Cream of Green Chile Soup

Decades ago, our favorite lunch was Cream of Green Chile Soup and blueberry pie at Duarte's Tavern in Pescadero, California. Ever since, I have tried (ohhh, so many times!) to make a version of that soup! My first really successful try used sweet red chiles (Cream of Red Chile Soup), and that was good. But not green. I tried Hatch green chiles (here's a  reasonable Stew recipe), but OMG! Too hot! Then I tried a variation on Chile Verde, but that used too many tomatillos for the soup I remembered. Now:

Cream of Green Chile Soup

Preheat oven to 400°

• Wash ~15-20 Anaheim chiles and place on a baking sheet in the top rack of the oven. Char  both sides, approximately 20-30 minutes per side. Put cooked chiles in a covered bowl and let rest 5-15 minutes. Discard seeds, stems, and peels. Put flesh in a blender. It's easier to peel them first: roll the chile between your fingers to first loosen the peel from the flesh, then break the skin and pull it off! If this doesn't work, never fear: use a knife to scrape the flesh from the peel.
• Place unpeeled garlic cloves (~ 1 head worth) on a baking sheet on the bottom rack of the oven. Cook until soft, approximately 20 minutes. Squeeze garlic into blender.
• Start with 1/4 cup roasted and prepared Hatch green chiles* Chop 1 onion, and cook (covered) with chiles in a little chicken broth till soft (~10 minutes). Add to blender.

Blend everything till smooth, adding chicken broth as needed to facilitate, and pour into large pot.

Add:
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Tablespoon coriander
1 teaspoon ground thyme
chicken broth to total ~16 oz
Milk/cream to desired consistency

Simmer till flavors blend, ~10 minutes. Adjust flavors* - add salt, pepper, and ground cloves as needed.

Serve with warm crusty sourdough bread, lots of butter, and have warm blueberry pie for dessert!

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* Since chile heat can vary, start with 1/4 cup, then increase after tasting.
If hatch chiles are not available, wash 2-3 Serrano chiles, remove seeds and ribs (remember to coat your hands in olive oil, or wear gloves!), and chop.

Singing to La Madera

Singing to La Madera

The La Madera Canyon Overlook is a drive I've been wanting to make for quite a while - today, we did it!

We left Albuquerque at noon, and headed East on I-40. We turned off to follow Route 66, and caught a bit of the Singing Highway!* I kept humming America the Beautiful through Tijeras, and up Highway 14. The turn off to 536 at San Antonito is well marked (Sandia Ski Area!), and the road itself is great! Even with my height issues, I drove it without a twinge - lots of curves, but wide (clear bike lanes on both sides), smooth, slow, and plenty of shoulder and turnouts.

We pulled into a couple to stretch our legs,

and got to the Balsa Glade Picnic Area** about 1:00. It turns out that the El Madera overlook is at the end of an easy 1/3 mile trail from the picnic grounds! We enjoyed our lunch in the brisk air and dappled sun at 8750 feet, then took to the trail

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* Singing Highway Details:
- the road only sings eastbound
- take exit 170 toward Tijeras, and follow 333/66 East
- there is an easy-to-miss blue sign telling you to maintain 45 mph to hear the song (Set your cruise control immediately!)
- it is only along the right edge of the road, and a bit difficult to keep your tires exactly on it
- it is a very short stretch of road, and difficult to return to
- how's it work? See this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_road
- the blue dot shows where we stopped after the song was done

** Balsam Glade Picnic area:

- $3.00 parking fee (probably but not certainly good for all the other areas along this road) per day - bring cash or a check, put it in the envelope, fill out your car info, deposit part of the form in the box and display the other in your car.
- no running water; bring your own
- picnic tables and BBQ stands
- pit toilets; bring your own soap, wash water, purelle, etc
- flat, smooth, wide trail; a determined person in a wheelchair could make it to the overlook

Shoestring Travel

Shoestring Travel
Or is that Flip-Flop Travel?

We like to see other places and live different cultures (at least somewhat). We like to experience new things together. We have plenty of time. And we have a budget to watch (doesn't everyone?). Luckily, we've also discovered that there are a lot of aspects to luxury travel that we plain don't like. So what is worth spending money on, and what do we spend time and effort on instead?

