Tastes of Home

I'm craving maduros

and if anyone doesn't know

maduros are the life source of any Latino household

they are what people secretly love, more than rice and beans

more than Adobo, Sazon, and cans upon cans of Goya beans and salchichas

If any of these things are foreign to you, please go to the closest

Latin restaurant and enlighten yourself

what makes me sad is that,

when I google 'maduros', I get a lot of porn....

if anyone walks by me in the library and happens to look at my computer

they are going to think I'm being dirty while reading my

extremely boring book entitled Higher Education and the Color Line

I love eggs, but I feel so oppressed when I desperately wait

for there to be omelets all day so I could finally have a meal

I'm going to drag myself to Stop & Shop

to buy some platanos and canola oil, and get to frying up maduros in the kitchen

just like my momma would do,

maybe I'll even play some salsa

and wear a tiny nightgown

so I could be just like her.

In other news, the wonderful freshman baker just brought me a blondie,

with M&Ms in it, right to my desk at the library

23 minutes.

Ok,

I'll address the obvious: it has been a while

but if you calculate all of the hours in the week I spend

attempting to learn everything about Islam,

dreaming of Marx,

trying to figure out the exact difference between a Baptist and a Methodist,

contemplating my life's goal

(to be an elementary school teacher and then a lady baker)

and waiting on line for my egg white omelet twice a day

(complete with tomatoes, onions, and American cheese)

I have approximately

23 minutes of spare time

and now that 23 minutes belongs to Sleeping Venus

I also promise more posts, because I miss my roommate

she'll be Tanzania bound in a few weeks

and while she worries about covering up her bodacious body

as to not start any riots, getting malaria, and finding herself

I'll be across the ocean

and my biggest problem is probably trying to figure out

which religion is right for me (it's really been a problem),

and how I'm going to manage to get on the packed shuttle to the mall

every Saturday

thus, I have remind her that life has its menial ups and downs

my favorite up: learning that Oreos and soy milk

are the absolute best study snack

Fun fact: Oreos float

Chips Ahoy may sink to the bottom of your cup

to become a delightful mushy mess,

but Oreos just chill

and wait for you to finish up that last sentence of your essay

so you could enjoy 'em

I need some Oreos right about now

I just had to breakout the graphing calculator for my psych assignment,

you know the Texas Instruments TI-83

that most of us attending liberal arts colleges

haven't touched in a hot minute

mine is covered in Hello Kitty and My Little Pony stickers,

it makes me wish I was still 15.

4th of July Photo Diary

I got to grillin' yesterday

which reminded me of all those summer barbecues

when I was younger, spent playing hours of baseball

with improvised bases made of frisbees & styrofoam plates

and eating shish kebabs slathered with bbq sauce, with that amazing taste of char

me & my best friend would run around with cups of lemon juice,

dipping our kebabs and pieces of italian bread inside

to add extra zesty flavor

those golden days were before I was a vegetarian

so I had to adapt the ingredients without sacrificing

the perfect barbecue taste I hoped for

so I made

lemon grilled asparagus (my all time favorite veggie)

marinated cherry tomato skewers with mozzarella

balsamic portobello burgers with provolone

Mexican-inspired street corn

& classic apple-walnut pie

it was the best meal I have ever cooked

(it was even mom-approved & my mom is a tough judge)

the food was better than the fireworks.

marinating portobellos

prepping the asparagus

topped it with cookies & cream ice cream

spicy goodness

classy, open faced of course

this should be the cover of Noms Weekly

Coney Island Photo Diary

There's something so blissfully nostalgic about Coney Island

and thankfully, I found out that Luna Park had not changed a thing

there was still that smell of fried food and saltwater, heavy in the air

and the man screaming "ice cold water bottles, one dollar"

still greeted me as I walked towards the boardwalk

the men sketchily selling Coronas out of their backpacks

still trudged slowly through the sand

and the women selling hand peeled, sliced mangos were still at it

Luna Park did not take away that old-school, rickety glory of

Wonder Wheel park

the same rides that I went on as a kid were still standing

the Tilt-a-Whirl still spinning, creating blurs of primary colors

the Thunder Bolt still blasting cheesy pop music,

candy apples were abundant, their hard cherry shells staining my lips

but most of all, I hoped that Ralph's Italian Ices would still be sitting

under that recognizable white tent

over a dozen flavors that I had loved since childhood

like the pink bubblegum, with tiny chiclets inside that streaked the ice

the brightest of blues & oranges

and Ralph's did not fail me

a Pistachio & Cookies n Cream icee was all I needed

ah, sweet euphoria.

