Journeys blog – Page 15

2014/05/022014/08/24

Nothing could be fainá …

Originating in Genoa, farinata is a thin, nutty, peppery flatbread made with garbanzo bean (chickpea) flour. The French call it socca and in Tuscany it’s called cecina. In Uruguay and Argentina, it’s called fainá. It’s a delicious appetizer when seasoned with fresh rosemary, pepper, and sea salt, or topped with cheese and other tasty tidbits. But in Uruguay and in Argentina fainá is often paired with pizza and called horseback pizza, or pizza a caballo in Spanish. And nothing could be fainá.

Since Friday nights are home-made pizza night in our home (my husband makes a wicked crust), I’ve started making fainá to plop on top of slices of pizza.

You can find garbanzo bean flour (gluten free) at many natural food stores. In Uruguay, you can buy the mix in a package in the local supermarket. If you don’t have the mix, here’s a quick and easy recipe.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, or if in Uruguay set it on the hottest setting.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups garbanzo bean flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
7 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 cups water

Preparation:

In a medium bowl, mix the garbanzo bean flour together with salt, 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, sea salt, the Parmesan cheese, and ground black pepper.
Add 1 1/2 cups of water and stir until the mixture is well blended. Set batter aside for about a half hour, to let the garbanzo flour absorb the water.
When the oven’s hot, place the remaining 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a 12 inch pizza pan. Put the pan in the oven until it’s sizzling hot.
Gradually add the remaining water to the batter mixture and whisk until it’s thin enough to pour. Remove the hot pizza pan from oven, and immediately pour the batter into the pan.
Place the pan back in the oven and bake until the fainá is golden and crispy (about 10-15 minutes).
Cut into pieces and serve. Delicious hot or cold. Plopped on top of pizza, or solo.

Buen provecho!

2014/04/252014/04/25

Michael

Michael is one of the main characters in my memoir because he greatly influenced my life. I adored Michael. My first close gay friend, he was just stepping out of the closet within the confines of friends when we met in Frankfurt, Germany in 1976. He became my solace at a low tide in my life and introduced me to the vibrant world of opera and theatre. He had an obsession with theater and anything presented live on stage. He had performed in a few shows in small theaters and his dream was to finish a play he had started writing years before and see it published one day.

“Love Wagner’s. Great action and food.” Michael smiled, eyeing a young man across the room. “Everyone thinks I’m a movie star.”

“You’re the spitting image of a young Tony Randall,” I told him.

“And as fastidious and fussy, I trust.”

”You’re not fussy. Just choosy,” I assured him.

Michael of course then educated me on the origin of the phrase ‘spitting image’ and we both had a good chuckle. I fondly called him ‘Mister Walking Encyclopedia’ because he knew obscure facts and figures on any subject conceivable. Michael always knew the real scoop. He loved fancy words and loved to use them.

“Gaydar,” he explained eyeing an attractive waiter, “is how I know if someone’s straight or bent.”

I chuckled. “Did you just invent that word?”

“Probably,” he replied.

He invited me to a play I hadn’t seen before at the English Theatre. “It’s a trivial comedy for serious people by Oscar Wilde. The second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet.“

“I’ve seen Hamlet performed,” I said.

“This one’s a farce,” Michael said smiling, “The Importance of Being Earnest, first performed on Valentine’s Day in1895. It’s nonsense that makes sense, if you get beyond the words.”

“Sounds like a must see,” I said, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into.

I found the play a bit silly, but great fun. When the final curtain closed, we stood and wildly applauded again and again.

“I just love Wilde’s British dandyisms.” Michael chortled.

“Some wild expressions,” I agreed.

“Classic Wilde,” Michael continued, “They speak volumes about the hypocrisies of society. Then and now. Reprobates always have more fun.”

I laughed.

As we discussed the play’s “real” meaning over wine later that evening, Michael educated me on the dark history of the play and the eventual exile of Oscar Wilde.