• Flights: These can add up to half or more of the overall trip cost, so we spend a lot of effort to keep them as cheap as possible, adding in our (very much required) checked bags, and keeping layovers to a minimum. We definitely got spoiled living in the San Francisco bay area - three international airports to choose from meant most of our flights were direct, and on the less expensive side. Now in Albuquerque, we always have a jump to a hub, then onward. (At least our city *has* an airport! Those who live in the capital, Santa Fe, have to drive an hour as well!) One thing the flight cost affects is how long we stay somewhere - if we stay longer, the cost of the flight is amortized over more vacation; so... we stay!
• Housing: We aim for as many apartments (kitchens!) as possible. Next in line are hostels. Most of these charge extra for sheets and towels - if we have room, we bring our own (in our very much required checked bags ;-) ).  Hunting for what we want and need takes a *lot* of effort, and quite a bit of plan B type thinking. Apartments to let don't have the same guarantees as hotels - and you pay in advance. Not having a concierge also means we have to research activities and make our own reservations for can't-miss-this museums, etc.
• Food: Some travel advisors say to eat at least once at a multi-star restaurant to get a taste of "the best" local food. We've done that, but we have also had great luck at little bistros; we get our taste like this, at lunch, more and more often. We also swing through the central markets and farmer's markets looking for interesting picnic supplies - these are great for day trips (plus, you get fantastic conversations with the sellers)! Most often, we look for different ingredients and cook our own! My favorite questions are: "what is this?" and "how do you prepare it?" Not only is this the way we like to eat, but it is considerably easier on the bottom line...
• Transportation: Sometimes renting a car is worth it, but if we're staying in a city center, then no. Usually, buses, metro, and trains work very well. However, sometimes research does not pan out! My Sicily research said there were hourly buses to everywhere we expected to go, but it turned out the schedules were really very inconvenient (we spent 5 hours at a sunny beach due to the bus schedule - not as fun as it sounds!)
• Tours / sightseeing: Certainly we spend some here - this is a big part of being Somewhere Else. However! Do I absolutely have to cruise the canals of Venice on a gondola (100€), or will I enjoy a vaporetto (7. 50€) just fine? I don't have to go inside every interesting-looking church; plenty, especially in Europe, have extremely interesting features outside, and many are open to the public; a few are worth paying a few euro to enter the crypt (although it has to promise something spectacular enough for me to overcome my claustrophobia). If I have a limited amount of time in a town, I do some research to find the key places (for me) to see - I know I don't care for a certain type of art, so why spend any time in that type of museum? In Italy, I would love to visit the site of ancient mosaics, but it is hard to get to; it's on the maybe-but-unlikely list, and I do a virtual visit via Google maps (yes, I love researching vacations!). I have been on guided tours, and I love them! But I also really enjoy researching a place and planning my own path - so, win-win!
• Souvenirs: We have downsized enough that I don't want a lot of extra stuff cluttering up my space (and demanding a lot of cleaning). If we get a souvenir, it has to be functional as well as evocative. One of my favorites is a string bag from France - iconic, and only a couple of euro (plus, easy to pack!) at a local grocer's. Something my brother got me into is rocks! Yes! I like beachcombing as it is, and looking for a special (small) stone to take back is very gratifying :-).
• Insurance: mainly because we don't have a lot of time constraints, and we stay a while in (nearly) each place we visit, we find that travel insurance isn't worth it. Usually, if we miss a flight (for example), we would only risk a shorter stay at a destination. In the past, we used this, and were glad we had it. If we had a tight schedule, we would definitely look harder at this.

Last year, we went to France for just over a month. Our budget broke down like this:

• 33% Flights (to and from Marseille, no other French locations)

• three legs, plus a drive to get there; exhausting!

• 12% Housing (one apartment plus 3 nights hotel)

• we got an amazing deal on a small apartment on the beach!

