It's a mysterious Saturday. I don't know why. I can taste the air. It smells like the air smells in a different place when you are on vacation. Have you ever noticed that? Do you ever go outside and say, wow the air smells and feels like…
I am trimming fresh flowers and making old fashioned banana cream pudding (first time). Nilla wafers and all. (I needed a tiny break from editing and sculpting and all that fun stuff)
Growing up in a culture thick with Mexican and European traditions, you don't really grow up with Banana Cream Pudding. You grow up with something more like Capirotada (unreal buttery, fruity, cheesy bread pudding), empanadas, pan dulce, baklava and crepes.
Mister Lovee grew up in the Midwest and in New York. The Midwest and Banana Cream Pudding were a whole new world to me when I met him, and so, I am in love with both. When I met Mister he took me traveling around Arizona and I found it to be like a whole new adventure. Amazing, the places we haven't even delved into in the neck of our own woods.
Did you know that Arizona isn't just a great big desert? We have forests and woods, and green beautiful little towns, and lots of snow up North. In fact, adorable Prescott is one of my favorite little towns in our state.
I was raised pretty Americanized, but still, a tiny Mexican border town is very different from Middle America. It might as well be another country.
Growing up we traveled to places outside the US, so I never really got to realize what a beautiful and diverse country we lived in until I was an adult.
I love that when I think of America I think apple pie, fourth of July, parades, barbecues, folk music, tiny towns with root beer signs, down home cooking and of course, so so much more…
I love it.
I think wherever we are from, those traits that are country specific are beyond precious. I would love to know what you think about when you think about the country you are from?
Anyhow, I just meant to pop in and say hello, but there I go waxing nostalgic. Silly girl. Best get back to work, I am editing some fun photographs to share asap.
Do have a beautiful day, won't you? I know you will 😉
Back super soon,
🖤,V
ps: Last photo borrowed from – open.salon.com/blog/procopius
pss: I am also making cream of broccoli for the first time, in individual bread bowls. I am using this recipe (with real butter), wish me luck 😉
Banana cream pudding-Veevala, dahling, really youre making me look like such a slacker in Cowboy’s eyes! First the pecan pie and now this!!
Thats his super fave. He grew up here, Florida, Coon bottom, very woodsy people. Very hands on outside chop down trees make house make fire cook things ar ar ar kinda guys
whereas originally, not that youd know it now, but i was born and raised in miami. LOTS of different cultures and races and the food, oh loved me some cuban coffee and flan and rice and beans yum yum…we also had Vietnamese neighbors, and Haitian friends too..and gargantuan stores and clubs and art and beaches and symphonies and…and….
not alot of forests. Or cowboys. Trees that whisper secrets to you, and animals that watch over you at night. Stars on an endless sea of midnight blue…you could reach out and touch..and silence, sweet, incredible, delicious silence. And scents.
and a whole different kind of magic.
I have lived in Canada my whole life, and when I think of my own country I think of water. Beautiful rivers, lakes, the ocean (on both sides)…but also the creeks that run down through the mountains and hills and through the backyards…the water holes in the middle of the fields where the cows go to drink. I also think of green…every shade of green…
I have done a lot of traveling, so I always complain that there is nowhere hot or tropical enough for me within these borders…but I’m also always glad to get home to the place I love best on the planet!
What a day, I’m all snuggled up in the house since there’s snow and ice outside and baked a German Chocolate Cake for the first time. Must be a day for baking! lol
Banana pudding… yummy! I haven’t had that in awhile and I live in the Midwest. LOL
What I notice different between living in AZ and the Midwest, is that in AZ we didn’t think anything of driving 2-1/2 hrs to Sedona or 3 hrs to Flagstaff (from Phoenix). But it seems so far to drive from Indianapolis to Chicago (3 hrs)- I can’t figure out why that is. LOL
I love banana pudding~hope it comes out quite nicely for you. I have only lived in two states by entire life, Massachusetts (for my first 1 1/2 years of life)and Connecticut for the rest. I used to think of nothing more than to leave Connecticut, because as a somewhat thoughtless youth, I felt there was nothing there for me. But, as I got older, I developed quite a fondness for my state~realizing that there was so much than I ever could have imagined when I was growing up. We have castles and forests, animal sanctuaries and beautiful beaches; a wealth of amazing artisans and crafters and musicians and poets and authors. There’s beauty to behold right in my own backyard! And I feel fortunate to live in a country where there is such a melting pot of diverse cultures. There is always something to be learned every day!
