The VACATION face

My God Daughter is growing up!!!

My God daughter sent me a text message today.

"hi hi! so your goddaughter just purchased her first caldero (all grown up now sort of haha) can you send me that recipe for rice and beans we made when i was cali???"

This made me incredibly happy. When she visits, we always rock something in the kitchen and I feel that is a special bond that we share. She still looks like this to me.

Arroz con Gandules

2 cups grain rice
2 cups of hot water, or beef broth- USE THE SAME CAN FROM THE GANDULES AND THAT IS HOW MUCH WATER YOU USE.

appx. ½ cup sofrito 

1 PORKCHOP (DICED)
16 ounce can of gandules
2 tablespoons of alcaparrado (cappers and olives        mixed together)
1 packet of Sazon with achiote
1 can tomato sauce
3 tablespoons of oil
Salt & pepper to taste

In a medium size caldero add the oil, tomato sauce, alcaparrado, sofrito and sazon ANS PORKCHOP. Cook over medium heat for 4 minutes. Add all other ingredients, and enough water to cover the rice 1" above the rice line. Start with 1 teaspoon of salt stir and keep adding and mixing well until you are satisfied with the taste. Bring to a boil and cook over high heat until most of the water is absorbed. Once the water has been absorbed, stir gently from bottom to top - once or twice only, cover and turn the heat down to low.  Cook for 30 minutes or until the rice is tender.

Stirring the rice after it has begun cooking may cause it go get sticky or "amogollao."

Any rice that sticks to the bottom of the pot is called "pegao" and is crispy and tasty and a favorite of all true Puerto Ricans. However, not everyone is skilled is making pegao - it is an art. To make great pegao make sure to use plenty of oil. Cook for about 10 minutes longer so the pegao gets crispy and keep your eye on it. Each time you cook rice - check to see how long it takes to make pegao just the way your family likes it. Finally - if you want a lot of pegao - use a bigger caldero which, of course, will have a larger bottom surface.

If you need any help, skype or facetime and I will walk you through

Love you always

Padrino

SAUCE THAT ROCKS!!!!!

Today I finally got a sauce from scratch that I thought was a winner. I am tired of trying sauces from a jar. They are packed with preservatives and I want to feed my family food that is fresh. For the past couple of months, I've tried about a dozen different recipes to find a taste that I thought was authentic, simple, and genuinely bangin. Well, welcome to "La Salsa de pescao"

The ingredients are pretty easy:

The material (LOL)

• 1/4 cup onions
• 1/4 cup celery
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 5 leaves of fresh basil
• 1/8 cup of fresh parsley
• 1 jar of mutti tomato puree
• 2 tablespoons of avocado oil
• salt to taste

The hand to hand (LOL) Get a saucepan and throw in the avocado oil. Wait until its hot ( med to high heat) and throw in the onions. Sweat them for about 5 mins and then throw in the celery and cook for another 5. After that, throw in the garlic and cook for two mins. You are stirring all of this. If anything starts browning,  lower the heat and remove the pan until it cools down.

Now, once everything looks soft  to the touch, throw in the tomato puree and place it on low heat. Cook it until its about a sauce/ thick texture. Add the basil and let it cook for another 12 mins. Once  it looks dryish, you are good.

Remember that when you are using this for pasta sauce, throw the pasta into it and use some of the starch water to thin out the sauce.

I was actually giddy when I tasted the sauce. I've tried everything and I was kinda bummed out after failure via failure. I've come to realize that I am my worst critic. Shit, I cook lunch and dinner yesterday for Ellie's best friend and I bombed the fuck out of lunch.  It tasted more like the ocean then a stir fry. I used braggs liquid amino acid (a soy sauce alternative) and I went over board.

So here I am, ready to get redemption of a fucked up mofongo and a stir fry that tasted like Orchard beach.

In the meantime, love this sauce I made. If you don't like it, pues, whatever.

