Dirty Toes

PUPPIES!

2011-02-20T16:44:00.001-08:00

Deeda:
Mabel:

Brewski number twoski

2011-02-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

Well, it was bound to happen: I would neglect the blog. Anyhoo, a few things have happened in recent weeks: 1) Shea and I have adopted some puppies that he found in the middle of the road and thought were horse shit until they moved. Their names are Mabel and Deeda (short for Perdida). They are adorable little muts with black bodies and white paws. Mabel is furry and Deeda is short-haired. Deeda is the alpha and Mabel is a massive clutz who always starts the fights but can't win them. 2) I have bought my ticket to get the the F*%$ out of here on April 23rd. USA! USA! Urbaninity! USA! 3) Shea's foot gets grodier and grodier looking as it heals but that is, apparently, a good sign. 4) We've had two reporters, one from BA and one for the Sydney Herald, come through to write articles about La Confluencia. Both articles are forthcoming in the next month. 5) Shea and I have another Brewski in the works--a Belgian Strong. The last one was so tasty we had to see if it was beginners luck or straight skillz.

That's it on the news front. On the the existential side, I'm wondering what to do with myself when I get back to the states and am open to your suggestions. Cooking is definitely a love but I remain unconvinced that it is the best direction for my long-term happiness. Ever met a chef that's not overworked, easily pissed off and generally resentful of people outside the business? No? Me neither. And well, considering the amount of time I spend pissed off by all the oblivious and trifling people around me that "don't get it" and are clearly "f*&#ing idiots," I think I might be headed in that direction... So, let me know what you think.

XO,
C

uff

2011-01-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well, what a month. The Holidays ended with a new year and a full house. The Confluencia was packed with four families and their respective gremlins. I made a lot of kid-friendly items: pizza party, lasagnas, massive chocolate and dulce de leche cakes. The group left raving about the place, the the service and the food: two thumbs up. The day after they left, Shea organized a rafting cruise for a group of us down the river. We needed a vehicle at the "put in" and the "take out" so Shea drove the motorcycle and we followed in the truck.

Without having to relive the whole thing, I'll tell you that we (in the truck) pulled up to an accident on the road ahead to find that it was Shea on the asphalt in a puddle of blood screaming and crying. His foot was a mangled mess but the rest of him was fine (phew, considering he catapulted himself over a car at 40 mph). After offending the doctor's teeny-weeny egoes here in Bolson by asking for a second opinion, he was kicked out of the hospital and loaded up on pain killers for a drive to Buenos Aires (the doctors refused to sign waivers allowing him to fly) Anyhoo, thank the LAWD he went up there because the doctors in BA were able to do in one surgery what the doctors here said would take five.

So, he's up there recovering and I'm down here cooking and trying to manage my stress levels.

I leave you with some pictures of simpler and yummier times (the cherry tree is no longer fruiting :( ):

Happy Holidays and Baby Horsies!

2010-12-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

A real baby horse was born at the farm yesterday. I promise to take a picture and post it soon :)

For your consumption

2010-12-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

I thought this would be cooler than it is. However, I am still very fond of the idea.

Tipo Roja or Hop To It

2010-12-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

Shea and I have brewed our first beer. The idea being that, by brewing our own, we can add a little American-style hop to our beer-drinking routine. We went ambitious on our first try and did an all-grain batch. (Read: the beer will probably be flawed due to the increased opportunities for contamination). This means that we started with the malted barley, ground it ourselves:

(Goodness... I look like a f*&#ing hippy, don't I?) mashed it ourselves:

etc:

I had spent the day making Paneer and Ghee because I was craving Indian food (vegetarian, of course) which we ate while we crafted Christmas cards and waited for the mash to wart (or something like that.)

all to the soundtrack of Nina Simone and The FIRST Mariah Carey Christmas Album.

In short, I should probably move to the Pacific Northwest... but then, that would just make me a cliché, wouldn't it?

An afternoon ride

2010-12-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

I'm fresh off the heels of a terrible bout of the stomach flu but I won't disgust you with the details of that episode.

Last Saturday Shea and I scouted a bike trail for a trip that LAT42's going to guide with a company called Sacred Rides out of Canada. Going in to this, i knew I was signing up for 12 to 13 miles of biking. I also knew that mountain biking would probably be more difficult than road biking so, I set my brain to challenging mode, all the while comforting myself in knowing that, though the path may be a bit rocky, it was relatively flat and skirted a pretty river. Right.

Anyhoo, as an illustrative point, I present you with some pictures of Shea riding bikes:

And then let's remember what happens to me and my accessories when I engage in downhill sports:

So, keeping all this in mind, I'll now tell you that the first half of the ride was beautiful and very nearly flat featuring waterfalls, wide meandering rivers, horses running free and the occasional families of sheep and cows.

The first time I fell I got up like a champ: laughed it off and patted myself on the back for attempting to follow Shea who had bunny-jumped over a log in the middle of the trail.

About a half-hour after later the trail started to get hilly. Then I fell into a pile of shit/mud and could hear it squirting in my shoes. At one point we got lost and went down (and up) two large and rocky hills we didn't need to. It was cold, I was sweaty and Pissy Princess made an appearance. Shea handled things as best he could: waiting at the top of every hill with a cookie extended in my direction and helping me get my bike across the bigger stream clearings. He was noticeably wary of the looks I was cutting him and fell into startled silence when, upon turning another corner that revealed another hill, an admittedly terrifying scream of anger gurgled out of me. (The cookies were his saving grace.) Luckily, my extreme frustration and tantrum only lasted about a twenty minutes and we popped out of the park at a Parilla where i was fed mountains of sizzling meat and all was well. (Until I got some sort of Giardia from the shit/mud puddle episode and was laid up in bed for three days cursing my fate!)

So, that was that. Did you have fun laughing at me? Here's a nice shot of a battle wound on my thigh... a week later:

On that note, I'll leave you with some food porn:

my sourdough skillz are getting pretty legit btdubs.

Stay tuned for the brew blog.

CMC

Thanksgiving

2010-12-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Check it out here.

yucka yucka

2010-12-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

A few moments of forgotten comedy: 1) buying a cerveza casero from the refugero at Lago Natacion and listening to, over pleasant conversation and a refreshing brew, the soundtrack of a barn cat crunching through the skeleton of the "raton" it had presented us with a few minutes earlier. Neither shock nor embarrassment showed the faintest glimmer of registration on the faces of our host (of a PUBLIC DINING establishment) or my hiking partner. I handled the situation by pouring myself another. 2) helping Shea take a couple of clients rappelling down a 60 meter (about 180 ft) cliff. The clients were two buxom, Argentine, 20-somethings with long flowing manes and a shadowing cloud of perfume two-feet thick. The comedy here is that perfume attracts bugs and December is the season of the horse-fly: a nasty and persistent, not-so-little bug that swarms around your face and rings in your ears until it doesn't anymore... (at which point, you can be certain the sucker has landed on you and is biting you through your clothes.) Needless to say, our ladies had a tough time of things. The bugs wouldn't leave them alone and the second they started to rappel down the big mountain, they forgot everything we had taught them on the baby bolder. One smashed her hand in to a rock and the other rappelled directly in to a tree at the bottom of the drop. They wined, giggled and smoked their cigarettes for the rest of the hike down. I'm pretty sure they were actually proud of their battle scars in the end and no one was sued or yelled at. phew.

Wowllaus

2010-11-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

So, I have some updating to do.

First and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to say that I am very glad mummy’s back surgery went well. I wish her a speedy recovery!

