From the Southwest to the Pacific Coast

If you have never been to the American Southwest, you may picture it as one vast desert offering only cacti, cowboys, and chile for entertainment.  But one of the joys of living in the Southwest is its geographical location within the United States.  A two hour flight from El Paso, Texas to Los Angeles, California takes you so quickly from the desert to the coast that it is hard for the mind to adjust.  

My husband, Wayne, and I took such a trip recently and pronounced it one of our easiest travels ever.  Leaving El Paso about 8:00 am, we were sitting at the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles, having a delicious crepe for lunch, that same afternoon.

Farmers Market, Los Angeles

 A major league baseball game at Dodgers Stadium on Saturday night provided us with a once in a lifetime experience in the big leagues.

An we weren't the only attendees at the game!  Great opportunity for people-watching!

Crowd at Dodger Stadium

Sunday morning found us at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles catching the Amtrak Coast Starlight train to Portland, Oregon.  We slept one night on the train and most of our waking hours were spent oohing and aahing over the scenery viewed from the large picture windows in the parlor car or our roomette.   

Coast Starlight rounding a curve

The ocean views, so close at times, were a delight for us desert dwellers.

Ocean view from train

And then we were treated to scenes with lots of greenery.  Another unusual scene for our eyes!

View from train

Arriving in Portland, Oregon all too soon, we admired the train station before catching an Uber ride to our hotel.

Portland, Oregon train station

A gondola ride high above the city gave us a chance to take a panoramic picture of Portland.

View of Portland, Oregon

We also enjoyed walking along the Willamette River, a special sight for those of us from a climate with only nine inches of rainfall in a good year.

Willamette River, Portland

Just imagine needing several large bridges to cross the water in Portland.  In my home town of El Paso, the Rio Grande is a mere trickle most of the year.

Bridge in Portland, Oregon

We found many enticing eating establishments in Portland, including Mother's for brunch.  But our favorite was a traditional restaurant, Huber's, where my husband ordered (and raved about for days) a full turkey and ham Thanksgiving dinner!

Huber's Restaurant, Portland 

In less than a week, we were back in the Desert Southwest, basking in the constant sunshine and craving Mexican food, but the realization that we can experience another part of our country with such ease is going to be a comforting thought when yearly spring dust storms make us long to be any place but home.

Taking the Southwest to Los Angeles

A weekend visit to Los Angeles, California to visit family is on the calendar.  My husband, Wayne, and I worry about descending on relatives and causing a disruption in weekend plans. We hope to soften the blow by preparing a Mexican food dinner for them the first night of our arrival.

After long years of living in the Southwest in El Paso, Texas, I am pretty proud that I can prepare most Mexican food dishes without consulting a recipe. But in discussing a menu for the upcoming dinner, I realized we will be cooking in someone else's kitchen. Will they have a comal (Mexican style griddle ) handy?  Our comal has a permanent home on the stove. We use it to warm corn and flour tortillas, among other uses. 

Comal with chile pepper handle

Will their kitchen have a lime squeezer to prepare ice cold Tecate beer with salt and freshly squeezed lime?  I suppose you could get the juice out of a lime by hand, but it's been a long time since I used that method.

Mexican lime squeezer

And what about a tortilla warmer?  Will aluminum foil work as well?

Tortilla warmer

Our home freezer is full of roasted green chiles, ready to be thawed and peeled for any number of dishes, such as chile con queso (chile with cheese), chiles rellenos (stuffed chiles) and pico de gallo (fresh salsa). But then we live near Hatch, New Mexico, home of famous green and red chiles.  I know Los Angeles has plenty of green chiles, but I don't want to have to roast them that evening.

I love to make old-fashioned Mexican Rice that I learned about in Diana Kennedy's Recipes from the Regional Cook of Mexico (1978), pp.31-32.   But the dish takes constant attention to keep it from burning. Quite a risk in a strange kitchen, which I believe has a gas range.  (Our home stove is electric.) 

And I couldn't figure out how to carry a jar of homemade red enchilada sauce on the airplane. The thought of such a jar packed with my trip clothes in the checked luggage was scary.  

After much exchange of ideas, we decided on the following menu.

