5 observations and orange banana bread

such a handsome fellow

1. I think the greatest pleasure we get from our cats is watching them sleep. A day does not go by without one of us exclaiming at the decadent, sprawled repose of one the cats.
2. I've practiced driving, I'm enrolled in a course (a prerequisite for getting a licence here in Panama) I have a car. This is really going to happen people!
3. We have been having terrible mosquitos at night. Our house is quite open so it's difficult to escape them. The city has fumigated several times but it hasn't helped that much. There is standing water somewhere nearby and it's not being dealt with. This is frustrating.
4. An iguana fell out of the big tree in our yard yesterday. It made such a thunk when it hit the ground. Thankfully the cat did not chase it into the house this time. I prefer not to have large iguanas hiding behind the fridge.
5. The big music news this week (well if you're me) was that Fiona Apple debuted some songs from her new album at SXSW. I am super excited about this. Have you seen the title for her new album? She totally wins. There's footage from SXSW on youtube, but  I'm going to post the video for "Not About Love" from Extraordinary Machine because it has Zach Galifianakis in it, and I certainly had no idea who he was when this video came out, and now he's probably more famous than Fiona herself. Also it's pretty funny:

I make a lot of banana bread. We are banana bread people; we eat it for breakfast and with coffee in the afternoon and my daughter takes it for lunch. I have already posted my standard recipe, but I've been messing around with a new recipe. This recipe is bigger--it makes a bundt pan.

Orange Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter
1-1/2 cups sugar--a combination of brown and white is nice
3 whole Eggs
1-1/2 cup Mashed Ripe Bananas
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 cup All-purpose Flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1-1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
3/4 cup pulpy fresh squeezed orange juice
3/4 cup coconut milk (not sweetened)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour bundt pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating for a few seconds after each addition. Beat in mashed bananas and orange rind.

Add dry ingredients and juice and coconut milk alternately to the mixing bowl. Beat until all combined.

Pour into bundt pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

5 observations and peanut butter chocolate chip bars

blooms at the beach

1. Hey, I got my braces off this week. It feels so good. Of course I'm pleased with how it looks (I was always pretty self-conscious of my crooked teeth). But mostly I'm enjoying to eat again. Eating with braces is uncomfortable and sometimes painful and usually gross for your dining companions. I'm very happy to finally have them off.
2. We took the kids to a local production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. It's a well-loved book and movie around here and the girls really enjoyed it. I will have the Oompa Loompa song in my head for the next month.
3. The kids had the concluding show for their summer theatre classes last weekend. They had so much fun in their theatre classes this year. I'm really grateful for the summer arts programs my kids have done over the years here in Panama. It is one of the great things about living in this city.
4. We are in full school-year swing. Every afternoon is a mad dash of homework, swimming and work. My older daughter started junior high this year and her homework has definitely increased. That girl pretty much swims and does homework. She seems to relish it though. She's usually asleep before her little sister.
5. Andrew Bird's new album is out and I predictably love it. Here's a great song from it:

and to see a video go here:pitchfork.com/tv/city-of-music-andrew-bird


A school-lunch favourite:
peanut butter chocolate chip bars
1½ cups all-purpose flour (or 3/4 whole wheat 3/4 all-purpose)

½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup peanut butter
½ cup butter (room temperature)
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips (semisweet or milk chocolate)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9X13 pan.

Sift and whisk together the flour, b. soda and salt and set aside.

Cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Add the egg and vanilla and continue mixing.  Fold in the flour and chocolate chips.

When it's mixed press it into the pan.

Bake for about 20 minutes. Start checking it at 15 minutes.

