Category: Food

Calexico with The Wandering Foodie

Before I get down to the nitty-gritty of my Thailand trip, let me just get you up to speed on the past week. So, I roll back into town, and it’s the middle of winter. That’s bad, but what’s even worse is that I have no appetite: American food seems pallid, bland and joyless. Peter and I hole up in our house and make spicy noodles to console ourselves.

A few days after this rough transition, I finally go outside to meet Hagan Blount, aka the Wandering Foodie, at the Calexico cart in SoHo. I go because 1) Hagan seems like a maniac in the best way: He has voluntarily scheduled an entire month of NYC restaurant eating, breakfast, lunch and dinner, which comes out to 93 plates. It sounds exactly like one of my guidebook research trips, except a little longer.

Also, 2) I’m curious about Calexico, because I want there to be more Mexican food everywhere in New York City. If we can’t have giant Thai food courts, we can at least foster our neighbors to the south, who make almost as amazing colorful and tasty fresh food. (Whenever I come back from Mexico, I feel color and flavor withdrawal–like post-Thailand, but a little more mild.) My major complaint with Mexican food in NYC is that the tacos are too gigantic. A taco should be a snack, not a meal.

Calexico sets up shop right where I used to work (back when I had a job! Like, in the last century!), at Prince and Wooster, next to the Camper store. Great location. Uh. If it weren’t pouring rain, that is. It was raining so hard that our basement flooded, which made me late to meet Hagan. But, as if the gods were smiling on our foolhardy lunch, the sky was dry by the time we got there.

Calexico touts its carne asada–spiced grilled beef. So we ordered some of that in a quesadilla, which came with “crack” chipotle sauce. Oy. This treads dangerously close to Mexi restos with giant sombreros for decor. But anyway. Also loaded up on a chicken taco and a pork taco. And a side of guac.

starbuxThen we retired to the nearest Starbucks to eat. I love how, since Starbucks has saturated the landscape, they’ve basically been forced into becoming quasi-public spaces. This Starbucks, at the corner of West Broadway and Houston, was inhabited by a crew of older Italian gentlemen in cardigan sweaters, who weren’t really drinking anything, just shooting the shit. It reminded me of the Greek guys in the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner in my nabe. It’s kind of like how the spot on which a temple used to exist continues to be holy, even if it’s occupied by an office park.

After ordering token teas, we shamelessly spread out our lunch and proceeded to sample.

Chicken taco: Totally meh. Soggy. I’m trying to cut back on factory-farmed meat, and this taco made it very easy for me. I had a couple bites and left it. And as usual, tacos are gigantic and bursting out of their corn tortillas. Mess.

Pork taco: Better. Nice grilled flavor. Drier, too, so everything holds together better.

Carne asada quesadilla: Total rainy day pleasure. I probably wouldn’t have gone to town on it in the same way on a sunny day, but in the gray and damp, the oozy melted cheese hit the spot. And the carne asada had some nice herbalicious treatment that the other meats lacked. This basically said, “Dude, we told you we specialized in carne asada–why did you even order those other things?”

“Crack” chipotle sauce, in case you’re wondering, is just chipotle mayo. Or maybe chipotle sour cream. Anyway, chipotle in something gooey. Also a good rainy-day pleasure, but not life-wreckingly addicting. No turning tricks in alleys for this stuff, that’s for sure. Oh, and the guac–forgettable. I honestly can’t remember what I thought about it.

Overall, Calexico made me a little depressed about the state of Mexican food in NYC. When I saw David Chang speak at B&N a little while ago, he was really putting his money on Mexican food as the next thing to get hip and super-flavorized. Calexico is, at least at this cart, impossibly far from anything Chang’s imagining. But if Calexico had been there back in 1999, when I worked right on the corner, I probably would’ve eaten lunch there a lot.

And it was a pleasure to eat with Hagan. He’s so energetic and enthusiastic about eating restaurant food for a month straight that I felt like I’d better step up and appreciate my job a lot more (I get serious restaurant burnout within a week on a research trip, and complain about it to everyone in earshot). He’s also basically living in Starbucks this month (I left him at the one where we ate, to kill time till his dinner date), and has not yet lost his shit after hearing the same songs a million times. Guidebook editors: Snap this guy up, and fast!

Top 10 Food and Travel (mostly) Highlights of 2009

Everyone’s got a top 10 list! So I will too. I don’t know why I don’t do them more often–I certainly love making lists.

