1,000 Miles

JWise Thoughts

Noon Sky in Phoenix

Measured in distance, I’ve been self-isolating for 1,000 miles. Over 2 million steps in 143 days and maybe an equal number of sheets of toilet paper; I don’t keep track of that last statistic, so that’s a shot in the dark. It’s midday and inching ever closer to 110 degrees, which is a relief as some days ago, we pressed into 118 blaring degrees of Fahrenheit or 48 Celsius. Today, I was outside to not only ensure I reach that one-thousand-mile mark today but it’s also because I’m doing the Prolon modified fast again. There’s something about a highly calorie-restricted diet that makes me restless when I’m not napping, and I’ve got to get out and walk. With my river hat on acting as shade and my ever-lengthening curly hair protecting my neck, I venture out.

I just looked at the walking route between Madrid, Spain, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which comes to 1,043 miles. That path would take me through Antwerp and Brussels before hitting the French border. Once in France, I’d pass through Saint-Quentin on my way to Paris, the next 337 miles would take in a good stretch of the Loire river valley. Where Google says I should leave the river and head toward Château de Chambord, which would certainly be dandy to visit, I think I’d rather deviate to Tours to take in the 850-year-old cathedral. South, my journey would bring me to Poitiers, where I could walk in the footsteps of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I don’t so much care about Eleanor, but the name Aquitaine has always beguiled me; so to say I’ve been to Aquitaine would be a feather in my chapeau. This detour is paying off as not only will we pass through Cognac, but Bordeaux is on the path to the Spanish border. Again, Google gets it wrong keeping the trail inland when right there at Bayonne; it’s only 5 miles to Biarritz, and who wouldn’t want to hang out there for a couple of days?

Donostia-San Sebastian on the Spanish coast is just 28 miles south of the mini-vacation on this long walk. I swear this is the last detour as we are now approaching 1,200 miles as we deviate over to Bilbao. But this will be great as the walk now leads through Burgos, and if I’m presented with the opportunity to walk in Clint Eastwood’s shoes in Burgos, where the iconic cemetery showdown scene was filmed for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I’m going. From here, it’s only 160 miles to Madrid. I thought about heading home from Madrid, but if we fly over to Naples, Italy, it’ll only be 872 miles of walking to hit up Frankfurt and visit with family. All told this adventure would be approximately 2,000 miles of walking, and at the rate of progress regarding this plague, I’ll have walked those 2,000 miles in circles around our block while visiting our apartment every single one of those days.

To think how much time we give up to work until the time we may no longer have the vigor to go on 1,000-mile walks is crazy. I hope that realizing this, Caroline and I will one day take the six months of walking a mere 5.5 miles or 8.9 kilometers a day to trek on some amazing journey such as I described above or maybe this one from Vienna, Austria, to Oslo, Norway, that comes in at only 1,012 miles that I’m looking at. Oh, then I see that Brighton, UK, to Inverness in Scotland, is 586 miles, but that would mostly be in the rain, so maybe not that one.

Laugenbrezel

JWise Photo of the Day

Laugenbrezel aka German Soft Pretzel

Caroline donned her baking hat again and this time made us some soft German pretzels known as Laugenbrezel. Her flour of choice was spelt chosen from the long list of flours we now have on hand. Which flours you ask? Rye meal, organic bread, artisan, pumpernickel, dark rye, white spelt, whole grain spelt, whole wheat, almond, paleo, coconut, and we also have rye chops though they don’t count as flour. These pretzels turned out so good that she floated the idea of making donuts. Personally, I think this is a horrible idea as I’d likely eat some kind of majority of them before they ever cooled to much below 175 degrees each. I can’t speak with authority what makes these particular pretzels soft German ones but Caroline did boil them in water with a good amount of baking soda, so maybe that’s it? [I used a German recipe, so that would be another reason – Caroline] Extra thanks to the folks at Jacobsen Salt Company out at Netarts Bay, Oregon for the salt that dusts our pretzels.

Monsoon Approaching

JWise Photo of the Day

Monsoon with double rainbow in Phoenix, Arizona

The first sign of the approaching monsoon was distant thunder. Looking out our door to the north there wasn’t a hint of a storm but look south and the sky carried a heavy foreboding. It only took minutes for the dark clouds to open up and the falling rain to capture the light of the sun with this double rainbow, welcoming back the rains of summer. Another moment passed and the winds kicked up, whipping the trees about and forcing us to retreat from our perch due to the weaponized raindrops. With only a week before August starts and nary a cloud in the weather forecast, it was feeling like our notorious monsoon season was going to pass us by. The thunder was silenced prior to the rain so not a bolt of lightning was seen but we’ll keep up our hopes that a full sensorial pummeling is still on its way.

