Casta Diva, que inargenti....

 This week: New Moon and  Mercury Retrograde

from Chani Nicholas's weekly reading.

"The next two new Moons will be in Aquarius....Aquarius is armed with the clarity of thought needed to innovate, articulate and not deviate from its truth."

 "Tuesday: one of two new Moons in Aquarius occurs.
This new Moon is a hyper-humanitarian Aquarian. It’s backed up with a supportive sextile from Saturn, the sign’s ruling planet. In a supportive role, Saturn helps us make manifest our visions, but Mercury Retrograde says that we can’t without reconsidering how we are framing them ...
Wednesday: Mercury’s next retrograde cycle begins, also in Aquarius.

[Mercury is at 14 Aquarius at the moment...."Because this Mercury Retrograde happens entirely in Aquarius, the meditation mainly centers around those who we surround ourselves with.  Do they support us? Do they help us grow? Do they accept us unconditionally? And…of course, do they want to see us change? Important questions for the weeks ahead."]

This will be from January 21 to February 11. Pluto squares the Moon’s nodes just before this occurs, letting us know that deep purges are possible. Uranus applying to a conjunction with the South node of the Moon lets us know that we must revolutionize our role with what binds us to circumstances that leave us feeling obliterated and burnt out."

I have Aries Rising: "These next four weeks give a tremendous amount of energy to the place in your chart that governs good fortune, secret wishes and the hopes we hold close to our heart. Dare to know them. Dare to endorse them. Dare to treat them to the best of what you have to offer. If you don’t, why would anyone else? If you don’t, how will they find the light of day? If you don’t, why would anyone else help you foster such a dream? Consider using this time to create your dream team: a group of folks that share the same values, visions and therefore victories."

and I have my sun in Scorpio;
"Family matters matter the most right now. Finding your footing and feeling firmly planted does too. Mercury and its next retrograde route unearth some of your internal land. This time will most likely expose different periods of your past that are now ready for your inspection. Like looking at layers of sediment that have become compact, hardened earth over time, these next few weeks are akin to an archeological dig. Get your gear on. 
Get your shovel and your brush, your clip board and your khakis because you my friend are about to excavate some serious and most likely serendipitous burial grounds. There is magic to be made when we willingly engage with the work that is our to do. You might find that all of a sudden old, old stories of sorrow lose their power over you and a new rendition springs to mind. One that holds a broader perspective for you and everyone else involved. 
Family secrets be damned. Family shame be exorcised. Family guilt be given to the ovens of renewal as fuel for purifying fires. Notice your part in keeping family dramas alive. Notice your need to be right. Notice your need to compare. Notice how that keeps you bonded to the past and unable to be here and now. 
Notice how far you’ve come and how much you’ve healed. Express that in your relationship to your children if you have them. Express that in your love life and your creative life if you have them. Express that in the ways in which you have fun. Let yourself heal when and where you can so that the mode of expression that you choose can be honest, helpful and healing."

Renée Fleming, "Casta Diva" from Norma.

Let's Eat: Napa cabbage salad

Jaunty little kdrama theme song
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Last year was bloody awful. Since I lost my health insurance and can no longer pay for therapy, I had to rely on kdramas. They stopped the noise in my head and they are free (if you don't count subscriptions to sites like DramaFever and viki). Now I'm learning Korean. This video gives the English translation of the lyrics, the romanisation of the Korean, and the hangul, so I can practice.

Today's salad: shredded daikon and carrot, minced parsley, half a head of Napa cabbage sliced in ribbons. ]
Dressing: lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a touch of gochujang.

If you want to see people eating amazing food in Korea, with lip-smacking gusto and orgasmic moans, watch this fun kdrama Let's Eat on hulu. The story is beside the point, but the leads are sweet, and the food scenes are wonderful. I love the theme song, and how the food-blogger character delivers an indignant lecture whenever other characters make dismissive remarks about food. In this clip, you get the food=mother=let me feed you thing, as he and his soon-to-be-love-interest eat bibimbap with her mother. 

Baked tofu

Here's the thing about eating salad every day when you live alone: you have to scale down your prep or there will be a lot of leftovers, and they will spoil. Even after living alone for a little over two years, now that my nest is empty, I still make enough food for two (or four) when I cook.  Before I make anything new, I must make sure these do not go bad: 2 cooked beets, a large bowl of raw mushrooms, cooked beet greens, salmon that needs to be cooked today, the rest of those beans I cooked in the slow cooker, the last serving of kale salad. On top of that, in the fridge I have: lots of carrots, too much daikon, parsley, a napa cabbage, green onions, fingerling potatoes, oranges and lemons, tofu, fresh ginger.
I will make a napa cabbage salad, and something groovy with the tofu.  I have not done much cooking with tofu, so I will explore some of these marinade suggestions for baked tofu to add to my salads.


For the last two days, my breakfast has been an egg fried in olive oil. Even though I am working on losing weight (and feeling energetic from my shift to a mostly veggie diet of about 1200 calories), I need a good shot of protein in the morning, so I don't get the blood-sugar-drop shakies at 11AM.

Kale salad

Hey, I liked kale BEFORE it became hip! back when it was cheap and relegated to the unpopular greens section along with mustard greens and collard greens (which I also love). Now there are tons of yummy kale salad recipes out there. My nephew was the first to make a kale salad for me, and I was charmed by the idea that you must massage the kale.

Portlandia on what it would be like to try to move celery into the same celebrity status as kale. I love this.


