Soup of the evening, beautiful soup

One of my passions is cooking. I don’t get much of a chance to in Santa Rosalia since the guesthouse employs a cook. So today I am going to experiment with making Red Pepper and Orange Soup for lunch. The recipe comes from the Reader’s Digest Spanish language cookbook Cocina Fantástica which our cook borrowed from her friend to show me, and I was able to purchase on http://www.exlibris.com/ as it is out of print. This is such a great cookbook, full of delicious and unusual recipes that after I had sampled some of them, I bought a copy for myself as well. Theoretically the recipes can be prepared in 30 minutes.

Among my most favorite vegetables are red bell peppers. We don’t have access to them but once in a blue moon in Santa Rosalia. Last time I saw them I bought most of what they had even though they were slightly wilty and had Esperando roast them on the grill. Then I peeled them, put them in a jar, and covered them with olive oil and we ate them up over the course of the week. Now that I am in Denver for awhile this is an opportunity to see if I like this different sounding soup recipe.

Red Pepper and Orange Soup
Serves 4

2 T olive oil
2 lbs red peppers
2 cloves minced garlic
Salt
3 Seville or blood oranges
1 T orange flower water (available at health food, gourmet grocer or large liquor store)

In a large casserole, heat the oil over a medium fire. Devein the red peppers and cut into quarters lengthwise, then slice into large pieces. Sauté the pepper and garlic; add salt to taste. Cover the casserole and heat to high until vapor begins to escape from under the lid. Reduce flame to very low or they will burn, and cook for 25 minutes or until peppers are really soft, turning them from time to time so that they cook in their own juices. (Here in Denver we are at a high altitude so I had to cook them for 40 minutes.) Meanwhile in a mixing bowl, juice the oranges until you have ¾ of a cup of juice. (I cheated and purchased fresh squeezed orange juice from the grocery store, but I think blood oranges would be really good.) Add the orange flower water to the orange juice. When the peppers are well cooked, puree them in a blender or food processor. Add the orange juice mixture to the blender and liquefy again. Adjust seasonings, I added salt enough to balance out the sweetness of the oranges. Heat the soup again and serve with a little chopped parsley. What's not to like?

What wound did ever heal but by degrees

As William Shakespeare wrote: "How poor are they who have not patience. What wound did ever heal but by degrees." Other than watching my roses hatch very slowly, not much is going on here.

I wasn’t going to dwell on my recovery from shoulder surgery anymore, but it seems to be the my only focus right now. Today was my second physical therapy session. The first time I went, I met Rick my physical therapist and Ashley the receptionist who just moved to Denver two weeks ago.

Rick is a decent 35-ish freckly guy, pleasant but pretty much business-like with a steady hand and good at explaining how to do my exercises. I spent about 10 minutes painfully raising my arm up and down in a pulley with my other arm while he went off to print out some more exercises for me. He asked me what my goals were, which are to be outta here by July 3 to drive back down to Baja. Ashley and her husband moved here just out of college from Washington State. Because we have been having so much rain lately, such unusually cloudy and drizzly days, so unlike Colorado weather this early in the year, I had to explain to her that it was all very weird and she shouldn’t base her impression of Denver on the last two week’s weather. Its true to say these people are the dominant influence on my life at the moment.

Rick give me a bunch of exercises that I can do at home without needing someone like Esperando around to lift my arm up for me. By the time I left my head was swimming and I hoped I could remember how to do everything right. I went home and had two days to practice everything on my own. Mostly I have to do five different exercises twice a day 20 times each and hold each position for the count of 10. That may sound pretty simple but when one arm is busy doing exercises, it only leaves one hand free for counting to 20 in five finger increments, while verbally counting to 10 to hold the position. It was a whole new challenge; maybe I don’t have Alzheimer’s yet after all.