Like a lot of people, I’m coming away from this year feeling like it was pretty craptastic. But the nice thing about making a list like this is that you (I) realize there were some really good concrete things that happened, or that I managed to pull off. The crappiness, I think, just comes from feeling overworked and generally unfocused. And, of course, the creeping realization that there will never come a day in my freelance life when I get so fabulous that people are beating down my door offering me work. In fact, I will continue to have to rustle it up myself. Which, you know, is why I’m going on vacation for the next three weeks. (Holy crap! To Asia! Never been to the other side of the world!)

What I’m pretty pleased with, in no particular order:

1. I made croissants! This is fresh in my mind because it happened just a few days ago, only nominally fulfilling my 2009 resolution to work with yeast dough more. I can’t tell you how miraculous it is to make these things. I actually laughed out loud with delight the first time the dough rose. Simple (borderline idiotic) pleasures.

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2. I traveled for a month in Mexico and did not get shot, kidnapped, ticketed or asked for a bribe. Actually, this is not such an accomplishment. Contrary to everything you read in the newspaper, Mexico is not a war zone. Allow me to briefly hijack my top-10 list for a mini-lecture: not going to Mexico because of the drug war is like not coming to the US because of the drug war. San Cristobal de las Casas, Merida and Tulum are a world away from Juarez–just like, say, Seattle is a world away from inner-city Baltimore.

3. I hiked for nine days and did not die. Granted, this was about the most candy-ass form of hiking–traipsing merrily from village to village in Andalucia, stopping for many glasses of tinto de verano along the way, carrying nothing but some almonds and a change of clothes (and barely that). But there were real mountains! We were up at 2,000 meters! And we hiked by moonlight once! But the biggest miracle of all is that both Peter and I, dedicated urban travelers, actually had a nice time out in nature, and thought we might do it again. Next up: hiking across an island in Greece.

Sierra Nevadas

4. I jogged. Sure, it was only twice around the track. But, honestly, it’s something I’ve never done in my life. It was right after the Spain hiking trip. Peter and I were jet-lagged and feeling like we needed to capitalize on our newfound fitness. It was satisfying. But then I got horrifically sick for the next week. A friend told me that’s normal when you first start running–all these toxins get pushed out. Sadly, I have not jogged again since.

5. I stayed at a ridiculously nice resort in Mexico, on assignment. I know, this isn’t really much of a personal accomplishment, and I’ve stayed at nice places before. What made this one nice was that it was free of schmoozing (my expenses were paid; I was incognito). And for once in my travel-writing life, I managed to get all the work done that I needed to do beforehand, so I really could just lie on the beach and wave at the waiter for a margarita. The funny thing is that now that I’ve done that, I really have no huge craving to do it again.

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6. I wrote a cookbook. Oh, yeah, that. The high point and sense of accomplishment came mostly in the last days of the manuscript-tightening process, at the very beginning of this year, and not actually at the time of publication, in October. This is because, by the time the book came out, there’d been so much wrangling over the layout, and of course, the title, that it was a chore to even think about the book. And in the interim, I’d also written large portions of three other travel guides, which effectively erased Forking Fantastic! from my mind. Can the publishing industry speed up, please, at least just so authors can get more of a thrill out of the process?

7. I became a “guru.” On the basis of the wit and charm and deep, deep knowledge displayed in Forking Fantastic!, Tamara and I were on The Brian Lehrer Show every week this December. It’s kind of hilarious to hear yourself introduced as a “holiday entertaining guru.” And I love Brian Lehrer–hardest-working man (along with his crack producers!) in public radio. We got some excellent calls too. The segment on holiday food traditions made me so proud to live in New York City.

8. I cooked dinner for Jamie Oliver (as shown on TV in 2009). Speaking of being proud to live in New York: Back in late 2008, Tamara and I taped a segment with Jamie Oliver, for his series Jamie’s American Road Trip. Seeing how I’ve loved Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks since early, early days (like, Naked Chef days) and I’m floored by all the cool food advocacy he does in Britain, it was really an honor to meet him. But that was technically the year before.

