Back from Mexico …

October 21, 2007

Back from maravilloso Mexico, and it was indeed a very lovely trip. We were in several places: Guadalajara, where we ate posole (made of tomatillo and fresh corn) at our friend Lourdes' home. WE stayed at the lovely quinta Real hotel and lacked for nothing!

We were escorted to Tequila to visit Orendain Distillery with the owner's son, Andres Orendain, our chauffeur and guide! And where we tasted their 55 proof Tequila served in a ram’s horn! (This was before lunch on a covered terrace overlook of the surrounding hills and mountains. (A Tequila recipe will follow this rant.)

Next we flew to Culiacan for a firecracker, candle, and Mariachi/disco blow-out wedding, where we danced toward dawn.

The next day we drove to the shore at Xicotencatl ( I think) for a day on the beach of other friends' compound, complete with huge thatch-covered patios with hammocks! And where we were fed like kings on fresh caught shrimp and fish. For desert on the drive back to Cuilican we ate homemade pan de mujer filled with pumpkin jam.

In Matzatlan for half a day, we had a seafood lunch by the shore with fresh fried whole red snapper before we caught the plane to Mexico City. The lunch was fun and delish accompanied by Margaritas for the ladies and beer for the guys—some mixing their cerveza with lime and salt. Is that any way to ruin a cold bottle of Corona, Tecate, or Pacifico! No comment because there’s just no accounting for tastes! It’s called cerveza preparada, a term to forget which means, prepared beer, or what the Brits call shandy.

Here’s a quick recipe for shrimp from the lunch appetizer—a type of salad served on top of a toasted taco in the middle of a huge oval platter surrounded by oysters, octopus, scallops and fresh humongous shrimp—boiled whole. The shrimp salad appetizer is this:

One pound of pounded shrimp, ½ cup minced onion, hot as hell pepper—not sissy jalpeño—use chipolte or habanera and enough of it to bring tears to your eyes if you have the guts! and 8 ounces of Philadelphia cream cheese at room temp. Salt to taste. Mix together and pop onto a huge crisp baked or fried tamale … now dig in using corn chips, tortillas!

Off to Mexico City! Ole’! We stayed at a friend’s apartment in the Lomas de Chapultepec, and as luck would have it, he was out of town so he sent his chauffeur to pick us up at the airport and drive us all around town. What a hardship!

Ciudad de Mexico for only a few days is a shame, but it was long enough for us to take a city tour and to see the famous Virgin de Guadalupe one day and the next a drive out of town to visit the museum and pyramids at Teotihuacan. Incredible! After feasting with our eyes we feasted on lunch at the famous Hacienda de los Morales. Exquisite dining—pate de fois gras for starters, followed by a soup of fresh zucchini flowers, or flor de calabasa with a light pie crust topping. Felipe ordered a vino tinto from Ribeia del Duero (Spain). Each sip was a quick trip to Elysium.

My friend Linda lived near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico before having a farewell party and departing for the al di là, and this is a tribute to her fine cooking and taste. Quantities are up to the chef! You may use mushrooms with the onions for this Tequila cebolla amargo y dulce (sour and sweet) dish.

Here’s a recipe for Tequila onions:
a heavy skillet
some unsalted butter and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Please don’t bust chops for amounts! Use your eyes! that’s why God gave them to you. Judge by the quantity of vegetables you will use.)
sliced sweet onions, or whole small ones, a few cloves of garlic if desired (whole and then remove)
small whole button mushrooms (washed and dried), or improvise with larger ones and slice them!
a tablespoon of sugar—those on diets, Splenda will work, or a bit of natural Stivia for you organic-conscious eaters (called Ka’a He’e, pronounced ka-ay-hey-ay in the Guarani language of Paraguay),
a splash of red wine or balsamic vinegar (I must confess that I’ve used other vinegars, such as white or apple cider, and the result is fine)
salt, pepper to taste
(may garnish with cilantro, or parsley, and may make without the mushrooms!)

