rss feedSo it’s been rather a
August 11th, 2008So it’s been rather a while since I posted. But more to come (and photographs!) soon, I think.
An Addendum, or so
July 4th, 2008Oh, wait. Some necessary appendices:
1. I spent a while complaining about the falls and how many people there were here. While perhaps a valid complaint, today I had two pretty fantastic experiences. First, we walked down the Sendero Macuco, where sendero = path, and a macuco is a kind of bird, which google tells me is a Solitary Tinamou. The path doesn’t bring you to the main falls, so it’s much less-used. It’s a dirt path, mud in places, and after three kilometers of nothing but flat jungle, you come to a rather intense decline, and come out onto a fork. If you go right, which we did second, you can climb down a difficult path to find yourself at the riverside, with these beautiful sedimentary-I-think rocks, and lizards, and under the hot sun. You can’t even see the waterfall from this far down the river, so we saw all of this without seeing anyone else but one boyscout-redhead who I named William.
If instead you go left at the fork, you come to the bottom of a smaller waterfall which falls into a small pool, crosses a small stream, and falls down below into the river. The path ends at the pool-side, but you can clamber over the rocks, crossing all the way around to stand under the waterfall, literally underneath it, or behind it. The water was cold and amazing, and underneath you could hear nothing, you could see the water spraying into the air, you could feel the slippery, mossy rocks under your feet. If you walked along the stream, you could stand unencumbered at the shelf of the lower falls, trying to get close enough to peer over the edge. As we left, some kids went the easy route, and just jumped into the cold water and swam across.
Before we took off, we walked the lower path below the falls again, the main falls, and walked as close as we could, and I realized as I stood there, staring up into the water pouring over the cliff, the spray wetting my face and hair, that I could hear nothing except the roar of the falls, and when I stared up into it, I could pretend I was alone. Although I might wish I could be closer, or climb across the river and stand below the most beautiful falls, or go to the island (which was closed because of “high water”), I was still amazed with what there was. How’s that for a message?
2. I think I need to add that when I say I don’t think I could work with kids, I mean in part that I think some people are able to form attachments with all of the kids that they work with, and really get something out of each day — it’s just difficult for me to do so
3. Last, I need to add that although I’m regretful of not having tried to meet people, I really did end up enjoying my time in Buenos Aires, no? I am sad that I did not, and set in the idea that I’ll try harder in the future, but I’m pleased with how things went, on the whole.
In any case, a happy Fourth to the all of you, and I find myself leaving for Tucúman this evening. It’s a 20-hour-or-so bus ride, so I’ll have a nice chance to get to know the north. Or something.
cataratas: from Iguazú to you
July 3rd, 2008As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the “business center” of a hotel in the northeast of Argentina, in the park of Iguazú falls. While it’s sort of bizarre to be at some fancy-shmancy Sheraton hotel literally in the park, it’s really nice to not have to drive anywhere — we can walk outside and see the falls.
Which are really fantastic — by which I mean, I’ll put pictures on the internet when I finally get home and have a connector cable, but these falls are glorious to look at. On the one hand, we’re able to get really close — the metal pathways built by the Argentine Park Service bring you perilously close to the edges, and you can feel the spray against your face — but on the other, it’s really lame how many people there are, how crowded the largest portion (La Garganta del Diablo, The Devil’s Throat) is, how it feels a bit like a tourist trap. I’m so glad I got to go here, and I like my photographs, and there were some moments where all I could really hear was the roar of the falls, but there’s no sense of adventure. The paths are all man-made, the jungle is cut back, the bannisters keep you away. My father went here in the 1970s, when he hitch-hiked around South America (crazy old man), and he doesn’t remember these crowds. Really, though, I just have this idea of nature as something personal & spiritual, not something to be shared with strangers. Just the idea exploring is taken away, no?
In any case, clearly I’ve made it through the part of the summer wherein I work at FLENI. I’m not home yet, of course, but I finished my internship. There was nothing that changed over the course of it, not really, but I do feel like the length was educational and useful; I think I managed to figure out two main things through the time I spent here. One, of course, was how floor time works. I don’t actually feel as though I have a complete understanding of it, but spending days watching it, I felt as though I was managing to get a much better idea of the complexities involved, and an understanding of what ends it heads towards. Maria, my boss, was really good at floortime, and watching her coach other people in ways of challenging and supporting kids was really cool. The second thing I think I came to understand was that while I like developmental psychology, and am interested in working with both children and autism, I don’t think I have the strength of heart to do autism therapy as a life-time occupation. I don’t have the fascination with the disorder, or the attachment to the children that you really need in order to be happy doing it.
