fusion frittata, unexpected orchards and tastes, and fall makes its first appearance in the canyon...

It's inevitable: around the beginning of every school-year, I come down with whatever the students are sick with--some kind of cold or flu...this year it waited until mid-September, so here I am, at home, malade, enfermo, krank...

So, time to post some recent minutiae after the last entry--the shameless vote-requests from two and a half weeks ago. Alas, S. and I are not going to be finalists in that travel-photo-contest this year. One less thing to worry about...But thanks for your support!

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So, our recent fusion-food experiment... 

My wife wasn't convinced this would work, at first...She was reluctant to try a Korean-Italian frittata.

I had some left-over "yahng-nyum kahn-jahng" sauce: 

...and I had seasoned some spinach with it, and I thought that the spicy spinach would be a good addition to a frittata...So I squeezed the excess liquid out of the spinach, and we added it to the potato-onion-mushroom mixture that we sautéed and then poured the eggs over.

Voilà.

S. ended up being convinced, and a good dinner was had by all. 

Not a radical concept--adding spinach to a frittata--but the Korean spice added a nice little kick. Just make sure that you squeeze out most of the soy-sauce liquid from the seasoned spinach.

(By the way, the link to the 'yahng-nyum kahn-jahng' recipe above--not my favorite, but it's a start...I've played with it and it's more like the 'kitchen sink' version on that website--minus the vinegar. And I usually use honey instead of sugar.)

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And now, for something surreal,

a streetscape that I see on my way to work everyday:

Doesn't this scene just cry out for a story? I mean, why is the giraffe behind bars? What is he saying? Why is the buffalo leaving? And why does he have a shell? Oh, he's a teenage mutant ninja buffalo...

(here's what one friend came up with:
     "Life should be lived in the playpen of the street of dreams." Hmm...or, 'nightmares?')

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Two weekends ago, after living here for six years, S. and I finally made it out to Apple Annie's, about a 1hr40 minute drive from Tucson:

(here's the write-up I did for afar.com)

Our refrigerator drawer is now full of newspaper-wrapped "shinko" 

(more commonly spelled "shingo") pears...

And it might seem morbid, 

but I found the apples on the ground 

to have their own textural 'beauty'--

after the summer, the wind, and the rain...

...an apple memento mori

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The other night, we met up with some friends for Korean food; ahh, check out that bubbling bowl of red:

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...and from one of my favorite local bakeries:

Gotta love the pun on the socks.

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And with eating, there's running.
Our car accident is far enough in the past now, so, with the chiropractor's o.k., I've been trying some gentle runs...

...so Saturday morning (before I came down with whatever flu this is), I went to Sabino Canyon. Parts of the lower canyon are covered with sacred datura blooms...and I caught this bee coming in for a landing:

I just never get tired of these desert flowers...

...and although the thermometer might not yet know it, the canyon is just beginning to look like fall--something about the angle of light and the certain shade of green that the cottonwoods take on...

Once again...ten more tries for a 'dream'

Perhaps you've heard of the "Dream Trip" contest sponsored by Condé Nast Traveler magazine...it's a big one--the grand prize is $25,000 for whatever travel-itinerary you can dream up!

Well...in this month's magazine, on page 18--here's the announcement:

They're doing it again!

Last year, I was honored, and my wife and I thrilled, to have been one of the twenty-five finalists...honored, thrilled, and then, it must be honestly said, disappointed that we didn't win...(S. was pleased, though, that all finalists received a Clairsonic skin care system...and I also got a SeaLife underwater digital camera...snorkeling in Tucson, anyone?)

So...for what it's worth--below are my ten submissions.

(any guesses on which one(s) were taken on my iPhone?)

I am hereby shamelessly requesting your votes...

OR--go to www.cntraveler.com/dreamtrip 

and submit your own photos...

