Long time, now blog. Sorry, no recipe or grand family food function. Just this little slice of life of hanging with my favorite toddler. Goodness it goes by fast.
Thanksgiving, 2013!
The family’s all here and ready to eat.
A couple weeks ago, Shefali, Kaya and I had the good fortune to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, my sister and her family and Shefali’s mother and sister. This was our first Thanksgiving since we moved back the West Coast, so it was a real treat to be able to spend it with both sides of our families. In addition, our good friends, Simon and Jen and their kids, and PK (and his two crutches) also joined us for what proved to be a delicious and nutritious (calories are nutritious right?) feast.
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- Simon, Jen, Ani and Kat
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- Cheryl’s a really nice person. Me? Not so much.
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- A Tale of Two Stuffings (sausage and oyster)
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- Dessert Overload: apple galette, cheesecake and of course pumpkin pie
As usual, we spent several hours preparing and cooking the requisite T-Day food – stuffing (sausage stuffing from me, oyster stuffing from my mom), turkey (grilled in record time on the Weber by my dad), mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts (prepared by Cameron and Cheryl) and three different desserts (apple galette and cheesecake from Jen, pumpkin pie from Shef). Also as usual, the eating/ inhaling food part took all of about 15 minutes and left us all slouched uncomfortably in a haze of culinary excess. Another year and another successful Thanksgiving. But don’t just take my word for it. Watch the two part documentary masterpiece which so compellingly captures our Thanksgiving, 2013!
Nicaragua = surfing (tried to) + eating (nailed it)
I got up on one! Thanks to Rubes and his water treading skills for immortalizing the moment. Now I just need to figure out how to make the wave look more giant.
A mere week and a half ago – plus a few days and add a few more days depending on when I actually post this and when and if you read this – I found myself in Nicaragua along with nine other fellows to help our buddy, Chris A (aka White Chocolate), celebrate the big 4-0 in style… Nica style. And by Nica style, I mean we spent a week in Miramar, Nicaragua at an awesome surf camp run by the great folks of Surf Tours Nicaragua. It was kind of funny because with the exception of three of us, none among us would remotely consider ourselves “surfers” – unless you count the internet. But, we were game to try and over the course of several days with expert instruction provided by Greg, Carter and Hector everyone pretty much succeeded in getting on at least one solid wave and having a boat load of fun – while avoiding serious injury. Also, we were pretty much in bed by 10 pm each night. Yup, this is 40.
Fortunately, when we weren’t flailing – I mean shredding the sick swell – we were lying in hammocks on the covered deck overlooking the beach, watching the waves and discussing the beach break as if we knew what we were talking about. Okay maybe that was just me. All in all, it was an awesome time – totally relaxing and punctuated by good food and many Toñas. The staff at the camp cooked consistently solid and tasty breakfasts, lunches and dinners (upon which the overwhelming fan favorite, Salsa Lizano, was liberally applied). But there were a few meals in particular that blew my flip flops off.
One evening we made the five minute walk to a neighboring woman’s house where she had set up a several tables under a roof in her front yard to accommodate the 16 or so of us hungry for dinner. She cooked nearby in her outdoor kitchen and with just two cooking fires, she prepared a feast of lobsters, rice and tostones (green plantains). It was la bomba! Check the photographic evidence below.
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- Table for 16: The restaurant was basically the front yard of our hostess’ house.
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- The outdoor kitchen: This is where our hostess prepared a feast.
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- Lobsters poached in oil because why not?
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- Two cooking fires is what our hostess had to work with.
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- The crew before dinner
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- Flor de Caña: the official rum of Nicaragua
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- Chris A toasts to being a spritely 40!
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- More pre dinner toasting
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- How great is this sight?
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- Three lobsters? I would have been stoked to get two.