Hope you are feeling better today. Sincerely, Theresa
Interesting thoughts Vanessa and I like the sound of banana cream pie-mmm! I like banoffee pie but have never heard of banana cream. I like what you said about the air smelling different too-I think I know what you mean. When I think about where I am from I tend to think of autumn, tea and most of all weather! We all talk about the weather all the time here-makes us sound boring doesn’t it but it is so changeable all the time. One of my kids at school said about the weather the other day ‘It’s mad!’ which I thought was so funny.(It had been mild, rainy, sunny and then freezing and snowy all in one day) I also think of hedgerows and little sweet plants such as primroses as that is what it was like where I grew up-not in London but in a little village in Kent called Harrietsham-which means Harriet’s place I think!
Sarah x
I love to wax poetic about New England (Maine specifically) where I grew up and lived for 28 years of my life. Nothing beats the sanctuary of the soft and wild forest of New England. And everything (meaning the houses and towns) are weighed down with whispers of history, bursting at the seams to tell you their stories of long, lost days. I now live in beautiful, open, sunny Colorado (a very different space to be in), but dream of moving back east. I hope the banana and broccoli work out how you hoped. Sounds amazingly delicious to me.
When I think of America, I think of freedom, country living(I love country songs!), cities and countryside, and SO much more. I hope your art is going well!
Is Mt. Lemmon still a neat place to go? I loved it in 1972 or so.
Yay! You’re a butter girl too! There is nothing quite like butter in everything it goes with. Margarine just doesn’t cut it.
Thank you for the scrumptious recipes and I simply adore Bananananana Cream Pudding from scratch and not from a box of pudding. There is just no comparison to completely ‘homemade’
Well, I loved my tree house that I almost lived in constantly as a girl…that was my dream world where I could go and read my books, and see the real world at the top of the branches, and dream dreams of pirate ships, and flying fairies and drink in the fresh outside air…
Well, I live in Melbourne, Australia…Australia to me is a beautiful country…so vast and far away! But I love it…I love our beaches (I have a little holiday home by the beach), and I love our forests and mountains…we are enjoying a very, very hot summer at the moment, so bushfires are always a threat where I am..we live on an acre of bushland, and my favourite thing is to watch the sunset through the gumtrees at night…listening to the kookaburras…thankyou for your little note, Vanessa. Do come visit my little blog – my daughter Abby and I played in Wonderland this morning (such fun….)
i always think about how laid back our aussie way of life is…i also love little smells and sights that remind me of gowing up on our farm (when life was good) violets, gooseberries, hydrangeas…the list goes on.
gotta love where you are from and create your own little paradise on your patch of this earth.
xxx
Mmm, it all smells de-lish Vanessa! I loooove cream of anything, tee hee! As for what I think about our country, hmmm…everything on your list…plus corn-on-the-cob and watermelon, tee hee. Okay, now I’m longing for a warm summer day cookout with friends…thanks V 😉
Jamie 🙂
I’m from America and live in Thailand. 🙂 You’ve got America, so here’s Thailand:
temples, gold, grilled chicken, chilies and limes, monks, heat, markets, street carts, banana trees, street dogs, mangoes, massages, elephants.
I grew up in a Irish neighborhood in Chicago, city girl, city food, corn beef and cabbage, potato soup, chocolate chip cookies
My Capt. is from Miami and Jewish so you can imagine the culture shock for him, he loves Midwestern cooking and Christmas Trees
Now we live country style, lots of chicken and gator tail LOL
your fairy friend
Karey
Yummy post! I’ve woken up at 4:30am for some unknown reason and now I’m so hungry!!
