Watch NBC Nightly News this week!

News about this series has been going around but in case you haven't heard yet, Brian Mitchell is doing a 5 part series starting Monday on the problems facing African-American women in this country. Topics will range from education to relationships, the 2008 election to health, interracial dating to the portrayl of women through hip hop music.

Please check it out and encourage others you know to do so as well! On your local NBC station. You can also check www.msnbc.com for message boards and blog entries on the series.

Go buy this album!

If you haven't heard, didn't know, or haven't gotten around to it, go out and buy Ledisi's latest album, Lost And Found. And while you are at it, get her other albums too. With her clear, strong vocals, it is easy to make comparisons to Jill Scott and Angie Stone but the then that struck me about this latest album was how it just made me really just want to see her live. The musicality, vocals and tight harmonies just make you want to sway and smile.


A regular on the Oakland music scene, Ledisi independently released her debut album with her group, Anibade, in 1999 but is just now getting critical acclaim as a solo artist. Voted one of BillBoard's Top 10 Faces to Watch in 2007, Ledisi is a testament to the great music and great musicians are still out there! Go get it!

Giving thanks....

So it is Thanksgiving time and you know I had to do some cooking. In fact, somehow, I ended up cooking the entire dinner, save about 2 things this year! Oh, and we ended up having 12 people.

After coordinating all the grocery lists etc. with my parents, I headed up to their house on Wednesday, complete with the other things I needed from my house to cook for dinner, and my dog. One Thanksgiving emergency was averted when I realized that I had left the hosue without all the brine that I had prepared for the turkey. Luckily, I was just about to pass an exit for a mall, the last one for another 100 miles, that had a Williams-Sonoma in it. It was right at 10am so I rolled up to the store right when they opened and bought some new brine. Whew!

My normally 3 hour trip ended up taking about 6 hours however because of what turned out to be a tractor trailer accident that blocked off the entire road. In true high tech fashion, while waiting in traffic for about 2 hours, I checked my email, IM'd Brunsli, and, when I couldn't take it any longer, searched for a traffic website that would tell me exactly what the problem was with the traffic! That was how I learned that there was a tractor trailer that had decided to fold itself in half across the highway about 4 miles up from where I was, spewing cardboard all over the place. After 2 hours, 20 miles, and a sorely needed bathroom break (it was touch and go there for a while!) I was able to continue cruising down the road at a regular clip.

Then it was crunch time. My mother, who had gotten more and more OCD about cleanliness as she has gotten older, has decided that she wanted her kitchen to be clean and most of the dishes clean and put away by the time guests arrived and had called me about 6 times over the course of the week prior to me coming to bug me about various aspects of the meal preparation. I finally had to tell her to "stop micromanaging my Thanksgiving cooking!" Here is what was on the menu and what I had to prepare:

• Brined Cranberry Glazed Turkey
• Stuffing with Duck & Cherry Sausage and Porcini Mushrooms
• Smoked Corn and Grape Sauté
• Collard Greens with Golden Raisins
• Triple Cherry Pie
• Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie with Wheat-flavored crust

My mom made Monkey Bread, a holiday tradition, and other guests brought macaroni and cheese, baby artichokes and green salad (a green jello salad with pineapple, pecans and cream cheese, Yum!)

After the guests left, with all the cooking....and eating, I had to take about a 2 hours nap! It was a good day!

Brazilian hospitality!

I did want to mention that a number of the women we met on our trip to Brazil were really very nice to us. Maybe it was because we were friend with there friends but there were a number of acts of generosity during out trip that I was really impressed by.

First, the first day we were there we met Inez, who had come to our friend's apartment to meet all of us. She was friendly and vivacious and full of energy with a short blond haircut and a friendly personality that made you like her. I mentioned something about liking her earrings and she then told us about how she made them herself out of fish scales that she dried and then dyed different colors. Very cool, huh? Well then, she took them out of her ears and gave them to me! I ended up wearing them on my birthday because they coincedentally matched perfectly with my outfit! (See the previous post) Unfortunately, we did not get to spend more time with her after the 2nd day since her mother was sick in the hospital and she had to travel to another town to check on her.

