Tired but good

Getting tired. In the last week or so, two bridges over the creek painted with three coats--some to go on the big one--10 foot by 18 foot--but looking good. Friends finished the chicken coop redo and bought 14 chicks and two ducks today. Three huge loads of junk off to the dump--including a broken foosball table and a broken air hockey table that were family christmas presents when I was really broke and couldn't buy the kids individual big things, along with a rat-eaten weight bench set that the kids bought me one year. Plus old chicken wire, empty bottles, unidentifiable pieces of waterlogged tables and chairs that sat too many winters outdoors. New small patio finished on the office out back, which over looks the garden we're putting in tomorrow, as well as the seasonal creek and the chicken coop up on the hill. Office spotless as well and outfitted with a new chair/couch. Hay bought for the coop; organic hummus for the garden; roto-tiller rented and ready to go; baby chick feed in a nice new container, rat poison under the flooring in the coop house. Lawn needs mowing. I've had a lot of help, but I am both tired and broke. Ah, ain't life grand!!!

Details of my Sapo Training Course

Someone asked me about my sapo course: Time, cost, what is involved in the training. Since I don't know that I've ever written it down, well, here it is.
Training is 10 days. Cost is $1500; if you stay at my house and I have to cook and clean, it's an extra $500. We eat well. Alternative, if you don't have a friend nearby, is a motel/rental car down the road two miles. Nice, clean rooms. My house is a relative steal if I have room available when you train. Details: First couple of days there are sort of long talks about the medicine, issues that come up with clients, the history, that sort of thing. By day 3 we're into more specifics and so some days there is an hour of talk; some days maybe not much.
In terms of medicine, there is a lot: Day one: One burn. Day two: two burns, first nu-nu if you want to learn that as well (no extra charge; no discount without it). Day 3: Three burns, and nu-nu. Day 4: 3 burns morning, 3 burns afternoon. You do your own afternoon burns, plus you burn me and whoever else is is the house, one burn each. Day 5: 3 morning, three afternoon, plus nu-nu, plus burn me, plus give me nu-nu. Day 6: repeat day 5, with more pain because you will be getting tired of being whipped by the medicine. Day 7: Kambo style application in the morning. Smaller burns, mixed with water, drinking water before medicine to facilitate vomiting. Day 8-9, I will call in several people each day for you to serve. I will supervise but let you run your show and quietly critique you. I will also act as your assistant on those two days.
You will also be serving nu-nu to those who want it, and will be expected to tell me what to buy to make certain that everyone has access to fast sugar (oranges), electrolytes (Limes/sea salt), and plenty of water for rehydration. I will buy the stuff or we can do it together, but I will expect that you will know what you need, top-to-bottom from your first week's experience.
You will be expected to know when people are allowed to leave--they've got to be fully back together--and if someone needs two extra hours, you will be expected to give them that. It's certainly something you will come up against regularly in your practice.
Day 10: A written exam. 25 questions, short essay answers. You can use my book or a computer or your class notes with me as much as you like: It is not a test to trick you but a test to make certain you have grasped enough to be able to answer the questions your clients will have. You are welcome to leave after day 9 and do the test at your leisure if you like.
If I left out anything, let me know.
Overall, you will be expected to do enough medicine that none of your clients will be able to BS you and tell you the big amounts they've done because you will have done 7 days, with three of those double days, more than most people have ever done in a month. You will be expected to know how to serve both sapo and nu-nu; sapo style and kambo style, and handle emergencies with aplomb. You will know who not to serve and why they can't be served. You will understand the need for an assistant for groups of three or more. You will be able to answer questions your clients have or know where to find the answers. Good?
And then , when you leave, you will get one fresh stick of sapo, and the remainder of the stick(s) you worked with. That will be more than enough medicine to repay the cost of the entire cost and then some--you will find you will get 25 or so (often more) people on a single stick. And you will have me to call when you run into things that throw you off. No limit to the help you can ask--I mean, reasonably ask. I want you out there helping people gloriously. That's what I am aiming for with this course.

Bordering on the Obscene. What my dog, Boots, the Wonderdog, is eating tonight, is crazy.

I'm tired of the leftovers in the fridge. None of them are more than three days old, but with just my friend Devon and me to eat them, they will be old soon--my daughter is away at college so she cannot help--and then they are garbage. So Boots has sliced chicken breast and shrimp (Under 15s, so they are huge) with some veggies. Then he has a half a prime rib that a guest brought on Sunday. Then he has about a pound of roast beef with potatoes, broccoli and pan gravy to mix it all together. Hell, cheapest meat on the table is the air cooled organic chicken breast at about $9 a pound. Dang if that boy doesn't eat well sometimes.
Me and Devon? We saved what was left of the corned beef and cabbage for tomorrow, and tonight I'm making thick cut pork chops stuffed with spinach sauteed with garlic and shallots, mixed with fresh smoked mozzarella and parmesan, breaded, seared, baked, and served with good saurkraut (always cook for an hour or two, add vinegar, good black pepper, pan juices) and small red potatoes: boiled then seared in the pork chop pan juices. Gravy will be made with those same juices and include sliced pears and apples just to blow our taste buds out of the water.
I hope you all are eating well tonight. I hope everyone in the world gets something good to eat tonight. That I know there are hundreds of millions who will not eat well, who do not even have drinking water, makes me want to lash out. I know that if people would just stop being afraid--afraid that they won't have enough, afraid that they won't seem important, afraid that no one will share with them, hell, afraid of everything, then we could/would all share and there would be enough for everyone. End of world strife in 10 freaking minutes.
Anybody who is hungry who reads this, I'm sure there is something good for you to eat if you stop by. Please do not stand on ceremony.