I’m from the UK and I think of hot buttered toast and a cup of tea, Mr Tumnus, a roaring fire and a cosy house on a rainy day,summer meadow, Alice In Wonderland and all things dark and fae.
Thanks for always sprinkling your magic in blogland 😉
Time for tea!
Melanie X
I grew up in the west south of France in the Landes area (moors): white sand, sea, pines, heather ans ferns stretch as far as the eye can see. I was used to eat “pastis” (a sort of aniseed bun) and tourte (a sort of apple or plum pie with layers of a pastry so thin that we call it “maiden veil”). Then I lived 15 years in Paris (is it necessary to speak about this city? lol). Now I live in the Champagne countryside (the area where the champagne wine is produced): misty mornings during the cold season and snow for the winter, where the meadows are so green even under the sunny summer, plenty of clovers in the garden, lovely orchards and grape vines. Here we are used to eat “niflettes”, a sort of tiny tart with a confectioner’s custard. I really love this place… in fact I’m feeling a sort of wholeness and serenity here, I have found my right place.
We don’t have banana cream pie in England – any chance of posting the recipe?
To me, England is this (music ‘n’ all): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-kWBOvfwdg&feature=player_embedded#
I think of mountains…lots and lots of mountains here in New Mexico!! And baseball and hotdogs and fireworks!! Have to have those fireworks! Oh and my mom’s peanut butter fudge…oh TDF!!! Melt in your mouth yumminess!!! Banana Cream pie is my sweeties all time fav! This post reminded me of that!
Hugging you
SueAnn
Cool idea, that description of Thailand sounds marvelous! Well, I’m “American by birth; Southern by the grace of God”! Home to me is the lovely North Carolina. N.C. is little old mountains, the beaches of the Atlantic and pines and cedars in between. Also Tobacco feilds, soy bean, cotton, horses, woods, lakes, rivers and all four seasons in full. I love it!
I grew up in New Jersey,at the shore, very close to NYC. My parents both grew up in NYC and were first generation Americans. My grandmother got married at 16 and they lived in between Little Italy and china Town so I grew up eating stir fries, rice, pasta, and drinking espresso and jasmine tea ! I didn’t know how to eat or cook a potato ! Still have trouble with that. I moved to your Southwest and lived there for 25 years..oh yeah, pass the empanadas !!!!Green chilis ! Posole !!! heart, Heart ! Heart !!!! So now I live in the Midwest with gooey buttercake, banana pudding and Bagels (Jewish nieghborhood). I love it all. america is just that..a bit of everything wonderful with some pie on the side !!!
Recently I organised a post to celebrate my 100th follower who is French just like me.It was great fun to organise and everybody prepared a little something about France. Let me find the link for you…here it is!!!http://papillonbleuuk.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post.html
I didn’t really tell about what my country meant to me because, it is a mixture of feelings, concepts that can hardly be described in only one post.Also, it depends on which part of the country you’re from.
I am deeply homesick at the moment but I am going to visit France again very soon.
You know, I am half French but the rest of me is a combination of Gypsy Indian and Chinese ( my mother was born in Mauritius).I live in England and have to travel to Australia to see my family.
As you see,I am a citizen of this planet most of all but find a way to escape and hide in another planet that is called Dreamland…where I saw you too!
Big hugs to you miss V.
xo
When I think of Sweden… I think of the cold, long winters with barely any daylight and the summers when it doesn’t get dark at all (here in the northern part) at night. I think of Midsummer, meadow flowers and that it’s a very clean country. We have a lot of space here since there are only about 9 million people in the entire country. Living standard is very high. Health care and university studies are free.
