I post these just so that I can look back over the years to see what sort of weather we’ve had.
por Joan Manuel Serrat
Quizás porque mi
niñez
sigue jugando en tu playa
y escondido tras las cañas
duerme mi primer amor,
llevo tu luz y tu olor
por dondequiera que vaya,
y amontonado en tu arena
guardo amor, juegos y penas.
Yo, que en la piel tengo el sabor
amargo del llanto eterno
que han vertido en ti cien pueblos
de Algeciras a Estambul
para que pintes de azul
sus largas noches de invierno.
a fuerza de desventuras,
tu alma es profunda y oscura.
A tus
atardeceres rojos
se acostumbraron mis ojos
como el recodo al camino.
soy cantor, soy embustero,
me gusta el juego y el vino,
tengo alma de marinero.
Qué le voy a
hacer, si yo
nací en el mediterráneo.
Y te acercas, y
te vas
después de besar mi aldea.
jugando con la marea
te vas, pensando en volver.
eres como una mujer
perfumadita de brea
que se añora y que se quiere
que se conoce y se teme.
Ay, si un día para mi mal
viene a buscarme la parca.
empujad al mar mi barca
con un levante otoñal
y dejad que el temporal
desguace sus alas blancas.
Y a mí enterradme sin duelo
entre la playa y el cielo...
En la ladera de
un monte,
más alto que el horizonte.
quiero tener buena vista.
mi cuerpo será camino,
le daré verde a los pinos
y amarillo a la genista.
Cerca del mar. porque yo
nací en el mediterráneo.
Like everyone else who lives on the Mediterranean basin, I love this song. I wasn’t born on the Mediterranean, but I’ve spent a very good portion of my life living on its very edge. I love that through this song I learned the name of these gorgeous flowers, the genista, that I see on my bikes rides along the coast here.
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Genista |
On closer inspection, I recognized the root bulb, something I’d seen in the market, but had never ventured to bring any home to cook, or whatever you do with a fennel root bulb. I’ve used fennel seeds, sometimes mistaking them for cumin (comino) when I’m congested and my sense of smell vanishes. The two seeds look very similar but trust me, they are not in any way interchangeable in the kitchen.
One click of the mouse and twenty-some centuries earlier, we have yet another revelation. The Greek name for fennel is “marathon” (μάραθον) or marathos (μάραθος), and the place of the famous battle of Marathon literally means a plain with fennel.
Two yummy things to do with fennel:
Shave and toss with Valencia orange wedges and a light vinaigrette for a delicious spring salad.
Slice in half crosswise, top with buttered breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, then bake.
Just try to imagine anything our 45th President ever said that you could put into any sort of context where he would come out sounding like a literate adult. I can’t do it.
It’s so creepy how many men in America think that this level of weaponry is necessary, or worse, that owning this much hardware makes you a man.
A gunman killed eight people and wounded several others before killing himself in a late-night shooting at a FedEx facility near the Indianapolis airport, police said, in the latest in a spate of mass shootings to shake the nation.