"The Great College Adventure" - Pt I

I've been so busy the past year and a half, I haven't written anything about the most absorbing aspect of all our lives : Son Number One's "The Great College Adventure". Last year, son #1 was a senior in high school. As a family, we experienced what seems typical for many parents of seniors I know these days: the parental nagging to get college applications done on time, the parental nagging for him to keep his grades up, the parental nagging for him to go to class, turn in his homework/papers/projects, go to bed, eat, bathe, take vitamins, clean his room, stop torturing his brother, come in by curfew, stop spending money he doesn't have, do his laundry, do his chores, bathe, shave, cut his hair, don't wreck the car, don't get a MIP, etc etc etc.
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Son #1 fought us every step of the way, with his typical approach: passivity. ( Now, Son #2, entirely different. Wait till that story gets rolling....it's a pip.) He put off everything till the last minute. Refused to apply to any college except his #1 choice. (We secretly applied to a few back-ups for him , just in case.) He managed to get his electronic application in with one minute to spare before the midnight deadline, then we all panicked thinking the registrar had not sent the transcript in, on time. (She did.) All of this was exacerbated by the fact that hubster has ADHD and travels all the time, and I was in grad school and this all went down during finals week for me. I simply could not pay attention to the details or help him write /proofread his essays (as I know many moms have). It was a classic example of what not to do.
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Son #1 didn't get into his first choice college- he got wait-listed. He needed to be in the top 8 % of his graduating class to make that cut , and his class rank was 8.2 %. (He did get into some of the back-ups we applied to, and was offered serious money in scholarships to attend them, but refused to go.) So we sat him down and figured out the plan...... his first choice college offered him this option: attend one of our satellite campuses for a year, make a B average, and then you can come on over, no need to re-apply. After much discussion, we nudged him into choosing what we thought was the best satellite campus for him, and off he went.
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I remember when I went off to college: I loaded up the trunk of my 1971 Duster with a case of Heineken (a gift from an admirer), about 50 pairs of expensive high-heeled shoes, my record collection, and a stack of frilly dresses in lollipop colors. Drove off into the sunset sans parents - they were embroiled in a nasty divorce, and it was truly better to leave them behind, trust me- with only my best gf in attendance. She stayed during orientation week and we went to all the parties together, then she flew home and took herself off to her college (probably with her parents, who were fairly normal. I was jealous.) My home life was so wretched that I didn't go back at Thanksgiving, but stayed away, in the cold dorms (they turned the heat off at holidays), and ate dinner at a kindly professor's house along with the other misfits who were orphans or from Malaysia and could not afford to fly back for only 4 days. I liked it that way.
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When we all came home at Christmas, there were the usual parties, with everyone posturing about how much they had changed, how sophisticated we had all become. My friends who had gone Ivy League showed up in monstrous black coats that went down to their ankles, wearing old Ray Bans, like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business". Ex high-school bf who had gone to Duke got into a snit with ex high school bf who had gone to Brown, and the drama was all very exciting. (Who knew they were both gay, but just hadn't figured it out yet?) We all acted as cool as we knew how, secretly hiding the fact that our first semester grades probably weren't that great. I had a job, worked as many hours as possible, and saved up all my money to buy realistic clothes for college- jeans, walking shoes, an umbrella bc it rained all the time - I never wore any of the high heeled shoes or lollipop colored dresses once I got there. They just took up pointless space in the tiny dorm room closet.
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Son #1 went off to college and promptly wrecked his car. I don't think he'd been there a week. Fortunately, he was not seriously hurt. Oh well, now my dear, you get to learn what it is like to be carless. (We are refusing to replace the car.) His life is complicated by the fact that he has a serious gf in the next town over, about an hour away. Bummer. Now gf drives all the time to see him, and is starting to resent it (the time, the gas money.) He's about to learn some real life lessons here, such as : you can't just take , in a relationship. you have to give, too. Get a job. Don't trash, ignore, or take for granted the stuff/people you have, take care of them.
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On a positive note, son #1 seems happy in his college experiences. His dorm is a 4 bedroom style apt, and he gets along with his roommates just fine. (No terrible roommate problems that come from sharing a tiny room with a total stranger.) The cafeteria he eats at looks like Luby's and has an "all you care to eat 24/7" policy, unlike my college dining hall that served mystery meat and only 7 portions for 8 young ladies ( cheaping out, on the theory that "someone is always on a diet".) Son #1 has joined an intramural football league and seems to be making friends. He came home at Thanksgiving and seemed normal. He come home after finals in December and looked tired and thin but ok. His grades were better than mine or hubster's that first semester of college, but not good enough to get him where he wants to go. He's going to have to work really hard this spring semester, or else come up with "plan B" for his life - whatever that is going to be.
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Am I stressing about all this? I don't know if it's the fact that I am too old, too tired, heavily medicated, or just an expert at zen meditation, but I seem to be reacting to all this with a "que sera, sera" sort of attitude. I do feel as if a weight has been lifted, as if I am no longer responsible for Son #1's life any more. Like I am watching all this, through a window, or on tv. During several of my little pep talks with him through these travails, I have maintained that the path of my life has forked, and he is now headed down the path of his own life. He will reap the benefits and hardships of his own actions and choices, good or bad. I am here to offer advice, a sounding board, money if I can spare it, now and then, unconditional love always, but it is his life to live. Carpe Diem!

