love & sonnet 18

LOVE - so much as been written about it...it's what is in the air, it makes the world go 'round, it's patient and it's kind, and sometimes it is a battlefield. There are so many types of love. I recently learned that ancient Greek had a least 5 words for 5 different types of love - philia (brotherly love & love of the mind), eros (passionate love), agape (pure love & also the modern Greek word for love), storge (affection - like that of parents towards children), xenia (hospitality, which was highly revered in ancient Greek culture).

On this 14th of February, to me, only the Bard of Avon's Sonnet 18 can give love for another the justice it deserves.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date,

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

As Shakespeare writes, as long as we can read this beautiful written song his love for this unknown person lives on. What a gift! What this means to me and I like to think, for all of us - tell those whom we love that we love them, and put in it writing! We don't have to possess bard-like talent to let our love for our loved ones live for "as long as men can breathe". Happy Valentine's Day to all, wishing you much love and happiness.  Xoxo.

a Sunday night dinner

What a dinner we had tonight! Oh, how I wish you could have been here to join us. The "menu" was braised chicken thighs, Spanish yellow rice with peas, and roasted parsnips and red peppers.

The chicken dish starts with olive oil, onion, minced anchovies, chopped Spanish and kalamata olives, bay leafs, paprika, a few cloves of garlic, and a just a little bit of chicken broth. Once the onion is sauteed the other ingredients are added and the scents begin to sing! And, it gets better. Wait until some of the chicken broth cooks out and then add the chicken thighs - I seasoned them with black pepper, dried parley, paprika, and just a littlest amount of salt (the olives and anchovies provide most of the salt in the dish) - then wait for them to get a nice medium brown on one side then turn and wait for the other side to brown a bit too.  Lastly, add in about a 1/2 cup of dry white wine (of course save the rest of the wine to sip while finishing cooking and to enjoy with dinner!) and the aromas reach a crescendo.

The Spanish rice we fixed is a pretty standard - butter, onion, broth, saffron, salt and pepper. We added some frozen peas at the end. I love how something with such a simple preparation becomes so utterly savory and completely delicious.

While the chicken and the rice were busily cooking away on the stop-top, in a very hot oven parsnips and sliced red bell peppers were roasting. Before being put in the oven, they had been tossed in olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper - it never ceases to impress me how sweet & savory roasted veggies turn out!

chicken braising in wine -
the scents are singing!

parsnips & bell peppers - cooked to
perfect veggie sweetness

a colorful plate, full of flavor

so good & enough for leftovers!

light and reflections

When sunlight hits the ocean, unworldly sights can appear.  Here in just a foot or so of water, the sun's mid-afternoon rays mix with the moving water and the drifted sand to create a mesmerizing, dance-like scene. Throw in some warm sunshine and gentle breezes and a feeling of peacefulness should ensue!

water, sand, and warm sunlight -
a heavenly combination!

flowerful Friday

A most romantic scene - a lone pink rose outside a courtyard window.  

Can't you imagine Romeo picking this bloom for his Juliet?

Happy Friday to you.

a metamorphosis metaphor

There's something about this caterpillar that I find intriguing. I watched in awe as the caterpillar crawled slowly, yet deliberately across a stepping stone this past summer.

 a slow trek to change

To me, there is something so mysterious about the process of metamorphosis. This little fellow with his bold, almost clown-like stripes was on is way to becoming a beautiful, regal monarch butterfly. I wonder what goes through the mind of a caterpillar when he starts this process of change. Similarly to the caterpillar changing into a butterfly, we all change and hopefully continue to grow.

Miami - a day at the beach

My recent trip to Miami was a quick little break from winter, allowing me to soak in some sun and swim in the ocean.  I snapped this photo of a little boy on the beach - he was having so much fun running and jumping and playing and imagining.  He was a delight to watch, running into the waves with his little bucket then running back onto the sand to show his mama and papa what he found.  

a day at the beach

glorious golden hues

There's something about the way yellows and orangey golds imbue warmth that I adore.  Perhaps it's the way gold radiates, the way orange makes even a grey day seem bright, and the way yellow is always cheery that makes me drawn to all of these shades.  In my book, these golden glories are 2nd to none!

one of the Alhambra's many ornate ceilings 

a perfect persimmon, full of sweetness

a close up a glass tray -
almost looks like a sunset over water doesn't it? 

my ginger tom, Nino -
orange stripes abound!