Mexican Food Dinner 

Appetizers and Drinks
  Mango salsa ( Joy of Cooking, 1997, p. 63 )
  Tostadas (bought)
  Tecate beer (bought)

Main dish
  Tacas (Not a misspelling! See explanation below)
  Lettuce and tomato (bought)
  Cubed new potatoes sauteed with onion and red and green bell pepper

Dessert
  Pineapple sherbet (bought)

Tacos (the real spelling) can be made with just about any ingredient you want to put in a corn tortilla. At our house, we often make a healthier taco by softening corn tortillas and filling them with ground meat cooked with onion and garlic and adding cheese.  But Wayne likes to make tacas, the way his mother used to.  And, being from Central Texas, she called them tacas. He fills a folded corn tortilla with the meat mixture and cheese and then deep fries everything.  They are delicious, but oh the cholesterol and the calories. So, if I can talk him into the healthy version, we have tacos.  If not, we have tacas.

We are looking forward with great anticipation to our Los Angeles visit and the ride on the Coast Starlight to Portland to follow.  It will be great to sit back, watch the scenery, and let someone else do the cooking.

A Weekend of New Experiences in Los Angeles

One of the joys of living in the Southwest is the chance to jump on a plane and be on the West Coast in about two hours flying time from my home town of El Paso, Texas.  Recently my husband Wayne and I did just that to visit family members, leaving El Paso at about 8:00 am and arriving in Los Angeles, California at 9:00 am (Pacific Coast time), just in time for breakfast.

Our favorite breakfast stop has to be The French Crepe Company located at the Farmers Market in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles.

French crepe chef

We sat at the counter, watching our crepes take shape before our eyes.  El Paso has breakfast burritos; Los Angeles has breakfast crepes.  Nice change!

After breakfast, we took a walk around The Grove, a nearby upscale shopping center.

Fountain at The Grove

The comfortable 70 degree daytime temperature was a sharp contrast to the 100 degree plus normal summertime temperature in El Paso.

Outdoor Jazz 

Travelers tend to connect new experiences with similar ones in their home towns.  The free outdoor evening jazz concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) was a feast for the ears and eyes.  We were especially impressed with elaborate picnic lunches that some people had spread out on their blankets.  Maybe when we attend the upcoming Mariachi Night at El Paso's Music Under the Stars at the Chamizal National Memorial we will be inspired to take food that is little more on the gourmet side than our usual sandwiches and popcorn.

Rodeo Drive

Elegant Rodeo Drive with its high end merchants doesn't compare with anything in El Paso. But that's okay, because I would probably have to buy a whole new outfit just to walk down the sidewalk. This view of Tiffany's made me think of the classic movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" starring Audrey Hepburn.

1984 Duesenberg II Model SJ

And in the Petersen Automotive Museum, I was reminded of another favorite movie, "The Great Gatsby."  This car was used in the 2013 version of that film, starring Leonardo Di Caprio.

Santa Monica Beach

The beach was our next stop.  It was here that the contrast between life in Los Angeles and life in El Paso stood out most sharply.  The old joke is that El Paso, located in the High Desert,  has lots of sand but no water.

Out of many new experiences in Los Angeles, perhaps the most memorable was an evening meal at a Korean Barbecue restaurant, located in a charming section of the city known as Korea Town. Our first stop for drinks was a restaurant open to the sidewalk and featuring a fountain in the middle of the room. The fountain reminded me of the many attractive fountains found in El Paso in Mexican food restaurants.

I was charmed by this restaurant.

The restaurant where we had dinner reservations was a few steps away.  And it was a good thing we had reservations.  We had to make our way through a crowd of hungry patrons who were being informed that the wait would be two hours.

Diners outside the restaurant

The presentation of the Korean barbecue meal was nothing short of amazing.

Korean BBQ

I had to pretend I could eat with chopsticks so I wouldn't look quite so much like a tourist.  Each small dish contained a new flavor.  The meat was cooked on a grill in the center of the table by a waitress.

Once again, I could see that my husband Wayne and I were on the same thought track - "We really need to try something new once in a while!"  And El Paso has Korean restaurants, as well as those of other ethnicities.

We were only in Los Angeles for three days, but it felt like we had vacationing much longer.  New travel experiences can stimulate new ways of thinking about life.  I love my home town, but I'm ready to go back to LA soon.