I also think about the way we are serious and a bit closed in. You are not supposed to brag or make yourself seem better than anybody else or to express feelings too strongly. But I think we can be very warm as well once you get to know us 🙂
I also think about nature and design – the way Scandinavian light creeps into all sorts of design concepts and of course big companies like H&M and Ikea etc. And red wooden houses, forests, the cultural traditions like Lucia and all the snow.
Ohhh, I love banana pudding as we call it in Louisiana. My mom makes it and lines the dish with the nilla wafers. Yummm…and she makes a great from scratch ice box lemon pie…no box of lemon pudding here, cooked with real lemon juice. I need to go back home and visit for awhile! lol
Ohhhh Pan Dulce….I haven’t had one in ages!!! Please eat one for me..hehehe. I used to live in TX and they made the best Pan Dulce around, now I have to travel to Tampa Bay to buy some sort of like Pan Dulve. Hmmmm, wonder if there is a recipe for that. We were migrants and did grow up with Banana Cream pie and nilla wafers…sooo good too.
Happy Day…
hi vanessa! i’m eleni from greece. so when i think of my country, i see wonderful sandy and pebbly beaches, magical green landscapes,adorable little villages, happy and hospitable people[like me], and the most delicious food in the world[meatballs,stuffed vegetables and vineleaves,mousaka,tzatziki and many other tasty things].almost everyday i go to the sea -not only for swimming but just to see it and feel the sense of tranquillity that gives me…
Real butter makes everything better…um hummm!!!!
we have a saying/tv ad in NZ and it says “its a lot better with a little butter” however I come from the tradition that its alot better with alot! of butter.
Vanessa banana cream pie?? I have never heard of but it sounds like a big soft dream mmmmmm
What is New Zealand to me…..four seasons in one day, tomato sauce, pavlovas and kiwi fruit, bbqs, sandy earth and green green hills, seafood, camping, spooky native bush,….and today…100% humidity phew
i adore american movies with the big ho down in the end like ‘sweet home alabama’…ohh to wear a cowboy hat and dance around in a pretty summer dress and boots. just a little dream i have. and real mexican food would be amazing, ohh and the white christmas. yeah i think ive gotta spend a year in America!
Thanks for getting me thinking : )
sheree xxx
What a wonderful post, and I’m loving reading all the comments too!
I’ve lived and traveled all over the US – from a California beach town, and beautiful, green Oregon, to New Jersey and now Pennsylvania. Having driven across Arizona, I can attest to it’s beauty – I remember the Flagstaff area as especially gorgeous.
When I think of my country, I think first of it’s diversity, which strangely enough makes me feel not so much a citizen of my country, but more a citizen of the world. I like the idea we’re considered a “melting pot”, but even more the idea of all these wonderful, diverse cultures are preserved. I love that there are still places here I can walk without seeing signs in English, places I can visit where other traditions are still strong. I hope we never lose that…
Hugs,
~ Carolee
PS – Your pudding sounds yummy! Haven’t made that in years….must remedy that!
Yuummmmmm! My Saturday was filled with snows and stitching…and spent merrily, indeed! Thank You for sharing such wonderful recipes!! 🙂
I grew up in Ohio and realize now that I never saw enough of it. I lived in Germany for two years, just out of High School and also realized how much of a cocoon one is in and how unworldly one can be if you haven’t traveled extensively. I love all of the little towns in Arizona…and many of the off the beaten path destinations…have you ever been to the coke ovens near Florence?
I am from the United States of America. I have never lived anywhere else. I have visited Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, but have always lived here. The USA has such varying landscapes and people that commonalities are difficult to find from place to place. A teacher I once had said we were a “salad bowl” rather than a melting pot. Made sense to me. Being an American means being culturally diversified, yet intertwined. We will never be a common people. We will take or reject parts and pieces from all the cultures we are exposed to, but for the most part … the only thing we have in common is our home.
Ahhh Banana cream pie sounds divine! I am going to try and bake one tonight. I hope it looks as pretty as yours!
Becky (New Zealand)
xo
We had banana pudding all the time when I grew up because it was cheap (at least, how MY mom made it!) — we grew up in Virginia.