Today I went to visit Trini (Juan's granny) at the rehab center she's staying at now. It saddens me so much to see her not conscious of what's going on around here, and when she sometimes stares into space, I feel like I don't recognize her anymore, and well, she doesn't recognize us either.
However, as visiting hours were drawing to a close today, I leaned over to kiss her goodbye, and told her I loved her. Very astonishingly, her eyes cleared and she seemed to focus on the words I had just said, and she told me she loved me too.
That's the Trini I remember, and know. Te quiero..
My super uber creative cousin Jon presented me with his take on my site!
Pretty darn cool, doncha think?
The book "Professional blogging for Dummies" says that one of the ways to market your site is to create a recognizable logo which markets your site as well as makes its identifiable. So, I decided on creating a makeshift logo using the Paint program. Hope it sticks!
Finally after months of working on the painting, it's ready just as Guido & Berenice's baby boy is about to be born! I suppose it's the perfect way to welcome Francisquito into the beautiful world ;)
Argentina is the best place to find great quality leather jackets... Please please do yourself a favor and buy one if u ever come to Argentina.
This is my third leather jacket in three years. Ahhh... How I love the smell of leather...
Pelusa Molina, my cooking professor, usually informs us regarding what dishes we will cook in the next class at the end of each lesson, so a week ago, when she told us that for the next class we would be cooking squid curry with rice, I literally JUMPED for the opportunity to be the volunteer cook.
So, with a whole load of enthusiasm, spend Wednesday evening buying the ingredients required for the recipe, and Thursday saw me cooking in front of our class of 14 students. It turned out surprisingly easy, compared to what I had imagined cooking curry to be. Here's the recipe for all those who love all things spicy and calamari!
SQUID CURRY WITH RICE (Serves 3 - 4)
Ingredients:
1) 1 kg of squid, cleaned and washed
2) 1 onion
3) 2 tomatoes
4) 1 green apple
5) 50g of curry powder
6) 300 g of white long grain rice
Steps:
1) Chop the onions and stir fry in a wok till they turn golden brown
2) Clean the squid by getting rid of the insides and washing it well
3) Once the onions start turning slightly brown, add in thinly sliced green apple
4) Add in tomatoes chopped into cubes and add the curry powder
5) Add in the squid's tentacles first (the tentacles take around 20-25 min to cook while the body (or tube) only takes about 5-10 min
6) Cover the wok, and let the ingredients simmer over low heat, allowing time for the juices from the apples, tomatoes, and onions to create the sauce that will mix with the curry powder
7) Meanwhile, start cooking the white rice (should take about 8-10 min)
8) Once the tentacles have been cooking for around 10-15 min, add in the other parts of the squid (which are supposed to be chopped evenly).
9) Let the curry cook and simmer for another 10-15 min, and add salt and pepper to taste
Raw squid, ready to be chopped and cooked:
Squid curry in all its glory:
Hey guys!
Since I've been pretty mad about cooking lately, I decided to dedicate a space to my cooking experiments, a little recipe here and there, some advice I've learned from Pelusa Molina, and from all the other kitchen experts on the web and in real life.
If you have even the slightly interest in cooking/baking, come along this journey with me!
Cooking Up a Storm, Dish by Dish!
Trini, Juan's granny, fell down a staircase when visiting her dentist on Feb 1.
Since then, as a result of damage to some parts of her brain, she's been unable to stand up, walk, eat or talk. After spending 19 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and another three weeks in the normal patient ward at the Hospital Italiano, Trini has since moved to ALPI, a rehabilitation center in Palermo.
In a way, she's no longer the same Trini as before the fall. She doesn't seem to register who is talking to her, although she does seem to realize that her family members are people with whom she shares a special bond that is deeper than that which she has with the nurses or the doctors who check in on her.
She seems to be sometimes stuck in the past, once suggesting that she would buy a doll for Juan's aunt (also her daughter), as if her memory of the aunt stayed still during the time she was a kid, around forty years ago. When she tries to articulate herself, the lack of clarity is frustrating, both for us and for her. We cannot understand her thoughts, and rather than ask her to repeat, we feign understanding and smile and nod, pretending things are just fine. But she knows things aren't, and just shrugs, a gesture she has used all her life when she knows things are beyond her control. When she first fell and had to have a tube inserted through her nose to give her nutrients, she would beg for a sip of mate, a candy, a drop of water. For fear that her swallowing system was incapable to deal with it, we refused to give her anything, despite the desperate plea in her eyes. Now, she doesn't ask for anything anymore..a sign of lost hope or acceptance of reality? Trini has always been a fighter, and sometimes I look at the grey-haired woman hunched in her wheelchair and find it so hard to recognize the woman who took English lessons at 80 years old to be able to speak to me.
Sometimes I feel detached from reality, from her. But then I remember what she taught me the first time I visited Argentina- That the measure of love is to love without measure. And no matter how much I don't recognize the Trini she is now, I will always love her for who she is and was.
Te quiero Abuela. Que te mejores, Si Dios quiere.
This is a time capsule of Jin and I at East Coast Park during my visit back to SG in Feb 2012. Just wanted to say that I miss u babe! I also miss:
1. Our ECP bike rides
2. Sleepovers and midnight feasts
3. The food hunts at Parkway!
4. Sitting in your car and listening to your current playlist
5. Random meet ups just so we could hang out
We have to plan another sleepover when I'm back next year!! Te quiero muchoo!!
This is for u suzeee - a pic we took in April 2010 before I flew off to BA for good!! I miss u!!
