Albuquerque

Spineless flowering cactus, which are planted all over the city and growing wild everywhere else. Not much else grows here without the aid of aggressive irrigation systems.


Japanese koi in a feeding frenzy at the tiny, but tidy Albuquerque Botanical Gardens.


A grilled chili tofu slab from Whole Foods, as part of our urban picnic lunch.


White adobe fence around the public school in Old Town Albuquerque. Faced with a lack of timber, adobe has long been the building material of choice in New Mexico, and, as a result, nearly every building from pharmacies to sprawling ranch houses to even the most flea bag of motels looks like it came straight out of an old John Wayne movie.


Tent Rocks National Monument built over seven thousand years ago when area volcanoes erupted periodically, creating layers of volcanic ash and sandstone.


You have to work hard to get to these views, climbing hundreds of feet and huffing wildly from the sharply increasing altitude. But the reward is great, and it's not just the epic landscapes. It's also the pleasure of hearing nothing but your heart thrumming in your ears, the soft silt bed cushioning your step. And the powerful feeling of your human value systems falling away, as you hike deeper into the rocks, pausing to prolong the moments of respite in the shady canyons, and remaining perfectly still when you spot a black-tailed jackrabbit bounding through the brush or see a tiny lizard zipping along a fallen branch.


Adam using a pre-obsidian 'Apache tear' as a faux nez.


The rocks constantly reminded us of Gaudi's architecture. No wonder the Spaniards were so enamored with these landscapes.


Thesis? What thesis?


Ditto.


Here's a spot in the world that humans haven't had a hand in constructing. Naturally, I had to do a downward dog (known for its 'grounding' effect).


The Dog House is an Albuquerque institution complete with a car hop, sun-weathered locals, terrible French fries, mediocre milkshakes, and foot-long chili cheese dogs (split down the middle, grilled, and covered in chopped onions and fire hot red chili gravy).


Only in America!

In The Desert

I'm going to the desert this week. Come back to read posts on green chili cheese burgers, outdoor yoga, Old Town Albuquerque, and minor league baseball.

GPS -- OUT

Adam was on his best game when an old black dude in a beat-up delivery van pulled over and asked us for directions to North 12th Street.

I was like, 'Huh?'

I mean, we're in the muddy back alleys of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. And we're as chicken legged and wide-eyed as they come.

Yet, here was Adam deftly pointing the way to a native New Yorker.

I admit that I may appear to be biased, but I still maintain that Adam is basically a human GPS. He does have a photographic memory, so no wonder he can figure out the five fastest routes to the three closest subway stations in less than ten seconds. But, I come out of a big building, like the Moma, in the middle of a rainstorm, and it takes me a lot of twisting and turning, unfolding and refolding of various laminated maps, and asking four separate people for directions before I even figure out what corner I'm on. Meanwhile, I casually mention to Adam that I'd like to go to a vegetarian dim sum house that even lifetime New Yorkers need sherpas to find, and Adam gets us there with only one subway transfer, a plastic paperclip, and eight tiny reindeer.

But every cartographer needs to stop moving sometime. GPS out. Until tomorrow, that is.

Remains of the Day

Tablecloth drawing at Pig and Egg.


Note the steady hand and fine crayon detailing.


Vegetable and herb planter beside our open-air table.


Taking shade where we can get it.


Red Apple Orchard's fresh cider blends.


RonnybrookFarm's small-batch dairy products are hormone free and made with love.

The Burg

Saturday in Williamsburg brings year-round artists and fleas who set up ad hoc on Bedford Avenue (completely closed to car traffic for the day). Tables and chairs spill out of restaurants onto the sidewalks and street, and tourists and locals queue for bahn mi, chicken tacos, eggs and grits, and the best pizza pie in the hood.

This Saturday also brought the Renegade Craft Fair to McCarren Park, just down the way. Renegade is the biggest DIY fair in the country with over a hundred vendors selling guitar straps made from seat belts, clocks made from bike gears, and a surprisingly disproportionate number of silk screened American Apparel shirts. We valiantly visited most of the booths, but felt too dizzy with opportunity to actually buy anything.

Instead, we hoofed a half a block to the tiny, but popular Williamsburg Farmer's Market, where we made friends with the woman who owns Ronnybrook Dairy. She was selling milk and yogurt drinks out of metal coolers and, in true New York style, texting madly on her iPhone.

The day shaped up to be a hot one, so we took a long lunch at Wild Ginger, a vegan noodle house on Williamsburg's main drag. It was no accident, I believe, that we saw Adron (the singer whose concert we went to see on our first night here) popping into WG for a bathroom break. Clearly, we have similar tastes in restaurant bathrooms and would become close friends were I to move to Brooklyn. My status as a burdgeoning hipster is cemented in my mind.