Why Would Anyone Need Sapo/Kambo Training?

Someone on a social media platform asked me what I thought of people being trained in kambo --frog sweat -- medicine by an organization called IAKP which has been training people in the medicine use for several years now. They suggested that indigenous kids just get the medicine a couple of times and are good to use it on themselves and others. This was my response:

I do not have any direct experience with IAKP, but have met some of their practitioners and they appear well trained. I know that when I occasionally train people -- and I don't know where I get the right to do that other than wanting people to use the medicine in a careful and positive fashion -- it is not at all similar to someone being brought up in an indigenous culture that depends on the medicine for hunting, for eliminating the grippe, and so forth. Those kids are around the medicine from birth, just like they are around the jungle from birth and so are at home with it without any need for formal training. But then you take a kid from Whitestone, Queens, New York, like me and put me in the jungle and I need lots of training to be able to survive well out there. I think the same applies to sapo/kambo training. 
Yes, a person can just use it once or twice and then give it to other people, but what happens when something goes wrong? What happens when you allow a guest to walk, unattended, to a bathroom and they black out and hit their head on a counter top? Or wind up with their head in a bad position and start to vomit and then choke and panic? What do you do when someone absolutely freaks out on taking the medicine? There are so many things to learn to use the medicine in our cultures that it is impossible to compare the learning to indigenous culture learning. I have guests who need two or three hours to come together again after a session, and other guests who are good to go 20 minutes after initial application. How do you judge when to give them back their car keys and let them drive off? 
I am not a believer in shrouding the medicine in a whole lot of mysticism and pomp theatrics, but I do sing people into the first four or five minutes of the experience to help them go into it gently -- as you all know it's darned abrupt!!! So while I do not know the IAKP directly, I think that training people to the things to be aware of prior to serving others, is probably a good thing. And I do not know what they charge, but if they are giving you 10 days or two weeks' attention, well, someone has to get paid to do that. That is a lot of work.

New -- Old -- Car. Get Lucky Sometimes

Get Lucky Sometimes. Couple of weeks ago a friend called to say she had a friend who had a sister who had a mother who was going to move into assisted living and she had an old car she wanted to sell for two hundred bucks. Would I want it? My first thought was "Of course not. I've got my truck with the beautiful new engine that my son Italo built, my second truck that's nearly back on the road, and no, I don't need no more stinking clunkers around here."

I didn't say that, of course, because the woman who was bringing the car to my attention is a really cool friend and I didn't want to offend. So I said I'd take a look.

Day came to take a look and I really didn't want to drive the 35 miles to the place where the car was, but I was committed, so I let my friend and her husband drive me there. We were nearly at Lake Granbury, where the car was, when my friend got a call from her friend that the car was not available to be seen because the sister and her husband were currently using it and were in town and wouldn't be back for an hour. Cool. I was ready to head home. My friend, however, insisted we go and wait it out to take a look.

We were visiting with my friend's friend when the car pulled up. It was so quiet that I did not hear it pull up behind me. When I turned to it I was fairly amazed: it was a 1999 Crown Vic, silver, high polish, not a mark on it. I took it for a ride: 83,000 miles, original owner, smooth as glass. Leather upholstery, faux wood highlights on the dash, AC and heat worked beautifully, radio was really good, and it had an opening to play casettes. Cigarette lighter worked. Spotless inside. I double checked the price: I mean, right off the bat it was worth $2 grand, easy. No, $200 was the price.

I said I'd buy it after I drove it for 30 minutes. It easily jumped to 55, then 75, and oops, 90 without anything more than a purr from the engine. Unreal. The sister and her husband needed it for a couple of days, and when I went back to pick it up I saw that they had changed the oil, filled the tank, included a few hundred bucks worth of tools and roadside reflective jackets and such.

I got it home, then took out my truck for shopping. I felt the clutch slip. It got worse quickly. So I got the car on the perfect day when I needed it. My son Italo will have a new clutch and a slave cylinder in place in my truck this week sometime. Meanwhile I'm driving a pimp car. Thanks to my friends, their friends, the mom, and the universe. I just get really lucky sometimes. I hope you all get lucky today too.

