#january2013

i'm not sure how i learned about fat mum slim's photo a day challenge. maybe it was last year when i learned about project life or heard about project 365. regardless, it has changed my life.

for the past year i have been taking (at least) one photo a day to document the everyday things that are going on around me. and it's been super cool to see how my life has progressed over the past year.

i started 2012 living in a two bedroom apartment in condesa.
i ended 2012 living in a one bedroom in tucson.
(the occupants of those apartments are the same.)

i started 2012 eating grapes as the clock struck midnight.
i ended 2012 drinking champagne.

i started 2012 teaching world history and geography at an american school in mexico city.
i ended 2012 working as a health educator at a university in arizona.

 i visited beaches in mexico (twice) and california, a lake in new york, a river in arizona, and waterfalls in mexico.

i saw a soccer game in mexico city, a baseball game in arizona, and played kickball.

i went skydiving, hiking, horseback riding, go karting, and floating down a river.

i went to two weddings.

i bought a car.

and so much more.

and it is all documented in my photo a day.


what does 2013's photo a day hold?

2013 -- week 4 -- days when we don't have work are the best days

monday was a momentous day -- barack obama was inaugurated for his second term, but in tucson it was just another monday off. so we went to mt. lemmon. but since it is arizona, and me being from the east coast and believing there could never be snow in arizona, even though i've seen it, we faced a disaster -- the road to our hiking spot was closed! so we tried to find another hike. we failed. so we went to the overlook, saw awesome trees, and took goofy pictures.

the rest of the week dragged. hard. but finally it was the weekend again and we had tons of fun things planned -- on friday, a local brewery, borderlands, reopened and a favorite local bluegrass band, silver thread trio, was playing at a nearby club. on saturday we had big plans to go wine tasting in sonoita but it rained in the morning (which is unheard of for arizona) so that got cancelled. but on sunday we were back to the fun with a food swap in the morning and horse races at rillito downs in the afternoon.

january food swap: the foodening

part of the reason that the early civilizations were successful was because people had job specialization -- each person had that one special thing that they were good at -- and then people bartered so they could benefit from others' specialties. that's kind of like the food swap.

i'm good at making ice cream, but i don't have the patience or attention span for baking, the knowledge for jams, jellies, pickling, or beer, or the creativity for fancy spreads and dressings. but others do! and so, once a month, i get together with some other folks from around tucson and we swap delicious snacks.

here's the spread from this month:

nogales pesto and lemon hummus

 

hibiscus syrup and whole milk ricotta & sourdough starter

orange marmalade and candied orange peels

sweet rice cakes, vegan peanut butter cookies, homemade biscotti

blackberry plum jam and tomato lemon marmalade

nasturtium salt

concord grape chutney and horseradish & prickly pear jelly

kale walnut pesto and pickled garlic

sushi roll and kimchi

citrus miso dressing, nutella, and spicy harissa

________________________________________________________________________

and here's what we got!

spicy harissa sauce

blackberry plum jam and pickled garlic

nasturtium salt

kimchi and porter

whole milk ricotta and candied orange peels

are there any ice cream flavors you would like to see at the next swap?

(or are there any recipes from the above goodies that you would be interested in learning?)