The real honor came when I finally saw the finished episode, which focused entirely on food in Queens, and especially on immigrant culture. Honestly, I cried the first few times I watched it. The Peruvian ladies with the secret restaurant! Colombian George, who feeds homeless illegal immigrants! The Chinese noodle dude! The ranchero musicians on the subway! It was great TV, and I felt proud to have had a hand in it (I directed them to Ali and the live-poultry place). Unfortunately, it hasn’t been picked up in the US, and likely won’t be, and there are only a few clips online–here’s one (ignore the freakout about the live-poultry place; oy).

podcastlogo

9. I started Cooking in Real Time. If you’re not subscribed to my home-cooking podcast, go ahead and do it now. It’s like that Cookalong with Gordon Ramsay thing, except it’s not a ridiculous variety show, and it actually teaches you something.

What I’m really proud of, though, is that I designed the logo and header, and built the website myself. OK, so the site was mostly template-tweaking, but it was still immensely satisfying to learn how to control all these little elements. It was very nice to have a project that ended with a concrete result (aside from cooking, which is my usual make-stuff-with-my-hands outlet) and that involved both creativity and code-cracking. Unfortunately, just this week, I dropped my voice recorder on the floor and broke it, so now CiRT has to go on hiatus while I’m away in January.

10. I painted the dining room pink and orange, with gold trim. The vision of the Bollywood dining room, finally realized! The real accomplishment here is that I triumphed over decision paralysis, as presented by 8 million paint chips, and finally picked some colors. Plus, I exploited visiting child labor to get the painting done.

Zora O'Neill and Tamara Reynoldsphoto courtesy of Katja Heinemann

Happy new year, everyone! Here’s to an exciting new decade! Health care and croissants for all!

Last-Minute Resolution Resolution

At the beginning of 2009, I resolved to “get down with yeast doughs” this year. Whoops. Not sure how the whole year got away from me, but I did not rip open a single packet of yeast.

I also acquired a nice marble slab, and have managed to roll out only two pie crusts on the thing.

So! I’m springing into action. Forging ahead with the Tartine morning buns, per this source.

Which starts with the Tartine croissant dough recipe, which everyone always seems to be googling for. I snapped photos of the relevant pages from a friend’s cookbook. The procedure is ridiculously long and complex. (Which is why I think no one has yet to post it online. Six pages, people!)

But the real catch, every time I’ve thought, ‘Oh! Maybe tonight I’ll start the pre-ferment!’, is that the first ingredient is

Nonfat milk

Uh. That is something we never, ever have lying around the house.

So I finally bought some, furtively, hoping no one would see my shameful purchase. Tonight, we begin! At least one yeast dough will be made before the year is out!

My Fruitcake Brings All the Boys to the Yard: Redux

Last year, I made my family’s fruitcake for the first time. It was tremendously good. (If the words “fruitcake” and “tremendously good” are not really making sense to you, let me just say: currants soaked in brandy; candied orange peel; an awful lot of butter. Taste some, and you’ll understand.)

fruitcake

Unfortunately, I failed to make any proper notes about how I did it. And the anxiety of confronting the existing recipe (yield: 12 pounds, with my mother’s notes on top of her mother’s recipe, plus instructions to call my dad for extra advice) made me put off the project this year.

My fruitcake should have been soaking in brandy and rum since, oh, August would’ve been nice. But somehow that didn’t happen, and now it’s December. Which I had basically decided was too late.

But then I decided that the real point of Christmas baking is not so much to have sweets on hand for Christmas or parties or gifts or whatever. The point of it–of investing in the best cheap brandy at the liquor store (Paul Masson, my father avers), covering your kitchen in flour and giving yourself a sugar fit from tasting the batter too much–is to get yourself in the Christmas spirit. Really, nothing says holidays like dried fruit soaked overnight in booze. Or candied orange peel with brandy.

So, that’s what I did this weekend. I listened to the radio and baked. I tinkered with the recipe, and actually took notes. I was working off my mother’s typed recipe (on her old manual typewriter, which had cursive letters and no upper case), titled “mama’s fruitcake with incredible modifications.” Not sure what those modifications were, but in modern times, in the email she sent accompanying it, she wrote

beat in the 15 beaten egg yolks….beat egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold in. or add the eggs, beaten together all at once in the beginning, whatever.

I went with “whatever.” My feeling is that there’s barely any cake anyway–there’s only enough to hold all the fruit together–and it’ll be soaked with booze. So it doesn’t matter if it’s all airy and fluffy from the egg whites. But this is how knowledge gets lost, so I’m mentioning that option, just for the record.

