Eatin' Good in the [Guatemalan] Neighborhood

So it's been exactly a week since I got back from Guatemala, where I spent 10 days including xmas and New Year's--time to blog about it! I was staying with my good friend Rodrigo, whose family splits their time between Guatemala City and a SICK beach house in the south, very close to the border of El Salvador. The food they ate on xmas was very western-traditional though unusually abundant: turkey, ham, AND pork leg with stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. It was pretty good but what really excited me was the traditional Guatemalan cuisine.

Highlights:

• Corn tamales, two types: one savory, seasoned with a tomato sauce and whole green olives, the other sweet, seasoned with some kind of chocolate sauce (sort of like mole but sweeter) and raisins. Both with a big chunk of delicious pork in the center.
  
• Chicharrines, or pork skins, fried into bubbly/crackly oblivion, accompanied by AMAZING refried black beans (no idea what they do to them), guacamole, tortillas, lime, Gallo beer (the national cerveza).
  
• Guatemalan fried chicken at Pollo Campero, the most popular (native) fast food chain, accompanied by french fries, coleslaw, full-calorie soda (they didn't have diet, which I thought was very interesting).
• Insanely fresh ceviche, on the beach: some kind of white fish, chunked (is that a verb?) and tossed in lemon juice, cilantro, chopped tomato, salt and pepper, and plenty of hot sauce for me. We had this every day as the first course of lunch--it was followed by fresh tortillas, guacamole, pickled cabbage, Guatemalan sausage.
• The same white fish, fried with very simple seasoning (a little paprika, maybe? something orangey and tasty), with potato salad and green salad.
• Rosa de jamaica--a very popular drink (all over the world, apparently) made by boiling hibiscus leaves in water and adding sugar to the liquid. Rodrigo's mom gave me a big package of the leaves to take home.

The beach house

Rodrigo and our friend Ashby, post-Pollo Campero

My trip was great for many reasons, but food figured prominently in the fun. In an ironic twist, I almost wasn't able to eat it--I got some kind of stomach bug the day after I arrived. Luckily, it is very easy to obtain drugs in Central America--almost everything is over the counter--and Rodrigo's mom's friend suggested some weird antibiotic I'd never heard of .... Hey, it did the trick! It probably took five years off my life, or something, but it was worth it.

Pressed, dripped, or percolated?

Breakfast: drip coffee, croissant.

Lunch: Turkey sandwich, Salt and Vinegar Kettle Chips (booooring - this is what I buy from across the street when i forget my lunch in the fridge at home and feel too cheap to buy something more expensive)

Dinner: Cuban fricase de pollo (Inspired by my trip to the Carribbean. It has a bit of citrus in it as well as a few other unlikely ingredients, but when push comes to shove I think I prefer the French version.) white rice (yes, V, WHITE rice).

Side note: How do you all drink your coffee? i.e. what type of roast, method of brewing, add-ins, etc. I wish I could be swayed more by nene's tea confessionals - don't get me wrong, I keep a stash of PG tips at the office for those rainy afternoons - but that Pete's medium roast drip is too tempting to pass up sometimes!

You Feast on That Swine?!

Breakfast: oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins

Lunch: 2-hour monster lunch at Joey Shanghai. Scallion pancakes (Nene, you put me on!), pork soup-dumplings, crabmeat soup-dumplings, and pork and salted vegetable soup. Tea.

Dinner: 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and a few beers.

Food Crush: Mark Bittman

Anyone who knows me knows that this is not a new thing; but here is yet another reason why I love Mark Bittman and his simple, humorous, down-to-earth approach to food.

Fresh Start for a New Year? Let’s Begin in the Kitchen

By MARK BITTMAN
Published: January 6, 2009

PERHAPS, like me, you have this romantic notion of shopping daily — maybe even a mental vision of yourself making the rounds, wicker basket in hand, of your little Shropshire or Provençal or Tuscan village. The reality, of course, is that few of us provision our kitchens or cook exclusively with ultra-fresh ingredients, especially in winter, when there simply are no ultra-fresh ingredients.

Continue reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/dining/07mini.html

Welcome to 2009!

Welcome to the new year, everyone! I know that we've all been swept up in the holidays and their accompanying excesses, but now that we are entering a calmer moment I'm going to take the opportunity to post a little update from my life as it regains a semblance of normaliy. I am beginning to disengage from the feeding frenzy I've been on over the last few weeks, the kitchen intermittently brimming with roast tukey, roast chicken, roast beef, roast potatoes (gratin... bacon, potatoes, and cheese - yum!), a delicious baked egg and vegetable casserole, lasagne, fresh molasses bread, peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies, sugar cookies, ginger molasses cookies, seven layer bars, chocolate cream cheese brownies, Julia Child's Best Ever brownies, caramel chocolate cheesecake ... the list goes on. Shockingly, I gained a little weight.