Cooking Duck Breasts

DUCK BREAST

Just something to make non-vegetarians drool. I bought three large duck breasts today. I've scored them into diamonds on the fat side, not touching the meat. Then I threw 6 small red potatoes, cut into quarters, into salted water to par boil them. They'll come out in two minutes; they will be drained, then go into a ceramic saute pan that my daughter just bought me with diced sweet red onions, diced fresh garlic and olive oil.
While they are cooking I will saute the duck breasts, fat side down, for 7 minutes or so, after salting them with good pink sea salt, and peppering them with good rough ground pepper, in plain olive oil. After seven minutes I'll turn them meat side down, add quartered scallions, long sliced red pepper, sliced--not diced--onion and garlic, and put them into the oven at 325 for another 7 minutes or so. Then I will pull all of that and put it on a plate. I will take some of the duck grease and add it to the quartered potatoes and onions to finish them, put on a pot to make nice steamed asparagus, and in the duck breast pan I will add balsamic vinegar, fresh basil and a pint of fresh, organic raspberries. I'll add organic vegetable stock as needed until the raspberries have become a sauce. Then I'll serve the duck breast over a bed of sauteed spinach, top it with the raspberry-basil-balsamic vinegar sauce, and serve the potatoes and asparagus on the side. Bon appetite! Worth the pain, for sure. We all deserve a treat once in a while. But while you're buying those expensive duck breasts, don't forget to give some money to the local food bank, because not everybody gets to eat duck breast. Some people just need tuna. So give what you can, but still enjoy an occasional luxurious meal. At least that's how I'm justifying it to myself!!!!!

Leaving for Peru

I LEAVE FOR PERU FOR 5 WEEKS, TWO TRIPS INTO THE JUNGLE WITH GUESTS, TOMORROW. SO TONIGHT WAS A NIGHT TO CLEan out the fridge. My wife/ex-wife Chepa is here with her two new beautiful kids, Alexa and Sierra. A friend, Corrina is here, My daughter in law Sarah is here with her two kids, Taylor Rain and Teigan Gray, and my two older sons, Italo and Marco will be here soon. My daughter Madeleina and her boyfriend Adrian are here as well. What that means is I had to cook to a lot of different palates and I was determined to do it with what I had, rather than buying more that would rot while I am in Peru. So the MenU:
Romaine salad with baby tomatoes and vinagrette;
Cucumber salad with lime
Then: Thick sliced pork chops baked with saurkraut. Topped with a fantastic homemade gravy.
White rice with garlic.
Yellow rice.
Boudain.
Manicotti with three cheeses and two sauces;
Burritos from last night with pulled pork, chicken, avacodo, spicy black beans, pico de gallo, sour cream, good cheddar and a couple of things I am forgetting;
Prime rib sauteed to medium rare with onions and mushrooms and a touch of red wine;
Roast chicken in Lemon sauce;
Everyone has eaten but me. There is nothing left of the seven pounds of meat and two pots of rice or manicotti or burritos.
I guess that leaves me with the rocky road ice cream.
I'm down with that.
The fridge is nearly cleaned. Time to go to Peru and have a fantastic adventure. See you all in 5 weeks. Stay strong.

Easiest Recipe in the World. HA!

Easiest recipe in the world. HA! So my daughter, Madeleina, and her friend Adrian brought home some fantastic soft tortillas.

"Dad, if you don't want to cook tonight, let's just have tortillas, okay?"

"Ok, Madeleina, no sweat."

I was lying, of course. While I had some of the ingredients, I needed a few, so hopped to the store for fresh cilantro, chicken thighs, a fat pork chop with the bone in. Came home, opened a can of good black beans, then put minced onion and garlic in olive oil in a small pot. When ready I added diced Roma tomatoes, then added the beans. 20 minutes later I added chopped cilantro, achiote, white vinegar. Turned down heat, let simmer for an hour.

While that started, I washed and dried the chicken thighs, rubbed them down in garlic and olive oil, then seasoned with cracked black pepper and pink sea salt. Put in to bake at 325 (last 20 minutes raise to 390 to get crisp skin).

Started rice with garlic and olive oil, added water when ready, and salt, then added Jasmine rice when all was boiling.

Put on a small fry pan, high heat. Washed the chop, dried it, floured it, seasoned it with a bit of olive oil and pepper, seared it, then tossed the pan into the oven next to the chicken pan.

Cooked ingredients on, I chopped tomato, onion, cilantro and then mixed in the juice of three good limes with a bit of salt and pepp and a touch of garlic to make my pico de gallo.

When that was done I set it aside, added achiote (to make yellow rice) and smoked paprika from Peru to the rice, then resealed.

I got a good avocado, cleaned and sliced it.

I opened a container of sour cream,

I shredded part of a bar of good sharp cheddar cheese, our preference around here.

An hour later, everything done and cooling, I turned one of the burners--electric stove, so flat glass top-- on high, and one by one heated the soft tortillas on it, turning them once or twice. Burned three fingers, but browned those tortillas just right. Was looking at 20 minutes of cleaning that glass top in the morning.

Set out a baking dish. In each tortilla I put either some chicken or pulled pork, a bit of black beans, a bit of rice, pico de gallo, sour cream, avocado, then shredded cheese.

