High Heels & Frijoles

Iglesia Guadalupe in Granada, the city where I was born.

Though the Aeropuerto Internacional Augusto César Sandino has boasted jet bridges for several years now, I still expect to descend directly from the airplane onto the tarmac. In the 80s, excited family and friends would crowd together mosh pit-style on a terrace that overlooked the landing strip, everyone calling out and waving signs like crazed fans awaiting a celebrity’s arrival on the red carpet. But they were just waiting for their exiled own, coming home for the holidays.

Granada by coche, a horse-drawn carriage.

My trips to Nicaragua are bittersweet, especially during Christmas. My passport still marks me a citizen, and I do call it “home” whenever I refer to it, but Nicaragua hasn’t really been home for a very long time. I’ve moved on, but that first sighting of dusty olive green land from the scratched acrylic windows makes my heart cramp. Memories of trips when my family lived in the U.S. and Mexico during the 80s jumble with those from college breaks and the more recent perfunctory visits.  The childhood jaunts were all fun and adventure; I was mesmerized by ox-pulled carts on the main roads and street vendors pouring sodas into plastic bags—mini-udders that dispensed Coca-Cola. But even in the haze of little-kid wonderment, I knew everything was broken, and it made me deeply sad. It’s sadder today. But, there are uniquely beautiful and wow-worthy people and scenes to be found, and I appreciate them all the more.

San Juan del Sur, the beach town I grew up going to—and now a must-see on tourists’ itineraries.

The new spear fishing technique. We’d gone to the dock and  carefully packed our catch of the day in a large cooler when we spotted these kids. They were much hipper than us.

Red snapper, the catch of the day: $2/lb.

Lunch at El Timón, an establishment in San Juan’s “pueblo.” Fresh-caught fish (snapper, in this photo) is coated in pinol, a corn and cacao-based meal, then fried and served with a tomato and onion sauce (salsa criolla), white rice, and plantain tostones.

To market, to market…

Ripe papayas and watermelons.

Melocotones y limones (star fruit and limes).La asunción de la Santísima Vírgen María. The Virgin Mary is a religious and cultural symbol. This image of the assumption is found everywhere, even in markets.

“La quema del viejo” — a local tradition.  These life-size dolls sit on people’s stoops or front yards, awaiting the new year. “El viejo” is stuffed with gunpowder and will be set on fire at midnight to blow out the old year and ring in the new.

Sunset over the bay of Nacascolo.

Enchiladas rojas at ¡Lotería!

I like to eat Mexican whenever possible. I lived in D.F. as a child and I have many a fond memory of life and food there. Classmates at Instituto Irlandés, my all-girl, plaid-green-jumper Catholic school, quickly taught me to train my taste buds to accept and in most cases like, a wide array of picante foods. Soon, I too was bringing chile piquín-dusted cucumber slices bathed in lime juice in Hello Kitty Tupperware to recreo and sprinkling the vibrant red dust on oranges and mangos. I also learned to appreciate Mexican counterparts to American candy bars and other sweets: Pulparindo, a chewy tamarind and chile bar; mazapán, a peanut-based marzipan; and Duvalín, vanilla and hazelnut cream that came in tiny packages with a plastic stick for an eating utensil.

I came to know Mexico through its flavors and to understand that it was made up of a vast and complex array of ingredients, textures, and colors that distinguished it from everything else I’d ever eaten. To this day I am shocked when people equate Mexican with Taco Bell or when that fine cuisine is reduced to an overstuffed burrito. Happily, though, there is some authenticity and variety to be found. I had the opportunity to experience Mexico all over again at two spots in LA:

¡Lotería!: Grab a table in the center of the LA Farmer’s Market or hop on a bright red stool and eat right at the counter. Eager to try everything on the menu, I ordered a sampler platter containing miniature versions of the twelve different taco fillings available, including, nopalitos (cactus salad), mole poblano con pollo (chicken with mole sauce), papa con rajas (potatoes with roasted poblano peppers), and chicharrones en salsa verde (pork rinds in tomatillo sauce). I can’t say I had a single favorite, but surprisingly for carnivorous me, the vegetarian nopalitos made a lasting impression.

De todo un poco.

The colorful aguas.

Luckily, I had a few people in tow and was able to taste enchiladas in hot and spicy red chile guajillo sauce that was eagerly mixed into the accompanying rice so as not to waste a drop; crunchy, crispy, corn tortilla tacos; and a mountain of chilaquiles verdes (fried corn tortilla strips sautéed in house-made sauces – either green tomatillo, chile guajillo, or mole) topped with eggs and dressed with queso fresco, crema, chopped onions and cilantro. Oh, and of course, no meal is complete without an agua fresca, fresh fruit drinks in a variety of seasonal flavors. My pick: agua de jamaica, the refreshing, floral, bougainvillea-hued hibiscus tonic.

Crispy tacos.

As fate would have it, owner Jimmy Shaw happened by and we got to talking in English at first until we realized he was Mexican himself. We talked about food, of course, and childhood memories revolving around food…of course. It was a lovely encounter and made us feel like we’d just dined at a dear friend’s home.

Eat right at the counter.

Monte Albán, Mexican eatery with Oaxacan roots, was also a big crowd pleaser. Señor O and I headed there for breakfast with my little brother, and, quite embarrassingly, I was presented with a colorfully sprinkled bun and cup of hot chocolate…because it as Mother’s Day and the hostess took me for my sibling’s mom. I was going to play along, but vanity took over and I just had to clear up that I was not old enough to be this 11-year-old’s mother. Well, technically I am, but still.

…I digress. The food: I had enfrijoladas, with eggs naturally. Enfrijoladas are similar to chilaquiles, only these corn tortilla triangles are smothered in thick black bean sauce. Señor O had a large plate of eggs scrambled with chorizo, and little brother opted for salsa de queso, melted cheese in a pool of spicy tomato sauce, a sticky mess that can be neatly folded into a slender and pliable corn tortilla.

Tamal con mole.

Zucchini blossom quesadilla.

Chorizo and potato molote.

We made a return visit later that very same evening with family members who’d missed out on breakfast and had tamales with black mole, dense and chocolaty, zucchini blossom quesadillas, potato-and-chorizo molotes, deep-fried and crisp, as well as another round of enfrijoladas, this time with a side of cesina, thinly sliced, salted beef. For dessert: ripe plantains, sliced and fried, then topped with condensed milk. As we like to say, barriga llena, corazón contento. (Full belly, happy heart).

I was in LA for a few days, and, despite the fact that I spent my nights sleeping in my brother’s bachelor pad from hell – sorry, Charlie, but it’s true: the place was a wreck, a combination opossum refuge and crack den – it was a good time. I absolutely love LA, especially the heretofore unexplored food scene. In the span of a week I had Thai, Korean, Spanish, Mexican, French, Italian, and good ol’ American – a veritable “It’s a Small World” for gluttons. I’m no food critic, but some of my eat-outs must be described.

At the top of my list: Honey Pig Korean BBQ. Up until my journey to Koreatown, my experience with Korean cuisine had been limited to the Momofuku Ssäm and Noodle Bars in New York. Don’t misread – the Momofukus happen to be among my favorite NY spots, but Honey Pig is a whole other animal, and I was completely unprepared for what I encountered there.

Like a beacon in the night…

We asked to be seated, at which point the waiter whirled around our appointed table like a dervish-meets-Chinese-plate-balancing-act, dropping little plates and saucers and bowls and then more plates and saucers and bowls with sauces and oils and lettuces (oh my!) all around, till there is not an inch of tabletop visible. In the middle, rising like cupola from a crowded city center, The Inverted Wok Thing. Our awed foursome sat, giggling and gawking as the waiter zeroed in on a tiny dial in the tabletop (Gadzooks! You yourself can control the heat!) and started throwing kimchi-covered cabbage and bean sprouts on the base of Wok Thing.

Wok Thing.