“Ernest was Wilde’s alter-ego,” Michael informed me. “Dishonesty and pretense about morals damage our souls.”

“Wilde was criticizing Victorian society,” I said.

Michael smiled and took another sip of wine. “His speaking out landed him in prison.”

“Why?”

“Indecency. Romping with a royal. Of the same sex.”

“Wow!” I said, letting it sink in. “His writing is harsh satire.”

“And still rings true today,” Michael said.

Michael taught me many different things—some shocking, some fun, some frivolous, some serious, but all inspirational. All encouraging. He taught me about striving and thriving, and being different, and accepting differences in others.

Years later when I searched for the word “gaydar” in a dictionary, I realized that Michael may well have invented the word since the first known use, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, was in 1982.

When the final curtain closed on Michael’s life in 1986, he left a trail of love, light, and divine information. Too bad he didn’t live long enough to witness the gay civil rights happening today. But knowing Michael, he’s aware and smiling.

2014/04/182014/04/18

The Lunacy of War

Photo essay of abandoned Cyprus buffer zone

I found myself staring at the photo essay above, by Reuters photographer Neil Hall, for a long spell. The disturbing images sent me back in time, as I sorted through my personal memories of the island of Cyprus during the early 70s.

On 15 July 1974, I was at the airport in Nicosia waving my husband (at the time) goodbye and watching him disappear through the sliding glass doors of the Nicosia International Airport. Normally, I would have parked the car, gone inside, and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the modern and comfortable lounge—a showcase of 70s furniture and fixtures. But feeling anxious about the mounting tension between the Greeks and Turks, and after seeing armed soldiers standing along the road leading to the airport, I decided to drive home to Kyrenia as soon as possible. My husband tried to assure me by saying it was probably a routine military exercise and then reminded me that the car brakes needed fixing on my way home.

Steering onto the exit road, I noticed more soldiers gathered. Even more than we had seen on our way to the airport. Scores stood alongside the road and in empty fields. I turned the radio on to BBC. Just static. Same static on other radio stations. I switched it off. Nearing the roundabout, I noticed a tank approaching from the direction of the Greek Army Camp. I pushed down on the gas pedal and sped around the traffic circle and onto the frontage road. A sudden burst of rapid gunfire behind sent shivers down my spine. I was caught in the middle of a killing spree—a coup to topple the nation’s first elected President, Archbishop Makarios III.

My memoir, The Lullaby Illusion—A Journey of Awakening, tells my personal story of the coup and the Turkish invasion five days later. For years following the war, I marveled, bewildered, at how a peaceful place (seemingly paradise) could disappear and become a living hell in the space of a few days.

After almost forty years of time standing still, the buffer zone still contains crumbling relics covered with dust and cobwebs, abandoned houses and cars, and the rusted remains of a gutted airport—a haunting reminder of the lunacy of war.

2014/04/07

Throne Thinker

While sitting on my throne yesterday, I did what every human does when he or she sits down on a toilet seat and gets comfortable. One sits and thinks, or one sits and plops. I found myself getting so comfortable, I started thinking about what makes something comfortable or not.

I’m certain these thoughts were a result of a conversation I had had with my husband a few days ago when he informed me that his search for the perfect toilet seat was over. “I have found the best one for me,” he said. He went on to explain that for years he thought the round wooden ones were best because of their solidness and warmth. But over the years the plastic ones had improved in density and the elongated, contour shape was more comfortable.

As I sat on my wooden toilet seat in our upstairs bathroom, my mind drifted to toilets I’d seen in my travels. While touring the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey years ago. I viewed the sultan’s squat toilet—a hole in the ground surrounded by a fine marble floor and walls. One afternoon, at a fancy five star restaurant in the hills near Istanbul, I was directed up a stone path that lead to the women’s latrine. It was immaculately clean, with shiny marble floors, beautiful inlaid mosaic tiled walls, and a porcelain sink sitting atop a carved olive wood stand. I marveled at the elegance. I pushed open the door to the private toilet. Whoa! No commode in sight, just a shiny ceramic square shaped squat box with a pair of footpads on either side of the drain. So I scooped up my long dress, straddled the hole, and did my biz. No toilet paper in sight, but a clay jug of water was positioned close by for cleaning up. Not very comfortable.