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What does Son #1 think about all this ? You can read his blog:
http://strecklife.blogspot.com/

Another Texas Icon Bites the Dust

I was watching tv late this afternoon when a news flash broke in to my reverie: "We interrupt your show to bring you breaking news: If you can't beat them, buy them ! DPS, the parent company that owns Snapple and the Dr Pepper brand sodas, has bought the Dublin Dr Pepper bottling plant and laid off 14 workers." Now that might sound like no big deal to the average viewer, but around these parts, them's fightin' words.
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Growing up in north Texas, I only drank Dr Pepper flavored sodas (when I drank soda at all.). When I was a teeny child, in the 1960's, Dr Pepper was far more prevalent than cola or other types of soft drinks in this area. Neighbor Charlie Norwood's dad had an old-timey soda dispenser in his garage, and all the little kids in the neighborhood would come over with our dimes on Saturday afternoons and buy a Dr Pepper. Cha-clink! the machine would say and then burp out a tiny frosted bottle of tasty goodness. You had to open the dispenser's refrigerator door, and pull the bottle from a vertical holder inside the machine. When we would visit my grandmother on Sunday afternoons in her small east Texas town of Sulphur Springs, she would give my sister and me each a quarter, and we held hands carefully to cross the street to the little gas and grocery store located on the other side. It seemed so far away! This store had wooden floors and a dark crowded interior full of exciting items; it smelled like hot dusty wood and motor oil. We felt so grown up as we selected from penny candy, carefully counting how much we could afford, and then selected a soda from an ice-filled bin in front of the cash register. These were either Dr Peppers or Nehi Strawberry, Orange, or Grape flavored drinks - brown, red, purple, and orange bottles bobbing and floating in the icy water. I didn't actually taste a cola type beverage until I graduated from high school and went on a "grand tour" style European trip, where Dr Pepper was unheard of and only "Coca-Cola" was found - if at all.
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There is much talk today about the obesity epidemic in America. I watch students walk down the halls of school, their pockets, backpacks and hands loaded with several sodas, candy, chips, and other processed snacks - all in the extra large size. I watch them eat these foods for snacks, for breakfast in the mornings, and for lunch at noon. I think the reason that sodas contribute to students' being overweight is the way that people drink them has changed since I was a kid. Back when these beverages were made with pure cane sugar, they were sweeter. Very sweet, in fact, and that was why they were smaller - you could only handle so much sugary sweetness at a time. People drank one soda a week, or on a special occasion. It was a treat, like dessert. Somewhere along the way, the makers of these sodas switched to corn syrup sweeteners, which are not as sweet, and people started drinking more. People began drinking these drinks to quench their thirst, the way people used to drink water, or iced tea or lemonade. Kids drink sodas now instead of milk with dinner. Fast food restaurants then began making their drink portions larger as a way to boost profits. Think about it: the size you drank 30 years ago, that was called "large" back then, is nowadays called "small". I still get confused whenever I go into a fast food restaurant as to what the different size cups are called. Mostly I just point to the size cup I want. The ones called "large" or "extra -large" sometimes contain a quart or more of drink, and kids drink several a day. They don't know any better, because that's what their parents do, and because these drinks aren't as sweet as they used to be, it doesn't over-satisfy that sweetness craving, the way the old sodas did.
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Gourmets, foodies, nostalgia buffs and other loca-vores have been seeking out and savoring Mexican bottled Coca-Colas, or Dublin Dr Peppers still made in an old-fashioned bottling plant in the tiny town of Dublin, Texas for years now. Various internet sources also sell vintage soda pops in a variety of regional flavors. Most of these drinks are still made with pure cane sugar and their original formulations (remember the "New Coke" fiasco?) , and are thus much sweeter, more intense beverages than their corn syrup versions. These drinks taste like dessert, which is how they should be included in folks' diets- savored, in small amounts. When my children were little, I wanted them to experience those flavors, and would occasionally buy them one as a treat. We drank milk and later, iced tea, with meals, played a lot of sports, ate balanced diets with plenty of real non-processed foods (closely related in form to the original plant or animal it came from!), and neither of my kids is obese. I wanted to teach my sons to enjoy all things, in moderation. And that there really is nothing as delicious as a frosty cold cane sugar soda pop. Just don't drink 3 or 4 or 5 a day, every day. Savor them, as a tiny part of an overall healthy, balanced diet.
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I don't know if DPS will stop making pure cane sugar Dr Peppers, but if they let this local food treasure become extinct, that will be a travesty.