• 14% Transportation (car rental plus a few trams, trains, buses)

• we needed a car because of where we stayed; after that, it made sense (for 2 of us) to drive to sites

• 21% Food

• no fancy dinners, a lot of picnics, and a few lunches out

• 4% Sightseeing 

• a lot of walking tours

• 10% Unexpected (car damage, replacement passport)

• ack! This really cut into our touring time (that hurt the most)

• see, now insurance would have helped, but really only to a break-even point

• 6% Misc

This year, our budget for 6 weeks of Italy (+) was:

• 49% Flights (California, Stockholm, Florence, and Sicily)

• a lot of effort, but we flew a *lot!*

• 21% Housing (two apartments, 1 night hotel, 3 nights hostel)

• also a lot of effort

• 9% Transportation (no car rental; trams, trains, buses)

• we actually did hitch rides with friends that rented a car for part of the time; we probably would have rented one in advance if we had known about the poor bus/train schedules in Sicily

• we could have trained between some places, but flew instead

• this is higher that it would normally be due to long-distance day trips from Florence

• 17% Food

• this was a pleasant effort :-) with lots of cooking and street food

• Stockholm was significantly more expensive than Sicily, and we weren't there long enough to cook our own

• 2% Sightseeing 

• we paid a bit extra to make sure we could visit Florence museums when we expected to (Uffizi and Accademia)

• 0% Unexpected (yay!)
• 2% Misc

Odds and Ends

A trip isn't really complete without some sort of souvenir.

My brother got us started on collecting small rocks and shells from different parts of the world - this time, it was from Noto Antica, Lido di Noto, Lido d'Avola, and lava from Mt. Etna.

But traditional tchotchkes have their place - we brought chocolate from Modica to share tastes, small ceramics, and marzipan candy fruit from Sicily

Scarves and a bit of lace from Venice

And a Dala horse from Sweden

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I spent a considerable amount of time peeking in booths in Florence for the perfect leather purse - my idea of perfect is not currently in style :-\
But I did find a nice leather belt in Lucca!

Farewell Stockholm!

We had a full morning left in Stockholm before flying back to California, so we decided on an easy stroll around our neighborhood. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but still windy and chilly at 50° (we'll be glad to get back to the - promised - 72° in California)!

This is the Nobel Laureate museum

And the interesting water-pumping station (pump your own water from a well, using the levers on each side)

Where the water gushes out

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Details:
We were able to pack up and leave our luggage at the hostel, so no lugging around a lot of stuff! 44 pounds was a tough limit to make on the way here, but a breeze on the way home :-)

The bus station was simple to navigate (if you come in the front door!), and our airport bus was frequent at every 10 minutes.

I double checked our terminal, check in desk, and gate on the airport website, so no anxiety there.
We used our GPS to find out how long the walk was (and added 10 minutes).

Because this is a flight to the USA, we had more passport checks - well, you can count them: airline check in, security, passport control, and our second passport control, with plenty of people pulled to the side for additional searches

24 hours after waking, we arrived home - a quick dinner, then bed (and now, after only a 6 hour nap, I'm up - I see another nap in my future today!)

I *love* the 787 Dream Liner!
- It's very smooth (I hardly noticed the takeoff and landing
- I could charge my phone and tablet via USB
- I could use my earbuds to hear movies
- There were a lot of movies, even for someone who doesn't sleep on long flights (I watched 3 or 4 each direction!)
- I finally got smart, and got an inside aisle seat (I usually get a window) - critical for someone who doesn't sleep on long flights ;-)

Stockholm Tour

We had an entire, full day in Stockholm!

On my list to see:
Tyska kyrkan, the German Church

Riddarholmen Church

The changing of the guards at the Royal Palace

Storkyrkan, or "Big Church," a Lutheran Cathedral

Vasa Museum (all about a huge warship that sank in 1628, and recovered in the years 1951-1979)

And, of course, the streets of Gamla stan, Old Town, where we are staying :-)

* Tuesday 10/4 - our weather was generally cold (40's)! We had intermittent sun, rain, and a lot of wind! On our way to the Vasa Museum, we ducked in for lunch (and took our time - it was pretty good!)
see more:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Church,_Stockholm
http://www.vasamuseet.se/en
see my Stockholm album for more photos (in the right-hand column)

The Streets of Gamla Stan

The streets of Gamla stan (Old Town), and some of the surrounding area...

One of my favorite sights...

What's a city with out traffic?