Days later, while wandering through the ancient city of Ephesus, one of the largest and most important in the Greco-Roman world, I was amazed to see paved roads, terraced houses for the wealthy with luxurious bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and a triclinium room for dining and reclining. The Ephesians had advanced public works with impressive plumbing. The municipal toilets, located in the big outdoors, were long marble benches with horseshoe shaped holes. Below the bench was a water channel for carrying away wastes. I sat on one of the horseshoe shaped seats for a photo op, but of course didn’t use it. The seat itself felt quite comfortable.

My mind skipped ahead to other toilets I’d encountered along life’s way. From holes in the ground, to buckets, to outhouses, to a chair with a hole in the seat and a pot underneath. All worked as collectors of waste and were absolutely necessary when I needed to go. Some however more comfortable than others.

There was a really nice bathroom in our hotel room in Cairns, Australia, when we visited there in 1998. A very comfortable toilet seat … until the chambermaid informed me that in Australia one has to be extra careful when using the toilet because spiders often hide under the seat. Not just any ole’ spiders, but the small, deadly ones. From then on, I inspected every toilet seat I encountered in Australia.

My most uncomfortable toilet seat ever was in London. While visiting a writer friend in a marvelous old Victorian mansion (resembling the Munster Mansion), I sat for hours in his wife’s private suite. A songwriter and poetess, she was entertaining. Needing a potty break, I offered to go downstairs and use the guest bathroom but the wife insisted I use hers. I excused myself and entered her bathroom. Seeing the fur-lined toilet seat, I thought, dramatic like her. Sitting down, I gasped in horror and immediately jumped up. A heated toilet seat? Imagine the creepy crawlies that live in that warm fur. I finished my business with a quick squat.

“The Thinker” (Le Penseur) by the French artist Auguste Rodin is a sculpture of a nude male figure sitting on a stone pedestal philosophizing. Perhaps it was his most comfortable seat.

2014/04/05

Race against time …

Cyprus divided, the red showing the Turkish zone. — The country divided, the red showing the Turkish zone.

Evacuated from Cyprus following the war in 1974, I remember looking out the window of the helicopter and gasping at the sight of scattered, charred remains of a place I had known and loved. I wept. My heart ached.

For years following the war, I marveled, bewildered, at how a tranquil place—which seemed like paradise—could simply go away. Unravel, disintegrate, and become a living hell in the space of a few days.

The Lullaby Illusion, my memoir, tells my struggle to find answers, to fit together pieces of a life shattered by the coup in Cyprus on 15 July 1974, followed five days later by the Turkish invasion on 20 July 1974. Thousands of lives were drastically changed forever by the atrocities, including foreigners who happened to live there. Of which I was one.

Knowing today, almost forty years later, that more than 2,000 of the country’s one million population are still missing I mourn and am reminded that in war there are no winners—only survivors.

Race against time

2014/03/25

No Bagels?

I first arrived in Israel in 1968, following the ’67 Six-Day War, to learn Hebrew and study Jewish History at an ulpan on the border of the Negev and Judean Deserts, in the small settlement village of Arad (located a few kilometers west of the Dead Sea and 45 km east of Beersheba). I appreciated all the new things I was learning and the interesting foods I was being introduced to, but was shocked to learn that bagels didn’t exist in Israel. What? No bagels? How can I live and study here? How can Jews live without bagels? Being from LA, I often brunched at Canter’s Deli, the famous Jewish-style delicatessen in Fairfax. When it came to authentic bagels, I was spoiled.

The closest thing to a bagel, in Israel in those days, was a warm pretzel-looking object being sold by a street vendor … and sold only in the afternoon. I wanted a real NY bagel for breakfast with cream cheese, lox, sliced onion, and a slice of juicy tomato. So began my search for the perfect bagel recipe. I needed a chewy, dense mouth feel experience, and the local bread didn’t cut it.

