Happy weekend folks, and to my American friends, a very Happy 4th July! (us Brits will obviously be keeping our heads down ... ahem)
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| ... post field trip |
Our GPS finally announced "you have arrived at your destination on the right..." and as I glanced over and saw Claudia, our instructor, sitting inside what looked like a dirty shop window with one other student, my worst fears were realized ... Oh God ... Taxi for Barlow ...!
As well as teaching our beginner class on a Thursday evening, Claudia also teaches the Intermediate class straight afterwards and so she had combined the two and invited that class as well. A few more stragglers arrived (also from the intermediate class), making a total of 6 and a young Mexican chap appeared from the back who proceeded to give an overview of the Centre and the artists displaying paintings .... completely in Spanish. Oh good. A few members of the other group managed to nod along and even cobble together a few questions to ask Ramon, our guide, whilst Mr B and I just smiled politely. I should just point here that not only are we in the 'beginner' group, but we have had just one lesson in which we learned the sounds of the alphabet and how to work out the number of syllables in a word .... both of which I imagine will come in well handy tonight *tuts and raises eyebrows in sarcastic manner*. (We missed week two's lesson as we were away in Colorado and then Claudia was sick for the third). She now looked over at the two of us and asked "Lo entiendes?". Haven't got a scooby-doo love, but carry on ...
Ramon proceeded to lead us through a series of small rooms (well, I say 'rooms' ... some were barely bigger than large cupboards) all the while babbling in Spanish about the paintings and artwork displayed on the walls and the various artists etc. (still no), finally stopping by one to explain about the day of the dead.
At this point Claudia then explained with the aid of wild hand gestures and mimes (largely for our benefit I'm sure) that in her family these festivities went on for three days and involved lots of music, prayer and food (actions which even I could comprehend). She then went on to explain with the aid of a few English words thrown in here and there how they also made a big alter to honor her deceased father and laid out cigars, tequila and Cuban food (as he was 'Cubano'), which it later transpired Mr B had interpreted as 'he was a really big man that liked a drink' ... Lol.
After a tour of Ramon's 'office' in the back where he did his paintings (mostly weird abstract affairs in my opinion but there's no accounting for taste) ...
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| Ramon's office |
.... and another room adorned with more paintings - mainly of cockerels and crockery ....
... we were back where we started. Before they could lead us into the obligatory gift shop, Mr B and I managed to make our escape 'tat free' ("we've left a child home alone" ... they don't need to know he's fourteen) deciding we were in desperate need of alcohol! I think it's safe to say, that we won't be visiting the ALAC again any time soon (sorry Ramon).
On the way home we stopped at one of our favourite bars,'The Montauk', in Old Town (ha) Scottsdale and discovered there was a really great band playing (plus the cocktails in there aren't too shabby either), so the evening wasn't a complete disaster.
This week the monsoon season here in Arizona kicked off with a bang (literally) accompanied by the most spectacular lightening, followed by torrential downpours and even flash flooding down in Tucson. Mr B and I sat outside on our patio watching the display, until a sudden gigantic clap of thunder immediately overhead sent us scurrying indoors giggling like a couple of teenagers! If you're like me and can't get enough stop pictures, here's a couple of the storms last Wednesday evening, taken from a local news network Facebook page...
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| Photo by John Driscoll |
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| Photo by @Arizonaborealis |
Here is really cool time lapse video of last year's monsoon season in Arizona, created by a local guy named Jerrod Harris, which shows nature's beauty and power in all it's glory (he also has some fabulous photographs on his site too - check them out). Click on the link below to watch the video (it's around 5 minutes)
Finally, I thought I would also share one of my favorite summer recipes with you this week. Nothing says 'Summer' to me like the taste of fresh summer fruits and this is one of my go to summer desserts. I am rubbish at eating fruit out of the fruit bowl (too lazy for a start but never seem to fancy it) but I will devour this Fruit Compote (another Delia recipe) by the bowlful - with cream or a good vanilla ice cream obvs!
It's very easy to make and you can use whatever combination of fruits you like. I generally go for the ones I have listed here but might change it up a bit if something particular is on offer at the supermarket that particular week.
Summer Fruit Compote
Summer Fruit Compote
3 nectarines or peaches
6 plums
6 apricots
8oz blueberries (I generally just chuck in whatever size punnet I can find)
6 oz raspberries (same)
2 oz sugar
- Preheat oven to 180 or 350
- Cut nectarines or peaches in half and remove the stone, then cut each half into 3 pieces.
- Repeat with plums and apricots but unless they are very big I generally must quarter those.
- Arrange in large shallow baking dish and sprinkle on blueberries. Do not add the raspberries at this stage as they go on at the end after it comes out of the oven.
- Sprinkle over sugar
- Place in oven (uncovered) for 30-40 mins depending on ripeness of fruit, but until fruit is tender when tested with a skewer.
- If the fruit was quite sharp you may now want to taste and add a little more sugar if required.
- Sprinkle in raspberries and spoon over a little of the warm juices.
- Serve with ice cream, cream or creme fraiche. Yum!
Have a great week friends, and hope to see you back here soon.
TTFN
Bev x
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