Food, Love, and friends

I want to thank Chris Kelly for giving me the inspiration to write about my exploits in the kitchen. Not only will our share my process but I will share my accomplishments and my failures. Of course, there will be comedy along the way.

I kept a blog for many years and it got me more in trouble then what it was worth. Now, this spot here will be more for me then the world. With the way society has gone to 3 second attention spans, I doubt many people will take time out to read past the 1st paragraph.

So, be ready, pics, love, and many many stories about the people I feed and how my kids are eating and playing and just being merry.

:)

Be well


Fish

My head is spinning hundreds of miles per minute. Today is June 17, 2012. It is my first Father's day as the man that will try his best not to destroy his baby dragon. It's been an incredible three months with her. I can't look back and complain about lack of sleep, cranky baby, dirty diapers, or fussy McFussy just acting up. I could say the following, I have the best job in the world. I am raising a beautiful, strong, smart little girl that will challenge the system, call people out on their shit, and make both her parents proud. I don't have much but what I have is hers and she will know it. Today, my father is still alive. He has been fortunate enough to become a first time abuelo and he is over the moon. I treasure him, admire him, and love him more each day. He has taught me to be a loving man at all cost. A loving man is not a perfect man, but it's the best you could be. Happy father's day from a teary ass bronx thug who has loved his dragon all day today. Thank you all for the wishes and the love. Fish Vargas

Our Birth Story

For millions of years, humans have been able to have their children, unrepentant, unabashed, and unrelenting. They have had them in caves, rain forests, artic conditions, and places where most people would never fathom to have a baby. In the grand scheme of things, for all intents and purposes, they are about as defenseless as anything imaginable. Today, March 10th, we embark on our journey as parents. We have been blessed with the birth of our beautiful daughter, Salome Olivia Vargas. She was born at 7:09am and weighed 7 pounds 1oz. As the bliss of holding this tiny little human far outweighs mostly anything prior to today, let’s share our story of how we came to this place.

The due date for our baby girl was on March 8th, 2012. This was a crisp and beautiful day and it had so much to offer. The full moon was just caressing the morning sky. The battle between the sun and the pull of the moon usually means fierce tides in and around the bay. Well, the tides within my wife and her amniotic sac were not immune to the power of the full moon.

We are first time parents who went through relentless practices of preparing ourselves. We attended birth classes, forums, and hung out with more parents who had kids then I would care to admit. On Thursday, we were vigorously tested with what we thought was a major step. My wife wakes up at 3am to empty her bladder. We all know this is normalcy in pregnancy but today it was going to be a little different. My wife goes back to bed and notices that it was a little bit damp. You have no choice but to question if this was the gusher of amniotic fluid everyone spoke about. Or, was this the small trickle of leakage that we learned in our birthing class? Well, we had no clue so we made our phone calls and decided to go to the hospital in a state of “better safe then sorry”.

Once we were at the hospital, it was actually somewhere between dramatic and full-blown madness. It seems the full moon was creating chaos throughout the bay and every woman from miles around decided to come to the same hospital at the same time. It seems that because we were there for what could have been a ruptured bag, we got some priority and bypassed the thousands of women in the waiting room. Ok, it was about 3 but it was still chaotic.

We didn’t really know what to expect as the fetal heart monitor was installed and the baby had an extremely strong heartbeat. That was a huge sigh of relief for both of us and the mountains of anxiety fell off our shoulders. Regardless of what happens, we know our baby is strong in the comfy place she is renting from her mother.

Since we had no idea what was leaking out of my wife, we had to get tested and see if it was the amniotic fluid that was slowly leaking out. We didn’t hem, we didn’t haw at the test. One swab of a q-tip and it was dipped in a special solution and it was taken to the lab. In the meantime, the doctor on call made his way to our bedside. He was a typical doctor in every sense of the word. The wire rimmed glasses surrounding his itty bitty blue eyes made it seem comical that he was there with no back ground music to accompany his medical jargon that was spilling from his mouth.

