My Grandfather and a Long Tradition of Urban Homesteading

For anyone who thinks the Hippies and alternative folks where the first ones to start the urban farming/homesteading movement, guess again. A lot of immigrants to America saw the practicality of taking land that you worked for and owned, and paid taxes on, and doing something useful with it. The above photos are of my Armenian grandfather who came to this country at the age of 16 with nothing but a borrowed gold coin to get on a boat and flee the troubles and Armenian genocide/massacres(whatever they are currently referring to it as) in Turkey. My grandfather worked his way up from factory work to owning his own tailor business and owning the building comprised of; the tailor shop,living quarters and a rental unit. He decided to turn the backyard of the business and apartments in Newark New Jersey into beautiful terraced gardens that he made from rocks and rubble that he found, and he made my mom and her siblings go out with shovels and buckets and pick up the manure droppings from the peddler's cart horses, to use for compost. He had beautiful vegetable and flower gardens and kept chickens as well, but when the neighbors complained about the noise from the rooster, it became dinner. My waspy(white. Anglo-Saxon,Protestant) relatives also gardened in New Jersey. My dad grew up during the depression and had a Victory garden during WWII and worked in a chicken hatchery and my dad's family lived with multiple family members i.e., his sister and parents, their grandmother, and an unmarried aunt, all lived in one big farmhouse, not unlike today where people are living at home longer and living more communally to save money. My Mexican American mother in law had a funny story about some Filipino friends she had in Los Angeles California. She met the woman at church and when she went to her house, the husband was tearing out all the rose bushes and flowers. My mother in law said" what in the world are you doing tearing out all those beautiful flowers?" The man said that since he was paying for the land, he was only going to grow things that he could eat, and make the land pay him. So many people in years past have been practical minded and turned their urban lawns into food producing areas, perhaps as immigrants they have had a different value system and perspective, that we are now starting to reacquire.

Subaru Cowboys and our trip through the Nevada Basque country

check out this funny Subaru Cowboy video by clicking on the link http://youtu.be/wEXFu1NxA68

Sometimes what I love about this country, is the many different cultural twists and turns we take on our way to trying to perfect the human condition and lead good lives for ourselves. After my last iconic western car, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which has over 150,000.00 miles on it, ran into mechanical problems we decided we needed something more practical that got good gas mileage.. I ended up with a Subaru Outback. As one of our young Idaho friends who grew up in ranch country said to us " what kind of car are you going to get?" He owns quite a few cool vintage cars. We answered " a Subaru Outback" He burst out " Oh no, not another Subaru Cowboy!" The term really struck me as humorous. Ranchers and farmer types are for the most part practical minded, and we needed a four wheel or all wheel drive vehicle in order to handle our harsh winters, and I sure appreciate getting a combined 30-32 miles per gallon, I'm happy to be deemed a Subaru Cowboy. I got the year end closeout model and really wanted the sky blue metallic color, of which there was only one left in my area in the base no frills model, and that was in Reno Nevada. We contacted the very charming, helpful, and knowledgeable Roumanian/American immigrant salesman Calin Varga http://www.lithiasubarureno.com/index.htm who swung us such a deal on the car we couldn't resist , so off we went to Reno Nevada a town where we were married many years ago for $75 dollars and a discount wedding coupon at an all night Wedding chapel, advertised out in front with a flashing neon sign, near the court house where for our money we got a Polaroid snapshot of ourselves,a Paiute Indian Blessing, and plastic flowered corsage, and off we went to many years of happiness and contentment, well for the most part, both of us lasting longer in marriage than any of our parents. While in Reno we ate at a Sushi restaurant, owned and staffed by Mexicans, no "Domo Arigato" spoken here, only mostly Spanish and English, gracias, and do you know, the Sushi was pretty good and a real ganga/ bargain.Surprisingly in a cultural reversal, there is a Japanese Salsa band called Orquesta de la Luz. I suppose people are drawn to things different from themselves, perhaps we are all part of a great evolutionary path which would explain why my English/ French Huguenot father was drawn to my Aremnian/American mother. On our way home we drove through the old Nevada Basque country. The Basque immigrants from Spain were involved in the sheep-herding trades and there were many boarding houses for the shepherds that now remain on as family style Basque restaurants, my current favorite( some of my favorites have changed hands recently) is still The Martin Hotel in Winnemucca Nevada. Many of the Basque people have moved up in the world and are now professional people, the shepherding from what I have seen lately has been taken over by Peruvian shepherds in an ever changing saga of the American immigrant landscape. There are still a few Basque restaurants in Boise Idaho as well. Perhaps with the tough economy in Spain, we will have a welcomed revival of wonderful Basque restaurants in this country, particularly up our way! But one can only hope. So interesting, this patchwork cultural landscape of ours, constantly zigging and zagging, morphing and perhaps evolving into something new. as people try and better themselves and create a life. All part of the human family, sharing a planet and cultural identities in this grand cosmic illusion!

What do Mex-amenians feed their Vegan friends for Dinner?