Tomorrow my sister, parents and I head off to the northwest of Argentina, to Tucúman, and thence to Salta and Jujuy, and I’m looking forward to exploring these regions. My father’s friend will be showing us around, and it should be a strange, but hopefully novel and enjoyable, experience — my dad hasn’t seen this guy for fifteen years, perhaps, and the rest of us don’t know him.
I saw Michael (Neddy) twice before I headed up here, and got to meet some of his friends. The experience made me wish I had expended more effort in meeting people in Buenos Aires, in finding people to spend time with. I liked my time there, I really enjoyed the city and sort of enjoyed all my free time, but it would have been cool to make new friends, to explore alongside others. I can make all sorts of excuses as to why I didn’t try harder (I was here so short a time, I don’t speak the language, I’m shy, I didn’t know how, I had to get up really early every weekday morning), but I think the long and short of it is that I wish I had tried harder — tried to get together with some of the people from work, or tried to meet some folks on the internet (how terrifying!), or even gone to some American-frequented bars and hung around. Because of course, you meet people not by chance, but by meeting the friends of people you already know, by hanging out and around until you find someone you like. And you can’t do that if you don’t know anyone.
This isn’t to say that I was bored, or that I didn’t go out while I was in Buenos Aires — I hung out with my sister a lot while she was there, and with her friends after she left, and with people I met through them. There was only really a week where I didn’t see people, only a day or two where I really passed the entire day without exchanging more than ten words with anyone. I saw some awesome things, I really enjoyed my job, I got to know the city. I guess in essence I am thinking of this as “how to do it next time.” Which is rather nice.
I like thinking that there will be a next time, no?
HIATUS
June 27th, 2008Okay, this isn’t necessarily the case. But if you look for regular updates from me, or responses to emails, be warned that I may be less accessible during the next few weeks.
Alquiler!
June 25th, 2008Tonight I went and saw “Rent” at Konex, which is the same place that La Bomba de Tiempo is at. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I went and saw “Rent.” Shuddup.) (I went to that again on Monday, with Natanya, her brother, his wife, and her brother’s wife’s friend, Shawna.) The title is still “Rent,” even though everything was in Spanish.
It was pretty cool to watch. I’ll admit that ten minutes after it ended, everything repeated in my head was in English. It’s weird to see this show in Buenos Aires, though, where the theatre was just a theatre, and not, you know, Broadway. The acting was good (I really liked the guy who played Collins, and Mimi was pretty good, and I pretty much will always love Maureen), and the singing as well. But I mean — I guess it just felt like going to any theater production, aye? Not like going to see a Musical. And I kind of liked that.
Following Krista’s suggestion (was it hers?), I looked at the website, and followed the directions there about getting a discount: I went to the ticket office at 17:00 (actually, I got there at 17:20; I had to take a taxi to make it on-time because I showered first and lost track of the time), and wrote down my name and email and DNI, and then at 17:30 they had a “drawing” to give out the 16 free tickets they give out each night. Only, I mean, it was a drawing in name only, since there were five of us there, the other four in a party together. I got drawn first.
Which meant that, come 21:00, I sat in the middle of the front row with a $20 peso ticket (I’m not sure how much other tickets are), and the other folks sat on either side of me. This was mildly awkward, since it was a young woman, her (boy?)friend, and her parents, but it actually turned out to be fine; the woman sat next to me, and talked to me a bit. She’s a theater student here in Buenos Aire, but from Entre Rios (the city; how’s that spelled?), and she’s apparently going to Orlando in a few months to work at Disney (not sure what she’s doing). And she knew some of the folks in the performance, which was fun. We talked exclusively in Spanish, which was cool to be able to do, but slighly limiting.
In any case, “Rent” was a good time. It was essentially exactly the same as when I saw it in New York for probably 10 times as much, except the words were in Spanish. If I sung along in my head, which I [quasi-ashamedly] could do, the English words were still there, and the intonations were generally quite similar. But there were definitely points lost and words lost. I’m not complaining too much — there have got to be lost words in a translation of a musical, Jesus (speaking of whom, I got talked at by this woman at a bus stop on the way there, for like fifteen minutes, about the Bible, and she just babbled on in Spanish) — but I guess I’d say that it turned it from a musical with clever rhymes and clever syntax into a musical with just good music. That’s not entirely true, perhaps, but I think in general the meaning was retained without the simplicity, and sometimes it didn’t sound as good. (”Glory” drawn out sounds a lot better than “Gloria,” I promise you, and Mimi’s “And she looked good” in the final scene was gone, and a lot more like that.) And while perhaps we’re all limited by knowing the English version better, this woman and her parents agreed with me on this, and they spoke fluent Spanish. (We discussed it during the intermission; they had the movie & the CD of the English version at home, and apparently the father really likes it.)