Here, things are busy. We’re revving up for some new clients tonight and said goodbye to the last set on Monday past. They were doctors fresh off their residency and in a sort of gap year/fellowship in B.A. They were very in to food and I allowed myself some American-taste-bud liberties (Let freedom RING!) and threw in some spice. (Have I mentioned that Argentines are gigantic sissies when it comes to things piccante?) Here are a few pics:

For some reason I only took pictures of the brown things but they also ate fresh salads with things like pea shoots and llaullaus in them. “What’s a llaullau?” you say… Why, let me show you.

The day before Thanksgiving, Shea and I went on a ridiculously long and vertical hike up to Lago Natacion

(Only later in the day--about the same time that my back and knees spasmed and I collapsed going up the steps to my room--did I find out that people usually take two to three days to do this loop. Son of a….!) Anyhoo, the point here is that, at some point in our journey, we stopped to take some pictures of llaullaus (say the double L like you would the “g” in “ménage-a-trois” and the "au" like you would the “iao” in “ciao.”) Llaullaus are gorgeous and tasty fungi that grow on the trees here and which you eat raw. They are juicy and slightly sweet with a crunchy (by virtue of it’s juice-filled taught-ness) exterior.

They’re pretty darn cool if you ask me.

Thanksgiving, itself was a pretty over-the top affair presided over by nine Americans, most of whom know their way around the spice cabinet. It was delicious and excessive and I will be eating leftovers for days to come. I don’t have pictures of it but I know someone does, so I’ll get on it.

XO from the end of the world,
C

One of the reasons it's cool to work on a farm

2010-11-20T15:11:00.001-08:00

Pan (That's Español for Bread)

2010-11-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

We have more guests scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I've been working on my bread recipe. I think I may have perfected it:

Id'nit cute?

uff

2010-11-15T06:45:00.000-08:00

Much activity on this end. On tuesday of last week I went rafting down the Rio Azul with Shea and his fellow raft-guide in Colorado, Casey. Shea and I were in a "mini-me" which is a two person inflatable raft and Casey was kayaking. It was fun but also very cold (the water we were running had been a glacier earlier that day) and involved a twenty minute hike uphill (carrying all the gear and boats) at the end of the trip.

On wednesday, the last pregnant sheep gave birth. I didn't get to see the actual birth but I did get out there in time to see some of the placenta hanging from the mom's tail and the baby still wet from having been licked clean. There was some doubt as to wether or not the sheep would be able to carry the pregnancy to the end because she has gas issues... (her diarrhea is so bad that she doesn't get enough vitamins) but all was well. I've been watching the new addition over the last few days as he figures out what his feet do and whether or not he likes the other lambs (who hang out in intimidating little cliques). For the first few days he seemed to think he only had two legs: one in front and one in back. The effect was such that he galloped around like a floppy-eared, fuzzy horse and always halted abruptly with a full-body teater: his back legs forming an obtuse triangle from his little butt.

Watching the lamb could provide hours of entertainment and I allowed myself at least one, but I had other things to do. Like ride around in a Unimog:

That's the model they have here and the thing is a monster. It has no shocks whatsoever, asphyxiates passengers with its fumes and you have to hold the roof on as you ride. It's a total nightmare and Shea and I took it in to town to pick up a bunch of lumber and visit a local cervecero to check out his operation. All of the roads around here are dirt: covered in boulders and potholes a foot deep. I was about to kill someone at the end of our hour-long excursion and informed Shea that I would never be riding it it again. The beer guy (Marcelo) was very nice and he was hanging out with an Italian friend so I got to speak in a romance language I am actually proficient in.

As far as romance languages in which I am not proficient are concerned, I had ample opportunity to crash and burn practicing my spanish this past weekend when the first guests arrived. They called at five PM saying they would arrive at eight and panic set in: nothing was defrosted, there was no bread, what about dessert?! In the end, it all worked out but the part where I had to do the serving and answer their questions was a little shady... some serious lost-in-translation moments. I guess I didn't realize that I was signing up for such a customer service-type position. Anyhoo, only room to improve.

Here's what they ate:

Friday night: house bread, garden salad with candied walnuts and rasberry vinny, cheesy polenta with steak and red wine mushroom sauce, pear galette.
Saturday morning: Apple strudel muffins, house bread, various jams, yogurt, granola
Saturday lunch: Asparagus and cheese quiche, house bread, garden salad with balsamic vinny, raisins and sunflower seeds, raspberry sherbet.
Saturday dinner: Sweet-tea brined chicken with brown butter and sage-fried squash gnocchi and stewed rutabaga greens with leeks and apple cider vinegar; apple and cognac crepes
Sunday morning: cinnamon-walnut rolls, toast, various jams, yogurt, granola, tea.

It was a lot of work and the stress level was compounded by having to do the serving as well. I'll be spending this week doing things like making fresh pasta and freezing it for the next time unexpected company arrives. The good news is that today is my first complete day off in seven days so I'll be sleeping in and reading novels all day... glorious.

Nightmares

2010-11-11T08:12:00.001-08:00

Mom: I had a dream the plants i potted outside the front door died. Tell me it isn't true!

In the swing of things

2010-11-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of my second day of full work. Yesterday I organized the pantry (a crammed disaster). This involved carting 50 kilo bags of seed from one corner to another and throwing away bottles of chimichuri that had turned an alluring shade of brown--we'll be making our own from now on anyhoo... I also started cooking: pine mushroom and cheese quiche, greens with goddess dressing. The freezer turned off in the middle of the night so we're trying to cook through all of the stuff that thawed out. One of these things was a crust I made and froze LAST year... still tasted pretty damn good (point being don't toss out that empanada dough just yet, Courtney!)

Today I got back in on the garden action which felt good. I mostly made compost but was also fortunate enough to chase after baby lambs and feed rutabagas to my favorite group of cows. The lambs are younger and cuter than last year and the cows are bigger and sassier. Mica, for instance is a huge fan of intimidation by horn-toss and lets you know just how many shits she gives about whatever treat it is you are using to buy her affections (she literally laid a stupendous turd mid-feeding.) After work, we went out looking for Morel mushrooms which are supposed to be sprouting up under the ceder trees here, but our efforts were met with little reward. So, all in all, a great day: fecundity making followed by cuddly animal time and topped off with treasure hunting.

I'm all settled in to one of the currently unused massage rooms up at the spa. It's nestled in a little arboretum and smells like cedar, vanilla candles and the fire place. One thing that has been unexpectedly difficult for me to deal with is how COLD the buildings are here. There is no central heating, just fire power. And the problem with fire power is that feeding the fire (making what little heat a tiny stove in the corner can muster) involves coming out of whatever cocoon you have created for yourself and exposing your fingers to the biting reality of the air outside the blanket. I'm thinking I'll have to buy some fuzzy gloves.

So, that's the news on this end. I didn't bring a camera (what was I thinking?!) so no pictures, but I'm going to fix that situation soon.

xo,
C

Layovers

2010-11-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm here. Here being La Confluencia Lodge fifteen minutes outside of the town of El Bolson, Argentina. It took me almost exactly thirty hours to travel from Austin, TX to this place and I could not have been more grateful for a bed when I was offered one. Before I gave in to a desperate fatigue, however, I had the pleasure of a window seat at sunset while landing in Bariloche, the ski-town an hour north of here. The slanted sun reflecting off of numerous lakes and pink clouds with the snow-capped Andes in the background reminded me of how UNREAL this place is. When we flew over green pastures dotted with grazing sheep, I was struck with an intense desire to gallop in the grass and immediately pictured myself doing so from the eye of a spinning areal camera--just like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music... but better.

