I just got back from a month in Australia. What do I miss most, besides my best mates and Aussie humor? The nature and the smells. They're often linked, actually. Walking around the Barossa Valley (South Australia), strong wafts of peppermint (eucalyptus trees) backed with black pepper and lemon (also from the trees and native scrub) swirl around me. Then there's the ubiquitous rosemary and sweet lavender that grow so well that some use them for hedgerows. The air often has a dusty, clay-like scent, possibly from that iron-rich, sunbaked red soil mixed with a deep, meaty undertones that I want to believe is Vegemite...but I really have no idea where it comes from.

05 May 2011

Ha! Victory has been had in the war on finding the Middle-Eastern products I adore... I have found my Labneh, right here in Sonoma even, at Sonoma Market (http://www.sonoma-glenellenmkt.com.) Much to my surprise, I found it at a most abundant location, as opposed to the less-than-luxurious environments I had imagined trekking to Oakland or Berkley to a Middle Eastern specialty market and being pushed around by the regular customers as I have in the past. Those living in L.A. can relate if you’ve ever shopped at the fabulous Elat Market (http://www.yelp.com/biz/elat-market-los-angeles) on Pico Blvd. (Best Bulgarian Feta, btw.) But today in Sonoma is about both victory and convenience. Right on! So, what came next? Lunch.

When spring starts, I always get a sense of relief and surprise that it really is happening again. Now it’s May, that initial disbelief is replaced by complete amazement at how much life, growth, wild energy suffuses everything I can see.
 
Every hedgerow has gone crazy, sending out the cow parsley that grows visibly day to day, suddenly the lanes are too narrow for cars to go down without the delicate flowers stroking the sides.  The thorn hedge that I laid, worried it would kill the blackthorn and hawthorn, is flowering for England on its side.  Pairs of birds fly flirtatiously together, absorbed in each other, oblivious of predators for the only time in the year.  The dazzling succession of greens in the woodland deepens and starts becoming one great motor of growth as all the leaves have unfurled from their delicate winter protection and open themselves, like photovoltaic cells, to harvest the sun’s energy.
 

I spent my entire senior year at Emerson College in a turmoil of stomach pain before it dawned on me that I might have an allergy to something. As a rabid consumer of coffee, mostly in (iced) latte form, there were zero minutes in the day when milk was not in my system. Therefore, lactose intolerance never crossed my mind. Finally, a friend recommended I avoid dairy for a day. This was excruciating (hello, my COFFEE!), but I went with a black americano and voila! It was the most amazing feeling. Peace in my stomach!

Clearly, foregoing dairy was not a long term option for someone like me. I despised the chalky aftertaste of soy, and had absolutely no interest in venturing into the world of rice or almond milk. I NEEDED a way to get back to eating cheese, ice cream, and drinking iced lattes (believe it or not, I’m not obese).