the summer solstice has arrived, which means that farmers market season is in full gear. for californians, supporting local farms is more than just a matter of social conscience; it's a matter of being at the center of a social scene. spending your weekend at a farmers market and being able to tell your dinner guests, "these heirloom tomatoes are from dirty girl produce," has become the equivalent of "hip." it seems that the markets you shop at and the stalls you visit says as much about you as what bars you frequent on the weekends (hipster in the mission or yuppie in the marina?).
here in the bay area, the epicenter of the eat local and slow food movement, i have no shortage of options to pick from. on saturdays, the big question is, do i trek up to san francisco (which i'll call home starting august first!) and fight the crowds for some people watching and food sampling at the ferry plaza's saturday market or do i take it easy and bike to the palo alto market? the past two sundays, i've discovered the new california avenue farmers market, where i was introduced to two new cheeses: a fresh garlic curd and a sage cheddar from the spring hill cheese company in petaluma. it was love upon first taste and i'm thinking that they might be more than just a one-afternoon-stand.
social status aside though, i find great inspiration when strolling through the stalls of a farmers market. i always go with my "culinary ideas" book in hand to make sure all that inspiration is captured. there's something about being able to experience food in its natural form, fresh and in season, that allows me to imagine new flavor combinations and the taste of new recipes. to know where your food comes from, to have it sold to you by the people that have a direct relationship with what you're eating reconnects you to the earth's resources in a way that has been neglected for so long. the majority of americans stopped eating food a long time ago; instead, we've recreated manifestations of food that distorts and depurifies. for me, seeing the crowds at the markets makes me believe that there's hope for a revolution in the american diet. but even if you don't believe in all this eating local and organic social conscience bullshit, at least go for the social scene (oh, and the free samples - those don't hurt).
i was a history major back in college and so have always been intrigued by the spice trade and its profound impact on the course of world events. as a cook though, i've come to understand and appreciate spices in a different way. while the spice trade no longer carries the geopolitical influences it did in earlier centuries, the "globalization" of spices as it exists today has deeply influenced the way the world eats. chefs have never had as much access to the world's flavors in their kitchen as they do today.
on that saturday morning, koko who came to le sanctuaire from the dining room at the ritz carlton gave me a guided tour of tio's spice route. i started off my journey intoxicated by one of tio's many secret spice medleys. appropriately named aphrodisiac, i could only compare it to waking up to morning sex. my journey continued to a wide spectrum of salts. i happened to be in the market for finishing salts and after sampling about a dozen, settled on three by halen mon: 1) a traditional sea salt; 2) a vanilla flavored salt; and a 3) roasted sea salt. from salt, i naturally progressed to peppers sampling all of tio's homegrown crops as well as several others. the range of scents and shapes were wide: some were earthy; some were flowery; some were not even shaped like your typical peppercorn. by the end of my visit, i had opened up nearly every box of spice they carried and was overwhelmed with the possibilities for all the new flavors i had encountered and left excited about the new sensory playground i had discovered.
le sanctuaire is located on the fifth floor of 315 sutter street (@ grant). call 415-986-4216 to make an appointment for your tour of the hottest spice trade around these days.
i was raised to be a beer drinker. i
suspect that when i was born, my father set out on a mission to ensure that his
daughter would be different than all the other little chinese girls out there, commonly
known as the lightweights of the lightweights who prefer the fruitier cocktails.
looking at old family albums, there are several photos of me as a toddler
strategically situated next to a beer can. i can only assume this is my
father's doing. and well, his hard work paid off because until this day,
i consider myself a die-hard beer drinker over any other libation.
until this past year, i've remained my father's beer-drinking daughter.
i've scoffed at the snootiness of wine, all that jargon people throw around
when waxing the merits of a pinot noir over a merlot (and i suspect that over
half of them are just reciting paul giamatti’s lines in 2004’s sideways).