After the obligatory welcome-to-Argentina-now-you-will-eat-steak dinner in Bariloche, Shea and I drove back to The Confluencia. We walked into the lodge at 12:30 am and I was immediately sucker-punched by a Pavlovian response. The smell of the cedar and the root-cellar-like climate of the building reminded me of exactly what I was getting myself in to. Part of the "what" is the romance of the place: the earthiness, my hands wrapped around hot cups of tea, the sound of the river, and the incredible clarity of the stars but the other part feels a bit like loss and anxiety. (On Loss: I'm back here, but the previous generation of WWOOFers that defined my experience the last go-round are not. I am also no longer technically a WWOOFer and as such will be missing out on the community it creates and the benefits of shared living spaces. On Anxiety: Well, for one, I'm going to have to get used to the country again which is to say I'll have to start taking responsibility for my own entertainment, artistic stimulation and education. And, for twos, I was struck with the feeling that, as an employee, I'm going to have to start behaving--cleaning up after myself, making a schedule and not losing it, being in charge... the sorts of things for which I am universally recognized...)

Today the anxiety increases as I find myself with no real tasks and everyone else around me with something to do. Yes, I know I should give myself a day to rest and that that is exactly what my employers are thinking as well, but I’m just not good at that. Hence, this blog-post, which I am hoping will help me reconnect with the style of life at which I had become so practiced in Hawaii—this is to say, a life lived through a lens of inner-contentedness.

Anyhoo, all of that business aside (concentrating on it, I’m inviting a panic attack), I’m REALLY excited to flex my culinary muscles. I have SO many ideas and projects I want to get started. I can promise that the food here is going to kick butt if not only because of the variety and quality of the produce and food-stuffs produced in a very small radius. They’re growing barley, rye and wheat (beer me?); any type of vegetable you can imagine; and sheep (sidenote: the lambs are friggin’ cute and they’ll make for great sweaters). There are honey bees to be taken advantage of, salmon waiting to spawn, walnut, apple and pine trees aplenty… It’s an Omnivore’s Delight (see what I did there) over here!

I guess that’s enough for now… I can feel you, reader, losing interest so I’ll report back after this layover is finished and I am in the swing of a new routine. One final note however: it goes without saying that I miss you all terribly. It was unusually difficult for me to leave San Diego this time because an unexpected new job, a pleasent armistice with my parents and wonderful friends were working to make me a very content person. So! Please keep in touch and I will do the same.

Xoxo,
C

Growing Tomatoes in October.

2010-09-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Two days ago was the hottest day on record (ever) in LA: 112 degrees farenheit. In San Diego, it topped off at a paltry 108. Though I would relish describing the full-body-sweat-drench experience of working on a glorified roach coach in these temperatures, I'm going to direct my energies towards the anomaly of growing tomatoes in October.

Towards the end of August, San Diego-centric garden guides suggested I nip off the flowers on my tomato plants and allow the already formed fruit to ripen because fall was upon us and cooler, non-tomoto-growing-friendly weather was encroaching. Seeing as this summer was overwhelmingly fog-ridden, I held out hope that maybe, just maybe, summer was late and poo-pooed everyone's advice. One month later my little cherry tomato plant is finally ripening up (helped along by the plastic I cover it in at night to up the temperature even further) and today was the first harvest with much more on the way. Finally.

The weekend I made fire like a real woman

2010-09-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I smoked a hunk-o-meat for my first, semi-annual, farewell-to-summer BBQ to be held the next day.

The good news: the sun came out for us between 3:30 and 5:30 and, in that time we were able to shoot this awesomeness:

The better news: In preparation for the BBQ, and with the lighter fluid nowhere in site, I was forced to make fire like a real woman. Having never been a girl scout and because I insist on barbecuing with mesquite charcoal and not those unsettlingly-square briquettes, this took me upwards of an hour. When I finally bit the bullet, got on my hands and knees and blew smoke and ashes in my face for ten minutes, I was rewarded with roaring flames and red-hot coals. Very satisfying and very womanly. (If I ever get lung cancer, it will not be from my brief romances with nicotine, but from the amount of ash and smoke I inhaled in those ten minutes.)

The bad news: my brioche buns were not up to my expectations. Next time.

As per usual, Gus knew where the party was. I literally saw a string of drool drip from his jowls during a particularly concentrated begging session.

We finished the day with a drunken parade to the roof for the sunset. Very safe.

Not a bad weekend.

not knowing what to do with myself

2010-09-14T07:03:00.001-07:00

Today, I was called off work at 6 am. This left me not only neurotically insecure--Don't they love me anymore?!--but also without a daily activity (something I really can't stand). So, I brushed aside my hurt feelings and decided to take advantage of the slight nip and crystal clearness of a Fall morning in San Diego and drive up to Julian for apple picking/eating/subsequent-pie-making. On the way, we stopped at the waterfalls at Cuyumaca State Park: the falls were lovely and hummingbirds followed us around while drinking from the more nectar-like drippings of the creek (no exaggeration). Some pictures:

Emperial Apples

4 parts butter 5 parts flour pie crust

makes a giant pie

and a lot of peals (for the wormies--who I thought I had killed but are still alive!)

Tonight is The Jer's Birthday so the pie is (mostly) for him.

pictorial evidence of my gustatory existence

2010-09-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of what I have been up to over the last five months.

In May, I briefly resurrected the Cream Queenz for MIHO

In June, I was drinking Micheladas with Lulu in Austin

Later in June, I had picked and salted olives from trees in the central coast and marinated them with thyme, lemon zest and chili flakes

July was busy. First I went to the fair with Allie and ate this piece of American artistry:

They called it a Texas Tater Twister. Mid July saw the advent of cupcake city when I started working full time for these guys: chocolate cake with cherry-marshmallow frosting, coconut tres leches cake with lime and pistachio frosting, lemon buttermilk cake with peach tea frosting and candied spicy pecans...

Late in the month, I got my first taste of Ensenada in the form or a stegosaurus-sized clam filled with every type of sea food imaginable, including slug.

Needless to say, this clam convinced me that I need to go to Mexico more often and did just that in August for the grape harvest festival in the Valle de Guadelupe. This is when I ate fried cricket tacos and loved every bite of them (picture forthcoming). By the end of August I was eating at Nobu Las Vegas with a certain Argentine permanent resident to see how their version of an Alfahor stacked up.

Not pictured is the part where we ate barracuda with miso powder and milk poached garlic chips. YUM.

The end.

today was a suburban day

2010-09-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Edmunda, I am jumping back on the blog-train. Complete with a makeover, Dirty Toes is back! I am no longer in Hawaii and I am no longer in Argentina. I am, however back at my parents house in San Diego. To give you a taste of that life, here's what I did today:

To start things off, I went to work for two whole hours. After that exertion, I came home and read an article about the damaging effects of plastic water bottles in the local COOP’s newsletter and implored mother to stop buying plastic water bottles. Feeling responsible, I spent six minutes watering the potted tomatoes and dwarf citrus trees on the front patio. Then I went to yoga class—the sweaty kind—and followed it up with a visit to the aforementioned COOP where I bought three pluots, two Bosc pears, two ruby grapefruits, a small grouping of yellow dates shaped like quail eggs, a bunch of rainbow chard, some spinach and a guava Kombucha. All of this (excepting the Kombucha, which I drank in the car) I carried home in my own, 100% post-consumer recycled grocery bag. Now I’m blogging. Mummy said she brought home some wild Alaskan Salmon from Costco so I am now to go cook it. With the spinach of course.

Sometimes it is too easy to make fun of myself.

Right... So I guess I'll just post a bunch of pictures

2010-03-11T17:22:00.001-08:00

Promises

2010-02-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

I can promise you a new post with pictures in the next couple of days. Patagonia is incredible. My new farm in GORGEOUS and the people here are beyond admirable. However, right now I'm sketching outside of the lodge for internet access and my fingers are freezing.