Hi Summer, I promise to cherish you.

To make a long story short

let's just say, I finally got my life back

and thank god because I recently suffered a rude awakening

when I received a picture message from my brother

of a Vassar bug that had come to wreak havoc in my apartment

with its long, spindly, abundant legs

rapid movements, and general fear inducing grossness

technology never fails to (literally) disgust me

and it took me back to those nights where whilst I screamed & cowered

my roommate would calmly attempt to trap these horrific bugs and get rid of them

and sadly I remembered the night one of the creatures fell into my bed,

never to be found

how this monstrosity ended up in my apartment, hours away from Poughkeepsie

still baffles me

but it was an omen, that bug said "oh hey gurrrrl,

your summer is flying by"

Sophmore year is soon approaching, love life while you can"

I'm quite thankful for the bug (I never got to actually witness it)

I miss the summers when jobs didn't matter

and on my little street in Astoria someone would open the fire hydrant

sending a gush of frigid water that all the kids on the block

could run through, cooling down, filling up empty Poland Spring bottles

to spray at each other

and kids from other blocks would come

excited by the impromptu & illegal sprinkler

we would block traffic, squirting water guns and screaming

and on the days where the sprinklers didn't come to us

the days were filled with big boxes of sidewalk chalk,

hand-scrawled hopscotch boards with pebbles sprinkled on the numbered squares

while eating italian ices, that never failed to drip cherry red all over our t-shirts

there were the countless hours spent riding my Yaak scooter

(Razors were just too expensive)

rolling down the small grassy hills of Astoria Park and

playing with my Skip-It, watching the numbers on the dial

hundreds of revolutions, and I would be worn out

I can't find my Skip-It, so now, a decade later

I settle for sweet picnics,

I abandon the age old pb&js for brick oven pizza,

the frozen Capri Sun pouches for Arnold Palmer Arizona

letting the smell of the grass, and the cherry juice that stains my fingertips

incite my nostalgia.

Crammed into Perfume Boxes.

I keep all of my old memories

in perfume boxes,

piled high in my closet

a pink floral print box

and a red quilted one

full of old notes,

passed back and forth in 7th grade history class

because our teacher was decrepit,

her hair was see through, and she always wore the same blue lab coat

every single day,

I'm sure everyone had a teacher like this,

ours was named Ms. Tobias

and could never tell when we were passing notes

or cheating on her weekly history exams

I have old letters in decorated envelopes

and empty boxes of Runts candies, those were my favorite

unfinished diaries, because I would always start one and after a week abandon it

and notebooks with lyrics scribbled in the margins

collections of twigs, rocks and feathers gathered in Astoria park

movie tickets and old photos that say Fujifilm on the back

I miss those days before digital cameras were big

when you would have to go to CVS to develop pictures

off your disposable cameras,

what they looked like would always be a surprise

and they would last forever

I sealed up my boxes before I left to college,

they still smelled

like a mixture of the park

mixed with Axe body spray, and Mike and Ikes

the smell of middle school and nostalgia

I think I'm ready to open them back up again

because the years are flying by

and damn, do I feel old.

The Golden Age of Ices, Childhood.