High heat. Fry the onions and mushrooms (garlic) until golden, and season with salt and pepper—I use hot as Hades peperoncino because I’m married to a fiery Cuban-Italian! So feel free to use hot pepper if desired. Remove the garlic cloves. Add the sugar and stir around still it starts to caramelize. Then add a splash of vinegar. When all the ingredients are coated with the vinegar and it’s blended with the sugar into a mélange of sticky goodness, add as much Tequila (of course the good brand you’re drinking) as it takes (be generous, it’s your body, a true temple, you’re feeding) and reduce it over a low to moderate heat! This is a lovely medley and side dish to compliment any autumn dinner: meat, fowl or fish. Garnished with curly parsley or not.

Folks, if you notice any spelling or punctuation errors ... adjust and fix them in your brains, and let me off the hook or these blogs will never get posted! Thanks! and for you speakers of the language in which to address God, por favor forgive any mistakes.

If anyone wants the recipe for posole, write me. That doesn't mean I'll give it to you, but write anyway.

Interview with Linda Bladholm

October 8th

Saturday I was interviewed at the Gourmet Diner, (if you've never been, do yourself a favor and GO! SOON! More on the diner in another blog) located in North Miami by Linda Bladholm. Linda is a una bella intervistatrice! a food maven, author or several cook books on Asian, Indian and Caribbean food, and a journalist for the food column, A Fork on the Road, for the Miami Herald.

For those of you who have been telling me for years, you’ll be happy to know, folks, that she also encouraged me to give more measurements for ingredients! Oy vey! This is like saying I have to study trigonometry and calculus when I can barely spell them. AND she suggested I should write a cook book. Boy, does this ever resonate, or what?

Here below is one of Linda’s lovely recipes that I think will pair nicely with my Colors of the Fall Soup recipe of yesterday. Even the name for Sweet Potato Muffins sounds puffy and delectable. So below please find the recipe, which I find amazing--can you guess why? Because it has all the measurements for the ingredients. There should be a writing prize for someone who can do this. I’m not kidding.

So here's a public thank you to Linda for her spontaneity, and for making the interview quite painless, in fact downright fun!!! Her proposed ideas of how I can go about writing a cookbook were intriguing, piquing my interest, my noggin bursting with new flavor combinations and concoctions! You'll see the result of this soon on future blogs. However, she made a strong argument for the fact that I should buy these books before I do, and you'll see why by the titles listed below.

The Recipe Writers Handbook Revised and Updated by Barbara Gibbs Ostmann and Jane L. Baker

Recipes into Type: A Handbook for Cookbook Writers and Editors by Joan Whitman and Dolores Simon

The Chef's Companion: A Concise Dictionary of Culinary Terms (Culinary Arts)
by Elizabeth Riley




From Linda Bladholm's Fork on the Road
QUICK BREAD
SWEET POTATO MUFFINS
Serve as dessert with vanilla or pistachio ice cream, if you wish.
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 1 ¼ cups cooked, skinned and mashed sweet potatoes
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup chopped raisins
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• 2 tablespoons sugar mixed with ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Place paper liners in 24 muffin cups. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Beat sugar, sweet potatoes and butter until smooth. Add the eggs and blend well.
Sift the flour with the baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add dry ingredients to the sweet potato mixture alternately with the milk, stirring just to blend. Avoid over-mixing. Fold in the raisins and nuts.
Spoon batter into prepared pans and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins test done. Makes 24 muffins.
Source: Adapted from The Best of Bon Appetit (Knapp, 1979).
Per muffin: 155 calories (32 percent from fat), 5.5 g fat (3 g saturated, 1.5 g monounsaturated), 30 mg cholesterol, 2 g protein, 25 g carbohydrates, 1 g fiber, 153 mg sodium.

For Linda Bladholms’s books go here:
http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-4037308-7205702?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=linda+bladholm

Colors of the Fall Soup

October 7th
Colors of the Fall Soup

Here it is plain and simple:

Water, preferably wet and if you live in Florida, filtered
Salt and pepper (may be hot!)
Garlic cloves
Onions
Scallions
Leeks
Turnips
Sweet potato
Potato
Pumpkin
Zucchini
Fresh plum tomatoes or a can of Hunt’s
One orange cauliflower
One regular cauliflower
One broccolo (green cauliflower)
A generous dash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Carrots, if desired
Celery, if desired
Yellow squash, if desired
Parsnip, if desired
Corn, if desired, on or off the cob—if on, then cut into 2 inch pieces
Mushrooms, if desired
A splash of good white wine, if desired
Bouillon cubes, if desired

As copious amounts of water burble up in a humongous pot, start tossing in the harder cut-up, chopped up, sliced and diced veggies (there is no wrong way to do this, get over it and just do it.) The last autumn gifts to go into the pot are the 3 big heads of cauliflower—one will do nicely for less soup or less hearty eaters. About ten minutes will do, and then turn off the heat and cover. That’s it. Adjust for salt and pepper. Serve with brushcetta, smeared with garlic, sprinkled with salt and inundated with olive oil—of course, Extra Virgin First Cold Press. Have you ever been to a frantoio where they cull and crush the olives? Well then … you know.

If fresh tomatoes are used, skin them and mash, otherwise for you niftie-swifties, who don’t want to bother with that, use a can of Hunt’s tomato sauce--size depends on quantity soup. Oh and it goes without saying, the fresh veggies have been washed before you cook them.

When it comes to clams, the smaller the better ...

October 5, 2007

Unless you're making chowder, I'd say the smaller the better for any dish calling for clams. In Italy we used vongoli veraci about as big as a thumb, and they have little horns, so maybe they were cuckolds! but whatever they were, they were scrumptious and alive—discard any clam that’s partially open … ALWAYS! Sometimes we’d even use tellini about the size of a thumbnail. (May use cherrystones, if that's all you've got.)

So here's the new recipe I got from Barcelona—tasting it only and making it once. I’m sure if you hunt and peck around Google, you’ll find an official recipe somewhere.

Almejas a la Francesa.
Ingredients: clams, clam juice, white wine—(whatever you’re drinking! I used Pinot Grigio), onions, heavy cream, ground red pepper, paprika, garlic powder (if desired).

No babying here ... or molly-coddling. This is for people who know what they're doing with seafood. Stop reading now if this intimidates you. Two dishes—either with pasta or as a zuppa served with brushcetta (no tomatoes!) or fresh Italian bread. If you’re going to use this recipe as a sauce for pasta—put the salted water on to boil the minute you start to cook. If not, mox nix.

Clams. (Already soaked in cold water and rinsed several times.) Open them very quickly over high heat without water or oil. Quickly as in FASTER than FAST, and remove immediately from the heat. Set the sea-animals aside, and strain the juice. Rinse the pan if it’s sandy. Then add more clam juice if needed (store bought in a bottle) to the liquid the clams have already kicked out. Reduce, but not by half. I never salt clams and here's why: there's plenty in them already. Reserve the liquid.

Into the same huge and especially deep fry pan, I cook with Bialetti—simply because it’s the best, and has a glass cover (Hi-Base System, 12 in./ 30 cm)—place about ½ stick of unsalted butter (not margarine) and adjust if you need more or less, depending on the amount of clams. See what I mean about knowing what you’re doing? One huge sweet onion chopped coarsely. Less clams, less onion! When the onions are golden—fling in white wine—how much? Are you kidding?

Over a high flame, burn off the alcohol. Add the reserved clam liquid. Add heavy cream … that’s heavy whipping cream—no substitute will do. I use 8 fl. ounces (1/4 liter) of organic from Organic Valley—naturally you’re going to have to judge how much sauce you’re going to need if doing pasta, vero? (Use ½ a liter or more if you need it.) Thicken on high heat, stirring constantly. Toss in the clams and serve in pasta bowls for antipasto. Serves as many as you want, depending on the quantities you use. I’m not being a smarty pants here, this is a recipe for 2 or 20! (If it’s for 20, guess what? Use a bigger pot.)

For pasta use a huge serving dish—oval or round, ceramic or porcelain—pour in the pasta first and then cover and toss with the calm sauce. Linguine or spaghetti go nicely—or fresh fettuccine—but you’ll need more sauce for this pasta as it’s fresh and absorbs more sauce. One thing you never want is dried out fettuccine. You may sprinkle with ground red pepper and a dash of paprika for color—this dish doesn't takes parsley, which usually is a great with seafood—no garlic either—I use a hint of it (in the sauce when I add the clams, I sprinkle with granulated garlic or garlic powder—neither with salt!). If you’re a purist, then you should smoosh a garlic clove around the bottom and sides of the pot after you rinse it of sand and before you add the liquids. Throw out the smooshed clove, or chew it and save on garlic capsules, or give it to the dog.