5 observations and cinnamon buns

Esterillos Oeste, Costa Rica

1. I found myself looking at lunch boxes this morning. Summer holidays will be over before we know it. We are having so much fun--it makes me sad to think of it ending and of having to buy new lunch boxes.
2. I practiced driving this week. I felt pretty good (my impression is I haven't forgotten--I'm just rusty) but also nervous. I never liked driving but now I really need to. It's kind of funny that I'm going to start driving again here in Panama, because the traffic is CRAZY. 
3. I'm doing some volunteer teaching for a foundation. I really love it. I'm working with some amazing women and it takes me into Casco Viejo twice a week... it's perfect.
4. My older daughter is swimming again. She was on a swim team a couple of years ago and kind of burned out. I had a hard time letting her quit at the time, but in the end I couldn't ignore her misery. She's ready to give it another try and I'm glad. 
5. Etta James died today. My oldest was born at home with a midwife. I had a bunch of music that I'd chosen for the labour and birth and it included some Etta James. In fact the only music I remember from that labour and birth is Etta James. Rest in peace and thank you for helping me bring my daughter into the world:

This is my mom's recipe. I've actually cut her recipe in half because the original recipe was insane.
Cinnamon Buns
3 cups warm water
1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
3 eggs beaten
1 tbsp yeast
10 cups all-purpose flour

for the cinnamon filling:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2-3 tbsp cinnamon
3/4 cup butter


Stir the yeast, water,  and half the flour together. If you have a mixer with a dough-hook mix it for five minutes. I use a stand mixer and just go do something else for a few minutes. If you don't have a dough hook you can do this with a wooden spoon. I would say 150 strokes (circular and folding if you know what I mean). The idea is to develop the gluten and add some air. Let this mixture rise for 20 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients and knead together. Keep the dough as sticky as you can stand. Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes. Let the dough rise. I usually punch it down and let it rise twice, but one big rise would be fine.

Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter.

Divide the dough in two. Roll one half into a rectangle and spread the sugar mixture as evenly as you can on the rectangle. Roll up the dough and cut into buns (around an inch thick). Put the buns on parchment-lined pan. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Let the buns rise for half an hour and bake in a preheated (400°C) oven for 20-25 minutes.

Let them cool upside down so the syrup doesn't all get stuck on the bottom.

5 observations and cookies

1. I am suffering from some terrible hay fever this week. All that runny-nosed, self-pity has kind of dulled my senses--forgive me, I haven't been very observant this week.
2. I am tired of taxis. I flagged down six taxis yesterday before finding one that would take me home. Taxis here charge by zone, so it's much better for them to make lots of short trips in the same area. It is challenging to get a taxi to go across town at rush hour. I had to plead with the sixth taxi.  Please, my kids are waiting for me to get home. I felt pathetic but it was effective.
3. My eight-year-old has discovered the telephone this vacation. She spends hours on the phone with one of her friends. It's cute (like when she tells her friend about the boys at camp), annoying (a discussion about the plot of Sponge Bob) and a little alarming (isn't this teenage behaviour?) all at the same time.
4. I am tutoring an eight-year-old boy. The goal is conversational fluency, so we pretty much spend the hour playing board games and reading. It's fun.
5. This helped me get through this itchy-nosed, watery-eyed week:

This is the recipe I regularly use for chocolate chip cookies(it's stuck to the side of my fridge). I usually use all whole-wheat flour:

5 observations and cranberry carrot bread

1. The bird watching in my backyard has been particularly good lately. The birds and bats helped themselves to a papaya and it's been fascinating to watch them.
2. On Sunday night Noriega returned to Panama. I was out for a run, when suddenly (about the time he was arriving at the prison) there was an explosion of clanging pots. (People banged pots to show their opposition back when he was in power.) It gave me a strange shivery feeling, that clamour in the night. There were only four or five people banging, but the sound rang so plaintively through the night air... When I finished my long run I went home and read (until late) all about Noriega, and Oliver North and the 1989 invasion.
3. Some books are just for fun. We are reading Attack of the Vampire Snowmen. It is ridiculous and so frothy after The Graveyard Book. I guess I'm teaching my kids to distinguish between high and low culture (or something).
4. I hope it stops raining, mostly so I don't have to deal with wet, muddy running shoes every day. My daughter is in day camp. They play soccer and volley ball and go to the pool. It is excellent and she is having the best time. The only problem is her shoes. This morning found me trying to dry them in the oven. I don't mind the mud, but I'm a little worried about trench foot.
5. Every year I look over the 'best of' lists and find something I'm not nearly cool enough to have discovered on my own. This year was no exception. I love this:

I might have bought the last bag of frozen cranberries in Panama yesterday (probably not, but possibly the last bag in my supermarket). I love cranberries; they are one of a number of gringo indulgences that I partake in this time of year.

cranberry carrot bread

4 tablespoons butter (room temperature), plus more for the pan
2 cups flour (I did a combination of 1½ cups all-purpose and ½ cup whole wheat)
1 cup brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup milk
¼ cup orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 egg
1 cup grated carrots
1½ cups frozen cranberries


Heat the oven to 350° F. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with butter.

Stir together the dry ingredients. With a mixer, add  the butter a tablespoon at a time. This works great with a stand mixer.

Mix together the milk, orange zest and juice and egg add the grated carrots. Pour into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten; do not beat and do not mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the cranberries, then spoon the batter into the loaf pan.

Bake for about an hour, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing.

5 observations and banana almond swirl ice cream

1. Clean water is such a gift. Yesterday morning it was announced that the water here in the city was finally safe to drink. In the afternoon, when I went to fill a pitcher for the fridge, the water that came out of the tap was basically mud. The water seems fine this morning, but yeah, we'll put in a filtration system when we do our kitchen reno. 
2. The seasonal goodies are out in supermarket. Because of my Argentine husband, we love panettone and always start buying it at the end of November. If you don't know, it's a sweet bread with dried fruit (which doesn't sound that great, but trust me it is). Sweet baked stuff makes me feel yucky and is definitely a migraine trigger for me. But I'm having a very hard time resisting the panettone and I dread all the other yummy things that are coming. We'll see if I'm able to break my Christmas day migraine tradition!
3. I learned something new in Spanish. I had heard the expression ni un real, which I would have translated as something like, "not one dime." But, I discovered yesterday that a real is a nickel! I always got that reales referred to small coins, but I never clued in to the fact that it was a specific coin.
4. The last holiday in the month of November is on Monday. We should, and hopefully will, get to the beach this holiday weekend.
5. This video makes me very happy:

My favourite running fuel is a banana smeared with almond butter and sprinkled with coarse sea salt. This does not upset my stomach and keeps me energized for a long run. The salt is because I sweat a disgusting amount and I love the crunch of sea salt on anything. When I learned that you can make decent ice cream out of frozen bananas I thought of my salty almond butter running treat.

You can make a pretty nice ice cream with just bananas. You slice three or four ripe bananas and freeze them for a couple of hours. Then you you process them in a food processor. The result is creamy and delicious. To this you can a bit of honey (but not at all necessary) and some vanilla. You don't even need an ice cream freezer for this. The consistency is very nice, seriously you'll be surprised.

So to this base of banana ice cream I added a swirl of salty almond butter. I folded a couple of pinches of sea salt into 1/4 of almond butter and swirled it into the bananas.

So simple and so good!

5 observations and reese's pieces cookies

1. Kids are amazing storytellers. The above picture is of the epic my daughter and her best friend are working on. It's Shakespeare. There are fart jokes, and references to characters from video games and there are characters from Hindu, Egyptian and Greek mythology. They are totally blowing my mind.
2. I get a little too caught up in local politics and I drive my husband crazy by talking about it all the time. With all the corruption and intrigue it's like a novel. I am riveted and usually a little indignant.
3. Our home is beginning to look to look a little like a farm (or zoo). The guy who cuts my grass offered to sell me a couple of ñeques (agoutis). Of course I told him no, as there really are enough animals in my house, and also I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have ñeques as pets.
4. Look up. For the past couple of weeks the skies have been full of birds. The raptors are migrating South and it's been an awesome sight to see them.
5. Not surprisingly, this is good:

