Turkish Coffee

For many people, Spring is the time of renewal and starting fresh. For some reason, Fall has always inspired those feelings for me. I think because I associate it with the starting of school and the approaching holidays. I love the bright Fall colors, crisp mornings and evenings, the bright sunny days, and the occasional rain showers. This year, I moved toward the end of the summer and picked up a few more clients. So I feel like I am starting fresh in a few ways. I enjoy all of my clients and their families as they are wonderful in their own right, but they also bring added dimensions to my life in their own unique ways. One of the new families I am working with now is from the Middle East. They are wonderful people, very hospitable and generous. A visit with them is not complete without a treat of some kind accompanied by some delightful Turkish Coffee. I was sent home with a bag of it one day and have been enjoying it A LOT! What's different about Turkish Coffee is that it is very finely ground and is blended with cardamom. Turkish Coffee World provides some excellent information and products for making the coffee. The coffee is prepared on the stove top. The coffee and sugar are added to the pot and the coffee is brought just to the boil before serving. Enjoy this video which demonstrates the process.

We are still up to our eyeballs in unpacking, painting, and settling in. Most of the boxes are labeled, some of them aren't, and I've forgotten what's in many of them and what all we had. The other day, I said, "It's a little bit like Christmas, opening so many packages and being surprised!" Anyway, we finally got all of the floors finshed, the office and bedroom painted, some plumbing work done, and the air conditioner fixed. We absolutely love our new condo and the complex. It's a gated community and has 4 pools, one of which is a heated indoor pool with a spa. There's a sauna, and an exercise room. Additionally, there is a newspaper box where you can purchase the ABQ Journal whenever you want as well as candy, snack, and soda machines. There are 4 immaculate laundry rooms, an onsite manager 5 days a week, landscapers, handy men, and 24 hour security which walks the premises at night. The complex is just minutes (within walking distance) of the Winrock mall which has plans to expand and renovate under a new name and the new ABQ Uptown Center which is gorgeous w/ shops and restaurants. There's a Starbuck's and Trader Joe's nearby as well as a couple of lovely parks and bike paths. There are also several bus stops nearby. The complex was originally built as a retirement community, but over recent years discontinued that practice. Lucky us! We had planned to rent out our old unit to a typical renter, however, it appears that a movie company may want to rent it for a while, so hopefully, that will work out. We recently visited family in Arkansas and are looking forward to visiting more family in New York via Amtrak next month. In the meantime, we are both working full time and sometimes find ourselves a bit overwhelmed. Oh, and today is our 13th wedding anniversary! We commented yesterday about how we've survived a lot of stress together over the years and are happy to report that we couldn't be closer or more in love.

I am slowly getting the kitchen in order, but I cannot find my pots! They are buried in one of the few remaining boxes...I hope! I can't wait to start some serious cooking in my new little galley kitchen and am looking forward to sharing recipes again.

In the meantime, please enjoy this video clip of a new cookbook I've ordered, titled, Alice's Kitchen; Traditional Lebanese Cooking

Moving Angst and Anticipation

We seem to have managed to eat most of the “elephant”, but still have a bit more packing up to do. Closing on Monday, then it’s get the new floors down, get all of our services transferred, and then move. I think one of the first things I’m going to do is soak in the Jacuzzi at the new place!

Funny thing, we both woke up the other day reporting a sleepless night and crazy dreams of misplaced light fixtures and things not falling into place like we planned. We looked at each other and for a moment panicked wondering, “What have we done?! We’re leaving our home. All the familiar will be gone, except for our stuff. What if we don’t like the new place. What if we don’t like our neighbors. What if they don’t like us? What if we don’t get everything ready in time for the movers? What if….what if…” We’ve lived in this place for nearly 15 years. We have made many wonderful memories here. We raised Charels’ two boys, celebrated many holidays and birthdays, shed tears, experienced joy, made plans, been sick, been well, faced challenges, and climbed mountains. Together. Once the freak out passed, we realized that we made this decision based on all the reasons we DON’T like this place and why we chose the new place. So we’re “chill”. We are imagining all the wonderful new memories and fun we’re going to have in our new place. One thing I’m real excited about is the fact that the new place has a, albeit small, little patch of dirt that I can plant some herbs and flowers. I can’t wait for next Spring to get going on that! Anyway, I don’t have time for any more blathering. We must get busy! Together.

One Bite at a Time

My apologies for neglecting my blog for so long. The past month has been full of activity and a lot of hit and miss meals. We are moving to a new condo in NE ABQ. It’s been a long time since I moved and when I did, I didn’t have anywhere near the amount of “stuff” I have now. It’s amazing what two people can accumulate in just a few years. We’ve made several trips to Goodwill and there are more to come. This weekend we are going to do more packing. There is more to a move than packing, however. We’ve decided to re-carpet the bedrooms and halls and put new flooring in the kitchen prior to the move. We have to select a mover, change our phone, cable, alarm system, safe, change our mailing address, and the list goes on.

