Thursday, May 1, 2008

Stephanie has never cut out on her husband for two weeks before. My husband told me, “It’s okay, I’m getting used to it.” I recently returned from a three-week book-research trip to China, stayed home for two weeks, then split again today to start this road trip down Route 66. I already miss Dale, but this rare chance to hang with my longest-time girlfriend promises to be like crazy, man!

Stephanie and I met thirty years ago at Downey High.

Steph and I met thirty years ago at Downey High, in the sleepy Los Angeles suburbs, and we became tight friends. Though our lives have moved in different directions, it always feels comfortable to pick up our friendship again, like throwing on my favorite old leather jacket. It’s a relationship full of embarrassing confessions, unsolicited advice, and no-respect wisecracks, between two former non-joiners who joined each other. What better duo to share a time-machine trip down America’s Blast-from-the-Past Highway, Route 66, a.k.a. The Mother Road? I’ve dubbed this journey “Steph’s and Cara’s Mother F—ing Road Trip”:

What better duo to share a time-machine trip down America’s Blast-from-the-Past Highway, Route 66, a.k.a. The Mother Road?

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Remember how I whined earlier this summer that my vegetable seeds weren’t sprouting? Be careful what you whine about. Now my zucchini plants are arm-wrestling with my tomato plant for square-foot-garden domination.

My zucchini plants are arm-wrestling with my tomato plant for square-foot-garden domination.

For me, life is an endless series of reminders of my favorite movies and books, and gardening is no exception. I’m a remedial gardener, as you can tell from the staking system I use for my tomato plant – adding one bamboo stake after another until it looks like a bundle of pickup sticks, and the whole thing still leans. But I do know stories…

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I’m growing a box of dirt. This was not my intention. I was hoping for vegetables. A tomato plant is growing at the back of the box, but I can’t take credit for that. My friend Kelli gave it to me, informing me, “It’s called The Mortgage Lifter because it’s so easy to grow that the guy who created it sold enough plants to pay off his mortgage.”

I was hoping for vegetables.

For my birthday, I asked my husband to help me build a square foot garden. Dale’s a handy guy, and I think he enjoyed the idea almost as much as I did. He looked so cheerful walking amid the lumber, tools, and bags of soil at Home Depot.

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I’ve taken two trips to China to do research for a historical novel. Tortillas from the Canton Café will be loosely based on the family history of my Chinese-Mexican grandmother. Here are more of my journal notes on Hong Kong, as I continue “Tracing China’s Past”:

April 13, 2008
Hong Kong, China

We visited a place that retained some of the traditional beauty of old Hong Kong: Hoi Pa Village and Tak Wah Park.

Yesterday my translator ZhuZhu and I took the Metro to Tsuen Wan, one of Kowloon’s outlying housing estate districts. Don’t let the term “housing estate” fool you; in Tsuen Wan, as elsewhere in Kowloon, most people live in tiny apartments in dismal, repetitive high-rises. However, we visited a place that retained a vestige of the traditional beauty of old Hong Kong: Hoi Pa Village and Tak Wah Park.

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I once took a cooking class in Thailand, but there’s no need to go that far to experience a foreign culture or learn an exotic dish. I recently learned to make momos, or Nepali dumplings, right here in Denver. My teachers were two Nepali refugees from Bhutan. This was a cooking class with a story to tell.

This story started in the 1890s, when the Bhutanese government invited Nepali farmers to settle in southern Bhutan to help supply food to the country. In 1958, Bhutan’s royal government granted citizenship to the settlers. Then, in 1988, the king ordered a census in southern Bhutan; those citizens who couldn’t produce land tax receipts from the year 1958 were reclassified as illegal immigrants. In the ensuing years, Bhutan’s efforts to protect its cultural heritage devolved into a campaign to eradicate Nepalese traditions.

Years later Hari would teach cooking in Denver, and tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language.

Hari Khanal was a toddler then, but years later she would teach cooking classes in Denver, and one night she would tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language or wear their traditional clothes. Women weren’t allowed to have long hair. Many Nepalis were subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture. “The women were, I don’t know how to say it, they were forced…” Hari looked uncomfortable as she tried to remember the word for rape. Her family was one of many who fled to Nepal. Nepal’s government wouldn’t repatriate the refugees, so they lived in a refugee camp. “They wouldn’t let us go for 17 years.” Today Hari has such a ready smile it’s tempting to think none of it happened, but for many the crisis continues.

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The raspberry lets go of the vine with a soft tug. And another, and another. As I move down rows of bowing green bushes dangling plump rubies, the sun drills my neck with the last blast of summer. I’m reconnecting with my food, going a step farther than the farmers market, straight to the source.

Berry Patch Farms’ is backed by the Rocky Mountains, and fronted by a red barn, skittish chickens, and a truly porky pig.

Just a half hour from my Denver home, tears spring to my eyes as I consider Berry Patch Farms’ long green rows of fruits and veggies — backed by the Rocky Mountains, and fronted by a red barn, skittish chickens, and a truly porky pig. In the city, it’s easy to forget how natural this feels: gathering food from the earth.

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On one of the closing days of an Alaska summer, my husband and I take his sister and her husband to the State Fair in Palmer. When I lived in the Last Frontier, I enjoyed the fair year after year, even though it’s small – because it’s small. This will be a perfect way for siblings and in-laws to enjoy an activity together, regardless of differing interests.

Dale’s brother-in-law, Nathan, and sister, Luann: the Alaska State Fair is a perfect place to enjoy an activity together, regardless of differing interests.

My sister-in-law, Luann, has suggested we go to The Beach Boys concert at the fair. A California Girl flying from Denver to Alaska to see The Beach Boys? That’s too much irony to pass up. However, I wonder, “Aren’t they Beach Men yet?”

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Often at Thanksgiving, our family gathers in Los Angeles: my father, his wife, my grandparents, two younger stepsisters, a teenybopper half-sister, and me. (My husband is a jeweler, so he always stays home in Denver to prepare for Black Friday.) But this year, my father is getting divorced, so Dad, my 13-year-old sister Miraya, and I ate turkey at Marie Callender’s - just the three of us, in and out in 45 awkward minutes. Then, a few days later, several of us girls recaptured a bit of family togetherness and holiday joy, at high tea.

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If a fairy godmother offered me three decadent days, of the G-rated variety, I’d wish for one like this: filled with chocolate. The Denver Gourmet Tour du Chocolate isn’t only delicious, but also educational. A day learning about chocolate is a day you don’t want to ditch school.

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Alongside the highway that roars past Bucerias, Mexico, on the opposite side of that highway from the susurrating surf of the Bahia de Banderas, I slowly slide my fork through the crust of the most delicious tropical taste my tongue has ever savored: mango pie. (more…)