Anyway, the result: a manageable four pounds of fruitcake, worth its weight in gold. It’s sitting downstairs, waiting for its brandy-soaking. So, it might not be at its peak at Christmas, but it will still taste good…and it’ll taste great in the depths of February, when I really need a brandy pick-me-up. And even more important: I now feel vaguely Christmas-y. Or maybe just drunk. Hard to tell.

Nana’s Fruitcake with Even More Modifications

This recipe is pared down from the original 12-pound yield to about 4 pounds worth of cake–I use one standard-size loaf pan plus two half-size loaf pans. But if you’re doing this for the masses, to give away, you can obviously scale the recipe back up–if you multiply by three, make it an even pound of butter and a pound of brown sugar.

1 pound golden raisins
1/2 pound currants
1 cup blanched, slivered almonds
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 cup brandy (or 1/4 cup brandy and 1/4 cup port)
1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground nutmeg (about 1/2 a whole nutmeg)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
10 tbsp butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
5 eggs

For the candied orange peel:
2 oranges
1 tbsp brandy
1 tbsp water
4 tbsp sugar

The night before you’re planning to bake, toss the raisins, currants and nuts together in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Pour over the brandy (or brandy and port) and stir well to coat everything. Before you go to bed, flip the container, then flip it again in the morning–you want to distribute the booze well. In the morning, pour the fruit and nuts into a strainer placed over a bowl and let any remaining brandy drain out. Set the brandy aside for later.

chixsoup 021Make the candied orange peel: Wash your oranges well and, using a vegetable peeler, slice off the outermost layer of peel, taking as little of the white pith as possible. Chop the peel into fine slices (never mind that beautiful photo to the right–it’s much easier to slice the peel up before it’s candied). Set the peel in a heavy skillet and cover with water; simmer for 10 minutes, discard the water and add fresh (this is to remove some bitterness). Simmer for another 10 minutes, then drain. Combine the brandy and sugar with an additional 1 tablespoon of water. Pour this over the peel and and simmer until the peel is translucent and most of the liquid has cooked away. (You may need to add another tablespoon or so of water before the peel is properly clear.) Set out on parchment or waxed paper to cool.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Prepare your loaf or cake pans: butter and flour them, or line with parchment paper. (I make parchment slings, folded over each long side of the loaf pan, then butter each short side of the pan. Then you can lift the loaf out with the parchment wings.)

Proceed with the cake: Sift 1/2 cup of the flour over the drained fruit and nuts, tossing gently to cover everything. Sift the remaining 1 cup together with the allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

With a mixer, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue beating until the butter lightens in color and the sugar dissolves. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate each one. Turn the mixer to low and add half the flour-spice mixture. When it is incorporated, add 3 tablespoons of the brandy that was strained out of the fruits and nuts (make up the difference with fresh brandy if necessary). Then add the remaining flour. Fold in the fruits and nuts and stir well to combine.

Pour the batter into the pans and bake until evenly browned on top and firm–the cake should spring back when pressed lightly. This takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes for half-size loaf pans and 1 hour and 30 minutes for a full-size loaf pan.

Remove to a rack. When the loaves are cool, sprinkle with brandy and/or rum, then wrap tightly in cheesecloth and waxed paper. Store in a tin with a tight-fitting lid. Every week or so (or, if you’re on an accelerated schedule like me, every few days), drizzle the loaves with a bit more booze. Give them as much time as you can–inevitably, the cake will be at its best about a week after you finally give in and eat it.

RIP, Khun Samak

Just read the obituary of briefly-prime-minister-of-Thailand Samak Sundaravej in the Economist.

His most famous recipe, “Pork Legs in Coca-Cola,” began with the straightforward instruction: “Place five pig legs in a large pot. Pour over four bottles of Coca-Cola.”

samak-mercadoCoca-Cola notwithstanding, this guy was a serious cook. He had his own TV show, called “Tasting and Ranting.” (I call dibs on that as a title for a food show here in the US.) He had a signature paste (coriander, white pepper, garlic and fish sauce). He went market shopping himself.

Oh, yeah, and he was also kind of dick and may have encouraged the burning-alive of some student protesters in 1976.

This is exactly what I was saying in that earlier Momofuku post about professional kitchens being the perfect place for rigid perfectionists.

Much the way the NFL is a healthy outlet for guys who otherwise might be in prison on homicide charges, professional kitchens are where would-be iron-fist dictators can carry out a purge without actually killing any unarmed civilians. And, as a bonus, they’ll cook amazing food and the public will adore them.