Sevilla's cathedral glows goldenly at night

pardon in Brittany

Gaston La Touche's "Pardon in Brittany" is one of those pieces of art that stays with you long after you walk away and move on to the next masterpiece. It hangs in a rosy-clay colored room in the Art Institute of Chicago, and the warm wall color allows for the most amazing depiction of light to pull the viewer right into the scene, as if you were right there too holding a candle. This oil on canvas painting from 1896 uses just a few main colors - shades of blacks and whites for the clothing, delicate pinks for the sky, and golden yellows for the flames.  These flames, to me, are what make this painting go from visually pretty to visually extraordinary as they just leap right off the canvas in a most realistic depiction of fire. It's like you can imagine each candle magically flickering making the 2 dimensional become so real. 

Pardon in Brittany

wine braised beef

One of our favorite winter dinners is braised beef with creamy polenta. This dinner defines comfort food in our house. The beef takes awhile to cook, but there's actually very little "hands-on" time, and the polenta cooks up in just a few minutes, so it's actually a super simple dinner to put together. The great thing about using a large cut of beef is that we have delicious leftovers for a few nights or some to throw into the freezer and pull out on one of those nights that anything more than reheating doesn't seem like a viable option. The beef is slowly braised with carrots, onion, garlic, thyme, bay and 1 full bottle of red wine! Sure, it's a lot of wine, but it makes for the most tender, the most deliciously amazing braised beef. Bon appetite!

the most savory of dishes
to warm you up on a cold winter night

light and reflections

A mid-winter break to a warm destination and a beautiful view from a friend's new home - what a lovely evening!

flowerful Friday

Forcing bulbs is one small way to bring beautiful blooms indoors. And, the transformation from brown bulb to vibrant bloom is a truly mesmerizing process.

I received the lovely gift of an amaryllis bulb a few months ago and after watching and waiting with child-like anticipation, the amaryllis is now in full, magnificent bloom.  Once an amaryllis begins to bloom, it loses all of the quiet shyness that it embraced for so long and starts to sing an enchanting song of floral bliss.  Its most showy flowers are amazing and trumpet-like - it's like each flower is calling out, "I'm gorgeous, and I know it!"

architectural in stature

its many blooms are ready to shine!

the jade green stem, sturdy enough to
support so much decadence

dusty yellow pollen tipped anthers
 at the end of each stamen

amaryllis in its full glory

showy amaryllis -
8 blooms from 1 humble bulb!

Wishing you a most happy Friday!

a winter wonderland

A walk through the woods provides for a most needed outdoor escape. Fine, powdery snow could be seen coating everything in sight. This is the type of snow that isn't wet, isn't heavy but rather light and airy and able to, with strong winds, create almost sand dune-like mounds. Here are a few of the photos I snapped - I think the black and white images accentuate the stark-white, newly fallen snow and showcase this delightful winter wonderland!

handsome conifers coated with new snow

doesn't this tree have a
charming bend?

a magnolia gives all passersby a sign of hope

details, details everywhere (part 1)

A recent trip to Andalucia made a lasting impression on me - the amount of detail and embellishment everywhere is not easily forgotten. The traditional decor and design in southern Spain is certainly not one of minimalism, and its curvilinear charm left its mark in my memory. I found the ornate features that could be seen on ceilings, walls, and the ground below so attractive. As I had never seen so much attention give to the ground below, I could be seen with my camera pointed downwards, snapping photos of the streets, sidewalks, and courtyard floors. 

an attractive design makes for
a charming courtyard

a motif adorning
a walkway

even a drainage system
is embellished 

a straight line becomes
anything but ordinary

and a serpentine curve is extraordinary

something new for dinner

In my mind, enough praise can't be said about sitting down to a home cooked meal. Don't get me wrong, there are those nights when I'm too worn out to even think about cooking, and there those times when I love going out to try a new restaurant, and there are also those nights when only an old, cherished stand-by will do, but there's such a lofty feeling of putting together a good meal for yourself and maybe some loved ones to enjoy. It's an accomplishment we should all take pride in!

Isn't it nice to learn a new dish or two to incorporate into your regular dinner "repertoire?" We tried a new fish dish for dinner a few nights ago and much to our delight it was so tasty - not to mention so incredibly easy. As much as I enjoy reading cookbooks and magazines like Bon Appetit, I'm not one to actually follow recipes. I think recipes can be really helpful to learn about flavor combinations and to get ideas & inspiration, but I much prefer to cook with my senses rather than following a list someone else made!

At the grocery they had some really nice looking sole fillets on special, so we picked up some. And, I thought I'd put together some kind of spicy fruit salsa to jazz up a very simple fish preparation. The rest just came together from what we had in the kitchen, making for a delicious dinner that was full of bright and savory flavors.

thin sole fillets baked with
olive oil and lime slices 

with the most delicious spicy salsa -
kiwi, clementines, red pepper flakes,
lime juice, garlic and cilantro
so flavorful!

and a simple salad with
balsamic vinegar & olive oil

and don't forget the
baked, crispy potato wedges

making for a most flavorful dinner!