Tag: chocolate

Mexico Photos

They’re up, over on Flickr. If you jumped on it when I posted some last night, well, go back, because there are oodles more, plus short videos.

First of all, there’s the giant set of general photos, starting out with all the culinary treats, such as this one:

Pozol de Chocolate

(That’s the cold chocolate-corn breakfast thing I mentioned on Facebook. I don’t mind looking ridiculous in this photo because it was so damn good)

Oh, and:

Lap of Lunchery

Pollo asado tastes better when you eat it out of your lap.

Oh, and, and:

Tortilla Tastiness

Whoever it was in San Lorenzo de Zinacantan who thought it would be a good idea to offer tortillas to tourists after they buy some beautiful embroidery work–I salute you! These were the most amazing and simple tortillas, cooked right there, with this funky cheese and earthy ground pumpkin seeds. The taste of Pre-Columbia.

And near the end, there are a few short videos, like this one:

Oh, I’m giving it all away–go look at them all now!

Then there’s a set Peter took while walking around the block in Campeche: fantastic decay next to old-fashioned living rooms, and sometimes both in one place.

Campeche Block 5

And finally, for the typeface fans, a very small set of goofy fonts we saw.

Hero's

Happy browsing…

Spain–He Is Risen!

Now that I’m Greek Orthodox, I’m not supposed to say this, but today is Easter. And you’d think that would be a day of rest in Spain, right? I mean, teams of 40 men have been carrying immensely heavy statues through the streets nearly all day, every day for a week. There was a special 100th-anniversary-of-something procession yesterday with all of the statues. Today everyone kicks back and eats, right?

Yeah, no. Three more groups are parading today, starting at noon. Como se dice ‘overkill’?

But to be fair, even last night I was still stunned by a procession. We caught one coming up a hill, without much of a crowd around. There’s this great super-slow Doppler effect with the band, which follows behind the statue. So the music’s getting louder and louder, but if you’re around a bend you can’t really see anything. And then the music is bouncing off the walls of the buildings super-loud just as the statue, surrounded by candles, emerges from the side street.

And then, as the statue goes by, and you’re boggling at how heavy it is, the band finally emerges and it is even LOUDER. And the bass drums go by last.

I saw this effect for the first time a few nights ago, with a statue of Christ hauling the cross, surrounded by centurions with huge feathers in their helmets. When the statue emerged from the side street, with the band blaring, all we saw first was the feathers. By the time the whole statue was visible, I expected Jesus and the soldiers to be doing a big kick line routine.

On the research front, things have gotten a little easier. We’ve figured out the route to break out of our little procession island, and know better to avoid bars right on the routes, because they’re mobbed and are basically pulling tapas out of their asses. “Beer coasters? Toss ’em in the fryer! Forty more people just showed up!”

Yesterday was a good day for research–I checked a fair amount of stuff of my list, and it even felt a little easy and like I was ahead of the game.

Then I looked at my watch, and I realized I’d been walking, with Beverly tagging along behind, for ten hours straight.

We started out after our churros and chocolate–the logical thing to eat when it’s 44 degrees out. But apparently the rest of the city thought so too. I have never seen bars so frenzied, even at night. The place where we did finally get our ch-and-ch fix–an excellent rec from AV–looked like a war zone inside, with empty chocolate cups four deep and two high stacked all along the bar. So we sat outside, which was for the best, since we were wearing every layer of clothing we packed (six each), and it would’ve been too difficult to adjust to a heated room.

The chocolate was thick as pudding, and the churros actually had a little ridgy texture, which I have seen only up in northern Spain–down south here, they’re usually they’re just smooth round tubes. And they were so perfectly fried and light they were almost empty inside. We shared a table with an older Spanish couple, the only people we saw all day who were as bundled up as we were.

Later, I admit, we did stop for a fairly nice lunch. Lovely baby beans with ham, and some nice fancy mushrooms. A real live green salad. And some too-creative-sounding veal with cardamom that turned out to be good. Finished with a little dab of orange wine that the waiter, who looked like Peter Dinklage, gave me for free, because apparently it was available only by the bottle. Crazy.

