Everglades City

I spend a lot of time writing about food but my real interest is how people come together over a meal. I plan to write more about this in the future but for now I want to share some of the wonderful experience I had during the past week.

My family went to Florida for spring break. We were all supposed to go on a multi day canoeing adventure in the Everglades but when I realized how far behind I was falling on my schoolwork, I decided to stay behind in Everglades City and take advantage of the total seclusion to finish up some work while waiting for them to come back.

Yes they did eventually make it into the water.

As they paddled off into mangroves, I waved goodbye and then took out my books. It seemed like I would get a lot done. After all, I figured, how could I be distracted in a town where I didn’t know anyone? I hadn’t figured on a couple of things…

Day one: Took a study break for lunch at Havana Café where I met Phil and Dave. I was looking in vain for a table on the overcrowded patio and realizing with dismay that I would have to wait in line to get a seat when a pair of brothers called over to me. “Hi honey! We were just waiting for you!” Who could resist an offer like that? I wandered over with the intention of just sitting down while waiting for my own seat but Phil and Dave had me laughing so hard at their jokes and stories about the wild adventures they had had during their years working as commercial airline pilots that I ordered lunch and stayed for with them for over an hour.


Beyond the huge glasses of sweet tea, we enjoyed Mahi Mahi, all spiced and drizzled with key lime and served with rich black beans. 

Oh and also these great garlicky shrimp!

Day two: Was driving down by the waterfront and admiring the sunset en route to dinner. Pulled over at a little waterfront fish market with a sign for a café. Wandered onto the porch where I found a group of people sitting on the picnic tables and enjoying the sunset.

Turns out the café was closed and the women gathered on the porch were tourists like me. Arlo, the owner and cook, had invited the women to visit with him and enjoy the view. And what a view it was- the porch hung out over a wide river whose current slow pace could almost make you forget what a raging flood it becomes during hurricane season. Golden sunbeams refracted off the water and danced across the lush green mangroves whose twisted roots made up the riverbank.  

When everyone found out I was from up North, they took turns telling me stories about what it meant to be really from the South. The hurricane of 1947 that flattened out the entire town? One woman said her family had all piled into their houseboat, puttered it up stream, lashed it loosely to the shore and then the kids had spent the storm climbing around the mangrove trees like extra-hyper monkeys. Yes, evacuation plans were for the weak of heart…

They told me the real story of the town, from explorers and Native Americans to poachers and the serial murderer from the plantation days who, legend has it, buried his victims there along the shore. As the sun sank orange and burgundy on the lazily swirling river, they painted a local history for me that was colored by local secrets, rich portraits of the city’s founders and stories laced with tantalizing lurid details. All the stories were so absurd and yet seemed so perfectly fitted to the strange landscape that I couldn’t tell which histories were real and which ones were born of a combination of beer and a love of storytelling but, seriously, who cares?

When we made plans to return for lunch the next day, I revealed my interest in writing about them for the blog. Turns out the only thing they had more of than stories about the everglades was advice about cooking. My favorite snippet came when Arlo was complaining about a new restaurant in town: “She doesn’t fry anything!! You know me, if I can’t fry it then I don’t buy it!”

Day three: Went back to Triad Seafood for lunch and met up with everyone. 

Sadly, the food was so good I forgot to reach for my camera when it arrived! Think soft shell crab, battered and fried- the soft white meat nearly melting on your tongue and chased by sharp darts of salt in a crunchy golden batter. Creamy coleslaw, not sweet enough for Jo’s taste but just right for me, help balance the intensity of the crab. Everything washed down with dark iced tea tea. I’m technically not eating sweets during Lent but when Teresa pushed a slice of home-made key lime pie my way, I admit I couldn’t help but shave off a tiny slice. The first sweet taste I’d had in weeks sat on my tongue for just a minute before disappearing behind the delicate tartness of the lime. 

The best part of all this? The wonderful people I met that week made what could have been a lonely three days, one of the best parts of our trip! It was great to meet you all :) If you're ever up in New England, I'll cook you up a storm!

Cuddly Carrot Soup

I have a problem. I love carrots and I love soup but I have, until recently, been completely incapable of making them combine in a pleasing way. Carrot, though nice in small doses, can be pretty overwhelming when pureed and hot, sliding over the tongue. Maybe I’m picky but I find it a little too sharp- sweet and acidic at the same time. Basically, too loud.

I have a bad memory though and for the longest time I kept forgetting this. On cold, winter nights that called for a warm soup, I’d puree some carrots, throw them in a soup and wind up standing over the soup-pot frowning. My feelings towards carrot were the same way you’d feel about a friend you regret inviting over when you realize how high-energy and attention-needy they are  until they’re standing in your kitchen yapping away and you suddenly remember you had been hoping for a quiet evening. Carrot soup prickles my nose.

Despite carrot being a particularly difficult vegetable with which to work when making soup, I knew that somewhere out there, there had to be a match for her. Who could make carrot a more pleasing dinner companion? As I reflected on other difficult vegetables, I remembered how deftly potato works to smooth over leek’s rough edges in Leek & Potato soup and wondered whether it might not do the same for carrot here.

Sure enough, potato mellowed an otherwise high-strung carrot waaaaay out. Smooth and creamy and just sweet enough. Add a bit of cream for decadence and some spices for zest. Yup, served like this, carrot is downright cuddly.

Cuddly Carrot Soup

1 pressed clove garlic

2 diced onions

1 tablespoon maple syrup

5 cups peeled and chopped carrots

4 potatoes peeled and cut into pieces about 1 inch across

A few cups veggie stock

3 bay leaves

thyme

pinch nutmeg and/or mace

half a teaspoon of cinnamon

lemon zest

pinch of ginger

3 tablespoons cream
1. In a large, heavy bottomed pot, sauté onions and garlic in olive oil for a minute or two. Sometimes I drizzle in a spoonful or two of maple syrup at this point. 
2. Add the potatoes and carrots and let brown for about 5 minutes over medium heat. You can adjust the potato/carrot ratio depending on how intense you want the carrot taste to be. 
3. Add just enough of the veggie stock so that it covers about 2/3 of veggies in the pot. If the stock you are using is too strong, you can dilute it with water. This is the liquid base of your soup but you don’t want it to take control of the soup either. 
4. Add bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg and cinnamon.
5. Simmer over medium heat for a half hour.
6. Puree everything together.
7. Add lemon zest, ginger and cream.
8. Serve warm

Chocolate Submarine

See that tiny tip of land? We went there! 

Pretty much as far south as you can go..

 We took boat rides through the most pristine nature

I had ever seen

 Where we saw penguins!

 And seals!

 And had a variety of Titanic moments

 Where we felt like we were flying over the water

 Caveat: It gets really cold down by the Arctic Circle. 

Especially when you have hour long Titanic moments.

 Thank goodness Argentina has something called

a Chocolate Submarine to warm you up.

Submarine-shaped chocolate + steamed milk

Going...

 Going...

 Gone!

In each mouthful, the warm lush taste of pure milk 

with little bursts of chocolate bits.

 Chocolate Submarine


1. Warm 1 cup milk until it nearly boils
2. Insert large bar of chocolate 
3. Stir as it melts, drink, enjoy!

Argentinean Parilla- or-Overcoming Food Prejudices

I have a pretty intense addiction to both traveling and learning languages, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the places where cultures intersect and diverge and what happens they do. There are some places I expect to find strong cultural differences- clothing, etiquette, worldviews etc. I am usually pretty good at taking these in stride and adapting. It takes a lot to make me disgruntled. I recently discovered, however, that I am perhaps a little less flexible in my ideas than I had always assumed. Specifically when it comes to food.

It all began when I decided to cook a Christmas Feast in Buenos Aires. I knew my friend and I might get a little homesick on Christmas Eve (what’s Christmas without family?) and wanted to make the evening special. I went to the supermarket during the afternoon and indulged in “shopping therapy” by buying enough food to feed several persons- never mind that there were only two of us to eat all of this.

Usually when I went shopping, Maria came with me and, since her Spanish is much better than mine, she would translate any food labels I couldn’t read. I was by myself this time and realized, once again, that my Spanish textbook was a little inadequate. Where was the long list of all the different cuts of meat?

I tried to ask the butcher about a little package of chops. “What kind of meat was this?” He went behind the counter and came back with an entire baby pig. Yay it was pork! I asked for 200grams of that.

When he asked whether I wanted anything else, I remembered that my mom always prepared lamb on church holidays. Unfortunately, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the word for lamb. I tried to describe to him a mid-sized animal with curly white hair but apparently failed because he met my descriptions with a blank expression. Exasperated, I resorted to charades. “you know, the animal that does this sound “bahhhhhhhhhh.” “Bahhh?” he said. “Yes” I replied, “bahhhhh.”

Well, thank God, I thought, sheep apparently make the same sound in Argentina as they do in the USA for he disappeared behind the counter laughing and came back with a large cut of meat.

The hostel we were staying in looked more like a hippy commune than a hostel and on Christmas Eve it turned into a crazy dance party as all us travelers who were missing our families took some kind of comfort in at least all being together. Everyone gathered on the rooftop terrace for beer, Choriban (grilled sausage), techno music and an incessantly flashing light show.

I asked the guy running the Parilla whether I could add my meat to his grill. He graciously assented and scooted over a few coals. For those unfamiliar with Argentinean Parilla, it involves the slow cooking of meat over a few glowing embers. I had neglected to take this into account when planning the timing of my Christmas meal. After twenty minutes in the kitchen attached to the terrace, the raviolis were cooked, the salad tossed and my stomach growling. I went over to check on the meat. It was barely browning. This was clearly going to be different from the high heat, high flames barbeque I was used to.

(Yes, this is the barbeque. Yes, it has eyes.)

I had also completely forgotten to marinate before adding it to the grill and asked whether I could now add some spices to the meat. I had dug out some oregano, thyme and garlic. “Oh no” he said “in Argentina we just add some salt and pepper.”

Because my mother is French and I had learned to cook with those tastes in mind, the thought of eating un-spiced meat always strikes me as very strange. French people tend to fuss over cuts of meat. “B-b-b-but… seriously?” The Parilla guy, who knew where I was from and had spent significant time in France, knew what was going through my mind and insisted that I trust him.  

He had to insist again that I trust him when I wanted to yank the meat off the grill about ten minutes later. Another French tendency- liking meat to be on the rare side. But he made me wait. Until it was all the way cooked. It spent about 45 minutes on the grill all together. I was dying. As was my empty growing stomach.

I have to admit he was right though. It was some of the tenderest, juiciest meat I had ever eaten. Score 1 Argentina!

Patagonian Chocolate Plum Cake

It’s winter break from school and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Argentina. We spent a week down in Southern Patagonia checking out icebergs, glaciers and penguins. 

We saw some of the most beautiful nature I had ever seen in my life. We also saw some of the worst weather. I guess it’s what I should’ve expected given how close we were to Antarctica.

On one particular day, when the wind howled down the streets and drove clouds down around the mountains, all but hiding them from sight, we decided to call it a “resting day” and stay in the hostel. Maria, the friend with whom I was traveling, wanted to fight off cabin fever by baking. It had been two weeks since I’d baked anything so I was all over that plan. I asked what she wanted to bake specifically and got the following response: “something complicated with a lot of steps. ” Hmm. Ok.

With no Internet and no cookbooks, it was going to have to be a made-up cake recipe. Which, when I saw the random collection of groceries to be had in the local grocery story, would have been the case anyways.

Does this town look likes it has a supermarket? Nope.

What flavor cake do you want? “Chocolate.” Nestle cocoa drink mix would have to do the trick. (Yes they keep the chocolate by the toilet paper. I don't know what that's supposed to mean.)

The only milk to be bought came in enormous sacks. Yogurt would have to be the moistening ingredient. There weren’t enough plain yogurts left so we had to go with strawberry yogurt.

Oh and we would probably need a leavening ingredient. Why oh why did I never bother learning how to say “baking powder” while I was in Spanish class?? Some digging through a spices bin brought out a bag of whitish powder that looked appropriate. I wondered secretly whether we would be baking a chocolate wafer instead of a chocolate cake.

We brought our ingredients back to the hostel where we mixed them all together in a bowl, poured them in tins (throwing some sliced plums on top to pretty things up) and then realized to our dismay that there was no oven. Luckily, the nice front-desk lady offered to let us use the barbecue grill to cook/bake/grill our cake.

Thus was born the Grilled Chocolate Strawberry Cake with Plum Topping.

If you think that sounds a little strange, so did we... 
However, our worries about the cake being a failure faded away as the smell of warm, dark chocolate filled the entire hostel.

We shared with everyone in the hostel and, judging by the speed with which the (surprisingly) delicious cake disappeared, we should never have worried in the first place!

 Patagonian Chocolate (Strawberry) Plum Cake

2 individual sized cream yogurts (ok 1.5 because we ate half of the first one)

2 individual sized strawberry yogurts

3 eggs (Separated with the whites beaten until frothy in a separate bowl)

1 package chocolate drink mix

a few handfuls of flour

6 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon baking powder

Mix yogurts and egg yolks and melted butter in one bowl.

Mix flour, chocolate powder and baking powder in another bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients being careful not to over mix.

Gently fold in the egg whites.

Pour into tins.

Add the plum slices.

Sprinkle top with some extra sugar to make it crackly.

Place on a nearby grill at the lowest temperature for about an hour.

Pie Dough Sushi

 I used to love when my mom made pie dough. Wherever we were in the house, she'd come find us, forearms dusted with flour, with a handful of little scraps dipped in sugar. 

There's something wonderful about the simplicity of raw dough dipped in sugar. The butter makes it melt in your mouth and if you dip it in sugar, the crystals give a quick bite that's a wonderful contrast to butter's creaminess. 

I'm older now and should probably know better than to eat so much raw dough.  Especially given the number of pies I bake on a regular basis...  But this is one vice I'll probably never give up :)

In order to feel less guilty about this habit, my dad and I gave it a fancy name. It's not snacking when there's a recipe involved, right?

Pie Dough Sushi

1. Arrange dough scraps on a plate. 

2. Sprinkle liberally with sugar and cinnamon. 

Mini Peach Pies- Or How to Make Sunshine

Sometimes life is gray and dreary. Especially Rhode Island in November. Why not make some sunshine? 

I recommend these mini peach pies.

Start with peaches' vibrant rosy gold

Dark brown sugar brings the warmth

Grand Marnier and lemon juice amp things up- 

none of that weak, washed-out winter sunshine here!

In fact, why not sprinkle some lemon zest over everything.

It'll bring that extra glimmer that's everywhere in August

and nowhere to be found in November.

Pour that warm, golden, shimmery mixture into a buttery, sugary crust.

Voila! Sunshine!

Take that Autumn!

Mini Peach Pies

1 batch pie dough with some sugar mixed in

4 cups chopped peaches 

3/4 cups sugar

2 tbs Grand Marnier

1 tbs lemon juice

1 tsp corn starch

1/4 tsp salt

grated zest of 1/2 lemon

1. Roll out pie dough and place inside pie shells, making sure to leave some    extra dough for the top crust. 

2. In a large bowl, mix remaining ingredients except lemon zest.

3. Ladle mixture out into pie shells.

4. Sprinkle with lemon zest.

5. Cover pies with lattice work crust.

6. Sprinkle a little extra sugar all around.

7. Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes, or until the top crust becomes golden.