The accoutrements…

We stared, stupidly, not knowing at all what to do with the food. Were we supposed to eat it? How long did we have to wait for it to cook? Were we allowed to touch it? Desperately, we looked around at the other tables attempting to discern the how-tos of KBBQ. I try to make eye contact with any of the passing waiters, but my silent SOS went unnoticed. I flailed my arms and a harried-looking man finally come over. “Uh, I’m sorry, excuse me,” I muttered, unintelligibly and in near-whisper, “Umm, we’re, like, new to this whole BBQ thing,” nervous giggle, “umm, uhh, how do we order?” More vexed looks from the waiter who instructed in a few terse fragments to order four portions of pork belly and one of beef. Now, novice though I was, I thought four portions of pork belly sounded a bit piggish, so I ordered two and one sliced beef. The waiter scurried away.

I’d forgotten to order drinks, so once again, I started casting frantic looks at the wait staff while they continued to ignore me. I began to feel unwelcome, out of place. I hung my head, pouting, and that’s when I realized I was not being ignored; I was just not following protocol: there was a doorbell on my table, hidden under a tiny bowl of pungent red sauce. One is meant to press down on it if and when one needs service. I pushed down, and, wouldn’t you know it, my finger was still on the button when someone materialized at my side. Mercifully, this lady was kind and took pity on us lost sheep. She started snipping the cabbage into bite-size pieces with the aid of slender tongs and shears, and piled them up on the highest part of the dome. “OOOhhhhh,” we mouthed. Next, she lay the pork belly on the wok and it started to sizzle. Once cooked, she, with a deft hand, natch, picked up a piece with a pair of shiny metal chopsticks and quickly dipped it in one of the small bowls, this one containing sesame oil, salt and pepper. The now-seasoned belly, some cabbage, bean sprouts, and thinly sliced green onion were piled on a large and crisp lettuce leaf, which she wrapped. We understood! We got it! We could finally eat!

We were congratulating ourselves on our powers of international comprehension until we started trying to imitate her maneuvers. Turns out metal chopsticks are not for neophytes– they’re slippery and food kept dropping on the way to the plate. We longed for forks, but were too embarrassed to ask. We would eat with slippery sticks even if it took us hours. Someone spotted wooden ones though, and once we had those in hand, things went rather smoothly.

We’d eaten through most of our pork belly and were feeling pretty full when a waiter ran by and without even glancing at us tossed an octopus tentacle on Wok Thing. “We didn’t ask for this!” we yelped, but he only said, “It’s free!” and continued on his way. Meanwhile, another waiter restocked our cabbage and sprouts. We began to get nervous every time someone neared the table, worried more food would appear unannounced. Besides, we still had a mound of thinly sliced beef waiting to be cooked.

Random tentacle.

After the deliciousness of pork belly, I worried the beef would be a letdown. But it was actually my favorite. Our kindly waitress plopped it on the heat and said, “Very delicious with rice.” I just nodded, defeated, and heaved a deep sigh. I would just have to create more space for the rice. It was orange, and in a bowl, mixed with bits of lettuce and seaweed. She plopped it on top of the beef and started raking up the remaining cabbage and sprouts, mixing it all together. It was my favorite part of the meal. Everything had just enough spice and salt, and at the base of it all, a gentle sweetness that gently played with the underlying heat. I’ve added Korean BBQ to the list of foods I crave, and wish I could install a Wok Thing at my table – it’s one-pot cooking at its best.

Very delicious with rice.

Next up: BACON-WRAPPED HOT DOGS. Months ago, New York Magazine wrote about Crif Dogs, an East Village spot selling deep-fired wieners. Apparently, some genius there decided to give David Chang (creator/chef of the above-mentioned Momofukus) a namesake dog and thus came about the bacon-wrapped-deep-fried-kimchi-topped-hot-dog. I haven’t had the chance to sample this delightful monstrosity, but have spent ample time drooling over its photo. How happy was I then to learn that you can get a bacon-wrapped hot dog in LA? Naturally, I had to have one. Little brother and cute girlfriend took me downtown where we walked through blocks of knock-off bags and tight, neon-colored clothes looking for a… let’s say artisanal hot dog cart. Cute GF instructed us to bypass brick-and-mortar stands because what we wanted was true-blue street food. For a while it looked like it wasn’t going to happen for us and that all we were going to get out of this trip were some snazzy $4 “designer” shades, when we saw (and smelled!) it: a teeny vehicle, no bigger than a golf cart, equipped with a glassed-in flattop and Coleman cooler stocked with Jarritos – Mexican soda pop – and a bowl of coarsely chopped avocado and pico de gallo.