Additionally, the birthday party we had was really supposed to celebrate the birthdays of all them folks on the trip who's birthdays were in October and November but it was actually held on my actual birthday. So, another friend of a friend, Angela and her daughter Joelle, went out and bought me a bouquet of roses and presented them to me at the party. It was very nice and touching!

Lastly, we met another woman who my friends knew at this "infamous" restaurant on Copacabana beach who claimed her profession as an "actress" although others said that she was primarily a prostitute. She would also mention to me later that she had a "wife" at home but that is a whole other story... She had also just told us a story about how she had been coming from the bank the dat before and had been mugged and they had stolen about $500 from her. At any rate, we were all there and just met her and they told her that it was my birthday. She then proceeded to reach in her purse and handed me a little gift! A pair of huge gold-colored hoop earrings. It was a very nice gesture, especially given that she had just been robbed of a significant amount of money just the day before!

My test pie....

I settled on the pecon pie recipe that I was going to make for Thanksgiving -- a Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie with a Wheat-flavored Crust. A friend of mine convinced me that I really needed to make a "test pie" and bring it over for a taste testing. Since, I don't have much experience with homemade pie crusts, I decided to comply and I have to say, this pie was great! The crust turned out well too -- almost looks professional!

I am actually not a big fan of pecan pies, although I love pecans. It is something about the gooey unabashed sweetness of the sweet layer that is just too much. But this pie was different. It has maple syrup and brown sugar that gives it a real depth of flavor that is so yummy! I can't wait to make it again for Thanksgiving!

It's raining.......pecans!

So, I have gotten in this habit of getting up in the morning and gathering up the pecans that have fallen on the driveway and yard before anyone drives over them. Yesterday, it was REALLY windy and in about 2 hours (divided over 2 times) I ended up with a little more than a gallon-sized bag full of them! That is more than a fourth of my total harvest this year.

It is a sort of weird obsessive practice because whenever I say that I am going to go in, I see another one and have to keep going until I get cold or I really get them all. But yesterday, it was crazy! A wind would blow and then I would hear the crackity, crack of the pecans falling and hitting the driveway or the street and I would try to see where they fell. I hope no one saw me walking around like a crazy woman!

But I can't wait to find a good pecan pie recipe for Thanksgiving!

Le sigh.....

So back when I was 12 and trying to decide which language to study, I picked French because I liked the way it sounded. And I studied it for 9 more years!

But now, I admit, that I really wish I had picked Spanish. French seemed more glamourous at the time but Spanish would be so much more useful in this day and age. And, would make me more employable. Also, I would have so much more opportunity to speak it.

I started studying Spanish in grad school and the fact that I knew French has helped a lot with vocabulary and sentence structure since the languages are so similar. But I still have a long, long way to go.

And now I want to learn Portuguese too! Well, I seem to have time for lessons at the moment so I might as well take this time to do some studying!

That's one sweet Smokin Rasta Cat!

So I recall a few months ago reading a post by Afrobella on her blog about her love for flats. It was quite an empassioned and complete recommendation of a number of fashionable flat shoes. I myself am very comfortable in heels unless I am wearing flip flops on the beach or around the house.
But I did remember one particular pair of flats that she mentioned that I thought were really cute! So, I looked around for them online and couldn't find a pair anywhere in my size. It fact, it seemed as though they were discontinued/ So, I put it out of my mind.

Fast forward to my trip to LA in September. P and I were doing a little browsing at the Loehman's in Burbank and we were looking at the shoe section and there they were...... Sugar Shoes Smokin Rasta Cats, in exactly my size! So, of course, I had to buy them! And here they are....

I haven't actually worn them out but I think that they are so cute! I also found a pair of lavender Pumas in a style that I love (and have 3 other pairs in) in my size as well. It was like shoe nirvana!

My crop!

While is recuperating from by post-Brazil depression and the fact that it is cold and I can't lay out on the beach, one cool thing is that the pecan trees in my yard are producing fruit. I actually had never seen a pecan tree, that I knew of, and didn't know much about them but apparently they only produce nuts every two years. I moved to this house last year so this is the first year I have gotten to experience harvesting pecans (which I LOVE, by the way.)

Take a look at the first of my crop!