We a-go-gos are not really your average folk. I suppose somewhere out there in blogland especially, we do indeed fit in but here in our wee pocket of this great city called Los Angeles we're not exactly keeping up with the Joneses. We're okay with that, really we are. I'm not complaining, he's not complaining. We like it here in our wee pocket of this big city and yet, change is a-comin'.
It is lonely here in the courtyard. Our good friends and neighbors here have all moved on. They're like, real grown-ups with mortgages and everything. Our slightly nutty landlord is hell-bent on making the empty units "nice" though his version of nice is nowhere near ours. His version of nice involves ripping out the floors of the kitchens and bathrooms to pour oodles of concrete in so he can lay nice marble tiles.
Ripping out the floors of the bathrooms and kitchens in these wee duplexes (duplex-is?) that were built ninety years ago. It is difficult to feel like tra-la-la-ing about the wee casa. There is much pounding going on. There is debris everywhere and mini dust storms brew willy-nilly. There are stray water bottles being left in our garden and the mad foraging of fruit from people who do not live here. There are five bathtubs in my courtyard. Five bathtubs floating about. There are toilets too, I know there are but a few months ago, the great and grand Nico and I pleaded with our landlord to hide them. We like looking out of our tiny windows. We like to view the birds and garden. We do not like to view stray toilets and mounds of construction debris. We do not like to view bathtubs. We do not really like ot find water bottles in our garden or footprints tramping through the garden. Yes my friends, change is a-comin' and with that, we need a plan.
There is a plan. It is a nifty and exciting and thoroughly terrifying plan. There are many parts to this plan. Too many in fact. My head spins with them all. One of them however involves cooking; cooking on our car engine to be exact. On our recent and most fabulous trip to Portland, we a-go-gos experimented with cooking on our car engine. There is
an actual cookbook out there all about cooking on your car engine. Most of those recipes were all about meat. While we a-go-gos do actually eat meat, we weren't too keen on eating meat cooked on our car engine. We tried hotdogs wrapped in bacon, which sounds quite mouthwatering but when you cannot monitor your temperatures it is probably not a good idea.
We tried baking cakes in oranges. I already told you
all about that. The oranges were too large and only the batter on the bottom, closest to the heat from the engine cooked. It was good but tricky to sample. Next time we will try smaller oranges or tangerines or something else.
Our favorite thing to do was heat water for tea. Heating water for tea was quite easy and took about 40 minutes of steady driving. We had an extra special nifty thermos with us to keep the tea hot afterwards. To heat water on our car engine involved a tiny camp pot, tinfoil and wire. It also involved planning and break taking to test temp. Taking breaks on a road trip is hardly difficult when you are in Northern California where the green makes you dizzy and you want to jump around and roll in all its mossiness.
After tea brewing, we discovered that potatoes steamed quite well in tinfoil packets wedged on top of the engine. Luckily, that Mr. A-go-go is a smart cookie and brought along salt & pepper. We had onions too and it was super tasty. It could have been even more tasty for the early morning, super cold air and giant statue of Paul Bunyan egging us on. Wither that or potatoes are just super tasty.
After we got the hang of it, we grew a teeny bit adventurous and added other vegetables. Mushrooms add more liquid and help carry around the salt & pepper to the other veggies. Broccoli makes it more purty to look at and we felt a little better about all those milkshakes from
Burgerville.
Next time we head out on a trip, which will be in January on our way to Death Valley, we will add more fanciful seasonings and maybe even attempt rice, ooh or tofu! If you happen across an odd couple chopping vegetables at a rest top, one of them quite tall with a mean whistle and the other in striped socks with a camera attached to her face, that would be us a-go-gos.
So that's it. Change is a-comin' and it may involve more car cooking, a little more traveling and perhaps some couch surfing if we can convince anyone we don't bite. We don't, I promise. But we sure can cook!
The Making the Bed Calendar is now available at LuLu.com. I am so tickled with how it looks online and will know for certain how it looks in person soon. I ordered my copy just a few moments ago! If you are a fan of my making the bed project, pick up one for yourself! I wish I could have made them for less but $28 Plus that darn shipping, yikes!) isn't too bad for a year round bit of scrumdillydilly! And, they accept Paypal!
Fill your friend's and loved one's stockings! Many items are $10 or less. Great for a simple gift exchange. Combined shipping is available, just let me know! Check out the shop!
December is a bittersweet month for me. This year marks the ninth anniversary of my mother's death. She adored Christmas more than glitter and that lady loved her some glitter. Christmas growing up was always full of familiar things and music and baking so I try my best to recreate all that goodness but it just isn't the same without Mamos. Making the bed is a new tradition for me that only remotely reminds me of Mamos as she was always hollering at me to make my bed. So, in tribute to her, the wonderfully funny Penelope, I give you my December bed.
It was an odd jumble of a week with the holiday, the moving of the mama & sister a-go-go, my doctor switching up my asthma meds and the jam packed reading and searching for my notes for my final class paper of the semester. Phew! So, here ya go, my week in pics. 
We a-go-gos are not really your average folk. I suppose somewhere out there in blogland especially, we do indeed fit in but here in our wee pocket of this great city called Los Angeles we're not exactly keeping up with the Joneses. We're okay with that, really we are. I'm not complaining, he's not complaining. We like it here in our wee pocket of this big city and yet, change is a-comin'. 
So that's it. Change is a-comin' and it may involve more car cooking, a little more traveling and perhaps some couch surfing if we can convince anyone we don't bite. We don't, I promise. But we sure can cook!