Rolled them up, one by one. Tossed them into a 325 oven. While they were in there I made nice salad and plated it on the three plates.

Mdeleina came in from an apparent nap just as I was pulling out the tortillas.

"They look great, dad! All you need is a little sauce on top and they're done. Isn't it great not to have to cook sometimes?"

Ha. I didn't say a word. She'll be a mom some day and I will tap her on her shoulder from the great beyond and say: "Isn't it great not to have to cook sometimes?"

A primer on the self-applicatio of Sapo or Kambo

A primer on the self-application of Sapo. Same would apply for Kambo, except that you would drink water beforehand and mix the medicine with water and not saliva.
Prior to starting, get two grocery bags, double them up and line them with paper towels to use in case you vomit. A bucket will do as well.
Get a glass of room temperature water and keep it nearby.
Have a friend nearby to help you to the bathroom or to keep your head straight in case you black out. If you black out with your neck in a bad position and then suddenly vomit, you will find your self choking. Best to have a friend keep an eye on you.
Take the stick and put it on a hard, flat surface.
Wash your mouth out with water after cleaning with a tooth brush. We want clear saliva, not old spit.
Get a good knife with a hard blade--a steak knife will bend and cause you to lose sapo medicine, while a hard blade will all you to chip the medicine into the saliva cleanly
Pick a corner of the stick that is free from medicine. Put a bit of saliva on your finger and place it on that clear spot. If no clear spot, place it on the medicine, but not more than the size of your pinky nail.
Wait a moment, then begin to loosen up the medicine beneath the saliva. The medicine is deeper than it looks, so you can go deeper than you think.
Work the medicine into the saliva gently, chopping it up, making sure the material is bump/clump free. When done properly it should have the texture of moist wasabi mustard.
Take your tamishi vine and light one end of it. Hold the lighter to it until it is fully red at the tip. If need be you can suck the other end of the tamishi like smoking a cigarette to get it evenly hot, You do not want any uneven coloring on the tip.
When it is bright red, apply to your upper left or right bicep, or lower leg or ankle if that is your preference. Hold for about 1 second, then pull away.Until you know the strength of this particular stick you should start with one burn You can do more tomorrow, but you cannot undo it once you apply, so caution is the word, always.
Scrape off the burned skin to make it a clean wound.
Double check the medicine for moistness--dry is not good, so if you need a bit more saliva or water, add it.
Apply the medicine to the wound with the tip of your knife, covering the wound entirely.
Put the knife down and put the stick out of reach of anyone who might enter the room,
You will begin to flush after 15 seconds
At about one minute your head will heat up, your heart rate increase, your pulse will increase.
The increase will continue for 8-10 minutes.
If need be, get on your hands and knees.
If, at any point your head feels very hot, pour a bit of the water over it and gently rub it into your scalp and temples to lower your temperature.
At about the 8 minute mark you will feel your stomach cramping and might vomit or need to evacuate. If you need to go to the bathroom you should have a friend help you. You might think you can walk the few steps but a lot of people feint and fall and that can be dangerous.
At about the 11 or 12 minute mark you will have peaked and will feel your heart rate slowing.
At 14-17 minutes the acute period of the medicine is done.
Carefully wipe the medicine from your arm to prevent you from scratching it and then wiping your eye--which really hurts.
The ordeal over, you might need to rest for a little while--some people need an hour or two, some people are raring to go almost immediately--or you might need water for dehydration, or a lime for electrolytes, or an orange for quickly available sugar. Have all three on hand for each experience.
NOTE: Some people wind up with what we call a frog face: Soft tissue under the eyes and the lips swollen badly. This will vanish within an hour in most cases, though now and then it can last a day. It is nothing to be frightened of: it is an indication that so many toxins have been released for removal that your kidneys are backed up and the toxins take short term residence in soft tissue. It is generally the face, but can also be the genitals, under your arms, etc. It will disappear as those toxins get flushed.
In the aftermath of the experience, you might discover that your urine is orange or green or smells like you had two pounds of asparagus last night. Your bowel movement might be particularly black and different in consistency than normal. Again, do not worry about this: It's just the toxins being flushed, and things will soon return to normal.
Make certain that your stick is dry--no trace of the saliva left--before putting it away. Keep in cool dark place, wrapped in newspaper. Always keep out of the range of children, who might see the shiny medicine as something sugary and lick it,, or simply touch it and get some on their fingers which then might get transferred to their eyes.
Never serve to a pregnant woman as sapo/kambo can cause abortions.
Never serve to a lactating woman as the medicine OR the toxins being released by the medicine for elimination might end up in the milk used for breastfeeding.
Never serve to someone or take yourself when high on other drugs, though few prescription drugs present a problem.
Doing sapo when drunk will kick your ass in a huge way. Don't test it.
Always err on the side of caution. You can do more tomorrow. You cannot do less once it has been applied.