Today I went light doing the morning set of exercises figuring I would get new ones added today and practice at physical therapy. Instead I got a back and shoulder massage. It started out swell, all those sore muscles in my back got rubbed tenderly, but after the nice part Rick started poking everything that was stiff and stretching it out until I said ouch, then he would hold it there and push a little more after a few seconds. In a way even though it was painful it was good knowing my muscles were starting being pushed to go back to where they need to go. It is so discouraging to see what tiny steps I have taken so far and sort of staggering to think how far I have to go yet.

While Rick was torturing me I asked him if he liked BBQ, that if he did he should check out The Ribhouse at Prospect. Well yes Rick said, he was from Texas so every time he went back home the first thing he did was go out for BBQ. Rick told me my muscles were really tight because they were still trying to protect my shoulder from movement. Then he spun a little Texas philosophy on me. He said these muscles are like a bunch of big brothers protecting a little brother in a bar, everyone starts fighting and getting out of control and really they aren’t helping the situation because they don’t know what they are doing just striking out at everything, just like my muscles don’t know what they are doing to still try to protect my shoulder from moving. As a concept it really stuck in my mind—but there is so little else to occupy my mind right now. After about 40 minutes of getting poked, stretched, prodded and twisted, Rick brought in an icepack and iced my shoulder for the next 15 minutes so by the time I left I was freezing as well as sore. But the really worst (and best) part of the physical therapy is the fact that I have to drive by Sonic Drive-In on my way home and console myself with a chile cheeseburger every time. So much for the weight I lost in my first two weeks recovering from surgery! I’m already full of hot air, I’ve got to be vigilant that I don’t start to balloon.

Mountain Time

Yesterday Esperando and I went for a drive through the mountains. First we drove to Golden, Colorado, home of the Colorado School of Mines and Coors Brewery. It is a cute little mountain town, the main street lined with interesting shops and places to eat. Last summer they had a great farmer’s market in the park and an antique car show that incorporated five city blocks. We stopped to have a cup of Starbucks, and in talking to our barista I discovered she had just taken her sling off last week from the same surgery I just had. I could see she wasn’t using her arm much. They told her 5 months before she would be mountain climbing and doing scuba. She said her arm was sore from the physical therapy. I don’t have any such athletic ambitions, but I hope I my arm is much improved in 5 months—that’s a long time. After enjoying our coffee outside in the sunshine we set off for our next part of the trip.

Our plan was to drive to Longmont through the mountains in a somewhat circuitous route. Along the way we saw mountains covered with snow, a raft of parapont gilders on the hilltop in Golden that sports the big painted ‘M’ for School of Mines; bicyclers and motorcyclists en masse on the windy mountain roads; lots of guys out fishing with bobbers and fly rods; and as we drove through Boulder Canyon, quite a few rock climbers up there in the nether reaches. In what other state than Colorado could you drive around and see such diversity of physical activity within 40 minutes? Everybody wanted a piece of the warm sunny weather, even though dark clouds threatened thunderstorms on the horizon. The high mountains are still crowned snow, but the aspens have greened up, lots of wildflowers were blooming, and the snow melt fills the rushing streams.

In Longmont we went to dine at one of Sunset Magazine’s June 2009 picks for the ten top barbeque spots in the West, The Rib House at Prospect. It is an unassuming but commodious facility with inside and outside dining and takeout. The ambience of the Propect Development in which the restaurant nestles is very inviting, tree-lined streets and neighborhoods that are quite cute with a blend of modern urban design and nouveau Victorian houses sprinkled with southern architectural and farmhouse themes, i.e., antebellum and New Orleans wrought iron trim, big porches, hanging flower baskets and varied bright paints.

We enjoyed our meal outside. So many people were out doing mountain activities that we didn’t encounter the big long line I feared. Between the two of us, we chowed down the baby back ribs, boneless short ribs, medium sauce (spicy) and sides of beans, corn in special cheddar sauce, and the Chipotle potato salad. It was all delicious and spicy, even the beans. They have just opened a new location in Boulder, and are selling their BBQ sauces at King Soopers.

After that we headed back home to avoid the predicted big thunderstorm that didn’t materialized until the evening when we started to barbeque scallops with prosciutto and fresh thyme and tarragon.