And there you go! Buen provecho!

I assume no responsibility for the success or failure or this dish, nor for misspelled words or grammatical errors. I wrote this under duress—it was now or never. Felipe is on the Utah express heading home and I have to cook my new "Colors of the Fall Soup" (Recipe soon to make it's debutante appearance on this self-same blog. Weight Watchers, this one's for you!)

Happy Birthday, Felipe!

October 3rd

Just got back recently from our terrific European cruise and had over 200 e-mails to wade through.

On Sept. 22nd I was in Delray Beach for a meeting of the interns for the Palm Beach Poetry Festival to be held in Delray Beach, January 21-26, 2008. Mark it on your calendar I will be an intern and assistant to C. K. Williams in his seminar. He’s a brilliant poet, professor at Princeton University, winner of many awards, including the Pulitzer, and you name it! What a great line-up of poets, including my professor and mentor, Campbell McGrath.

On Sunday, September 23rd at Books & Books, Coral Gables, thanks to the kindness of owner/host, Mitch Kaplan, I read two poems from my debut collection, Cooking Lessons, with a host of other wonderful published writers from FIU's MFA program and also 2007 Graduates.

Back to the cruise ... my husband was a delight and should always be on vacation--he rested, walked, enjoyed tours, chatted with everyone, ate, drank and was merry, etc. The trip was super-duper great. How could it not be? We visited some interesting seacoast spots with incredible histories that we'd never been to in France, Portugal and Spain.

Before the cruise got underway, we were in London for two and a half days, and saw two shows--one comedy and one drama with Orlando Bloom, who really should stick to film! He did not have the best role, sorry to say. London, London!!! At its best. No rain, mild and balmy days. We walked all over Piccadilly and shopped in Marks & Spencer--me for cashmere sweaters (Otto ate my other ones from there!) FR for shirts and ties, and some Christmas gifts for Nico. We also got Nico a pair of Diesel jeans in Barcelona (he loves them--they're made in Italy) for his up-coming 28th birthday! How can that be possible? Especially because recently I had a dream that he was only turning three years old ...

We loved the sight-seeing in Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain. We went to Brouge and Ghent in Belgium and ate Belgian waffles and handmade chocolates from Chocolatier L. Van Hoorebeke!!! My choice was white, Felipe’s black—I wonder if, perhaps, that’s an indication of our souls??? In France we stopped at St. Malo, and found a lovely restaurant-brasserie "Noguette" at 9 Rue de la Fosse for moules. In La Rochelle we walked all over and ate like kings, dining on mussels, oysters, and crepes. In Portugal we visited many wonderful places--the shops were gorgeous--the clothes make our styles in the States look pathetic--they're so far ahead of us in couture. Lisbon is a huge city and with prices to match. In fact the Euro is killing the American dollar. We ate seafood galore!

In Spain we toured Cadiz, La Coruña, Malaga, Alicante and Barcelona--drank great red wines and ate delish fish, tapas, especially padrones--little fried green peppers topped with rock salt, (I make these home--but beside the green one, I use yellow, red and sometimes orange) and other goodies too numerous to mention! Needless to say, I'm going to the gym till I leave for Mexico! Must mention a little restaurant, El Dento, where I tasted and gleaned a new recipe for clams … almejas a la Francesa. I've already tired it out and made it once as an appetizer and once with pasta … yummy in the tummy! Recipe to follow … maybe even tomorrow. So tune in again soon to La Nina’s bloggerino.

A little note if you happen to be La Coruña—go to Mesón Augustin (It’s a Marisqueia—meaning, they serve mariscos, seafood.) This is also the wonderful stop that enriched my closet by one pair of exquisitely made shoes, a pair of “leather like butter” half boots for slacks, and one drop-dead–in-your-tracks leather shoulder bag. What can I say? Felipe’s wife has great taste. Obviously, I told him he can never retire. This was said not in jest—first of all because he’s got a mind like a trap, second because he has energy to toss away and would drive me nuts if he were home all the time—espeically when he hates to see me sitting at the computer. We currently share an office, affectionately known as the computer room--my computer, his room … (Reader, you do remember the title: A Room of one’s Own by Virginia Woolf—need I say more?)