The bacon dogs sizzled alongside sliced onions, green peppers, and jalapeños. I’m sorry Gray’s Papaya, but you’ve been dethroned! The vendor tucked the sausage into a bun and drizzled it with yellow mustard, ketchup, and mayo (!), then topped it with everything in his reach, including the chunky guacamole. It was absolute bliss, and 100% worth the gut-wrenching heartburn that followed.

On a sad note, it seems bacon-wrapped hot dog purveyors are being persecuted by the health department. It’s an outrage! Check out Drew Carey’s inspired report on Reason.tv. Potentially harmful food? Puh-lease. Let’s not get started on the Golden Arches, et al.

Save the dogs!

More mouth-watering to come,

HH&F

A mere 24 hours after alighting in Boston I flew down to Florida to visit my mom and little brother. Adventurous bird that I am, I took the subway – err, “T,” as they call it here – to the airport. Paranoid about being late, I left super-early, only to arrive at my gate a mere hour after I left home. I was thus, super-duper early for my flight. And then, of course, it was delayed. Twice.

Finally, my plane landed just around midnight. It seems that down there in the Land of Disney not only Cinderella’s coach turns into a pumpkin at 12 o’clock, but the Turnpike, too. Finding the highway closed, we took the scenic route home. We drove past several pawnshops, the usual fast food joints, “gentlemen’s” clubs, more pawnshops, and then…a Nicaraguan fritanga and food shop. Was this a mirage? Had those eight hours at the airport addled my brain? No, my mother’s husband assured me, it was really there. In fact, we could go there when it was actually open.

That night I went to bed dreaming of what I would order: tajadas (fried plantains) and maduros (fried ripe plantains), fried cheese, chorizo, carne asada, cerdo adobado (seasoned and sautéed pork cubes) and ensaladita (a slaw of sorts, made with shredded cabbage and diced tomatoes moistened with vinegar)… These things are all easily made at home, but it was the novelty, the thrill of finding this quaint little spot in the hyper-commercialized strip that is the not-so-aptly-named Orange Blossom Trail was what was really fueling my appetite.

The field trip was pushed back to Sunday morning, because yours truly was forced to attend a few sessions with The Porcelain God. All notions I had of eating fried things were completely erased, but a ravaged stomach had not weakened my resolve to visit the fritanga.

It must be noted that the Fritanga Santa Bárbara is in the same lot as the Topp Clazz gas station, and that such a grand title (and spelling!) sent me into a rapture because it was just what you’d find on the side of the road in Nicaragua. Spirit soaring like a helium balloon, I skipped into Santa Bárbara only to be met with…blaring Mexican music. And ogling from the patrons.

The air slowly and steadily started leaving the balloon version of me. I tried to be casual about the staring men, but I could feel their heavy stares. I wanted to identify myself as a fellow Nicaraguan and almost yelped out “Soy nica!”, but decided they wouldn’t care because they were about as Nica as the Salvadoran cookies and Cuban sugarcane juice they had for sale there. It was a sham! Though I really wanted to take pictures because there were some interesting products from Central American countries that also exist in Nicaragua, like jarred jocotes (the label called these plums, but I think they’re more akin to olives) and nancites (yellow cherries? I think not! These little yellow fruits are stinky, like dirty belly buttons!) but I decided against pulling out the camera because I was worried there would be trouble.

Now, to be fair, I Googled Fritanga Santa Bárbara and found one or two reviews; it seems that the regulars find the atmosphere welcoming and the food appetizing. Unfortunately, I was met with a less than warm welcome and the food I spied behind a glass case was not what I’m used to. There were canned mixed vegetables in some dreadful red sauce! So my apologies to the proprietors of Santa Bárbara, but, this is my blog and I am going to tell it like it is.

HHF

P.S.
There is a great fritanga in Miami (three locations!), Fritanga Monimbó (www.fritanga.com), that I eat at every time I’m in town that is wonderful. The people are friendly, the food is delicious, and they sell my favorite soda, Milca — so bright red and sugary that I’m positive Willy Wonka invented it.

