My 10K Team

2nd Culinary Creation

I usually cook the veggies in the oven, roasted style, but this time I decided to steam them with a lots of garlic and some olive oil. Here is the recipe:

Steamed Veggies with Olive Oil & Garlic

1 red pepper
1 yellow zucchini
1 Green zucchini
10 Asparagus
5 Garlic gloves (big ones)
1 Spoon of olive oil
1/2 Cup of water
Salt
Pepper
Red Crushed Pepper (hot)

Cut in think slices the yellow and green zucchini and the red pepper. Cut in pieces the asparagus. Chop in small pieces 4 of garlic gloves. Leave one entire garlic glove without cut. Add all these ingredients in a deep pan. Add the water, the olive oil. Cook in medium heat for about 30 minutes, with a cover. While cooking add the salt, pepper and just a pinch of crushed red pepper. Every 5 minutes check if there is enough water, turn veggies around.

Serves two people

My Story-Cooking Book

I tremendously enjoy cooking. It is a passion that has started a few years ago and it has grew on me with time. I have learned to make cooking a creative process.

What I enjoy the most is the process of creating the next meal, coming up with ideas, searching recipes on the internet, imagining how I would surprise my fellow dinner with my next meal, imaging the wine.....and like in any creative process, the satisfaction of the final product.

All starts with the menu, like in a restaurant, daily menu posted for the dinners. Sometimes I have more than one menu, so my fellow dinner can choose according the his daily taste.

One of the aspects I like about cooking is that you always have the opportunity to improve your recipe or just change your recipe based on you palate.

Critics are part of the art of cooking. But in my opinion cooking critics can be either subjective or objective. Subjective critics are more tolerable, based more on one's taste. Objective critics really mean that your dish did not come out good.

Cooking is always nicer if you cook for someone. I am lucky that my fellow dinner, whom we shared my dishes, has an exquisite taste in food based in an acquired food knowledge. Not to mention, he is Italian ;)

A friend/colleague that loves cooking as well and with whom we shared our dishes at lunch, has suggested me today to start writing down my recipes. Great idea! I am going to write a cooking book, with stories related to each of my dishes........so in the future someone maybe can use them and feel the same or not as I felt when cooking.

My first recipe is going to be the one I cooked last night, very simple. I had some fish left overs and I planned making my typical fish and tuna pie when I thought I could try something different with this cod fish. I looked on internet and I found a British recipe called "fish pie" which it's main ingredients are mash potatoes and fish. I did not like the idea of mash potatoes so I decided I was going to do a layered dish with layers of potatoes, onions, tomatoes and fish. Here is the recipe:

Potato & Fish Lasagna by Valeria Mesples

2 small potatoes
2 tomatoes
1 onion
Any left over fish
salt
pepper
olive oil

Cut the cooked fish in pieces, not too small. Cut the onions into medium thin slices, as well as the potatoes and the tomatoes. Put just a pinch of olive oil on the bottom of a small deep pan. Alternate one layer of onion, then one layer of fish, follow by one layer of potatoes. At this point add a pinch of salt and pepper on top of the potatoes layer. Finally one layer of tomatoes. Repeat the process one more time. If you are a lover of a three layer dish, repeat the process two more times, you might need additional potatoes, onions, fish and tomotoes.

The last year should be a tomato layer. Add olive oil, and oregano dry leaves. Put in the oven, medium for at least 30 minutes. Take out of the oven and with a knife check the potatoes consistency. The potatoes need to be cooked but still a little hard. Put the dish in the oven again for 5-10 minutes, high so the top burns.

After approximately 10 minutes remove from oven and let it sit for 5 minutes. When serve on the plates, a pinch of olive oil is always a good option. (comment from my fellow dinner)

Eat this dish with a nice montepulciano wine, from the Abruzzo region.

Serves two people.

I found it very true

A friend sent me an electronic card, which have the following written on it:

"Some of us waste our time waiting for people
to live up to our expectations.

We are so concerned about what others are doing
that we don;t do anything ourselves.

It is not so important what others are up to;
compared with what you are doing.

Focus on what you do, your work; Not on others."

Something to Think Every Day

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day" - David Foster Wallace

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html

Today January 29, 2011

Today I am starting a change, a change about myself that involves a deep search and that hopefully will bring out the best of me.

Achievable Hopes

I am sad, I cry
because after all this effort
I found again a stone on my way

I feel angry with myself
because I could have done it better
more dedication and effort

But I have learned a lesson
I can only achieve my dreams
if I believe and fight
for what I really want in my life

Hurts to see my hope fading away
but a smile still remains on my face
the experience has been rewarding
and I have found a friend

Me and my dreams
of what i would like to become
in my small world
of achievable hopes :)

A Society in Fear

I am writing this post based on my own experience. We live in a society in fear.

I am originally from Argentina, living in the United States for the past 11 years. On all these years living in this country I have managed on keeping a quite good driving record with no tickets in my favor, until one year ago. I passed from being a good citizen to becoming a risk to society.

In the past year I got two tickets, a non full stop on a right turn red light and a questionable not allowed u-turn. None of these tickets are related to speeding. As a consequence of these tickets I got two points on my DMV driving record. I have paid my tickets as a good citizen.

Well apparently I am not a good citizen, at least not for the DMV of Sacramento, California. I received a "warning letter", yes it sounds scary. The letter is basically saying that my record shows I am a bad driver and my record places me at increased risk of causing crashes,injury and death. I am being pre-judged as a possible criminal in the future.

So they, the DMV personnel, offered me a choice. It was very nice of them. Quoting verbatim the response from the DMV: "I can choose to prevent further action from DMV by avoiding additional traffic convictions and by not causing any crashes. However, if I choose to continue my unsafe driving, the penalties will increase and eventually lead to probation, suspension or revocation of my driving privilege".

Fear is the word in what we leave. Fear from our goverment, from our institutions, from our public system. At the begining I had fear, now I reject this fear.

I am fearless, I am citizen of this country, and a good one.

A bench in the park

A bench in the park
an invitation
to remember the past
to feel the present
to dream the future

Bench, lonely
abandon to the luck
of who will decide to stop
and share with you
a precious moment

You are the pause
that we avoid
rushing lives
full of voids

Witness of the days go by
sunrise and sunset
and the night with the starts

I desire you on my walks
but I do not stop
afraid of what I can find
If I stop my life and look inside

Sos Feliz?

Are you Happy? A few days ago while checking my Facebook, an old friend from my university times, started a chat with the question "Are you Happy"?. Instantaneosuly I smiled and I stopped. Everything stopped for a few second and I found myself reviewing my life like a flash crossing my mind.

Are you Happy? is a question that can not have a definitive answer, that is what I always thought. How can you simplified your life with a simple YES or No? What really means happiness?

But took me those few seconds to just smiled again and respond with a simple YES. I was suprised of how peacefully and naturally I felt with my response and I realized then that these moments of awareness are the conductors of our life.

We should stop our lives more often, and ask ourselves "Are you Happy"?.