Snow in New Haven!

And is lovely and VERY cold. And still no camera, alas!

I know, blogs are not fun without photos.

So, from the archives:
From Slav tour in LA last spring:


From this past summer at (where else?) the Santa Fe farmers market:


Alright, alright, not seasonally appropriate, I know. But something to look at.

Shall we talk about food?
Last night was the annual holiday dinner in all of the colleges. There was: Honey-lavender roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, a beet and goat cheese salad, and various other things that I did not partake in. There was also FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE. Really good. Really rich. And most of the meal was sustainable, which was fantastic.

Then, I went to my friend Carolyn's house and we made chocolate curry truffles rolled in toasted coconut. So good. As though the chocolate cake had somehow not been enough...

And still I want red chile more than almost anything...

Speaking of Slavs, we are coming to Santa Fe this coming March for our spring break tour! Get excited, and mark your calendars: March 7-14, 2009!

Thanksgiving and no camera

It is Thanksgiving Break!

On a more somber note, I spilled water all over my trusty camera, so no photos for a while. I'll be sending it in to Canon to see what they can do and how much they'll charge me...

So--yesterday was Thanksgiving. Graham and I went first to my sister Esperanza's house, where we ate:
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, pomegranate salad, sweet potatoes, guacamole, red green chile (both made by Grandma, and SO GOOD), and pumpkin pie made with rice milk (My father is lactose intolerant). I had also made an apple pie. But everything in moderation, because from there we went to my mom's friend Linda's house, where we ate: Turkey, cornbread pinon stuffing, mashed potatoes, more red chile!, squash casserole, salad, and a VERY rich chocolate cake.

Live it up!

I Feel Good

Not quite in the James Brown sense (though that too), but I feel good because I was reminded of why I love what I am doing, that being working for the Yale Sustainable Food Project, as well as being a student at Yale. I had almost forgotten, but an event we put on tonight excited and engaged me and... made me feel really good.

Allow me to preface this with a brief statement about how burnt out I was only 24 hours ago. After spending the ENTIRE weekend working on the Harvest Festival we had at the farm yesterday, running hither and thither in the giant Farm Truck, only to miss the meal we had prepared for it, I was tired, frustrated, hungry, and felt like I wanted to drop out of school, or at least drop out of my Chemistry class. Which is to say, I was mostly just hungry. And had a lot of homework. I wanted to hop behind the wheel of that big black behemoth of a Chevy that I had spent so much time in (too much time in, really. It even broke down on me.) and drive into the distance to find some really meaningful work; that is, not Chem homework. But instead I stayed up til 1:30 doing my problem set.

I awoke this morning knowing that I had a LONG day ahead of me. My mondays are long as it is (I have class from 9-5), and then I was working on ANOTHER YSFP event. This one was rather different, though. It was an event put on by the Black and Green Initiative, something created during Black History Month last year by Tamara, an African-American student here who works at the Afro-American cultural center, and myself. We put on a film festival dealing with issues of food and agriculture and how it related to the Black community. This event was a panel discussion about "Working for a healthier mind, body, soul, and planet," and had been at least partially born of my own brain (but mostly Tamara's--credit where credit's due).

We brought in three speakers to talk about healthy cosmetics (cosmetics are really some of the most toxic things out there. Go to www.SafeCosmetics.org if you don't believe me) and sustainable food/sustainable living to an audience comprised of mostly Black women. We had people not only from Yale, but also from Southern Connecticut University and from the University of New Haven--this is a big deal, to get non-Yale students at Yale-sponsored events, and I thought it was a major indicator of our success. I spoke a bit myself about the role of sustainable food and healthy cosmetics in the lives of minorities. I spoke of my own experience of living in Northern NM, of having the dichotomy of LANL, one of the biggest producer of toxins in the US, and small family farms cohabitate the same region. . One of the main purposes of the Black and Green Initiative is to bridge the perceived gap between sustainable food and other products and people of color, because there's no getting around it--sustainable food is perceived as elitist. It is generally more expensive and less accessible. This is a big problem, one that needs to be addressed from many angles to be effectively combated. But my general take on it is this: putting safe and healthy things ON and IN our bodies is one of the most effective means of empowerment for minorities/people of color. It is a way to take control of our own health--we as consumers have this choice, and it's an important one to make.

After the panel, a freshman at Yale, an African-American girl, came up to me wanting to know more. So I talked. A lot. And she wanted to know more... so I kept talking. I realized how much I have learned working for the YSFP for the last year and a half. I realized how much I love sharing this information with people--it's a really good feeling to know something well enough to teach it to others. I realized how good it felt to get people interested in these issues. And the crowd as a whole really was engaged and interested. People asked a lot of questions, and thought about the answers, and left feeling scared to use their mascara. This is a good thing. The biggest hurdle in the sustainable food movement is education. And I feel like people left our panel feeling like they had learned something, and with the resources to find out more.