The Mister and I up and moved to Boston this week, so the past month was spent in chaos and confusion, both physical and spiritual. We packed. And boxed. And taped. And wrapped. And styrofoamed. And labeled. And stacked. And screamed. Well, I guess I did most of the screaming. You get the picture. It was practically impossible to cook during this difficult time and so the blog went neglected. Mostly we ate eggs and cereal and things not worth writing about.

Although, for our last Friday night in town I took a field trip to Brooklyn, home of The Bedford Cheese Shop where it is all beautiful cheese and imported goodies, and most importantly: SUGAR PLUMS!

I bought three different kinds of cheese, the first, a wonderfully gooey raw cow’s milk (whose name I am sadly blanking on right now, but when it comes to me, I will note it) cheese that was like a walk through the woods after a cold soaking rain, all earth and moss with here and there a hint of flowers and mahogany. The rind looked just like birch wood, damp and speckled brown. Overall, the experience was heady and intense and I felt transported to some chapter of the Chronicles of Narnia – despite being surrounded by most detestable and unattractive cardboard boxes rather than fragrant firs.

There was also a little wheel of goat cheese that I bought at the cheese guy’s suggestion. I couldn’t taste it prior to purchase, so I threatened to return if it didn’t live up to his praises. “I’ll street fight you,” he returned. Happily, there was no need to resort to violence, as the cheese was magnificent. The rind was thickly wrinkled suede that gave way to a delicate, meaty interior that reminded me of pâté.

OK, now I need to interrupt my reverie and return to the SUGAR PLUMS! If you’ve read my earlier posts you will know that I love Christmas…the carols, the cookies, THE NUTCRACKER. It is all The Mister can do to keep me from wearing white tights and patent leather Mary Janes when we go to the ballet to see it. If you’re at all familiar with The Nutcracker, you will know all about the delightful Sugar Plum Fairy, so picture if you will, the raptures I went into when I discovered that there is an actual thing as a SUGAR PLUM! I won’t go into too much detail about them, because I think the fact that there is a Fairy named after them is description enough.

SUGAR PLUMS!!!

Many, many years ago, my parents would pick me up from school and take me to a lovely restaurant with an even lovelier view of a lake. Dressed in the dark green plaid jumper that was my uniform, I marched in behind mom and dad as the maître d’ gushed over us all and led us gracefully to what dad had at some point decided was the best table.

This was a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths, ice sculptures of swans, waiters whose shoes shone and smiles sparkled as they poured bubbly water and the fruitiest fruit conga I have ever sipped. A bread basket worthy of kings and queens would carried out moments after my chair had been pushed up to the table and my mouth would water as I gazed at minuature baguettes, flaky croissants, hearty rolls of nut-studded wheat, and long, crunchy grissini. After making a careful and difficult selection, beautiful pale butter ridged like the most perfect seashell would be delicately placed on my plate.

Lunch was usually filet mignon with béarnaise, which I would spoon on without any qualms…all this luxury, just for me. The filet was always accompanied by pommes soufflé, and there was nothing like those golden, crispy pillows of fried potato. I knew I was a lucky girl to be allowed to eat this way.

But, the best was yet to come. Enter The Dessert Cart. Aside from the deboned chicken that I’ve written about time and time again, The Dessert Cart is for me the ne plus ultra. There is absolutely nothing that compares to it. I dream of owning a dessert cart (and a wet bar, but we’ll talk about that later) and loading it up with chic sweetings. The Dessert Cart at this particular restaurant was all wonder and delight: floating islands, baked Alaska, dense chocolate cake, goblets of ripe red berries, sauce boats, and my favorite, profiteroles. Three perfect puffs would present themselves, lightly golden and starting to ooze out ice cream filling, and then, the waiter would pour the hot chocolate sauce over them, coating them slowly and seductively.

My Mister’s grandmother’s dessert cart.