Update:

Monsoon Sunset in Phoenix, Arizona

We went out for a walk shortly before the sun finished setting and were rewarded with spectacular skies to the west and these strangely illuminated clouds to the east. Turning a corner on the last leg of our walk we could see lightning off in the distance to the south. In the past two hours the temperature has dropped from 103 to a comfy though balmy 81 degrees.

Not Gonna Spill ‘Ma Beans

JWise Food

Rancho Gordo Beans

Oh my god, I had a wickedly brilliant idea: Seeing we can’t travel and I can’t share photos and blog posts detailing our incredible travels I’m going to switch things up a bit. Coming soon, I’m going to start writing about our experiences with BEANS! It won’t always be about beans but the first series will. This is really about starting a new category on my blog that will have a focus on food.

By the end of the week, Caroline and I should have a total of 31 35 36 varieties of beans on hand and while I can’t promise a blog entry a day for an entire month, I am committing to a thorough overview including photos of dry, cooking, and finished beans as we travel through the largest selection of beans we’ve ever collected. With hearts racing, I think I can hear you begging to be let in on just where I’ll be taking you; well, get ready as the list is long and magnificent.

From the photo you can see that I’m including; Yellow Eye, Marcella, Flageolet, Cassoulet, Moro, and Ayocote Blanco. We also already have the following on hand; Corona, Black Eyed, Kidney, Garbanzo, Peruano, White Tepary, Mung, Black, White, Broad, Lady Cream, and Lima del Papa. On the way to us as I just ordered these today; Mayflower, Horticulture, Spanish Tolosana, Marrow, Christmas Lima, Feijao, Lupini, Scarlet Runner, Yellow Indian Woman, Butterbean, Pigeon Pea, Turkey Craw, and Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg.

When you start looking for bean recipes you find little coming from China and Japan although adzuki or small red beans are common in desserts, while mung beans are used as bean sprouts and of course the soybean is ubiquitous. So I’m training my searches on places like Appalachia, Spain, Portugal, Africa, India to Pakistan, and of course South America.

For some of the recipes under consideration, it’s impossible to get the ingredients in Arizona, forcing me to order a number of items from D’Artagnan in New Jersey who specialize in gourmet meats of all kinds. Making something like a French cassoulet with saucisses de Toulouse (garlic sausage), duck confit, ventrèche (French pancetta), prosciutto, duck fat, or an African marrow bean dish that asks for merguez sausage (lamb) might leave you in the cold depending on where you live. I have a Spanish recipe lined up for the Tolosana beans that ask for Tocino which is Spanish bacon, that seems easy enough to make at home along with morcilla or blood sausage. Lucky us that a local German sausage company carries such a product but I’m afraid it might not be similar enough to the Spanish version that features a ton of paprika, oregano, and onion. There is an online shop called La Tienda that carries morcilla but they are currently sold out.

Food takes us places and if we were traveling to any of these locations from where I’ll be gathering recipes, we would certainly exercise our enthusiasm to sample the flavors that are not easy to find in the United States, aside from places like San Francisco, New York City and maybe a couple of others such as Los Angeles and Chicago.

Regarding this category that will become available on the side column under “View By Topic,” I’ll be posting recipes such as the sprouted dehydrated granola I shared some days ago or the ginger preparation for a Burmese salad I posted at the beginning of the month in addition to other recipes that languish on paper and various notes strewn about. Recently I made my first preparation of the Korean dish known as sundubu-jjigae or tofu soup, I didn’t capture anything about it as I wasn’t sure how Caroline and I would enjoy it, but it was so terrific we went out afterward to collect more ingredients to make sundubu part of our repertoire of dishes. Over the years we’ve experimented in making panipuri from India, Indo-Chinese dishes, African food, Peruvian pumpkin recipes, Mexican-inspired casseroles, not to forget mentioning all the recipes that have been handed down from German and Croatian relatives.

Update 1: I found a recipe from the Bolivian Andes based on peeled fava beans and so I ordered just that at Purcell Mountain Farms where they are listed as “Haba” beans.

Update 2: While looking for recipes this afternoon I came across some interesting stuff and found myself adding to my order which hadn’t shipped yet and Purcell Mountain Farms was able to add to. They are Cranberry, Cannellini, and Mortgage Lifter.

Update 3: No, I’m not ordering more beans yet but I did find this list of 14,000 bean varieties that the French recognize: https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/list-of-french-bean-varieties/

Update 4: Okay so I just had to order these Aloyin beans aka Honey beans used in a Nigerian bean porridge. Sadly, I also have to order rainforest destroying palm oil. Maybe I can absolve my guilt knowing I’m not flying or driving anywhere so my footprint of destruction is relatively small right now….says the man sitting in an air-conditioned apartment in Arizona.

