Habas con Jamon, by Yaiza

My parents grew Broad Beans out in the garden of my childhood but never did we make anything as interesting as Habas con Jamon with those beans ...

Today Yaiza had to use water for the final part of the preparation.  That would be instead of beer or white wine but still ... it was delicious.

Thank you to Yaiza who patiently taught me these recipes, and put up with my camera, and with my constant note-taking too.  Details were recorded and my big hope is that I can recreate tonight's dishes next week.

Learning to Cook Spanish Food

Today I learned how to cook 3 different Spanish dishes ...

Yaiza came over, armed with the ingredients I didn't have, and showed me how to create a delicious Tortilla.  And an Aioli sauce that is so divine I'm not sure how it won't be on the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Or that's what everyone was saying as they handed the pot of it round the table. 

Then there was the Habas con Jamon ... and I was left wondering how it was that New Zealanders could have failed to create that dish with their Broad Beans and ham???  Then, as the final touch, Picaillo.  A divine salad, small pieces of boiled potato and eggs, cherry tomatoes, green beans, and tuna.

And oil.

So much oil but it was truly divine.

Tonight I'm realising how much I missed in life due to my mother not knowing to send us out into the world - to the beach, the forest, or simply 'out', with a package of cold Tortilla to save us from hunger and associated horrors.  Ithink my childhood might have been that much happier if my mother had copied the Spanish mothers and done this simple thing.

Oh my ...it was all so good.  Here is a close-up of the two Tortilla's created here in my kitchen.  More of this Spanish cooking is planned.

Today ...

Today is all about creating ... text for the workshop descriptions, and more text for the Newsletter I'll be sending out soon. 

Then I want to process Federico's photographs from those days in Genova.  And I have a range of interviews almost ready to publish.  And some more to transcribe.

But that photography workshop last Sunday ... it's still making me smile.  Ellen sent this photograph she took of Anna.

Tim Heatherington, War Photographer

Really my works are narratives, I am really interested in stories. I find different visual ways to talk about narratives, political narratives. My work is about conflicts and politics, but it links in very kind of intimacy like soldier sleeping. I am interested in getting very close to my subjects, and I live how they live, or share things with them.

Tim Heatherington, extracted from an interview on Periscope.

I have read war photographer Robert Capa's book and more than a few books about him.  Over the years I have collected and read the stories of war journalists John Simpson, Christina Lamb, Frank Gardener, Kevin Sites, Kate Adie ... and more.  I have the dvd titled War Photographer, about the work of James Nachtwey too.

There is something I have been trying to understand. 

Tonight I watched 'Which Way to the Frontline - The Life and Time of Tim Heatherington'.  It is a documentary created by Sebastian Junger ('The Perfect Storm', 'War') and in it he seems to take the whole 'conversation' about motivations and understanding war to a level I've never really found before.

In tracing Tim's career back through the years, Junger's intention seemed to be about honouring, remembering, and revealing the truly fascinating man who was a war photographer. 

Tim Hetherington was killed while covering the front lines in the besieged city of Misrata, Libya, during the 2011 Libyan civil war.

 

Albatross, Dunedin

Sometimes, the temptation to play with photographs ... as was done in the darkroom, is too much and so I play.  But I resisted the polaroid frame and opted for a simple edge.  And stuff ...

Back home in New Zealand, we had Albatross circling one day, down there at the end of the Otago Peninsula.  I adore them.  For me, it feels a bit like seeing God go by, in that they are these enormous graceful birds, quite unlike any other I know.