Reading List -Classwork

What have I read this past year that is interesting, or useful? Mostly professional, technical material for my graduate English classes. (Such as: Cross Talk in Comp Theory, The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism, or various texts on the teaching of writing by George Hillocks.)Here is a brief recap of some of the titles that might be interesting for personal reading or suitable to teach at the secondary level:
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Border Zones : Global Literature in the Modern Era
This class focused on half Mexican American authors, and half on Islamic authors of the near east. The basic premise was that where cultures collide, new ideas and viewpoints are formed.
The literature we read was diverse and interesting.
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Mother Tongue, by Demetria Martinez. Easy to read and comprehend love story between two characters, one a Mexican American girl not particularly in touch with her cultural identity, the other a young man, a freedom fighter from El Salvador, on the run from the law, who seeks asylum and to raise awareness for his cause in the USA. The world where they intersect raises each to new levels of understanding. Suitable for high school reading lists, little violence or sex.
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Zoot Suit and Other Plays, by Luis Valdez. Short play and other writings about Chicano identity in Los Angeles in the 1940's. This title is actually on the current AP IV "free response" reading list, so I included it as an option in my syllabus.
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Borderlands/la Frontera: The New Mestiza, by Gloria Anzaldua. Seminal work in feminism, l/g/b/t literature, anthropology, sociology. The author analyzes Spanish and American history, religion, Mexican American culture, language, and identity from her unique perspective. Discusses validity of "Spanglish" as a form of expression. This book is a combination of poetry and prose. Challenging text for high school; more suitable to college level reading.
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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi. One of my book clubs read this title a few years back, and I got to hear Ms Nafisi speak through the Dallas Museum of Art "Arts and Letters Live" (author talks) series as well. The story of a female college prof in Iran during the Revolution of the 1980's, and how she subverts Islamic rules restricting women from intellectual pursuits by running her literature classes from her home once the new govt shuts down the university to female teachers and students. It is interesting how titles we take for granted in the west, such as The Great Gatsby, are beacons of freedom in cultures across the globe. Suitable for high school advanced readers.
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Farthest Home is an Empire of Fire: A Tejuano Elegy, by John Santos
This creative work combines poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction as the author traces his family roots from south Texas back to Spain. Where he cannot find fact, he fills in with imagined encounters with ancestors that address personal identity and meaning in the modern world.
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Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih
Written by a Tunisian author, this story follows the journey of a young man from a small rural village along the Nile, to London, and back home again. Along the way the main character must confront various versions of himself as others see him, and discover his own personal identity, woven from various cultures. Challenging text for high school readers, suitable for advanced or college level students.
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The Selected Poetry of Yehudi Amichai. One of the best new discoveries ( for me) in recent years, I absolutely loved Israeli poet Amichai's work. I plan to teach some of his poems to my AP students; he is also on the reading list for secondary IB students. I suggested this book to my school librarian who was offended that the cover art depicts a naked man. I simply took a magic marker and drew swim trunks on him, so I could bring him to school. Amichai's themes involve love and war, personal identity and the modern world.
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Contemporary Anglophone Drama
(drama of English speaking nations, mostly Britain and America) Curriculum development, state testing, and other educational trends have recently re-emphasized drama as a long- forgotten genre. Reading a play out loud in class is a fun activity, often pushed back till the end of the school year until there is no time left in class to give it the proper attention it deserves.
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works of Caryl Churchill:Traps, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Mad Forest, Thyestes, Top Girls, Ice Cream, Clouds. For some reason, I had difficulty getting "into" British playwright Churchill. She reminded me of Stoppard, only even more brittle, detached. Interesting themes: feminishm in the modern world, but just didn't resonate with me. Adult themes more suitable for college than high school.
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works of Edward Albee: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is an AP Lit title, The Goat or Who is Sylvia contains adult themes and situations.
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works of Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead appears on the AP reading list, which is where I draw material for my classes, and makes a nice tie- in with Hamlet or Waiting for Godot. Stoppard is delightful to read simply for pleasure. I rec Arcadia and The Real Thing, as well. A master wordsmith, remember, Stoppard wrote the witty script for the film "Shakespeare in Love". My prof used to say, regarding both Shakespeare and Stoppard: "Verbal fluency equals sexual potency". Think about that for a bit, my friends.
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works of August Wilson: The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson's ten play cycle with titles such as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Radio Golf, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Gem of the Ocean and others , explores evolving African American identity through a set of re-occurring characters in one fictional Pittsburgh neighborhood over a span of 100 years. Wilson has a play for each decade, and the characters, settings, and themes develop and overlap through time as members of his neighborhood struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery and form a new and functional cultural identity in the modern world. I wrote my paper in this class on Wilson, and have developed a new-found respect for his work. Twenty years ago, I taught Fences, but the students at that particular school (wealthy mostly white students at a private school) didn't "get" Wilson's themes. maybe I didn't, then, either. I plan to teach him again later this year, and will let you know how it goes with a more diverse student population.
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works of Susan Lori Parks: I absolutely loved her plays, witty and critical and funny and brilliant commentaries on women, African-American identity, feminism, revisionist history, and modern society. The America Plays and other works, Topdog/Underdog, and Venus. A genius. Adult topics, language and themes.
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works of Sarah Ruhl: The Room next Door( The Vibrator Play). Critical acclaim when it was on Broadway a few years back. Highly interesting but not suitable for kids.