Why Maggie Coleman Should Spend Time in Buenos Aires

2010-01-30T13:09:00.000-08:00

Today as I cafe-hopped, read Hemingway and, generally speaking, concerned myself with being a massive cliché, I pondered my next blog post. My new living arrangements? The nightlife in Buenos Aires? Empanadas? All of these are blog-worthy subjects and I was intent on describing to you the scene outside of my apartment (destroyed pet owners waiting nervously outside the 24-hour emergency veterinary clinic) when one of the many ice cream delivery vespas in the city zoomed by my curbside table. That's right: vespas with freezer boxes on the back that zip around the city-center delivering helado to all their loyal customers. Seeing as there is an heladeria on every other corner in this city (literally five within a four block radius of my apartment) the need for a delivery system is quite a testament to the importance of this foodstuff in the city. One might be tempted to compare it to potatoes in Ireland in the late 1800s, but that would be a ridiculous hyperbole I guess. The point, however, is that if you are having an ice cream emergency, your neighborhood heladeria is there to save you. Rain or shine. This service, along with the prevalence of fine leather goods (bags and shoes!) stores in this city make me think that Maggie Coleman really should pay Buenos Aires a visit ;)

Update

2010-01-25T17:33:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for friends! Kristen has put together a wonderful blog post on our last month here in Buenos Aires. Do check it out!

Since she did all the dirty work, I will spare you a recap of the last three weeks and will, instead, focus in greater detail on yerba mate (which people, you may have heard, like to drink here). In order to properly enjoy mate a la portena, one needs a guampa (hollowed out gourd) and a bombilla (a metal straw-like device), hot water and the processed yerba which constists of roasted leaves and sometimes stems. The idea is that you pour hot water into the gourd over the loose yerba mate and drink from the filter-tipped bombilla until you make a slurping noise and then pass the gourd to your friend who fills it up again with hot water. Sounds like fun, no?

Well, consider this: Wikipedia tells me that the caffeine content of yerba mate can be up to 1.7% of its dry weight. Compare this with coffee which maxes out at .9% and it becomes readily apparent that yerba mate is no wuss of a tea. I learned this lesson the hard way when, a few days ago I roasted myself some Yerba Mate according to the Paraguayan custom. I first tried "cocinada negra" (literally: cooked black) at Casa Felix (an independently blog-post-worthy experience). The two (small) cups, which I consumed quickly on the heels of four glasses of wine, seemed, at the time, a pleasingly mild stimulant. I enthusiastically asked Sandra, the "cocinadera," if you will, how I could recreate this at home and she willingly described the process: 1) combine one cup of mate with 3/4 cups sugar and push around in a saute pan until the sugar starts to caramelize and the yerba turns from green to dark brown. 2) pour hot water over the sugar and yerba mixture to deglaze the pan and make your tea. 3) strain and enjoy.

The two generous cups I enjoyed in the morning may as well have been two massive cups of crack with high-fructose corn syrup on top but when the shaking and heart palpitations were over, i wondered if I would do it again... "hell yes" i heard a little voice in my head say.

A Room with a View

2009-12-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

Day One: Buenos Aires

As can be expected, we have already consumed a massive steak, convinced flirtatious locals to show us around the hood and drank cheap red wine. The trajectory for the trip is looking good...

Here we go!

2009-12-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Argentina.

check out that chic backpacker style: not one, but TWO packs!

Public Announcement

2009-12-12T20:27:00.000-08:00

So, I'm moving to Argentina for three months-ish in January. I haven't decided if i will keep this blog for my next WWOOFing adventure--you know, "Dirty Toes: Hola From Argentina!" or if I'll start another. Stay tuned.

CMC

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite New Ohana

2009-12-09T11:59:00.001-08:00

I leave for the airport in an hour and my feelings are bittersweet, leaning towards bitter. I love this place, I love this group and I feel like I have a family here. I've cried a few tears this morning.

photo courtesy of Jared Brick :)

Top Ten Count-Down: Craziest Balls to the Walls Dare-Devil Moves I've Seen in Person

2009-12-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

JAWS has been breaking with what people are calling the biggest waves in 100 years. Watching dudes tow in to 60 foot waves is an awe-inspiring, if not uncomfortable, sort of voyeurism. See what I mean:

More Surfing >>

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite After-School Snack

2009-12-07T19:05:00.001-08:00

Without a doubt, the juice of a fresh coconut sipped from a papaya stem.

This is good news as it is not only delicious but also really good for you. It's super hydrating due to its isotonic properties (balanced concentration of salts and minerals: specially formulated to supply the body's chemical needs in situations in which minerals and fluids are used up by the body, e.g. during vigorous exercise), and electrolytic properties--yes i copied and pasted that from another website. It reduces fever, it cleans your liver, gets rid of kidney stones and can be used as an emergency I.V. instead of saline glucose. In short, it's pretty cool stuff.

Most of the time the water tastes like sweet cucumber and coconut but sometimes the coconut juice ferments a little bit and becomes effervescent. This we call a "champagne coconut." It's a fully onokine grind brah.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite New Maui Lingo

2009-12-07T00:54:00.000-08:00

Salty: annoyed, irritable etc. It was described to me as the feeling that comes alongside having been in the ocean, then having sweated in the sun for a couple of hours, than having put your clothes back on and finally being forced to marinate in them for the rest of the day. An example of proper usage would be, "She was so salty this morning. I thought she might bite my head off."

Runners up in the favorite Island Lingo category include: grind (to eat), eggy (shitty) and ohana (family). example sentence: It was a really eggy situation that I couldn't grind with my ohana last night. Another fun vernacular is the use of "kine." example: "Ho brah! what kine chips you want?" "Onokine chips" (ono = delicious).

puu (hill) is also a fun word--you pronounce it "pu-u."

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Tropical-ish Mixed Drink.

2009-12-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

The Bailey's Banana Colada or the BBC. Think about it. mmmm.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Hale Akua Garden Farms' Feline.

2009-12-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

There are cats everywhere on this island and the farm is no exception. As far as I can tell, we have four resident cats and many more visitors. The list of characters include: Princess (the overfed, attention whore), a crazy looking white cat with blood shot eyes that hisses at you every time you pass, an orange tabby that keeps to himself and Krishna. Krishna is, by far, my favorite among them. He's a young thing who's just coming in to his own and can be seen darting across the farm in constant pursuit of birds, mice and ladies. Recently, my feline friend has become the topic of much farm gossip when it was observed that he's not fixed, which is a problem because Maui does not need another feral cat. When I took a picture of him this morning, for instance, he was courting a pretty little neighbor (hopefully his appointment at the vet tomorrow will come before anyone gets knocked up...).

As you can see, Krishna is a beautiful and lithe creature with piercing blue eyes. I think I like him so much because he looks at you like he obviously doesn't give a s*^$. We'll see what happens to his character after he gets his nuts chopped off. Poor guy.

Top Ten Count-Down: Least Favorite Garden Smell

2009-12-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

There are many types of fertilizers out there: chicken poop, cow poop, worm poop, human poop, compost... As far as truly repulsive smells are concerned, however, blood meal is in a league of it's own.

Blood meal is exactly what it sounds like: blood. It's a bovine product and, when turned into a tea and sprinkled on plants, smells like haggis. It is extremely high in nitrogen and fast-acting. I'm a little confused as to why we use it here as I just read that it should be avoided in warm, moist climates as it will create too much ammonia when broken down by soil bacteria (which, you will remember, we have a lot of) and damage roots. I'm pretty sure that it's just there to make me gag. Not to mention that the concept of dried blood from slaughter houses isn't too appealing.

When I think about organic farming methods in a case like this, I always wonder what vegans think about it.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Maui Brew Co. Beer

2009-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

This is a tough one and I'm a little bit ashamed to say that I'm going to go with the most basic and most girliest of choices by voting for the Bikini Blonde. Yes, the other brews are interesting and at times overwhelmingly hoppy (which seems to elicit a thumbs up from many a beer connoisseur) but The Bikini Blonde is just so damn refreshing!