A friend agreed to send a recipe by mail; one she’d found in the NYT’s food section. A recipe for “Authentic, classic, New-York style” bagels—which required kneading, rising, resting, forming, rolling, resting again, boiling, turning, and then baking. Since my small apartment didn’t come with an oven, I had to do the complex routine of making bagels on the top of a two-burner stove. It took several shopping trips to Beersheba to find all the ingredients, but I eventually did. Then I spent one entire day making and baking bagels. They were delicious—a gourmet edible masterpiece.

OMG, I thought later, no wonder Israelis don’t DO bagels. They’re too busy rebuilding their country. I decided to just get used to those warm pretzel-looking things. Instead of making bagels every week I helped plant trees in and around Arad.

When I visited Arad, many years later, the trees were standing tall and the warm pretzel-looking object tasted yummy. More bagel like than I remembered.

2014/03/12

Flame-roasted Eggplant חָצִיל (hat-ze-leem) Dip

I had never tasted, and was totally unaware of, eggplant (one of the world’s healthiest fruits, well technically it’s a large berry), until I landed in the Middle East to live there in the late 60s. A few days after my arrival in Arad, Israel (a small village in the Negev Desert) a neighbor offered me a slice of warm pita bread and an Israeli dip made with roasted eggplant, tahini, and yogurt. “Yum,” I said, after my first bite, and reached out to sample it again, and again. I was hooked and asked for any and all eggplant recipes.

Years later while visiting the States, I went shopping for this royal purple, garden egg fruit. Not seeing it on display in the produce section, I asked for assistance. Forgetting the word for it in English, I asked for it using the Hebrew word —חָצִיל (hat-ze-leem). The produce man looked puzzled and asked me to describe it. I told him it was a fruit, eaten as a vegetable, sometimes substituted for meat, kind of egg shaped, with a heavenly purple, shiny skin. I then told him what it was called in French (aubergine), and in Spanish (berenjena). “Oh,” he said. “Eggplant!” and pointed to a display in a far corner of the produce section.

To this day, I still say חָצִיל (hat-ze-leem) in honor of my discovery of this amazing and delicious food—a must have in every Israeli or Middle Eastern meal. Back in the day, before ovens became a kitchen mainstay, many foods were cooked over an open flame. Gourmet chefs probably still stick a fork in the top end and slowly turn it until the skin is properly charred to give it a delicate smokey flavor. I find it equally delicious when roasted and charred in an oven. Over the years I have experimented with various eggplant recipes. Here’s one of my favorite.

Eggplant with Feta and Pine Nut Dip
Wash and dry two medium sized eggplants. Pierce both sides with a fork to vent, then place them on a lightly oiled (olive oil) baking sheet and broil or bake for 30-45 minutes (turning them once) until they are charred and soft to the touch.

Cool slightly and peel, carefully removing every bit of the scorched skin, Discard the charred skin. Cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the pulpy flesh and place in a bowl.

Crumble a big chunk (about 200 grams, 7 oz) of feta cheese into the bowl.
Add 1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup yogurt
1 T dried oregano leaves
3 chopped spring onions
1/2 cup pine nuts
… and anything else your heart desires or deserves. Stir to mix.

Serve with warm slices of pita bread.
תהנו! Enjoy!

2014/03/09

Elephant Alarm Call

Human-specific elephant alarm call?

Interesting to me because a dream of a talking, singing elephant launched the idea for my first children’s book. It happened in Germany at a time when I was quite ill with pneumonia. I was sick for some time, spent weeks in bed. Lots of time to dream and think about life. One night an elephant appeared in a dream. Standing at the foot of my bed, he swung his long trunk and began singing a song to me. It was a song about learning from the good and bad in life. Looking back I feel the elephant was sounding an alarm for me to wake-up and become more spiritually aware. The dream and the elephant’s inspirational song moved me a giant-step forward in life.