There are certain fruits back home that are not easy to come by in the US, even in the southernmost extremes of its geography. Some, such as nancite, a cranberry-sized fruit of bright yellow skin and white interior with a gaping belly button that exudes a heady and nauseating stench, I am happy to be safely away from, but others like sapote and níspero I crave. Sapote is rather like an avocado in shape and flesh texture. The exterior of the footballesque fruit is brown an rough, but the inside is buttery, smooth, and rich terracotta orange in color. A glossy black seed is tightly wedged into the velvety flesh. Sapote is for the persevering only, as it will frequently be filled with wriggling white maggots or be ripe to the point of fizzy fermentation. Should you chance on a perfect one, though, you will be rewarded. Decadent, it coats the palate and tongue with buttercream texture and aromas of exotic dark chocolate and mellow spices.

Níspero skin is also dull brown and coarse, and while its interior is not as rich and smooth as sapote, it does share with it unusual flavors. Níspero is grainy and fibrous, like a cat’s tongue. Redolent of chocolate and moss, it smells of earth dampened by rain, moistened cedar, and secret hiding places.

Other fruits, like guayaba and jocote were not yet in season, and so I was able only to have the former in jelly form and the latter in preserved from. Many of you are probably familiar with guava paste or guava and cream cheese pastries as the flavor combination is rather popular. I never tire of the taste, perhaps because like Proust’s madeleine, it reminds me of childhood. My mother and I used to have “tea time,” whose fare always consisted of toast spread with butter and jalea de guayaba and topped with a slice of cheese.

Jocotes bring to mind olives with great big pits. During semana santa (Holy Week) they are available everywhere, their bare-branched mother trees decorated with clusters of the sour green fruits. My grandfather has a farm in Granada and during semana santa huge basketfuls of mangoes and jocotes would be brought from there and lined up down the corridor. I would eat one after the other, wincing as the too sour ones wore down the enamel on my teeth and sucking greedily on the ripe red ones that were a prize to find buried in the multitude. Jocotes en miel are the preserved variation and it is all I could get in early February. If March jocotes recall the hot months, these honeyed bites are bits of waning summer.

Aside from telling you that I am – or was, until very recently – a culinary student I have told you very little about myself. Here’s a biographical tidbit: I am from Nicaragua, and more specifially, the small colonial city of Granada, “La Gran Sultana”. I grew up here and there, and have lived in the U.S. for the past ten years, but roots remain planted at approximately 12° 10′ N 86° 15′ W.

One of the things I hope to do someday is a thorough research project on the food of my country: why do we eat what we eat? What is really native to us? Who taught us to cook? So many questions about what we consume and why that I would like to answer.

I visited last week, and although ten days is but a brief sojourn, I tried to eat as much as possible. Most of the time my stomach was filled to capacity, but in the interest of scientific investigation, I chewed bravely on. This is merely a brief overview of my native cuisine, but I hope to add more information, as well as recipes, in the not too distant future.

Rice and small red kidney beans are on the menu three times a day. For breakfast, they are mixed and fried together to make gallopinto (literal translation spotted or painted rooster, alluding most likely to the reddish tint that roosters have which resembles the final product). Gallopinto is often accompanied by eggs, either revueltos (scrambled) or as they say in my grandmother’s house, perdidos (lost) or fried, as well as by tortillas or bread. You could also go the full monty and have fried plantains or maduros (sweet, ripe plantains) and cheese, either fresh or fried.

Gallopinto and tortilla

Cuajada and queso fresco, two traditional fresh milk cheeses.

At lunch and dinner, the rice and beans will be presented separately at the table, but there they always are. Growing up, meals served at home were of an international variety, but regardless of what we were having, rice and beans would be at the table. My mother and I always fought against two starches on the same plate, for example, if we were having lasagna there was no way we were going to have R&B there as well, but my younger brothers waved all propriety aside and would have them at the end of the meal, as “dessert”, they’d exclaim.

Corn products are as many can guess, a staple, tortillas being the most evident example. Most people buy theirs from vendors selling from humble roadside shacks. At under $1.00 for 10 tortillas, they are one of the more affordable food items available in a country that is among the poorest in the world.

A tasty local treat is quesillo: Quesillo is string cheese that bears a striking resemblance to mozzarella. A braid of it is wrapped in a tortilla, smothered with sour cream (our version being much more liquid than the US variety) and a slaw of pickled onions. The taco-like roll is placed in a slender plastic bag, and voilà, you’re ready to eat. The best part of the plastic bag is that you can tie it, cut off the bottom end, and finish eating your quesillo from that side, the better to enjoy the sour cream and pickled onions that have pooled at the bottom.