Here and There

Traveling takes its toll, for sure. If you've done it, you know that too. By three pm, I notice my eyelids creeping down and my arms start to feel heavy. Probably from all those things that make it fun to be away from home -- strange food, new bed, unfamiliar streets. Plus, we've had a heavy day of rain here in New York City. Lines of yellow cabs inched their wet way down 5th Avenue all afternoon, and tourists -- on line for the Moma -- crammed closed against the building in a totally vain effort to keep dry.

After bowls of scrambled egg whites with spinach and red peppers at Urban Rustic this morning, Adam and I headed to Manhattan on a busy subway system that, on rainy days, is known for steaming up like a hot shower stall. I have become more aggressive with each ride -- pushing my way through the scrum to be one of the first on board, sliding quickly into the blue plastic seats, and speeding past lesser and larger mortals up several flights of stairs to street level.

Once in Midtown, we joined the end of the long line of chipper American tourists waiting to take in the collections of one of the most famous contemporary art galleries in the world.

My surprising nonchalance over the floors Adam and I visited could have been due to the crushing crowds in nearly every room in every room or perhaps it was the let-down that must inevitably follow the build-up of any major tourist attraction. Still, I'm quite glad I went. I was satisfied with the experience, if slightly nonplussed over all the fuss.

Chief among my favorite pieces were computer-generated origami shapes, painted sculptures of pastries and an impressive rack of ribs by Claus Oldenburg, a contemporary take on still life by Tom Wesselman, and a tiny glassed-in display of vintage Tupperware.

The day ended as it began -- with a healthy, vegetarian meal, this time in the Lower East Village at Angelica's Kitchen, which is a New York institution recommended to me by my friend Tsia, a one-time Maritimer and now a long-time New Yorker. Ordering and eating here -- and lingering afterward over a piece of silky coffee layer cake -- felt as comfortable and familiar as eating in our own kitchen.

Thus, I am confirmed in my belief that people go on vacation to do what they normally do, but in another location. Displacing (or re-placing) one's sense of home -- but engaging in what are still mostly predictable outcomes -- seems to be oddly rejuvenating.

Zoo York -- Midtown

If you ever find yourself in Brooklyn, and you begin to tire of wide sidewalks, reasonably-priced hair cuts, and organic milkshakes, head to Midtown in Manhattan. For there, buttoned-up business men curse at slow traffic lights, women take the subway to lunchtime Botox appointments, and everyone carries shopping bags from Bergdorf, Fendi, and Bloomingdale's. You can gawk at Trump Towers, take a rickshaw to the theatre district, or pay thousands of dollars for an oversized copper lion bust.

Adam and I took the ride for one reason -- to bring about a natural end to what had become 'Sports Day,' by hitting up the NBA Store on 52nd Street. The store is huge and a perfect metaphor for the over-the-top, money-grabbing, yet totally loveable and slightly awe-inspiring city in which it exists.

Afterward, we found ourselves beat and ready to throw in the towel, but we nonetheless found Danku -- an organic Indo-Dutch fast food restaurant I had read great things about -- only a few blocks away. A study in Dutch design, the inside of the restaurant was decorated in dark wood, large windows, and bright patterns on the walls, booth backs, tables, and even water bottles. Their main draw -- crokets (deep fried and stuffed with fillings of your choice) -- were as tasty and strange as I expected. We rounded out our order with a chopped vegetable salad, chicken satay, brown rice with scallions, and a surprising number of oddly-matched dipping sauces.

Delicious and exactly what we needed to fortify us during what turned out to be an unbelievably crowded subway ride back to Brooklyn.

I'm now totally pooped, which my father always says is a sign that someone has had a lot of fun. As usual, he's absolutely right.

Zoo York -- The Bronx

The Bronx -- or at least the two blocks surrounding the new (and old) Yankee stadiums -- are a whorl of scalpers, scammers, traffic cops, police vans, megaphones, and merchandise kiosks.

When we arrived on the scene, we needed tickets to the already in progress Yankees game and the scalpers desperately needed to unload tickets whose value was dropping by the minute. Adam fell into step with a dude who was waving a couple sets of tickets at passersby. For a moment, it looked like we were getting both tickets for $30, but the guy changed his mind at the last minute, so the sale went to his buddy, from whom Adam deftly scored two seats for less than the listed price.

Feeling high from the successful streetside negotionation, we hustled up to the front gates only to be turned away twice (by two different people at two different gates) because the size of Adam's messenger bag exceeded the allowed limit. One of the gatekeepers told us to go across the street to Billy's -- where, when someone at Billy's said they'd watch our bag for "only twenny-five dollahs" -- we quickly realized that everyone on this street is in cahoots.