Outside

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts

Cactus flower in the early morning Phoenix, Arizona

Most of our time is spent inside as the outside is growing progressively hotter. Then, all of sudden, just as we accommodate ourselves to the encroaching desert heat, it cools off. From October through mid-May, we can take multiple walks over the course of the day. For me, this amounts to between 5 and 7 one-mile-long strolls around the neighborhood where I find little treasures such as a cactus that’s been in bloom for weeks like this one above. By January, my first and last walks are in the dark, and sometimes even two of my miles in the evening are during the night. Here in June, it becomes increasingly more difficult to avoid the sun and so a shift in routine is required.

Saguaro Cactus in Phoenix, Arizona

We wake between 4:45 and 5:00 in the morning and try to get out on a 3-mile walk as soon as possible so we can beat the sun before it peaks over the horizon. These rare days when the morning temp is in the low 70s have been great, but when it’s over 80 or worse, 90 with the sun glaring down on us, our walks become a struggle. Even though it might be tough, we still try to hoof out a few miles, knowing that between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., it’s near impossible to endure the heat and blistering sun of the mid-day.

Even though it might be seriously uncomfortable, I still find myself taking time to stare at a cactus, watch the bees pollinating its blossoms, or a woodpecker perched high above on one of its arms, contemplating its next move. I don’t know that I ever considered the benefit of the saguaro’s arms in casting shadows or how the ribs of this cactus also create shade that probably helps cool this giant of the desert. Even its needles make sense when, on a windy afternoon, I listen to the thrush of air whipping around the saguaro, and the hissing sound from thousands of needles makes me wonder if they contribute to turbulence over the surface of the cactus and thus help keep it cooler?

Come to think about the gnarled and deep bark on the mesquite trees, how much shade and surface evaporation area does it allow so this nearly black tree doesn’t boil in the noon-day sun? Along the path of our walks, we pass many ants and lizards, but it is with curiosity we look at the ants moving slow as molasses when the temperature is barely 70 degrees while at 100, they move with purpose and bolt over the frying pan of earth. While there was still a chill in the air, the birds would sing all day; now, as we are effectively already in summer, the birds take refuge, and their song remains quiet while shadows are at their smallest.

Sunset in Phoenix, Arizona

Still, we must go outside as there’s too much to miss, such as a frequency of spectacular sunsets that we’ve not seen anywhere else, though the Oregon Coast, when conditions are right, can astonish the most jaded sunset watcher. Arizona is approaching monsoon season, and while the last years feel like they’ve been dry, the buildup of clouds can lay a foundation for light shows that force many a person from their car to try and grab a shot to send to skeptical friends and family who live in sunset deprived locations. Then again, maybe the sunsets are beautiful everywhere but people forget that they really do need to get outside.

Gingery Gingerness

JWise Food, Photo of the Day

Ginger

This sure looked like a lot of ginger as I dumped the 7 pounds worth on the countertop before starting to peel it with a spoon. Yeah, a spoon. I’d seen one of those handy shortcut compilation videos of how to do things easier or fix stuff instead of throwing it out and I can tell you that peeling this much ginger with a paring knife or peeling utensil creates a lot more waste and is no more efficient. Unless you were reading my blog last year you’d be justified in asking incredulously, “What does anyone use so much ginger for? Well, last year I actually prepared 20 pounds of the stuff but then after running out I let it go as the preparation time is a grinding slog. I’ll get to what this ginger is destined for shortly.

Yesterday, I ventured out to a nearby Asian store as you cannot buy good quality ginger in this quantity from a traditional grocery store; they’d have this amount on display for a month until it’s all shriveled up. Most of what I saw at Albertson’s was just that, dry and shriveled. Getting back in the late day I would have been a fool to try starting the preparation as the process requires about 6 hours from start to finish. After peeling all this ginger I had to slice it into fine matchstick-sized pieces which caused two blisters on my index finger, one of them kinda severe. With the aroma of ginger filling our place I was ready to start salting, pressing the water out of the ginger, and rinsing it, over and over again. All that took nearly 6 hours and then I juiced a dozen limes to get the cup of lime juice I needed to pour over my greatly reduced lump of sliced ginger and with a couple of tablespoons of salt, I was ready to shove the stuff into quart jars.

I’m making the prime ingredient in Burmese Gin Thoke or ginger salad. The fried crunchy stuff I can order from Amazon and the cabbage, bird’s eye chilies, tomatoes, ground shrimp, and fish sauce that round out this salad are all easy enough to get, but the ginger is nowhere to be found.

Today’s exercise was actually for my own mental health and acted as a bit of therapy. The events of late last week through yesterday turned into a compulsive obsession for me to follow as many details as I can. The problem is that I become a bit neurotic and seriously anxious. While some part of me wants this to inspire my writing and thinking about social issues, there’s an element of panic that is unwelcome. So, today I immersed myself in the kitchen after an extended four-mile walk to start the day. I’d love to get out for a bit more walking, but at 109 degrees (43c) out there that doesn’t really sound appealing. Of course, we need to get out there at some time due to our statewide curfew that’s been imposed for the hours of 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., but I don’t want to veer into that subject matter today.