Smoked Tofu Curry Noodle

I spent the first beautiful weekend of summer in Ithaca, NY. Between hiking, ultimate frisbee, and yoga, I had a little bit of time to check out the local food co-op and grocery store.

Ithaca is home to a thriving vegetarian scene, including the landmark Mosewood Restaraunt, so I couldn’t wait to try the locally made organic tofu I found. Each individually-wrapped, golden brown block of Ithaca Soy Tofu-Kan cost around $2.00, and came marinated, baked and ready to eat.

After using it in this recipe, I fell in love with this ingredient.

The Cheapskate’s Guide to Puerto Rico: Part II

Pinones

A short drive east from San Juan on coastal route 187 is the beach town of Piñones. Freed and escaped sugarcane plantation slaves founded Piñones with the help of native Tainos, and Afro-Carribbean culture and pride still run strong. At my first roadside stop, I watched a bomba dancer in a long skirt and bare feet command the rhythms of conga drummers with the movement of her hips.

Piñones is also where immigrants from the Dominican Republic settled in the 60’s and 70’s. Therefore, the first half of the town consists of Dominican clubs and restaurants, and the second half are Puerto Rican. You can drive up and down the strip at night, sampling both tastes, rhythms, and accents.

The Cheapskate’s Guide to Puerto Rico: Part I

My good friend is leaving for Puerto Rico today, so to follow through on a last minute promise, here is my version of what’s good in Puerto Rico–to eat, see, and enjoy–based on the three months I lived there in 2007. The first installment is about an area of San Juan I frequented regularly:

Santurce

On Thursday and Friday nights, the bars surrounding this market plaza are so packed with locals that the crowds spill out into the street, where they dance to live music, gather around tables with beers and fried seafood, and socialize beneath the large trees that line the plaza. I was there about twice a week, but it was usually at midday, instead of midnight.

This is because the Placita de Santurce is also home to a farmer’s market where you can find the best fresh fruits and veggies in the city. Inside the plaza’s turn-of-the-century structure, you can find everything from red bananas to yellow avocados. One vendor sells exotic herbs like yerbabuena, wild tarragon, and Puerto Rican lemongrass—all especially good for flavoring cocktails like mojitos.

My favorites from the Placita: guamas de la india, platanos, papaya, bananas and pineapple.

Another yummy add-in for mojitos is my favorite Puerto Rican fruit: guama de la India. Native guamas grow on trees, inside large green pods that look like giant peas. But in the summer, they are out of season, so, to keep up with year-round demand, another kind of guama tree was imported from India. Its fruit looks like an orange teardrop with tender white flesh inside—and the taste is like nothing else. It has the fresh, pine-y taste of juniper berry, the tartness of lychee, and the sweetness of Muscat grapes. You can’t go to PR without trying one…or twenty.

The Ramirez family sells guamas at their large stand in the center of the market. They also sell rum bottles full of homemade aji (spicy pepper sauce), which make for great souvenirs.

Exotic Cupcakes Win Hearts in Brooklyn

Monday night I participated in the pro division of the Brooklyn Kitchen Third Annual Cupcake Cookoff. Although I did not take home the title, it was more than worth the week long preparation that went into my three entries to meet such cool people and feel the thrill of competition running through my veins for the first time since, I dunno, my JV basketball tournament in 10th grade.

Originally, I planned to make cupcakes that could compete in the exotic flavor category. But two days before the competition I found out that as a pro, I was not eligible for any of the themed categories. I would be competing against 5 other pros in a “may the best man win” battle. I went ahead with my exotic themed cupcakes, which may have been a mistake, since the cupcakes that won–while super yummy–were more traditional.

A crowd favorite, all 3 batches of my Sweet Potato Cupcake with Chai Buttercream, Chocolate Rum Drizzle and Pistachio disappeared halfway through the competition...the first of any of the 5 pro competitors!

My idea for the Sweet Potato Cupcake with Chai Frosting came to me days before the competition. It popped into my head while I was in the shower.

My friend Sara had just come back from India, and the first thing I had grilled her about was chai tea. She told me that the best chai in India is sold by chaiwallas (tea peddlers) on trains. They get on the train when it pulls into the station, sell the tea they just brewed, and get off before the train departs.

Calling All Cupcake Addicts!

Last minute last minute last minute. I will be competing in the third annual Brooklyn Kitchen cupcake cookoff tomorrow. There will be a full play by play recap of the action on my blog after the fact, but if you want to get in on the action, eat all the cupcakes your belly can handle, and party in the process, be at Union Pool tomorrow night!