Yesterday was a national holiday (Nov. 10 marks the date of the first cry of independence--from Spain) so we had a house full of girls. My two favourite eight-year-olds made these cookies:

They used this recipe:
Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Cookies

5 observations and a recommendation rather than a recipe

representing Canada and looking a little dishevelled (what exactly was going on backstage)

1. I'm pretty good at managing things on my own. My husband has been away on business all week and it's been fine. Well, until this morning when I couldn't find my keys. Houses here have security gates so you're not just locked out, you're also locked in. I wish I could say I kept my cool but, oh my god what if there's a fire! We found the keys of course, but not before I had worked up a good anxiety sweat.
2. I invented a national costume for Canada. My kids' school celebrates United Nations Day and has a parade showcasing national costumes. So my kids were tapped to represent Canada. I told the organizers that there wasn't really a national costume. They didn't believe me so I invented one. I don't feel bad about this; the little girl representing England dresses up as the queen, and I saw a kid going into the school in a toga and laurel crown (Greece?).
3. My youngest daughter does not feel particularly Canadian. She doesn't like International Day. She was born in Costa Rica and has never lived in Canada, so it's weird for her. She doesn't like it when people ask her where she's from. She used to say Costa Rica because she was born there. But she can't remember living in Costa Rica so that doesn't feel right to her either. She really would have preferred to wear a Panamanian costume like the rest of her classmates today. 
4. The Graveyard Book is fantastic. We are loving this book so much. It is just the right amount of scary according to my eight-year-old. She is fascinated by the graveyard universe in this book and frankly, so am I. I'm glad we are reading it before the inevitable Hollywood adaptation.
5. This is good. Feist sings "Undiscovered First" in the back of a London cab:

Instead of a recipe I have a recommendation. Make chocolate chip cookies on a rainy weeknight and eat them warm out of the oven with your silly, giggling children. Just use the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. You will not be disappointed.

5 observations and vanilla cupcakes

wet

1. The hem of my jeans is always wet these days. The streets of Panama do not favour walkers at the best of times and when it's wet like this, it's pain to have to walk anywhere.
2. Clearly our rabbits are male and female (we couldn't tell before). So far I haven't found a vet who will fix them. This means we will have to get another cage and separate them and this makes me sad because they are pals.
3. This last season of Breaking Bad was good. I just watched the finale and thought it was one of the best episodes of the season. I really appreciate the careful plotting of this show. The acting is good, but it's the writing that really impresses me.
4. Hot black coffee with something sweet is one of the great pleasures in life. I fell in love with coffee all over again while enjoying a cupcake the other day. I don't eat many sweets and I've cut back on coffee and it was amazing how much pleasure this little indulgence gave me. I don't really miss sweets and coffee (I really feel better without them). But this particular cupcake and cup of coffee were heavenly.
5. I like this song.  I didn't so much at first, but it has grown on me:

The most impressive thing I did in the kitchen this week was the birthday cupcakes. I really liked this recipe and the one bowl technique. I can't get cake flour here, so I just used the whitest all-purpose I could find an the texture was very nice. The recipe comes from Martha Stewart. Make sure you watch the video and see a fellow who is very enthusiastic about cupcakes!

Billy's Vanilla Cupcakes

5 observations and banana bread

the rocky side of Isla Iguana (pretty isn't it?)