And later we took a 15-minute break in a bar that went from funky-neighborhoody to totally skeevy in the time it took for the foam to settle on our beers. While I was looking in the kitchen and noticing that when the sign said “food cooked with love,” they really meant “food cooked with cigarette butts and dirty wads of paper towels,” the older regulars at the bar were replaced by strung-out hippies, one of whom was doing the junkie lean into his beer. The review I was writing in my head was quickly discarded, and I pushed my octopus tapa around, feeling bad that it had died in vain. We fled up the street and took solace in a church with a very strange collection of artifacts, none labeled.

Which reminds me–earlier in the day, we saw an honest-to-God shrunken head in another museum! Why that museum is not listed in the guidebook I cannot for the life of me imagine. I can’t wait to rectify that oversight, and type the words “shrunken head” in the manuscript! First I will have to figure out what the whole point of the museum is, though–the guided tour was in Spanish, and while I thought I understood what the guy was saying most of the time, when I strung it all together at the end for Beverly, I realized it made no sense at all.

I’m sure a million other funny things have happened, but they’ve all been beaten out of my head by those bass drums. Monday is going to be quiet, right?

Spain–First Impressions

Estoy aqui. Jet lag in full effect. But all went smoothly, considering. After the passport hurdle, there was the connection-in-Madrid hurdle: very tight, aggravated by slack US Air rep who said he couldn’t check my bags through to Almeria. Not true, of course, because they’d even been able to pull this trick off in Albuquerque, on my mom’s bags–but I didn’t know this for certain at the airport, and couldn’t dig in my heels.

At least I got to stew about this in the business-class lounge in Philly–Star Alliance Gold status in full effect!

As it happened, my bag was the very first one off the belt in Madrid. When does that happen? I feel like it should be the subject of a business-motivation book: First Off the Belt: Someone’s bag has to be–why not yours ?

I’m gratified to find that my impression of Spanish women, forged years ago, has not changed at all: they have terrible hair!

This is great for me–I fit right in! Last time I was here, I had just “gone blonde,” except the salon lady failed to tell me until after the job that I really needed a double process. So I had that distinctive orange hair that Japanese punk kids (and undernourished children) often sport.

With that, and my tight pants and my glasses, I got asked for directions all the time!

I did a little henna on my hair about a week ago, in preparation for this trip…and the magic is working! I already had to beg the stewardess for an immigration form.

Also, when I saw the chick on my Almeria flight with the big green square glasses and the super-tight bright-pink pants, I knew I’d made the right decision when I tossed my kelly green skinny-leg cords into my suitcase at the last minute.

This ramps up the pressure on my Spanish, but it’s worth it just to feel like my fashion sense is appreciated. Unlike in NYC, where poor grooming and bright colors mean people edge away from you on the subway.

As for my mom, she fits in OK–she’s wearing lots of black, and a scarf. But the dead giveaway is that she has white hair–not brassy orange or jet black. Also, she’s about a head taller than most of the older women on the street, and that’s something that pretty much never happens. In most other settings, she’s often mistaken for a gelfling.

After a big nap this afternoon, we immediately fell victim to Spanish dining times…roaming the street, starving, while waiting for tapas bars to open. We would’ve had a little sweet treat to pass the time, but all the seats at the cafes were already crammed with people enjoying their post-siesta pick-me-up, with churros and cafe con leche and juice on all the tables. Another reason to love Spain–two chances for breakfast!

And, once we got into the tapas window, I truly appreciated how great it is to be doing guidebook research here. Here, it’s totally legit, even expected, to have one drink in a place and leave. Everywhere else I go, I have to steel myself for the evening reviewing session, to cover as many places as possible: drinks and apps in one place, mains in another, maybe dessert in a third. But if I drink too much at the first place, and the food is good, my plan goes to hell immediately.

Tonight, I checked three places off my list in just a couple of hours, without feeling a twinge of regret or having to shrug apologetically at anyone when I asked for the bill.

For the record, my body is humming along on a diet of: blood-sausage stew on toast, bacalao fritters, green olives, delectably bouncy baby meatballs and octopus in garlic mayo so blindingly white it looked like whipped cream.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have made that list.

I also ate half a clementine. That counts, right? Still, Beverly has the advantage: she ate the lettuce-leaf garnish that came with the fritters.

Self-Absorption, Procrastination Reap Rewards: Spanish Dessert Edition

In an attempt to stave off actual writing, I was investigating the mystery of why my old blogspot URL still gets all the action. Following some links in my stats, I happened across a truly mind-expanding item on now-defunct Saute Wednesday: a recipe for toast topped with melted chocolate, olive oil and sea salt.