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Departed WWOOFer

2009-12-01T21:37:00.000-08:00

I dropped my home-girl, Lulu, off at the airport today. It was sad but we high-fived it out. Our room feels rather empty.

Top Ten Count-Down: Favorite Hitch-Hiking Moment.

2009-11-30T19:23:00.000-08:00

I leave Maui in T minus ten days. So, here we go with the top ten :)

Hitch-hiking on this island, I have made good friends, lined up a baby-sitting job, been drenched by rainstorms in the bed of many, many large trucks, taken a nap on a tatami mat in the back of a VW van, and noted that drinking and driving laws are treated as though they are insignificant on the island... The memory with the best documentation however has got to be Halloween.

The scene: 10 pm, darkness, four frustrated travelers (a pirate, his parrot, a zombie and a "f--king wasted" person) on the side of Maui's biggest intersection heading to Lahaina.

Good news! We did make it to our destination after Kaylie made a prayer-like motion to a passing truck :)

Trouble in Paradise

2009-11-23T00:12:00.000-08:00

We've been robbed. I'm now without cell phone charger or ipod. harumph.

Big Island Recap

2009-11-20T00:24:00.000-08:00

You've already seen the obnoxious picture of the pina coladas and tanning oil, now I'll tell you a little bit about our trip. The Big Island is interesting in that it is the youngest in the Hawaiian chain. This means the landscape is strikingly, well, volcanic. Driving from the airport in Kona to Lulu's uncle's place near the Mauna Lani resort, the sunset illuminated coral-constructed graffiti on limitless (until you hit a golf-course) black lava fields. Check out this masterpiece:

One might be tempted to call this landscape barren, but that would be a misinformed appraisal as it turns out that volcanic rock is incredibly high in micronutrients and minerals. (So high that we get it shipped here to the farm and turn it in to our beds by the barrel-full.) Check out the plant life growing in solid rock. Sweet.

All this lava means that some of the beaches feature black sand:

You may notice that Lulu and I happened upon a napping sea turtle on our morning stroll. No biggie. Didn't that happen to you yesterday?

On the Big Island, Lulu and I ate. Pictured here:

That's raw steak you see on top of that sushi roll--best damn surf and turf I've ever had--which we found at a little place in the town of Hawi. The onion ring was also quite nice.

Not pictured in this blog-posting is the part where Lu and I drank so much Kona coffee the day of our departure that we were sick through the duration of our flight and the next two days. I haven't touched coffee since.

L.L. LiliKool (Ladies Love Lilikoi)

2009-11-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today was muddy, rainy and, generally speaking, icky so I'm going to concern myself with brightly colored photos and good weather topics.

There are three types of easily-accessible passion fruit (lilikoi) on Maui:

From Left to right, we have the red lilikoi, yellow lilikoi and jamaican lilikoi. The yellow lilikoi is the most astringent and abundant of the three. It's vine grows in tall trees and the fruits drop to the ground in droves when they are ripe. The visual effect is something similar to a bountiful easter egg hunt.

Friday after work, I set out to collect model specimens of each variety and Joe and I executed a very serious taste test. Here are our findings:

The Jamaican Lilikoi was unique in that it was the only fruit with a soft, foam-like exterior. The other two rocked cardboard-esque husks. Upon cutting open the lilikoi, a brain-like interior was revealed. The Jamaican lilikoi (center) being the brainiest:

The bouquet of each variety proved varied and unique. For the Jamaican lilikool (JLK), Joe and I settled on fresh melon and cucumber. For the yellow, just under-ripe strawberries and for the red, the smell of the inside of a pumpkin when you are carving it (no joke.) The taste profiles of each were equally particular. The JLK had a strangely artificial taste and we went through all the candy flavors (such as artificial strawberry and grape) before Joe nailed it on the head with "tropical-flavored starburst pack." (Let me tell you, only the most sophisticated of palettes could have discerned the essence of this fruit with such exactitude. I was impressed.) The yellow lilikoi packed some serious pucker and smack factor. I likened it to a blueberry warhead but, let's be honest, it tastes exactly like lilikoi. The red lilikoi was a little gentler on the lips though still sour. Joe noted it was something you ate until you got sick. In short, we ate the s*&t out of them.

On another note, there are some beautiful mushrooms growing in one of the gardens:

Lastly, concerning the title of my blog: case in point.

For Fun

2009-11-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

This is what I do in my free time

If you like pina coladas...

2009-11-08T00:27:00.000-08:00

On a vacation from my vacation. Lulu and I have jetted off to the Big Island for the weekend. I flew over on a commuter flight in an eight person prop plane (an experience which was alternately beautiful and terrifying). This picture will give you a good idea of what our day was like today.

life is rough.

Banana Boom Exposes Miseducation

2009-11-05T21:03:00.000-08:00

Huelo Point, Maui: Expectations were high as rack upon rack of ripened bananas were harvested from the banana groves at Hale Akua Garden Farms. As happens often with the banana harvest, when it rains it pours and farmers could be seen discussing their fruitful bounty with mixed feelings of excitement and worry. The pressing question: what to do with all these bananas so as not to waste the fruits of their labor? Two days passed, yet another ripened rack was discovered and the farmers found themselves unable to stomach another plain banana. Lulu McAllister remembers the conundrum well, "there were more bananas than even a monkey could handle," she recalled. She and another farmer, Chelsea Coleman, set about handling the surplus with a simple and delicious solution: cake. They settled on two recipes: one vegan and one with eggs. Coleman recalls her hesitation in tackling a vegan cake recipe, "I always figured there was no sense in pretending you were something you're not. You know?" she mused with a hearty chuckle. Yet, there were vegans on the farm and Coleman and McAllister wanted to share because sharing is caring. So they made sacrifices: a dash of vinegar replaced the acid in buttermilk or yogurt, an extra banana made up for a lack of eggs, and coconut oil was substituted for butter. To her and McAllister's shared delight, the vegan recipe was a fluffy and moist success. "It was really good," observed a resident vegan and farmer, Joe. By the end of the evening, the two had disposed of an entire rack of bananas, created two cakes, and whipped up some banana fritters. When remembering the boom, Coleman is most likely to recall her life-time of vegan prejudice and miseducation. "I really learned a big lesson that day," she said, "vegan baking doesn't have to taste like flax seed oil [and therefore toilet water] and can be astonishingly cake-like."

Vegan Banana Cake with Coconut/Rum Glaze:

2 C All Purpose Flour
1.5 tsp Baking Soda
2.5 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp Salt
3/4 C Brown Sugar
1/2 C Coconut Oil
1/3 C Orange Juice
1 C Almond/Rice/Soy Whatever Milk
3 Tbs dark rum
8 very ripe and mashed apple bananas (or 4 standard bananas)
1 C nuts (pecans or mac nuts work well)
2.5 Tbs apple cider vinegar

Glaze:

1 C powdered sugar
1/4 C coconut milk
1 T dark rum

Preheat oven to 320 F and grease an eight or nine inch square cake pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside.

Mix coconut oil, orange juice, rum, almond milk and bananas in the blender like a smoothie.

Combine dry ingredients with banana mixture. Mix in nuts.

When the oven is heated, pour the vinegar into the batter, mix well and immediately throw in the oven.

Leave it there for 40 minutes or until the center bounces back from the pressure of your finger and the edges have pulled away from the side.

Spread glaze over cake after it has cooled a bit.

Delicious.

Chelsi Mangiabene writes for herself. She has contributed previous articles to this publication.

Bacteria

2009-10-28T00:34:00.000-07:00

is everywhere. On the farm, we use bacteria to build compost and hope that symbiotic probiotics attach themselves to our plants roots. In our daily lives, we eat yogurt with live cultures and drink raw kombucha to stave off infection and fungi. These are all the good, healthy bacteria that can do wonderful and restorative things. Don't they sound lovely?

