Posts Tagged ‘valentines day’

Mi Casa es Mi Casa

Sunday, February 12th, 2017

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If I am within blocks of my childhood home in Beverly Hills, like a homing pigeon, I make my way to 340 South Roxbury Drive. One night, more than 18 years ago, I asked my then boyfriend to turn left from Olympic as we approached the street I once called home. Home. The word. The symbol so loaded for me. Nearly two years before, I had purchased a condo. I didn’t think of it as home. It was all that I could afford. Small. Two bedrooms.   Dark and depressing. Both my parents had died, the small amount of money they left enabled me to finally buy real estate.   I hated that condo. I tried to decorate myself into loving it. I even hired the best craftsman to lay wall to wall Saltillo tile with colorful Spanish tiles as an accent. I was hoping that would give me the thing I was looking for.

What was I looking for? I know what it was. Security. I wanted the man I had been dating for seven years to marry me. To finally really take care of me. I got a lot of resistance.

“Stop. Pull over.” I stared into the barely lit home. It was late and dark outside.   I flashed on coming home at night as a teenager. Alone. Pulling up in the driveway and getting out quickly because the courtyard was dark and appeared menacing with the overgrown pepper tree casting ominous shadows.   My mother loved her tree. She admired every single detail in her home. From the beamed ceilings to the black wrought iron banister to the stained glass window.   My mother, now dead, wasn’t able to live her days out in her beloved Spanish home. When she could no longer afford it, she moved to the desert. Not in a home that she valued for it’s exquisite taste. Once she moved to Palm Springs, a place we vacationed and enjoyed when I was growing up, she became a recluse. I so did not want to live my mother’s life. I needed my own Spanish home. And a fresh start. And a ring on it. (more…)

Valentines Day and Gourmet Grandma’s Salmon

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

forkI fantasized that I could cook meals long before I made it a reality.  Refer to my “About” page.  I never observed my own mothers amazing cooking and had little interest.  She was a true caretaker or maybe I was a hysteric with little interest. I ate her delicious meals and it didn’t matter to me how it ended up on my plate.

I was,  however, a hopeless romantic.  And as each Valentines Day approached even as a teenager I PLANNED to make a heart shaped cake or something special for a boy I loved.  I’m sorry for them that it never happened and if any of them find their way to this blog, I invite those boys/now men to take me up on the offer.  You know who you are and I will make you a damned good cake-come and get it!

The first meal I made of any substance was at the age of 32.  It is Gourmet Grandma’s secret and easy way to cook salmon.  For me, part of the beauty is the little preparation involved- and I almost feel like that little girl waiting for my mothers meal to magically arrive; that’s how easy it is.

Stop fantasizing and start doing, it doesn’t matter at what age you start.  I’m being forced into that as my new motto.

Gourmet Grandma’s salmon recipe

I use two, but fine, take one, I don’t care…sheet of aluminum foil

place the salmon fillet on the sheet of foil

I drizzle good olive oil,  just a touch and only a touch of salt and pepper

Gourmet Grandma used to add julienned carrots, carrots sliced thinly

very thin sliced onion

thin slices of lemon and some dill

you can add any vegetables, I only cook the salmon, no vegetables, onions, dill or lemon

fold the foil into a pouch, nothing genius about this….play with it and figure it out, if I can do it, you can

cook the salmon in the pouch of foil in a 400 oven for 15 minutes

if it’s very thick, you might have to go a few more minutes