2018 Trips to the Jungle

Ladies and Gents, Adventurers of All Ages!
Okay all you people who want a bit of adventure in your lives: Here are the dates for my trips to the Amazon this year. I have a few slots open for January; several open for February, and have just started booking June and July. The trips are kept small, purposefully as I don't really like large groups. So 12 is the limit. Here is the pitch. Take a swing. Just might be an important event in your life.
January 2017
Saturday, Jan 20, through the morning of Monday, Jan 29
February 2017
Saturday Feb, 3, through the morning of Monday, Feb 12
June 2017
Saturday, June 16, through the morning of Monday, June 25
July 2017
Saturday, July 7, through the morning of Monday, July 16
Looking for a dozen intrepid seekers for each of the Jaunts. Looking for people who want to see and be in deep Amazon jungle; people who want to experience ayahuasca and the Matses’ medicines Sapo and Nu-nu in their natural settings; people who don’t mind dirt under their fingernails if they get it because they were walking in high canopy jungle or in a primordial swamp or collecting wild foods or even making clay pots. I’m looking for people who want to collect the medicines they’ll use and watch their preparation, people who would rather participate than observe and be served. I want a small group of curious people, humans interested in their personal growth, in the spirit world, in the Northwest Amazon as it is today but may not be tomorrow. I want people who see bathing in the beautiful Aucayacu river as an opportunity, not as a poor substitute for a hot shower; people who view the chance to eat a few local magic mushrooms while traveling overnight on a flat-bottomed river boat on the Amazon as a once in a lifetime thrill, and see night canoeing in dugouts while searching for medicine frogs a rare and wonderful opportunity. In other words, I want anyone who sees living as a bit of a risk but one worth taking.
And if you join, my team—which will outnumber the guests—and the medicines and the jungle and the rivers and I will all work our collective asses off to give you something you’ll hold onto for a very long time. The medicines will astound you, the people will thrill you, the jungle will amaze you. So what are you waiting for? Drop me a line at peterg9@yahoo.com or head over to the pgorman.com website for more info, photos, and an idea of the trip itinerary and costs.

Lentils for the New Year

Friend of mine asked me for my lentil recipe. Here it is:
Its 11:32 PM. This is my last official act of 2017. But you are worth it, and I just did this sleep-thinking three times, so I might as well type it out.

    Rince about a pound of lentils two or three times. Can be quick. Just check there are no stones, etc.

Put two big tablespoons of garlic, chopped, in olive oil in a saute pan or small pot, and heat, Add a diced onion--any flavor, color. I like sweet red, but thats just preference. When the onion is translucent, fill pot with three quarts of water, bring on the heat, get it boiling. When it is boiling put in salt and pepper and lentils and stir, Let it boil for about 45 minutes or an hour, add three diced roma tomatoes, some cumin, some tumeric, maybe a bay leaf, bring down to a simmer. They are ready some time between 1 hour and 20 minutes and 2 hours, depending on how old they were to start. You will know it when the flavor sears your tongue like a good kiss. Finish with some freshly chopped cilantro if you can.

   Happy New Year, 2017 is done.

PG

2017: Thats a Wrap!

Well, well, well...;Just got up from an aggregate 8 hours laying down last night (out of 14). Later than I've gotten up in years!!! But what a relief after the insomnia of the past couple of weeks!!! And not only that: I put a whole beef brisket on at 2:37 AM (oven at 250) for a friend who occasionally feeds the homeless, with today being one of the days he was doing that. Got up again at 4:50 AM to put some broth in the pan and cover it tightly with foil, then was up at 8:40 to check on it. It was good, but needed another couple of hours. So I went back to reading papers on the computer (while hoping I would get another urge to lie down to sleep) when Mike called to say that the weather was making the roads too bad for him to drive the 30 miles to my house to pick up the brisket, and would I mind just keeping it and eating it? I don't mind. Don't mind at all having a beautiful brisket ready at noon for an early dinner tonight on New Year's Eve. There is going to be plenty, so if you are a nice human, please come over and we'll be glad to share our table with you. Happy New Year, Everybody!!!!!

Just another food post

Another boring food post. Skip it if you're on a diet. It got cold here. I mean cold for Joshua, Texas if you only wear shorts and short sleeve cotton shirts. So after a couple of weeks of eating fantastic food, but food that does not make you fat, the cold triggered something in me. So a couple of days ago I made fried calamari. Then two nights ago I got the urge for mac and cheese. In this house that meant rigatoni. A base of bacon and country ham, garlic, celery,onions and tomatoes. Set aside when done. Add good cheddar, spicy havarti, swiss and parmesan. Plus milk to make sauce. Add the bacon/garlic mix to the cheese sauce. Pour over rigatoni. Top with butter cooked breadcrumbs and asiago cheese, then bake till top is brown and cheese is bubbling and your mouth is watering from the smell. Had that with a veggie melange of cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini, tomato, garlic, olive oil, scallions. Nice.

Last night I was gonna make sliders. Tiny burgers on tiny buns. Of course I got to the store and saw nice fresh minced pork and switched to meatloaf in my head: I had all the other ingredients at home except the pork, so that was easy. And, since we'd had bacon--thick sliced and diced--in the mac and cheese, I skipped that. "We'll have that with a salad" I told myself, like a drunk saying, "I think I'll just start with one"--something I know about--but then got home and found four baking potatoes that I sliced very thin, boiled, covered with a good morney sauce and baked to make potaoes au gratin, about 50 calories a bite.

