidewalk
oohing at the connection between the pomegranates all over a city and finding out that the name of the city means pomegranate in spanish
straining ears towards tv, movies, and radio eagerly trying to catch what is being said
noticing the different ways things can be said
smiling to yourself when you hear another American on the street or in a store, speaking worse spanish than you
at the end of the say recalling what words you learned in a day
reading a word you're heard used, and having that momement when it all clicks
laughing as you hear american slang making it's way into spanish slang, "no tienes que flipou!"

Spring Break

While technically my spring break was a week ago, today for the first time in months I have been able to really settle in and get busy doing nothing. For the weeks leading up to spring break I found myself traveling every weekend. My reward for staying in Madrid for many cold rainy weekends in the earlier part of my stay was sunny spring scented trips to some beautiful places in Spain. In the past month and a half I have been to places all over Spain and had too many adventures to count. Here's a map of Spain with all the places I have gone within Spain. Save for Toledo Avila and Madrid, I've visited all of them since my last post.

Valencia
The entire time I was in Valencia, I felt like I was in another world. I suppose that the city on an average weekend is nothing like what I experienced there during the festival of Las Fallas, but I do know that the city and the people are crazy during this week long celebration of San Jose, the patron saint of carpenters.
It is difficult to explain what the festival is. I guess historically it began when carpenters burned their shavings once a year in the honor of San Jose. Now, elaborate painted structures of paper machet, wood and plaster are created during the entire year before the celebration. Each of the over 700 structures has a theme of some sort, usually mocking someone or something. We saw some that were huge and elaborate, other's, in the children's division, that were more life sized, and usually conveying playful themes. All had minuet detail and I considered them works of art.
While walking around and viewing these structures during the days, the hardest thing to adjust to was the noise. The entire two days and nights that I was there, 5 minutes did not go by without someone setting off a firework or firecracker. Young children especially contributed to the constancy of this noise, and were far more brave using explosives than I was. Outside a store that sold firecrackers there was a sign stating clearly that fireworks/crackers would not be sold to children under eight! So it went that in every corner of the city that we went to (for the whole city becomes a place to display fallas), that children and adults alike were setting off firecrackers and fireworks of varying intensity.

The there was la crema, the burning, and for that pictures speak louder than words.

It was incredible, but eerie at the same time. Burning faces, people, cars, ideas, crying children, fireworks being shot out of the center of a wooden structure, the spray of the firefighters (bomberos) hoses against the surrounding houses and trees so that they too would not catch on fire. It was unbelievable.

The fireworks of the night before the burning, were the best I have ever seen in my life, despite the fact that I was watching them in the rain at 1:30 in the morning. As I have said, it was quite an experience, and like no other.

Granada
Ana, Rutu and I decided to go to Granada on a whim, the very weekend after Ana and I had become emboldened by our independent and sleepless experience in Valencia. Granada was a lot of fun, there is basically only one main cultural point to visit, and that would be La Alhambra, this old Moorish palace, one of the few that wasn't destroyed when the Christians conquered. Apparently some benevolent king decided that, despite it's construction by Muslims, it was rather pretty. La Alhambra was a series of ornate rooms with intricately carved repetitive designs, and ceramic patterns, combined with sprawling gardens and fountains, and all of it is atop a hill that overlooks the rest of Granada with its small streets and white houses, also of Moorish design.

Our hostel was on a second hilltop facing the Alhambra and we had a small terrace facing in that direction from which we had a beautiful view of the palace and the city. I loved the small winding walking streets that led up to our hostel, and the tiered houses on the hilltop. Also, the morning before we left we climbed further up the hill and we received for our early morning effort, a absolutely gorgeous view. Granada just felt like spring the whole time we were there. Warm days, sun, green green green, flowers, a river through the old part of the city that we were staying in, the beautiful gardens of the palace, it was wonderful.

Cordoba and Seville

Another school trip, but a longer one with two nights in Seville and time to ourselves. This ended up being perfect because Carrie Chandler, a friend of mine from the NMH swim team, is studying in Sevilla, and I got to hang out with her and another former NMH 2003er, Ross Jordan both of the nights that I was there. Seville was beautiful, what I liked best about it was the smell. The whole city smelled of orange blossoms while we were there. It is such an enchanting smell, I can not believe I had never smelled them before.

We stopped in Cordoba to see the famous Mesquita on our first day of our trip. I was very excited to see this, as I had heard a lot about in in several of my classes. La Mesquita is a Mosque that was converted into a church, at least in part. It is this large expansive Mosque, that grew through several different Moorish rulers, as the population demanded. It is this cool dark room with beautiful red and white arches that were made to mimic a forest of trees. The Catholic monarchs, when they conquered (or reconquered) Cordoba couldn't help but seeing the beauty in this building, and they build a church into the middle of it rather than destroying it completely as was customary for that time. It thus is now and odd mix of Muslim and Christian. The most fascinating part to me, is that the Muslims destroyed a catholic church to create this building, but they built a more beautiful and expensive church for them in the corner so they could continue practicing their religion, but now, Muslims have requested to be able to practice in on corner of La mesquita, but as of yet have not been permitted to.

We then traveled on to Seville, where there were so many things to see, and as I have said, to smell. Spring had most definitely sprung in Seville as we walked through beautiful gardens and visited places around the city. The most charming to me would have to be the old Jewish quarter, which was again composed of small streets with white walls but in Seville (and Cordoba) the houses are decadent with flowers. Reds, greens, blues, pinks, and yellows looked so crisp and beautiful against the white background of the walls. The pots were mounted on the walls, put in window sills and sitting around on the grounds. It was hard not to feel happy just walking these beautiful streets.

It was also hard not to be content with my reunion with NMHers. It was so fun and easygoing and we spoke some spaniglish, went out to see flamenco, then dancing and had crazy adventures together. I could not have asked for a better experience with them. It was nice to get and inside scoop on the night life of a place and get the full tour, guided trips to historical and cultural places by day with the school, and visited more recently relevant cultural places and attitudes during the night with my friends.

Semana Santa

The following week was in fact spring break, Semana Santa (holy week) as everyone here calls it, and it always falls exactly on Easter, unlike in the US. I turned in a ten page term paper on Wednesday and Zach came on Friday morning. That week was a blur, and then I spent the first weekend of spring break with Zach in Madrid. I saw things in Madrid I had never seen before, like the royal palace, and generally we did a lot of walking around which is always good. Sunday night we hopped a night train to Barcelona. When I say hopped I mean jumped. We were running late after eating dinner with Maria Emilia, and we had packed our rucksacks in a rush, and ran from the metro and two of the conductors waved frantically at us. The second we stepped on the train it began moving--just like an old movie, sans steam engine smoke.

I will save the rest of my story about Spring Break Traveling with zach for another post, both because this post is getting rather long, and because I have to go to class.

Carnival

Oh dear, I seem to be getting a little behind on my storytelling here. Well let me see . . . nearly two weeks ago it was Carnival in Madrid . . .In the week leading up to carnival, the talk around the computer lab was of masks, costumes, bars, buses, trains, and flights. It seem the more serious college students wanting to ensure an experience of excess to the excess, flew the coop for the weekend to the southern city of Cadiz. There the Carnival festivities allegedly are almost as spectacular as those held in Brazil. Apparently, if you know your Carnivals, Brazil is best of the best.

Back in Madrid the Carnival, or what I saw of it, was lovely. Friday night was quite cold but hardly felt it in the crowded streets of Sol, the heart of Madrid. Not sure of the exact location of commencement ceremonies, Ana and I wandered in search of them, following a performer here, a costumed person there and ultimately following the sounds of drums to a metal elephant on wheels as they made their way to the Plaza where the opening ceremony took place.


A group of drummers and dancers, dressed all in blue and white representing Paraguay were our true pied pipers of the evening. Without them we might never have found the elephant or indeed the ceremony.

The opening ceremony was a lot of smoke and fire, figuratively and literally. The mayor of Madrid was there to give the key to the city to Don Carnal, a master of ceremonies of sorts for the Carnival. It was goofy and excoriated, with him climbing up to a balcony to the mayor, "falling" on the ladder and making jokes the whole way up and down. Once the key was procured, Don Carnal lead a small procession of performers, the elephant and Paraguayan band included to the Plaza Mayor. Again relatively small, but I liked the way it felt intimate and personal. The plaza was full of people, but people were clustered around individual groups of performers. We were able to go up to the Italian fire throwers/breathers afterwards and ask for a picture with them, a man dressed as a pirate and on stilts went into the crowd and asked children for help "pulling" the elephant and picked children up. There were a lot of families around, and tourists to be sure, but it felt like more locals than tourists.

