AfricanKelli

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I’ve been playing in a weekend co-ed kickball league. The game is sloshball, meaning each team gets a full keg to finish during five meager innings. There are two rules to sloshball:

1. You must always have a league cup in your hand including some liquid, and

2. You cannot be a jerk. Competitive, drunk, take your version thereof. No jerks.

As a non-beer drinker, I’m there for the fun. And fun, it is. This is such a rowdy crowd of 20 and 30 somethings. Our team captain decided last week each game will now have a costume element too. This week’s theme is “hawaiian,” code for the men want the women to play in bikinis. I’m no prude, but running bases in a bikini, holding a cup of beer, isn’t at the top of my bucket list.

In lieu of being leid, I’m attending another party. In my place, I sent treats: kahlua buttercream chocolate coconut cupcakes.

So much sweeter than my flesh on public display.

~K

I’ve long said if I could start over at high school graduation I’d have gone to culinary school. Or maybe the Rhode Island School of Design for pattern making. Amazing how interests change with time; when I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. My first trip to Africa inspired my love of public health. I am so very lucky and thankful I had a chance to study both. That said, I’ve always wanted to bake professionally. A tiny dog-friendly bakery where people could come to knit, read and eat the world’s best food.

Fast forward 14 years {sidenote: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND BURRITOS! 14 years? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?}, and I’m just getting a chance to do that bakery gig. I’m training under a culinary school grad on the proper method of whipping up scones, muffins, cake, quick breads, cookies, cinnamon rolls and quiche. The very part-time weekend shift starts around 5 am, so that training part starts with me sticking my head in a bucket of espresso. Thankfully, they also serve such beverages and I get to drink as much as I fancy on the clock.

Brilliant productivity decision by management.

I’m considering this latest life experience great training and research for another book. It always comes back to the writing, which makes me realize this is yet another example of the grass always being greener. You know how you have this vision of what your life would be like professionally if you did something like, say, work at Disneyland, play a professional sport or run a bakery? Well. I am extra thankful my parents didn’t let me ditch traditional schooling. I’m a confident writer. I’m a meager pastry chef. (Plus, I’d be the Cinderella who’d run off with Snow White, Ariel and Jasmine to create our own fairy tale: the Empowered Super Heroine League — capable of saving our own asses!)

Professional baking: crossed off the bucket list.

~K

Other than my lame attempts at poetry and my very public screaming about the weather for the last week (see: Twitter) — I’ve been thinking about this new little home I’m building. Technically, I’m renting. But let me get carried away, will you?

The creation of a home is something that requires magic. How many have visited a house that felt homey? Or maybe you better remember those that didn’t? It is strange to be in a house that is so perfect it resembles a Stepford scene/Pottery Barn catalog. On the contrary, my favorite homes are interesting for the same reasons my friends are — quirks, flaws and wild senses of both humor and creativity.

Not my childhood home

The home I grew up in was immaculate. Homemade quilts on the backs of couches and tucked in tidy linen closets, rows of homemade preserves and pickled vegetables in the pantry, a riot of roses in deep planters overlooking the living room window. My mother was a domestic queen who thoroughly enjoyed keeping house, including a penny-perfect budget.

My mother, I’m sadly not. But she did provide great encouragement for her children to be artsy dreamers. The house of my dreams is similar in design to that of Frida’s childhood home in Mexico. Adobe walled bedrooms, with French doors leading to a central courtyard — where giant, old trees are wrapped in tiny white lights, and a kitchen full of pottery and a warm meal awaits any visitor. I was closer to recreating this vision living in the desert southwest. And by “closer,” I mean a long-shot.

Also, not my childhood home

Alas, my dream home isn’t a log cabin in some remote up-canyon community. (Lovely to vacation, but my social heart would die a sad, lonely death up in them there hills.)  Instead, my Colorado homestead blueprints include:

• A rustic farm table with benches for the kitchen — rumor has it my carpenter grandfather is working on this for me. Spoiled? Slightly. I hope to host many community dinners and eventually feed a family at this table. I am so very, very thankful my grandfather is creating this heirloom for my new home.
• A kitchen window where I can hang the Japanese curtain panel I purchased and tucked away years ago, knowing the day would eventually come when, indeed, I could look out over my
• kitchen garden. Have you heard of a potager? Frida and Diego had one of these too. In theory, you should be no farther than arm’s length from the kitchen to harvest herbs. For this home, this garden will be one of pots. While I timed my escape of Arizona’s heat just right, I underestimated the time it would take to get settled to plant my own garden in time. A few potted tomatoes, basil and other herbs will be just outside of that window, next to the compost bin — also handy to have near the kitchen sink. Grandpa already built the compost bin. I know. A carpenter and a quilter in the family? I’m lucky.
• My own pantry lined with Mason jars full of food I’ve grown and preserved
• A proper guest room with plenty of clean linens for the many visitors I’ve have scheduled for summer get-aways
• A stack of board games and a wine fridge; I’d rather entertain with these than a television
• A large dog bed in the living room, a large coop full of fowl in the yard, and a porch with a bench, pots of flowers and a wind chime
• Framed photos of the many I love
• A basket over-flowing with yarn, needles and projects to share with visitors
• Another basket for cards and correspondence — what a treat to have the postman come to my door!
• A chalk board where I can list my prayer for the week

This is all coming together; it really is such a dream to be in the mountains, at this phase of life. I wish more than anything I could be surrounded by those I love from Arizona. Until then, here I will be an urban homesteader — a title I will take with pride.

-k

I have a lot of jewelry. I’d guess the sum total value of all of it is less than $200, but the sentimental value of the beads I traded for on the streets of Bamenda, the earrings I brought back from the Philippines, my grandmother’s turquoise bracelet — you get the idea.

How to move these small items without causing a kinky, knotty nightmare?

It is far from glamourous, but a couple of these tool drill bit boxes from the local hardware store worked beautifully. Plus, they stack nicely and can slide under a bed if necessary.

This move is feeding the very type A, over-organized happy side of me. If I was a superhero, my scream for forward march would not be “Onward Ho!,” but “To the Container Store!”

~K

I hosted a couple friends and their owners last night for dinner on the patio. We enjoyed a new recipe — cochinita tacos — from a recipe I got out of a waiter at Gallo Blanco. (Pork shoulder, can of Coke, can of Negro Modelo, onion, garlic, any other veggies you want — Dutch oven for 3 hours at 300.) I also did my best impression of a radish and honey appetizer I had at FNB the other day that was a delightful mix of flavors. And greens from the farmer’s market.

There is something rather awesome about coming home to a pot of wonder bubbling on the stove (I prepped, Matt put it in the oven), a fridge full of locally grown vegetables and a patio begging for some attention. Throw in a handful of people I consider family, a sky full of stars and two of the sweetest dogs on earth at our feet? Simply perfect.

I’m making the same pot of pork for Adam’s birthday tomorrow. I’ll modify the recipe with a can of diced pineapple too. Shredded on tortillas with a bit of avocado? Divine.

~K