Justification for all that indulgence? For two weeks I've not slept more than 4 hours a night, some nights none. While sitting at my desk waiting for sleep to come I've fallen over onto the floor probably 4 times nightly, once dislocating two fingers and badly bruising my right hand. Extreme pain for days now. Then my back went out--something that does not happen to me, damnit--and it hurts to walk or stand. So I am in pain 24/7 for days now. Cannot take much ibuprofin since it's bad for my freaking kidneys, and so I'm stuck hurting. Hard to be a fun guy when everything is sharp pain. I do no know how much courage people who are in chronic pain for years must have to continue going forward despite that pain. I am amazed at their courage. This will get better. Right now it's not good. But I am strong and will fight back and kick some ass and feel like myself again soon. I feel my Irish getting up. Meanwhile, we're having the leftover meatloaf and potatoes au gratin with seared spinach in garlic tonight. Enjoy, everybody. It's nearly the end of 2017!

Crazy Peru

A person recently posted in an ex-pat community board that after having lived in Peru for several years, she thinks Peruvians are missing something mentally or emotionally that prevents them from living successfully in the Western world. I begged to differ.
Here was my response:

I think the idea that people should be able to adapt and function in the "real world" is what is off in the initial poster's comment. Peru has its own reality, and that is as legitimate as any other reality. When you marry in Amazonia, for instance, your wife picks your lover for you. Sounds crazy but it's not at all crazy: She will pick some cousin or aunt from a part of the family to which she, your wife is indebted, and you, without knowing it, will be the peace symbol, Very effective, very functional. If you refuse the lover you will be forever accused of cheating on your wife. Why? Because it is a given that a man will cheat on his wife in order to have more babies with new blood that will keep the tribe strong. Not cheating, therefore, becomes a sign of weakness. In Iquitos there are now several grocery stores. Yet most locals shy away from them, preferring to shop in the insanely busy markets. Sounds crazy. Again, it's not: The markets are where you bump into a dozen of your friends daily, so they represent the social hub of the city. You might shop more efficiently at a supermarket, but you would miss the key social event of the day. These are just two examples out of hundreds where a Westerner might see a more efficient way of doing things and cannot understand why the locals do not choose to do those things. To the Peruvian, it's we Westerners who are lost because we have no sense of family, of community. We've given it all away in our search for efficiency. Having spent parts of every year there since 1984, and a few full years there in the late 1990s, I think they have the much healthier lifestyle.

Disconnected

I think one of the genuine disconnects politicians have from the general public is the definition of middle class. While most of us working folk think that anyone working to pay their own way, even if that includes second hand clothes, an old jalopy, and a leaky roof are middle class, listening to politicians, they imagine the middle class are people making somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 a year. For those of us in the $20,000--$60,000 income bracket those other people are rich or upper middle class, but not middle class. To Trump and McConnell, people who can afford membership to Mar a Lago are middle class, and the type of people they want to help. That is a huge disconnect from the reality in which most of us live.

Dinner tonight: Sopa de Mariscos

Well, it is chilly and sort of rainy here in bucolic Joshua, Texas. Did really good research on a piece due for the paper tomorrow and had my daughter Madeleina take photos for it. I love when she comes with me on location and shoots. She's good and getting better: Knows how to frame a photo for best commercial use, can frame it for the cover, knowing the paper's name is going across the top and that she'll lose the top quarter of the image.
Yesterday's locales were a couple of bars and bingo parlors that will have to stop allowing smoking on premises come Mar. 12. Today was the day to outline the article--maybe 1,200 words or so--and mull over follow up questions. I came up with some good ones.
Then it was time to get to the store to pick up something for dinner and a bunch fresh apples and limes and such. So I'm making Sopa de Mariscos, Peruvian jungle style. It's a tomato seafood soup with pasta.
Since I cannot get all the ingredients I want fresh unless I drive all over Fort Worth, I settled on a good quality bag of frozen mixed seafood: Shrimp, calamari, mussels. Then I bought half a pound of fresh shrimp and a pound of crayfish to add freshness to it.
So I'll start with minced garlic in olive oil, add finely diced celery, onion, and scallions. When garlic is going brown and the onions are getting see-through, I'll add 5 diced Roma tomatoes and some sea salt, a bit of crushed red pepper, and fresh ground black pepper.
Once those flavors marry properly, I'll add two large cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup and about a pint of good organic vegetable stock.
While that heats up, I'll peel and de-vein the shrimp, then toss the shells into a pot that is otherwise empty on high heat to scald them The shells will turn bright red when scalded. Then I'll toss in the onion ends, the scallion ends, the tomato ends, the celery ends and add about a pint of water. Put that on high and let it reduce in about 20 minutes down to a cup or so. Pour that essence into the soup.
Add the frozen and fresh mariscos (which means mixed seafood) and stir that up after lowering the temp on the soup.
Ten minutes later I'll add some angel hair, raw--because it will cook so quickly--a minced head of cilantro, and then season to make sure it's got a bit of a bite.
Side dish that I will start before i even attack the soup? Spaghetti squash. Halve it, eliminate the seeds, score it length wise. Dab butter on it so that the butter will fall into the empty cavity-halves as it melts, then bake for about 30 minutes at 335. Or so.
I'll pull that and scrape out the squash meat with a big spoon. It will come out looking like spaghetti. That will go into a saute pan that has garlic and olive oil and a large diced red pepper in it. Stir it around. Add seasoning as you like. Its really good squash.
And that is it. That's the meal. The soup is rich and the squash is so good you will want to eat it slowly so you don't finish it too fast. Enjoy. And if anyone is hungry and nearby, we'll be having that at about 6:30.

