in the mood(o) for nudo

what's in the box?

for my birthday this year, rich adopted me an olive tree in italy from nudo, from which we have all benefitted. we've received mandarin, garlic, plain and (drool) lemon-infused olive oils from them so far, but we hadn't tried the chilli flavored one yet. nudo asked, via its facebook page, for people to describe their favorite meals using nudo--ours was rich's homemade bread, lemon-infused oil and a bottle of pinot grigio--and then asked for a picture...which i sent...

...yummy...

...and they rewarded me with a nudo chilli lover's box!

chilli oil, chillies, pasta, and organic chilli salsa from italy

i can't wait to try these--superchillified dinners are a-comin'

give them a click and check them out--you won't regret it. thank you so much, nudo!

four different types of rodent...

...are clearly out to get us. it's getting cold in the upper midwest and the critters are trying to get somewhere safe and warm for the winter. unfortunately, the little fuckers think they should be sharing OUR space, which does not suit. chipmunks (outside, trying to get in the basement), squirrels (outside, trying to get in the garage), raccoons (outside, trying to get in the garage/attic--i don't even know if a raccoon is a rodent or not, but it's a nasty fucker at the very least so i'm classifying it as one) and field mice (outside and, sadly, already in the basement somehow) are all clamoring to invade our house. the mice have even invaded the cars as well, fuckers. i will say i'm in love with these mouse traps, which have a very satisfying little red flag that goes up when you catch one, kinda like the flag on the mailbox.

game on, bitches!

blog action day: food

today is blog action day, a day in which hundreds of bloggers around the world all write about a common theme: this year, it is food.

where i live, right smack in the middle of america, there is definitely no shortage of food. if you live in the united states, a respectable percentage of what you are eating most likely began its life within a 500 mile radius of me. we are beyond fortunate to have access to the abundance of food available to us 24/7, but such is not the case with much of the world's population. mercifully, famine is not my experience.

some of my fondest memories, be they of place, people, experiences or food, involve meals spent with others. in all cases something significant was happening: an engagement, a new adventure, a death, a birth. these are my top ten most treasured food memories:

10. baking cuban bread with gammy in her kitchen on west lane
9. drinking gallons of vanilla soy milk for gus...and later for sophie...because both of my babies were lactose sensitive
8. biting into a calville's blanc d'hiver apple from wilson's orchard and realizing i'd never truly tasted an apple until that moment
7. gingerbread every thanksgiving and every christmas at the houston club
6. lobster bisque at tony's on one of my first dates with rich
5. trying a bowl of duran's red chile for the first time and learning that food could indeed be "velvety"
4. sitting in a circle with people i didn't know (and one that i did), eating indescribably delicious, yet unidentifiable, food in a modified tent rock in central turkey a few hours after my first panic attack
3. drinking veuve cliquot for the first time at gammy's funeral, and then many times later with my friend julia
2. eating fettucine en carrozza at costanza in rome first with a group of new and to-be-lifelong friends, then with a friend from school (who died shortly thereafter), then with rich, and then again with rich, and then again with rich for our 10-year anniversary
1. running around the ile st. louis after rich asked me to marry him, eating a dinner of french onion soup at monte cristo

what are your favorite food memories?

treehouse v. 2.0

little miss thing up in the trees

YET AGAIN, rich proves he is the coolest dad, ever. a few years ago, rich built gus and sophie a treehouse in the backyard of our house in los ranchos...and now he's looking to do it again. it is still in the construction phase, but he thinks it will be finished, with a roof and all, by the time the first snow falls. there were some design challenges with this tree--it is on a slope, it doesn't have the abundance of low branches that the other one had, it is oddly bifurcated--so it lists a wee bit in one direction. it's still mighty cool--check it out!

sophie up high, during the early construction phase

sophie, gus, and his friend, victor

see that tiny little white dot in the center of this image? that's rich, as seen from the house, working his carpentry magic

sophie going up into the treehouse--she's about the only one who can fit up there (rich has a tendency to make those entrances a bit snug)

second phase complete--only the railings and the roof remain to be done!

sometimes these things write themselves, again

these are the top 35 keywords, over the past month, that people have used to end up at cyberallens.com. only one of them actually pertains to the site. all i can gather from this is that a bunch of people want to dress up like fay wray for halloween and that there are far too many people searching for unicorn tattoos. and what the fuck do crystals have to do with the porta portese? *sigh.*

11 Visits 4.35% crystals porta portese
9 Visits 3.56% old american flag
8 Visits 3.16% fay wray costume
6 Visits 2.37% gay unicorn dolphin rainbow tattoo
5 Visits 1.98% 1930 tilt a whirl
5 Visits 1.98% allen family bermuda triangle
4 Visits 1.58% ann darrow costume
4 Visits 1.58% bermuda triangle stories
4 Visits 1.58% CIRCUS TRAILER
4 Visits 1.58% el kookooee
4 Visits 1.58% forbidden gardens katy texas
4 Visits 1.58% moriondo e gariglio
4 Visits 1.58% naked roma children
3 Visits 1.19% diapered kids
3 Visits 1.19% fay wray king kong costume
3 Visits 1.19% halloween postcards
3 Visits 1.19% jock strap
3 Visits 1.19% meals on wheels interior
3 Visits 1.19% neo nazi tattoos
3 Visits 1.19% panda stupid
3 Visits 1.19% real men like unicorns pee
3 Visits 1.19% unicorn peeing
2 Visits 0.79% bermuda island tattoo
2 Visits 0.79% fontana delle anfore
2 Visits 0.79% gay triangle tattoos
2 Visits 0.79% gay unicorn nazi tattoo
2 Visits 0.79% jock support
2 Visits 0.79% king kong anne darrow
2 Visits 0.79% nazi unicorn tattoo
2 Visits 0.79% real men like unicorns
2 Visits 0.79% unicorn cupcake peeing rainbow tattoo
2 Visits 0.79% unicorn guy
2 Visits 0.79% unicorn pee
2 Visits 0.79% unicorn peeing a rainbow
2 Visits 0.79% unicorns humping
2 Visits 0.79% unicorns pee rainbows

working in the garden

rome, 2011. i shot this lovely little flowering quince at the orto botanico in february.

rich and i have been working like mad in the ravine and the garden, trying to get all our projects done before the snows start to fall. i've concentrated on keeping the grass alive and the weeds out of the perennials; he's had a much more physical challenge: building a treehouse. he built a beautiful one in new mexico and he's wanted to build one here but we didn't have the right trees for it. since our land purchases, now we do. pictures to come when he's ready to show it off.