Don't get me going--I could talk about this stuff all night. But I have homework, and that's okay.

Wow. How cool.

Italia!

So, I went to Italy last weekend for the Terra Madre conference, the worlds largest meeting of "food communities" (Farmers, chefs, educators, students, activists, etc.): 6000 delegates from all over the world.



I saw the most incredible-looking people I've ever encountered, the kind of people you see pictures of in magazines.



People were selling food and crafts from all over the world. I bought yarn from Chile.



There were workshops about myriad issues concerning food and agriculture, and hundreds of booths set up of people with their traditional foodstuffs. I saw food I've never seen before (like a cheese with a 4 inch-thick rind, and other cheeses shaped like gourds... now that I think of it, mostly a lot of different cheeses.).

And best of all, I ate ALL WEEKEND LONG.

Sometimes things just come to you...

...like this leaf, which fluttered through my window this afternoon. Well, hello there!



On a separate note, I must say, there's something at once absurd and fantastic about a lowrider bicycle.



I head off to Italy in 6 days to attend the Terra Madre conference, a biannual conference about sustainable food and agriculture. Very Exciting! The full time staff of the Yale Sustainable Food Project are all going, as well as several other students. If you're curious, you can learn more here: href="http://www.terramadre.info/pagine/">

How Can You Not Love Everything on a Day like Today?

A golden day like today?



When I arose this morning, the light outside my window was glowing. When I returned this afternoon, the light outside my window was glowing.



Small trees were glowing, conspicuous and proud.



The sky was glowing. The Yale Farm was glowing. The pizza I made was glowing, full of vegetables. The fire in which it was cooked was glowing.



And now, I am glowing.

The (D)evolution of a Beard

Upon my arrival at home, I was greeted by this:



Don Diego! as people were affectionately calling him.

It didn't last long, though.



About 3 hours after I got home, it had been thoroughly shaved off. Pues, adios, Don Diego!

Hello...



Oh, that's me... Never mind.

Hello, Autumn

You beautiful maiden. Or perhaps I should say, you beautiful crone. Either way, I love you.

I went home this weekend, and New mexico was in all it's Autumnal splendor. My college essay, which got me into Yale, was actually about Autumn in New Mexico, and small wonder that it served me so well--it is truly an amazing time of year.

In fact, instead of creating a new post, I think I'll just let you all read that. It's pretty good. I'll give you some pictures to look at with it.


This is called The Sempiternal Season. Bear in mind that is was written in 2005, the year after I had taken a semester abroad in Spain.

****

Two weeks before the equinox, I stepped out the front door and knew it was fall. There was no mistaking the clear signs of autumn: the air was crisp, the sky was clear, the light was golden and pure, and the smell - the smell was truly, divinely autumnal. Fall in New Mexico smells like so many good things: green chile roasting, rotting apples, fading leaves. It smells of endings and beginnings, of a sweet, amber-hued melancholy that is profoundly elating. It is a scent that is somehow entirely fulfilling, and that, last year, I smelled only when I opened a long-awaited package.

I was overjoyed when the notice arrived in the mail in the mail of a package waiting for me at the post office. I had been waiting at least three weeks for it to reach me in Madrid, Spain, where I was spending the fall semester. My mother, I knew, had mailed the package on her birthday, which had been the month previous. In the five weeks I had been there, I had received only emails and phone calls from home, and was quite impatient for mail.

I opened the large, white, padded envelope in the backseat of the car after leaving the post office, and was greeted by an indescribably beautiful smell: autumn. I pulled out a post card, a sheaf of newspaper clippings, and a manila envelope full of yellowed cottonwood and aspen leaves. Their sweet, damp, earthy smell brought so sharply to mind New Mexico in the fall that I was truly there for a moment. I could just see the color of the sky and the shape of the clouds, the farmer’s market stands overflowing with fresh produce, the trees turning from green to bright yellow to filemot... Tears pricked at my eyelids.

“What did they send you?” asked my host sister from the front seat.

“Nothing,” I said. “Newspaper clippings.” I feared that they might laugh at the gift of leaves, or not understand why such a thing would causes such emotion. Autumn in Madrid has a hard, metallic smell. The most common tree there is the sycamore, which doesn’t rank particularly high on the autumnal-splendor scale. Their broad leaves stay green well into October, and then abruptly turn brown, but linger and their branches. Cities, I learned, vary little from season to season.