That was just the opening ceremonies, we returned to the center of Madrid the following evening for the parade. It was pouring rain, but a lot of people came out, and it ended up being very worth it. The floats were fun and impressive. In particular the one making fun of Bush, a person playing him stood on a float of a theater--a puppet on strings. Then came the bugs. A group that featured hornets on stilts and beetles on shorter springy stilts, they hoped around and did flips. The bug group also had a large spider balloon that they pulled a person's height above the ground and every so often pushed the legs into the crowd. Soon followed a white ship that floated it's own moon eerily above it. The effect was very pretty, even though I wasn't sure exactly why they were wearing tall white fur hats.

All in all a good time. If carnival is more than those two nights I never saw it. We had heard some crazy things went on in the night life, but as it was so cold and so wet we did not stay out late that night. Following the parade we sought the warmth of a restaurant where we sat for hours drinking coffee and watching costumed people make their way in the street through the rain. I love this picture of the people at the parade, like I am living a movie. This is the life.

Snow

Despite what your ideas of Spain might be, and what mine were, it snowed a whole 4 inches here (a few weeks ago, my posts are still on backorder). Yes admits the palm trees and white washed walls there was snow in Majadahonda. Granted we're a little outside of the city, slightly to the north and in view of the snow-capped mountain range where Madridites go skiing, but still 4 inches of snow, even in Majadahonda, is apparently unheard of. I felt like a little kid when I woke up late looked up at my skylights only to see they were covered with snow. In an instant, my reflexive inner delight took over, it was like waking up to snow at home, thoughts raced fast to the hope of school being canceled, the possibilities of walking and building out in fresh snow. I raced to my skylight and pushed it open, so as to revel at the sight of outside. I heard shouts and looked down to see two boys having a snow fight outside my apartment building.

Instinctively I dressed quickly, donning boots hat and gloves and grabbing my camera. This was an event not to be missed, the reactions of these Spanish suburbites to this bombardment of snow. Here street cleaning is a 24 hour job, it seems like there is no time of day when you can step outside and not see a person in a neon green and yellow jumpsuit cleaning up every butt and piece of gum that has fallen to the sidewalk. It was no surprise then that the people who normally pick up wrappers and leaves were hard at work on a Sunday morning trying to manage this new type of litter. I had laughed to myself earlier in the year when a dusting of snow called for a dumping of salt, so much that the salt on the sidewalk was a much bigger nuisance for much longer than the snow ever would have been. This morning there was not salt in sight, but there were shop owners trying to deal with the snow in any way they could, including sweeping.

There were also, a plethora of children outside. This, as I have said, is a normal Sunday occurrence. Sunday brings out the people, even in colder temperatures; you’re likely to see a lot of people outside on a Sunday. Here too it was the case, but I soon became confused, because there were children in costumes, which is not an average Sunday occurrence. So as I walked further and further down the wide sidewalk street that is the center of the suburb, I couldn’t help noticing more and more children in costumes. I figured it was children dressed up for carnival, I had heard there was activities for the children in Madrid on Sunday, because as it happens this snow event happened the day after the carnival that I just wrote about.

I assumed, wrongly, that the children were on their way to Madrid. Apparently I had underestimated Majadahonda. At the end of the sidewalk street people were gathered with their children, waiting for something, and not far off I heard music playing. My innocent query to see the children in the snow had been answered with a mini parade and the joint joy of seeing the carnival in Majadahonda in the snow. Everyone was in rare mood, for one reason or the other. Children threw snow at their parents, and the parents just smiled and threw snow back (where as parents in climates that receive snow more regularly are less tolerant to such attacks) children all along the street were making snow men, this one using palm leaves for hair. A rare sight indeed.

For icing on the cake, the music drew closer and a parade of jester like carnival characters poured forth onto the street. They became the new target for the snowballs, but like the parents they seemed to be delighted by it rather than upset. It became part of the act. The small parade delighted the children of Majadahonda who had come out in their boots and costumes. And the morning spent with the people and in the snow delighted me. Just being out for an hour in the wet snow my feet got wet and cold. It felt good to return to my warm room and hang up my things wet from the snow. These simple actions and feelings came welcome and familiar. They brought me back across the Atlantic, for a fleeting second or two over the course of this morning; I might have easily been there as here.