Mullings and Tributes

Alright lets face it. My unwavering dedication to the art of blogging in the new school year has not been as ardently attended to as I might have liked. Life gets ahead of you and you end up wondering where that half hour you had reserved went. Alas, the real sorrow in that is all the wonderful culinary adventures that go unrecorded.
The past month has been lost to traveling, family, music and various school related activities. I spent a lovely holiday break that commenced with a Inferno-esque O'Hare experience and culminated in the most epic tamale feast ever. Really. This blog is therefore devoted to tamale husks and Portland Oregon.
It is rare to find a place that truly culls up some latent sense of your existence, more so, your humanity, and I am lucky to have found that place in the Pacific Northwest, where I was born and unfortunatly must return to in-all-too brief periods of time. Portland, Seattle, and the whole Northeastern seaboard seem to beckon to the bleakest, wettest and most vital parts of the soul. The people themselves are a part of the skyline and the convergence of mountain, earth and ocean makes for a distinctive palate of tastes, textures, and experiences. The food from that part of the world is much (rightly so) lauded, and if your interested in local eating then look no further than the wonderful plethora that is Washington and Oregon. My home is there, my people are there, my tastebuds most certainly are looking forward to going back.
Anyways, these tamales. On my last day there this January, we spent the day drowning ourselves in food. Louise (my other mother), from which all delicious, nutritious gluten free foodstuffs flow from and I decided to cook up a Mexican influenced feast, which quickly grew from a small family gathering to all out party. The menu: Spanish rice and beans with cojilo cheese, tomatillo and red salsa, chicken tamales, posole (provided by the equally talented caterer/chef extrodinaire Jennifer), tamarid mixers (all thanks to another Jennifer), plaintains, homemade tortilla chips and pecan pie and leftover buche de noel for dessert. It was phenomenal, one of the most enjoyable evenings I have ever spent, and in the company of the most heartwarming people I know. I left the next morning after three hours of sleep, full of the taste of tamales with hot sauce, the scent of strong bitter coffee and the memory of some of my dearest loved ones to carry with me back east.
So there, a vingette from the holidays; something that made going back to the dismal, metallic grey of Rochester that much more bittersweet. Oi veh. Hopefully there will be more posts in the new year, that sounds like as good a resolution as any.