We stuffed Adam's bag and all his gear inside my purse and tried again, this time at yet another gate. After a little bit of whining on our part and a lecture from the barely-legal kid manning the gate, we were finally allowed through.

It was worth every penny and all the hassle, as the Bronx Bombers gave us a good show and I got my much dreamed about hot dog. Some chick even sang America The Beautiful and a picture of an honest American baseball fan (and presumably a farmer) wearing denim overalls flashed across the Jumbotron.

I found myself moved again -- this time almost to tears (or at least to tear), by the US's ongoing maintenance of collective (and public) patriotism. I mean, what's more American than standing amidst a bunch of slightly drunk strangers while they garble every other line in what is arguably a more poetic song than the national anthem itself?

In Pictures

The customs guy stole my oranges and the Tim Hortons kiosk near our gate didn't have anything remotely food-like, so I got stuck with Ritz Bits for my 5 am breakfast.

A protein bar that the customs guy didn't vet.

Adam's breakfast plate at Pig and Egg. Grits, scrambled, and kale.

Ginger Boylan and yogurt cup at El Butt.

Internet password for El Butt's WiFi.

Brooklyn -- Part Deux

Every square inch of Brooklyn is in use.

The streets are lined with row upon row of contiguous (if incongruous) patchwork walk-ups, Vietnamese take-out windows, junk stores, book stores, abandoned factories with punched out windows, and identical (and slightly sad) 'organic markets.' Space that isn't claimed by buildings is in high demand by a revolving coterie of neighborhood cats, kitchen gardens, clothes lines, graffiti artists, rusty BMWs, taco trucks, delivery trucks, purebred dogs, city benches, and make-shift thrift shops.

The result is exhilarating and somehow comfortable, but navigating it on five hours of sleep is exhausting. So, we took a late afternoon nap in a hotel bed that was far too soft and clean for New York -- in a room the size of a closet.

Dinner was at the slightly worn, but wildly popular, Lodge, where we spent far more money on healthy versions of classic American dishes than they were worth. But the jolly little candle on our table, two pints of Doc's hard cider, and a slice of warm apple pie a la mode made up for it. We even laughed at each others' jokes -- just like a real date!

Afterward, we trucked it down to Zebulon Cafe Concert, where we managed to snag a table just in time for Peru Ana's performance which included digital video and a dude on a xylophone. We were flagging again by the time Adron took the stage, so we only stayed for another half hour, during which time she played Biciletta, warbled like a bird (literally), and covered probably at least three octaves.

We Heart Brooklyn

BROOKLYN -- Flying into New York City for the first time is probably something most people remember for a long time. I know I will. For ten minutes leading up to Manhattan itself, there are views of sprawling horseshoe-shaped houses with acres-wide manicured lawns and bright blue swimming pools. Gradually, these opulent spreads give way to crowded suburban townhouses, then rows of industrial-looking tenements, and finally you see the water. I got a little thrill when, in the middle of it, I saw a greenish-looking sculpture in the shape of a woman -- Lady Liberty, and she was beautiful (I blame this sentiment on the thrillingly-contagious American nationalism already creeping into my consciousness).

Once inside Terminal B of La Guardia, I caught myself listening for public instances of impoliteness, evidence, I believed, of New York identity. But within five minutes of being in Williamsburg (a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn and site of the iconic novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), I found myself forgetting all about the admittedly likable conservatism that is characteristic of Ottawa and giving over to longing for an upstairs unit in one of Bedford Avenue's grungy five-story apartment buildings.

We have already eaten grits, spicy kale, fried black pepper potato bombs, and free-roam eggs at Pig and Egg, a laid-back restaurant that grows its own produce in the Catskill Mountains. We lounged this off in McCarren Park, and we're now at El Bett, a hipster hangout whose music playlist alternates between Black Sabbath and Spanish guitar melodies. We we're drinking ginger Boylan and trying to blend in with all the other twenty-somethings wearing skinny jeans and big sunglasses.

I'll post pictures tonight.

Never Have to Leave My Room Again

THE COUNTDOWN

We're going to Brooklyn! In two nights and three days, we will be cooling to the Tropicalia beats of Brooklyn scenestress, Adron, at the Zebulon nightclub on Whythe Avenue. The only thing on my mind will be 'mojito or...a double?'

You're not going, but you can listen here: http://adron.muxtape.com/.

Follow our adventures in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Mexico on my new-old blog, BITE HARD.

Saturday Afternoon

Pingvin lakrids courtesy of Sine whose regular licorice deliveries and fantastic Danish fashion will be sorely missed now that she is back in Denmark.


After longing after it for years, I finally bought origami paper! Here is a paper crane and...a human Adam.


Hungry fox (which I gave up on, but Adam managed to finish) eating a cracker.