• The qualities I most admire in my children are the ones I don't have. My girls are both good at math and I struggled with math in school. I don't know if they have better teachers and curriculum, but they excel and I am so proud and pleased.
• Hot days = more laundry. It has been so hot and humid here that you break a sweat reading the paper. I need to change clothes three times a day and the laundry pile is perpetually massive. I'm used to being a soggy, sweaty mess but it's been a little ridiculous. My running clothes are disgusting and I mostly run before or after the sun comes out (I may have to burn some of them). Thankfully it rained yesterday afternoon, and it seems rather less sticky today.
• I like the new public campaign against throwing garbage on the street. It is disgusting and it would be good if people started thinking of it that way. I hope it works.

• Making a new playlist is a calming, constructive activity.  I've been working on my playlist for Sunday's half marathon and it's been a fun distraction from fretting.
• These songs from Iron and Wine's, Kiss Each Other Clean (my favourite album title of 2011) are not on Sunday's playlist, but are perfect for this rainy rest day.

This is my go-to, hands-down-favourite, banana bread recipe adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.
Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 ripe mashed bananas--I don't use the monster (genetic freak) for-export ones--the smaller ones are tastier.
1 teaspoon dark rum
1 cup toasted, shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

Mix the dry ingredients together (not the coconut).  Cream the butter and beat in the eggs, bananas and rum.  Stir the wet mix into the dry (don't over mix).  Fold in the coconut.

Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes.

5 observations and a sweet spicy coconut cashew snack

to the outhouse

5 things I noticed this week:

1. Sometimes a cute shack at the end of a dock is not a place to tie boats up.  You will feel silly if you are taking pictures when locals push past on their way to the privy (they will look amused).
2. I haven't felt as physically weary as I felt this week since my tree-planting days (the good old days when you would fall asleep easily on the cold, hard ground with body throbbing and dream about planting more trees).  I had a high mileage week in my training this week and I'm bone tired.  It's a good tired though (not like a mental tired), and over all I'm feeling great.  Next Sunday I will be running a 15K race and I'm ready. 
3. I'm goofy, baby-talk, crazy, about the bunnies.  It took over a year for my daughter to convince me to get rabbits and now I'm probably the one most smitten.  They are not affectionate but trusting.  There is something so sweet about a vulnerable little animal looking at you with trust...  it melts me every time.
4. I love teaching English to beginners.  It requires more energy than an intermediate class, but it so rewarding.  I love the physicalness of it.  Things need to be acted out and choral repetition is important; every class is like a performance with lots of audience participation...  so satisfying.
5. This is a very pretty song from a very pretty album:

And now for this Friday's recipe.  One definite advantage of living in Panama is how cheap and abundant things like cashews and fresh coconut are.  I love fresh coconut and would miss it terribly if I moved back to Canada.  Use raw almonds if you can't get fresh coconut.

Sweet and Spicy Cashew Coconut Snack
1 1/2 cups of raw cashews
1 cup of fresh coconut chopped into bit-sized chunks
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
3/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350.
Spread the nuts and seeds on a lined baking sheet and lightly roast them for 5-10 minutes.  They should be just starting to smell good.  Don't turn the oven off.

In a bowl large enough to hold the nuts and seeds, mix the remaining ingredients.  Add the hot nuts and mix until well coated.

Put the nuts back onto the lined baking sheet and return to the oven.

Roast for 5-10 minutes.  Stir them mid-way and make sure they don't burn.

Enjoy!

a weird virus and a chocolate cake for recovery

So we've been sick.  I still am sick.  It started last Thursday, innocently enough, when my younger daughter came home from school early with a fever.  I put her to bed and assumed she'd sleep it off in a day or two.  Her fever went up in the night but she woke feeling pretty good, with no fever.  Then her fever went up again on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday.  Now my husband and I are on the same page about most parenting issues, but dealing with illness is an exception.  I am low intervention and he is "what can she take?" at the first glimmer of sickness.

In the past I've conceded to him, and we've taken feverish children to the freezing emergency room.  Honestly, they spend more time examining your insurance policy than actually looking at the kid.  I have been irritated and frustrated by the doctors and nurses in the emergency (we've only been a couple of times and just for fevers.  I'm sure they are great at real emergencies).  The last time the doctor wrote a prescription for antibiotics even though there was no indication of bacterial infection (he said it was "just in case").  And I haven't even mentioned the routine shots of analgesic in the bum.