I have a research paper due in 4 days

about the Golden Age,

and at this point I feel utterly incapable

I can't really tell you about Ovid's Golden Age

but I can tell you about mine,

it involved a lot of these:

Marino's Italian ices,

apparently kids in the Midwest didn't eat these

apparently kids in the parts of the Midwest don't even have ice cream trucks

how did children live, that sounds like dystopia

but I sure as hell know that all kids in the city loved these

as soon as the temperature creeped above 60 degrees

and out parents would finally let us out of our

awkwardly colored puffy jackets

(I had a red one, probably a silver one too, and they were both ugly as hell)

we could finally run to the candy store and buy an icee (icy, ice)

and it came with the small wooden spoon

which always made it special

eating it at home with a metal spoon never cut it

that was perfect for shaving off little mountains of icee,

probably cherry flavor

cherry was the best, rainbow was also always delish

(they apparently come in chocolate also, which is tickling my fancy right about now)

I remember I would always scrape around it

hoping to get it loose

so that I could strategically flip it over,

which sometimes resulted in the sidewalk

enjoying more of my icee than I did

but after a few spills

my virtuosity grew

and I was able to effortlessly flip the icee over

and scrape all the really icy, super concentrated cherry, gooey, sticky lovely mess

off of the bottom, and it was truly the best part

whilst working on eating the icee, some would melt

and you would be left with a small sip

of cherry juice at the end

and it was just so satisfying

afterward,

my little chemically red stained lips

would just smile, so refreshed and so content.

For other people who are super nostalgic and remember that yummy stuff at the bottom

I found this on the Marino's website

WHY DOES THAT SUGARY FORMATION OCCUR ON THE BOTTOM OF THE CUP?

• The sugary formation on the bottom of the cup is what many claim to be the best accident to happen to ices! The sugary formation occurs when there is an elapse of time from the moment the ices are put into their cups to the moment they are packaged and sent into the freezers. We had thought to freeze our ices quicker to eliminate the sugary formation but most of our consumers enjoyed it so much, they have asked us to make an entire cup filled with just the sugary formation.

yes please to a whole gallon of that!

now I'm totally craving

all the good eats of my childhood,

the frozen, sugary ones at least

count me in to anything messy, preferably with bubblegum.

College, J.LO, & the like.

I really wish I had a frozen lemonade right now

or a big pitcher of the limeade my mom makes for me at home

I also wish I had time for recreational reading

the kind of reading that comes after browsing the library

not in search of some elusive book with a call number

as long as the entire alphabet

the kind of reading I would do when I was 6

in the first grade all that really mattered was

Cam Jansen, the mysterious books about the girl

with the photographic memory, who we all wanted to be

I actually still want to be her

or Amelia Bedelia, the crazy maid

who would make sponge cake with real sponges

and couldn't quite grasp the English language

those were the days before obscure philosophical readings,

manifesto after manifesto

and Hemingway

I would go to my school's library

which was literally a small classroom with some bookshelves

and take out all the books available

on Princess Diana,

I was obsessed with her (so was my roommate)

maybe it was because she was a real life princess

but right after I read every single book I could get my small

magic marker stained hands on

she died, it was a tragedy

I had already lost my first hero, Selena

when I was about 3,

and yes as a 3 year old, she was my everything

and I remember standing in front of my grandma's TV

weeping while watching Univision, maybe Telemundo

she gave me Bidi Bidi Bom Bom

before I could tie my own shoes

I listened to my Selena cassette tape on loop

with my little walkman, and once the first 4 songs were over,

I would have to flip the tape

I miss that

then Princess Diana died,

I healed eventually, when I discovered Egypt

all little kids become obsessed with Egpyt,

pyramids, mummies, the underworld

it's so odd

and the Holocaust at around age 10, but maybe that's just girls

but when I was 10, I couldn't get enough of it

and now, I have no time to read a short story for enjoyment

oh the woes of college

These were my favorite women,

but I must say that now,

my favorite woman, hands down

is Jennifer Lopez,

I might be alone in that

but thats ok, shes the best

and I'm running to the movie theatre

to catch my matinee of The Back Up Plan

while blasting Waiting For Tonight in my Jeep

through the streets of PK (in my dreams).