This time it was something Armenian. My friends are a couple. The woman eats meat and dairy as we do( mostly organic and local if we can get it), and her boyfriend is a Vegan(vegetarians who do not eat eggs, dairy, or honey- any animal products). We wanted to have them over for dinner and kept trying to figure out what we could serve that would please everyone. Armenian food met the challenge. For appetizers we had olives and feta cheese, and vegetarian dolmas(rice, onion pine nut,olive oil, lemon). We made falafel from scratch. We use chickpeas and fava beans mixed together for our falafel.The trick is to soak the beans overnight. We had yogurt sauce for the dairy eaters and tahini sauce for the Vegan. Then we made hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, with a side of pita bread. So our Vegan friend could eat everything but the cheese and yogurt sauce. It felt so good that we could finally make something everyone could enjoy. Often times at our get-togethers, the meat eaters eat a wonderful, elaborate, home cooked meal, while our vegan friend cooks something separately for himself. So if you want to make a yummy vegan meal everyone can enjoy, think Armenian food/ Middle Eastern food. I'll have to work on a Mexican vegan meal for all to enjoy but that seems a tad more difficult

What do Mex-amenians name their boat?

Something Mexican, like the "Sea Senor" ( my suggestion), or something Armenian like the
" S/V Manti, " (also my suggestion) Manti is an Armenian food dish meaning, little meat boat pies, with broth. Manti is one of our favorite Armenian meals at my house . No, this Mexi-amenian family named their sailboat something Chinese !, the "Wu Li" which means Physics, patterns of organic energy, my way, void, or enlightenment, depending on the interpretation. Unfortunately, our humble little sailboat is landlocked due to extreme amounts of rain and snow, resulting in swollen lakes, and dangerous conditions here in the Pacific Northwest U.S.A.

You know you're Armenian if..,

Since my husband is half Mexican American and I am half Armenian American we are always exploring each others cultures and the similarities between them. There is a funny ongoing list of "You know you're a Mexican if..," here is a link to one of the lists http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm425990.html
Here is a list of "you know you're Armenian if" http://forum.armkb.com/general/31409-you-know-youre-armenian-if.html


Here are a few of my additions-"You know you're Armenian if..,"

a lot of the food you eat has more than three syllables in the name
your family breaks out in spontaneous dancing and merry making
your Thanksgiving turkey is stuffed with ground lamb, pilaf and blanched almonds
your food contains spices that most Americans only use at Thanksgiving and Christmas time
you know that the painter Arshile Gorky is Armenian, but you're not exactly sure how
you've been told that yogurt, aplets and cotlets http://www.libertyorchards.com/ , string cheese, fruit roll ups http://www.amazon.com/Dried-Apricot-Fruit-Paste-Rolls/dp/B000O5JII6/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1296667313&sr=8-8 are all originally Armenian foods
your summer barbeques are comprised of shish kebab more than hamburger
you've eaten as many lamb burgers as hamburgers
your mom has a belly dancing costume complete with cymbals stashed somewhere in the house and has taken at least one lesson
You know you're Armenian-American if..,you noticed strange objects in the house while growing up; cymbals, hookahs, dumbegs http://www.thedrumworks.com/Doumbek_12x20.html
you know you're Armenian -American if.., you've tried to make whole wheat choreg at least once
you have at least one elderly relative with a bottle of Arak stashed in their closet
you have relatives that have meat hanging in their attics

Even my dog speaks Spanish?

I saw this in Costco the other day, and wondered what the heck? Woodland Amigos? Woodland? You mean like Chupacabra , toys for dogs? Sometimes I worry that my dog has other woodland amigos in the form of pulgas(fleas), such good friends that they want to cling to him all the time! And the packaging even states "we squeak" do they squeak in English or Spanish?

My Mex-Amenian New Year

So I don't know how many other people have a multi-culti New Year, a few of my friends that I know of. We made homemade Tamales and homemade Dolmas- stuffed grape leaves, and since my husband is from Texas we had to have Hoppin John or Texas Caviar, made from black eyed peas. You are supposed to eat something green on New Year's Day for good luck, wealth and prosperity, so instead of the usual collard greens we substituted grape leaves. The confusing part is that you are supposed to remove the corn husks from the Tamale and eat what is inside- in the photo you can see the corn husks come off easily, but you are suppose to eat the grape leaves and what is inside them. Some people unfortunately fail to understand this and try and eat the corn husk. We have a friend in southern Idaho who has what he refers to as "The Joy Luck Club New Year" He is half Basque, Half English with a Japanese stepmother and a half brother who is half Japanese who converted to Mormonism. So you see, Idaho is a lot more multi-cultural than many people think. There is a large Basque population here and also a lot of Japanese people were unfortunately interned here during the second world war, and remained on afterwards. So our friend's family has Sushi flown in for New Years Day which the Mormon half of the family celebrates without any alcohol.I bet there are many more multi -cultural stories out there in this great country of ours where we truly seem to be a great melting pot or in the case of Sushi a non melting pot.
Another odd case of food related multiculturalism- I caught my husband the other day making a tuna fish sandwhich, On a Tortilla! Really, "we were out of bread" he said. I can only take this so far. Me, I draw the line- fish tacos, or tuna fish salad on bread. Call me old fashioned, but I can only get my mind around so much . Happy New Year- Feliz Ano Nuevo- Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի