Morning Sex

Sheets of French toast

With freckles of an unrecognizable herb

Drenched in maple syrup

And lavishly coated with European-style butter

When folded and forked into the mouth

Is as if a sandwiched spin-off of a croquembouche.

Strawberry Jam

When I think of strawberries I picture:

1.   Straw hats and checkered shirts;

2. Cloudy-haired Edward in "Pretty Woman" calling room service to order strawberries & champagne;

3.  Deana Carter's song that tells the story of a girl making love to a college boy under the hot July moon.

I love berries, and as dumb as it may sound, I think my taste was greatly influenced by a picture book called "Jamberry" that I owned as a kid. The book had a bunch of catchy rhymes of this sort:

Under the bridge

And over the dam

Looking for berries

Berries for jam

Which made it fun to read out loud over and over again.

Berries are such fun snacks.

Bite sized, hassle-free,  citrus bursts.

:-)

But if I had to live with only one type of berries, these would unquestionably be strawberries.

Breakfast for Dinner

There is something ever so exquisite about executing activities that are meant for a specific occasion, at random hours of the day and unthought of seasons within a year:

Like singing Christmas carols in mid-May;

Like craving for birthday cake everyday of the year except for on your birthday;

Like going to the movie theater at 11a.m.;

Like eating icecream for breakfast, and breakfast for dinner;

Like listening to iHeartRadio's "Before Breakfast" podcast way past bedtime...

Traditionalists are surely to frown-upon such disorderly behaviour, but we thirty-something-year-olds are too headstrong to care.

White Chocolate

Isn't it strange that someone's opinion on white chocolate is so difficult to predict?
You see, a person who has a sweet tooth will not neccesarily have an inclination towards white chocolate,

neither is it assured that someone who's favourite ice cream flavour is (plain brown) chocolate is likely to also be fond of white chocolate. 

Recently I talked to a friend who said he was simply indifferent to it -- which drove me crazy. I am a  strong believer that the human tongue is inevitably biased 100%, i.e., there cannot be flavour you just shrug-to-and-move-on, you either love it or hate it,

you either wince or grin,

you either go "mmmm" or "ugh",

even a bland "okay" is an inclination. 

Sweet Earthiness

If there is one thing that I make the most out of having a Netflix subscription is of their wide selection of documentaries- my favourite are those related to wildlife and environmental awareness; however, if I were to give out star stickers to my top 3 most enjoyed food documentaries, these would be:

1) Mind of a Chef, only season 1 (David Chang)

2) Chef's Table, season 4 (pastry)

3) For Grace

I make emphasis on Chef's Table season four because the child-like spirit that shines through the jolly eyes of these pastry chefs as they tell their stories-- is light-heartedly poetic and soothing, in such a way that they make me want to let out a sigh of relief (An 'I am not alone' kind of sigh) regarding a small concern I carry in the backburner my mind . See, I am in my early thirties yet my childlike nature is ever-so-present in my day to day: I still love a lot of the same things, with the same enthusiasm, as I did as a kid: trampolines, trees, tadpoles, cherry flavoured anything, dandelions, getting wet in the rain...

And sand or dirt. 

My fondest childhood memory of sand took place in my friends Petty and Tony's enormous verandah. They had a wonderful pile of sand, enough for the three of us to bury ourselves and/or even make a life-sized jacuzzi. After an untimed afternoon of squirming around endlessly in the sand, as soon as we'd done washing, I remember their mom putting milky, cool, Nivea lotion on our arms and calves. Till this very day, the scent of Nivea lotion remains a synonym of playing in the sand to me.

Oil and Crunch - Part II

(Please find Part I here ).

For both fried plantains as for fried corn nuts, the biggest appeal of making them is in attesting and identifying their different stages of transformation by the shade of yellow they wear. They both start out a pale yellow, equivalent to the ideal colour of homemade mayonnaise; subsequently they mimick both sunshine and sunflowers to finally end in, not the hues of a sunset, but bearing the tonalities of precious metals: plantains mimicking gold, and corn nuts in the perfectly imperfect tinge between gold and copper. 

You can find the recipe for Fried Plantains in the link above, whereas in this post we shall proceed with making: 

Fried Corn Nuts

Oil and Crunch - Part I

When I was a six year old I had at least 99+ things I was scared of, but my biggest fears were
Red-rover,
Fire
and
Hot oil.

I haven't played  Red-rover since 1995 so I can't say for sure if I've overcome the phobia for this violent game, but at thirty-one summers, I can proudly pat myself on the back for having become somewhat friendly with fire and hot oil.  This is marvelous news for both of us (yes, you the reader and me, the recipe writer), since it means a whole wild world to explore and experiment. Some finger-licking deep-fried staples I dream of having in my repertoire are:

The crispiest and savouriest chicken wings;

The warmest  Bolivian buñuelos;

The most granny-remindering Yakgwa;

and

The secret recipe to Crispy Creme's doughnuts.

Cooking with Acid

The other day, I was talking to an old seredipitous friend (I might sketch a wordy portrait of him in a future post but for now I'll describe him as: a sage hundred year old tree living inside a vigilante) about the simple things in life regarding which we have the misconception that they are complex-  as if tied to special requirements (ingredients, techniques, skills, expertise), when really, the only obstacle holding us from mastering it is our own obstinate fear for the unknown. 

Like making homemade peanut butter

Or 

Understanding how a washing machine works.

Cooking school has made me so much braver in this sense.

I am by no means an expert but after a year of studying culinary techniques, what I can confidently guarantee is that it takes a first time to understand and lose 70% of the initial fear (messing-up phobia). And after that... it just takes practice.

The Perks of Eating Alone

In Korean there is an abbreviated term called "혼밥" (pronounced Hon-bab; literal translation 혼: alone 밥: rice/meal), that I've heard people refer to as if it's something pitiful yet unfortunately inevitable. 

I remember watching part of a documentary that takes place in Japan. The camera leads you into a restaurant, where it captures a long table with cubicle-like divisions with dimensions just big enough to fit a sitting average-adult male. The heighty sides of each cubicle are meant to give the person occupying the space privacy and a fort from prying eyes. A man huddled into a bowl of steamy soup is approached by the camera-man and asked how he feels about eating alone- he shrugs and says that with his tight work schedule he has no other option than to eat a fast lonely meal. 

The camera distances itself away from this man, as a female voice narrates on how nowadays more and more people have alone-meals and that restaurants adapt their infrastructure so as to accomodate these "single" customers. The documentary seems to allude that eating alone, or alone-time in general, is an unwanted condition. 

Personally?
I disagree  with the universalized approach to drape a negative veil upon "Alone Time", particularly and especially on eating alone.

Leche Frita

If there is one thing I admit to liking more about the pastry world than the savoury-cooking world it is in the names of desserts, just to mention a few of my faves:

Éclair.

Baked Alaska.

Charlotte.

Fool.

Gelato.

Palmier.

Syllabub.

Bananas Foster.

But, my most recent favourite is: "Lecha Frita".

The beauty I see in it is that it's a paradoxical euphony not only in the etymological sense but in its raison d'etre as a smile-boosting delicacy.

The Silver-lining of Scarcity

I grew up loving raw fish and dried squid while living in a landlocked, third world country. How? My dad made it possible and my mama made it delicious. As a kid I learnt that food-wise there were no boundaries, one could always find a way to eat exquisitely.  As of today, I still live in South America (yet not anymore in a landlocked country) where Asian products are smuggled through the border with Peru; where (real) Worcestershire Sauce (we had what was locally produced and labelled as “Salsa Inglesa”, which personally wasn’t much different from the bottle next to it on the supermarket shelves called “Salsa China”) and Horseradish Sauce have entered the market only recently, and Sriracha is only found occasionally in “ramen” shops (note: I use the quotations because the “ramen” here is either a joke or an offense i.e., anything but close to the traditional soulful stuff); however, this didn’t ever stop me from trying out recipes that included these ingredients- one can always find creative alternatives and solutions.

I recently visited a friend in Vancouver and flushed with embarrassment as my friend saw me stuff my bags with bottles and jars of: Sriracha sauce, pumpkin spice, old spice, vanilla extract and (oh God) not to mention the mustard seeds. I felt so self-conscious- as if I was caught in public with holes in my pantyhose or spinach in between my front teeth; as if I  was a school girl wearing a dress that showed off my scabby knees.

Food Writing

I am absolutely, totally, for surely smitten with the fact that "FOOD WRITING" is a thing.

It is such a well-deserved category on its own, not as mere "Cookbooks" or "Recipe books" but as a mini literary genre of its own.

On my trip to Vancouver I visited Macleod's Books, a second hand bookstore that's every book-hungry bookworm's playground. There's an expression in Spanish that goes 'feliz como una lombriz' (literal translation: happy as an earthworm, or perhaps equivalent to the English: happy as a clam) which perfectly describes my emotional status during my visit- even the bookshop owner was annoyed at my idiotic non-stop grinning and constant 'Oooh's and 'Aaah's.