Salsa vs Pico de Gallo : What's the Difference?

Salsa and pico de gallo are staples at my house and most local restaurants: many furriners aren't sure what is the difference. Pico, pictured top, is generally made up of fresh raw tomatoes, onions, jalapenos and cilantro chopped up into tiny chunks and served cold or room temp, sometimes marinated in lime juice. Spoon it onto a chip or stuff it into your burrito, it is not "Mexican coleslaw" (as we used to tell unsuspecting tourists). It is a raw veggie garnish you eat like dip. Oddly, pico is nearly the same (ingredients, flavor, mixture ratio) where ever you eat it in the southwest. You can also mix it with avocados and make great guacamole, spoon it into tacos, burritos, eggs, etc. To natives, it does not taste particularly spicy....hubster, who likes hot foods, adds a ton of jalapenos to his.
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Salsa, pictured below, contains similar ingredients to pico de gallo, (often with the addition of garlic or other flavors- see below for comments) yet is always in a more liquid, less solid state. Some versions are strained and have no solid particulates at all; some versions are slightly chunkier, but always more liquid than solid. It is like gazpacho but spicier and is never eaten as soup. It can be served cooked (often made of fire roasted ingredients) or raw. Each restaurant's salsa has a different flavor, a different style, and considerable time is spent arguing or comparing whose is best and why. Salsa not only varies from one restaurant to another, but from one culinary region to another. In New Mexico, it often comes in red or green (depending or whether made with red chile or green chile) or hatch- another kind of chile. ("You say c-h-i-l-e, I say c-h-i-l-i......tomato, to-mah-to"). In California, it often has beans or corn in it. You can dip chips in salsa, spoon it into any Mexican dish, like pico - only salsa will be a liquid flavor, while pico will be a solid vegetable component (like the lettuce and tomatoes on a taco.) In Italian food, you use the same basic ingredients: tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, all combined in different ways to make spaghetti sauce or a garden salad or bruschetta. It's the same with salsa and pico. To compare to a hamburger: pico is like the pickles and lettuce, while salsa is like the ketchup and mustard. You can make your own- numerous recipes float the web - or buy one that's in a jar. Arriba is my hands-down favorite, all-purpose, eat it every day, go-to brand. It's available in grocery stores around here, comes in many different hotness levels and flavors/styles. I like regular medium. Brother-in-law enrolled us in the "salsa of the month " club, and while a cute idea, most of the ones featured were too sweet, too weird- artichoke or peach additions- and just collect dust in the pantry. I know Pace Picante Sauce claims to be the national salsa of Texas, but I just don't like it and never have. It has a weird bitter after taste and the veggies in it are green and slimy and look like boogers.