Our nurse, who was actually pretty badass, came back and asked if we have spoken to the doctor. Her face already spoke that something was not right. The small part in between her eyebrows was crunched and furrowed and that is always a sign that something was wrong. She gave us the news that we did not want to hear. As we were not experts, the test confirmed that it was fluid leaking out of her. Being safe is definitely the better option and as first time parents we made a good decision.

Ok, this puts a damper and a proverbial wrench into our birth plan. You see, we had everything planned to go as natural as possible with as little medical intervention needed. Now here we are, overwhelmed, faced with a slight risk of infection to our baby and to my wife. Going back to the Doctor, he already made it clear that you should be in labor if your water has broken or you sprung a leak. With that, we were faced with getting induced.

The thought of getting pitocin was about as glamorous as getting kicked in the face. The doctor told us that he wanted us in the hospital at 7am. This is where I can’t properly define us procrastinating and flat out not really caring what they wanted us to do. How can I describe this? Well, we got to the hospital 6 hours late. Ideally, if you are late for something, it’s usually a few minutes. We were rebels without causes and thumbed our noses at the thought of getting induced at 7am.

As we strolled into the hospital 6 hours later, we were fortunate enough to get a direct admit to a labor room. A few awesome nurses met us and another doctor who also could have had her own theme song upon entering a room. As we were both settling in to get comfy for what we thought was the long haul. We heard tons of medical jargon leap out of the doctors mouth. The majority of it hit the floor and rolled under bed where the ghost of soiled linens have lived and died. It was until she said, “ we are going with Pitocin” where the practical, proverbial, and essential brakes were put on. We didn’t hem or haw but we weren’t completely adamant and jovial about her rush decision.

Somewhere along the line the doctor mentioned a cervical ripening medication, Misoprostol, that could perhaps push labor along the way. It wasn’t exactly our hopes of having a completely natural birth but it wasn’t the dreaded pitocin that would speed things along too quickly. So, it wasn’t like we were in that much of a rush so let’s try this. It was a simple medication that you took orally, 25 micrograms with a fetal heart monitoring for 4 hours. Then you are off for two hours and you get to eat.

We went with that option and it was alot of bonding time with our doula, our nurses, and our sanity. Not much happened within those 6 hours so we opted to go for our second dose at 9:30pm. We figured that it wouldn’t do much and we would get some rest. Then in the morning we would bite the bullet and take the pitocin. Right about this time I headed to Whole foods and came back with an array of food for my wife. I figured a nice light soup to warm up her tummy and the spinach and lentil soup was the ticket.

So it was a simple plan that nature, my wife’s body, and the meds completely decided to go in every direction except the one we wanted. At about 1am my wife was having a severe discomfort that had us require the return of our doula. We figured it would be an uneventful night so we let her take her leave and she could return in the morning. Well, I am trying to nap on the side cot in hopes of having enough energy for the day. At about 3am. It was time to put away the cot and get up and be the courageous and awesome husband that I think I am.

This is where the fun starts. My wife starts having contractions, surges, bouts of unimaginable pain every 60 seconds. They would last about 45 to 60 seconds and it was apparent to me that something has happened. Now we went through early term labor, active labor, I’m in hell labor in the span of less then 4 hours. Several things stuck out to me from our birth class but for the life of me I cant figure out what vowel my wife was moaning through her contraction.

With the help of our doula, my wife was able to get into the tub. She doused warm water over her body. As much as she loves her hot water, this was a small piece of solace in this process. She combated a rise and fall in temperature throughout labor. It wasn’t easy to go through something within a few hours that should have lasted at least 24. It wasn’t necessarily a good time as she was entering dreaded “labor land” and there weren’t any amusement rides here nor happy campylike tunes. No munchkins, chocolate waterfalls, oompa loomps, or bright Technicolor subtitles. This was game time and it was time to rock.


At about 5AM. The best nurse in the history of medicine checks my wife and she tells her that she is 6 centimeters dilated. This was a shock to me as I wanted to jump up and down and do the Tiger Woods fist pump. The contractions decided to revolt and create anarchy in my wife’s body. That moment where we thought we wanted to invite the contractions, it would’ve have been more suited to hack them off with machetes.