I don’t recommend it if you’re still trying to get your head around salt caramels, but for those who’ve made the leap, it’s really just the next logical progression. (It’s like guitar with feedback. Could you listen to, say, Wham! after you heard the Pixies? I couldn’t.) And because it’s salty, it seems like a totally legit afternoon snack.

However, it must be said that this is further evidence that the Spanish are very scary (hence, fascinating) when it comes to food. Thanks to the Spaniards, I have nearly a quarter of a whole farm animal in a closet, held in a magical state between rot and not-rot.

More specific to dessert, AV told us all about the highly medieval candied egg yolks (scroll to “For science”), and it seems like every Spanish sweet I’ve seen comes in a super-Goth-looking all-black wrapper and is either stark white or bright yellow. (One exception: the maraschino-cherry-studded egg marzipan I’m eating now–but of course those cherries are red, like BLOOD.)

I would not be the least bit surprised if some Spanish village specialized in, say, rabbit brains slow-simmered for nine days in sugar with saffron, sold in a black box sporting a not-cute-at-all bunny on the label. They would, of course, be a strange texture, yet delicious in a very rich way. You would savor a little bunny brain for an hour, probably, with bitter coffee.

And even though this chocolate/salt/oil toast is apparently some Ferran Adria modern invention, it is not out of keeping with more traditional Spanish sweets. In fact, come to think of it, even the color scheme fits right in with tradition: black chocolate, white bread, yellow oil. It’s so dour and joyless in appearance that it can’t possibly be dessert. You cannot possibly enjoy it. Clever, perverse Spaniards.

Mmmm, Montreal

Now I'm _really_ back. Echoing my May itinerary, I did a full North American tour in a week, swapping my bag of sweaty tank tops and sandals for leather pants and a wool sweater and heading up north to Montreal.

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The Roommate speaks

My roommate does exist as more than a comedic foil. He also has a name: Aaron. And he’s more on the ball than I realized. Or he has more downtime at work. He spoke up for himself in the comments section of the “Condimental” post from last month, as he was a key player in that savvy analysis of fridge-lurking jams and jellies. I didn’t want it to get lost in all the scrolling back:

Well, it’s official: Peter is not the only human being to have read the entire list with, er, relish. [Har. Whatta card.]

Some thoughts:

(1) The Marks & Spencer crap can go. We’ll call it part of my moving on process.

(2) What’s the deal with the sun-dried tomatoes? Do I just keep buying more and more of the little buggers?

(3) I take issue with your criticism of Herloch’s Dipping Mustard. First, I have used it. Pretty tasty if you ask me. Of course, it’s now older than the hills — it can go.

(4) Your comment “Obviously my roommate’s” with regards to the Smucker’s sundae syrup could be misinterpreted. For the record, the only reason I got fat free syrup is because it was the only kind Key Food had. I used it to make that horrendous chocolate cake the first time you-know-who came to town. Need I say more? Chuck-o-rama!

(5) Bakewell rhubarb and ginger jam! I’ve been looking for that sucker… Can we keep it, please, please, can we keep it?

(Apparently he had a few more bullet points, but the comments section has a 1,000-word limit.)

His remarks reveal an interesting trend I hadn’t noticed: many of the condiments in our fridge can be dated according to who his girlfriend was at the time. The oldest known example is from the era of P., and didn’t make it into the inventory because it’s moldering on top of the fridge: a mostly eaten jar of homemade olives from P.’s dad, the little wizened black things bobbing around in a tea-colored murk. The British stuff–Marks & Sparks sauces, clotted cream–is all from the era of S., who hails from Sheffield via London. Maybe I should re-sort the condiment list according to this labeling system? Hello, Excel…

Also, I don’t think Aaron is aware of the suggestion made by an earlier reader, Megan, to just invest in mini-fridges to hold the overflow. (Her comments are mis-linked to the post after “Condimental.”) This is a dangerous concept, but I can see it working: one fridge for the Era of P., one fridge for the next few short-lived girlfriends, one fridge for Era of S… Plus, if we stack them all up, they’ll hide the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dining room.

My condiment collection can’t be organized that way, because I have dated about zero people in the time I’ve been in this apartment, and I never bother buying anything special to impress people when I’m cooking (hmm–a connection between those two things?). Maybe I can file according to trips I’ve taken? According to Queens neighborhood in which purchased?

Off to scour Freecycle for mini-fridges.