i imagined wine drinkers as people with names like "sir jeeves" who
sample 1987 bordeauxs (hmm, not even sure if '87 was a good vintage of bordeaux?). they
take grand dramatic sips of the stuff and after some thoughtful contemplation,
pronounce the emotional judgment of their taste buds: "yes, i feel we've
aged this bordeux just long enough to allow some of the tannins to subside
while exposing the ripeness of the grape which creates the most velvety
sensation on the tongue." me: "ahh yes, sir jeeves i do agree
with your titillating description. you've expressed my very same
thoughts!" ok, no, not really because i have no idea what you've
just said.
yes, i'll admit i was a bit wine ignorant (and probably still am). i
saw the world in grape or grain. you are either a wine drinker or a beer
drinker. wine drinkers took themselves too seriously (and had names like
sir jeeves). beer drinkers knew how to have a good time (and had names
like joe). who wouldn't want to be part of the latter group? but as
my food tastes have become more sophisticated, i've felt the social pressure to
venture into the world of wine. after
all, when was the last time you were at a fine dining establishment and they
handed you a beer list? my foray into the wine world has not been easy and
i can’t say i’ve gone all too willingly, fearing that i’ve been a traitor to my
roots (i took my father wine tasting in sonoma recently and he kept asking them, "so do you have any thing other than wine?" we are definitely not wine drinkers.). however, i have reached a point
where perhaps there is room on my table for both a pint and a wine glass.
on the other hand, wine seems to have watered down its reputation to appeal
to the regular joe. we can all walk into
a trader joe’s and get a decent bottle of wine for under ten bucks (some of my
favorites in the under ten crowd are: cellar #8’s 2004 merlot, twin fin’s 2004
pinot noir and 2005 hello my name is syrah). there’s even a wine blog called the budget vino, dedicated to reviewing wines under ten bucks. labels are becoming more fun and less stuffy.
wines with names like fat bastard fly
off the shelves. yes, it seems that the
world of wine has changed (for the better).
that’s why it was so refreshing to come upon a winery like quixote on a
recent trip to napa. quixote was started
in 1996 by carl doumani (previously of stags leap winery and also father of
lissa doumani of terra and ame) after he decided that napa was taking its place
in the wine world just a little bit too seriously. through quixote, doumani was able to recapture
the fun in wine again with the help of friedensreich hundertwasser an austrian architect. taking six years to build, quixote is
hundertwasser’s only design in the states and is well worth a look for its
playfulness and divergence from the rules of conventional architecture. from the color to the lack of straight lines,
the place is a bit alice in wonderland. for any of you who have
been to barcelona,
you will definitely be reminded of gaudi’s “what was he smoking?” style.
tucked away from the main silverado trail, quixote is a nice departure from
the chateau after chateau like structures that line napa’s main artery. tours and wine tasting can be arranged by
appointment through lew price (lew@quixotewinery.com), the general
manager. at no more than eight to a tour
and tasting group, the whole feel of quixote is personalized and intimate (but
never snooty). it's more of a museum tour than a winery tour if anything and on a nice day, the wine tasting happens outside with the pacific palisades as a backdrop. i could get used to this whole wine thing, eh? i even came out with two
bottles of the 2003 quixote petite syrah and two bottles of the 2004 panza claret, which may be one of the best wines i've ever tasted. i would describe it as a full bodied wine with just the right blend of spices and fruit. just kidding. i have no idea what it was except for really, really good.
dragging your ass to work on mondays. i know it's never easy. bidding farewell to the retreat of the weekend only to brave the heap of emails that awaits in your inbox. i understand and don't blame you for indulging in one more snooze cycle.
but no monday is harder than the monday after thanksgiving. it's not so much the dread of your inbox or even the return to the daily grind; it's more the, "how the hell am i supposed to haul the new ass cheek i've sprouted over the four day weekend to work?" issue. pants just feel a bit tighter. ok, a lot tighter. your body hasn't managed to resuscitate itself from the food coma you entered days ago. ahh . . . if this describes your monday, then you served your duty as an american on thanksgiving. but that still doesn't mean that this new ass cheek isn't going to be a problem. my advice is to break out the fat pants for now and deal with the "new ass cheek removal" as a new years resolution.