Union Pool
484 Union Avenue
Williamsburg

7-9 PM Monday, May 11th 2009

XOXO Hope to see you there! Anita

Trini-PR Plate

This is my plate at Jean’s family gathering in Miami, at his uncle’s house. He is Puerto Rican and his wife is Tranidadian so it is REAL!!

Yellow rice, grilled fish with pepper sauce, yuca, fried plantain, green mango,and salad!

Apples and Oranges

I have been buying lots more fruits and veggies lately, and even though they require more prep work than the “health food” I ate through the winter i.e. frozen vegan pizza, chickenless nuggets and oatmeal cookies…my produce keeps me, and my fridge, feeling prettier inside.

Getting food ready the minute you get home from the store–before you even know what’s for dinner–makes home cooking so much easier. With a colander, a good knife, a cutting board, and 20 minutes, you’ll have ready to use produce for all kinds of recipes, and instant snacking…all week long.

Here are some examples:

1. This bunch of thyme is sitting in a glass filled with 1/2″ of water, and covered by a plastic bag that is fastened around the glass with a rubber band. Small bunches of herbs will keep like this for over a week.
2. These grapes were removed from their flimsy bag, rinsed, and transfered to an airtight container that used to hold cookies. SNACK READY.
3. Celery sticks. Someone once told me you burn more calories chewing them than you do consuming them. Notice they are strategically placed next to the tofu cream cheese. Just slice the bottom off a bunch of celery, rinse the stalks, cut into sticks. Save the leaves for making soup.
4. These strawberries and tomatoes are just rinsed and put back into their containers, because I eat them whole. I know, BORING.
5. Eggs are stored inside the fridge, never in the door. According to Harold McGee, the constant agitation of opening and closing thins out the egg whites. In my house, that egg would spread from here to the Mississippi.
6. Tofu. To drown or not to drown? Some say cover it in water to store.
7. I am so against gadgetry. But this “salad globe” is awesome! You just chop the base off a head of lettuce, any kind, rinse the leaves, and transfer to the globe. There are ridges in the bottom that drain water away from the leaves so they don’t get soggy, but the water’s still there, providing moisture. Leafy greens stay crisp for a week! And it looks like Saturn!
8. A trick I learned from the Thais: to keep basil fresh for days, rinse thoroughly, strip leaves off their stems, shake off excess moisture, and store in a folded-over paper bag. It is so much fun to watch my boyfriend open the bag, thinking there is a burrito or something inside.
9. Keep some things un-prepped so that you don’t eat everything right away. I will cut up the mango and the melon later in the week.

This Is Adorable

Seared Tuna with Salsa and Kabu + Grapefruit Salad,

In the past week, I have realized, through conversations with two people, that I need to post more of my everyday meals. This is why: For me, most often what I make to eat is a product of whatever happens to be sitting in my fridge…or whatever looked fresh, was cheap, and/or I was craving at the market. Therefore, I didn’t see it as “worth it” to talk about it on my blog because a bunch of random stuff thrown together was no big deal.

But what I learned in those two conversations is that not everyone can do what I do, as I’d assumed before. Some people believe you need:

a. a recipe

b. a set list of ingredients

c. a whole day’s preparation

d. food expertise

in order to cook. It’s just not true!

Fish Head Curry

The best curry I ever had was made of fish heads. It was with Jean, two years ago, at the Banana Leaf in the Little India section of Singapore. I liked this place a lot. For one thing, we ate off of banana leaves instead of plates. And instead of utensils, we followed local custom and used our hands to eat.

We started off messy, but then copied a group of businessmen seated nearby, using our fingers to roll compact balls of curry-sopped rice. I felt like a child learning to use a fork for the first time, and that was big fun.

Notice, in the above picture, the small pile of bones on the corner of Jean’s leaf. In the USA, fish heads are what we throw away. But they are so meaty! I heard somewhere that the most tender flesh in the fish is at the back of the “scull,” and it is true. Like soup cooked with bone-in, skin-on, fatty chicken vs. soup cooked with cubes of white breast meat, fish head curry is ten times more flavorful than any other fish I’ve ever tried.

I lived around cities my whole life, where food came from the supermarket, from restaurants, or machines. We had an aversion to the whole animal approach to food. Gizzards, eyeballs, bones and blood were considered “dirty” food. We only used the breast of the chicken, the filet of the fish, and the ‘mignon’ of beef: the cutest cuts for the most proper presentation.

But now, with the whole “snout to tail” (or is it tail to snout?) philosophy gaining popularity, we are reaching back into the theoretical garbage can to reclaim lost treasures. Marrow bones have become a menu must. A new cookbook features bacon fat cookies. Headcheese is on the rise. On my first day at a new job, the chef made summer rolls with leftover crispy duck skin…they were to die for.

So, city or country; trend or tradition; Stateside or Singapore; have your fish– and eat it, too.