Mister and the Missies

Squeaker

Automatic

Every time we go on a car trip to 'Big Box Land,' I pack a snack.

This is an impetus that was trained into me by my father who never leaves the house without a bag of apples, bananas, peanuts, crackers, cookies, and cheese (plus, a big bottle of water). One of the best food memories I have, in fact, is of a sandwich that Dad made for me in our second-hand Jetta, which was parked outside a strip of outlet stores in Freeport, Maine, where my mother and brother were shopping. My Dad hated (still hates) shopping, and I, the most babyish member of the family, was feeling tired that day. It must have been during an era when you could leave your kids in the car for short periods of time. I remember having a nap in the afternoon sun in the backseat of the car, and when I woke up, Dad was back from his quick jaunt to a grocery store, where he had picked up cups of yogurt, a packet of deli-shaved turkey breast, and a bag of soft dinner rolls. He ripped a hole in one of the rolls and stuffed it full of turkey meat before handing it to me. Best sandwich of my life.

Here are shots of a recent car picnic with Adam. Leftover Pad Thai from Pho Mi Bog Ga in South Keys and a warm potato and mushroom perojki (a filled sweet bun) from Perogies, located only a block from IKEA (you'll no longer need the $1 breakfast to help you power through the store!).

Down By the Bay

First outdoor picnic of the year! Adam has been wanting to go down to the river for a month, and, last weekend, it was finally dry enough to sit outside and listen to the geese coming home.

Our picnic was made up of the amazing food haul we got at Shiraz on Friday afternoon. We got some of their pressed yogurt (a huge treat and well-worth trying if you have the chance), a container of mild baba ghanoushe, and some cinnamon-dusted walnuts, plus a beautiful jug of French walnut oil, some soft dates, guava juice, and a glass jar of sour cherries. The next day, I sliced some cucumbers and sweet red pepper, and packed up an Iranian picnic worthy of ringing in the new season.


And...like all my best dates with Adam, this was one of those really satisfying afternoons that happens when we're least expecting it.

I Had a Dream I Was a Vigilant Sidekick

Apple Grumble

Last night, Adam set me an alarm for 6 am, as I was slated to do an early morning airport run for Sarah and Jeremiah (who are flying to my old stomping grounds in Whistler!). When I awoke, it was cold in our place and drizzly outside. A bit gray, I admit, but what perfect weather to bake something sweet for breakfast. I decided to make an apple crumble to use the last four New Brunswick Cortlands that have been languishing in the back of my fridge. Wanting to make the crumble as a breakfast food, instead of a dessert, I cut way down on the sugar (and used raw sugar instead of brown), added only a few dobs of butter, mixed raisins in with the apples, and sprinkled sliced almonds over the crust. The result was a much drier and far less sweet version of my mum's crumble with a toasted almond-oat topping that reminds me of granola.

So...I gave it the hybrid name of grumble.

Topped with some of the 2% yogurt Jeremiah gave me in the bag of hand-me-down perishable groceries he gave me at the airport (this is a Soucie sibling tradition designed to prevent food spoilage/waste while one of us is out of town), the grumble was a rich-tasting, but healthful breakfast...for me, that is. Adam's still asleep.

Cold Mitten Friction

When Jeremiah and I were growing up, my dad used to apply Cold Mitten Frictions to our hands and faces after school. Yesterday, he reminded me about this old trick in an email, saying, 'take it from one beaut to another...stay natural. plus, it's cheaper and doesn't require any demand on your time. scrub your face 'hard' in the mornings with a cold mitten friction and you'll have the best countenance in Ottawa.'

Cold Mitten Friction: Get a bowl of cold water and a washcloth. Grab one corner of the washcloth under your thumb. Wrap the cloth around your hand as shown in the illustration above. Take the free part of the cloth hanging down from your hand, fold it toward the palm of your hand, and tuck it under the edge of the cloth crossing over the palm of your hand.

Dip the mitten in the cold water, and, starting with the hands, rub the skin briskly in an up and down motion. Proceed up the arm, briskly rubbing all areas of the skin.

(Modded directions from the The Gilead Institute)

You're Blocking My Sun

Mustard Egg

When I was growing up, one of the fast and easy breakfast foods in the Soucie household was called, simply: mustard egg. I don't know the evolution of this 'dish,' only that my mother loved it -- and still makes it from time to time.


To make one, melt a bit of butter in a pan, crack an egg into it, and then use a wooden spoon to break the yolk and stir up the egg a little. Before it starts solidifying, place a slice of bread on top, and cook until the egg firms up. For an extra special touch, flip it over and fry the underside of the bread in the remaining butter. Then, just slide it onto a plate and spread a thin layer of mustard over the egg. Finally, S&P it and then eat it all up.