I am convinced of these things:
(1) The guy who played Angel was good, but his dance scene was kind of lame, compared to past ones I’ve seen.
(2) Maureen’s monologue was good even in Spanish (although they repeated “saltar de fe” [leap of faith] more than “over the moon,” as in the English version), but I still think the best version I ever saw was Miriam’s, at TiP.
(3) “Without you” sounds a lot better than “Si no estas”.
(4) The “Contact” scene, when Angel dies, was holy shit way more scandalous here, with guys just in briefs humping women at the front of the stage. Maybe I’m wrong and was just closer to the stage.
Anyway, a fun time was had by all, and I am glad I went and saw that, and glad I got to sit in the front row. Even if I then had to eat leftovers at home because all the restaurants were closed by the time I got out at 00:30. (Leftovers weren’t bad. I took the rice from yesterday that I didn’t eat earlier today, and fried it with two eggs and some of the tofu. Which was, technically, silken tofu. I was silly and confused “pasta de soja” with tofu, and it does look the same from above, but, errr, maybe “pasta” means paste, but paste is not tofu. This is sort of like when I ordered “pan de pizza” thinking, hey, a pan pizza, and got just the baked pizza dough, with salt and oregano and nothing else. Which was actually delicious. Anyway.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about gerunds, in any case: I feel as though we use them a lot more in English than they do in other languages. I rarely hear someone saying “Yo estoy [haciendo algo]“, but in English “I’m [doing something]” is common parlance. And, when I think about it, a common mistake in people learning English is to say, “I go to this place,” when we would say, “I am going there.” I’m unsure about this — I don’t know if I’m wrong when I say, “Estoy trabajando en FLENI,” if I should be saying, “Trabajo en FLENI” (and is it “en,” or “a”), or if either is fine. In English, I could say, “I’m working at FLENI” or “I work at FLENI,” but sometimes I feel as though Spanish uses gerunds less, and would be more likely to interpret gerund-use as expressing immediacy.
And then I wonder whether maybe the case is just that I use gerunds more than the average bear in English as well, and that my confusion is based on being more self-aware of my language use. Anyway, weigh in, folks.
using up everything in my kitchen (almost)
June 24th, 2008I would guess that I made enough food for three people. Of course, I am left with 1 box of tofu, some spices, two bouillon cubes, not much more (eggs & butter & bread, but those I’ll use in the mornings). So hooray for me! I’m writing down exactly how I did it, but some of this is just me thinking, “Oh, forgot this!” For example, you should probably add the garlic with the onion for the pilaf, rather than after the water boils, and might want to use more chicken if you are actually trying to make this for a group. (I have no clue why I’ve taken to writing detailed recipes of what I have for dinner, but, well, so it goes.)
Rice Pilaf à la +justin
Ingredients:
- 1 cup rice (I used brown; white is fine; use the appropriate amount of water + a bit more, and the cook time is a little longer than expected)
- 1/2 white onion, chopped small
- 2 cloves garlic, pressed, chopped finely, or mashed (I used a fork)
- 1 1/4 chicken bouillon cubes (broth or stock would be better, but I can’t find canned broth here)
- Curry Powder, approximately 2 tsp
- Salt to taste (NOTE: you don’t need salt if you’re using bouillon cubes! they’re more than half salt, usually!)
- A little bit of butter (and a few teaspoons of olive oil)
- Frozen (or canned, I suppose) green peas, maybe 1/4 cup
- Dried apricots, quartered (any kind, really: I prefer the tart, sun-dried, wrinklier orange kind, sometimes referred to as California; there are also “turkish” apricots, which are brown because they don’t have sulfur added, and Mediterranean apricots, which are orange but artificially dried and sweet), maybe 8
- Raw almonds, maybe 1/8 cup
Okay, right. Cook the onion in a little bit of olive oil, for maybe 4 minutes, and then add the spices. After a minute, add a little more oil and then the rice, stir to coat. Add the water and bouillon cube, and stir occasionally until it dissolves. Add the garlic and the sun-dried tomato. Cover, and don’t open or stir until close to the end. Turn the heat to very-low but not lowest, or almost-lowest if you’re using an electric range.