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- Rustic ambiance: We were the only party for miles
The next day, the surf wasn’t so good (as if that really mattered to us amateurs) so the whole surf camp took a field trip to 1) Volcan Masaya – an active volvanoe 2) the town of Masaya, home to an artisan marketplace (aka souvenirs) 3) an amazing lunch at Bakus restaurant located above Laguna de Apoyo, a lake in extinct old volcano crater – not that the location mattered because we were all entertained by the copious amounts of meat and a DVD of this year’s Billboard Music awards (Nikki Minaj giving a faux lap dance to Lil’ Wayne should be required lunchtime viewing) 4) swimming, chilling and participating in a hold our breath underwater contest in the fresh pristine waters of the lake. Then we drove back that evening (eight of us in the back of the surf truck driven Carter -aka Carlitos the Heartbreaker) through the most torrential thunder and lightening storm just to make things more exciting. Que buen dia!
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- Volcan Masaya: Still active. In fact all the other visitors were wearing hardhats.
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- KDub and Mattie take it all in.
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- Señoras outside the market: Just one of those nice pictures of the locals
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- Surf Tour Leader Greg and Aussie Morgan are ready to get lunch. Alas everyone was waiting for Big Al.
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- Laguna de Apoya and Volcan Masaya
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- Overlooking Laguna de Apoya
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- Various meats: porkchops, ribs, steak, sausage, meatballs, fried chicken, fried fish, fried cheese on a bed of fried plantains.
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- Self serve. Protein and carbs anyone?
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- Restaurante Bakus: Best lunch I’ve had a in a really long while.
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- The water was fresh and warm and within a few feet of the shore you couldn’t see the bottom.
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- Dusk on the lake: Fantastic!
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- I conceived of this artsy shot, but was foiled by the smoke from burning garbage,
The next day, a few of us woke up early and took the boat to try our hands at spear fishing. Okay, I’m going to chalk this one up to the poor visibility caused by river run off from the rain storms because basically we didn’t see shit. Well, except for PK whose spear “misfired” when he had his target in sight (so much subtext there) and our guide and surf camp head honcho Greg who did see a trigger fish well enough to shoot through the eye! The rest of us had no luck so we trolled a bit and ended up catching three pretty good sized fish, two of which were Spanish mackerel.
Later that evening, Greg made fresh sashimi with the mackerel. Oh. My. God. So fresh, buttery, and melt in your mouth delicious. Que ricissimo!
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- So fresh, buttery and delicious.
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- Clearly, Greg enjoys his mackerel fresh!
All and all, it was a great trip hanging with the fellas. And of course we all had our wives to thank for being the type of wonderfully supportive partners who held it down on the home front so we could surf (kind of), eat ridiculously well (or not – do cheeze puffs and skittles have any nutritional value, Chris A?) and chill in such a beautiful part of the world.
Sunset view from the deck: pretty ideal.
Pupusas at Los Cocos
Pupusas and caldo de pollo.
Pupusa. Just say it. “Pupusa”. I don’t know if onomatopoeia would quite qualify in this instance, but doesn’t the word “pupusa” just sound like something bursting with savory goodness? Indeed these Salvadorean treats rank up there with some of my favorite foods for a number of reasons. Basically they’re fat tortillas (corn usually) stuffed with any number of ingredients (beans, cheese, pork or chicken, a even flowers –loroco) and fried on a griddle so the outside becomes nicely browned and crisp while the inside corn meal and fillings remain soft and moist, like a tamale. The best part is when a bit of the cheesy insides ooze out onto the hot the griddle and add another layer of delicious crispy crust to the pupusa. They’re then served with a tomato-y hot sauce and a nice vinegary cabbage and carrot slaw, the acid of the sauce and salad perfectly complementing the rich savoriness of the pupusas. They are supremely satisfying both to the palate and the stomach. They will fill you up.
My first taste of pupusas was not in El Salvador but in Guatemala, when I was a young lad many many years ago doing the young lad backpacker thing down in Central America. I was studying Spanish in Quetzaltenango and one day I was searching for a late afternoon snack in the parque central . I sampled a pupusa (not even that fresh of the griddle) from one of the food venders who’d set up shop. Mind blown. And then when I crossed over into El Salvador and encountered more and different varieties of pupusas, what was left of my mind was blown further. Living in SF – still as a young lad – I was ecstatic to find that I could find fresh and delicious pupusas at such favorites as Panchitas and El Zocolo.
But eight years living in NYC, meant a long hiatus from great pupusas. Sure, I could occasionally get some good ones at the Red Hook Ball fields (at least before they became over run by hipster foodies), but there were few Salvadorean restaurants that I was aware of where I could indulge to my heart’s content. Then a few months ago, we moved back to the Bay Area and I’ve been reunited with delectible pupusas once again. We live in Oakland, just a stone’s throw away (or a nice bike ride) from Los Cocos, one of the sole Salvadorean restaurant in the Fruitvale district, a neighborhood where Mexican taquerias predominate (not a bad thing, just stating a fact). I first ate at Los Cocos years ago with my friend Matt and when we feasted on pupusas and incredibly flavorful caldo de pollo (chicken soup). So, it was a real joy to bring Shef and K to this spot a couple months ago when we were newly arrived to Oakland. It was just as I had remembered it – decorated with Salvadorean tchotchkes, the air inside hazy with cooking grease. In other words, perfect. K got her first taste of pupusas and it’s fair to say, she loved them.
Eating at Los Cocos (with Matt again) a few weeks later, I asked Rosa the cook and owner of the restaurant if I could make a short vid of her cooking pupusas process. She said, “sure!” So, this is the result. Please enjoy and go find pupusas near to you because this vid will make you hungry.
Manu’s Handmade Pasta
This is how you roll it…
A couple months ago, Shef, K and I made the momentous move back from Brooklyn, NY to the Brooklyn of the Bay Area aka Oakland, CA. At least that’s the comparison made by NYC- centric foks. I’ll be honest. There’s a fair smattering of hipsters and quite a healthy foodie scene here but I would say that’s a national trend and not just a Brooklyn thing. Anyway, a few weeks in, to help ease us into West Coast living, our good friends Matt (whom you might remember from such hits at sourdough baby, wood oven pizza and belated Chinese New Year) and Arlie invited some of their good friends (Manu, Simba, Cree and Dan) over to our place for some dinner. But these weren’t just any friends and this wasn’t just some dinner. The guest of honor (or rather chef of honor) was Manu who, being Italian, brought with her the requisite skills of making pasta – by hand. See, in my limited world view, all Italians know how to make pasta, just like all Chinese people know how to fold dumplings. Thankfully in this case, my ridiculous cultural expectations proved correct because Manu brought with her some real knowledge and skills. In fact, she instructed us in the production of TWO types of pasta: orecchiette and pici.
Both pastas are so simple to make and when cooked are exponentially better than dried pasta. Now, I understand why the term al dente (to the teeth) has been used to describe the way pasta should be cooked. There’s something about the fresh, hand worked dough, the thicker noodle and shorter boiling time that results in pasta that has that balanced, dense, springy but totally cooked texture. It has real substance. It requires you to actually pause and chew so you can really appreciate the pasta, the sauce, the company around you and the witty conversation that erupts between bites. No wonder the slow food movement started in Italy. Part of that slowness must surely have to do with the preparation. Making pasta by hand -especially by amateur hand – is a rather labor intensive process so it was great to have friends over who could throw down like they were in the old country. The next night when I made the orecchiette and pici by myself with the leftover dough, it took a lot longer. But again, the end product was ridiculously good. Now, I’m not tooting my own horn. I’m tooting the horn of homemade pasta. Hallelujah!
Made all of these “little ears” with my own hands.
Here’s Manu’s recipe for the orecchiette:
semolina flour
water
that’s it!
And here are the ingredients for the sauce she made for the orecchiette (quantities are dependent on how much pasta you’re cooking):
broccoli, kale (though if you can find it you should use rapini or broccoli rabe)
garlic
chili
Italian sausage
salt
pepper
olive oil
And this is how she does it:
Here’s Manu’s recipe for the pici:
2 parts white all purpose flour
1 part semolina
pinch of salt
water
that’s it!
And here’s Manu’s recipe for the sauce she made for the pici:
ripe tomatoes
1 green tomato for extra acidity
garlic
olive oil
salt
bread crumbs fried in olive oil
And here’s how she does it.