So, shots are a thing here.  I was always mystified by how people would get a cold or something and go to the clinic to have an injection.  "What are these injections?" I wondered.  And then during a bad flu I got one myself.  It's an analgesic and it's administered to the fleshy part of the bum.  When I told a Panamanian friend that in Canada, there are no routine injections for the flu, that people just take medicine orally, she looked at me with such pity and disbelief, like "you poor people, how are you not all dead."  I've decided it's a cultural thing.  Still, I'm not really into the unnecessary bum injections and they are just routine in the emergency.

So, I stood my ground with my husband and said no to an emergency visit.  My position became very tenuous by Sunday as my daughter was not getting better.  Through all of this we could not get a hold of our pediatrician.  When her fever went up scarily on Sunday night, the pediatrician who was filling in finally called us back.  She agreed to see us first thing Monday morning.

I really like our pediatrician and the doctor filling in for him was excellent.  By this time, my daughter had been five days with fever.  She had no signs of bacterial infection, only a slight sore throat and the fever that would not quit.  The doctor gave us some oral analgesic and sent us to the lab for a bunch of tests (Dengue, Mono, etc..).  Her tests all came back fine.  It was just weird virus, which my husband and I can attest to because we both have it now.

It's horrible, my skin even hurt yesterday and I cannot remember the last time I was so tired.  I think I'm getting better.  I hope I'm getting better; I'm supposed to be running an 8K race on Sunday.

Anyway, in honor of Canada Day and in the hopes of tempting my daughter (her appetite still hasn't returned).  I made some chocolate cake.

Moosewood Chocolate Cake


Ingredients
1 ½ cups white flour
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup cold coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons vinegar 

Preheat the oven to 375º F.  Flour and butter a 9" round or 8" square (or similarly sized heart-shape).
Sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl, mix  add  with a whisk.  Add the coffee, oil and vanilla.  Mix well and finally add the vinegar.  Quickly stir the vinegar in and pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Happy Canada Day!

Passion Fruit

I never call passion fruit passion fruit.  I always call it maracuyá.  Now this is possibly a little pretentious of me, but I have my reasons.  Do you know why it's called passion fruit?  The Catholic missionaries who came to the new world with the Conquistadores, thought that the flower looked like Christ's crown of thorns.  They named the plant passiflora for the passion of Christ.  Now I know that this is one small thing in a catalogue of acts that include tremendous brutality.  But, what kind of person looks at flower and sees a crown of thorns?  It makes me think of subjugation, and the naming of things that most certainly already had names.  So, at dinner parties, when someone waggles their eyebrows lasciviously and says "mmm passion fruit mousse" I usually shut them down with a story about Conquistadores and zealous Jesuits.  Yes, I'm that wet  blanket.

Maracuyá is possibly my favourite tropical flavour (I'm awfully fond of tamarind as well).  It is tart and refreshing; perfect for this climate.  I have been trying out recipes for this post all week, sometimes without much success.  There was a homely tart:

 and some runny mousse:

I was most satisfied with these custardy squares.  But honestly, the best thing to do with maracuyá is mix the strained juice with some simple syrup and water and make juice, popsicles or sorbet.

Passion Fruit Bars
Base:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Top:
4 eggs
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup passion fruit juice*
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

icing sugar for dusting

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F.   Grease 9- x 13-inch pan. Set aside.
BASE:
In bowl, beat together butter, sugar and salt until light; stir in flour until blended. Press into prepared pan. Bake in centre of oven until golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool.

TOP:
Meanwhile, in bowl, beat eggs with granulated sugar until pale and thickened. Add passion fruit juice, flour and baking powder; beat until smooth. Pour over base.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  The custard should be set.  Let it cool and then dust it with icing sugar.