so knowing that most of you are either not ready to think about that thanksgiving spread you devoured on thursday (and then on friday and saturday in my case) or sick of reliving it, i'll offer you a respite and share my thanksgiving feast in a later entry. for now, i'll just share my latest travels and eats from my trip to tokyo.
i boarded my asia-bound flight from san francisco the week before thanksgiving for a five day business trip. sleep and tourism were unfortunately not on the work agenda, but i couldn't leave tokyo without sampling a few of its savories.
a woman serving japanese green tea in yoyogi park
i had been told by several friends that i would love eating in tokyo and not just the native offerings but everything that came out of a japanese kitchen, whether it was japanese or not. and they were right. while i've traveled to many cities in the world and love being in cities, tokyo radiated a unique energy i had never felt in any other city. though just as dense as any other large metropolis, the people of tokyo were incredibly polite, putting new yorkers to absolute shame (though new york city still keeps its number one spot on my favorite cities in the world list). the impeccable customer service reflected the high degree of quality taken in everything. commuting by foot in the mornings, i observed the order of a tokyo morning - men dressed in clean-cut dark suits and women donned in the moddest looks adorned by their perfectly painted faces walking in lockstep to their respective destinations.
old sake barrels in yoyogi park
these were people that cared about eating and cared about the quality of the food they ate. japanese culture emanated in every dish i was served. there, food was served with respect and care. i had heard that in japan, you don't need to go to a high-end restaurant to find high-quality food. after four short days of eating in tokyo, i echo this sentiment. with each dish that is placed in front of you, the attention to detail stands out. with each bite, the attention to quality becomes more and more apparent. although i was in japan, i found myself having three chinese meals. after all, i am not one to resist a steaming bowl of noodles and the soft bite of fresh dumplings. the chinese meals i ate reminded me of those that i had savored in shanghai and hong kong. i discovered the "xiao long bao," a delicate dumpling wrapper housing a delicate meat filling and a surprising spoonful of soup, in the small alleyways of shanghai. the xiao long bao found on the menu at "jin din rou" a cozy chinese dumpling house near tokyo's ebisu subway station delivered the same feeling of the soup dumplings i had discovered in shanghai.
how could you resist this dumpling?
my other meals in japan led me to shabu-shabu, chutoro that truly melts in your mouth, a traditional japanese lunchbox and even subway (which serves fries!). i will return to tokyo next week with a much longer list of culinary to-do's: a piping bowl of ramen (real ramen, not the ten cent bag of instant noodles variety), a bite of tender kobe beef, a trip to the tsukiji fish market, a search for a certified fugusushi chef, and feasts of many more things that i've never eat before.
i experienced japanese sushi way up in the sky on the 38th floor of the ebisu garden tower. the view is free and is a great way to see the texture of the city created by all the buildings. plus, there are many great restaurants on the 38th and 39th floors. i ordered up some chutoro, medium fatty meat found on the belly of the tuna.
real or not? ordering is made easy in most japanese restaurants with wax representations of many menu items
a small stand at the shibuya subway station featuring a spread of onigiri, hand sized rice balls with various fillings wrapped in seaweed
a young girl dressed in traditional japanese attire
a japanese wedding procession i witnessed while wandering to the meiji shrine
i know most of us feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything we need to, we want to get done done. we all wonder where the time goes. and we all wonder what in the hell we did with the time that passed. yes, this indeed is a problem i face often . . . but lately, i've been facing another problem. it's not there isn't enough time in the day . . . it's that there aren't enough meals in the day for me to cook everything that i've been wanting to cook. i keep a food journal. when my culinary musings happen upon a new recipe idea; my grocery lists for the past two years; a new restaurant that i want to try; a food term that i need to look up - all this gets written into the journal. a couple weeks ago, i sat down and started from page one and went through everything i've catalogued in that little book. going through my weekly grocery lists, i found a whole treasure trove of menus, dishes i've made in the past and now cannot wait to make again . . . and then there are the recipe ideas i jotted down that i still have not had a chance to test in my kitchen . . . and all the restaurants i meant to try at some point . . . and the experimentation i want to do with all the ingredients or cooking methods i had never heard of before . . . and then on top of all this, my cookbook collection keeps growing, my cooking magazines keep piling higher and higher . . . well, now you understand my dilemma? there just are not enough meals in the day for me to revisit the old favorites, attempt the new and get to all those restaurants. perhaps this is a dilemma faced by all food-lovers, of all chefs, professional and home but i must say, it's a damn good dilemma to be in.
i have not been on a plane in two weeks and that is a good feeling. i am hoping to stay local over the next few months, get back into the kitchen and address this problem best i can. i have a lot of food projects on my list. i hope to get to some of those old favorites, go through all the new cookbooks i've received over the past year, shed my title as a delinquent and absent blogger and expand "the petite pig" enterprise in general. if any of you out there have ideas on the direction of "the petite pig," shoot me an email. i'd love to hear your thoughts. it's a lot to take on, combating both this time and meals problem but i'll keep you posted on how i do. after all, the food network is long behind me and it's time to find the next food challenge. hot-dog eating contest anyone?
even though i cannot get enough of the sunny california weather, being an east-coast transplant i definitely do miss the feeling of seasons, especially this time of year when the dog days of summer are over and the crisp autumn air has just arrived. back east, this is the time when the trees have reached their richest golden, blood orange hues, and there is not a more picturesque time to enjoy the outdoors. so even though the transition from summer to fall is not evident from just being outdoors in california, i have begun to notice it at the local markets. we are seeing the last of our summer corn, peaches and heirloom tomatoes. they will soon be replaced with pomegranates, squashes and sweet potatoes.
i felt that without the apparent goodbye to summer and welcome to autumn weather from back east, the best way to experience this annual ritual out here in california was through food. so this past sunday, i hosted a "farewell to summer/hello to autumn" dinner for a couple of friends. thinking about the menu, i knew i had to have heirloom tomatoes for the "farewell to summer" part" as i will miss them most as we head into the cooler months of fall. i also could not leave out the sweetness of summer corn, which brings me right back to every summer in maryland where my family's chesapeake bay blue crab fests would always be accompanied by a bushel of buttered summer corn. slap some old bay seasoning on both and you have exactly what summer is all about in maryland. as for the autumn side of the menu, all i could think about was thanksgiving dinner. to me, the thanksgiving dinner table is what autumn produce is all about: pumpkin and apple pie, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes. i finally decided on a duo of risottos featuring some of the best of both seasons. to represent the summer, i chose to use one of my favorite risotto recipes from peter berley's the modern vegetarian kitchen substituting heirlooms for the regular tomatoes the recipe calls for. for autumn, i created a new recipe featuring three of my fall favorites: parsnips, sweet potatoes and yams. served alongside jamie oliver's pot-roasted pork in white wine with garlic, fennel and rosemary (found on page 172 of happy days with the naked chef) and finished with apple strudel a la mode, i think i found a new way to let go of summer and welcome autumn, even if it still is eighty-degrees outside.
jess' autumn risotto
serves 4
ingredients:
1 1/2 quart chicken stock 2 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons brown sugar 1 medium sized parnsip, sweet potato and yam diced into equal sized pieces 1 medium sized white onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 cup arborio rice 1/2 cup chardonnay 1/2 cup parmesan cheese parsley, minced for garnish
in a medium-sized saucepan, heat chicken stock to boil. keep at a constant boil.
heat saute pan over medium heat. add 1 tablespoon butter. when butter has melted, add brown sugar. stir until sugar has dissolved. add diced parsnips, sweet potatoes and yams. cook for about 10 minutes or until vegetables become tender. set aside.*
reheat saute pan over medium heat. add remaining butter. when butter has melted, add diced onions and minced garlic. cook until onions are translucent. add arborio rice and coat with cooked onions. add wine and stir. when rice has absorbed all the wine, add 1 cup of hot chicken stock at at time, stirring and allowing rice to absorb liquid between adding more chicken stock.** continue until risotto is al dente, tender but still with a bite to it. add diced parsnips, sweet potatoes and yams back right before risotto is done. fold in about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. serve with parsley and remaining parmesan cheese.