When the time is almost up, add the peas, apricots, almonds, and a small pat of butter. Re-cover immediately without stirring, and wait until the water is fully absorbed. Stir everything up, turn off the heat, and leave for a few more minutes. Then serve.
With, optionally,
Chicken-eggplant stir fry
Ingredients:
- 1 breast chicken, cubed
- 1 small eggplant, cubed
- 1/2 onion (see: above!), chopped into small pieces
- a few mushrooms, preferrably portabello or white button, but any will do, sliced or chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 tbsp butter
- Olive oil as needed (note: the eggplant necessitates more than you might normally use, or such has been my experience!)
- Crushed red peppers, approximately 1 tsp, but to taste
- Curry powder, approximately 1 tbsp
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Melt the butter in the pan, and cook the onions at a low heat while chopping up everything else. After the onions are soft, add a bit of olive oil, and add the eggplant and garlic. Stir to coat. Stir occasionally for the next five minutes or so, and then add the chicken. Add olive oil as needed (see: when things start to stick; the eggplant absorbs a lot of olive oil) — but don’t overdo it. A little at a time.
When the chicken has begun to turn white, add the spices, and stir them in. When the chicken seems close to cooked, add the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are coated in spices and cooked, and the chicken is cooked through, it’s done. The mushrooms will provide some juice, but if you want a sauce, add some soy sauce near the end, I guess. It’s spicy enough on its own.
Serve everything together, I suppose. Drink a white wine with it, to offset the spicy. I drank a Familia Zuccardi Santa Julia Tardío 2007, which was really refreshingly fruity and delicious. I would totally recommend it. (It’s a bit pricey for Argentine wines; I was feeling adventurous, and not spending much on food [I just bought the onion and eggplant] since I was using things I already had.)
Aye, aye! This entry is silly.
no title
June 22nd, 20081. This YPF commercial is really neat. I mean, it’s a commercial for an oil-and-gas company. But it’s pretty cool.
2. I tried to make a cheese-sauce, Alfredo-like, today. I think I just used a cheese that isn’t supposed to be used for melting, but regardless I ended up with a lumpy butter-sauce, which was delicious but had like eight chunks of cheese that were relatively inedible. I need to figure out which cheeses melt well, I guess? I think this is the problem. I don’t know what else it would’ve been?
3. Tomorrow I go to the public hospital again, for one final time. I am interested, a wee bit excited, and a wee bit nervous. Again. For some reason.
Shrug.
photo & words & CPGC
June 19th, 2008Two things of possible note happened today:
1. I finished “Kavalier & Clay,” which was indeed a devestating moment of separation, but which was also entirely worth it. A really, really good book. It got me interested anew in stage magic (The Illusionist [film] did this as well, but I was always a Harry Houdini kid) and in the World Fair. These are good things.
2. My camera ran out of batteries. I knew this would happen soon. I have a very few photographs from FLENI. I wasn’t going to be allowed to take photos of anything I was actually doing (the kids are, you know, patients, and they have rules) but I still would’ve liked to have gotten a few more photographs. We’ll see what I have when my parents comme and bring the charger.
I feel a little bit guilty, though, since one of the few things the CPGC asks for is photographs. I also don’t know if I’ve really mentioned that the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford College is funding my “internship” here, but I guess I might as well say that yes, they are, and they’re pretty awesome. I was reading through the web journals some of the other “interns” (I put all of this in quotes; I feel like that word is wrong) are keeping on Haverford’s website, and it’s cool to see what we’re all doing. Emily H. is off in Rwanda working with non-violent conflict resolution workshops; Chris H. is in Tibet teaching English to kids. (Their writing is the best of the bunch thus far, I think. Also I’m friends with them and they’re actually bothering to update with details.)
spanish & chocolate; making something out of nothing (two ways) (cross-post)
June 18th, 20081. [Bad] Spanish (I was lying about the chocolate) (forgive me for mistakes; I am not using a dictionary).
