Posts from — September 2009

I got to go hiking today with my mom and her good friend Karla.  We walked the White Cloud trail that winds through the hills around Sun Valley.  The views are really great.  I grew up here, and the hills and mountains make me feel alive and at home all at once.

The wildflowers were still out a little bit, the mullen was everywhere, we saw two little chipmunks, and the morning rain made the hills smell like sagebrush.  The best part, however, was spending time with Mom and Karla.

The two women have known each other for probably 20 years and have been good friends for the last 10.  I like spending time with them.  They enjoy each other immensely and ask nothing in return.  Do you know how rare that is?  How lovely?  There’s no pretense, no performing.  Just being.

When I measure my friendship – how good a friend I am to others – this is the measure I use.  Can I just love the other person?  Can I let them be themselves and give myself permission to do the same?  That’s what I see when I spend time with Mom and Karla.  It’s beautiful.

Thank you, ladies!  You are beautiful.  Your friendship is something bright and wonderful in this world.

I’m not the only person in my family who loves pastry.  I come by it honestly.  We all do.

Today, which is my little sister’s 30th birthday (Happy Birthday Cath!), my mom decided to do something special – I mean really special.  She decided to make tortones.

For those of you who aren’t in my family, here’s what a tortone is:  Prunes in fried pie dough.  Yummy.

This is something that came from my Great Grandmother Harame who came to the US directly from France.  I remember playing the piano for her in her house.  I remember her sitting next to me and playing that upright piano.  She would write sheet music with the words of songs from France and those of us who played piano would try to learn.  Her hands were so little that she couldn’t reach a full octave, but she so enjoyed playing that it was a delight to watch.

Today when we were making the tortones, Mom pulled out a hand-written recipe and I teared up as I saw Grandma Harame’s handwriting, the same as it was on the sheet music, friendly and instructive.

It’s full of helpful hints like “try to make it your own” and “good luck with your tortones.”  Actually, as I’m sitting here reading the recipe, I’m realizing that I’ve misspelled “tortone” my entire life.  Grandma’s letter says “tourton” as though that is the plural!  Wonderful!  Well, I’ll probably continue calling them “tortones” anyway, the way her name changed from Haramis to Harame when she and her Greek husband came to the US.

So, here are some pictures of the tortones in process and finished:

We stewed the prunes, placed them in the dough like raviolis, and deep fried them (I swear this might be the one reason to own a deep fryer).

You can sprinkle with sugar or just shove them in your mouth while they’re scalding hot.  Sooooo good.

Sidenote, my family just realized what I was blogging about and nearly had a heart attack when they realized I was giving out the recipe.  Lucky for you I’m a fan of open-source recipes.  So, if you can read Grandma Harame’s writing, and come up with a functioning recipe, let me know.  They’re delicious.

Driving in to work today, I heard a great story on OPB about a doctor in India who prescribes Charlie Chaplin DVDs to his patients.  He practices ayurvedic medicine, which looks kind of interesting.

I love the image of sick people hobbling in to exchange their silent movie for another.  It really made me smile all day long.

Also, evidently, in India, they have groups that get together to laugh.  Imagine getting together with a bunch of friends and instead of griping about the things that aren’t working in your lives, you just sat and laughed.  It reminds me of the “ha ha” game we used to play at sleepovers.  You remember that game?

Someone lies on their back and another person lies on their back, putting their head on the other person’s stomach.  Everyone lies down so that everybody has their head on someone’s stomach, and everyone is connected.  Make sense?  Good.  Then the first person in the chain says “ha”.  The second person says “ha-ha”, and so on.  The goal is to get through everyone, increasing the ha’s as you go – without laughing.

This is nearly impossible.  The word “ha” makes your stomach jerk, which makes the other person’s head bounce, which is funny.  Pretty soon everyone is totally laughing, which makes everyone’s heads bounce around.  Seriously, try this at the next cocktail party you go to.

Wouldn’t that be excellent?  Why don’t we do these things as adults?  I do these things, but I don’t get invited to a lot of cocktail parties.  I’m not sure there’s a correlation.

My sister sent me this link yesterday. Pretty cute. The baby totally made me laugh.

And then this Parkour totally made me want to become a ninja.

So Cathy (my sister) and I decided that I’ll become a kick-ass hugging ninja, executing covert flipping-hug-attacks. Awesome.

(Mad props to Today’s Big Thing.)

Check out the new Laugh page!

I’ll be posting more video, text and audio. Join in! Post a laugh, or send it to me and I’ll post it.

Fun!