Summer

In case you’re wondering who Mateo is, that’s me. That’s my name in Spanish, a title only used at home by my grandparents and when I did something terribly wrong as a child.

I’m sure you can hear it now: “MATEOOOOOOOOOO!”  For some reason it has more zing that just “oh Matt, quit falling out of 2 story windows and take off your sister’s dresses while you’re at it!”

With that out of the way I can proceed to this snappy little dressing and dip I have been calling Diosa Verde. Diosa Verde is nothing more than a literal translation of “Green Goddess”, that tangy creamy dip of yesterday that has been back in vogue for the past few years. But this isn’t just a literally translation of the recipe, no sirreee, but Green Goddess with a Mexican twist.

I'm from the South. I grew up and went to college in Tennessee, and worked for many years in Atlanta.  But I never felt like I was home until I moved to New York City.   The city fit my disposition and overall world-view nicely, not to mention the comfort that comes from living in a Blue state. So, it takes a lot for me to find a desire to go back below the Mason-Dixon.  Still, every Memorial Day weekend I return to kick off the summer. Why?  Why do I go back for five days of nonstop comments about the liberal media, the constitutional wrongs of the “war of northern aggression” and the amazing wonders of the NRA?

Believe it or not, I go to Tennessee to camp with my uncle, Tony, and his gun-toting friends from college.  Though debated every year, the general consensus is that the tradition began in 1992 shortly after Tony and his friends graduated from college.  They chose to go out behind my grandparent’s property to a bluff by a lake. Back then the menu for the entire weekend consisted of the fish they could catch, and cook over an open fire.  Occasionally a pizza would find its way back courtesy of the occasional visitor not interested in spending the night outside.  But the overall spread was limited.

"This simple, fresh, colorful chopped salad can be found everywhere in Israel, from roadside falafel stands to high end restaurants, and is served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The variations are endless but the base always includes finely chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. I just returned from a truly memorable trip to Israel and highly recommend it as a travel destination."

One of the highlights of the trip was an excursion to Safed, (also known as Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat, Safad, Safes, Safet, Tzfat, etc.) a charming town located in the northern part of Israel. It’s situated at 900 meters (2952 feet) above sea level in the mountains of Galilee and faces east towards Golan, north to Lebanon, west to Mt. Meron and the Amud Valley, and south to Tiberias and the Kinneret.

People in Portland, Oregon  have salmon on the brain. It is a centuries old, intense love-affair – one that I can easily identify with having grown up in the Bronx where lox was one of the five basic food groups along with pickled herring, pastrami, rye bread and shmalts {or schmaltz} - chicken fat.  Everyone from the state’s original people – the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Siletz and Grand Ronde tribes, to the chic tattooed urban dwellers, is salmon obsessed.

At the downtown Portland farmers market there are at least 3 purveyors of fresh and smoked salmon, not including a Native American  guy who also sells fresh salmon eggs that you can take home as I have and make ikura.  I’ve not done any scientific surveys but it appears to me that in the last 10 years the Oregonian has had more front page articles on protecting salmon habitats than on any other major political issue – except logging maybe. (Actually logging and salmon are joined at the hip because logging allegedly destroys salmon habitats.)