Then there's the nasty bacteria with which I have found myself intimately acquainted since my return. Let's meet the players, shall we? In the right corner, we have streptococcus: annihilator of WWOOFer immune systems, air traveler and a bacterium likely found on every dish, glass and silverware in the shared kitchen. In the left corner, we have Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (say it ten times fast!) or Xcc: cause of Black rot in Crucifers (cabbage family) and ruthless conquerer of Grace Garden at Hale Akua Garden Farms. As a result of this ignoble foe, all of Grace Garden is scheduled to be ruthlessly ripped up. 40 tons of compost is to be trucked in and the land will lay fallow for at least a year with cover-crops such as clover, sun-hemp and sorghum allowed to take root and restore the soil--to defeat the wretched Xanthomanas which now lives there.

What this means for me is that I will not have a chance to love my section of Grace Garden back to life. That I will have to say goodbye to the okra, rainbow chard and lima beans to which I had become so attached. I have already exterminated my garden of broccoli which was upsetting (and let me tell you: nothing smells better than rotten members of the cabbage family) and will do the same to the fennel today.

Now for the glass-half-full analysis: I get to see the realities of organic problem solving. Can you imagine how devastating this news would be to a non-trust-fund-funded, family operation. Here, we are lucky enough to have Lori Grace behind us--she is willing to spend thousands on compost and a tractor. We get to start over and to do the best thing for the health of the garden. It's going to be awesome.

On the streptococcus front... I fear I have succumbed.

Ta-Da!

2009-10-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

You've asked for it so, here it is: THE MUMU-JUMPER!!

Notice the sleek silhouette and sexy cleavage. This outfit is ready for a night on the town and your next pregnancy! It is particularly flattering from the side

and goes great with fanny packs!

Buy yours today! Don't worry it only gives you camel toe if you lift your arms. Silly!

I'm back

2009-10-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

I promised you a post about ginger but it's not going to be nearly as inspired as I had initially imagined. Initially, you see, I was going to describe to you the sensation of moist soil under your knees and the impression of being buried between rows of dew-heavy ginger leaves. I was going to give you a sense of the smell that exists there--the uniquely floral, citrusy and spicy smell the lives only in those sweetly damp rows of Hana Garden at Hale Akua Garden Farms at eight in the morning . Alas, I did sooooo much over the past two weeks that I simply can not stand for a post devoted solely to the pleasures of weeding and eating young ginger. So, we move on, but first a picture of the harvested thing. Notice the pink around the edges--something you NEVER see on the mainland. This means it's fresh bitches. And, please, no need to peel.

I'm going to approach the next part of this post by detailing briefly my itinerary and following it up with some pictures (mostly of things I ate. Go figure.)

I left the farm for a bi-coastal, whirl-wind wedding-athon on the 7th of October. My first stop was San Diego for an evening and then off to NYC for the Grossman-Gaul ceremony. Highlights included a delectable rehearsal dinner at Franky's Spuntino, a brides v grooms whiffle ball tourny and the most thoughtful (and succinct) vows I have ever heard. I stayed in the boroughs until Thursday and spent my time eating and visiting with the likes of Matthew, Hillary, Megan, Nic, Jessie, Emily, Sun and Lawrence. Oh yeah, and our parents :). It was great to catch up and boy oh boy was the food yummy. By Friday I was hanging out with the old roomies in Tijuana (because they all seem to be moving to or have already moved there) and getting hit on by a Mexican pop-star. (!?!?!--Don't ask me to tell you who unfortunately, but I'm going to brag about it nonetheless.) Saturday I went to Mariana and Peter's wedding which was held in Mariana's back yard. There was a giant paella pan and the wedding was officiated by Mariana's mom--not a dry eye or an unhappy stomach. The next day I was on a plane back to Maui. Here are the pictures:

These are in no particular order but include Sun, Mariana, Peter, Ninth Street Espresso, Momofuku Noodle Bar and Caracas Arepa Bar. (A side note: everyone is having babies!)

My trip was incredible and I am very much excited to be back on Maui and to detox until Halloween. (Did I mention I was drunk for ten days straight? Or that I ate five times as much pig in a week than I had in a month and a half? Well, I should have.) I've come back to find the property as beautiful as I left it but my portion of Grace Garden a little neglected. Never you fear, I will love it back to life. I leave you with a photo of the sunrise (shot on my way to yoga class... ommmmmm.)

The Dumbest Creatures on Maui

2009-10-07T01:15:00.001-07:00

I leave for the mainland tomorrow and will be away from the Blog for a week or so. Before I go, however I want to talk to you about night-time at Hale Akua. I have lost my flashlight so, depending on the moon (which is now full), I can either walk by moonlight or the sound of my feet on gravel (grass = imminent wall) to my destination. Sometimes being blind is more fun because I am more aware of the most wonderful plant on the premises: the night jasmine. The night Jasmine only opens at night (go figure) and, when it does, releases the most wonderful of plumeria-esque scents ever encountered by my nose. I have searched for the source of its aroma by sun and by moonlight and the plant continues to elude me which only adds to its mystique. It might be my favorite thing about the farm.

Another fun detail about night-travel at Hale Akua are the toads. They must be the least intelligent animals on Maui: when they hear something coming they freeze. The real-life implications of this survival tactic are not good for the toads. The number of them that I have kicked or stepped on while journeying to my room and the legions that lay smooshed by car tires throughout the property are a testament to their stupidity. This being said, they are easy to pick up--as Lulu has demonstrated multiple times--and we intend to have a toad race. Won't that be fun!?

As it was a full moon on Saturday, night time was particularly magical. Lulu, Jeff and I enjoyed a primal scream around the ancient (or so they say) Hawaiian sacrificial site on the farm. Before the scream, we offered a carrot (earth), the wind (wind), some burning sage (fire), and rain (water) to the moon. You know, all in a day's work.

My next blog entry is going to be about ginger. It's going to blow your mind.

Aloha,

CMC

Welcome to the Jungle

2009-10-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

It is raining. It was raining yesterday and it will rain tomorrow. Outside of the daily ten-minute down-pours of September, I had not thought much of living in a rainforest. Now, however, summer is over and the rainy season is approaching: I'm imagining myself digging beds in sheets of rain and it is not a pretty picture. On the flip side, all this rain has created an incredible waterflow over our waterfall. What was a trickle yesterday looks like something out of the Indiana Jones ride at Universal Studios today.

My transition into hippydom is almost complete: without having thought about it, I have stopped applying deodorant. It was not until thursday of last week, when I was distracted by my own funk in a garden full of smelly things (like chicken poop) that I realized this. I have also almost completely cut out meat (except for an incredible lau lau i ate the other day) and it feels AWESOME. I'm not going to attribute my continued health to a lack of meat, however. I'm thinking it has more to do with my increased consumption of delicious and fresh vegetables in place of things like three fresh-out-of-the-oven burger buns for dinner. Vitamins work y'all.

I've killed my camera (rainstorm, wet backpack) so I have to figure out how to upload things from my phone before i can post more pictures.

Happy sunday!

Observations and trivialities

2009-09-30T23:22:00.001-07:00

Carrot seeds smell wonderful and not at all like carrot.

Yellow beans like shade.

There is a type of basil here called "sacred basil" which is considered a weed and smells like tutti fruity gum.

If you switch up the shovels you use, you won't get blisters.

Insects and worms are surprisingly resilient to being smooshed, decapitated and or drowned.

Guavas smell better than they taste. They are everywhere on Maui.

