High Heels & Frijoles

Green eggs, but no ham.

In a foul mood today. It’s perky and sunny outside, and I should be cheerful and traipsing out the door in a sundress and sandals, but blechhh. I wish it was a rainy day, better suited for sulking.

Maybe I’m being a sourpuss because dinner sucked last night. I had cereal, which normally I’m fine with, but shredded wheat does not a Saturday evening meal make. (I tried adding peanut butter to my Honey Nut Cheerios in an attempt to liven things up, but it wasn’t one of my more inspired ideas. The peanut butter clumped—duh!)

A “do-over” meal cancels out a bad one—I figured a good breakfast (no cereal, thank you!) might set me straight today.

WILTED ARUGULA AND CHEESE OMELETTE
Makes 1 omelette
Use whatever cheese you like—I prefer a sharp, stinky cheese here.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup arugula, tightly packed
Salt and pepper
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup shredded cheese, such as Tomme de Savoie or Gruyère

- Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the arugula and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted, 2 to 3 minutes. Trasnfer the arugula to a plate.

- Beat the eggs with a generous pinch of salt and pepper until the yolks and whites are completely blended.
Add the butter to the skillet and swirl it around the skillet to be sure it greases the entire surface. Add the eggs and swirl them around the skillet until they’re spread out and they look like a thin, even blanket.  Cook until set, 2 to 3 minutes.

- Place the arugula on one half of the omelette and carefully slide it onto a plate. When half of the omelette is on the plate, gently, with a spatula, fold the other half over it. And there you have it.

You must agree—it looks oddly reptilian, like a Komodo dragon, no?

P.S.
I had papaya for dessert. I hadn’t had it in ages, but took a chance and bought one a few days ago. Not only was it absolutely gorgeous, it was perfectly ripe, sweet, and buttery.

When you go to a party where there’s a really random crowd, you’ll describe it to your friends as, “arroz con mango.” Because rice and mango don’t go together. Rice is eaten with beans. Or beef. Or chicken. Not mixed with mango.

Stupid girl! Just imagine all the years I wasted not eating rice with mango!  When one of my little brothers graduated college in LA, I spent a few days hanging out (OMG, Charlie, remember how furry your bathroom was?!) with him and his girlfriend Whitney. It was Whitney who introduced me to the magical combination that is rice + mango at a Thai restaurant (and the bacon-wrapped hot dogs downtown—¡muchas gracias!). It’s been true love ever since. And next time I use the term “arroz con mango” it’ll be to describe a super-fun party.

COCONUT-MANGO RICE PUDDING
Serves 6 to 8
This recipe calls for unsweetened coconut milk, not cream of coconut—don’t mix them up! The rice needs to be completely cooled before folding in the whipped cream. Spreading the warm pudding out in a large baking dish or rimmed baking sheet dramatically speeds up cooling.

6 cups water
2 cups Arborio (short-grain) rice
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 (14.5-ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 very ripe mangos, peeled and cut into ¼-inch cubes

- Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the rice and salt and simmer over medium heat, stirring from time to time, until the rice is tender and creamy, 15 to 20 minutes.

- Reduce the heat to low. Stir in 1½ cups of the sugar and the coconut milk. Simmer, stirring from time to time, until the rice is thickened, about 15 minutes.

-Transfer the rice pudding to a large baking dish and allow it to cool completely.

-Once the rice is cooled, whisk the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla until soft peaks form (you can do this by hand or with an electric mixer). Fold the whipped cream and mango cubes into the pudding. Serve chilled.

Yesterday I realized I had a little bit of “love” squeezing out from under my apron strings. Inspired by the athletes in town for Head of the Charles, I made a healthy start this morning.

APPLES’N’CINNAMON OATMEAL
Serves 1

½ cup oatmeal
½ cup apple juice or cider
1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
2 tablespoons dried cranberries (optional)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash of salt
2 to 4 tablespoons milk
Maple syrup to taste

- Combine oatmeal, apple juice, apple, cranberries, cinnamon, and salt in a cereal or soup bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave 3 to 4 minutes until apples are tender.

- Stir in milk (more or less according to desired consistency) and maple syrup.

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.