Here's the kale salad I'm currently eating:

--a bunch of lacinato kale, cut into ribbons. It is also known as Tuscan kale, cavolo nero, or dinosaur kale. Thomas Jefferson grew it at Monticello. Maybe I'll try growing it this year....

---add salt and the  juice of half a lemon, and massage it to break down some of the fibers
--dress with a good olive oil and a fresh, plump shallot, minced.
--let it rest in the fridge overnight

When ready to serve, mix it up again and add "salad buddies." I've been adding raw mushrooms, because I like the contrast of textures. Since tomatoes are out of season and I refuse to pay over a dollar for an avocado, they are not present, but I have some slivered almonds to toast (could also use hazelnuts or pecans, not sure about walnuts, maybe too astringent) some thinly sliced radishes, crumbled blue cheese (or parmesan) and some shredded daikon and carrot. Probably not all at once.

Salade de carottes râpées

Salade de carottes râpées (grated carrot salad)


We got back from Spain very late Sunday night. Yesterday I went to my co-op, The Wedge, to stock up on fresh vegetables for my 2015 salad crusade. I ended up using the carrots I already had in the fridge to make the carrot salad. David Liebowitz's recipe serves a large group, but I was just making enough for me so I didn't follow his quantities. His recipe uses a little bit of sugar, but prefer to leave that out.

Mix up:

2 large carrots, preferably grown nearby, grated. Mine are from my CSA farm, Featherstone Farm, and are fat and sturdy.

parsley, chopped. I like flat-leaf parsley better than the curly stuff.

juice of half a lemon

a few glugs of some really good olive oil. I have some Koronciki oil (made in Crete from Koroneiki olives, a Greek cultivar) that I bought in Northfield at the olive oil store.

salt ("Une belle pincée de sel") and pepper

Fresh, fresh, very fresh! As Liebowitz says, don't over do the vinaigrette. It shouldn't be swimming in it, just lightly coated.

I first had this salad when I was in France for my junior year of college. The student restaurants ("Resto U") in  France are very cheap and the food they serve was so incredibly good and healthy compared to the dorm food I was eating back in the States. I fell in love with this modest little salad.  Variations include using orange juice instead of lemon; throwing in some raisins;  adding cumin or pressed garlic to the vinaigrette. Some recipes call for chives (ciboulette) but I prefer the fresh taste of good parsley.

2015 food inspiration: more green salads!

We have been eating the best green salads every day here in Zaragoza. Nothing fancy, just good ingredients. So I'm resolved to eat a good green salad every day at home. There are lots of salads with grains or that are really what I would consider cold vegetable side dishes, but I'm craving salads that are some mix of greens, dressing and garnishes. I especially love bitter greens.
I made myself some kale salads before we came to Spain, and they are great, but there are some common mistakes to avoid and recommendations to avoid digestive overload: slice it thinly, don't tear; use an acidic dressing; massage your kale; then let it sit some to break down; give it some buddies; prefer lacinato kale.

Bookmarking these recipes and sites for green salad inspirations when we get home:

the kitchn is apartment therapy's companion site, and a site search comes up with over 6000 hits for "salads"!  I would like this lemony green salad with radicchio and pepitas.


The Splendid Table, the public radio show with Lynn Rossetto Kaspar has a great salad section. This arugula salad with feta, walnuts and pomegranate combines some of my favorites.

Frisée salad with shitake bacon! from The Delicious Life, looks so good! Also Shitake Bahn Mi Salad from Isa's post-punk kitchen.

Jamie Oliver has lots of "hearty salad" recipes that look terrific, but here's his chopped salad.

David Leibowitz, a favorite food writer, has a great post on one of my favorite things from France, salade de carottes râpées (grated carrots). I first had this magical dish when I did my junior year abroad in Bordeaux, in the student restaurants, and reading his site gives me my shot of vicarious Paris living.

Finally, not a salad, but gorgeous food photography from Shutterbean for this ultimate veggie sandwich.

Sunday in Portalrubio

Yesterday we drove from Zaragoza to the village (Portalrubio, in this case: Spaniards say "the village" the way Minnesotans say "the lake" or "the cabin").

image from Spanish Wikipedia: "Detalle de la localización de Portalrubio en el mapa del Reino de Aragón de Juan Bautista Labaña (1619)"

The weather was unexpectedly warm, warm enough to pull a table outside and eat in the winter sun. Black and green olives, cheese, bread, morcilla, fuet, omelettes (one with tuna and one with perejil from the garden). We strolled around the village admiring the various reconstruction projects. There was plenty of water at la fuente, the miracle of water bubbling up from an aquifer in spite of the lack of snow and rain over the last few decades; Rosemary's grandfather talks about how there used to be abundant snow every year and now it hardly snows at all, the knife edge of climate change.

On the way back home, we meandered along a back round through neighboring villages: Pancrudo, Cervera del Rincón,

We saw buitres leonados (Griffon vultures, or gyps fulvus), riding the thermal currents in a gorge where we were walking. There were maybe 15 or so, sailing, circling. Their wingspan (envergadura) can reach 2 meters. This endangered species is making a modest comeback.

We also say two groups of cabras montañesas or (capra pyrenaica, also called cabra montés, cabra hispánica or íbice ibérico) from the road. It was so unexpected to see them because they are almost invisible against the landscape, their coloring so like the rocky mountainside.
We didn't get as close as in this video, but we really enjoyed how they stared back at us before moving on: