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.

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.

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.