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faces of Barcelona, from the Ist to the XXIst centuries;

looking out from the Museu d'Historia,

Roman marble framing a guy on his smartphone

in the medieval Plaça del Rei

Urban angst, from the hills of Park Güell, Barcelona

"Nighthawks for Dumplings"

--this streetscape in Seoul's Bukchon district reminded

me of a Hopper painting; 

on my last night in Korea, this scene

pulled me in for a memorable dinner

 Buddha vs. steel-and-glass...

the ancient Bong-eun-sa temple faces 

Seoul's now (in)famous Gangnam district

a streetscape from León, Nicaragua...

stark and vibrant side-by-side

 Hiking out of the forest...into color...

Goat Lake in WA's central Cascades;

after the seemingly endless grey of winter and spring,

summer beckons; a friend and I hiked out of the woods

into this ethereally-lit glacial-lake-scape, 

meeting forest service workers there to clear the trails

 The 'new' adobe mission church in Taos Pueblo, NM

 ...not easy staying white;

a summer morning's maintenance 

in the gardens of Versailles

 Benches require napping on a summer afternoon in Paris

On one last walk through the Jardin des Tuileries this summer,

this guy caught my eye:

sunbathing in front of a carnival-ride

while on his cell phone during his lunch hour--

the highs and lows of office-work-life in Paris

If anyone is so inclined, clicking on the link under the photo will take you to the photo on the Conde Nast site...where you can vote! Once a day is all it takes...Merci!

Rear-ended running woes...and Québecois and German tastes in Tucson

Labor-day weekend in Tucson, for the past four years, has meant running the Saguaro National Park Labor Day 8-miler...but not this year. Yesterday, while waiting at a red light, on the way to pick up my racing t-shirt and bib, we got rear-ended. 

Oh, inattentive and unapologetic driver, you spoiler of annual tradition and inducer of neck-and-back-pain for my wife and me--PAY ATTENTION! And she even had the nerve to say, as I tried to explain my irritation (we were stopped at red light! LOOK UP! you were probably texting, anyway...) at being rear-ended for the second time in less than two years, "Well, it's not like I did it on purpose, and, uh, what if I'M injured?" Ahem. (What--you want me to apologize? for YOU running into US?!) Well, that would still be...YOUR fault!

Yes, yes, accidents happen. But own up. Apologize. Be an adult.

Alas, then, I'm in no shape for the up-and-down 8-miler in the desert tomorrow morning. 

I did end up picking up the t-shirt, though:

So...do I get to wear it? 

I've been running the course every weekend since July...I just won't be running it tomorrow morning...

It has been a summer of good runs, though, scenic and far-flung...

...now, on into autumn, even if thermometers in Tucson would seem to indicate otherwise...

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After ibuprofen and ice-packs, we did decide to make the best of the rest of the day...

...and so, with a friend, we checked out a food-truck and micro-brewery.

For about a month now, the "Zany Beaver," run by a husband-and-wife-team, has become the newest addition to Tucson's food-truck scene, bringing POUTINE to our urban corner of the desert! If you don't know what 'poutine' is--it's Canada's national junk-food, born in Québec in the 1950's, and clogging arteries with deliciousness ever since: french fries topped with fresh (squeaky) cheese curds and hot brown gravy...

I got the "Bacon Bacon" poutine...And if you're concerned with how to be a locavore, these cheese-curds are from right here in  Arizona...and the glass-bottled sodas are from nearby Mexico!

Last night, The Zany Beaver happened to parked in the parking lot of "Dragoon Brewing Co.," one of Tucson's microbreweries... A perfect marriage, right?--fries and beer:

 They've been brewing here in Tucson for about a year-and-a-half now...

My favorite was the "Monsooner," the Dortmund-style lager; it turns out that the mineral-content of the water here in Tucson is similar to the water in that north German city...so, sehr logisch...und sehr gut!

And on their website, they've got this cool beer-locator map, showing where their microbrew is on tap:

No shortage of thirst-quenching-options in this desert...