There's no place like a Southwestern home

Travel is a good thing.  It broadens the mind (and sometimes the hips, depending on the food delicacies that you find).  Travel also provides novel images and thoughts you can use to make a comparison between life style at home and other life styles.

I recently spent a good bit of time in Los Angeles, California in a beautiful area near the historic Farmers Market and the upscale Grove Shopping Center.

Early morning in Los Angeles

My husband Wayne snapped this shot while sipping Cuban coffee in a Los Angeles cafe.  Very exotic to our Texan eyes!

Coffee customer with friend

Los Angeles can boast of palm trees, avocado trees, luxuriant bougainvillea vines, and gigantic, larger than life succulents.  What a feast for the eyes of a gardener!

But when I returned home to El Paso, Texas (located in the high desert), I also found treats for the senses in my own back yard.

View of  grapevines in late afternoon

The extra room we have dubbed "The Bunkhouse" is waiting for visitors to play dominoes, listen to music, or write a novel.

The Bunkhouse

The horno (oven) stands ready to bake a pizza or a recipe of camp bread.

The Horno

And when I arrived home on Good Friday, the plants told me it was springtime.  A large butterfly had found the claret cup cactus in the front yard.

Butterfly atop claret cup cactus

The honey mesquite trees had put on their bright green feathery finery.

Mesquite tree

 It was good to be home.

Eating like a Southwesterner

I'm currently in Los Angeles, California for an extended period of time.  And it hasn't taken me but a few days to start missing favorite foods from my home town of El Paso, Texas.  I can't deny that California has great food. Everything I have eaten here, in restaurants and from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market, is flavorful.  Plus, with all of the organic labels on packages, I at least have the illusion of eating a healthy diet.

So what do I dream about when I am in Los Angeles eating Organic Stone Ground Blue Corn Tortilla Chips with Sprouted Amaranth, Quinoa and Chia Seeds with my brown rice pilaf?  I dream about...

PAN DULCE  There are plenty of coffee and pastry shops in the neighborhood where I am staying. This morning I bought a slice of zucchini bread but passed on the espresso coffee.  If I were in El Paso, I would buy a sack of pan dulce from a small local bakery and take it home to eat with French press coffee while sitting on our patio in the early morning.  

Conchas (Shells)

Pan Dulce, literally sweet bread, is prepared in many different forms.  The conchas above are my favorites.  Out of pure curiosity, I looked up a recipe for conchas, although I can't imagine making them myself when they are so readily available in my home town.  But just in case anyone would like to try their hand at this yummy breakfast treat,  here is a link to a good recipe.  Recipe for Pan Dulce  

FLOUR TORTILLAS

A couple of places in El Paso still sell homemade flour tortillas.  Even the commercial tortillas sold in supermarkets are good because lots of El Pasoans buy them, so the packaged tortillas are usually fresh. 

Tortillas in El Paso look like this.

Not like this.

 A package of flour tortillas in the fridge can be transformed into any number of snacks or meals.  For instance,

-Warm a tortilla in the microwave and slather it with butter for a quick snack.

-If you have time, put a little cheese in the tortilla before you warm it.

-If you have a few more minutes, cook the tortilla in a comal (griddle) on the stove rather than the microwave.  Much improves flavor and texture.

-Wrap your morning scrambled eggs and sausage or bacon in a flour tortilla to make a breakfast burrito.

- Many leftovers can be given a new life by being warmed and eaten in a flour tortilla.   A zucchini squash dish prepared with cheese and chile is a tasty filling.

-Tortillas can even be a dessert by filling them with a sweetened fruit filling and powdered sugar.  

-And my two favorite fillings for tortillas are either refried beans and cheese or these two ingredients plus a chile relleno. I prepare lots of bean and cheese burritos, but I must admit to buying the chile relleno burritos from a local burrito shop.  

I have admired lots of beautiful, slim people in my time here in Los Angeles. The angelenos appear to eat right and exercise. 

As much as I miss southwestern cuisine, maybe I need to consider supplementing my diet with a few more California organic dishes!  I can always add some long green chile to almost anything, I guess! And I can always up the goal on my Fit Band to over 10,000 steps.  When in Rome...