recipe – Fake Flamenco

Berry Good?

Harvest time has arrived in Madison. Berries for the birds and lovely fruits of the vine; a Cucurbita moschata for the humans. I picked our debut Butternut squash yesterday. This was our first year growing them and I wasn’t completely sure when it was ripe. I knew I wanted us to eat it, rather than […]

food, Gardening, Spanish Culture and Language

How the Heck Have You Bean?

August has bean a special time for our garden. Little pinkish white flowers appear on our beanstalks. Then tiny little legumes, no more that a centimeter long punctuate their tendrils. What seems to be only a day later, full grown ones bursting with ripening seeds magically take their place. I pick as many as I […]

food, Mexico, Spanish Culture and Language

Pipián Sauce, a la Gringa

This sauce is based on pumpkin seed mole, called mole verde, or pipián. The Nahuatl word, molli, is the origin for mole, the Mexican word for this traditional Mixteca sauce. You may have tried mole made of chocolate, almond and chile over chicken in a restaurant. This pipián mole also has rich flavors. Although traditionally […]

food, Gardening

Gardening Staycation

Our garden is growing in leaps and bounds. Every spring in Madison we begin with bare ground and by June every surface is green. Time to step away from the computer and play in the dirt. We weeded the vegetable garden yesterday afternoon and harvested greens: spinach, chard, and amaranth. We picked purslane and dill […]

food, Spanish Culture and Language

Are Nachos Really Mexican Food?

We ate nachos this week for our Tuesday Spanish conversation dinner. The language during the meal was to be the main focus of this post. Then, I began to wonder if it was a double Spanish dinner. Do nachos originate in Texas or Mexico? I wanted to tell readers with culinary confidence. For many years […]

Living Abroad, Spanish

Love Note to Chilean Food

The day we landed in Santiago, Chile, Evan and I went out to lunch. I was confident I’d order food proficiently, after studying Spanish for years. The café’s chalkboard menu listed sanguiches, ensaladas, and jugos naturales. I translated these three easily for Evan, sandwiches, salads and fresh juices. Then came two words that stumped me. […]