Tag Archives: California

My New Favorite Seasoning!

Linda in Site News

The best thing that a recent visitor from California brought down with him was a spice mix from Trader Joe’s called “Everything but the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend”. It is delicious on so many things, from fried eggs, to sliced tomatoes and avocadoes and any cooked or roasted vegetable. The sky is literally the limit. I sprinkle it on my homemade sourdough roasted garlic and Kalamata olive bread before I bake it, on toast or a bagel topped with cream cheese, guacamole, salad, popcorn – you name it. BUT, it comes in a small container that empties quickly.

What do you do when there’s no Trader Joe’s down the street when you’re living in Cabo San Lucas for the season and, because of COVID, we have few visitors this season as well. The answer is that you read the label and MAKE IT YOURSELF! Here’s the mixture I came up with:

Combine the following ingredients in a bowl:

4 tbsp. white sesame seeds
3 tbsp. black sesame seeds
3 tbsp. poppy seeds
3 tbsp. dried minced garlic
3 tbsp. dried onion flakes
2 tsp. Maldon salt (flaked sea salt)

Store in an air-tight container or jar. Make extra and give it away – whoever you give it to will LOVE you for it!

Cherimoya Fruit

Linda in Newsletter

I had never heard of a cherimoya tree or its fruit until seeing one at Mother Mary’s in Santa Clara, CA. Her tree is over twenty feet tall and it dropped several small fruit while we were visiting and had a large one still hanging on the limb.

Cherimoya Fruit

I did a little research on the cherimoya and, although it is indigenous to South America, they are now found in other areas of the world, including California after its introduction in the late 1800’s.

Years ago, there was a team of botanists who came to visit Mother Mary when they learned that her cherimoya was bearing fruit and that she was not hand-pollinating the flowers. According to Wikipedia, “The flowers are hermaphroditic and have a mechanism to avoid self-pollination. The short-lived flowers open as female, then progress to a later, male stage in a matter of hours. This requires a separate pollinator that not only can collect the pollen from flowers in the male stage, but also deposit it in flowers in the female stage.

Studies of insects in the cherimoya’s native region as its natural pollinator have been inconclusive; some form of beetle is suspected. Quite often, the female flower is receptive in the early part of the first day, but pollen is not produced in the male stage until the late afternoon of the second day. Honey bees are not good pollinators, for example, because their bodies are too large to fit between the fleshy petals of the female flower. Female flowers have the petals only partially separated, and the petals separate widely when they become male flowers. So, the bees pick up pollen from the male flowers, but are unable to transfer this pollen to the female flowers. The small beetles which are suspected to pollinate cherimoya in its land of origin are much smaller than bees.

For fruit production outside the cherimoya’s native region, cultivators must either rely upon the wind to spread pollen in dense orchards or else use hand pollination. Pollinating by hand requires a paint brush. Briefly, to increase the fruit production, growers collect the pollen from the male plants with the brush, and then transfer it to the female flowers immediately or store it in the refrigerator overnight. Cherimoya pollen has a short life, but it can be extended with refrigeration.” Very interesting, indeed. How has Mother Mary’s tree managed to produce fruit year after year? Perhaps beetles have done the work, like they have found in Peru, or perhaps it is her hummingbirds.

The fruit, also known as custard apple, was described by Mark Twain as “the most delicious fruit known to man.” It is oval in shape and typically has smooth, bumpy skin. The fruit flesh is creamy and white in color, and is embedded with numerous, large dark brown seeds. When cherimoya is ripe, the skin remains green and will be slightly soft when squeezed. The flavor has been described as a blend of banana, papaya, peach, pineapple, and strawberry.

If chilled, the fruit, also called ice cream fruit, can be eaten with a spoon and is commonly used in yogurt, gelato and ice cream. Who knew that such a delicious and exotic fruit would be found in Mother Mary’s backyard!