2014/03/062014/03/06

Why Dream?

In traditional cultures, people tend to believe dreams reveal hidden truths about themselves and the world around them: when the body sleeps, the soul is free to wander the universe and collect information. I like that idea.

Scientists, searching for ways to explain and define dreams report that dreaming is just another way of thinking, on a different level. Thinking in the sleep state. Something I’ve known since childhood because my dreams always seem so real and full of meaning. Hours after dreaming, I can recall detailed images, voices, and symbols. Typically, I don’t recognize the meaning of the dream immediately, but I sense if it contains something significant. It often seems like a secret message sent to me in code from another dimension. A code only I can decipher through careful observation, and a willingness to welcome and embrace the hidden truth of the dream.

As a child, I sometimes felt like Cinderella waking up in the middle of a dream and finding myself in an exciting, glamorous, improbable life. And then I would wonder, does one use a dream to rehearse life, or live to rehearse a dream? Or, am I perhaps awakening to a life I dreamed of having that actually came true?

As a kid, one of my greatest role models was my great-aunt Gladys. A retired school teacher, she married a banker and they traveled the world. Once a teacher, always a teacher—she sent picture postcards to her family and friends. For me, it was so exciting to receive a postcard from destinations far away—places I dreamed of visiting one day. I used to sleep with those postcards on my heart and imagine they were magic carpets that could fly me to the exotic place shown on the postcard photo.

Susan Joyce in 1990 with a cutout photo of her inspirational Aunt Gladys riding a camel — In 1990 at a booksellers’ convention, with a cutout photo of my inspirational Aunt Gladys riding a camel

Guess what? Years later, I have visited most of the places Aunt Gladys traveled to and even wrote a children’s book to honor her, and her positive influence in my life. Her postcards encouraged me to explore the great big wonderful world. I believe that my far fetched dreams over the years are the reason I live a most extraordinary and exciting life.

Do you pay attention to your dreams? Do you keep a dream journal? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

2014/02/232014/03/05

Shorthand Slang

My mom was an expert at writing shorthand. Before marrying my father, she worked as a clerk of court—took letters from her boss and recorded testimonies of court witnesses in the abbreviated symbolic method. After marriage, she no longer worked outside the home. She was too busy raising eight children. But she practiced her shorthand often by recording my father’s sermons (he was a preacher) in the brief form. I sat in awe watching her swiftly scribble symbols for words.

Word abbreviations and acronyms are not a modern invention. In ancient times, to reduce the time-consuming workload of the scribe, they were used to engrave coins, etch Greek vases, and mark religious icons. The Jesus Fish or Ichthys (Greek word for fish, shown above) was a secret symbol of early Christianity.

Thanks to the spread of literacy in our modern world, spoken and written acronyms based on slang sayings have become the popular form of shorthand.

I remember witnessing the birth of the acronym “TGIF!” The phrase “Thank God It’s Friday” was first introduced in my corporate days in LA, in the mid 60s, and quickly became the abbreviated version. The first “TGI Fridays” restaurant opened in New York City in December of 1965 and now boasts a worldwide chain of popular restaurants where workers meet to celebrate the end of the workweek. Great name!

And now with the advent of texting, another wave of bizarre jargon is changing our spoken English language into a more abbreviated form. People from CA now write and say, “COO” for cool. “WUT” means “what” for people in a hurry, who can’t find the “h” and “a” keys fast enough. OMG expresses alarm. Four becomes 4. Too becomes 2. “IDK” should be used even more frequently because most people really don’t know.

Young people wanting to confuse parents have created their own form of language using a combination of shortened words with creative spelling and punctuation. Reads like babble to me, but it’s fun to try and decipher the meanings, while trying to learn this new lingo.

DWBH means “Don’t worry, be happy.” EOW means “End Of Watch.” LHM is “Lord Have Mercy” or “Lord Help Me.” YCALWB means “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby.” And I have. I’m learning a new language. WDUT? TX for listening.