Cuando llegué al Argentina, estaba muy nervioso sobre mi nivel de español y mi capacidad a usarlo. En solo un poco de días, me di cuenta que aunque no pude hablar perfectamente, pude hablar la idioma; pude sobrevivir. Estes días, tengo algunas conversaciones con personas — no puedo hablar con personas randomes (desgraciadamente), pero hablé con la dueña de mi apartamento para quizas quince minutos, y hablé con un psicologo quien me dio una vuelta en auto al ciudad, hoy, durante eso tiempo. (Que pena que estoy timido en español; él era muy simpatico y amable, y me quisiera pasar mas tiempo con él. Lo mismo con unas de las chicas con quien yo trabajo; ellas (realmente, solo chicas) son amables y me gustan en general, pero tienen más años que yo, y estoy timido, y . . .) Estoy leyendo “La Casa de los Espíritus” en español, y aunque no entiendo los accentes en español (o, por supuesto, en francés), entiendo mucho de eso libro, y creo que estoy aprendiendo. Estoy un poco confundido sobre el uso de los mandatos (no sé como usar accentes con ellos; no sé ni un poco de las reglas sobre el uso; no estoy seguro si esta un diferente manera a usarlos con familiares y formales, o con grupos y individuales, o con afirmativos y negativos), especialmente porque las instructuras de mis clases de yoga lo usan todos los días, pero habitualmente aparece que yo puedo hablar en español. En efecto, me doy cuenta que por la primera vez, yo uso la forma correcta del articulos con nombres. ¡Wow!
(direct translation/generally what I wanted to say: When I got to Argentina, I was really nervous about my level of Spanish, and my capacity to use it. In only a few days, I realized that although I couldn’t speak perfectly, I could speak the language in general; I could survive. These days, I have some conversations with people — I can’t speak with random folks (sadly), but I spoke with my land-lady for maybe fifteen minutes today, and I talked with a psychologist fellow who gave me a ride back to the city today, while we were driving. (How annoying that I’m shy in Spanish, though; he was really nice and friendly, and I would’ve liked to spend more time with him. The same’s true for the women/girls with whom I work; they’re (really, they’re all girls) friendly and I like them in general, but they’re old than I, and I’m shy, and . . .) I’m reading “The House of the Spirits” in Spanish, and although I don’t understand how to use accents [this was noted because I had to look up where to put the accent on "Espíritus"] in Spanish (or, for that matter, in French), I understand much of that book, and I think I’m actually learning. I’m a bit confused about how to use commands (I don’t know how to use accents with them; I don’t know even a little bit about the rules governing their use; I’m not sure whether you use them differently for informal and formal, or with individuals and groups, or with positive and negative commands), especially since the instructors of my yoga classes (perforce), always use commands, but generally it appears as though I can speak in Spanish. Actually, I realize that for the first time, I [generally] use the correct [gendered] form of articles with nouns. Wow!)
2. Reading.
I keep on saying that I’m reading and really enjoying “Kavalier & Clay,” but nothing more. Well, I can say that this is the deepest I’ve been into a book for a really long time. I regularly find myself buried within its pages, within the blink of an eye, and I’m really astonished by Chabon’s ability to hold my attention and keep me engaged. I find the characters and their adventures interesting, and keep realizing that this book is nothing like what I expected. It could use some editing in places, which is weird to notice — sometimes things seem unintentionally jerky — but in general I’m just rolled along heedlessly.
When I was younger, I was a bit of a junky for that feeling of being completely immersed in someone else’s world, and I spent hours and hours reading on a regular basis. A lot of my cessation of reading lay in my finding more work and more modes of pleasure-seeking — the internet, more friends, and so on — but I think I also have grown more wary of this sensation of being able to go somewhere else. Not because it’s dangerous, or rather, its danger is still a draw; I still love being able to escape to elsewhere, but because the feeling of return from a novel can be so much more devestating than that of a film. After investing twenty-plus hours into characters, and tracing lives or journeys or relationships over weeks or days, being suddenly cut adrift by an ending is rather like jumping into the shower only to realize that there’s no hot water. It’s shocking and makes everything else a little dimmer for a little bit. And while this aftereffect is worth it, I am wary of it.