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And, from last week in my classroom--one random map-snippet: 

a very bright student, in discussing how to remember certain European countries on the map (I always include geography in my language classes), referring to Austria, said: "it looks like a flying potato/whale; also shaped a bit like Oklahoma." Now will that make you run to an atlas? Won't forget that one...

#CTC13--this summer's travels: five colors, five photos...all from my iPhone

For tonight, some discipline in being photographically concise--choosing just five scenes from this summer's travels...I was going through the France-and-Spain-photos on my iPhone, and then I read about the "Capture the Color" travel-photo-blogging contest...and I thought this would be a good exercise in visual-summarizing: five photos, five colors...
...and to limit myself, ONLY photos from my iPhone.

(For complete information on this contest, go to http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/.)

...and as part of the process, each blogger nominates five fellow bloggers to participate; so here goes:

Joshua Berman--http://blog.joshuaberman.net/

Robert Koehler--http://www.rjkoehler.com/

Andi Fisher--http://misadventureswithandi.com/

Amber West--http://withoutsushi.com/

Lori Parker--http://girlparker.com/

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RED

When flying over the Grand Canyon, ALWAYS get a window seat...
a summer storm off in the distance, from my Tucson-Salt Lake City flight back in June,
the first leg of my flight to Paris

WHITE

The Château de Chenonceau,
spanning the River Cher

BLUE

For one glorious evening and morning,
this was 'our Paris'--the view from our hotel room
in Montmartre

YELLOW

it's a cliché, but...when driving by a field of sunflowers
in the South of France, you just have to stop and get a roadside picture;
a 'painterly' view of Castelnau-sur-Gupie, between the Garonne and Dordogne rivers

GREEN

The World comes to Paris...
on the Quai Anatole France, on the Left Bank of the Seine,
a walkable world-map

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Not part of  'the five,'

but this one soap-shop window-front scene 

from Barcelona could sum it all up:

looking back on an evening along the Dordogne...

An evening scene from several weeks ago:

...sunset light along the Dordogne River in the SW of France, 
the old bastide ('fortified town') of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande...

This week, I'm honored to have this photo featured on iART Chronicles--one of the images chosen for "Painterly Mobile Art Monday." 

While in France, I began experimenting more with "painterly" effects in mobile photography editing...If you're curious, this flickr group shows what other mobile photographers are doing with this...

This year's languages...

Many of the country's school-districts are still on summer-break--enjoy the pool/lake/beach while you still can, kids!--but here in Tucson, students returned yesterday...

...and so this is the first work-week-Friday of the new school-year...

Relatively smooth start. I'm at a new school this year. To paraphrase Seneca the Roman philosopher: 'change of workplace can impart new vigor to the mind'...

The past few years, I've worked at a very diverse school. In my new classroom, I don't have students from two dozen countries like I did before, but contrary to what some in the local community might think, the school is not elitist-and-therefore-non-diverse--to wit, the list of languages spoken in my students' homes:

English

Spanish

French

Arabic

Armenian

Chinese

Korean

Vietnamese

Swahili

Russian

Bengali

Swedish

Kikuyu

Tagalog

Portuguese

Some of the foreign countries where these students have lived and visited: Kenya, Togo, Uzbekistan, China, Korea...and, fun for me as a French teacher--many have been to Paris. (And no one has asked me "is Mexico City a country" yet...I'm not scheduled to teach Spanish this year...so far, at least...)

As for the 'trendy' names in this cohort--I have several Alexes, Briannas, Maddies, and Andies. (All the Andies are Asian...) The first year I taught (up in the Seattle area), I had one class with FIVE Sarahs; two were "Sarah Elizabeth"...and two of them were blonde.

Here we go.

Back in Tucson; architecture, URBAN parrots, and running in the canyon...from parrots to parrot

We've been home for a few days now...

Still jet-lagged, of course...

It's been a month since I last posted--yep, there was no blogging on this trip...It was good to be away and off-line for a few weeks...well, mostly; most of the places we stayed did have wi-fi, but I limited using it to evening hours, and I left the laptop at home. I wanted to be there...