I really will have to put Bill's potato & bacon gratin recipe up here one of these days soon, because it is so ridiculously rich and delicious, a perfect heavy, starchy, warming dish for winter, and wonderful eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or late night snack. New Year's Eve dinner was a delicious, drawn out evening of snacking on crackers and truffled goat cheese, olives, and wine while cooking chocolate mousse, no-knead bread, roasted vegetables, and roast chicken. We feasted, drank champagne, and then fell asleep right around midnight, all in the presence of some very lovely holiday red tulips.

Today was a working day and thankfully punctuated by a degree of normalcy ( = restraint) in terms of food.

Breakfast: coffee, fresh (plain) cinnamon raisin bagel.
Lunch: buffalo chicken pizza (Whole Foods, why do you torture me?? You know I can't resist you....)
Afternoon snack: cranberry walnut toast with peanut butter and fig jam, grapefruit, tea.
Dinner: Omelet with cheddar and mozarella, leftover roasted vegetables (delicious - reheated in the pan with some garlic and olive oil, kind of like rustic homefries revised to include vegetables)
Dessert: brownies. Plural, that's right. I didn't say I had abandoned all excess.

Also, I just gave someone Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" for Christmas. Do any of you who know this book have any favorite or recommended recipes, or any good vegetarian main course recipes in general? I'd love to hear it.

Welcome to 2009! Here's hoping it's filled with lots of laughter, joy, and great meals with family and friends.

so pumped...

So tonight, one of the chefs at the restaurant where I work, and I will be eating at Per Se in NYC, with money earned entirely from foraging and selling wild mushrooms all year. Its my second time there, but I feel like its the first, I'm just as giddy and nervous!

9:45 Pm seems like an eternity away.

Mi cena cumple

Well, I just hit the big 22 and feel old but not yet wise, which is sort of a strange place to be. I know, I know, I'm the baby of this blog and 22 is not old but maybe you geriatrics remember what it was like to suddenly, completely realize that you were no longer a teenager and expected to act accordingly? Plus now I'm done with monumental birthdays (16, 18, 21) until I'm 30!

But enough of all that: it's food I'm here to talk about, namely my birthday dinner. Warning: copious details to follow.

On Saturday night some friends and I hit up Olsen, a very trendy, very delicious Swedish restaurant here in BA. It has become famous for introducing the concept of American brunch to the city, but dinner did not disappoint. We started with a vodka-sampler-cum-smorgasboard that came with five shots of various vodkas (they're known for their extensive vodka list) and five little sandwiches. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't ask what the vodkas were but I am fairly certain that at least one of them was homemade, and one of them included tabasco sauce. I'm cloudy on the sandwiches as well, though I can say for certain there was definitely gravlax, and one with caviar, one with maybe steak and lingonberries, one with slices of apple and what I think was gouda, and one with cream cheese and something else? The vodka went quickly to my head, but not so fast as to drown out the memory of my main course, which was truly phenom.

It was a small plate--welcome after a long succession of enormous, steak-centered, coma-inducing traditional Argentine meals--featuring a slab of smoked pork belly perched atop a pile of warm mashed potatoes and plated with a few crumbles of blue cheese, a swipe of lingonberry puree (I think? or maybe reduction?), and a teeny tiny salad of carrots and some sort of delicate green.

The pork was crispy-fatty-crunchy-tender and absolutely delicious, complemented perfectly by the smooth texture of the potatoes, the kick of the blue cheese, and the tart sweetness of the lingonberries. We also ordered two bottles (there were five of us) of the cheapest Malbec on the menu, which turned out to be great--I won't try to describe it as I know nothing about wine aside from what tastes good to me and what doesn't.

At exactly midnight I was presented with a mini molten chocolate cake, complete with candle and a rousing rendition of "Que los cumplan feliz," followed by two more desserts: a lemon custard topped with caramelized pistachios and a vodka creme-brulee, both accompanied by small scoops of raspberry sorbet, FOLLOWED by cocktails--mine was vodka with mint and passion fruit and SO good.

The only thing missing was some pickled herring! I didn't venture there because the friends I was with are not the most culinarily adventurous (I think I ate all the gravlax by myself), but luckily I have my grandfather: I don't know where he gets it from--somewhere in Bridgeport--but he eats herring every morning for breakfast and is always happy to share.