The new condo is wonderful. The complex has 2 indoor and 2 outdoor pools, an exercise room w/ machines, a lovely club house, nice landscaping, and 24 hour security. It is in an area where there has been and will continue to be much development w/ shops, restaurants, you name it, all within walking distance. We can’t wait until we are there and settled. The settling part will take some time because we are planning a trip to visit my husband’s family in Arkansas in early September and a visit to my family in New York later in the fall. Oh, did I mention the condo needs to be painted?

Then of course, there’s extra work for me. I’ve taken on extra cases and will be doing some traveling 2 hours west of ABQ at least once a month to see clients. So all of this begs the question: “How do you eat an elephant.”

God Gave Me Cotton Candy For Breakfast

Every year we look forward to going to the NM State Fair and every year along with the roasted corn on the cob and a slice of Fair pizza, I look forward to enjoying a bag of cotton candy. This year I didn’t have to wait until September. This morning, while enjoying my coffee on our patio, I was blessed with this awesome view of cotton candy in the sky. These pictures don’t do it justice as it was much more pulchritudinous (hee hee - word for the day) in reality. "Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." Psalm 104:1-5

Towers, Heads, and Bavarian Treats

Today's post is just a quickie to let you know that I have not given up on blogging. We have been extra busy w/ preparations for and taking our summer vacation. We drove up from Albuquerque to Fort Collins, Devils Tower (where they filmed Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Crazy Horse monument, Mt. Rushmore (we ate in the same cafeteria where Hitchcock filmed the shooting scene in North By Northwest, starring Cary Grant.

Ok, maybe it's been remodeled a bit since then but you CAN still see the heads while you eat). We also toured the Badlands. We enjoyed camping in KOA cabins the whole way. It was such an interesting change from hotels as most of the campgrounds were in lovely settings w/ trees and rivers nearby. One of the cabins was at the base of Devils Tower.

We enjoyed this lovely meal at the Bavarian Inn in Custer, South Dakota. I had sauerbraten, Charles had wienerschnitzel, and we shared some out of this world spaetzel! Then for desert, we shared an apple strudel. Good thing we did lots of walking on this trip!

Enjoy this clip of the North By Northwest trailer. It's one of Hitchcock's best, so put it on your must see list if you haven't already!

A Vintage Find and a Comfort Cake

I have been so delinquent in posting to my blog! There are several reasons for this. There’ve been a multitude of distractions lately, and of course there’s always job work and house work to tend to. Recently, I discovered The Sims 2 game. What a time waster! However, if you like to design landscaping and develop interior spaces this game’s for you! I think I’ve gotten it out of my system for now though, but I’m sure it won’t be long until I hear the Sims begging me to come play with them again!

A couple of weeks ago, we visited our favorite antique mall where I picked up this great find for only $20.00! It was in pristine condition with NO stains! I love these old cotton tablecloths from the 40’s. They are quite a collector’s item and one can find many to choose from on Ebay.
I have been doing a fair bit of cooking and recently made this wonderful coffee cake. My version, below, was inspired by a recipe on the Food Network site.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Cake Ingredients:
1 ½ sticks of softened butter
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups sour cream
2 ½ cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Streusel Ingredients:
¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
½ cup all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a Bundt pan.

For the cake: Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer for 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Finish stirring with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.

For the streusel: place the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and butter in a bowl and pinch together with your fingers until it forms a crumble.

Scatter half of the streusel into the bottom of the pan, spreading it out. Spoon half the batter on top, in globs to make spreading it out easier. Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on top and then finish with the remainder of the batter.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a thin knife comes out clean. Turn upside down on a cooling rack, dust with powdered sugar and let cool. Place on a plate, slice, and enjoy!

Enjoy this clip about how to care for your teeth after you've eaten this yummy cake!

Snickerdoodles

So much for waistline concerns! We are now on a cookie kick! Last night I made snickerdoodles as the lovely molasses cookies are long gone. I used the recipe from Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book which is listed under “MY COOKBOOKS” below. It is a reproduction of the 1963 edition and reminds me of the one my mom had. What I love about this “cooky” book are the photographs and sketches as well as the clear easy to follow instructions. There are over 450 favorite cookie recipes from simple drop cookies, bars, rolled cookies, as well as more elaborate cookies for entertaining.

Snickerdoodles
1 cup shortening (part butter or margarine – I used ½ cup Jungle shortening and ½ cup butter)
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 ¾ flour (I used Gold Medal Organic)
2 tsp. cream of tarter
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix shortening, 1 ½ cups of the sugar, and eggs thoroughly. Measure flour by dipping method. Blend flour, cream of tartar, soda, and salt; stir in. Shape dough in 1” balls. Roll in mixture of 2 tbsp. sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon. Place 2” apart on silpat mat placed on cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes.

I think we might enjoy these out on our patio with some iced tea this afternoon. Here's the view from the patio at 12:15 pm today.