And now there is just so much to reflect on--I almost wish I had blogged during the trip--a 'live' travelogue, like I did when I went to Korea two summers ago. And on Monday I'm back to work--the new school-year begins already here in Tucson...

I decided to go for a run in Sabino Canyon this morning. What a change from just a week ago, when we were spending Saturday morning around Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. S. and I had packed up and were all ready to take the afternoon train to Madrid, so we had the morning free to explore.

It IS impressive--this giant construction-site has become almost synonymous with the Catalan metropolis...but is it beautiful, or simply impressive? Is it uplifting, or is it just domineering? It's touristically blasphemous to say, but I'm going to say it: I don't particularly like La Sagrada Familia. 

It fascinates me, it impresses me, it intrigues me...and I love so much of Gaudí's other designs--but this structure in particular doesn't move me. I first visited it fourteen (yikes!) years ago...and then last weekend was my wife's introduction to it. 

She and I strolled around the whole structure--the surrounding city blocks are parks, so you can take in the scale from a reasonable distance, instead of having to crane your neck from the base--discussing our reaction to various buildings and our opinions of this one. Both the building and our thoughts: works in progress.

I get it--the engineering, and the desire to incorporate motifs from nature, both vegetal:

(worker taking a break by the giant spire-topping berries)

...and animal:

And so for me, the building has its moments...but as a whole, it just doesn't seem to come together...and yes, I know, I know, it's unfair to judge 'the whole' since it isn't even finished yet. OK, OK...

I do wonder, if Gaudí were still alive today, what he would think of it...

So, taking in Gaudí's architecture--definitely a highlight of a Saturday morning...

...but the real highlight for us last Saturday was unexpected and came just as we'd finished our circuit of the stones-and-cranes: in the plaza northeast of the cathedral, I noticed a woman, with a movie camera, on a platform near some palms:

...aiming up, not at the spires of Sagrada Familia, but at some palms:

My wife and I had been hearing peculiar birdsong, and a couple of days previously, had spotted some parrots in the palms of the Park Güell elsewhere in town--yep, parrots (NOT native to Europe)--and as we tuned our ears now, and then as I zoomed in with my camera to the same palms the filmmaker, Sue Gibson, was focused on--this is what we saw:

 a parrot--nesting!

Monk parakeets, also known as Quaker parrots, are native to Argentina, but now live in feral populations in various locations throughout North America and Europe, escaped or released pets forming colonies, reproducing and adapting to urban environments...

We immediately thought of the award-winning documentary from a few years ago, "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill," which was filmed in San Francisco.

Assisting Ms. Gibson, at the base of the platform, was Matt Hamilton--a researcher working with a British TV production company behind the current project "Planet Parrot." Here's a description from their website:

     More than 70,000 parrots live wild in cities across the globe. Planet Parrot explores the inexorable rise of the urban parrot – from monk parakeets adapting to city life in America and Europe to sulphur-crested cockatoos in Melbourne and Singapore. Planet Parrot discovers the many ways parrots have adapted to a metropolitan lifestyle.

(I just love the phrase "inexorable rise of the urban parrot.")

Matt told us about how they'd been in Stuttgart, Germany, earlier in the year, filming Amazon parrots that have adapted to the cold winters--they got footage of the tropical birds eating snow in sub-freezing temperatures! "Inexorable rise" indeed...

Parrots adapting...settling in foreign cities, making do, and thriving...I feel a metaphor coming on...

Back to this morning's run in Arizona...

...I ran a section of lower Sabino Canyon that I don't typically run on a weekend morning, and came upon this scene: 

So tiny...

So, from one Saturday to another, from Spain to Arizona--from parrot to hummingbird...

(and the team is here every other Saturday from spring the fall, banding, marking, studying...)

Happening upon the unexpected--always a highlight. 

After a month away, it's good to go for a run in a desert canyon again...and after nearly a month, now, of the monsoon--so green...

And, we're back home to our little parrot:

Summer vacation is over, Paquito; we're home for a while now...