I’m really impressed by Chabon, though. Not just the story in general, but that he did one of my least-favorite things in novels, and got away with it for me. The thing he did is something I often think of as the Dune effect — he suddenly jumped forward a number of years, and switched perspective. Frank Herbert does this with, I think, devestating consequences, most of the way through Dune — suddenly, Paul Atreides is completely changed, years have passed, he is now a fremen leader, he is what we have known he will be. It is impossible to be attached to him anymore. All of the emotional attachment Herbert has fostered is cut adrift by this new Paul. I think to some extent that’s Herbert’s intention, but he does it too well — Dune is still a great novel, but it ends with the reader disconnected. I think this is why I couldn’t get into the rest of the books in that series. Gabriel García Márquez does this in Cien Años de Soledad, also, but worse — he creates characters and then kills them off and jumps to new ones as though it’s the same plot, when clearly it is a new one. The only author who I’ve been willing to sit through this with was Jeffrey Eugenides, in Middlesex, but Eugenides goes so slowly through it all, and takes the time to re-develop his characters, and he works on a much smaller scale than García Márquez, while still using as many pages. In any case, Chabon manages to jump years, but he keeps the same characters and just adds new ones; he allows them to develop smoothly. I was angry at first, but then I realized that he was only really allowing time to age them, not to replace them, and I found myself re-engaged.
I’m not sure how articulate that was.
3. Writing.
I have been trying to write, here. I was originally planning on writing a lot. I have been really bad about this, even with all of my free time. I am writing a lot of [online] journal entries, and this is good, and I am pleased with this. I love journals. I like records. But I also want to work on my fiction (or even my poetry), and all I have written thus far are one piece on the cab driver who took my money (which was reasonably good and sent to Jesse), one on one of the autistic kids, one on an interview I observed, and no more. None of those could’ve been more than a few pages. I have been planning a longer story, but it’s not quite together yet, and I’ve only written half a page of the first scene. It is frustrating, but this is okay. Eventually I will sit down and it will come together.
I just wish I could work without deadlines. I hate how acceptable this mode of unmotivated work is.
and, food
June 17th, 2008Since I’ve started, I guess I might as well not give it up.
I had amazing green pea soup today, at the cafe closest to my apartment, which is called Pinot and is in Plaza Guemes (on Charcas x Salguero). It was the soup of the day. I asked what it was, and the waitress told me, “Crema de Arvejas,” and I asked her if she knew the word in English. She did not. She started telling me they were tiny and green, and I still had to think a moment, even though I had them in my freezer. And then I realized and asked her how it was, and it was, indeed, “Muy rico,” which is pretty much all any waiter or waitress here ever says when you ask them how something is. It was bloody delicious, although of course it had ham. Good ham, though, for once. Not that shitty ham they put on every sandwhich that makes it taste like you’re eating air.
And then I got home, blathered about for a while, and bought some things for dinner. I essentially went with the plan of “make things that people have made you think of,” and so I bought stuff for spicy peanut sauce (by which I mean, I bought a carrott; I already have the rest), and bought champagne. I also bought some brie, and this time I wasn’t cheap about it, since the cheap brie was fucking lame, and tasted like mozarella. (Honestly, they make good food here sometimes, but the breads and cheeses are pha.) So I got home and ate President Brie with crackers, and then at 21:00 I made peanut sauce with carrots and green peppers and pasta. And it was pretty good.
I have a real Spicy Peanut Sauce recipe I use back home, and I approximated that, from memory (although now I think of it, I emailed it to Aitor at one point), as best as I could. I would guess my recipe, made entirely without measuring, went something like this:
- Quarter of an onion, chopped finely
- Three garlic cloves, minced
- Third cup of soy sauce
- Quarter cup of olive oil (should be sesame, but we work with what we’ve got)
- Too much water (but should’ve been about a quarter cup)
- Red pepper flakes, around 2 tbsp
- Sugar, pref. brown, around 1.5 tbsp*
- Peanut butter, two large spoonsful
- black pepper, to taste
- Sesame Seeds, 2 tsp* (although of course you should use salted peanuts)
(*Borrowed from land-lady.) Heat a bit of the oil, cook the onions for three minutes. Add the garlic. Cook for just a few moments, then add the soy sauce, and everything but the sesame seeds and water. When it comes to a boil, add those. Meanwhile, cook pasta and chop up veggies to put in it. Once hot for a second time, it’s done. Taste and adjust quantities wildly based on what it tastes like. (Hint: it shouldn’t taste like peanut butter if you did it right. Not too much. It should taste like spicy peanuts.)
Anyway, it turned out to be really watery, but quite good with the whole-wheat pasta. I bought a bag nearly a month ago, and I’m still going through it. This is actually the best sauce I’ve made with it — I like whole wheat pasta, but it’s got a strong flavour, and basic tomato sauces or pestos tend to be dominated by it so that their own flavors are sort of lost. A spicy sauce like this one, though, really manages to make the whole what flavor taste good. Besides, they’re the same color, and the red pepper flakes are fetching with them. (HAH.)