Dinner With Elaine

Linda in Newsletter

We had a chance to visit with Ron’s third sister (he has four of them – lucky man as they are all amazing women!), Elaine, in Los Gatos, CA, on our recent visit in the area. Elaine is a brilliantly talented lady (as are all four of Ron’s sisters), with a burning passion for travel, art, culture, and decorating. Her taste is extraordinary and she is truly a remarkable woman.

She invited us to her new home and we shared a wonderful evening with her and two of her friends: Mary, who she has travelled to Cuba with on several occasions for cultural expeditions, and Nancy, a long-time friend and talented hair stylist. Instead of going out for dinner, Elaine prepared and served a delicious dinner of BBQ grilled salmon, oven-grilled broccoli Romanesco, asparagus, onion and tri-colored carrot, and boiled corn on-the-cob. When we asked what we could bring, she said that we could do the sauce for the salmon.

Ron and I had enjoyed a wonderful chimichurri sauce before we left Cabo, so I immediately thought that would be the perfect accompaniment to the grilled salmon and mixed vegetables. Elaine had all the ingredients and I used this recipe from New York Times Cooking app as my basic guideline: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015299-chimichurri-sauce. Although my picture of my plate doesn’t include the chimichurri, it provided great color and flavor to the salmon and all the vegetables Elaine served. Delicious!

Leftover chimichurri can be used as the base on toasted baguettes for appetizers, mixed in with beaten eggs for scrambled eggs (green eggs and ham, perhaps?) or omelet, as a pizza or flatbread sauce, or tossed with cooked pasta. It really is a versatile and healthy sauce and I highly recommend you try it! A little taste of Argentina – wherever you are in the world!

“Life Is Good”

Linda in Newsletter

We’d been on the road for nine or so hours, daylight was gradually turning into twilight, and we were only 18 miles west of Ely, Nevada, our end destination for the day. Out of nowhere on the passenger side of the car bounded a large deer, hitting us in the centre of the grill, bouncing on the hood, then catapulting off the driver’s side roof into the ditch on the far side of the road. In the flash of a second, everything changed, as do so many occurrences in life.

We gradually rolled to a stop and off the road as much as we could with steam and smoke spewing out from under the hood and parts dropping on the highway behind us. The deer was quite dead we were sure, and we were so fortunate to not have been injured. We were both belted in, our air bags did NOT deploy (thank heavens), and the deer did NOT come through the windshield or the convertible top as he easily could have. All in all, we were very fortunate.

Our beautiful little car, however, didn’t fair so well. This little white 1999 BMW 3 Series convertible is Ron’s baby – just brought down last fall from a four year vacation in California. We’d just done a bunch of work on it, including work on the stereo system, and we were enjoying listening to some great music and, at the time of the accident, a superb audio book: The Boys in the Boat.

Our Poor BMW

A passing local motorist stopped to ensure we weren’t injured and called the Highway Patrol for us. I was able to reach AAA and get a tow truck out to get us to take us back into Motel 6 in Ely. We talked about the various alternatives with the tow truck driver, John, and learned that Ely had no transportation services or car rental available. Our only option, he suggested, was to rent a U-Haul to get us to the next larger centre to pick up a car rental. Ely really is in the middle of nowhere.

We needed to get to New York within the week, so Ron got creative. He went down to the local Chrysler/Jeep dealership the next morning and did some fast negotiation on a 2006 Jeep Liberty. When he pulled up to the motel, I had to laugh because the spare tire cover on the back reads “Life is Good”. It really is. One more white vehicle to add to our fleet (we have two other white cars as well)!

Our insurance company and the towing company made arrangements to have the BMW hauled and repaired in Elko, NV. We have no idea how we’ll get it, but I’m sure we can figure something out by the time the car is ready. We don’t plan to come back west until late October or early November, but I’m sure everything will work out as it always does. Life really is good.

Mother Mary

Linda in Site News

Ron and I are both so fortunate to still have our amazing mothers. My sparkplug of a Mom is 85 years young and living independently on our family farm east of Innisfail, Alberta. Ron’s Mom, Mary, turned 97 this past December and still lives in their family home of over 65 years in Santa Clara, CA and still takes total care of her home, herself and everyone in her life.