I had a weird-ass dream last night in which i was late to work at the farm because I was eating breakfast at the Del Mar Fair with you, parents. To get to work I had to run through a frat-boy filled field at UVa and avoid getting sprayed by the power hoses they were dousing people with--it was terrifying and I was chased off the field. (Lulu has already pointed out the Freudian bizarreness of that episode, thank you.) When I got to work, everything went bright blue and I saw a Hawaiian Chile bush with gold branches and tinkling metal Hawaaian chiles which are purple, red and yellow--all on one bush. It was beautiful.

Airen, Airen's mother, Lulu and I went on an amazingly beautiful hike through the holy, ancient and haunted Iau Valley on Saturday. We climbed for an hour up scary slopes until we reached a plain at the top where we decided wild boars would probably nest. After eating a "raspberry" which we gave a 60% chance of being poisonous, we turned around and descended through bamboo and strawberry guava lined trails. Lulu and I came up with Haikus. Here's mine:

bouncy balls in trees

sour and sweet communities

strawberry guava

OR, if you think sour has two syllables:

bouncy balls in trees

sour, sweet communities

strawberry guava

Adieu,

CMC

Worship

2009-09-27T13:31:00.001-07:00

The WWOOFers are headed off to church (apparently we attend the drum circle every sunday) in a bit so I must make this brief. I've been less than consistent in updating the blog lately not only because the group here meshes really well and I find myself in its company often but also because, as a result of county inspections at Hale Akua, I have been moved to a much nicer but internet-lacking bedroom. Because of the inspections, the woman behind the legend, Lori Grace: Owner and Founder of Hale Akua/Shangri La has been on the premises for the past week. In the week preceding her arrival, you could hear the wind rushing through the bamboo and whispering "Lori Grace is coming! Lori Grace is coming!" The farm managers took heed to the wind's warnings and we WWOOFers spent a good week beautifying the gardens. (Read: weeding). Good news, Lori Grace is very nice indeed.

I bought a pretty sweet mumu-jumper last week that I have been wearing with pride. I'll photograph it for you.

I learned how to harvest lemongrass on friday and found it to be very rewarding even though it gave me a few nasty paper cuts.

I've started attending the complimentary yoga classes run by the retreat manager. His practice is interesting to me because it includes a good half-hour of breathing exercises before going in to postures. Another really interesting point to mention about the yoga is that the masculine energy in the class far outweighs the feminine. Lulu and I were the only females in a class of eight people. What with a lady-run farm and a manly yoga studio, I'm all sorts of gender confused on this place. (Awesome).

Aloha!

CMC

Hangover Harvest

2009-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

Not recommended.

Hippy Dippy Shit

2009-09-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

In continuing with the I-can't-believe-this-is-my-life theme, Sunday I hitchhiked with Lulu and a fellow Woofer, Vi, two hours across the island to a place called Little Beach Near Wailea. Little Beach is a nude beach and every Sunday they have drum circles and fire dancing. Need I say more? Yes, yes I do.

First, I would like to mention briefly that our main ride to the Beach was a 40 or 50 something man driving a Toyota Previa, the back of which he had converted into a bed. Lulu and I were fortunate enough to get in the back (being careful to remove our shoes before dirtying his tatami mat) and enjoyed a half hour doze.

Alright, enough of that. On to the naked surfers. Technically there are no beaches on maui where it is legal to be nude. Little beach, however, is separated from big beach by a cliffy lava pathway that makes it difficult for authorities to enforce the dress code. When we arrived around noon, my first observation was that this was a gay cruising beach. Awesome. Well-buffed, solitary and shaved men dotted the beach showing off their bronzed, tan-line-free bods. (No complaints here). Occasionally they would shift their pose or move to the hammocks they had tied to the trees lining the beach. Instinct must have kicked in and told me "these are your people" because, before I had had a chance to process any of the this, I found myself situated on THE gayest end of the beach.

The beach itself was beautiful: surrounded by corral reefs and crashing blue crystal waves you could see through as you dove into them. As the sun set into the rainbow sky, the drum circle started and the crusty hippies took over. The young straight folk maintained a healthy and bathing-suit clad distance as a proper Venus of Willendorf took to her fire studded hula-hoop routine and her twelve year-old daughter followed suit with a fiery baton act. (The twelve-year-old kept her clothes on.) I happened to be sitting next to the girl's father who mentioned to me three times that "she does it for her daddy." I think I saw one of the buttons on his shirt pop. The whole day young girls with perpetual smiles on their faces combed the beaches with baskets full of chocolate. I know what you're thinking, "Chocolate and a hot day?" Guess they must have been really delicious or something... To the left, is the only picture I took. I was trying to use some discretion but you should note the old man in the the tree. He was combing the beach in a jock strap all day doing crazy yoga poses. I don't think he eats more than twice a week.

The night ended with everyone getting separated and a mild degree of drama. But, never fear, it was very mild indeed and I ended up going home with two other fellow WWOOFers. We all made it home safe and sound with time to spare for a good night's sleep before we started work at eight the next morning.

Below is a picture of my eight rows in the Grace Garden which i must nurture and shot of a cute little Okra and one of it's flowers. Today I planted rainbow chard in the first row on the left behind the carrots. I'm pretty stoked about it as it is a very beautiful crop.

Over and Out,

CMC

The Aloha Way

2009-09-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've been mulling around in my head the best way to start this post--something that would convey the humor and extreme absurdity of my day yesterday. I didn't come up with any good hook, however, and am, instead going to rely on the events of September the 12th 2009 and your knowledge of my awkwardness around children to create my intended effect.

After running some errands and grabbing lunch in town, Lulu and I hitched our way back to the farm. It was slow going and our third pick-up was a young dad and his three sun-bleached blonde kids. The two girls were immediately fascinated with Lulu and me. (Though, let's be honest, it was probably Lulu's heart-shaped shades that won them over.) How what happened next happened, I'm not really sure but Lulu and I did not make it back to the farm. We ended up baby-sitting. The whole day went pretty much like the picture above.

I mean, I've only been on the island a week and a half and have no way of gauging whether or not hiring two hitch-hikers to look after your adorable children is a common occurrence, but I'm going to chalk it up to The Aloha Way. And, you know what, once i tossed aside my mainland cynicism, it was really nice to live in a reality where you trusted strangers.

More on Dirt

2009-09-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

I received some interesting intelligence from Chris, a farm manager, concerning my dirty toes. Turns out the dirt on Maui is used to dye clothes so it's no wonder that it dyes my skin as well. In other news, I have a new favorite plant and its name is okra. Apparently okra is related to hibiscus and the okra we eat is the result of beautiful cream colored flowers. The plants themselves are spindly and tall. They sway peacefully in the Maui breezes.

I spent most of today weeding and transplanting parsley. I've been assigned eight rows in one of the gardens that are mine to "nurture." Included in those rows are two beds of Okra, some lima beans, fennel, carrots, beets, cilantro, broccoli and other goodies. I'm pretty excited about my new babies.

I went in to Paia tonight with Lulu and Airen for some Kailua Pork. The sandwich was kind of soggy and over all meh, but it was nice to get off the farm.

I'll be sure to upload some pics for y'all manana.

Sleep well!

CMC

2009-09-08T20:54:00.001-07:00

My whole body hurts. Why? Because today I dug another bed and planted it with lima beans. Yesterday I noted that I was
excited to have learned this skill which is still true today. However, what was different about today's bed turning experience was that the bed was twice as long, I did most of it myself, and it rained torrentially in the middle of it. Basically I was shoveling rain-heavy and clay-like soil for two hours and then turning that soil on top of itself while i mixed in chicken manure and oyster shells for calcium. By lunch time, my movements were lethargic and I felt as though I were floating, not walking. My back and obliques are going to be angry for the next two days.