What is picante sauce? Another word for salsa.

What is "hot sauce" ? Sometimes it is a salsa, sometimes it is a thin strained (never chunky or with particulates) smooth liquid that is very spicy, comes in many different flavors/styles/ingredients,  and is often added to other dishes (for ex, to tacos). Often it has a vinegar base. Salsa is more likely to be fresh or used as a dip, whereas hot sauce is always preserved and comes in a bottle or package. There are southwestern hot sauces, but there are hot sauces in Cajun cooking, many Asian ethnic cuisines, Jamaican cooking, etc.

Arriba salsa
http://www.ribafoods.com/

Santa Fe School of Cooking - I've been here several times, taken classes ( tons of fun!) and love to buy their stuff

http://santafeschoolofcooking.com/On-line_Market/Salsas/index.html




 

Breakfast Tacos

I love breakfast tacos. They are plentiful around these parts, a tasty and quick breakfast item, but if you live far away and can't get them where you live, you can make your own. Home-made ones can control fat, salt, etc much better than fast-food ones, anyways. Once a month or so, I scramble up a whole carton of eggs on a weekend morning, and then freeze the finished product in small amounts in tiny little zip-lock baggies, pull out and zap in the microwave, later, as needed. When you make breakfast tacos, you can add whatever veggies you wish- almost like huevos rancheros : peppers, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes- you can customize to whatever you like.
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Here is the order in which to do it : (it all cooks in about 5 min, so chop veggies, lay out all ingredients, and be ready to go, beforehand): It is best to start the veggies, first, saute-ing in a skillet with a drizzle of olive oil, esp if you want potatoes. I cube mine into pea-sized portions, but they still take longer. Once the veggies are wilted, add the eggs (I also add a drop of milk) and scramble up. You can add shredded cheese at this stage, or later, in the actual taco. Meanwhile, take a bag of tortillas (flour or corn), and heat up several on a griddle, the type you would use for making pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches. ** This is key !** Tortillas sold in a bag in the grocery store are not completely cooked. It is intended for you to finish cooking them in this manner whatever you use them for (fajitas, etc.) Ever noticed that they are thick and cardboard tasting when you pull them out of the bag ? Now you know why ! When you heat them on a griddle, they become soft, warm, pliant and delicious. No need to lay down butter or anything, as you would do with grilled cheese. (They are made with lard and enough of it melts out to prevent from sticking.) Just lay down the tortilla, heat on medium till it is soft to the touch but before it turns brown.
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Now , take the tortilla off the griddle and lay it on a plate. Spoon in some of the egg- veggie mixture. Add shredded cheese, meats if you wish, (sausage or bacon, chorisco if you feel authentic, but I make mine vegetarian. Cook meats separately. I fry up a package of bacon at one time, then refrigerate the cooked strips and add a tiny bit at a time to salads, sandwiches, breakfast tacos, etc.), a dollop of salsa, roll it up , and enjoy ! MMMMMmmmmmm. Really great with fresh hand-squeezed orange juice.
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Check out one my fave blogs, on the same subject : "Homesick Texan"