Mother Mary is an inspiration to all who know her. She’s an excellent driver and cruises all over Silicon Valley for her medical appointments and to pick up the organic groceries she prepares her legendary food with. An example of her eternal optimism, she bought a new car after an accident shortly after her 96th birthday (which was NOT her fault, by the way). She is still traveling every February to visit her oldest daughter and son-in-law, Mary and John, in Ajijic, just outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. She brings her youngest daughter, Claire, with her now and Ron and I try to get over to the mainland to share some precious time with Mother Mary and some of the family.

Mother Mary in Ajijic

Mary and Jake raised six children in their modest bungalow. Their home was filled not only with their own children, but with all the kids’ friends. Everyone was welcome and still is in Mother Mary’s home.

Mary made my Mom welcome back in early March. Our Moms got on the phone and conspired to meet, so Ron and I picked Mom up in San José, they spent a couple of days together, then we took my Mom down to Palm Springs with us for the Indian Wells BNP Tennis Tournament. It was very special to see these girls together, forming a new friendship, and learning that their lives shared many parallels that had much in common.

My Mom and Mother Mary

Neither of these women had easy lives and both started with extremely difficult childhoods. What could have made both of these women bitter had the complete opposite effect. Both chose to not be victims but rather the victors in their own lives. These women are my heroines.

I’ve been learning some of Mother Mary’s recipes over the years, watching her make them and listening to her explain, writing some of them down, taking photos of others so that her food will live on. It’s embarrassing when we visit twice a year because she won’t let us do ANYTHING for her, from food prep to even the dishes after one of her sumptuous meals. We spent almost a week with Mary and she treated us to a couple of her famous dishes and our favorites: Portuguese Omelet (with carmelized onions and flat leaf parsley), French Toast (with Trader Joe’s Cracked Wheat Sourdough Bread), Lamb Stew and her “Boiled Dinner” of corned beef, potatoes, cabbage, onions and carrots. The leftover corned beef made of the best road food sandwiches ever – we enjoyed them for days after we left Mother Mary’s.

Lamb Stew

Corned Beef “Boiled Dinner”

The last thing I wanted to do was bring illness into her home, but I succumbed to a bad flu/cold while we were visiting this last trip. Mother Mary immediately made a pot of chicken soup for me, which I feasted on every few hours for three days. I absolutely attribute her soup to my quick recovery. It was so delicious that I hated for it to end. She uses her Aunt May’s recipe which is filled with goodness. She started with three pounds of organic chicken legs that she cleans with salt before cooking. She covers with water and boils for one hour. Remove the chicken and set aside. Add celery, onion, carrots and, five minutes before serving, add some white rice and chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve. Mary maintains that you need to sip on a small cup of this broth every few hours for the soup to work it’s best magic. Heat it up, with or without chicken taken off the bone, in the microwave to reheat. Mother Mary’s penicillin – it really works!

One of the things that Mary requested of us was to take a trip to Grass Valley to see her younger sister, Rosalie, who recently broke her leg and is scheduled for surgery in the near future. Rosalie is over 90 years old, as is their brother, Tony, and all of them are bright and in amazingly good health. A special cousin of theirs, affectionately known as “Little Mary” accompanied us that day and she is unbelievably healthy and beautiful – believe me, it’s shocking when you learn that she’s 84 years-old! Each and every one of these Portuguese seniors looks at least 20 years younger than their actual age indicates – they share some very special “fountain of youth” DNA!

Mother Mary, “Little Mary” and Aunt Rosalie

Never does a birthday or special occasion go by with Mary not sending a card and letter to acknowledge people and let them know she’s thinking of them. She demonstrates kindness, generosity and tremendous thoughtfulness to everyone who knows her. She is grateful for her extraordinary health and her ability to share with others and does so every single day. WE are incredibly grateful for both of our beautiful and precious Moms. We love them both with all our hearts and always will. xox