Snowcones & Eden

Things were so much better in middle school

when Astoria Park was like Eden

because in my Eden

the boys are cute,

with awkward middle school haircuts,

band tees and skate shoes

in my Eden water balloon fights

are regular entertainment

and the rocky shores of the East River

littered with disintegrating porn magazines,

soda cans, and empty 25 cent bags of chips,

became our "spot"

a place to hang out, to have first kisses

on those warm spring days

all we needed was a one dollar slice of pizza

maybe a snow cone

if when you're a freshman in college, the conventional date

is a movie, maybe dinner

then, it was sharing a snowcone

an ongoing battle of who'd get to eat the red and blue parts

a game of caution, as to not let the rainbow drips

stain your shirt

playful pushing and pulling

holding hands even when in competition,

a balancing act

it was impossible to ever finish the whole thing

in the flirty, innocent tug o war

it would end up on the sidewalk, or in the grass

all the colors melting into a purple pool

but it was ok,

because kisses always tasted better after a snowcone

a chemical, icy-sweet taste

that I can still almost feel

because my nostalgia is bordering on synesthetic.

Classics on a Gloomy Day

I'm sick,

like wake up at 3:14 am and walk to the bathroom to blow my nose

and get a drink of water because my throat hurts so much sick

like sleep with a roll of toilet paper and Vicks under my pillow

because I've lost all normal function in my nose sick,

it's not a pretty sight when coupled with the downpour

that has plagued Poughkeepsie for the last two days

but I've found joy in other things today

the Classics,

well, at least the classics as I know them

which obviously involve food and nostalgia

since that is essentially what I'm made of

today I had cornflakes for breakfast

good ol cornflakes, which I sliced a banana into

and it made my morning just a bit better

that and the fact that my sociology professor

played the "smooth mellow beats" of LL Cool J

while bopping along to the beat in class today and doing an

almost fist pump

it was a beautiful sight

anyhow, the cornflakes were so great because they are a classic

it was definitely the first cereal I ever had

ask any Hispanic about cornflakes,

and they'll share that intimate connection that I have

"ahhh yes" they will say "con-flay"

just the way my grandma would say

just the way their grandma would have said it

"con-flay", and from then on all cereal comes to be known as "con-flay"

Cocoa Pebbles?:"con-flay", Lucky Charms?: "con-flay",

Raisin Bran?:"con-flay"

don't get me wrong, I love Cocoa Pebbles as much as the next person,

probably more (since I'm obsessed with cereal)

but Corn Flakes reigns supreme, like the rooster says "original and best"

yummmmers

with two big spoons of sugar and small banana slices,

what great texture

I've moved on to bigger and better things

like 3 packets of Splenda in my cereal instead of real sugar

(also obsessed with Splenda, I consume about 6 packets a day)

but the Corn Flakes have stayed true to me, yummy, satisfying and classic

like Strawberry Shortcake ice cream pops

I was totally craving one today

the mix of those little crumbs, and the chemical pink ice cream enveloped by the vanilla

on the inside simply makes me smile like a little girl again

sadly, Vassar does not keep its ice cream machine well stocked (boo)

and I had to settle for what I thought was a classic ice cream pop

like this ^, with that hard chocolate shell and soft vanilla inside

that just reminds me of Astoria Park, rolling down hills, and climbing trees by the East River

but the ice cream machine failed me once more!

false advertising, I got a fudge pop instead,

no smooth chocolate shell, no mushy vanilla ice cream inside

I was defeated, eating it on my way back to my dorm

grumpily reflecting on the lack of vanilla in my life

when, alas! I found that the sad little fudge pop had a vanilla center!

and at that point I felt simply triumphant

I miss Flinstone push up pops

they were orange and purple, and simply delish

ah to return to the 90s

when the freezer was always stocked with various freeze pops and treats,

frozen pizzas and TV dinners with the brownie on the side

now all I have in my freezer is a frozen burrito and 3 dumplings, sad

it was always so hard to push that thin plastic handle up when it was still freshly open

it took patience, but was so worth it

then the orange would melt down the cardboard sides of the pop

and create sticky hands,

that reminds me of summer

sticky hands always made it easier to show off on the monkey bars

Push pops, jump ropes, jungle gyms, Razor scooters and climbing rocks

sounds so good right now in this late March chill

when all I can think about is declaring a major, and planning out the next four years of my life

with this background noise about Russian Futurism and Post-Futurism

all I know is that I'm living post-90s and I'm not liking it one bit.