In New Mexico, each season and segway thereinto is a veritable bounty of sensory pleasures. Winter’s cold, stark beauty and frozen joyousness, spring’s profusion of life, its sudden rebirth, and the languidly raucous chorus of summer are all sights to behold. For me, however, the most glorious of all the seasons is autumn.

I love the way fall announces its coming with ample notice. The first week of August, without fail, there are a few cottonwood trees boasting a streak of electric yellow. I love the summer’s reluctance to leave, to pass its torch to autumn and watch as it is dimmed. This year, the week leading up to the equinox, summer gave one last valiant push, surprising us all with days that were warm enough for open windows, despite the previous week’s undeniably autumnal chill. My heart leaps with joy when fall finally takes hold, emblazoning everything with fire’s palette. And then slowly, slowly, the colors turn to more muted hues, and the sound of dry leaves scuttling in the wind is everywhere audible. Then the rain comes, dampening everything and leaving one last serenely nostalgic scent before turning to snow. It is over.

New Mexico’s autumn is something that, once beheld, never leaves you.

****

And that is that.



Today (10/6) back at school it is sunny and chilly. The tree outside my window is turning yellow. Little birds and squirrels are running about on the grass outside, making a beautiful ruckus. Oh, Autumn!

A Day of Reckoning.

That's right: 3 tests in 3 hours, followed by a 3 1/2 hour lab, which begins with a quiz. Boy oh boy--what a day. It seemed inconceivable that such a cluster of foul things could really exist, but they did. And here I am, alive and... not too bad, I reckon.

It started with me feeling like this:

Utterly trapped by my own dread of the three hour long exams, followed by the tedious and stressful Chem lab.

By the time I had gotten through the three exams (One in each class: Atmosphere, Ocean, & Climate change; Chemistry; and Biology), I rather felt like this:

As though my brain had somehow escaped and was sitting on top of my head. Odd.

By the time I got through lab, i felt more like this:

Yes, those are raspberries in a blender.

Now I am working on getting back to feeling like this:



Young, care-free, and holding REALLY BIG FLOWERS.

With a nap, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Good Words

"Worry is reverse prayer."

-Joan Logghe

What People Whistle

I hear many different things being whistled outside my window, which overlooks a small green space bordering the pathway to the gym and the bookstore. Today: The Girl from Ipanema and a Beethoven minuet for piano.

So: What's going on? I'm taking NOTHING but science classes this semester, I kid you not. Having decided to be an Environmental Studies major instead of an English major, I have to get some rather unpleasant (by my standards) classes out of the way--Chemistry, Biology, labs... I was taking an English classes, but it was just too much, so I had to drop it (labs, which I have two of, are only worth half a credit, though you spend at least three hours in them a week, and do lab reports, etc--foul). Alas! Hopefully this will mean I'll actually have time to read books, though. Other than my textbooks. Granted, I am taking a class about atmosphere and climate change, which is very interesting.




Meanwhile, I've been singing with the Slavs, baking cookies (chocolate chip-walnut and oatmeal; banana chip ones are in the works for this weekend), going to the farmer's market, which is much bigger this year, I'm glad to report (though nowhere near the size of ours at home!), and RIDING MY NEW BICYCLE!!

Having class only on Science Hill this year (that far-off bastion of labs and classrooms) means a bit of a walk. Not a bad one, by any means, but if you have to be up there by 9:30 am three days a week, having some wheels is a very appealing thought. I asked around, went to a bike shop, and finally found one on Craigslist, a lovely turquoise Diamondback, from a man who lives in Guilford, about 25 minutes from here. As it happened, he had jury duty in New Haven the day after I inquired about it, and thus was able to bring it to me. Gosh Darn!



I've also been going to the farm, enjoying flowers, burning miniature Zozobras, and trying to figure out what The Cupcake Truck is. (I found out: followthatcupcake.com )

Year 2 at Yale

So--I'm ba-ack! I'm all moved into my new digs in Morse College (mascot: Walrus) thanks to the help of my good and gracious mother. My room, unlike last year, is not located directly above the noisiest street in New Haven, and is about twice as big. Which means that I can actually have three chairs in the room. I am on the first floor this year, and my East-facing window gets sunshine in the morning and looks out on a perfect circle of trees.

The latest big news is that I have decided to change my major (I'm fairly certain) to Environmental Studies instead of English. I'm already pretty excited about it. This means that I'm taking Chemistry, Cell Biology, and a class called Atmosphere, Ocean, and Climate Change. Cool. I'll also have one English class still, and two labs. Oh boy--this is different for me, but I think it will be fine. My thought is that this major is the best way to incorporate my interest in food and agriculture into my studies.