This world does not revolve around me. This world would not notice if I disappeared tomorrow, with the exception of my family and friends. So why do get the urge to post nonsense that most of you won't care about, didn't need to know, and which will not make your lives any richer? I don't know. I struggle with that. I just hope my stories and food stuff has a slightly larger meaning that the words I use to tell them. I hope there is something people get from my silly stories that they can apply on their way to where? Enlightenment? Being dead? Oh hell, who knows. Anyway, here goes.

I do not do many public ceremonies at my house. I will serve sapo and nu-nu, two medicines that come from the Matses indigenous of the Peru/Brazil borderland on the Galvez, Upper Yavari, Blanco, and Choba rivers. The nu-nu is a snuiff, very harsh, that immensely improves your vision for some hours. Sapo is the secretion of a frog that is burned into the subcutaneous layers of your skin--generally upper arm--which is full of bioactive peptides and turns out to be a fantastic medicine for a lot of illnesses: It basically resets your body function, from your heart beat to your kidney and liver functions.

Of course, not many people come to me for treatments because the medicines are very painful to do--though short term at about 15-20 minutes--before the benefits kick in. Enough. I've written about these medicines in my books, all over my blog, and in dozens of magazines worldwide. They are not the point of this story. This story is about a man who got in touch with me and wanted to do the medicines. I told him if he was sure, and if he wasn't crazy when I met him, I'd serve him small doses to introduce him to the medicines. If he did them well, I could go with a slightly larger dose the next time.

Over the course of several emails and a telephone call, it finally occurs to him to ask the price. I tell him $150 for the session. He didn't appear to blink or choke at that figure, but I still felt compelled to explain. "The price is high for two reasons," i said. "First off, I pay exorbitantly for the best quality medicines from my Matses friends. More importantly is that when people say they will be here at 9 AM, I scramble to clean the house, the kitchen from last night, vacuum the dog's hair from the living room rug before the client arrives. But," I said, "most people show up at 10. Then they want an hour's worth of stories from me about the medicines and the Matses and the Amazon jungle. Then they do the first medicine, the sapo, and when they are done in 15 minutes, they need to rest for an hour. Then they want more stories about the nu-nu, and thats another 30 minutes and then I serve them and then they need to rest for an hour while I cut fresh fruit for them, clean up the bathroom where they puked on the side of the toilet. And then they leave at 4 PM. That's why I charge a lot of money."

"Why?" he asked, having missed an entire speil.

"Because if you stretch a two hour session into 7 hours, my day is shot. Someone has to pay me for that. Hell, It's not even $25 an hour!"

"I'm not that guy," he explained. "I'm the guy in your driveway at 8:30 AM, sitting in my car till you are ready, and then I'm gone by 11 AM."

"Cool," I said. "For those people, I charge $120 the second time and if they can do it again, I drop the price to $100 a session. And when they come often enough to be friends, there is no charge at all."

Needless to say, he did not show at 8:30 AM--and he only lives 25 minutes from my house. He didn't show at 9 or 10 and by 11:30 I was writing him a note saying he could reschedule, but that he'd have to pay for the missed session and the new session in cash before we began. Why didn't he come? I don't know. Cold feet? Fear? I wrote him several times asking if he was okay--I know that people get into fender-benders that can take hours to clear up--and I would have been fine with that, but he never responded, even to cancel and tell me to go to hell, even now, a full 34 hours after he was scheduled to be in my driveway.

So with the day shot, I decided to try my hand at apple cider. I never, for some reason I can't think of, tried it. So I went to the store and bought 10 kilos of organic honeycrisp apples, brought 'em home, washed and cut them, then tossed them into a pot of spring water. I made a gallon and a half and it's damned good. Spent $24.90 on the apples and $5 on the spring water, so it came out about 4 times what organic Apple Cider costs. That's okay, right?

In the evening I made lime chicken and then the whole family showed up unexpectedly and ate it all, including all the rice and veggies and I was happy but did not get to eat.

So tonight I'm gonna eat. I am in the middle of making stuffed manicotti (stuffed with parmesan, ricotta, fresh mozarella, basil, salt and cracked black pepper) that I will bake on a bed of tomato sauce (currently on the stove), then top with tomato sauce, parmesan and fresh mozarella for the last 15 minutes of baking. I'll be serving that with sauteed spinach with garlic and olive oil. I tossed a couple of chicken thighs in the oven--well seasoned--in case I get the urge for meat. Or if the family shows up.