Corn is also the basis for a number of tamales: tamal pizque, of a greyish green hue that comes from the ash that’s incorporated with the corn; the sweeter and more tender yoltamal (which I unfortunateley couldn’t get while in Nicaragua); and nacatamal, the mothere of all tamales: weighing in at at least two pounds, this huge tamal cotains corn masa, pork, potatoes, rice, tomatoes, prunes, and raisins. It is a delicious and incredibly filling meal.

Tamal pizque.

The mister’s grandmother treated us to one of my favorite things; chicharrón con yuca. Pork cracklings are paired with steamed yuca and topped with a slaw of cabbage, tomatoes, white vinegar, and tiny, spicy congo chiles, which are the only chilies we use and never in great quantities. If bought at a stand at the market or a park, chicharrón con yuca will be served on a chagüite, or plantain tree, leaf.

We were also treated to fried plantain chips, grilled meat kabobs, and my favorite, maduros en gloria (sweet plantains in glory, literally, but figuratively meaning that they’ve died and have gone to heaven): the sweet plantains are fried, then smothered with cream and cheese and baked for a bit in the oven. Really, you must try it. You can find the sweet plantains at your local market (*do NOT buy green ones and expect them to ripen. Buy the yellow ones and wait for them to ripen further, until the skins are black as this will ensure they are tender, rich, and perfectly sweet). There is a recipe from a traditional Nicaraguan cookbook, 50 años en la cocina, by Angélica de Vivas, that I will try at home with American ingredients and post on the site as soon as I can.

Maduros en gloria

More soon,

HH&F

If you were wondering what finally happened at the airport, here it is:

I succeeded in my plan to have a healthy breakfast and ignore BK and McDonald’s. Ignoring BK was east, as there is no outpost at EWR. McD’s was a a feat: you can access it via two counters, one in the main corridor and the second within the actual food court. Also, there is a 12-foot Ronald over the counter windows, smiling his big red smile, arms wide open in welcome, fingers spread out, beckoning! Am quite certain there are subliminal messages calling out to innocent passersby… “Coooooome to meeeee….” Struggling with my inner Greedy Smurf I marched resolutely to my gate.
By 10:00am my stomach was grumbling and I had a bagel, but I thought it was a much better choice than a hashbrown patty.

Once on the plane my sacrifices were proven to be for naught: the lunch trolley rolled down the aisle bearing lunch – a microwaved burger with American cheese in a cellophane wrapper was handed to each passenger. I craned my neck and peeked through the space in the seats in front of me, and, unsavory as the thing looked, I smiled and eagerly reached out my paw when the flight attendant said perkily, “Burger?!”

I was expecting to taste public school cafeteria, but it was, shockingly, a slight improvement on that childhood nightmare.

The best part was the wrapper. This uniquely American creation (its being microwavable was just the icing on the cake) was manufactured by a company whose logo is a little, mustachioed chef by the ultra-French name of Pierre!

I like to think that I have a pretty discerning palate. It’s in training, yes, but I can by this point appreciate the finer things in life: foie gras, caviar, truffles… When I cook I always do so from scratch – no bottled marinades or microwave meals that came out of the box, thank you. On occasion I have been known to even make the bread needed to make French toast. So why, I wonder, is it that when I travel – be it a four-hour road trip to a nearby city or par avion across the big blue ocean – I turn into a disgusting pig? No, seriously. I see a Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or Burger King and my brain short-circuits. Especially, at breakfast…I can almost smell the hash browns and the Egg McMuffin with sausage and cheese.

Alas, I am afflicted with acid reflux, otherwise known as The Disease from Hell, and even two tater tots from BK will make what should be a happy meal into a very uncomfortable experience. For the next few hours after consumption of the grease-laden goodies, I will grip my sides, rock back and forth in my chair, and groan, the sounds very similar to the croaking of a toad.

I’m writing just as I ready to go on a few days’ vacation. I am telling myself that I will pop my daily Prilosec, eat a sensible breakfast at home, and walk straight past the airport food court tomorrow morning. May the force be with me!