At 6am, my wife wanted her break. She wanted to be done with this process and wanted the baby out. We never discussed a safe word but I knew I didn’t want to martyr my wife. The word “epidural” was mentioned and I think it was time. I said let’s check you first and see and we take it from there.

When the nurse came back and checked the wife, she was fully dilated at 10 centimeters. It was a 1-hour marathon from 6 to 10cm and I couldn’t believe this moment was here. Now, we couldn’t give her the epidural she wanted and it was actually time to push.

A few times there were some practice pushes but in all honesty, the wife was pushing to get the baby out as fast as possible. The nurse at one point decides again to check in on the progress and we literally could see the babies head about 1 inch in the birth canal. A piece of me wished I could just reach in and grab the baby and just snatch it out. Maybe some disco lights with some action music to create the affect of true heroism while I save the day from the big bad labor pains plaguing my wife.

The clock hits 6:50 and my wife is pushing not only the baby but she is pushing out lunches she had 4 years ago. That was the intensity and commitment she had in ending this process. Even the nurse slightly chuckled with the natural process of things my wife went through. You can’t help but laugh when the nurse says” ooh, look, a lentil”

Now, with each push the baby was crowning with alot more vigor then the last time. The doctors were in place and it was the moment where 9 months of waiting all culminated with one final act of pushing.

The baby’s head was in the place where people call it “the ring of fire”. It other words, it was half way out. The doctor was in the catcher’s position while I tried to play both sides. I had my camera ready and took as many pictures possible. On the final push, the baby was out and through my tears; there was no way I could take any more pictures.

The blessing to our induction curse was that our doctor (who my wife has fallen in love with) was able to make it at the 11th hour. Right at the point where our baby was about to come out, she came in and was handed off the duties. Despite my wife being in Labor land, she yearned to have our doctor be the one to deliver the baby. This was a small victory in our long 12 hours of battle.

The baby was here at 7:09am. It was a crisp beautiful day and one that we have both never experienced before. We brought into this life a tiny human being with ten fingers and ten toes, a slightly cone shaped head, a pinkish little body that is as close to perfection as possible.

I was in a place where I was able to cut the cord after it stopped beating and it was clamped off. The sick and demented side of me actually put on gloves and was able to handle the placenta after it came out. I always wanted to hold one and get a sense of bonding with my wife after I held this piece of her in my hands.

So, for millions of years to come, humans will still have their babies. They’ll still be in places where too many can’t fathom having their children. Yet, this is our story, our special moment where we have created a life to hopefully make this world a better place to live. A time where having a child naturally is a fast dying art. We strived to make this life-affirming event beautiful and miraculous; in our life, we feel we have succeeded in doing that, getting through this miracle

Baby girl is already bugging out

Last week my wife called me while I was in my shop working. I pick up the phone knowing she just left her latest OB appointment. I didn't think of anything else but to hear the usual positive feedback she got from her doctor. I envisioned her just saying "the doctor said everything was fine and we are on track".

The voice that came from the other end was trembling and suffered the cracks of someone crying. "papi, the baby is breeched" she said. I had this sinking feeling and the only thing that came out of my mouth was "what, what you mean". I emotionally went to such a horrible place. I didn't know why but it was this horrible feeling of dred. I was nervous, sad, emotional and just had to take a deep breathe.

I understand being breech isn't a big deal to many people but when you hear your baby isn't where it's supposed to be, well, it's just a small taste of what is to come. I'm a completely new father. I don't have all the answers, methods, ideology, or simple concepts of how to father. I am merely relying on instinct and a sense of what is right.

We are headed to a few more appointments and now it's going to be just hoping to everything holy that this little girl will turn around and point the head down. Today I joked with my wife that perhaps I should do the "peoples elbow" and drop it on the top of her tummy to convince that baby of where she gotta go.

As usual, stay tuned for more of my musings.



Fish Vargas