Or maybe, just maybe, my client went into a little coma, wakes up, and arrives at 9 PM tonight, just 36 hours late, and needs a bite to eat.

Eat healthy, everybody.

What about Removing Illness and Protecting Yorself?

A friend who has taken my sapo course told me that she sometimes felt completely dragged down by the negative energy or illnesses that she was removing from people during the work. She asked how to protect herself. I told her this story from my late teacher Bertha Grove, a Southern Ute medicine woman. In the early morning at the end of a peyote ceremony, Bertha sucked a sickness out of a young man, A couple of hours later she called me and my sister Pat, who was at the ceremony with me. over for a private talk. She said: "Did you see what I did in there?" We said we did. She said: "Now I sucked that illness right out of that boy. But that illness has the same will to live as you and I do. So the first thing it wanted to do was jump into me. Now when you suck out an illness you've very vulnerable. But you can't let that happen. So you get a good wad of spit in your throat and keep it there and put your spirit into it so that nothing can pass it. That protects you. At the same time, you can't just toss that sickness on the ground or it will grab something or someone else. And maybe that sickness showed up as what that boy had in his body, but it might show up as something else in someone else. So you have to get rid of it. Me? I wrap it up in a heavy gauze and send it off to a planet that has never had life and never will have life. A place so cold that that sickness cannot move, it's just frozen there, harmless forever.
Now other people have other places they put it, but you have to put it where it can do no harm. And you have to pay complete attention when you are removing that sickness or it will find its way into you. It might even kill you. So pay attention and don't let it get in you or on you." 
That was about it. Years later I was introduced to what I call the Red Room, a place where doctors of a different sort can take negative energy and transform it into positive energy. And that's where I put illness and negativity that I remove from people. But damn, once in a while I forget and every time I forget I get sick as a dog. So you be as careful as Bertha said to be when you are healing people. Illness, negativity, other things are just as full of life and the will to live as you and I are. They do not just disappear and they do not go willingly. They put up a fight, every time.

Is Ayahuasca political?

Someone on a facebook page posed the question of whether ayahuasca was political. Someone responded that they had friends who have been drinking ayahuasca for 15 years and remain alt-right. That led to a spirited and stupid conversation which sort of eventually forced me to jump in, briefly. Here was what I added to the conversation:
I think from a political standpoint, the politics of the right are basically, "i got mine baby, you go get your own." They are the politics of fear--fear that you won't have enough, can't get your fair share, etc. I'm talking politics here. The politics of the left are more like: "Hey, if you're hungry, I can share. I don't have much, but I can do with half of what I have." It is the politics of generosity. When you drink ayahuasca, you realize that operating out of fear has no value, and so you tend to transform your fear to fearlessness--and come to realize that you will always have enough, no matter how much you share. So you sort of automatically move to the left, politically, and become a sharer, rather than a rightest hoarder. So yeah, ayahuasca is definitely political that way.

Thinking About Chicken

So I don't mean to bore anybody with more food posts but sometimes they are important. Today, for instance, I bought 3-half chicken breasts. Air cooled, organic, no Cadillac grill but nearly. And I was thinking I'd just sear them good and brown in a bit of olive oil, and when they were done I'd toss them in a low oven, maybe 275 degrees, while I took pan juices and added fresh garlic--organic, from my friend Arbol, the last of it--half a diced red onion, a bunch of trimmed and diced scallions, diced and par boiled zucchini and yellow squash, par boiled tiny florets of broccoli and cauliflower, and finally, diced roma tomatoes. When that was all good with sea salt and cracked black pepper, I'd toss in the chicken, let the flavors marry a bit, then put some fine balsamic reduction in there for a finishing flavor. Slice the breasts, serve with the veggies over Jasmine rice.

But then I got to thinking: It's cold. Maybe I should make chicken parmesan. Or what about a light pasta with diced chicken pieces in a homemade pesto? Or saute the chicken breasts and add the juice of fresh oranges with garlic and onion? Or make a mushroom cream sauce for the chicken as I have some good mushrooms here. Or do chicken breast and pear slices with balsamic? Or do some chicken with some shrimp I have and add thyme and rosemary and a bit of dark beer that's been sitting in the ice box for a few weeks? Or stuff the chicken breasts with blue cheese and spinach and put a mushroom sauce over that?

Where I am going with this is two places: One is that no matter how humble the key ingredient is, you've got dozens of ways to work with it if you have good veggies and a few spices in your home. The second thing is this: If your brain is going as fast as mine just thinking about what you are going to cook, then you're probably crazy and will not get a good night's sleep because you cannot turn that stuff off. I will be thinking about 40 other things I could have done at 2 AM when I am wide awake and wishing I was sleeping. Thanks for the brain, universe. Can you tell me where the "OFF" switch is?

I hope you are all eating well tonight.