*Split the fruit in half and scrape the seedy pulp into the blender.  Pulse the pulp--the idea is to loosen the pulp from the seeds.  If you break up the seeds your pulp will have pretty black flecks (nice for ice cream).  Push the seedy pulp through a mesh strainer.  Four good-sized maracuyás will yield a cup of strained juice/pulp.

Sunny Sunday

On Sundays we like to get out of town.  If we don’t get out of town, my kids start asking to go to the mall.  The mall on Sunday makes me feel like a loser.  Really, the mall, as a Sunday outing, depresses me.  Luckily for me, my kids are still young enough that they can be forced tricked persuaded into adventure.

On Saturday, I told the girls that we would be climbing a mountain, and then going to the beach (without the the promise of the beach it’s unlikely I’d get them up the mountain).  I told them we’d have to leave earlyish, and that they could sleep in their hiking clothes and eat breakfast in the car.  In this way, we managed to leave the house by nine without whining or complaints.

breakfast!

The morning was lovely; the kids were content.  The start of a road trip always makes me feel so good, and really, it was very satisfying to have gotten everyone out of the house so effortlessly.

We were headed to a national park called Altos de Campana.  This park is an hour's drive out of the city.  We arrived just after ten and met some birders on their way out.  Those birders were probably grateful that we (chattering children in tow) are earlyish, rather than early on Sundays.

The park has a few different trails, and we had hiked the short Podocarpus trail in December, when it was much too wet to attempt anything steep.  This time we planned to hike "La Cruz," a trail that goes up to a cross on a rocky peak.  The, not very informative map, said it was an hour's hike. 

The trail is quite steep, but totally manageable.  The temperature was cool and comfortable for hiking.  

Everything went very well until we came to a fork in the trail.  There was no fork in the trail on the map.  What to do?  Continue straight up, or head down a washed out path with some broken and bent handrails?  We decided to continue up; it seemed to us that if we were going to the top, we needed to go up.  The trail got steeper and muddier.

After about fifteen minutes of climbing, we got to the top.  There was no cross, and the view was through the trees, and worst of all, it was very wet.  This was not the great picnic spot we all had been imagining.   We took a few pictures and turned around.  

So, as you may know, going down, is a lot harder than going up a steep, muddy, mountain trail.  After my daughter slipped flat on her butt the second time, she started to scream.  Not crying, although there was that too, but unrestrained, furious screaming.


"I hate you!  I hate this!  You are the worst parents!" 


She totally lost it.  Now, I'm not a stupid or mean person, but my reaction to her was not exemplary.  I pretty much bullied her down the mountain.  Thank goodness her patient father was there, because I was not being very nice.  Oddly, on this fraught stretch of trail we saw some kind of trogon (really,  the only wildlife we saw). 


We arrived back at the fork in the trail.  It was reasonably dry and flat so we set out our picnic.  We had sandwiches and apples and rocky road bars.  I thought the marshmallows would make the nuts more appealing to my seven-year old (totally wrong about that).

As we finished eating I noticed my recently crying daughter smiling contentedly.  Yeah, she's a gangly, growing, eleven-year-old girl WHO NEEDS TO EAT!  sometimes I am so thick.  The whole tantrum on the trail situation could have been averted with a cookie. 
  
Suddenly some hikers popped up from the descending trail and sure enough, that was the trail to "la Cruz."  Well now we know for next time (I didn't even try to make them keep going--even though I would have liked to).  

We headed back to the car and on to the beach.  We went to Playa Santa Clara.  There are other beaches that are nearer, but this is where we usually go.  We take the public entrance  at Las Sirenas.  It's not too busy at that end of the beach, but you need to bring your own shade and provisions.

We had an excellent afternoon messing around.  Apart from a couple of entitled jerks on quads, it was an idyllic afternoon.  Way better than the mall!