Politics is altogether more complicated. Khun Samak, I’m not excusing anything, but congrats on continuing your cooking show while in office, and for getting the boot from politics because of it. If you hadn’t, things might’ve been a whole lot worse for Thailand.

Faux Stollen–Just as Tasty as the Real Thing!

I’ve been on a little bit of a Christmas baking kick. One of the things I got hungry for a couple of weeks ago (before Thanksgiving, even) was stollen–a German Christmas bread with cardamom and almonds.

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My mom used to be all over the bread-making–she did a batch of whole-wheat bread every week or so, she made fantastic sticky buns every so often, and she was not daunted by making stollen, which is also a yeast bread. We had it every year for Christmas breakfast.

But then…the regular bread-making tapered off. Then the treats like sticky buns went. (I think this had to do with my mom starting to do real paying work–the brutal ’80s. Also, we moved to a house with a less inspiring kitchen.) And then the stollen gave out.

But not in a bad way. It’s just that my mom found a recipe for a quick-bread version of stollen (ie, no yeast required) in a most unlikely spot: The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas. In its day, it was a classic, but it now seems to be out of print. Vegetarians don’t have a great reputation for baking, but this recipe alone rights several decades of carob-based wrongs.

Which is not to say I haven’t tinkered with it. I replaced mace with nutmeg, for instance–I figured that if I, who keeps a very extensive spice rack, have no other call for mace the whole rest of the year, it’s just not worth it. And candied lemon peel–too icky-sweet. I also make it in a food processor sometimes, which is handy (and helps infuse the bread with the flavor of the fresh lemon peel).

And in perhaps the most genius innovation (if I do say so), I split the recipe into two small loaves–one for eating fresh, and one for freezing and eating later. We’ve only got two mouths here on Christmas morning this year, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to finish the better part of a whole loaf myself, and then moaning all day about how my stomach hurts. The bread has quite a bit of butter in it, see, but that doesn’t stop me from slathering a little bit more on each slice.

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Almond-Cardamom Christmas Bread (aka Faux Stollen)

This recipe relies heavily on a food processor, though I do suggest other options in the instructions. The only thing that it’s really nice to have a food processor for is grinding the almonds. So if you don’t have one, you’ll want to buy 3/4 cup of ground almonds or really go to town on some sliced almonds with a sharp knife, or pound them in a mortar.

Makes 2 6-by-4-inch loaves, or one 10-by-6-inch loaf
3/4 cup sugar
zest from 2 lemons
1 cup blanched sliced almonds, divided
2 1/2 cups flour, divided, plus more for kneading
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (about half of a whole nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (seeds from 8-10 cardamom pods)
13 tablespoons butter, chilled and divided
1 cup cream cheese (one 8-oz. package)
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons brandy
1 cup golden raisins
Confectioner’s sugar (optional, for garnish)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Pulse to combine–about 6 or 7 one-second pulses. (If you’re not using a fo-pro, just mix the sugar and zest together well in large bowl.) Add 3/4 cup sliced almonds and pulse again, until they are coarsely ground. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour, plus the baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cardamom. Pulse again to blend well.

Cut the butter into tablespoons. Add 12 tablespoons to the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand. (If no fo-pro, mix the butter in using a pastry cutter or two knives–whatever strategy you’d normally use for making pie crust.) Pour the contents of the food processor into a bowl.

Cut the cream cheese into small blocks and place in the food processor bowl (no need to wash it). Add the egg and run the processor to combine. While the processor is running, add the vanilla and brandy through the feed tube. (The Vegetarian Epicure suggests using a blender for this–so ’70s! And of course you could also use an electric mixer.)

Pour the cream-cheese mixture into a large bowl and stir in the raisins. Gradually stir in flour mixture with a wooden spoon or wide spatula, then add the remaining cup of flour, until you wind up with a thick, ragged dough.

Work the dough into a ball and turn it out on a heavily floured board. Knead it for just a minute or so, until it is reasonably smooth and holds together. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into an oval, about 6 inches long and 5 inches wide. With the blunt edge of a knife, crease it just off center, lengthwise. Fold the smaller side over the larger and place the stollen on an ungreased baking sheet. (You can also make one large loaf, starting with an 8-by-10-inch oval.)

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a small pan. Brush the loaves lightly with melted butter, then scatter over the remaining 1/4 cup sliced almonds. Bake for about 50 minutes–the bottoms of the loaves will be dark brown, and a toothpick stuck in the center will come out oily, but with no crumbs, though the whole thing will seem alarmingly underbaked. (A single large loaf will take more like 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake.)