Speaking of food: Since last I wrote, I: Made cookies, drank Thai Iced coffee with my mother, and made a chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, which was an unreal color, for Graham's birthday (26 on the 26th! Happy birthday, darling.) There were plenty of things in between all that, like a drive up to Taos, a walk through Indian Market, and an encounter with a VERY LARGE tomato worm.






A thunder storm just passed through, a few rumbles and perhaps 20 minutes of rain. The weather has been very pleasant. My mother and I ate at the Cuban restaurant tonight, which is SO GOOD. Walking back, I heard a rythmic tapping coming from somewhere, and then the sounds of a chime. As we rounded the corner by Atticus bookstore, we came across a young man playing the digeridoo, to which he had affixed a chime and a wooden frog sound maker. The ringing of the chime followed us all the way down the street.

Private Idaho

So--We're back from Boise. We drove through Coyote and Gallina, villages ironically close to each other. We passed out in Monticello, Utah, 'round midnight, then drove through land of beautiful, odd rocks the next day. We used real maps instead of mapquest. We reached Boise by 6, after passing fields and fields of industrial corn and potatoes--yummy. It was 101 degrees. The only time I used my sweatshirt was in the car when the AC got too cold.

At the wedding reception (Tropical theme, yes, in Idaho), there was an antique-y photo booth. For two buck, four goofy, grainy photos can be yours. Live it up!


It was strange for me not to have anything to do but visit with people for several days. The blackout curtains in the hotel room meant I slept past nine each morning.



On the way back, having no real time constraints save for the threat of weariness, we took several detours, through pastureland in Idaho, and then 30 minutes down the wrong interstate alongside the huge and sluggish Snake River as the sun set behind us. The next day, we stopped in Arches, which is an amazing and crazy place, dozens of red stone arches rearing in the scorching Utah midafternoon.



We took a drive the Dolores River (I think) in Southern CO, which was beautiful, slow and deep.



Back Through Gallina and Coyote in the dark, the winding road utterly unlit. I tried to stay awake and keep a lookout for wildlife on the road.

We got home by midnight, fell into bed, and, blackout curtains or not, slept until 9 the next day.

More Summer

For your tasting pleasure:

I still exist.

It has been summer--and still is! Internet at home has been spotty, as has free time--thus, no blogging. Currently, we're in Boise, Idaho, land of the the potato, for Graham's cousin Megan's wedding. We drove here. It wasn't bad--15 hours through NM and CO and UT and ID. Lots of red rocks, lots of cows and corn.

So, lets talk about summer: Summer means: fruit and vegetables, old cars, free love, apparently, going to the beach (yes, it was a a long way away. I did it for Mr. Scarborough.), driving to the mountains, sunsets, rainbows, hands our the car window at sunset, dirt under my fingernails, lots of red chile, lots of carrots, getting up before sunrise, getting home after dark, tomatoes in pots, herb gardens... Not necessarily in that order.

Good Words:

"Having a sense of humor of what happens when you 'get out of the way.'"
--Suzan-Lori Parks

We May

Saw irises for the first time today. Mother and I walked for coffee this morning, under blossoming trees, two foot-tall tulips, a grey sky, como siempre. She came in on Wednesday evening, bought me soft grey things to wear, lots of good meals: Cuban, Thai, Indian—the small dormitory refrigerator is replete with leftovers, sustenance for the week ahead—exams. Slavs sang last night, our big semesterly concert, “Wine and Cheese,” at which we serve both.


Last weekend was my ¡Oye! Performance—Latino spoken word—the intermediate point between Graham’s visit, full of sunny days and forsythia, and my mother’s, keeping me contentedly busy and distracted. I talked about my name—Maclovia Piedad Ignacia Toñita Adela Quintana (y Trujillo, if you like)—and about red chile and tortillas. I read something like this:

The Color of Sky
On a rattling bus
Winding through streets the color of mango and grapefruit,
An old woman sat beside me
And I saw my hands as they would be in many years.
In streets the color of mango,
I saw my hands.
The sky looked like home,
And looked like nothing,
And looked like rain, most of all.
Through streets the color of seas and centuries ago,
I saw old women smiling, bright,
The color of mango and sky.
Men sang and sat in unbroken shade,
Smelling of grapefruit and sun.
I looked at my hands
And saw in many years they will be sky.


Now it is finally May. After days of rain, it has cleared, settled at an easy 60 degrees. I am winding up, sent suitcases home, am packing boxes. I am fighting off a cold, searching for moments of lucidity when I can breathe and hear simultaneously. The library will be open for the next 96 hours continuously, which is somehow not comforting. I intend to sleep at night, and then go home. I have stolen tulips; they sit in a recycled spice bottle on my nightstand. I did not even think to steal irises. They will wiat for me, I hope.