*i like to cook these root vegetables outside of the risotto to create a sweet caramelization which adds a bit of sweetness to your autumn risotto. **i like to add a good sprinkle of salt with each addition of chicken stock to give the risotto a deeper flavor.
strangely for someone that was on reality television, i do not think very highly of the whole genre. however, there are certain reality tv shows out there that are just so damn tempting to watch. i was flying jet blue last week from washington, d.c. to long beach, california and indulged in a top chef marathon on bravo. okay, so top chef came out about the same time as the next food network star and i am probably going to be viewed as a traitor (and probably also violating 100 of the 1,000 clauses in my food network contract) for saying this but i would much rather watch an episode of top chef any day. this is not to say i would have rather been on top chef instead of the next food network star. if i was eaten alive on the food network, i would have been thrown into a meat-grinding machine to be made into human sausage for consumption by blood-thirsty vultures on bravo. but the two shows are inherently different. one is about food and the other about personality. one is lo0king for a chef and the other is looking for an entertainor.
i'll admit i tuned into the first episode of top chef last spring. i was intrigued to see what we were up against ratings wise. after one episode, i had had enough. i hated the shit-talking, the egoes, the pricks and the typical "chef" attitude. i did not watch another episode for the rest of the season but while watching this marathon, i realized if you can ignore the reality tv contrived personalities and just concentrate on the food, the dishes that were created on top chef were pretty incredible and those final few were talented chefs. the purpose of top chef is not about teaching the home chef how to cook. it is about top-notch gourmet cooking. in the final three episodes of the competition that i caught in this marathon, i saw some of the best chefs in america talk about food and for that alone, the show is well worth watching. i had just recently dined at ame the very talked about new "it" restaurant in san francisco opened by chefs hiro sone and lissa doumani and there they were on television, critiquing dave martin's black truffle mac and cheese (which i'm making this week because who can so no to the decadence of truffles complimented by the simple comfort of mac 'n cheese?). to have a show that brings together america's top culinary talents, the likes of michael mina and hubert keller, is no small deal and is well worth checking out. and if you happen to also like the shit-talking that goes on on the show, all the power to you and reality tv. while it'll be hard for them to top the culinary cast that participated in season one, i'm sure they will. it is reality tv after all. just when you think it's subsiding, it always manages to give you more. i just hope the nice guy wins again.
i was recently reading josh friendland's blog "the food section" (which definitely deserves a bookmark in any foodie's internet browser) when i came across his post "this is how we roll" where he talks about a cookbook that i am sure many of us own, the silver spoon. i am certain that all of us italian food lovers rushed out to grab our very own copy of this italian food bible when it came onto bookshelves last year. friendland aptly writes: "how many of you cookbook collectors out there picked up a copy of the silver spoon last year only to leave the behemoth languishing on your bookshelf to gather dust? i confess that i did."
well, i am guilty as well. since acquiring the italian cookbook of all cookbooks, i have been more than afraid to take it off the shelf. the sheer weight of the book has been deterrance enough but combined with the task of actually choosing one dish from the thousands and thousands of recipes would certainly cause a minor heart attack. however, my boyfriend tim (a food celebrity in his own right for competitive eating skills that could rival the japanese), being both physically stronger and emotionally braver than me, lugged the cookbook off the shelf last weekend on my birthday to find a gnocchi recipe. well he found about 100 but chose the basic gnocchi so that we could recreate one of the first meals we made together over three years ago. even though the gnocchi you make at home might not be the melt in your mouth experience you might get at your local italian joint, creating gnocchi from scratch not only satisfies the guilty pleasure of returning to your childhood play-doh playing days but also gives that much more satisfaction with each bite, knowing you made this as a labor of love and didn't just boil those frozen dumplings from trader joe's (although those are pretty damn good to have on hand too). so that night in celebration of my twenty-five years of life we ate our homemade gnocchi dressed in pesto. ok, so i definitely could use a food mill or a potato ricer in my kitchen, but there's nothing wrong with biting into a small chunk of potato in your gnocchi - after all, that is what they are made of! anyhow, sitting there that night to dinner, filling our bellies with our heaping plates of pesto-ed gnocchi, i remembered the reason i bought that book in the first place - to remind me of the many authentic italian meals i enjoyed in italy - and i promised myself it wouldn't be another year before i pulled that behemoth off the shelf again.
and then some crazy thought crossed my mind. what if i attempted the julie and julia challenge with the silver spoon? alright, i'd probably have to give myself a good 10 years as opposed to just the one that julie powell had to conquer every recipe in julia child's mastering the art of french cooking but if i was able to complete this daunting challenge, i really will have mastered the art of italian cooking as it just might include every conceivable italian dish ever. anyway, when i picked up that book again, i was quickly reminded of how heavy it was, and my crazy idea quickly subsided back into crazy-ville but hey, it was a thought . . . any takers out there?
although the primary subject of "the petite pig" is food, every once in awhile there are issues i feel that are so important that they span the scope of all subjects. the environment is one of them - nothing we do could exist without it. we couldn't grow the food we cook with, we couldn't blog, we couldn't breathe the air that we do to live. while this entry takes a slight tangent from my regular food entries, i still hope you read on, because this has nothing to do with being an evironmentalist but it has everything to do with caring about the world we live in. so please excuse me while i step onto my soapbox.
i was recently in maryland at home with my family, spending some much owed quality time with my family. i had left for europe for my latest project right around the time that al gore's "an inconvenient truth" came out to theatres but the movie remained on the top of my "to-see when i return to the states" list. so when my brother and i were trying to decide on what movie to see one hot-humid DC evening, it was the first movie i suggested. we headed to downtown bethesda and had dinner at one of my favorite local chains cafe deluxe, where the menu combines your homestyle favorites with a shot of urban sophistication. after our cheeseburgers and fries, we headed to my favorite theatre in the area bethesda row cinema where one can always count on finding the latest indie release.
for those of you who have not heard about "an inconvenient truth," it is a movie based on a lecture that gore gives about global warming. it is no romance but it is heartbreaking nonetheless. as the facts are stated, you can't help but feel a sense of hopelessness about the situation that faces our environment, that faces us. the future is bleak with the burgeoning economies of india and china and the continuing neglect of the climate by the current us administration. this movie documents gore, before and since the 2004 elections, traveling around the world delivering the message that global warming is happening and unless we do something about it, the world that we leave behind will be one much less desired. his stories show evidence of what is happening both north and south of us in the poles. average temperatures around the world are increasing. glaciers are melting. animals are dying. water levels are increasing. natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding and drought are more and more frequent and prevalent. we are changing the ecosystem through our actions. but perhaps the most dire slide he showed was what will happen to much of our landmass if water levels keep on increasing the way they have been. our world map makers will have to produce a much different picture.
and how does this apply to cooking? every time you decide to cook something, you are using energy. but does this mean i'm going to scrap my love of cooking. no, but we can make choices that will reduce our energy consumption in the kitchen. and by doing so, you usually save yourself time and money. i usually find myself cooking for no more than two people and it does not make sense to spend the time preheating a full-sized oven. usually my toaster oven provides more than enough space to roast vegetables or fishes. for more tips on how to save energy in your kitchen, check out these links:
and there are many, many more choices we can make to help the environment or offset our choices that do harm the environment. in the past three months, i've taken 27 flights, traveling about 37,500 miles. for each mile traveled, an airplane emits about 340 grams of carbon dioxide into the air. yes, carbon emissions from airplanes are significant and are probably a huge contributor to global warming; however, instead of not being able to take that family vacation or not being able to attend that business trip across the world, you can choose to offset your carbon emissions through a variety of organizations. most are listed here in the carbon emissions offset directory. the money you contribute will be used to carbon offsetting projects taking place around the world.
my purpose is not to preach. by no means am i an animal rights activist or an environmentalist. if i was i'd be joining the likes of peta and greenpeace marching on their respective streetcorners. however, this does not mean that i cannot be conscious of what is going in the world around us. it does not mean that i cannot think about the decisions i make on a day-to-day basis and make decisions that hopefully prevent the destruction of this earth rather than cause it. you do not have to believe a word i say - you can see the movie for yourself and the facts for yourself at a local theatre near you. because at the end of the day, you don't have to believe in global warming. you just have to want to leave this world a better place for your children and their children and the many generations to come that will inherit either the destruction we have caused or the positive change that we have effected. it is your choice.
and with that, this foodie steps off of her soapbox and returns to her normal food-blogger duties. thanks for reading. thanks for thinking. thanks for believing.
i knew shortly after landing at schiphol airport in that i would not be impressed by dutch food. i arrived in holland three weeks ago. bleary eyed and caked with a thick film of stale airplane air, i stumbled off my red-eye flight from jfk hungry and desperate for something to eat. i wasn't exactly excited for my first encounter with dutch food as i had been warned by many europeans that dutch cuisine wasn't, well, exactly something to get excited about. i walked around and around the airport surveying all my options. the problem wasn't so much that there weren't options; there were. the problem was more that none of them were appealing options. i finally settled on what appeared to be an italian deli. there were paninis and pasta salad and i quickly settled on a mozzarella-tomato-basil panini. it didn’t seem like something you could really mess up that bad but unfortunately i was wrong. there was not even a trace of italian-ness in this bad excuse for a hot italian sandwich. i was served two slices of a half-ripe tomato with some hard chewy cheese slapped onto a cold ciabatta – hardly the oozing-with-fresh-mozzarella-emanating-with-the-fresh-aroma-of-basil-hot-sandwich i was anticipating. but beggars can’t be choosers, and i was hungry. i managed to get 2/3rds of the sandwich down before i just gave up.
i knew this was just going to be a small preview of my future meals in holland. since then, my lunches have consisted of ham on a baguette, yogurt and a banana. it seems that “taste” is not a top priority for food around here; after all, the dutch can slap a hardboiled egg on a piece of rye bread and call that a meal. however, i have been become a huge fan of the dutch herring, which was introduced to me by a dutch colleague of mine in the cafeteria one day. this traditional dutch fare is the cause of celebration every may when the fishing season starts and the festivities begin. the herring is cured in brine and then eaten raw. the taste is strong and reminds me a lot of anchovies but has a much silkier texture. the dutch way of eating it involves taking the it by the tail and lowering it into your mouth while chomping down on the little fish. it is also often topped with diced raw onions and pickles or eaten with rye bread.
so, after a long work week in holland and many a bland-dutch lunches, i look forward to my weekends back in where there’s always a new restaurant to try out or a new food festival to attend. this weekend, i made my way to the east of the city, taking the district line to aldgate east where a sea of bangledeshi, paskitani and indian restaurants await just blocks away on brick lane; where tables and tables of cheap housewares and south asian goods fill brick lane market; where stalls of cheap ethnic food, vintage wear and artisan crafts are tucked away in alleyways and emptied warehouses. this sunday, i went and explored everything that brick lane had to offer sampling and savoring my weekend break from my weekday lunches.
a sea of south asian restaurants line brick lane in the east of london
i am a sucker for cupcakes and these from "crumbs & doilies" kick magnolia's ass (sorry to all those magnolia fans out there)
tropical salads that have you transported to the caribbean upon first bite
let this man teach you how to crack into a juicy coconut (he looks like he knows what he's doing)
where you can get a filling of curry along alongside a filling of run dmc blasting from the speakers
i helped myself to a huge helping of their tortillas espanola (one of my favorite spanish tapas) and my first cadiz salad, a salad consisting of kidney beans, diced gherkins, red peppers, tuna and dill
crepe making and sushi making all in one place? from france to japan all in one market.
