Good Mexican Food in NC - Found!

After a long search, I finally found some decent Mexican food here in Raleigh. It has taken almost two years, and where did I find it? My own recipe binder! What is even funnier is that I am almost certain I printed the recipe out when I was still living in Austin, but did not make it until a week or so ago. Sopa Seca is a meal I will definitely be making again. When I made it, I told Aaron it was kind of like Mexican lasagna, but that is not an accurate parallel. It is closer to chicken noodle casserole, but has a richer flavor profile and is not soupy and creamy like some casseroles can be.

There were a few firsts for me with this meal. I had never tried to look for fideos, which I did not find and thus used angel hair pasta nests, which worked just fine for me. I bought my first can of chipotles in adobo sauce and fell madly in love as soon as I opened the can. Smelled like spicy barbecue sauce and ended up providing the absolute perfect amount of heat and smoke. And, since smoked turkey was not readily available, I baked some chicken and used that without any adverse results, as far as I could tell.

This was a great TGIF meal that provided leftovers I munched on all through the weekend. I like it when leftovers taste just as great as the freshly made dish. Since the fideos are cooked in a pan dry, there are these great crunchy pieces and the noodles as a whole do not get overcooked and saturated with liquid. This is one of the best meals I have ever made and I cannot wait until I can have friends over to share it with them. The recipe may say four servings, but those would be four huge servings, so I would bump the serving count to around six portions with a great side salad and dessert. I did not know that I meal I had never had before could remind me so much of home, but this one did.

Faces of America

Once again, PBS is showing one of my favorite "special programs." I have talked here before about the series Henry Louis Gates, Jr. hosts entitled "African American Lives" wherein he explores various famous African Americans' genealogy to trace their history. He also uses their DNA to see what areas they hail from (Western Europe, East Africa, Indochina, etc). Well, this year he is looking more broadly at Americans of many ethnicities in Faces of America. Featured "celebrities" include Mario Batali, Stephen Colbert, Yo-Yo Ma, and Kristi Yamaguchi. It starts tomorrow, Feb. 10 from 8-9 pm, and runs every Wednesday through March 3. I am super excited to see these people learn of their heritage and hear some surprising stories of their past. I have not given my PBS station here much of a chance, but perhaps this program will encourage me to look to them for something to watch rather than some of the more mindless entertainment I may seek out on my television.

GANC: East of Eden

East of Eden is perhaps the most difficult book I have had to write about, and my favorite thus far. Written by John Steinbeck, it is the book he considered one of his most personal. I think the dedication says it best, and yet mysteriously...

Dear Pat,

You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, "Why don't you make something for me."

I asked you what you wanted, and you said, "A box."

"What for?"

"To put things in."

"What things?"

"Whatever you have," you said.

Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.

And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.

And still the box is not full.

The book meanders through the lives of the Hamilton and Trask families as they move west to California and find their successes and failures there. The Trask family eventually becomes the main focus of the story, in particular Adam and his twin sons, Aron and Caleb (Cal). In a key chapter in the book, Adam, his servant Lee, and neighbor Samuel Hamilton sit around and try to decide on names for Adam's boys. (Adam's wife is no longer in the picture after shooting him and running away to become a prostitute. She is a psychopath and, well, just read the book.) They get to discussing the first brothers, Cain and Abel, and Lee, a Chinese servant, says that he has been studying this story and has found something illuminating. Timshel. It is the Hebrew word used in Genesis 4:7 where the Lord, speaking to Cain, says, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Timshel is used in that last phrase for shalt, "and thou shalt rule over him." Timshel means "thou mayest." What does it all mean? It means that a person is neither marked for a happy life nor condemned to one of misery, but that each person has the ability to choice how their life will be. Timshel plays itself out in the lives of Adam's two children, Aron and Cal.

Aron is the angel-face boy whom everyone adores, but wants life to occur only has he has dreamed it in his head - beautiful and perfect. Cal, on the other hand, is secretive, never letting people get close to him. He sees himself as the less-loved child and continually attempts to earn the love of his father and friends. However, he also harbors resentment against Aron and does what he can, with varying success, to collapse the walls of the world Aron has built up.

If you have not figured it out by now, this is a difficult book to give a quick summation to. In part because there is no apex of action; no culminating moment the whole book as led to, at least not in the way most books culminate. It is the story of a new land, a new town, new families. A coming of age for a family, a state, and a country. It is about the relationships between fathers and sons, brothers, mothers and sons. And it is beautiful.

This one is definitely on my list as a great American novel. The stories in it are universal and true for America. I am not sure how the book has impacted American society. Apparently, as I just learned while checking it out on Amazon, that it was an Oprah's Book Club pick, so there is that. I cannot say that it is a story echoed in other novels or movies, because East of Eden itself is a story retold from the Bible. A modern-day Cain and Abel. So maybe all stories since 1952 that reimagine Cain and Abel should also say they reimagined Aron and Cal. In any case, this book is a masterpiece and one Steinbeck had a right to be proud of. I look forward to reading more of his books to see how they measure up.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:

July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936

August 2009: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, publ. 1985

September 2009: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, publ. 1851

October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, publ. 1940

November 2009: Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston, publ.1937

December 2009: The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, publ. 1963

January 2010: Rabbit, Run - John Updike, publ. 1960