Allow the loaves to cool slightly on racks, then dust with confectioner’s sugar. Allow to cool fully–at least a couple of hours–before slicing, to allow the center to set; plus, the cardamom and lemon flavors are stronger in the cooled bread.

Back in the Saddle: Weeknight Improv Cooking

I got back from Mexico almost a month ago. My suitcase is still not unpacked. The fridge is stocked only with hummus and some moldy mushrooms. I had an anxiety dream where I was trying to keep up with someone dancing salsa in double time. Things are not going very smoothly right now.

But when I finally cooked a proper dinner for myself last night, I remembered why I like doing it. It’s therapy, plain and simple. Breathe, focus, get something accomplished. And eat something fresh and nourishing at the end.

Best of all, it was something I made up on the spot, and it turned out even better than I expected. Unlike all my other work I’m doing, which seems to inevitably involve compromised visions and not-quite-right results. I haven’t felt like a freakin’ genius in a long time, basically, and it felt good!

tagine 006What I made–a fish tagine with an Indian spice combo cribbed from Madhur Jaffrey’s eggplant recipe–is posted over at Cooking in Real Time.

I’ll be honest, I was dragging my ass into the kitchen. The podcast, and cooking at all, felt like a chore–I was so not excited. But one of my terribly demanding (well, not at all) fans had requested something tagine-y, and I figured fish was good because it cooks quickly. I was thinking Moroccan, of course, but somehow it wasn’t hitting the spot. I thought I’d do whole spices in the hot oil to begin, Indian style-y, because I sure as hell wasn’t bothering with the two-hour charmoula marinade pretty much every fish tagine recipe calls for.

And then I thought of fennel, and how good it is with fish. And I thought of the eggplant recipe, which has fennel. And suddenly my brain was working veryveryfast, and I was running to the bookshelf to double-check the eggplant recipe to see if it also uses ginger (it does) because I’d been thinking ginger too. Everything started clicking into place.

And just that quickly, I was hungry and excited about cooking and feeling like the day hadn’t been a total waste. It was like the medication kicking in.

So, check out the recipe. I think you’ll like it. Maybe it’ll bring you out of a slump too?

Hurricane Katrina Anniversary: Read/Watch This

Four years ago, Peter and I were in a car in Nevada, driving through the driest wastelands imaginable and listening to the horrible news on the radio: New Orleans engulfed in floodwaters. It was riveting and awful to listen at such a remove. I think the only time we laughed was when they interviewed a Dutch hydrologist, who, in typical Dutch fashion, just simply could not understand how the Americans could fail to keep their lowlands dry.

Eventually our radio signal petered out, as we arrived at the gates of Burning Man. We spent the rest of the weekend wondering if New Orleans would still exist when we finally left our desert party.

Barely. And of course the news had only gotten worse by then.

We visited New Orleans in 2007, with friends who had the wisdom to get married in such a fine city. People were still traumatized, of course. But the spirit of the city was there. And very few people, driving very few cars, made it a wonderful place to ride a bicycle. Also because the people on foot weren’t shy about flagging you down to give you restaurant recommendations or ask, “You get that hat at Meyer’s?” (Peter’s hat, alas–not mine.) I wrote this then.

All a lot of preamble to say: read fellow Lonely Planet writer Adam Karlin’s essay in World Hum, “Yeah You Right: A New Orleans Manifesto.”

That should then spark your appetite for something a little meatier, and you should run to a bookstore and get Dan Baum’s Nine Lives. Dan (I can call him that, because I admit, I am friends with him and his razor-sharp editor of a wife, Meg Knox) has an excellent ear for New Orleans linguistic detail, and tells a beautiful story. The book isn’t so much about Katrina–it doesn’t get to that till near the end of the book–as about what makes the city so remarkable and resilient.

Even if you don’t buy the book this instant (though you should), click over to the Amazon page and look at his author photo. Yes, he got that hat at Meyer’s!

And for more on the flood itself, watch Trouble the Water. I was lucky enough to see this with the directors in attendance, along with the woman who shot so much of the footage on her video camera during the flood. And her boyfriend. And her baby. It’s gripping, and even though it documents a shocking failure and tragedy, has an amazingly positive outlook.

And perhaps after all that, you should buy yourself a plane ticket, especially if you’ve never been. And eat a po’ boy at Parkway for me.