On another note, it turns out WWOOFers at Hale Akua have group therapy seshes after work on Mondays. It was very productive and we worked through some kitchen cleaning politics. People who live in Hale Akua are asked to practice Non-Violent Communication or NVC (You down with NVC? Yeah you know me!) so the session was facilitated by an NVC aficionado.

Tonight I pan fried up some small white fishies that Len caught. I made a relish with young but pink papaya, radishes, cucumbers, cilantro and citrus all from the grounds and some coconut rice to go along side. It was pretty yummy. Wish I had taken pictures.

Below are some pictures pertaining to the Bamboo and Brewskies post. Courtesy of Lulu McAllister of course--glad one of us wants to document this trip :).

Aloha,

CMC

Bamboo and Brewskies

2009-09-07T00:00:00.001-07:00

Saturday afternoon Lulu, our roommate, Airen, and I hopped in the WWOOFer ride (pictured in the dictionary next to the word "jalopy") and puttered down the Hana Highway to hike in the Bamboo forests. This was a hike out of a travel brochure. The trail started out in a labyrinth-like fashion as we darted through darkened paths lined with sky-reaching bamboo. The noise of the bamboo swaying into each other above us was kind of creepy and made me think of the maze in the Goblet of Fire (You know what I'm talking about Harry Potter nerds.) Unlike Harry and Cedric, however, we three wanderers emerged from the bamboo and found no death eaters waiting for us--only four INCREDIBLE water falls and a floating dead boar (more like a moving carpet of maggots in the shape of a pig--the smell was something to behold.) Luckily, we had decided to power through to the last waterfall and did not swim downstream of Ms. Piggy who was hanging out in the pool below the second waterfall. Words can't do the scenery justice and we couldn't bring a camera because swimming and slipping were inevitable. Suffice it to say, I couldn't believe my luck to be walking through something so beautiful with someone (Airen) who knew where she was headed.

Sunday was a bit more decadent. Lu and I headed off with our coworker, Len, in pursuit of good brews and ended up at Maui Brewing Co. a little bit North of Lahaina. I had already tried their mainstays so I went for the more peculiar pints this go round. I had a "hot blonde" which was a chipotle lager that paired really well with the calamari starter we ordered. Lulu got a coconut porter that had been aged in rum bottles. It was quite good. We also sampled a Belgian-style tripel called Father Damien's and some sort of quirky wheat beer, but I don't remember what the quirk was and it was too banana-ee for me. The beer was wonderful and the pub made me feel like I was in San Diego (which i guess is nice after all) but what was awesome about this day was that, on the way to the brews, Len was nice enough to drive us around the island and give us a tour that only a local could. We drove through the old sugar cane factory which looks exactly like it did in late 1800s and is still in use. The size of the, in Len's words, "small" molasses holding containers were mind-bogglingly large. He also showed us a number of choice beaches and snorkling spots that i look forward to revisiting.

Today was a half day of work as it is labor day. Seems I have taken on the job of measuring the temperature of the various piles of compost (shit) around the grounds. So, you know... that's fun. I also learned how to turn and make a bed which was exciting and harvested some green beans. Now I'm going to figure out something for lunch.

Peace!

CMC

First Impressions

2009-09-05T14:15:00.001-07:00

I'm calling this blog dirty toes because, after two days of traipsing around a tropical farm in flip-flops, it has become abundantly clear that the shoe box full of manicure supplies I hauled with me across the Pacific will not be touched for the next three months. There is no amount of rubbing, scrubbing or lufa-ing that will get the dirt off my dirty toes and, seeing as all the shower facilities here are co-ed, group facilities, I don't have much interest in spending ten minutes awkwardly hunched over ass to eyeballs.

So, friends and family, this is the blog in which I will document (hopefully consistently...) my time WWOOFing on Maui. I've explained the title, and now I'll get to the substantive stuff (though I'm sure the mention of group showers has piqued your interest a bit). I arrived in Maui Wednesday evening and was picked up by the Hale Akua Garden Farms office manager, Wendy. During the 45 minute ride to the farm, we exchanged pleasantries and I expressed my excitement at having arrived in such a beautiful place. Wendy mentioned a woman should not swim in the ocean while "on her moon" seeing as it is shark season. I replied, "how terrifying." (I did not join the other WWOOFers on a surfing excursion today). We drove home by the light of a nearly full moon which reflected off the ever-present Pacific Ocean and illuminated the Coastal Landscape and distant Haleakala Crater. It was lovely.

The next day I was put straight to work. I, along with six other indentured (JK!) workers aged 17 to 26, and two farm managers spent the day weeding, thinning, transplanting and weeding some more. I worked mostly with beets, fennel, carrots and parsley and battled "nut grass" and "sensitive grass." Both these grasses are frustrating: nut grass because if you don't pull the little nut in the root system out of the ground, it pops back up in two days and sensitive grass (though fascinating because it leaves fold in on themselves when you touch it) because it has a nasty little thorn at the base of it. By hour four, my body was experiencing what i would describe as intense discomfort. Every time I moved up or down, which i did quite often, my knees cracked to remind me I was tormenting them. My back (upper and lower) was also less than thrilled and I was contributing to its discomfort in a way I had not forseen--all the crouching and hunching had resulted in pretty constant coin-slot exposure to the sun. Though I had carefully covered my Irish arms face and legs with SPF 50, I had not thought to protect my butt-crack. Needless, to say, I now have an angry and awkward sunburn. I guess this isn't a joke.

After a dip in the pool (salt water--oh so sustainable), Lulu and I decided we'd go with the other WWOOFers in to town. When we got to the car we were the last ones there and there was no room for us. It was awkward. Being the new kids, we held our chins high and ever so good-spiritedly declared (mother--stop reading, or worrying. I LOVE YOU!) that we would hitch a ride in to town. It was surprisingly easy. On the way there, our farm manager picked us up and on the way back we only had to wait for one car to pass by us before, as lulu put it, "exactly who you would imagine would pick up hitch-hikers on Maui" picked us up. For my mother's sake, let's just leave the character details to dreads, reggae, Jesus, and a funny smell. (Check out Lulu's take of hitch hiking in Maui here.)

In between rides, we went to the town of Paia 20 miles south which has everything you need--a local health food store, coffee places, a gelateria, a post office, and a farm to table pizza place. (By the end of day two of farm work, I was already restless enough to consider sending a letter of inquiry to this place. I guess the kitchen is hard to stay away from.) We also found a place called the "Wine Corner" where we bought a sampler six pack of Maui Brewing Co's beers. The owner hails from San Diego so no surprise they (Coconut Porter, Bikini Blonde, and Big Swell IPA) were all quite delicious. I was also totally enamored of the packaging style--cans.

The next day we harvested and packaged the produce we had orders for. We sell to local markets and restaurants (that pizza place and an upscale farm-to-table fish restaurant being among them). It was educational to be on the farming side of that interaction. As a cook, you really don't think about the labor that goes in to your produce before you have a chance to put your hands on it. I feel i did as much peeling and sorting as I would have done in a restaurant. PEOPLE: THERE IS SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY THAT GOES IN TO THE FOOD YOU EAT. SAVOR IT. LOVE IT.

I mentioned earlier that I was restless: farming kind of sucks. It hurts, it's repetitive and the work is never done--there will always be nut grass. This being said, I'm excited to go to work on Monday and love that I have learned the correct way to harvest Bok Choy and Basil. I'm composting, I'm cooking with incredibly fresh produce that my hands nurtured, and I'm foraging for things like bananas, passion fruit and strawberry guava. It's all retrospectively awesome and I'm praying that I can get past the mind-numbing boringness and land in the zen of efficiency i had become used to with bread. Right now, I'm pretty optimistic that this is possible.

For my next post, look forward to notes on the weather, my coworkers and things I've eaten/cooked.

Miss you all!

CMC

photography courtesy of Lulu McAllister. Thanks LU!