Seconds on Piki, Please

If you're not following the comments on the piki blog, you're missing out. My friends are saying much more interesting stuff than I did. You guys are ... (What do we cool people say these days instead of "You're the bomb?") Whatever it is, Leslie & Sharon, you guys are it!! I'd like to hear from more of you.
With that said, I have to birdwalk from the topic a minute to say I just got back from seeing The King's Speech and was blown away. The audience applauded at the end. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but the acting was fabulous.

piki

            Mom’s iron skillet that she fried potatoes and chicken in was a cinch to wash. Instead of dunking it in dishwater, you just wiped it clean to retain the “curing.” Now I throw soup makings into my crock pot instead of the iron Dutch oven lurking in my “never-used” cabinet. Plus, fried anything seldom makes my menu, unless it’s the guilt-ridden pleasure of a late night drive-through at In-N-Out Burger.

            What made me think of Mom’s iron skillet was a passage I read about how Hopi women make piki. In Helen Sekaquaptewa’s autobiography, Me and Mine, she describes the process. If you’ve never tasted the airy delight (Think tortilla but 5 times as thin and rolled up.), you’re in for a treat. First locate a suitable flat stone about 2 feet wide and a couple inches thick, grind it smooth to a polish, fire it all day, then cure it with the oil from melon seeds. Now you’re ready. (You still with me?)

            Mix a liquidy ground corn mixture and tint bowls of it with bright colors like you do when dying Easter eggs. Pour the batter onto your pre-heated piki stone. When it’s cooked just enough, roll it up with your hands without getting burned. See how easy that was?

It reminds me of the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. (Oh, you didn’t know Gertrude Stein’s lover cooked?) Alice says that to cook a fish you begin by walking down to the dock to see what the fishermen are catching that day.

This food talk makes me hungry for lunch. Think I’ll sign off and microwave my Lean Cuisine of the day.

Responses to my blog friends

What a great thing this blogging is to be able to talk to other people while still in my jammies, sipping coffee. Sharon, I'm glad you can see what I see in my mind. When you think about it, language is a miracle. Here's one body and there's another, and they can communicate everything from, "More coffee." to "I regret I have but one life to give for my country." with a string of utterances. Wow! 

Leslie, if you want to know where to get my book, House of the Earth, I havn't sold it yet. Know any publishers? If you're talking about Earl Morris & Southwestern Archaeology (I used the modern spelling in yesterday's blog-oops.) by Florence C. & Robert H. Lister, you'll have to search Amazon or a used bookstore like Bookman's, as it was published in 1968. I'm excited about your interest.

Thank you everyone for following my blog. I'm so jazzed.

Aztec Ruins

A witch, you say? At Aztec Ruins?

Let’s back up a minute. Archeological evidence says the inhabitants of Aztec Ruins were ancient Ancestral Puebloan people. (I know. I know. You called them Anasazi back in grade school, but like with the planet Pluto, you have to unlearn whatcha learned.)

Old timers back at the turn of the twentieth century named everything they stubbed their toe on after the Aztecs. Check out a map of the four-corners area (AZ, UT, CO & NM), and you’ll see towns, counties, a well, and ruins named after the ancient Mexican culture. In reality, the Aztecs and their king Montezuma never came this far north.

            Whoever the Puebloan Donald Trump was at the time plopped this three story condo complex on prime real estate beside the Animus River in NW New Mexico. It’s on the road between its more famous cousins, Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. My book’s fictitious main character, Alison Cabot, is a 1916 archeologist. In an early scene from House of the Earth, Alison is with Earl Morris when he discovers the skeleton of a “witch” at Aztec Ruins-a real event involving the real Earl and my not-real Alison.

Imagine Earl’s shock when he saw that the skeleton of a crone propped against a wall inside a room had a pointed stake driven through her pelvis clear into the ground. Reporting to his funders, he said the woman had probably been accused of witchcraft. The media today would be all over that. Stay tuned for News at 6:00. Lister & Lister’s biography, Earl Morris & Southwestern Archeology, says it made the papers then, as well. They state the woman, “ lying in her grisly torture chamber had her picture emblazoned in dozens of newspapers.”

Earl Morris eventually reconstructed the Grand Kiva at Aztec Ruins. As I stepped out of the blazing sun into the cool serenity of the magnificent building on my first trip, I was struck with the beauty of its colors and proportions. Surely this was a sacred space. Out of nowhere I heard drumming and chanting. I’ll let you discover for yourself where it came from when you visit the Aztec Ruins yourself. Be prepared for goosebumps. Check out my web link to their site.

To the Extreme

At Borders the other day, I was shocked when people sitting in the bookstore café rose as one and raced to the windows. Then I saw it, too. Snow! Snow in Phoenix! It lasted all of five minutes. Snow to 115 degree summers in the desert is extreme, but then, I’m very fond of extremes. 

I did extreme family first, with two husbands (former) and six kids, whose own kids have so many grand/step-grandparents, they write on their hands Christmas Day to remember where we all hang on the family tree. Then I did extreme education, earning enough degrees to stuff a piñata. Even in my career, I taught a ton of students, elementary to university. I run into people all the time who remember me as their teacher, which is why I make it a point to avoid adult bookstores and biker bars. Well, except for that one biker bar. As I explained to my former student, I was there with Druid (my Irish boy friend) to hear the blues band, Crimson Chord. They rock.

… and now I’ve written a book, historical novel actually, with a dash of murder and a handful of archeology. It’s my extreme pleasure to invite you to check out my blog often and track the path of what happens after completing a novel (Me now.), to enticing an agent (Pick me. Pick me.), to getting published. (Dreams do come true, right?) I’ll also blog travelogues of Southwest archeological sites and other places my characters hang out. The first will be Aztec Ruins in NW New Mexico. Stay tuned.

TOP 5 REASONS WHY EVERY WOMAN NEEDS RED SATIN SHEETS:

5.  So you'll feel like an old-time movie star after a candle-lit bubble bath ...
4.  Red wine spills won't show ...
3.  So you're spouse/significant other will know you mean business ...
2.  So everyone at the laundromat will wonder what you do for a living ...
1.  Because you deserve it!

I'd be interested in knowing what luxury item reminds you that "You deserve it."?